The Pen Addict 296/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	296
Title:	Drop the Pagoda on Us
Release Date:	February 21st, 2018
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 296
Audio File:	Audio Episode 296
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 296
Length:	8181 min <br />1.35 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 296. Today's show is brought to you by Harry's, Blue Apron, and Zola. My name is Myke Hurley, I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad Dowdy. Hello Myke Hurley, how are you? I'm very well, how are you? Are you feeling good? You've just come back from LA, so I'm sure you've got that conference thing going on.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I've actually avoided it so far. You know, I don't know if there's an incubation period that's going to hit me later. I got back late Monday night, my time. I was pretty much a wreck all day Tuesday. Just, I don't know, I was jet laggy. I was mostly dizzy. You know, sometimes the ear pressure affects me, you know, in the airplane. And I was just basically, you know, a whiny butt yesterday, just feeling kind of rotten. But by last night I was good, today I feel back to normal. Perfectly awesome, and hopefully no con crud in my future because I have to turn this thing right back around and go to Baltimore next week.

Myke Hurley: God, is that next week?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, not this weekend, but next weekend. So, really good scheduling job by us to have a Wednesday podcast because I'm usually gone Thursday through Monday.

Myke Hurley: Fits perfectly.

Brad Dowdy: God, it's perfect. Perfect. Doesn't get any better than that.

Myke Hurley: Well, because everybody knows, all the promoters know, don't step on our toes. Yeah. Right?

Brad Dowdy: That's exactly what they think. I mean, they can't have a functional website, but they listen to our podcast enough to understand how to schedule their show.

Bung Box Sailor

Myke Hurley: Exactly. People know. People know. All right, so, something big happened. We have to just address this immediately.

Brad Dowdy: Besides the L.A. Pen Show, which we're going to talk in full about later on this episode, but this is even bigger news, I think, at least for you, than the L.A. Pen Show.

Myke Hurley: There is a new Bung Box Sailor Pink Limited Edition.

Brad Dowdy: I couldn't believe this led our show when I opened up the document. I'm just going to be honest with you. Why? But I understand why because...

Myke Hurley: I've been talking about it incessantly for like a month.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and I've been dogging you for equally as long, and then they come out with this? That's kind of unreal. This is worse, though. This makes it worse.

Myke Hurley: How so? How am I going to get one of these? Right? Right? Like, so, the thing is, is like the previous ones, they were all sold, and I didn't really care when they were sold, so it's like, well, that's my own fault. I couldn't get it. Now I have a new one, and it's limited to like a hundred, so it's half of the amount of last time. No, no, I think the last one was a hundred, wasn't it? Well, okay, so the translation says it's half. So, I mean, but the translation is the translation, so who knows what it means. Sure, whatever. So, like, the translation says, we will start selling at the... So, it's an Instagram post. It's a post on Instagram. We will start selling at the mail magazine of the day after tomorrow, 18 o'clock. Please wait a little more. There is no sample in the shop this time. The number will also be 100, half of the previous one. Thank you.

Brad Dowdy: So, it's on order, right? Based on that information.

Myke Hurley: How, you know, like, how do you... So, what I did was, I have emailed them, and that's as far as I've gotten. Because in their Instagram post, they said, like, thank you for your inquiry. Please email us at bung at bungbox.com. So, I've emailed them and told them, I literally said, I will pay any price.

Myke Hurley: Whatever it takes to get that pen to me, I will pay it. So, we'll see.

Brad Dowdy: Did you name drop me?

Myke Hurley: No, I didn't do that.

Brad Dowdy: You should have. Like, there's no... Like, I'm not a do-you-know-who-I-am person or a name-drop person. This is one where it would have been worth your while to do that.

Myke Hurley: I know. See, I thought about it, because all I... You know, I figured all I needed to do, really, was, you know, mention the pen addict, right? Like, I've just figured that... But I just said my name and left it at that. I really don't like to do that stuff.

Brad Dowdy: I don't either. I never do it. But this would have been one time where I would have done it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I figured I could have gotten away with it this time, right? Like, it would have been accepted. But I didn't. And I'm just gonna wait and see, to see if they get back to me and then go through whatever the rigmarole would be to try and get it. But I've... I'm dying. Especially because over the weekend, you trolling me, sending me pictures of, like, the regular edition, the love edition.

Brad Dowdy: The first one. Yeah, which I didn't know this new one had come out by the time I trolled you. So I don't know if I did that in advance. You did it before. Yeah, so we were at the tent, which we will get into later at the LA Pen Show. That will make a lot more sense later in the show. And we were all, you know, doing what we do, passing around pens and testing pens. And Kerry was there from Fountain Pen Day in Kenro. And he has one of these. So he had his. I was like, oh, hang on. I need to take a picture of that and send it to Myke. And you cussed at me, and I was happy. So, yeah, my duty was done. This is just... It's torturous. I don't know. I feel like maybe you'll get this one. I don't know.

Myke Hurley: There's only a hundred of them, though. Right? And, like, it seems like they're doing them to celebrate something. So, yeah, I don't... I very much doubt it. They're celebrating you not getting one. I think that might be the case at this point. All right. But there is another new limited edition that I figured would interest you a lot, which is the Retro 51 Swish All-Star. So they've done a new version of the basketball Retro 51 Tornado, which is basically it's a big shot because it's huge. And it's got, like, the dimples on a basketball, and it's painted up like a basketball. I have the orange one, like the pre-existing orange one. But I think the NBA All-Star game is happening right now. And so I have been able to piece together that the NBA All-Star Bulls are red, white, and blue, and that they're doing that.

NBA All-Star

Brad Dowdy: Right? So, interestingly enough, the NBA All-Star game was in L.A. over the same weekend as the Pen Show.

Myke Hurley: Oh, look at that.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah. So it was kind of busy. Like, the airport... I've flown in and out of L.A. several times now, and the airport has never been as stupid as it was. I usually have an easy time getting in and out of L.A. This time it was ridiculous because we were coming in on All-Star weekend and leaving on the holiday after All-Star weekend. I don't know that that is enough to move the needle, but it sure felt like it. It was really busy. But I didn't see this pin at the show, but someone brought it up to me in this tweet and showed it to me. This is reminiscent of the old ABA basketball from the 70s when Julia Serving, Dr. J, got famous for his dunks, and they were using these red, white, and blue balls. And all I wanted when I was a kid was the red, white, and blue basketball. I mean, that was the ticket. So I might have to get one of these. Even though I don't like the big shot, I might be in on this one because I didn't get the last one. I didn't really need the traditional basketball one, but this one's pretty cool. Like, I might get after this one. We'll see.

Myke Hurley: Brad, what is the Twisby Junia Pagoda mechanical pencil?

Brad Dowdy: It's a very interesting pencil by Twisby. I don't know exactly what's going on here. It seems like a jump for them to go in the super low-end market, which is what they're doing with this product. So before, they've made a really nice, what I consider a high-end mechanical slash drafting pencil, right, called the Precision. Do you have one of those?

Myke Hurley: No, I don't.

Brad Dowdy: I know you went on a kick. I couldn't remember if you got one of these at the time, but it's a nice metal barrel, you know, retractable lead pipe, good mechanism, interesting looking. I'd call it high-end mechanical pencil. You know, $25 is pretty high-end for a mechanical pencil, and that's where the Precision fell. So just out of the blue, they dropped this on Instagram and Facebook that they're making a $3.50 pencil. I was like, that's cool. I mean, I am... It looks great. I can't believe it's only $3. Yeah, I can't believe the price. I wonder why they call it Junior. I would just call it the Twisby Pagoda. I like Junior. I don't know.

