The Pen Addict 569/transcript
| The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript | |
|---|---|
| Episode: | 569 |
| Title: | By the Way I’m Also the President |
| Release Date: | June 21st, 2023 |
| Hosts: | Brad Dowdy |
| Guests: | No guests this episode |
| Additional Information | |
| Official page: | Episode 569 |
| Audio File: | Audio Episode 569 |
| Podcast page: | The Pen Addict 569 |
| Length: | 5353 min <br />0.883 h <br /> minutes |
| Previous Transcript | Next Transcript |
Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 569. Today's show is brought to you by ExpressVPN. I'm happy to be back. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Welcome back, Myke. It's been forever. We mentioned this when we recorded a couple of episodes ago, that we were taking a long break from each other, that we were pre-recording an episode. So me and you haven't recorded in over two weeks.
Brad Dowdy: Maybe our longest break ever, maybe?
Myke Hurley: No, I mean, my honeymoon. That's the longest time I took off. I was gone for nearly a month. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. After we got married, so. Yeah. Not me and you. Although, you know, I wouldn't have turned you down, but unfortunately, you were all tied up when we met.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah, that's unfortunate, but you know, things happen.
Myke Hurley: Again, this is the longest running relationship in my life outside of family.
Brad Dowdy: That's right, that's right. Well, on that note, I wanted to give you a couple of props, and this will lead me right into it, and before we get into what you were up to last week, because I have a couple little questions. But you have covered that exclusively, or not exclusively, but in many places on the Relay FM network, including the Connected podcast, which just celebrated 10 years. So that is something to be very, very proud of. Thank you. So congratulations to you, Federico and Stephen on that. So what were the three of y'all up to that caused this little delay in our talking?
Apple Park visit and WWDC experience[edit]
Myke Hurley: Well, we were at Apple Park. We recorded a show there, recorded an episode there, but also I was at WWDC, and I was one of also the lucky few that got to try the Vision Pro headset, which was very exciting.
Brad Dowdy: You had a big boy media badge on this time, right? I did have that, yeah. That was the first time? How did that feel?
Myke Hurley: It was pretty good, Brad. I'm not going to lie. I mean, it's something that I've kind of worked towards for 15 years, nearly. So it felt very good. It felt very, very good. Those two days was kind of doing things with Apple for, no, three days. I couldn't have asked for more out of the experience, to be honest. It was, you know, so many things in life, you dream of something, you wish for something, and you get it, and it doesn't live up, you know, like just because you build things up in your brain. But the experience that I had far exceeded what I could have imagined. Nice. And that was, I would say, mostly due to the fact of getting the, to be one of the very small few that has experienced the Vision Pro headset. Yeah. That's like, that's rarefied air, and so that felt very special.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so I want to talk about that real quick, and I know this is a pen and stationery and analog podcast, but I actually have a question, a crossover question. But if you want to listen to more of Myke's commentary about his trip, about everything at WWDC, about everything going on, you can listen to Upgrade, you can listen to Connected, and you can listen to Cortex, which is where you and Gray had the Vision Pro conversation. I have not listened to that purposefully. I just have not had the time yet, and I kind of wanted to talk to you even before I did. But you got your hands-on with the Vision Pro, or should I say heads-on? Which is it? Is it hands-on or heads-on?
Myke Hurley: A lot of people called it eyes-on, which I kind of thought was quite funny, but I had my hands, head, and eyes involved in this thing.
Brad Dowdy: So this is a broader question that I have, and I think it's going to come up for us in a few months when, is it iOS 17? Is that the next version? Yeah. Okay, so that is going to have some journaling and note-taking tools built in, so we'll talk about that when those things come out officially.
Discussion on journaling app release timeline[edit]
Myke Hurley: The journaling app probably won't be out in September. Okay. It will probably be towards the end of the year. It's not in the betas currently, and unlike some other features, they specifically called that one later this year. Gotcha. That might come in October or November or something.
Brad Dowdy: Okay, so we will definitely talk about that when that happens, because we've talked about the digital analog crossover, especially when it comes to journaling. Yeah, I'm really excited about that, actually. For that. So that made me wonder about VR. Is there some analog crossover abilities in there? Are you going to be able to write in a journal virtually? Could you see that type of thing being something that people do in the VR space?
Myke Hurley: What I would say on that is, like, this product is the only product that I've tried where it would be realistic that you could use a pen and paper at the same time? Mm-hmm. Because the clarity is there from the image and, like, the full-color pass-through, the real-time nature of it. Like, you would be able to have, you know, like, doing something in VR, but have a pen and paper in front of you in physical space. And take notes while you're looking at a computer screen. Like, the other products that I've used, like, the clarity just isn't there. I've tried, like, with my MetaQuest Pro, and I can't read my handwriting. Like, I actually physically can't read it because the image quality isn't good enough from the pass-through. So, like, you could maybe, and they actually did show, and it was actually part of the demo, that you could, like, hold out your fingers and write. Because they had, like, they're using their freeform app, right? Which is their kind of, like, infinite canvas app. And that you could, to draw on it. I actually just forgot about this until now. This is super weird. The whole experience, like, I tried to recount it the best that I could, but there were parts of it that I don't remember until someone prompts me. It's because it was such a assault on the senses in the best possible way. Like, I was seeing something that I could never have imagined, and then they were just, like, blasting me through it. Like, but you could hold out your hand, and you could write. Like, it would have the tracking ability for you to be able to write. But you wouldn't be able to write a lot or small, I don't feel like. Like, I think it would just be uncomfortable.
