The Pen Addict 110/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	110
Title:	Gauntlet Down
Release Date:	June 12th, 2014
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 110
Audio File:	Audio Episode 110
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 110
Length:	6868 min <br />1.133 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 110 of The Pen Addict podcast here on 5x5. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm back from my gallivanting trip all across the United States of America. The Pen Addict podcast is a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. I am joined, as always, by my co-host, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Trip Details

Brad Dowdy: Welcome back, mate.

Myke Hurley: So I was thinking about this when I was listening to last week's episode with the fabulous Anna.

Brad Dowdy: Anna. She's so good.

Myke Hurley: So good. Like, in so many ways better than me.

Myke Hurley: I've missed a bunch of shows, but obviously you have never missed an episode.

Brad Dowdy: I have yet to miss an episode. I have yet to miss an episode. Yep.

Myke Hurley: I can't imagine what I would do without you.

Brad Dowdy: Well, that's kind of the rub there, isn't it? We adjust accordingly. Obviously. I know in the past, we haven't done this in a long time, but we've recorded ahead just in case, you know, I've been out of town for work or something without access to, you know, microphone, laptop, all that kind of stuff.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, and we usually do that even in these scenarios, but Anna filled in for me when I was sick a while ago, if you remember, but very short notice. So I thought, why not do that? Why not, instead of us rushing and just cobbling together a show, why don't we have you two put together a fantastic episode, which you delivered on definitely. And I want to thank Anna for helping out as well and for jumping in my place.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, she's great and she's, you know, she's available to, you know, record anytime. She's just very, very helpful when getting the show notes ready and doing all that stuff. So, yeah, it was a perfect, perfect episode and perfect help.

Myke Hurley: And this is something that you won't be able to appreciate, but it's really nice being able to listen to one of my favorite podcasts that, you know, because this is one of my very favorite shows and I don't get to be a listener. That's true. I never thought of it. Yeah. And it's really nice to be able to listen to the pen addict, basically, and it not be something I've already done once.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's cool. I didn't think of it that way.

Myke Hurley: So, uh, you said we'll never get the chance because I'm not going to let anybody other than you.

Brad Dowdy: It's me or nobody.

Myke Hurley: It's only one pen addict.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that's funny. So, um, did you survive your trip? You were, you were all good. It looked like y'all had a big time in WWDC. I was sad. I couldn't be there. I had a bunch of people I wanted to meet.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I hope that you do it some one year. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It, it's, if it's not like at the top of my list, it's like, you know, one, two type of thing. I'm really, really going to try to go to XOXO Fest this year. So that's, that's my goal for this year. Then maybe next year, WWDC. So WWDC this year just ended up not being the best timing with us trying to get everything ready for NOG.

Myke Hurley: It's pretty strong chance that I won't be at XOXO this year. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, I know. I know that. But I'm just avoiding you basically.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, pretty much. So I, I would stay away from me at all costs.

Myke Hurley: You'd love XO though. Like. I think that'd be a good fit. Yeah. You, you would love XO. Yeah. If I can't make it, I will be slightly devastated. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That, that I'll actually go for the conference WWDC. I'd actually just go for the people, right? Cause I have no business at the developers conference.

Myke Hurley: For sure. XO, you go for the talks like, cause they're fantastic. But WWDC, I'm just going to bars. Right. Nothing wrong with that. It's a good meeting. No. But that's all I was doing.

Brad Dowdy: And you probably had lots of business to take care of with all your other podcasts, getting plenty of guests and all that fun stuff.

Myke Hurley: So yeah, we did a bunch of live shows. I guested on, on clockwise, which is one of Mac world's, the tech hive podcast, which was great. Um, that was really fun. I mean, Stephen, I did on that.

Brad Dowdy: I did catch a command space number 100 last night. That was excellent.

Myke Hurley: Thank you. Yeah. Stephen did a fantastic job on that one. So that, that.

Brad Dowdy: I think that, I think that's my favorite podcast right now.

Myke Hurley: Oh yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It has been for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. There's very few podcasts I don't miss. And that's one of them.

Myke Hurley: That's very kind of you.

Brad Dowdy: It may, it may be the only one actually. There's very few that I just, you know, if, if it comes up, that's one I always catch. And, uh, you do such a good job and I like the content and the format of that show better than anything.