Myke Hurley: There's kind of something cute about that, maybe.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but the colors, you know, the orange, white, and blue colors look good. Like, everything about this looks good, and then you go, wow, it's only $3.50. So I will definitely get one of these, like, without question. So I would love for this to be like a little playground for them, you know. I want them to keep trying things. Maybe they'll do some pins in this, you know, in this kind of style, you know, in the $3 to $5 range. I wonder what their plans are, right? That's what we talk about all the time with Twisby, is you never know with them. They do really, really weird stuff, weird prototypes that never make the market, and then they just drop the pagoda on us, which, you know, it's not going to super move the needle, but it's... Twisby's a company that always interests us in what they do, because they can do anything they want, but they just don't always do it. So this was interesting to see come out, and I will definitely get one of these pencils without question. What about you? I mean, is this something you're interested in? Are you still... I've asked you this recently. Are you still on the mechanical pencil kick to still use the rotary all the time?

Myke Hurley: I like what I got, you know. So, like, the ones that I have, you know, like, I just picked up the spoke, right, and stuff like that. Like, it's very rare that I'll add a mechanical pencil to my arsenal, because I feel like I've kind of topped out, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and I forgot you just got the spoke, which... If you like the spoke, go check out my blog this week. I have a giveaway from Brian, the man behind the spoke. He also makes these, like, insane strength magnets, strong like bull. He made some pen addict model ones, which are really awesome. I want to keep them on for myself.

Myke Hurley: I wish he would put that magnet in the base of the... of the stoke stand thing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, true, true. I wonder how that would work. We'll have to work on that. I'll ask him. Because, you know, I do talk to him quite frequently, maybe. Maybe have something in the works. We'll see. We'll see what's going on. You know, I'm always scheming behind the scenes, Michael. That's what I do.

Myke Hurley: I know.

Brad Dowdy: I did scheme behind the scenes on this next pen, the Enzo XS Pocket Fountain Pen. So, I missed this when it launched. Somehow, I didn't get... You know how when you're a backer of a Kickstarter company and they relaunch... They launch a new product and they can go back to their old list and send out an email. For some reason, I didn't get one. Maybe he didn't send one on the XS Pocket Fountain Pen. But I'm a big fan of what Enzo does. And full disclosure, he does advertise on my blog. He is currently advertising this week. But when I saw this last week, I just went ahead and Instabacked it because this is a pocket-sized pen that looks like it's right in between the Kaweco Lilliput and AL Sports. So, what do you think about this pen?

Myke Hurley: I think it looks really nice. I don't think that it's something that I would get a lot of use out of. I'm not a big pocket pen person anyway,

Brad Dowdy: but I think it looks pretty good. Yeah, I don't know you to have ever used a pocket pen besides maybe a Fisher Space Pen every now and then.

Kickstarter Success

Myke Hurley: Yeah, exactly.

Brad Dowdy: But this one looks nice. Yeah, I said, I don't know, sometime on this podcast, maybe a year ago, if I was open to open an online pen store, I'd make it just pocket pens. That's how much I love that format. And there's a lot of choices out there. And this is a new one. So, it's a small barrel faceted pocket pen, aluminum, black satin finish, brass. I don't know what other flavors it comes in. And it's a good price. All of Enso's stuff is a good price. Like the pens started at $39. So, I mean, that's a really good price to get in and try something if you like the genre of the pen, if you will. So, you know, I like the pocket style, the, you know, all the Kawecos, the shown design. It looks like, you know, it's probably around the size of a shown design pen. So, three different aluminum finishes and a brass finish. I am all about this pen. Instaback. And I would check it out if you're interested in this pen. I'm probably going to do black barrel with black nib. That's something I don't have in a pocket pen. I've got plenty of traditional aluminum, brass, and raw aluminum pens. So, I'm going to go go something a little bit different, go black on black with this one. But I'm excited. He always, so Carlo, who runs Endzone, is the designer. He's always pretty efficient getting these projects out. So, and it's already blown out the goal. It's at almost 47,000 of a $5,000 goal with 22 days to go. So, this one's doing better than some of his recent projects, I think. I'd have to go back and look. But it's fantastic. I'm definitely in. And if you're into pocket pens, that may be something you check out.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it looks like it's, you know, it's flying off the shelves, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it really is. I mean, the price, the price is right. I mean, what are you going to do? Yeah. I guess you could not buy it. That could be what you do. But if you're someone like me, it's a no-brainer.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's like, I see something like this and it just looks like a surefire Kickstarter success to me, right? Like, you've got all the materials there. Two types of aluminum and brass, right? And it looks decent. Like, it looks nice, right? There's nothing egregious about the design.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and the kicker is, it's Enso, and he's delivered lots of good stuff already. Yep. We said that about Nemisu, and, you know, we saw their trials and tribulations. But yeah, I feel real good always about backing Enso projects.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I don't remember the pen Uno.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that's the high-tech C one, but they did the Nova, which was their big fountain pen, the large-sized cigar-shaped fountain pen. Which looks very nice. They did the pen Uno and pencil Uno a couple of times. Since I love the high-tech C.

Myke Hurley: Puma. Puma? Puma, sorry. No, Nova was Nemisu.

Brad Dowdy: Nemisu, sorry. Yeah, Puma. All these names. Kickstarter naming is fun.

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Brad Dowdy: I'm popping in, and of course, I go straight to the gear, so there's like turntables, and Sonos speakers, and GoPros. Yes, it's everything. This is like everything that anyone could want, and way better than any traditional wedding registry, right? I mean, this is the way to go.

Myke Hurley: And this is why over 300,000 couples have already used Zola, and you can join them today. Sign up and receive a $50 credit towards your registry just by going to Zola.com slash PenAddict. That is Z-O-L-A dot com slash PenAddict. Go there right now to receive that $50 credit. We'd like to thank Zola for their support of this show.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and since it's in the US only, it is Z-O-L-A dot com. Z-O-L-A. I love you. Z-E-D. Z-E-D-O. We should use Zola.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I guess we should.

Brad Dowdy: So speaking of Kickstarter, I got one email I did get from Kickstarter was from my good friends at CW&T, who I very much love, Stayway and Taylor. They're awesome. They have a newsletter for all of their ongoing work, and this time they shared out a friend's work, which anything they're into, who I'm interested in. So this one's called ALOG Notebooks, and it's very interesting. It's an architecture-based notebook, so it's not for everybody because the base edition of this notebook has an Imperial Measurements and a Metric Measurements Edition, so they're very cool. And they have all these, this is a 130-page notebook, but 30 pages of it is like architecture, measurements, and things to use when designing and kind of guidelines and requirements. So it's, you know, it's highly specific. But then they also have a blank notebook, which I ordered, which is $15. So the architect editions are $25, but they have a blank notebook for $15. And I wanted to try it because it looks nice. I like the style, the size, the shape. It looks like it's a tape-bound, lay-flat notebook. So this is my kind of notebook just to use. And it's $15, and the shipping's free in the U.S. So I was like, it's kind of hard not to buy this. But I thought I would share this because I like what Taylor and Sewey do, and I wanted to share one of their friends who makes a neat stationary thing. And if you happen to be an architect and are checking this out, this might be very useful for you. And then, you know, if you're just a nerd, you can get their little enamel pens that they have. So they have ALOG notebook pens and outlet pens and glue pens. I like the pens a lot. All little, they have all these architecture drawings in their notebooks, and they've taken some of these drawings out and made them into, like, accessories. So it's just a little something I found interesting that I got in my inbox this week that I hadn't seen before. So I think it looks pretty neat.

Myke Hurley: So should we give an update on the Kickstarter campaign? We should. So we have now passed $25,000, which is wild town. We're on our way to 26 as we record this. We're over the hump at $25,641. So the train just keeps on rolling. It's wild. Thank you to everyone who is continuing to back the project. Brad, what updates do we have?

Brad Dowdy: I think this is going to end up being fantastic for our backers from just the videos alone. Like, I think this is going to be, like, you know what, you're going to get an awesome Atlanta Pen Show podcast live video, which you always do. Like, every year we do that better, in my opinion. Unbiased opinion, of course. But I think every year it gets better. But this year, going to New York City and Toronto, two places neither of us have really been to do the things that we're going to do. You know, go to CW Pencils, go to the Toronto Pen Show. So we're going to be able to show our kind of initial amazement of doing these things and our excitement and, like, our passion for why we're doing this. And I think that's going to show up in what we provide to all the backers. And to help us with that, I invited my Pen Show wife, Anna Reinhart, to join us in New York City and Toronto.