Myke Hurley: And probably would feel strange to have, like, the screen in front of you and be writing on it. But you would very easily be able to just use a pen and paper as you normally would when looking at a computer. And, like, I have not experienced another product in this type where that would be technically possible for you to be able to actually read.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. So that's super interesting. So we'll see how this all plays out, right? We're still, even though VR has been around a while, we're still just, like, on the early time to see, like, what is all possible here. So it's interesting for sure. For sure.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'm very excited about it. Very, very, very excited about it.
Reflection on previous guest episode and its reception[edit]
Brad Dowdy: All right. Well, let's wind it back into our traditional analog world. And I wanted to give a shout out to Frank from Elwood, who joined me on...
Myke Hurley: Such a good episode. Episode 568. What a voice. Are you kidding me? I could listen to that guy forever. You could read me bedtime stories, and I'd be happy.
Brad Dowdy: So at the risk of alienating every other guest in the past and every other guest in the future, I've never gotten more positive feedback from a guest or an interview than I did with Frank from Elwood. So that was Frank's first podcast ever. Like, he's never done anything like this before. He's clearly a communicator, that guy, though. Yes. Like, at that end, he has that experience. Yes. So he has just life experience and career experience, which we talked about before, you know, prior to Elwood. So he has that ability, just kind of innate ability, and it came off very well in the show. And I thought just, like, the conversations were interesting. You know, I like talking to makers, right, because I find the decision-making process of makers so interesting. It was one of my things that I would, like, very, very much latch on to and trying to get into the minutiae of those things. But you also have to have, when you're having a first-time guest, you have to have a broad conversation as well. So he was pretty nervous about that, but I knew it would be fine. So I've been sending him the feedback on – I've been sending a few of the bits of feedback that I got on there. He's like, really? Like, okay, yeah, okay. I guess it went okay then. So, yeah. I appreciate everyone reaching out, but I especially appreciate Frank taking the time to sit down with me. For, like, well over an hour and a half. We talked a lot before and a lot after, and we could have done another hour easy just on the making of stuff.
Myke Hurley: I always love being a listener, right, for the guest episodes because I get a show that I would like to listen to anyway, but usually don't because I'm on it. Right. And so I find it – I always really enjoy it, but this one was one of those, like, rare mixes of everything which made the episode good. It's just, like, Frank's story is interesting. He's very good at communicating. He's very philosophical, which made it interesting. His audio quality was amazing. Thank you, Frank. I appreciate that personally.
Brad Dowdy: Do you want me to tell you how he recorded? Because I was – like, you want to do this live right here? So I couldn't believe it, and I wasn't going to change it because we went on Zoom, and he's on his computer on Zoom, and, you know, he said, yeah, he's got everything set up. But what he did – and I don't think I've ever recorded like this before – is separate from his computer, he set up his iPhone with one of the Rode podcaster mics recording a completely separate input. So he was recording in two different places. So he took the mic that was pointed at his mouth into the iPod, and that was the file that he sent me. I was like, let's go for it.
Myke Hurley: Or was he recording into an iPod? He recording into an iPod, that guy's a madman. Sorry, iPhone, not iPod, but iPhone. So he was using one of the ones that plugs into an iPhone directly then, right? Yes. Yeah. I mean, it sounded great. I've experienced this kind of stuff before where just like someone has a setup that is good but isn't available to be brought in as an input, right? But it sounded fantastic. So we got a better experience than you did.
Brad Dowdy: It was good. So this is what I actually had to go – people kept sending in feedback on that. So that's actually one of the few episodes that I went back and listened to because you know, and you experience this, when you interview someone, it's hard to actually like encapsulate the entire episode in your brain when you're done. Like what actually just happened, right? Because you're in the moment. You're trying to drop the conversation. You're trying to listen. You're trying to produce. You're trying to do all the things, right? So yeah, I actually went back and listened to that, and I enjoyed it. So thanks, Frank. And then next week, I'm going to have a guest too. We won't spoil it here, but it's a great crossover for you again as well in a different kind of way, and I think you're going to enjoy the conversation. Also, I had no worries about their audio setup. They are quite the professional in the space, so we'll leave that for next week. I'm excited. I'm excited. And I say that knowing that I've already recorded it but haven't delivered you the file, so you haven't had the chance to yell at me yet.
[edit]
Brad Dowdy: Speaking of yelling at me, Myke, Uniball got in my inbox after a discussion you and I had, mostly me. Mostly me and episode 565 of the podcast where I kind of railed on Uniball and the Kuratoga Dive limited edition pricing kerfuffle that took place on their website over the past month. This is about a month ago. So I guess it was really kind of in front of my eyes. I'm still upset that it happened, but I was able to plot twist. Uniball reached out to me, said, hey, we'd love to talk. By the way, I'm also the president of Uniball North America. And can we have a phone call?