Myke Hurley: So Stephen did a great job interviewing me. Yep. Yeah. Our, uh, so, so Stephen interviewed me for episode 100 and we recorded that at Mac world and, uh, our payment for using the Mac core studio for that one was to be on clockwise.

Brad Dowdy: Ah, excellent. I'll have to listen to that. And I hadn't, I hadn't caught that one.

Myke Hurley: Pretty good. Actually. It's an interesting format. It's like 30 minutes, four guests, um, four topics. Oh, cool.

Brad Dowdy: So it's very, uh, um, scheduled.

Myke Hurley: It's very concise. It's pretty good. Cool. Good check.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I hope, I hope everyone's enjoying our catch up session since we hadn't talked in like two weeks. Yeah, actually.

Myke Hurley: So, uh, how was your weekend?

Pen Selection

Brad Dowdy: I do, I do have one, one, one more, uh, comment on your, on your trip. I want to know, tell me, tell me the pen and paper loadout. Those are the kinds of things I'm interesting, interested in. And maybe it's, you know, in this instance, it's nothing. And I, and I like to know that. So tell me what you brought, um, pen addict related on your trip.

Myke Hurley: Uh, so the Rotterfaden Taschenberg Leiter naturally. was with me. Uh, I got a bunch of questions about it. Like people were like, what is that thing?

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Myke Hurley: So I had to explain it. Um, I told one guy what it was and he was like, what? I was like, just take a picture of the brand name and Google it. Cause you, I, it would take me too long to spell it. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, and I don't take any fountain pens with me. Yep. Like still. So I had in there, uh, my field notes, obviously. Um, and I had Sharpie pen and the, what is it? Um, hang on. I'm going to, I've forgotten what it was now. I'm literally going to check. Myke, where are you? I had the Autographic liner as well. Ah, yeah. They're, they're two pens that I can, I can just, I know they're good to use. They're going to be fine. They're going to last me. Yep. Um, and I know they're going to be great. I'm really falling in love with the Sharpie pen when I'm traveling.

Brad Dowdy: It's a great, it's a great pen. I love that pen. It's, it's got a great line. So I use the, the metallic one. Cool. Yeah. And the heavy duty one. Yeah. Refillable.

Myke Hurley: I can't remember what it's called though. I'm going to find it and put it in the show notes. It's the stainless steel pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think, I think that's all it's called. It's the Sharpie pen, stainless steel barrel.

Myke Hurley: Yep. And I'm a big fan. Excellent.

Brad Dowdy: Good choice. Good choice. Well, I don't know if, uh, your Twitter feed or your mailbox was as filled up as mine with two, two, two items this past, I guess, week and a half that we've shown that have just been the rising to the top of the, uh, the topic list.

Myke Hurley: Remind me, I have a story about the second one. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. So the first one, and I'm assuming you've seen this. We haven't talked at all.

Myke Hurley: I haven't seen this in detail. It was, I saw it. Uh, I saw it when I landed. Okay. Uh, Twitter streams blew up so much, which is kind of half of the story that I'm going to tell. I'll save most of the, most of the, for in a moment. So I've kind of, I went onto the page, but I've not actually checked this out anymore. It's completely, it completely escaped my brain until just now. Cause I was, I was kind of like a zombie.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I'll bring it to the forefront. So this is the scribble pen that, you know, a bunch of people, you know, sent to us. Have you seen this? What do you think about this? And, and things like that. So basically what it is before we really get into it, it's a pen that it basically one end of the pen has, gosh, I didn't read all the technical details. One, one end of the pen, the rear end of the pen can basically, you point it at a color and it can read the color and then it will match the color. Say like on their scribble page, they pointed at an orange and then coming out the tip is orange ink that matches up this orange color. Um, and we'll have the, obviously the link in the show notes at, at five by five dot TV slash pen addict slash one 10. And you can, if you haven't heard of this, you can go click the details. Um, so yeah, it's an RGB color sensor on the end of the pen and then it has ink cartridges in the middle. And then this color sensor reads the color you pointed at. Um, it's got a button on the clip. That's like the capture button. So there's, it's not like on all the time. So you point it and then you click the button and capture and then the ink I'm guessing mixes to match that color. And then it comes out, it gets mixed in a mixing chamber. Then it comes out of the, they're calling it the nib.

Myke Hurley: I'm so confused.

Brad Dowdy: It's really interesting idea. So what, what confuses you? Cause I have a lot to say about this.

Myke Hurley: Well, cause it kind of, oh, so they have an ink version and a stylus version. Cause their copy on their website is so bad. It's very, okay.