Myke Hurley: And that's because we've gotten to this point. So, like, we didn't necessarily talk about this because we figured it would happen and we didn't feel like we needed another stretch goal. But we felt that if we reached, like, 25, then it would easily allow us to bring Anna along on the trip, too, because we can pay for her travel. So thank you for doing that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I asked her in LA. She accepted. So she is going to be joining us.

Brad Dowdy: So it's really awesome. And I've already had people send emails or tweets to me say mostly, are they Torontonians? Do you know if that's accurate? I'm sure the chat room will tell me. Torontonites, I like.

Brad Dowdy: But several people in the Toronto area have reached out saying, hey, I know the area. I live here. We can, you know, I can help you plan a, you know, a meetup or whatever y'all want to do. You know, I can help you coordinate things. So this is, I'm really excited to see what we're going to do on this trip because I think it's going to be amazing. I mean, every year is the best year ever, but I don't see how this is not the best year ever, right? I mean, I've never been more excited about one of our annual projects than I am about this one. Did you want to talk about the pins?

Brad Dowdy: What about them? About extra pins. Oh, for the extras. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a lot of people are asking for extra sets of enamel pins and I'll do this in our next update just as a reminder. But if you want extra set of enamel pins, just add $10 to any pledge level and we'll be sure to get you a set of pins. So you can do that for whatever level you're at. If you just want, you know, one set of pins on the video level, add $10. If you want more on the everything level, add 10 more dollars. I mean, if you want five sets, add $50. So we'll order enough pinsets because everyone's wanting them. Now, you know, if we have extras at the end, we might have a few for sale, but that's not going to be an item you're going to be able to really purchase afterwards. It's not going to be an ongoing thing.

Myke Hurley: That would be like pen show of sales or something, right? Yeah. This isn't going to be a thing that will be available. So if you do want those and you want to get yourself a couple of sets, I mean, I know for me, because I would want to have like one on display, but then keep one to the side in case I lost my face, right? So I would have a couple of sets and that's what I know a bunch of people did. So if you want to get extra sets of the three enamel pins that we're doing, then just, just add an extra $10 in and it will be able to work it out. This, this will be something we don't need to order until it's done. So it's like easy for the accounting perspective to know how many we're going to need.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And I'll tell you right now, like whatever our number is, it's going to be like, I might order like 30 more or 50 more. We're not going to have a whole slew of extras. Yes. I mean, and a lot of those will go to me.

Brad Dowdy: Probably so. Probably so. So, so the people in LA were ready for the pins. Pins, pins.

Pen Show Recap

Brad Dowdy: They were happy to hear about the Kickstarter when I met everyone LA. So we ready to do this pin show recap? Yeah, I want to hear all about it. So, my first pin show of the year, kind of the second on the calendar. Philadelphia was in January. LA, here in mid-February. It's usually on Valentine's weekend, but I guess the calendar changed a little bit this year. So we were on NBA All-Star Game weekend instead. I didn't, I didn't see any superstars. LeBron James did not make it to the pin show this year, unfortunately. But I saw the people I really care about, which is all the readers and listeners and fans of the pin addict and all the, all the vendors that we always see at all these shows. it's really like a family reunion when I haven't seen these people, you know, in six months. It's kind of cool to kind of get back in the saddle, even though I'll see most of them again in two weeks and I'll be sick of them before too long. Not the, not the, the attendees, just the vendors. I'll get sick of them. Just kidding. But it was, it was a great event. You know, this was, I guess it was embroiled on a little bit of controversy before our arrival. The hotel was under construction. The ballroom where we were going to be was not finished. So we were not getting that. So we ended up in the old space that we used to be, which is a great space. It's a huge ballroom and two giant hallways. But the fund started on Thursday when the fire marshal hadn't approved the ballroom. Oh no. So everyone was basically in a holding pattern until that got approved. And then after that, like everything had to get set up and, you know, vendors had to get, you know, their approval packets and checked in. So there was like a huge vendor line Thursday afternoon. So people didn't get in Thursday afternoon, vendors that is, until I think after three o'clock or four o'clock, something like that. So Thursday was kind of, it was just a trader day anyway, so it wasn't that big of a deal. But it was scheduled, what does trader day mean though at the LA pen show? Because like,

Myke Hurley: it seems like pen show to pen show, that changes, what that actually means.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So LA and DC are very similar in that, well, DC changed this year and had two public days. LA only has one public day, which is Sunday. So everything before is considered a trader day. So Thursday, then primarily Friday and Saturday. And what those days are and why people like Van S and many other vendors don't like that is because you don't get your assigned table until Sunday, the one public day. Like, you have an assigned numbered table on Sunday. Before that, you're just getting what you can get. Like, for every table you paid for for Sunday, you were allocated a half table for trader day. And then the people who attended the show, not the vendors, the attendees, who bought the trader passes, which are the Friday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday passes, they were allocated a half table as well. So, you know, Ana was there, so she gave her half table to Van S and Laura Cameron, you know, allocated her half table to Van S. So Van S ended up with three tables, just not in the spot where we're going to be Sunday. So the question on Thursday night and Friday, mostly Friday going into Saturday, was, are we going to have to take these tables down at night? So that was the real kind of cloud hanging over everything, right? Do we have to take everything down at night? Luckily, we didn't. They had security because we were in the outer hallway, which is a fine spot. Like, we liked the spot where we were at, but we were just there Friday and Saturday because there were no assigned tables. So it's kind of, like, there's no need for this, right? I just don't understand why this continues. The trader thing

Myke Hurley: doesn't make any sense anymore when people are coming, like, and just buying the tickets and they have no intention of selling, they're just coming to buy. Yeah. Right? Because I assume that it's like a big percentage of them now is, you know, listeners of this show who are going to go to a pen show, like, they're not suckers, they're going to buy the trader pass because you get in three days early and you get whatever you want.

Brad Dowdy: Right? So it's certainly more general attendees than what you'd consider a traditional trader.

Myke Hurley: So, like, even the idea of assigning tables to everybody is wild, right? Right? It's like, I would go and I'd have my own table, like, what, I'd sit on it when I want, like, it just seems so strange.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's like, you have to lay these claims and tomorrow, you know, you pick up and tomorrow someone might already have that table, whatever. But I guess it's like,

Myke Hurley: you know, surprise, surprise, it's not, it's like an old way of doing things, right? Like, surprise, surprise.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so, Saturday night, we did have to move and you know what those displays are like, right? Yeah, that's not good. So we had, we had to move to our real table. So we had a little bit of a long evening, Saturday night, relocating from one end of the hallway to the opposite end of the hallway. So that was a bit of a challenge. Because, you know, like,

Myke Hurley: Van Ness is basically all ink, by and large. And so, and it's these, like, huge towers that they build, like, these white meshed kind of towers. Where they're, like, six or seven trays high in inks. And it's, like, hundreds and hundreds of bottles, glass bottles, that you're moving backwards and forwards. Like, that is,

Brad Dowdy: that's a significant job to do. So that was, that was very sketchy. We, we made it through unscathed. But yeah, it's not like we're folding up trays of pens. Or even, like, if it was not stuff. It's like,

Myke Hurley: those cases don't weigh anything,

Brad Dowdy: right? Like, yeah, I would just grab the table skirt and tie it up into a big Santa package. Oh my God, that would be incredible. And you could be like, put it on a stick and put it on your back and like, yeah. I'd hobo it down the hallway down to the next table. Yeah. So, but not that with Vaness, you know, we were lifting those shelves off me and Myke Vaness and then putting them down on a cart and somehow we didn't drop anything, which was kind of amazing. it was sketchy. I promise you it was sketchy. Yeah. I promise you.