Brad Dowdy: It wasn't like the PR department wasn't reaching out or is like, hey, Brad, this is Myke, and I'm the president of Uniball. And can we have a call? Here's my mobile. I'm like, okay. This got real, real quick. So of course I'm going to take that call, right, because I want to hear. And the email was like super cordial and like saying like, hey, like I get it. You know, at least can I have the opportunity to give you some context? And I'm like, absolutely. So, you know, I always give people that benefit of the doubt. And we had a really good conversation for, gosh, probably a half an hour, if not more, just going through like the process, how we got to this point. You know, the realization of that mistakes were made and they were happy to admit or he was happy to admit that, yeah, like they could have handled this very, very much better. And I appreciated the reaching out to discuss that and the clarity that was provided to me. It was still a poor decision. Like I told him, like, I'm not going to let them off the hook for that decision. And he absolutely agrees with that. And but he felt very comfortable admitting that there were multiple mistakes made in the path that led us to that point. And I felt very good after that conversation that, hey, this was just a little bit of oversight, a little bit of moving too fast, a little bit of not thinking all the things through that could have happened differently. And how, you know, how they would handle these things in the future. And this was something new for them completely. And it was just there were several points along the way where mistakes were made. And that is something that they see like very, very clearly and will not really, you know, you know, we'll look at doing things differently in the future.
Myke Hurley: So do you have a sense for if you can say like why this like why this happened the way that it did?
Brad Dowdy: I have a very clear sense why.
Brad Dowdy: And I don't exactly want to say the specifics of the conversation. I figured that might be the possibility. And I'm allowed to I spoke with them. I was like, I'm allowed to say anything I want to about the conversation. Like I don't have any restrictions on our conversation. It was very clear. But there's also parts that I just don't want to say yet because I want to see what happens next.
Myke Hurley: OK. All right.
Brad Dowdy: I think I think I'm going to wait and see. Then I can see if things.
Brad Dowdy: If there's opportunity for something like this again, I want to see what happens. And then I can have like a like a more detailed conversation on our conversation. But like it wouldn't be it would be kind of pointless to to speak about kind of the broader idea of what took place until I see it again. Like and because I don't think this was I think it was a mistake like the pricing. But I don't think like the situation of, hey, can we get this cool stuff from Japan and have it in our market? I'm hoping we get to see that again based on our conversation. But I want to see it first and then see how it's handled. And then we can go from there, I think, is how I would like to handle it, even though like I could I could say like a couple little things and some couple broader ideas. But I also want to hold that off as well because I am hopefully going to meet them in person. The Uniball North America team at their office in Chicago in July and give a little talk to them. So they invited me up. Is this a talking to or what's happening? Right. Is this a trap? Is this a trap? They're all going to stab me with their Unicuritoga dives. You never see them again. They're going to take me in a room and just start throwing Uniballs at me. No, like it was a very good conversation. And they're having some meetings in July and asked me to come and speak to the team for a short period of time, you know, give like a fixed like speech type of thing. You know, 20 to 30 minute talk.
Myke Hurley: I think this is super smart because here's my read. We have you have not given me any more information than you're saying right now, like about the conversation. Someone got overzealous and this is how I read it. Someone got overzealous and made a decision to capitalize on a hot product, which I think I was kind of trying to lead into that episode where like I don't personally find what they did to be like as bad as you do. Like it's kind of just like they can price it whatever they want and people can make the decision about whether they want to buy it or not. The problem is if you do something like that, you run the risk of upsetting people, right, which is what they did. And like it's just a thing that happens and you have to decide what you want to do about that. Like it's a choice that you can make. It's a supply demand kind of situation.
Myke Hurley: But what I think they lost sight of is that they are ostensibly making enthusiast products, right? And especially if you're going to put it at the prices that they were, you're only making it more of an enthusiast product. And it felt like they lost touch of who the enthusiasts are and they misread quite significantly who they were supposed to be selling this product to. Like it's not like a car, right? Like when there were supply constraints in the car market, dealers are just putting up the prices because it's just like, do you want this thing or not? If you do, you give us the money. But it's not like that with a Curitoga dive. It's just we're not in the same situation. Like we haven't got the same set of circumstances. So all it is to say is I think having like the chief enthusiast come and talk to the people to kind of remind them inside of the company, like who are we selling our products? These kinds of products too, right? Like the regular Uniballs, this is not this. But like the ultra high end ones, which ostensibly the Curitoga dive is because of what it actually is, which is just a mechanical pencil, realistically, with a nice body and some interesting features, which also only really apply to people that care. So I think it makes sense to have you come in and kind of be like, this is what I do. This is what I care about. These are the people that are part of your audience. Let me give you kind of like a peek into our world a little bit. I think it's smart. Similarly, I'm actually really happy that they listen to the show or someone does and was able to pass the information along. I think that that is as encouraging as anything else, to be honest.
Brad Dowdy: And it wasn't a one off listen. Someone like didn't catch it and go they've they've Myke, the president has listened for years. He like he knows like all about how I feel about the DX and the Jetstream and smoke design and how we use uni refills and all that to to just comment on your your conversation. You definitely have it right on the second part. I think they this was a new space for them. And they just didn't really know how to go about it. Like, I don't I don't agree that it was them trying to capitalize on something like I it. My feel is that that was not the case that they had like a good motive, but it was just misplaced. And they failed on the storytelling aspects that could have led into the decision making. And those were the conversations that we that we had. Like, this is new for them. Right there. They're they're trying to they're trying to fill up somebody's office supply cabinet with a bunch of Jetstreams. Right. Not sell enthusiasts a unique Kuretoga dive. Right. Like, that's not their market. And they they they learn real quick.