Brad Dowdy: That's part of my problem. It's really part of my problems related to that. Yes.

Myke Hurley: First coloring device of its kind. It can take the world of color around you and transfer it directly to either paper or your favorite mobile device. The scribble pen and stylus pairs with a scribble plus mobile app to instantly sync every color and scan directly onto your iPhone, iPad or Android. Your colors become more useful when they're organized. It just doesn't make, it doesn't delineate that there's two different types of pen. I'm like, I was about to say, Brad, Brad, you've got this all wrong. This is a stylus. There's no ink. And then the images that they've used are like super low res and clearly photoshopped. Yep. Um, hmm. This is a bit dubious to me. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: So you're, you're tracking in the same way that I am.

Myke Hurley: I just can't see how this is technologically possible and or cost efficient to somebody to have ink in a pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So, so my problems are, and you've, you've definitely, you've hit on it. So my problems are they, they did the PR push last week or whatever, right? When they got everybody writing about it, you know, Gizmodo, CNET, you know, everybody, you know, I think everyone who sent me the link sent it from a different site, right? Mm-hmm. So there's two major red flags for me. Number one, this is a pen that matches colors and outputs the page and there's no video available.

Myke Hurley: And nobody seems to have used one.

Brad Dowdy: And no one knows.

Myke Hurley: Just press shots everywhere.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Just press shots and not a single video on their FAQ page. They actually have a link. I looked everywhere for a video, one single video showing this product in action. You think if they push this hard for PR that they would have show it in action. And for them to go through all this effort to push this pen and not have that available is a little, as you say, dubious to me. They actually, in the FAQ, the very last item after, you know, is the ink recyclable? Is it safe for children? Do you ship worldwide? The very last one, do you have a demo video available? It says, yes, we have upcoming videos showing the pen live in action and click here to subscribe to our YouTube channels. Guess how many videos are on that page?

Myke Hurley: Zero.

Brad Dowdy: Zero. So I'm sure they're coming. But if I'm going that hard, as hard as they went right out the gate, they got nothing right now that can show anybody anything on how this pen works. The second thing, not just the copy, the picture of the girl holding the pen, it actually looks like she's had it in use and it looks horrible.

Myke Hurley: Well, that's what I think is photoshopped. I don't think that's real.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, she's got these, it's basically like not even a crayon. It's like the giant pre-K crayons where the kids have to use like their whole fist to hold on it. That looks like the output.

Myke Hurley: If you look at it, there's different resolution blurs throughout this whole image. Like they tried to put focus blur on the pen. I don't think she's actually holding it. I don't think that's a real picture.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Maybe not. I see her hand looks a little bit funny.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. The benefit that I have maybe is I'm looking at this on a retina Mac. So maybe I can see these details a little bit better, but that totally looks like a stock photo with the pen jammed in there. Yeah. And they've just used like paint to put images in. Because that doesn't look like they're drawn by somebody anyway. The lines are too perfect.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, I mean, this is not going to be like a high tech C type of line that people are that you're getting out of this pen. And I think that's people understand that it's going to be a hugely wide line. It's going to be like a two millimeter line, I'm guessing. So I don't know, like they put this shot in about these birds on here. It looks like a colored pencil drawing. There's this bird drawing. There's no way the output of this pen can do that. This is a very.

Brad Dowdy: Way more questions than answers so far. And I just, my opinion is, if you're going to PR it this hard, you got to answer more questions.

Myke Hurley: And it kind of seems dumb to PR before the Kickstarter. Maybe they've had some sort of delay. Yeah. But I don't know. So this is one of those things that me and you pick up all the time where we both are really dubious about it. So I'm really, this is what I'm excited to see how it works. I mean, as well for what? $150? Right. I mean, for the sake of the show, I'd put the money down.

Brad Dowdy: Would you?

Myke Hurley: I think so.

Brad Dowdy: You're braver than me.

Visionnaire

Myke Hurley: If this becomes one of those things again. Which, the other day, I thought when I sent you those field notes, I should have put the the Visionnaire in there. Yeah, that would have been good. I would have been trying. The next time I send you something. Okay. Because as well, like the picture of those kids, that's not real.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I don't like this at all.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I'm not saying this is going to be a Visionnaire thing at all. I just think this is going to be $150 worth of blah. It's not going to be, it's not any type of game changing, amazing device. I don't think.