Brad Dowdy: So, the other fallout from the hotel not being complete was the restaurant and bar, which is a really good hangout area in LA. It's a very open, very nice bar, good food at the restaurant, things like that, was completely shut down. So, none of it was inside. It was, that place was all under construction. So, what they had and who knows how long they've had this set up. They must have had this set up for a while. They had a tent set up in the parking lot, you know, one of those nice, like, I don't know. I would call it like a wedding tent. it's like a big,

Myke Hurley: it's not like a camping tent. It's like a big thing.

Brad Dowdy: It's a semi, semi-permanent tent. So, you know, it has electricity and they had like huge refrigerators out there and they had all like a bunch of the, you know, all the bar equipment out there and they would serve you food out there. They didn't cook out there. They cooked in the inside. But, it worked out fine. Like, it was big enough. It was set up well enough and it was never too crowded, right? Because I'm sure some people are like, I don't really want to go sit out in the parking lot.

Myke Hurley: I can imagine it being quite novel.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed it and everyone who seemed to be there in the evening seemed to really enjoy it because in the end, what we always say about these shows, it's about the people. We're going to make the best of any situation as long as we're around friends and talking about pens, you know, we're going to be happy. Oh, and can get beer. That was important.

Myke Hurley: Naturally.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah, they had everything set up and it was nice. You know, they had, the tables were large and the chairs were good and it was a little cool in the evening so they had heaters blowing. You know, it was a little loud from the heaters but that was okay but in general, I thought the tent was like completely fine. It was actually kind of cool and we really enjoyed it so we were in there, you know, Friday and Saturday night after dinner and things like that just having drinks and, you know, pen show after dark time and things like that so with the way the schedule is set up for LA, it's a little bit weird from a sales perspective. It's no other shows like this so Friday's busy, right? All the weekend pass holders are really arriving Friday so you get pretty busy on that day from people's first round at the pen show, right? The people are going to be there for two to three days. You know, they buy a lot and, you know, they're looking for things on Friday and, you know, they know some things might not be there on Sunday and they may not want to come back on Sunday so Friday's generally busy. Saturday starts off that way in the morning and then by the afternoon it's like a ghost town. It's really weird Saturday at the LA pen show which no other pen shows like that where you kind of have like, you practically have Saturday afternoon off. I mean, there are two or three hours there where you'd hardly see anyone in the walkways.

Sales Figures

Brad Dowdy: You know, people return for like the last hour or two of the show like we did a little bit more sales but from like, say like noon to three o'clock, I mean, complete ghost town. Like, you know, I walked over next door. It's in a good location in LA. There's a huge like outdoor shopping area next door so we walked over, got some Japanese food for lunch, came back, we all sat there and ate and like, didn't miss a thing. Didn't miss a beat at all. And then Sunday is like traditional DC Sunday where the public arrives, they start lining up. The line goes out the front door of the hotel, down the block. I saw some pictures

Myke Hurley: of that line. It looked wild.

Brad Dowdy: So Sunday is absolutely packed from open to close. Like, maybe the last hour we finally could catch our breath. You know, we ate no lunch on Sunday. I had one bathroom break just because I had to go and that was it. Like, that's how busy we were and Anna worked the whole day with us too and she wasn't even supposed to but thank God she did or else we would be hosed but it was me, Myke and Lisa Van Ness and Anna and we hardly saw each other all day because we were just doing, you know, we had three tables but we were all so busy with customers. We were just like, all right, hand me the card swiper or, you know, where's this, where's that but it was just so busy. It's like two or three day, I mean, two or three deep or four deep with people like the entire time and it was great. I mean, it was, it's fun. It goes by fast, you know, got to see a ton of people, help a ton of people which I love doing and it was kind of fantastic but I don't recall ever being so tired after a single show day than that day. I'm sure I've been there, you know, it's got, I'm sure I've got recency bias but like my calves are still sore from Sunday just from standing and walking around so much on Sunday. without really stopping so we were wiped out by the end of the day. Fortunately, packing went, went pretty well. Sunday night and we were able to go relax and have a nice dinner and you could just see us all at dinner. We were like so quiet, we were just like sunk into our chairs. I would expect that packing was easy if you were busy because it meant that there wasn't much to pack. Yeah, yeah. That's, well, this one was a little different because Lisa does a lot of shopping at this show so there was, there was a, quite a bit more than we were normally left with on Sunday because she ended up buying a bunch of, oh yeah, yeah, like 300 inks and, you know, crates of paper and all kinds of stuff so, but yeah, so, but in general it was, it was pretty good but we didn't get out of there till probably 7.30, 8 o'clock, Sunday night, I think. No, maybe, maybe around 7, 7.30 before we got to go finally eat dinner so, that was, that was a really good meal. That was the first thing we'd all eaten all day since breakfast so, we were all pretty hungry and exhausted but, it was a really good show overall, you know, no complaints, the, I missed most of the drama because I didn't arrive till like 2 o'clock Friday afternoon which worked perfectly for me but there really wasn't that much drama to, to have anyway, you know, it could have been worse. I mean, when you're holding an event and the fire marshal hasn't approved the room, I mean, I would imagine everything's kind of on edge Thursday afternoon, right?

Myke Hurley: Yep, yep. Yeah, it sounds like, honestly, given the circumstances that everybody was placed in which is kind of the fault of no one really, construction will always take longer than you expect it, it kind of sounds like the situation was dealt with pretty well, like, all things considered. Like, it seemed like they did, basically, sounds like all that anybody could really to try and make things run smoothly.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, overall, good show. You know, no real negative things to say but, yeah, super fun, great people, as always, the best part, and lots of good stuff, saw lots of new pins,

Brad Dowdy: you know, did a little bit of shopping, but I think I may have, should have had Blue Apron prepped for me on Sunday afternoon so I was just eating behind the table, right? Then you would have

Myke Hurley: been totally fine, then you would have been totally fine, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a top class segue because this episode is brought to you by Blue Apron, the number one fresh ingredient and recipe delivery service in the US. Blue Apron delivers fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and step-by-step recipes right to your door. These recipes can be cooked in under 45 minutes, and Blue Apron offers 12 new recipes each week, of which you can pick two, three, or four based on whatever best fits your schedule. The Blue Apron menu changes every single week based on what's in season so you're getting the best food possible. Upcoming meals includes spicy chicken and stir-fried vegetables with jasmine rice, soy-glazed Korean rice cakes with broccoli and soft-boiled eggs, and strip steak and potatoes with spicy maple collard greens. Now, Brad Dowdy, tell me about a great meal that you've had.

Brad Dowdy: I've had two great meals and only one burn on my hand from my cooking of Blue Apron. No, that's a good ratio. Yeah, I think that's pretty good. Seeing how I don't cook and Blue Apron allows me to cook at my house, so two meals. One, I cooked up the shrimp rolls, which is like a lobster roll but with shrimp as you can imagine, and sweet potato fries. It was really good. The kids and wife loved it. I was able to, you know, work on that and get that all made for one evening when my wife was working. I had it timed perfectly because Blue Apron lays out the recipe, the order you should cook everything, and the time it's going to take to everything, so I planned it perfectly. She rolled in the door right when I was setting the table for our wonderful meal. So, yeah, I was King Dowdy that night. And the next meal, which her and I, my wife and I cooked together, which was another fun thing, was a Mexican chicken casserole, chicken and rice casserole, which was fantastic. Absolutely loved it, you know, despite the little blister on my thumb that I got from toasting the tortilla chips and sticking them in a very, very narrow area of the oven and trying to reach in and grab it. That wasn't a good idea. Blue Apron did not warn me about that, but that's something I need to work on myself. But the food was awesome. It was cool to cook something myself, you know, for the family, and then, you know, my wife and I got in the kitchen and cooked a meal together. All from Blue Apron and it was great. Great food, great fun. So, thank you, Blue Apron.