Myke Hurley: Well, at least it hasn't been right. Yeah. Maybe going forward it will be. But I think that's what I'm interested in. Kind of means for them. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: I think I'm that's what I'm interested in finding out. But like I also in like the conversation that I had, like I also understand that the fraction of decimal point impact a product like that has on their bottom line. Like I understand, you know, like our place in the game. Right. Like this is not your your your big box move a lot of product and, you know, impact the bottom line product. But this is the enthusiast product where you get your super fans that really, you know, are like your huge brand proponents. And that that does make a difference in in the long term. So it's going to be it was an interesting conversation, a super positive conversation we had. I'm glad that, you know, they were very willing to admit their where their missteps were, how they can correct them in the future. And I look forward to learning more next month, you know, when I when I visit them. So, yeah, we'll definitely have more on that.
Myke Hurley: Awesome.
Myke Hurley: All right. Let's take a break and thank our friends over at ExpressVPN for the support of this show. Watching streaming services without using ExpressVPN can be like buying tickets to your favorite artist, but only being allowed to watch the opening act. I don't know if you know this, but some streaming services have different content libraries for every country. So there are tons of shows available in other countries. And with a VPN, you can access those other libraries. It's basically tweaking services like Netflix to tell them where they where they think that you are. So, for example, you could be anywhere in the world and watch The American Office on Canadian Netflix or Lord of the Rings on Turkish Netflix. You just just like turn your open ExpressVPN and with a click, one click, you can choose the country that you want to be in and then connect. It's super simple. You just then like refresh the app, the web page or whatever that you're wanting to watch the content in and you're ready to go. I do this quite a lot. Just did it on this trip in the opposite where I'm traveling somewhere and want to be able to access content. That's part of my streaming services. Like, for example, here in the UK on Disney Plus, we get access to Hulu shows. But when I'm in America, I don't get access to those anymore because American Disney Plus doesn't have Hulu content in it currently. They would like me to sign up for Hulu, but I can't do that. So if I want to carry on watching the shows that I was watching, I did this exact thing. Open ExpressVPN, reload Disney Plus, and I get the little tile that says star. That's what it's kind of like branded as in the UK, the Hulu stuff. Then I can continue watching where I left off. There are so many reasons to use ExpressVPN. Super fast. You can stream in HD with zero buffering. It's compatible with all your devices, phones, laptops, media consoles, smart TVs, and more. They have servers in over 94 countries, so you can gain access to thousands of new shows. And it works with all kinds of streaming services, BBC iPlayer, YouTube, and many more. You can stop paying full price for streaming services and only get an access to a fraction of the content. By getting your money's worth at expressvpn.com slash penaddict. That is exprssvpn.com slash penaddict to get an extra three months of ExpressVPN for free. Our thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and RelayFM.
Brad Dowdy: I want to give a shout-out of the week, Myke, real quick. I am enjoying my Mastodon experience. And I have noticed over the past couple of weeks, there has been quite the influx of fountain pen users, stationery users, analog tool users that I see when, you know, in Mastodon you can follow a hashtag. So I follow the fountain pen's hashtag and those posts end up in my feed. Well, a lot of them started coming from a new Mastodon instance called PenFount. So there is a fountain pen community on Mastodon that you can join through penfount.social. On Mastodon, if you're confused about how Mastodon works, they do a great job with their landing page. I'll put a link in the show notes to penfount.inc. You can see how to sign up for Mastodon, how to join their community server, and just come enjoy some really cool fountain pen content that has been very, very active. It kind of aligned with a lot of the Reddit shenanigans going on and a lot of escapees, if you will, from slash rfountainpens on Reddit, which is a big community over there. And it's great to see a bunch of new faces on Mastodon sharing fountain pen content, and I've thoroughly enjoyed. I've found some new people to follow. I've found some article links that I like to share when I do my weekly newsletters or weekly link roundup. So it's just been a really, really good addition to the community over there on Mastodon, and I'm very, very much enjoying it.
Myke Hurley: Mastodon's the way to go, I think. Yeah. I wasn't sold for a long time, and now I'm sold. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Every day it feels more like the right decision.
Brad Dowdy: All right. You dropped in a hot new link in here, which I should have put. Yeah, the Neuridas. Is it a Neuridas?
Platinum Curidas Limited Edition matte fountain pen[edit]
Myke Hurley: I guess is the bigger question. So we got the Platinum Curidas Limited Edition matte fountain pen. What am I looking at here, Brad? I've been seeing this all over social media. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I got to test these out at the Baltimore Pen Show at the Luxury Brands table. They had each of the colors. So there's three colors. So the Platinum Curidas is Platinum's retractable fountain pen model.
Brad Dowdy: These are kind of have that rubberized matte finish exterior, which you've seen on other pen barrels, like gel pen barrels before. It's kind of got... It's not like a metal matte finish. It's like that rubberized grip, which I like. I don't have a problem with that. And there's a red, a blue, and a gray or black, they're calling it. But I got to handle them. And I was trying to discern in the few minutes that I had with them, what is different about this model than the original Curidas, which was released a couple of years ago. And I was thinking as I was using, I was like, well, maybe like one of the biggest flaws with the Curidas design is basically what I call the shark fin, which they conspicuously hide in all the product imagery on the backside of the pen.