Myke Hurley: I only see this being able to work with the stylus. I buy that.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. I totally buy the stylus piece. That seems functional. That seems like, okay, I can see an artist using that or a designer saying, hey, let me match this color and output it to my screen where it can give me the perfect hex match or whatever. Right. But the ink pen, that seems like a catastrophe to me. I don't see how that's going to work.

Myke Hurley: I can see that it's theoretically possible. The idea in itself is sound. Like, because you said it's a hex match, right? So it's doing something like what a printer would do. Right. But it seems really difficult to be able to do that with accuracy in a pen. And if you've been able to do it, show it.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Show your work.

Myke Hurley: Like, I'm looking in the press kit. Mm-hmm. It's not giving anything. Oh, no. It's all the hard. It holds over 100,000 unique colors in its internal memory and reproduce over 16 million.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's the same article that everyone published. Like I said, it was a huge PR push. Yeah. And it's without all the information. So we're on the same page there. So that's everyone wanted our opinion on it. That's my initial opinion. I mean, subject to change. They could prove me wrong, but this is not tracking positively in my book.

Myke Hurley: So in the history of this show, what tends to happen is now these people will contact us. I hope we'll see. So we'll put... I'll tell you what, Brad. We'll throw down the gauntlet. All right. People of GetScribblePen, you are welcome to join us on this show. You just need to provide us with some video of this pen working. And then we will happily have you on and we can talk about it as much as you like. Absolutely. Show us some video and we'd love to speak to you about it.

Brad Dowdy: That's completely fair. I like it.

Myke Hurley: Because what people will do now, and this is what tends to happen is, people will go to our show notes. Which you can, by the way, if you want to find the links to this episode, which you probably will now, go to 5x5.tv slash penaddict slash 110. So they'll click the link and then they find out about it in their stats. And then we've seen this a bunch of times, especially with Kickstarter projects. Because I think people, when they're at this sort of level, are obviously monitoring who's talking about them. Mm-hmm. Yep. You had it with the mod notebook, didn't you? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: How'd that work out? Yeah. I mean, and we had it with the Visionaire as well, to a point.

Brad Dowdy: Well, at least the mod ended up canceling their project.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, they did something else new, I think.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, they did. Well, I think it's called the mod now. Yeah, I mean. It was called draft before.

Myke Hurley: Yes. Like in the last few days, though, I think they changed something. I'm sure I saw a release, like a press release.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I didn't pay attention, really. No, I'm not even.

Sailor Inks

Brad Dowdy: All right. So, gauntlet down. Scribble, people. So, we'll see. We'll see what happens. Prove us wrong. All right. Another update. This is a happy, sad update. But a lot of people have been asking me about the Sailor inks. There's been a lot of movement in the Sailor ink market here this month. And it's twofold. Number one, Sailor announced a couple months ago that they're bringing new seasonal inks in.

Brad Dowdy: And what they do, Sailor in years past, I don't know that they've done it recently. In years past, they have taken – they've run seasonal colors. Say like a field notes, you know, for spring 2011, they did, you know, some special, you know, purple color, whatever. So, those were limited edition. And, you know, once they sold them, they were gone. So, now they've taken like the last eight or so or eight popular seasonal colors. And they've taken those colors and they've moved them into the primary Sailor ink line. So, they'll be regularly available. On the flip side, they've taken some of their standard inks and done away with them. And that's the mind-boggling part here. So, the new inks, the new special – well, the new – god, it's been hard to figure out what they call these. The new seasonal inks that are now permanent part of the line are available. But the classic Sailor inks like My Favorite Sky High, Grenade, which is a hugely popular ink, Epinard, which is a green – Grenade's a red ink, a deep red. Epinard's a green ink. And Apricot, which is my favorite orange ink, are getting discontinued.

Myke Hurley: So, basically, they went to penaddict.com, found all of your favorite colors, and then just discontinued them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'm really upset about this. What did you do?

Myke Hurley: What did you do to Sailor?

Brad Dowdy: Well, I just bought the new ones. There you go. See, you ruined this, Brad. I know. But they're not going to – they're not going to – the problem is the new ones don't cover the old colors.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's not like they've brought in a new orange, a new – like, yeah, a new lovely blue. Yeah, I get you. They've just got a bunch of new colors.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so, like, the Green – the Grenade, Epinard, Apricot, and Sky High, and Peach don't have a new color. Only Ultramarine has something comparable.