Myke Hurley: Look at that. You can't get a better worse than that. With incredible ingredients and chef-designed recipes, Blue Apron lets you see what the power of food can do. Blue Apron is treating you, our listeners, to $30 off your first order and free shipping. Just go to blueapron.com slash penaddict. So, check out this week's menu and get $30 off with free shipping at blueapron.com slash penaddict. Blue Apron, a better way to cook. Our thanks to Blue Apron for their support of this show and RelayFM. So, come on in. What did you buy? What did you see? I want to know. I want to know.

Brad Dowdy: So, I'm going to cut straight to the chase. I bought zero pens.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: So, and we'll talk about that as we go through. You know, I had some things on my radar, but I end up with no purchases of pens, but I did buy some things. what I saw that kind of had the brain making a mental checklist. The new Edison acrylics. I almost pulled the trigger on one of those. They look good. I will probably end up with one this year. Brian's kind of refreshed the acrylic lineup for a lot of the models, especially the Menlo, which is where I'm shopping these days. I want to get a Menlo pump filler. So, we'll have links to all this stuff in the show notes. You can go see like what these acrylics look like. They look wonderful. So, the second from the right was the one I handled very, very much. It's like a blue and black swirl, but some very bright blues and some dark black swirls and a little bit of transparency, translucency. So, that was, I was very interested in that one. And, since you know I like my blues, Myke, the Aurora Urano was this crazy bright blue. It's good looking. I'm not going to buy this pen because I don't need to spend that kind of money because I already have my Nebulosa, which I like better, the purple acrylic. But, this one was kind of the hit of the show. People really enjoyed that one. And then, Aurora also is starting to roll out the Optima Flex pens. I may get one of these. I'm not totally down with them. I love the Optima shape. It's got the flex nib from the models that they, the 88 models that they did last year. But, I think the colors, since I can get some cooler Optima models, I might just pass on this and see if I can later just get a flex nib because they'll eventually start selling these nibs on their own, the flex nibs. you know, I'd rather probably get some neat looking acrylic and then pay extra to add in a flex nib than go with one of the standard colors. Even the orange Optima Flex, like that would be the one to go for, right? I'm just gonna say,

Myke Hurley: they look awfully like Pro Gears.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, they do. They do. But, you know, it's the traditional Optima shape and it is very much in a Pro Gear shape is the same way. And, you know, they really do, which is probably why I like them so much. Right. Except they're probably twice as much. Like, I didn't even check the price because I'm not super interested in them. I kind of more want the nib just to play around with and write with, even though it's not a super flexi nib. It's an enjoyable nib to write with. Two of the things that were not at the show proper, but at the tent, like this is where you get to see the real stuff, Myke, you know that, in the pen show after dark. In the tent, I got to see two things that I'm super interested in. One is from the Red Dragon Pen Co., which is from friend of the show, friend of the slack, Chewbacca. This is his company. He started, he's just starting to make pens. And Crystal, from Squishy Ink and Hipponodo, had one of his pens. I believe, if you're listening to this show, click over to the show notes, click on the Red Dragon Pen Company link, you'll see an image at the top of his homepage. I got to handle that orange pen in the page. And I have to say, Myke, I'm very impressed. The one that's

Myke Hurley: in the banner photo, the clear and orange one? It looks nice. Yep,

Brad Dowdy: the clear and orange one in the banner photo. It's really nice. It's a good shape. It's a good weight. It's a great acrylic. He does, on the ends of the pen, cap, and barrel, he does, it's kind of concave, almost like a dimple. So, I enjoy that feel. I don't know, it's a really, really well done pen from what I can see. Just in the few minutes I had to play around with it, I very, very much enjoyed it. So, I will be maybe talking to him about what we can do for a pen sometime this year. I also need to pull the trigger on my Conant Slimline pen. So, there wasn't one there, but there was a Conant King size there and it keeps reminding me how good these freaking pens are.

Conant Fountain Pen

Brad Dowdy: So, friend of the show, Cheryl, had hers and she had her Conant there because she was getting a Franklin Kristoff Flex nib fitted into the Conant and it came out spectacular. But I just love the Conant style and barrel so far. It's just a design, so I'm going to be looking at getting the Slimline. This might be my first non-Kickstarter pen purchase of the year. I just got to make the time to order it. I'll probably wait until after Baltimore to see if there's anything there I want. But I didn't buy any pens at the LA Pen Show, so I don't know if I'll buy anything at the Baltimore Pen Show. I will say several people bought the Tangerine, Sailor 1911 Tangerine. It was really hard for me not to break down a good one. So you're seeing one

Myke Hurley: now, right? Do you see what I'm talking about about that color?

Brad Dowdy: you've never seen

Myke Hurley: an orange like that before.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and everyone that brought it over to me, their eyes were just like glowing. They're like, look. It's wonderful. I love it. It's awesome. It's really good. So that one, I'm guessing that'll sell out at some point. I don't know what type of run they have on there. They seem to be pretty decent sized runs. If you want one, you can still get one. They are really, really, I still may end up with one. Like, I don't have a regular 1911. I just have one of the, I think that one's called Imperial Black. The one that I have, it has a metal section. So, I don't know. I'm just talking myself into it because it looks really good. from a selling perspective, working for Van Ness, holy cow, the Colorverse inks. Like, that was the talk of our table all weekend. We couldn't keep them in stock. We were out of all the good colors, well, all the hot colors that popular colors by Friday night. I had a few left Saturday morning and then throughout the rest of the weekend were just some of the more standard colors and they still sold all the way through Saturday and Sunday. everyone wanted the Colorverse inks. The swabs and samples were, looked really good so everyone was after them and the setup of their boxes. You've seen this before, right, Myke, where they have the two different sized bottles, right?

Myke Hurley: I think so.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so there's a 65 milliliter large bottle and a 15 milliliter small bottle in each box that you get.

Brad Dowdy: that's very clever. since LA is in the home of the Jet Propulsion Labs, we had a lot of engineers and scientists from JPL out there going, I worked on the Hubble or I worked on the Mars rover and they're having to get all these inks because they're all these space names. It was pretty cool. They were, a lot of people were really excited by them, but just in general, everyone was excited about the Colorverse inks. I did not come home with any, nor did I come home with my Robert Hoster motor oil, which is the one thing I wanted to come home with and I forgot. It's just, you get so busy during these shows. I didn't shop at this show hardly at all. I looked at very few tables throughout the show. I didn't have time to really take it all in. Even Saturday afternoon, that's when I got a few pictures done and got to do a little bit of shopping, but I could never really spend the time to dig in to where I wasn't just, you know, I don't want to plop down my money without some thought behind it, right? So, that's kind of the stage I'm at these days with fountain pens. So, I ended up with no pens and I'm perfectly happy. So, not goods did well. You know, I brought some for Van S pens and sold them there. They did very good at the show. The feedback was always great. And, yeah, it was just a good all-around product show. Got to see lots of cool stuff. So, what I did purchase were two, I made two purchases. number one was a Masubi notebook, which I first saw in San Francisco last year, but I never got the chance to go talk to Daryl, who I wonderfully called Derek in this weekend's issue of Refill. I literally spent time with Daryl every day of my trip, like multiple times a day, hanging out and chatting with him and dropped a Derek on him in the refill. So, sorry about that. Sorry about that, Daryl.