Myke Hurley: This is my biggest question, because I can't find the frigging image at the back of this pen.
Brad Dowdy: No one shares that image. Even Platinum, like they just don't show it. And I don't, you know, all the product images, like none of them show the backside of the pen, because this little, like literally shark fin sticks out the back, and it kind of gets in the way of your finger. And I was trying to decide, like, did they adjust this? Did they move it? Like, did they relocate this bit a little bit? And I felt maybe at the time that they did, but the more I look at this, the more I think this is the identical barrel, just new colors or new shapes or new styles to the pen. So I don't think there is a technical change, but I want to get one and test it out side by side to see if there was some slight adjustment, because I don't see any differences.
Brad Dowdy: If you liked the Curidas before, you'll like this. If you didn't like the Curidas before, you're not going to like this. Like the general size, shape, functionality is identical to before. So I don't think this is going to change your opinion on the pen. And I guess what I'm looking for is Curidas V2, where this is Curidas LE, right? So I don't think there's any design changes that were made in this pen. But I will definitely pick one up to try to have to compare. The problem is I don't like any of the colors. So I'll have to figure out which one I'm going to get to review or to have for comparison, right? This isn't, like, it's fine. But like, I don't know. They did blue and red and green and black before. So this is just the solid version of those. And it's like, yeah, okay. Like, it doesn't get me going.
Myke Hurley: Because when I saw it, I was like, well, this looks different, right? Because it has kind of changed the profile and shape of the pen, like this new coating that they're doing. So I was hoping it was a bit more of a rethink, but clearly not. But there must be some change here.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's why I want to get it. I want to only, like, I had like five minutes with it, right? And that was like, at this point, three months ago. So until I get it and am able to spend some time to see if there's any, like, technical changes, I'm not betting on that there are any technical changes. Which is unfortunate given the gap of release time between the original and this essentially second version, which looks just to be, you know, like a coating change as opposed to any, like, technical improvements. So I want to see that. So I want to see that for myself. So I will hold my thoughts on that until I pick one of these up for myself.
Myke Hurley: All right.
Brad Dowdy: And do some proper comparisons, right? So. Yeah. We'll see.
Myke Hurley: We'll see. Okay.
Brad Dowdy: Yep. So I could pick that up at the St. Louis pen show this weekend, Myke, but I'm not going to be there. But I did want to give a little bit of a pen show update to everyone. So a lot of people are heading to St. Louis this weekend for a really, really big show that a lot of people enjoy. So I hope everyone has a great time in St. Louis. And if you're in the area, you should definitely go check it out. I'm really, I, the last thing I need is like another show exclusive ink, but their, their ink this year is, is really nice. So, um, I didn't put a link in the show notes, but I'll find that, uh, in the end here. Let's see if I can find it for you real quick. It's called a Missouri crawdad, I believe is the name. And there we go. So yeah, Missouri crawdad. It's a, it's a blood orange, uh, uh, fountain pen ink. So I'll put that in the show notes for everyone to check out. I'm kind of, uh, interested in that. Um, I have booked my ticket to, or my hotel room for the Orlando pen show, which will take place in September. I am also going to be in DC in the beginning of August. So my summer of pen shows, I'm pretty much off during the first couple of months. And then I get back into it in August with DC, September with Orlando. And then I also wanted to note that I happened to see on Instagram this week that the Boston pen show had moved to a two day pen show this year, which was kind of interesting. And now that, um, Apple boom has a presence in Boston, uh, it was kind of interesting to see like their participation starting last year, but this year the show got canceled. So I just wanted to bring that note up to everyone. And it was nothing more than hotel issues, right? So the timing was such that they had to cancel as opposed to kind of reshuffle and find a new location or change dates. It was just too difficult to, to make that type of move. You know, you say it might be three months out from now, but that is like no time when you're talking about putting on an even, you know, a small event, um, in, in a hotel is, is a quick view. So I wanted people to be aware that this year's Commonwealth pen show did get canceled. It just happened over the past week or so that this news came out. So, um, it stinks, right? They were actually trying to do a little bit bigger this year with an extra day and, and finding things. And sometimes like the hotel situations just didn't work out. So that was news on the, on the pen show front. Um, so yeah, I wanted to, to put that out there and, uh, let y'all know, um, related to this next topic that I have, I will not be at the San Francisco pen show, Myke, despite people trying to get me to go. But I am doing something for the San Francisco pen show. I can't remember if I talked about this on, on the show or not, but I was asked, have you seen at pen shows, the ink trays, the ink sampling trays, right? Like it's a, in San Francisco.