Myke Hurley: Huh.

Brad Dowdy: That's a shame.

Myke Hurley: But, you know, these things have got to happen, I guess.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but in talking with Anderson Pens, which we have a link to this in the show notes of an article that they put out because they're a sailor – dealer. There's still a lot of stock. Like, I know a bunch of people live for Grenade and Epinard, so they'll probably stock up. Yep. I'll probably buy another bottle of Sky High. I'm good on the Apricot right now. But I'm – it's a little weird. But the new colors are pretty good. Well, I say that. My comment to Brian Anderson was they introduced eight new colors, and the color range is very narrow. There's some – lots of dark colors.

Brad Dowdy: And I take that back. There is a green that's in there, but it's not the same. It's kind of a dark muddled range of colors as a whole. So the only one that's a standout is one called Yamadori, which I already have – I ordered some – two new colors from Anderson when they – when these came out. I ordered the Yamadori, and I ordered – oh, what's the purple one? Sumire. Is that right? Yeah. Sumire. No, Shigur. Shigur. So I ordered two. So we'll see. Those look good. There's two other blues that are really close in color. There's two blacks. I mean, it's just not a huge variance in product line where like the standard sailor inks are. So I'm a little – plus the new inks are 50% more expensive.

Brad Dowdy: So we've gone from $12.50 for a 50-milliliter bottle to $18.

Myke Hurley: Wow.

Brad Dowdy: So it's a little concerning. We'll see.

Myke Hurley: Interesting choices there made by sailor.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So some of their mainline, extremely, extremely popular inks are vanishing, and they don't have suitable replacements. So I'm a huge sailor fan. I'm not a huge fan of discontinuing these inks. So benefit of the doubt. So we'll see what they're going to do. But I just don't see any way that not having Sky High, Grenade, Epinard, and Apricot in their product line is a benefit to them. I think maybe what they're doing is they're going to rip them out and come back at a higher price like these, which is sad. But we'll see. That's just speculation on my part. I certainly don't know. But that's kind of the way this is tracking.

Myke Hurley: I guess what we're going to have to do is wait and see about what sailor's going to do because I want to make sure that they are sure because they're definitely making some waves. I can't give it up, man. I'm going to get those puns in every now and then.

Brad Dowdy: Love it. Love it. Yeah. So, yeah, we'll see. And it seems like they have a new distributor in the U.S., so the news that's coming out on this has been kind of inconsistent so far. So now we finally got an answer on this. So we'll see what happens with the other inks the rest of the way. So I don't know. That's my – the new inks are very good. I'm happy with what I bought. I'm just not happy with the old ones going away because there's – I mean, I think two of those are in my top five inks. I'd have to look to verify, but I think that might be right. If not, they're way up there, very high.

Myke Hurley: Are they on your site? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Sky High certainly is. I'm not sure where Apricot is.

Myke Hurley: You have Sailor Sky High and Sailor Apricot number four and five. Yep. And they were new entries as well.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. I've been using them for a while, and I just keep – those are ones I keep going back to. That's how I know that they're good inks because I continue to go back to them. So we'll see.

Brad Dowdy: Should we take a break? Plenty of stock. Plenty of – yeah, plenty of stock. No, I was just going to say plenty of stock left for the next couple months. But get what you want now before they go away.

Myke Hurley: So let's take a moment to thank the first of our two sponsors for this week's episode. And first up, we have our friends over at Squarespace, who are the all-in-one platform that make it fast and easy to create your own professional website, portfolio, and online store. For a free trial and 10% off, visit squarespace.com and enter the offer code NOCK, N-O-C-K. And we're going to come back to that as well in a moment, actually. Can you put that in the document? Sure. I have a question to ask you. Okay. So you want to enter the code NOCK. It's going to get you 10% off when you do that at checkout. A better web starts with your website. Brad, let me tell you a little story. So I'm working on a new little project. I've had an idea. You know these app previews that are coming to the app store?

Brad Dowdy: Yes, like video.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Video previews, yep. They're going to need narration.