Myke Hurley: And it's the worst

Brad Dowdy: place to make an error because you can't change it. there's no correcting that one. So, sorry, buddy. But, he's an awesome guy. Masubi does awesome work. These are high-end notebooks. Let's get this out right out the gate. This is very expensive notebooks. But, when you read the story about what Daryl does, and we've talked about him before, we had him on the, he reminded me that we mentioned him on the gift guide. they employ people with disabilities to manufacture these notebooks. You know, and a whole wide range of disabilities. In fact, like, he was talking to me how he has a couple of blind employees and how they line up the fabric so that the pattern's straight. they can feel the texture of the different materials and tell by the weave whether they're lined up correctly or not. It's just like, it's amazing stuff that he's doing. So, I was happy to support him. I bought one of his notebooks. Like I said, the notebook I bought was $95. These are not cheap. But, the one I chose had this great indigo, Japanese indigo dyed pattern on it. I believe this one is called Edo, I think, on my pattern. I'm not quite sure. It's not online so I can't double check it. But, they're beautiful. They're wonderful. They're filled with Tomoe River paper. The craftsmanship, it's all handmade. Even the stitching is all hand sewn in the binding. Like, he had all the parts separated on the table, like the bindings hand stitched. So, there's a lot of time, effort, and that goes into building these notebooks. And, they're made by awesome people. And, Daryl's doing a great job with Musubi. So, I'm super happy about that. The second thing I bought, Myke, I didn't see this until, or know about this until maybe the day before I was heading to LA. Yeah. I got my first whiff of this. And, I saw online, there was a Sailor Disney Princess ink set. And, I was like, oh my God, what is this? And, I have to have it. I totally had to have this. And, I wasn't thinking necessarily, like I didn't even realize, I didn't put two and two together that they'd be at the LA show, but the people selling them were actually at the show. So, what this is, is a set of pigmented inks. And, I'm going to read you the eight colors here, Myke. You ready? And, these are all Disney Princess based. We have Fairy Pink, Apple Red, Bell Yellow, Romance Brown, Ocean Green, Crystal Blue, Night Blue, and Magic Purple. So, what Sailor did was made an entire set of inks, and each of them has a matching wax seal for each color. So, Sailor did this set for Disney Shanghai. Shanghai. So, this is a whole set. It comes in this whole big box. And, I linked to our friend Catherine on Instagram. She has two posts where she has like a box opening in one post and then like ink samples in another post. And, it's really cool. And, you should go check them out. I mean, Sailor and Disney Princesses. Insta-bye. It's an Insta-bye. Like, no question. Like, I was thinking about like the tangerine pen. It wasn't an Insta-bye. This, I mean, you can get

Myke Hurley: the tangerine later. Like, this isn't available, right? Like, you can't just go buy one of these from Penchalet

Brad Dowdy: or something. Right. You can't just order one of these up and be done with it. So, yeah, I'm very excited about this set of inks. It's pretty cool. So, the only pen I did leave with, which is something that I had seen for a while, it's called a Machine Era, Solid Brass Pen. My friend Keegan from One Star Leather, him and I did a trade. I traded him a knot case for one of these pens. So, that's the only pen I ended up with. You know, it's a brass barrel pen. I'll have to, it's still in the box. I haven't tried it out yet, but I'll be reviewing that on the blog soon. And that was the, that was it for my purchases. You know, no, I didn't come home with any color, colorverse, Robert Oster didn't come with any pens. I did check out some of the Pelican 101s. I can't bring myself to pay that much for that small of a pen for a nib that I'm going to have to get work on. So, I'll probably do that eventually. But, you know, I found one that I really like. It's $400, which is a fair price for a brand new one.

Brad Dowdy: with it today because it'll be there tomorrow. So, you know, that's kind of where I'm at with my pen collection right now. I'm really, really happy with what I have. So, it's got to move the needle for me to make a purchase and I'm very content to go into pen shows that way.

Myke Hurley: Okay, talking about going into pen shows, one thing that Brad takes a lot of care of is the way he looks and the way he smells. That's why we're going to talk about Harry's. Harry's is all about a great shave at a fair price, which is why over 3 million people have switched to Harry's and you should be one of them. Harry's founders, Jeff and Andy, decided to create Harry's because they were fed up with overpriced razors and they wanted to fix it. They stripped out all of the unnecessary features and stuff that you don't actually really need, like vibrating handles or heating blades, and they also cut out the unnecessary costs that go along with these things, allowing them to deliver you one perfect razor at an amazing price. A good shave comes down to good blades, so Harry's offers high quality blades at half the price that you'll pay elsewhere at just $2 per blade. They make the blades themselves in their own factory so they know that they're good and that's why they offer a 100% quality guarantee. So Brad, was Harry's filling the air in LA in a hotel room somewhere?

Brad Dowdy: Myke, not only did I look and smell great in Los Angeles, one of our listeners did too. Oh yeah? Oh yeah, I can't remember his name, but we had a great conversation, we were talking about pens and podcasts and we were just having a good old chit chat and we said goodbye and he carried on about his way and about 10 steps down the hallway I see him turn around and he makes a beeline back to me and he's like, oh, one more thing, I bought Harry's and I love it, I shave more than I ever do because I enjoy it so much. Perfect. He became a Harry's customer because we talk about it so much and not only does he shave like he normally does, he doubles down because Harry's is so good, he shaves even more just because it's such an enjoyable experience. Can't beat that.

Myke Hurley: Harry's is so confident that you will also love their blades, they want to give you a free trial set, you just need to cover the shipping. The set includes a weighted ergonomic razor handle, five precision engineered blades of a lubricating strip and trimmer blade, a rich lathering shave gel, and a travel blade cover. This set is worth $13 but for you, it's free. Just go to harrys.com slash penaddict right now, sign up and get started. All you need to do is cover the shipping costs and that set is yours. Thank you so much to Harry's for their continued support of this show and Relay FM.

Brad Dowdy: So we have a big batch of ass TPA, we didn't get to any last week, I don't think. If we did, we filled it right back We did one, we

Myke Hurley: answered Topher's question.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's right, that's right. Topher. I'll get an email, seriously. Topher. It's Topher. It's like Gofer, that's how you remember it. It's Topher, make me an offer. That's how he taught me. All right, so this one's from Michelle. This goes back to our stationary draft. She says, I listen with interest and longing to your stationary draft a couple of weeks ago. I worked for a very big company and several years ago we moved to open office spaces and then flex seating. Each day you're in the office, you grab the first available seat. No one has a regular desk and therefore nowhere to store your own stationary supplies. This has been a huge adjustment for me, a self-proclaimed and well-known stationary nerd. All my supplies have to travel with me each day and I've had to trim down to the must-haves that I'm willing to carry. I now function every day, though sometimes with difficulty, without sticky notes, a stapler, paper clips, and many more comforts that used to live in my desk. So my question is, how would your stationary draft change if you had to be mobile every day? What are the essential tools to carry to work and what would you carry them in? Looking forward to hopefully, no more hopefully, you will definitely see us in Toronto, Michelle. What do you think about this, Myke? So number one, I would be, I would have a panic attack every day. I would have to be first at the office and try to get my same, my same flex seat desk every day even though I know that's probably.

Myke Hurley: This was my life for four years, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: So you had flex seating? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I thought you were just in a standard office cube form.

Myke Hurley: No, we had, yeah, we had those but they were flexible, they weren't enough for everyone. Sure. Like some days if I got there late, it was like, well, there's no desk for you so you have to kind of just go and like find somewhere and hope that your battery power and your terrible Lenovo laptop lasts the whole day. Wow, so what were you bringing? Well, you see, what we had though, we had like these like storage pedestal things. So you basically at the end of every day you had to just like clear the desk, put it all in the pedestal and then get out everything you needed the next day. So I still had, I still had access to everything that I wanted, but it was a case of like it had to all be put away at the end of the day. But if I was in this, if I was in this particular situation, if I was in Michelle's situation, I probably wouldn't be carrying a stapler around.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'm cutting out the same things she cut out. I'm going strictly pens, pencils, highlighters, and I would actually throw in like a six inch ruler because that kind of serves as ad hoc scissors if you need it. But sometimes you also need a ruler. And you can keep that in the case like a Brasstown or a Kokuyo Neocrits, the standable zippered case. but I'm really focusing on like three or four pens, a mechanical pencil, a highlighter, a six inch ruler, and then probably just a separate A5 pad to take with me every day. So for me, it would be like one pen case

Myke Hurley: and one pad. If it can't all fit in one pen case, it's out. So like for me, like if it can't fit in a Sinclair, then I can't do it. So it would be like a pocket notebook, you know, like field notes or a story supply. And one fountain pen, one highlighter pen, and yeah, like the ruler is a good idea. But yeah, that's probably kind of where it's going to be for me. Maybe like a Retro 51, a fountain pen of some description, and a mechanical pencil probably.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'd like to throw in some index cards in there if I could get to it for short notes that wouldn't take up like a whole A5 sheet that would take place of your post-it notes. The index cards were always a post-it note replacement for me. So if I could squirrel away five or ten a day in my little kit, that's what I would look for, for, you know, notes to pass along, things like that. So tough situation for sure. And I'm definitely leaving the additional accessories like staplers, post-its, paper clips, binder clips, all those things behind. You just kind of have to and just kind of roll with the punches and take something that you know you're going to enjoy writing with. And hopefully it'll make you forget that you don't have all that other stuff easily at hand.