Myke Hurley: Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Like the built-in tray, they have all the pens stuck in them and have inks you can test out and things like that. So I was asked, so San Francisco, I don't know how many ink sampling trays they have, but I was asked to fill up one tray from the pen addict ink storage vault. And one tray means a seven by seven grid of pens. So that means 49 ink samples, Myke, 49 ink samples. I committed to building for the San Francisco pen show. I am about 36 samples into it. I've been doing this on Twitch and it has been quite the journey so far. I'm learning a lot, um, of, uh, on how to do this. And I think about, you know, companies that sell ink samples or people that make a lot of ink samples from my first sample. We have changed a lot of the ways that I do this, Myke. And I have made several purchases to make my life easier to fill from an ink bottle into an ink vial. And what I'm doing is I'm not just making the 49 ink vials that individual inks vials for the San Francisco pen show. I'm making three of each ink color that I choose. So it's going to be what a total of 147 ink vials that I'm filling because I'm going to give away some of the other ones. Um, I figured if I'm doing this, we might as well go all the way. And instead of just sending those 49 inks to San Francisco, I'll send a few batches of smaller, smaller sample sizes to, uh, to other people. You know, I do a lot of giveaways and things like that. So in the sneak any base day blue in there, like your villain era. So you definitely know the answer is no, because I don't own any, which is pretty crystal clear. Um, but I mean, I have snuck in some limited edition, some rare stuff, which like, that's a challenge.
Myke Hurley: Okay. There's, there's, there's the villain mode then. Yeah. I like this ink. Well, sucks for you. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: But like my thought process is, well, someone may still want to try it to see if they can go find a match for it somewhere. Right. So like a friend of the show, Jacob, uh, food, a fan sent me a wonderful, like one of my favorite, unfortunately, one of my favorite inks. It's called a pilot Orochizuku Ito Murasaki. And it's a purple, um, it's a Japan exclusive Orochizuku. It's like, well, you know what? I'm putting this in the tray and I'm going to make people mad because it's in there. And, you know, someone may not be able to access that ink. So maybe they can go take a sample of it and write it in their notebook and then take it around and try to find a match to that. So that was, that was one of the first questions is like, how do I decide? Do I decide the most basic, you know, does the ink have to be available to go in this tray? Right. So I have 49 choices. Do all of these inks need to be available? And I decided no, because some inks are classic enough and important enough that people might want to try. And even if they can't go buy a bottle of it, maybe they can find something similar. Someone might say, oh, I've heard of, you know, Sailor Sky High. Maybe I can go find something close to that. So, you know, and then, and then a lot of it is, you know, mainstream, um, inks, but, you know, just trying to put my, put my touches on it. So it's been a really fun project. Um, I'll probably be done with it in the next week or two. I need to get those out to the show so they can fill up the ink station. Um, but I'm going to do a full writeup of this. We might talk about it later because I've actually bought tools that have helped me fill this. I've bought a pipetter. I don't know if you know what that is, Myke, but it's basically like a medical device where I'm, I'm basically like a chemist at my desk now. And fortunately there hasn't been any catastrophes, but, uh, there's still time. There's still time for a catastrophic results, but so far so good. I have 13 more inks to go and, uh, I hope to have that wrapped up soon, but that has been a fun, fun experience for me.
Myke Hurley: Very cool.
Brad Dowdy: Yep. Um, I wanted to touch base. Uh, the last time we talked live on the show, I went shopping, uh, at our good friends, Pen Chalet during the show and finished my purchase afterwards. So I've already talked about these products and why I wanted these products. Um, but now I have the products in hand. Number one is the Lamy balloon, which I went ahead and did my review of that. I was able to turn that around pretty quickly because it's very straightforward. What I think about this pen, it is a horrible writing pen, right? It is just, there is no redeeming values in the writing of this pen in the refill. So it's called the Lamy M11 refill or excuse me, T11. And I don't know if Lamy uses this refill for anything else. I hope not because it is that bad. Like I don't dislike Lamy refills that much. Um, like their ballpoint refills are pretty good. Right. I like them. Um, but some of their other refills, like this one is just like, why is, why is this a thing? Like this is, this is not good. Um, it, this shouldn't be in a pen, right? I, I'm going to read this comment that I got actually on, uh, on my Instagram posts. I put it out there. So I'm going to read this. This is from ADR underscore three 10. This is concerning the refill or my review. It blotches, it skips, it railroads. It's very inconsistent. My money has been wasted. Went to the Lamy website and requested that a better refill be offered for the $36 I paid for both the pink and the green. I certainly expected the pen to write decently. I agree wholeheartedly with the pen addict to avoid the Lamy balloon. So I felt a little bit justified in their angst. Unfortunately, they had the angst, right? But it's just a basic truth about this pen. And it's a horrible writer.
Myke Hurley: It's a shame.
Brad Dowdy: But I want this pen to exist because it's coming, Myke. It's, it has to be happening the way that they still are iterating on the Lamy balloon gives me hope for my biggest thing, which is the, the, the point I really don't want to belabor is that I think this is going to eventually, we're going to get to, um, color barrel Lamy vistas, right? Translucent color Lamy vistas. That's the end goal here. So they've modified the balloon in a way that makes it even more likely that we see something like this in the Lamy Vista lineup. So that's why I choose to review the Lamy balloon, even though it, I wanted to review it again because it had been 13 years and I had hoped that the, the refill had changed or improved. It, it, it has not. This was my same like performance review from 13 years ago. The refill is horrible. Um, the, the refill remains horrible. I could not recommend this pen to anyone from a writing perspective. Um, it is not enjoyable to use, but I'm glad it exists because, uh, I want to see other things from Lamy and this is, this is my gateway. This is what gives me hope, um, that I'm going to see what I really want from Lamy in the coming years. So there you go. That's my review on that. The other pen I bought, um, is something we've, we've definitely covered, um, which is the, the Navalur horizon fountain pens. So it's kind of the newest model and shape from, uh, Navalur and they did some really fun color, some fun, uh, designs. They had some, uh, the cap band on this pen is kind of like has a scalloped wavy edge, which kind of threw a lot of people off. You were either pro or con, uh, on that design, but I wanted to get this pen in because it was a little different shape from, uh, Narwhal, uh, excuse me, Navalur and it has proven to be a rock solid workhorse of a pen. Like I am very impressed with this pen so far. I'll be reviewing it in the coming months. This is one I want to spend some time with like the Lamy balloon. I don't need to spend a lot of time with like the refill is bad and that's what the review is going to say. This one I'm going to see how it performs because it's a piston filler. I bought it with a stub nib, which is new for, uh, Navalur. And I want to see how just the construction of this pen holds up because this is the like kind of the most sturdy Navalur pen that I've used so far. Like it, it feels awesome, right? It's just structurally sound. The, the pistons worked very well so far. You know, I've been filling it from the piston filler. Um, the added weight that the, the piston mechanism and the, the metal pieces of the barrel feel really, really good. I love the materials. I went with twilight, which is kind of the greenish Brown one, um, which is a really neat cover color. I had a crazy difficult time deciding what ink to put into this. Um, I ended up going with, uh, Robert Oster Australian opal mauve, which is kind of a purplish color because I couldn't settle on a Brown or a green that I was going to be happy with for matching. So I went kind of, uh, opposite complimentary.
Myke Hurley: What do you think of the color of the furniture on this pen?
Brad Dowdy: I, I'm very happy with it. I love it. So this is, I think this one out of the four colors, this is the outlier one, which is why I ordered it, right? It would have been very easy for me to order the dusk or dawn, which are your bright oranges and yellows and pinks and purples and blues. That would have been simple. And then the black and gray Aurora, you know, it has classic silver trim. This one has kind of like a gun medley, almost Brown, um, type of finish on there. And so when I buy pens to review, which is I bought for this, I will try a lot of times to buy the one I wouldn't buy if it was something that I was adding to my collection. I know that sounds kind of backwards, but it was like, it would be so easy for me to just, Hey, give me the dusk, you know, or give me the dawn and just be done with it. Like, Hey, fun, bright rose gold looks beautiful, right? It's going to take, you know, amazing pictures. It's going to look amazing in photography. Well, this one I think is the weirdest one in color and I love it, right? Like I'm, I'm really happy with it. Like I wouldn't have bought it if I thought it was going to be like a color I disliked. Right. But this would have been like my third choice probably. Um, so I do that a lot for reviews because I want to have, get kind of that broader perspective of, you know, what a, you know, take a, take away my love for the material color, for example, and, and try to focus on what the pen is, what it offers. How does it feel? How does it work? You know, does everything, you know, line up for a good quality pen and so far so good. Um, with this, especially the stub nib, which is a new offering for them. It's a 1.1 millimeter stub nib and, um, so far so good, right? Literally no complaints. And, uh, I'm sure I will, um, review it well when it comes time to, uh, to get an official review on it.
Brad Dowdy: All right. Speaking of official, we're going to go very unofficial here, Myke, for a minute. So I know people and I get pictures, I get pictures, uh, sent to me from time to time of, uh, products that may or may not be, may or may not exist in the future. And, you know, I'm pretty good at keeping, keeping those things, uh, pretty close to the vest. So I had this picture a couple months ago that was sent to me that was a pen from Platinum and said, Hey, this might be a thing later. I got an early look at this. This might be a thing later. I don't know. So obviously don't say anything. I have no idea. I was like, Oh, okay. Yeah. Interesting. So Platinum, uh, gosh, I guess we're on two weeks now. They put out a press release on their website on Platinum Pen Code JP, the new 3776th Century Fuji series, Fuji Unke Uroko Gumo coming soon. So apologies on the pronunciation. And I was hoping when you click on the press release page, some amount of detail, right? Give me something. And it's literally an awesome picture, like an inspiration picture with no more words than that. It's like literally just the picture of this beautiful looks. I'm going to go sunrise-ish here. I think as opposed to sunset, but it's Mount Fuji, blue, blue skies, white clouds. Um, and this PR image does align with the images I saw earlier. So what this is, and the reason why I'm bringing this up is that Platinum is actually coming out with their next long running series of Mount Fuji, uh, fountain pens. So they've done this twice in the past where the, okay. Yeah, here it is. So the five Fuji five Lake series they did from 2011 to 2016, one pen a year, five pens in total. Then the Fuji Shunke series from 2017 to 2021. So these were all very popular platinum releases all in the 3776 model, all different unique colors, um, unique, um, kind of designs in the barrel. Um, and so this next one is going to be the Fuji Unke series. And it's, it's a series created around Mount Fuji and the clouds. So we'll see. This is going to drop, uh, next month or so. I haven't seen the official imagery released yet. Um, but everything I have seen is matching up to a pretty cool release coming soon. So I think probably within the next month, we'll get some official pictures where we'll be able to share, but I wanted to drop this out there because platinum just like randomly threw an image upon their PR site and then didn't say it's hype man.
Myke Hurley: That's hype.
Brad Dowdy: So they, they've sunk their hooks into me. They've got me on the hype train.