Dungeons and Dragons

Brad Dowdy: This next one's from Ryan. What tools would you recommend for someone running a Dungeons and Dragons game? I love my pano book for the form factor at the table to take notes, but I'm lost for pencils and big notebooks, paper for maps and tables. Love the site. Thanks for all you do. It says, PS, in episode 249, you recommend that I should branch out and try a brand I didn't have for my next pen. I didn't listen and went for a Lamy 2000 before buying a Sailor Pro Gear Slim. All I can say is Brad was right. The Sailor is my favorite pen. Yes. So, good job, Ryan. All right. So, there's a few different ways and I've had similar questions before for gaming and map making. A lot of gaming paper is hex paper, which is very popular. You can actually print your own. We'll have a link in the show notes for hex paper for map making. That way, you have individual sheets you can lay out across the table and connect them as your map and story grows. If you needed a pad type, there are some hex paper pads. I couldn't find any good links from ones I've seen in the past. I'd have to dig through some of my old links, but you can find it if you look hard enough. You can find a pad. For standard paper, Rhodia A4 pads are cheap and they come in graph and they're perforated and it's a really good quality paper. That's a good choice. I love Morimond's A4 spiral bound graph paper, but that's about twice the price of the Rhodia. So it just depends on what you need. If you're really laying out several sheet maps, you probably want to look at the A4 or the printable hex paper. For a pencil, I'd either go with the Kurutoga for a mechanical pencil, which might be a good functional choice for creating maps. If you wanted a traditional pencil, the Uni Mitsubishi 9850 is fantastic. It's a great price. The tip's going to last long. You can draw with it as well as write with it. It's got an eraser on it, which I think in this situation, you probably want an eraser. So that's kind of my kit that I'd be thinking about for gaming and map making.

Brad Dowdy: Dee from the Weekly Pencil did a post, I don't know, a month or two ago about soloing Dungeons and Dragons, which is something she does from time to time and talks about some of the tools that she uses. So we'll have that link in the show notes as well. So you can see, you know, some map making and progress and what paper and pencils and formats and things she uses. So that's a great question, Ryan. And if anyone has any more suggestions for Ryan, definitely get in touch because that's something I'm very interested in. I think it's very, very cool.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Jeff has an offbeat question for us, Myke. That is actually an extremely normal question that we get from time to time. It's for the both of us. Do you ever just sit and put time into approving your handwriting? I've actually been doing that lately. Do you use or even recommend a font style? I cannot settle on one, but I want to because I cannot live with this inconsistent all caps print I have and wants to keep it printing, not cursive. You do not put time into your handwriting. Is that correct? Like you don't sit down and practice? No. On occasion, I do sit down and practice. But a long time ago, when I had a drafting job, I would every night take home a legal pad and practice my handwriting. And I practiced architecture fonts, which you can search online. So you would just go online.

Brad Dowdy: There's YouTube videos. There's different websites. I didn't include them because there's a lot out there. It just depends on the style you want to write with. Printing, it's probably harder to find a style to mimic than cursive, I'm thinking, just because there's not necessarily a lot of handbooks for printing. But the architecture style is something that I was drawn to because I needed it for work. And I would sit there with a legal pad and write capital A all the way across one line, lowercase a all the way across one line, B, C, D, all the way through the alphabet over and over. I remember spending hours doing that. And it absolutely helped. Like my handwriting used to be exquisite. Like it's decent now, but I don't practice it anymore. It's a challenge these days for me to sit down and practice. The practice will absolutely pay off and you can change your handwriting. You just have to retrain your muscle memory for a little bit. So it can be done. Find something you want online. You should be able to search something. You know, I wish I had a direct recommendation, but it really depends on what you're going for. So but even just trying like an architecture style will make your regular letters look better in the end.

Myke Hurley: I think it makes sense if your handwriting is something that people see. Like I understand why you might want to do it every now and then because like you show your handwriting to the world, right? But I never do. So for me, as long as I can read it, which I can, and I know that is a problem for some people like you can't read your writing and then yeah, of course you should you should practice. But I don't care that my handwriting is inconsistent. Sometimes it is cursive. Sometimes it is block caps like but I kind of like that about it, even though it's not traditionally anything other than junk, but it works for me.

Brad Dowdy: So Gary Varner asks a great question. I really dislike cap threads. I can feel under my fingers. I have multiple Frank and Kristoff's which solve this, but what other good fountain pens are threadless? Immediately the Lamy 2000 jumped to mind. I mean, that's a almost seamless writing experience. The way the section and cap is made.

Brad Dowdy: I'm assuming you tried the model 20 from Franklin Kristoff, which is a slip cap. I'm trying to think of other brands that do a good job with this. Pelican generally does a good job with cap threading. Sailor does a pretty good job with cap threading. Pilot is actually pretty decent too. You know, the sections may be a little bit shorter on some of the smaller pens. Those are the ones I'm thinking off the top of my head. The Lamy 2000, like if you want to avoid threads, the Lamy 2000 is fantastic. You know, the vanishing point doesn't have threads, but it has a clip that might get in your way. You know, so those are some of the ones I'm thinking of right offhand. I really, with my Sailors, even though the threads are there, I don't really notice them. Do you, Myke? Because you're left-handed and I don't know what your grip looks like. It doesn't bother me.

Myke Hurley: No, and I am sensitive to threading and grip sections and stuff because I have a weird grip, but I don't have any problem with Sailors. I wouldn't love them so much if I did.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and Michael from Inked a Pens in the chat room, if you want to go vintage, Parker 51, that's about a perfect no thread capped pen, which is actually a really, really enjoyable pen to write with, so there's some things to look at. Twitless Dan asked me a couple weeks ago, why don't we have more retailers stocking the Parker Vector? He says it's a really common pen overseas and I never see it in the States other than Amazon. So I replied back to him when he asked this. I was like, you know, when I was in school in the 80s, I loved my Parker Vector rollerball. Like, I thought I was hot snot with that pen because it was a metal barrel and it had the fancy arrow clip. You know, it probably cost me like five dollars, which is like a million dollars in today's money.

Brad Dowdy: Man, those pens were awesome. And then the quality pretty much got shot over the past couple of decades. And they've never really recovered from their low end, you know, falling off the cliff. The low end vectors, the jotters hung in there. The jotters are pretty good these days. The Vector rollers and fountain pens are starting to reappear. I don't know if they're better. I'll have to try them. But it was such a classic pen.

Brad Dowdy: You know, and at the time it really stood out among its peers. There just weren't many other options at the time. But it just kind of got overlooked because the quality didn't keep up with the with what we thought it was, you know, 20 years ago. So I'll check one out in the near term and see what I think about it because I used to really have a passion for that pen. That was a really special pen for me growing up. The rollerball model that is. So I'll look at getting one again sometime soon.