Myke Hurley: Um, I'm not saying if you sent me an image, if this image is what this pen looks like, I'm buying it immediately.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So we're not sharing the image with you because I, I do have some, even though like they're very unwritten rules. Like I, I wanted this to be more official, um, and more public that anyone can go see these images and, and then we'll go from there. But I mean, there are places you can, you can see them. It's pretty sick though. Right. Um, but I, I don't want to put that in the, in the show notes yet, but coming soon, I'm sure probably in the next week or two, we'll be able to do a live, uh, pick of it. And, uh, I want to get your thoughts on, on that. We'll describe it more than, but my only hesitancy is where the price points were going, um, in their previous releases.
Myke Hurley: It's probably going to be like $600.
Brad Dowdy: We were getting close to 500. We were in the upper fours on last year's limited releases in the 3776. I am certain we're going to be in that ballpark. Right. So I would pay that. I, yes. Like I, I get you for that. And this is one of those series where people will buy them all one a year for five years. Like people will absolutely pay the four or $500 for this. Um, I mean, they're great pens, you know, I love the 3776. Uh, so I'm interested to see, interested to see, uh, how this goes. And, um, I look forward to, uh, being able to share the image instead of just teasing y'all, but go, go look at the, uh, the Mount Fuji picture. That Platinum thought was, uh, the, the extent of a, a press release release. And, um, yeah, uh, you can imagine from there. Uh, it's, it's, it's, it's pretty close. Yeah.
Myke Hurley: They did actually an incredibly good job capturing that image. I think like, it's pretty cool. Um, I like this because I just like Platinum doing this because I adore, adore the 3776. But most of them are too boring. Like we've spoken about this for years now, right? Sure. It's great that they do more and more limited editions because they do really cool stuff when they actually do it. Like they do more so than a lot of their competitors, right? Like most of the pro gears are just colors, like Platinum play with texture too, which I think even more exciting. And I love it because the Platinum nibs are the best in the game, in my opinion. And I want to have a fun pen to put it in rather than something that's like black or red, you know? Exactly.
Brad Dowdy: Exactly. So yeah, I, I, I definitely look forward to this. In the Mount Fuji series that they've done 10 times before, literally 10 releases, I think is the best series. Like that's my favorite series. So I will, we'll see whether I get this one or not, but, uh, I'm certainly looking forward to, uh, the, the next iteration of the Mount Fuji series.
Regret over not purchasing a specific pen[edit]
Myke Hurley: So do you know what pen I always regret that I didn't buy? And I was reminded of this recently. I just saw an image of it on, on your wonderful website. The one where they put the heart stamps in the, in the finial. Yep. So that's a sick pen, man.
Brad Dowdy: They made a second version of that recently. Did they? I think so. They did a black one, which is the one that you're talking about. And that was last year, um, where they did like the stamps from the, the nib and it's, it's really well done. Um, I thought they maybe did a second one of that, but I'm, I'm caught off guard here. Do you remember what it's called? That pen? I, I don't remember right off the top of my head. I do think it did have heart in the name though. So I don't think it should be too difficult to find. And it's not, and it's a pretty recent model, right? So I think it was only last year, no more than two years ago that they came out with that century. I mean, that's the model, the 37, 36 century shape of a heart. There you go.
Myke Hurley: Hang on a second. Oh no. Are we doing live shopping? Yeah. Oh no. Oh no.
Brad Dowdy: Oh no. It's available. That's the, oh no, I can buy it.
Myke Hurley: Uh, oh no. No, no, I can. There's a white one.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Okay. So I was thinking there was a white one. What's the most recent one? Uh oh. So yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I don't know, Myke. It's been a while since you bought a pen, so. I don't know. Or maybe you wait and see how the Fuji.
Myke Hurley: It hasn't been that long. I bought that can of later.
Brad Dowdy: True. True, true, true. So you're still way behind me though. Oh no. Oh, the white one has silver furniture. Oh, interesting.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, it does. You tell you this pen, this white one, let me tell you right now, this white one could not find a better wedding pen than this. Like. Yeah. This is the wedding pen. It's got hearts in it. It's full of hearts. Come on. It's full of hearts. This is the wedding pen right here. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh, I really love it. Yep. Well, I'm just going to leave this tab open for a bit and see what happens.
Brad Dowdy: The problem is you're going to need both. No, no, no, no. That seems like a U-pen and an Adina pen. I don't know. You probably need two of them.
Myke Hurley: If Adina wants one, she can have one, but I don't need to buy two.
Brad Dowdy: Personally. Trying to spin your mind. And hey, this Fuji one's coming soon.
Myke Hurley: But that's not. What's that meant to tell me?
Brad Dowdy: That you might have to buy a second 3776. That's what I'm saying. Don't tell me that. You know? Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: So TBD. We will follow up on this in a future episode. Maybe by the time we get official pictures of the new Oroko Gumo.
Myke Hurley: Thank you for listening to this week's episode. Thank you so much to ExpressVPN for the support of the pen addict. If you'd like to find Brad online, you can go to penaddict.com. You could also find Brad streaming multiple times a week over at twitch.tv slash penaddict. Brad is penaddict on... Are you a penaddict on Mastodon? I am. Yeah. Penaddict on Mastodon and penaddict on Instagram. I'm iMike. I am YKE. Thanks for listening. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.