Brad Dowdy: So B. Bellurio wants to upgrade their pilot Metropolitan spending up to a hundred dollars. Also use a Moleskine project notebook, which is larger than an A5. Is there anything better in that size? Thanks, guys. Love the show. So notebooks first. I think there's two easy choices. One is Leuchtturm. The second is Palomino. They both make something between like an A5 and A4 size notebook. It's pretty large, but not quite A4 hardbound. Leuchtturm's called the Master. It actually might be A4. I think it's bigger than the Palomino. The Palomino is more like 7 by 10. So those notebooks. For the upgrade, you can go a lot of places. Some of the new Sailor pens in that price range are good. The Lamy Ion is good in that range. The Twisby 580s are good in that range. What else do you think in that range, Myke? Can you think anything that I'm missing?

Myke Hurley: For notebooks?

Brad Dowdy: We always talk about that's a weird price range for pens.

Myke Hurley: The pen one, I don't think I have anything better than what you've recommended. Like I do struggle when people ask me kind of in that range. Like it is tough. Oh, I still do. It's tough. Like Twisby, Eco, maybe.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You know, I mean, like I love my Kaweco ALs, but I never recommend those. Right? I mean, they're like 60, 70 bucks, but that's never at the top of my list for someone looking to upgrade it because it's such a different pen.

Myke Hurley: It's like you know if you want one of those. Right? Like it's kind of a very specific thing. Yeah, I think maybe you said a large term, Rodia Webby or Rodia Web Notebooks, they're good, right? They're very good. It just depends on what type of paper you like, right? Because there tends to be like that smoother, almost coated feel, and it depends kind of what you look for. Right. But yeah, I think I would maybe say Twisby Ecos are really nice, and they're kind of cool in that price range. Maybe look at that too.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I love the Eco. You will get a lot of enjoyment out of an Eco for less than 30 bucks. Yeah. You just will. It's a very, very enjoyable pen.

Myke Hurley: And it really, really does feel like it's worth more than $30 as well. Like I will tell you, they still do break. Like I've had them break. You can manhandle them and break them, right? Like they are less prone to breaking on their own as the Twisbys have been in the past. Right.

Brad Dowdy: The sections made differently, so that's very key for Twisby.

Myke Hurley: But I've seen a couple of the piston filling mechanisms kind of detach from themselves. Yes. That still happens. Yep. It does. But that's usually done with excessive or incorrectly applied force.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. We never do that, right? I didn't do it. This is not my... I'm not talking about my Eco here.

Pilot Inks

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All right. So BreezeJunk wants to know, what's the difference between Pilot Namiki inks and regular Pilot inks? Nothing but an awesome bottle. So if you want regular Pilot, blue or black, the Namiki is the same, and it comes in a way more awesomer bottle. Although the larger Pilot ink bottles are pretty cool in their own right, but the small regular Pilot bottles are not. But it's basic blue and black. I don't even know if Namiki has the blue-black. It might just be blue and black. But they're great bottles. Ben Crumback. So after all this time, do the two of you still have Grail pens? If so, what are they and why? So this comes into play related to my LA pen show trip. There was nothing I was necessarily looking for. I was browsing. I didn't have like a must-have on my list. If there's anything, I would probably sell some of my pens and get a next level Nakaya. You know, like an Ascending Dragon or some of these other pens that I really, really love. But it's not like I'm not on a quest to end up with one of those, right? It's if I cleared out enough space and sold enough pens to afford something like that, I might do that, but it's not on the must-have list. What about you, Myke?

Myke Hurley: I think that my current Grail is what I keep talking about, right? It is the King of Pen.

Myke Hurley: That's it. That's the only thing on my list. I mean, okay, so the Pink Love doesn't count. It's not like a Grail pen. It's just like a design that I cover. Right. But like the pen that I hold in the highest esteem right now is the ProGear King of Pen. So that's what I'm covering. That's my Grail pen, and that will be mine.

Brad Dowdy: But Ben, I'm finding I'm really happy with all the stuff I have right now, and I'll actually be selling off some of it because I'm so happy with such a smaller group of pens overall than the amount of pens I own. So I'll be consolidating hopefully later this year. And that might turn into like a singular purchase by the time I get done. So we'll see. We will certainly explore this more. All right, last question. And this goes back to Toffer's question from last week about saving notebooks in a more permanent fashion. So before I get into this email from Lynn, and I got another email, and I forget the writer because I didn't put it in the show notes. But he said, you know, I like it when you ask questions to get listener feedback, but please make sure you follow up because, you know, sometimes you may not in the past or sometimes it might take multiple weeks. And it's hard if people aren't, you know, don't follow every episode. It's hard to get the follow-up to the question. I thought that was a very fair thing to say. And he specifically said, because I want to know about the notebooks. So we didn't get much feedback on this, to be perfectly honest. Perfectly honest. I got one Twitter conversation about Ziplocs, and I still have some questions about using those with air tightness and chemical, plastic chemicals.

Brad Dowdy: So what Lynn did was email me, and I'm just going to read this, and this really kind of struck home with me. So she says, hello, Brad. I have an answer to your question about storing old journals and notebooks, but it's from a contrarian perspective. Don't save them. I realize there may be some small amount that we each write that would truly be of value to someone else years from now, but it's probably a lot less than we might think. And I always wonder, who will have that task of going through all those bins decades from now? Will it be me, and is that what I'm going to want to do at that point in my life? Probably not. Will it be one of my siblings or children when I'm no longer here? And how much will they want this chore? Not only is there the burden of their time and energy to do this, but also the emotional toll of throwing out something that I decided to save. I don't want to inflict that on someone I love. So my advice is to take great enjoyment from using that journal, and then when it's filled up, throw it out. I thought that was amazing because I've had two family members in the past two years where my parents have had to go, and I'll just get weeks' worth of emails saying, oh my God, all this stuff. And at that point, when you're overwhelmed already with loss, having to deal with extra burdens of deciding what to do with stuff, maybe you don't need it. Maybe think about it from that perspective. So I thought this was a great perspective. You know, it may not be for everybody. You may want to save everything and make sure these things are handed down from generation from generation. That's awesome. But I think considering the other side where you might be unknowingly burdening someone at a time where they really don't need a burden, that's something to consider as well. So great response, Len.

Myke Hurley: Or scan them. Yeah. Like if you think that the content is like super important, then scan them and save them. And so then nobody has to like physically take them to the dump, right? Like in 60 years time or whatever. And then also, then you don't even have to worry if you want to keep them still. You can still keep them and you've got digital copies. It doesn't matter if they get ruined. And then also, you will realize at that point if it really is worth going for the effort, right? Because scanning takes a long time so that maybe you'll be a bit more like picky about what it is exactly you're going to keep.

Myke Hurley: Absolutely.

Brad Dowdy: So yeah, I thought that was a very good perspective. I like that. There's definitely, there's definitely, you know, there's two sides to it. And it's something that, that both should be very, very considered because we don't always think about those things. I know I certainly didn't until I started getting phone calls and texts constantly with lots of OMGs in it from, you know, unfortunate, you know, people passing away in my life and watching my parents have to deal with that going, wow, maybe I should rethink a couple of things. So this came in at a good time. Thank you, Lynn. It's time for a spring clean,

Myke Hurley: right?

Brad Dowdy: And it's time for us to wrap up this show, Michael Hurley.

Myke Hurley: Okay. If you want to catch our show notes this week, you want to go over to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 296. I want to take a moment again to thank our sponsors, Harry's Blue Apron and Zola for helping make this show possible. Brad is at penaddict.com and knock.co. He is at dowdyism on Twitter, penaddict on Instagram. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E. If you want a new show to listen to, I will recommend the show that I have just started with a friend of the show, Tiffany Arment. It's called Playing for Fun. It is a show ostensibly about video games, but like this show is two people that love a thing and just love to talk about that thing, that's what Playing for Fun is but for video games with the caveat that we only talk about the good stuff. So there is no bad stuff. We don't talk about any bad stuff on Playing for Fun. We pick a video game and then we just talk about all of the things that we love about it. So that's at relay.fm slash playing for fun. It also has the greatest artwork and music. It does. It's awesome. I think of any Relay FM show. It's wonderful. It's wonderful, wonderful. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.