Myke Hurley: Hello there. And I think it might be a nice little way to make some pocket money. It could be a nice little side business. You never know. So I thought, you know, I want to start setting up a site so I can have a little sort of side business for helping people with their app videos, their app preview videos. I could do narration and copy and stuff like that. So when I want to put a website on the internet, where am I going to go? Well, I went to Squarespace today. Set up a new account with them. Because it's so simple. It's so easy. I just entered in my information. I sign up for the free trial at the moment just so I can build out the site before I go and pay. Because you can sign up for a free trial. I didn't put any credit card in or anything like that. And I just started building my website straight away. I was able to pick from one of their really beautiful professional design themes. And I picked one that looks really, really nice. I was able to add in a little logo that I have made very easily. Basically, in the back-end system, it's like, would you like to add a logo in? I was able to drag and drop the logo from my desktop into the little window. It uploaded. And it automatically put it on the page for me. It didn't even need to ask. It just knew where the logo needed to go. Top left-hand corner, exactly where I wanted it. I'm able to choose from their fantastic and beautiful fonts, which I've been doing. Because there's going to be some nice copy on the page. And I know that later, I'm going to want to add in a portfolio of videos that I make. So I'll be able to very easily add those in, drag and drop them around the page, and just make it look fantastic. And it's all going to look really beautiful, really clean. It's going to look fantastic on any device. Because they have responsive web design built right in. Because I have an idea. I have a little project that I want to make. I don't want to spend six weeks building a website for it. I just want to go to Squarespace and get something that looks fantastic. And if I have any problems, 24-7 customer support is going to help me. They have live chat and email. Now, the team's located in New York City and Dublin. And you never know. Maybe one day, I want to write a little guide so other people can do this. And maybe I want to sell that guide. Well, I can enable Squarespace Commerce, which is their online store functionality. You can sell physical and digital goods. And this is integrated into any Squarespace site. All you need to do is turn it on. So go try this out for yourself. Plans start at $8 a month. And they include a free domain name if you sign up for a year. You can start that free trial that I mentioned with no credit card required at all. And when you decide to sign up for Squarespace, make sure that you use the offer code NOCK, that's N-O-C-K, to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for The Pen Addict. So thank you so much to Squarespace for supporting 5x5 and The Pen Addict. A better web starts with your website, and you should get started over at Squarespace. Wow.

Brad Dowdy: That might have been your best Squarespace read ever. Thanks, buddy.

Myke Hurley: I was actually pretty proud of that one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well done. And I like your idea, too, of your new website.

NotCo Production

Myke Hurley: I saw it, and I was like, I could help with that. And I've watched, like, I'm about halfway through the WWC presentation. And I'm like, this seems like something that people might want. And I've spoken to a few developers that are friends, and they're very interested. And I just thought, you know, I have, like I even say, get a professional voice and professional equipment. And I have those things, I hope. Yep. I at least have the equipment. Yep. And, you know, I have done marketing for a couple of years, so I think I could help people write copy and things like that. So if you're a developer and you want a video, let me know. And we can talk about it.

Myke Hurley: I'm going to be talking about that quite a bit, I think, over the next few months. I like it. Various places.

Myke Hurley: Awesome. So, yeah, there was something that I wanted to mention. So I was on Instagram a few days ago, and I saw a sign. Yeah. Erected on the side of a building. What's that all about?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So we have our shop. Now we actually have a physical workspace for our NotCo production facility in Atlanta. And anyone passing through or in Atlanta, definitely come stop by and say hi. And, yeah, we're loaded for bear, and inventory is building. We got all our equipment set up. We got some people we've hired to help us to manufacture the cases. The sign came out really cool. We're like, do we need a sign? We don't really need a sign, right, because we're not a retail storefront. They're like, well, let's just get a sign. So we got it, and it's pretty cool. I like how it came out.

Brad Dowdy: It's very neat. So, yeah, we're full bore case making now. So I'd say, let's see, today's the 12th.

Brad Dowdy: No more than two weeks. Two weeks-ish.

Myke Hurley: Wow.

Brad Dowdy: Until we're live. Something like that. So definitely get on our mailing list, and you will know when we press the button.

Myke Hurley: Where do people sign up for the mailing list? Notco.com slash newsletter. And I've seen floating around pictures of new products. They keep popping up in places.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Man, I'm excited about this. So, you know, we're making our three-by-five index cards, which I'm very excited about the quality of those. They're called .dash index cards. We've been teasing those for a long time. And Jeff is so good at what he does. He's just, like, one day he goes, hey, look, I made this for our index cards. To hold them in, he said, if we're going to sell these, we need something to keep them in. I was like, okay. And he showed it to me, and it's perfect. Like, this is it. No change. I'm like, I don't even know how you come up with this stuff to be so functional. But it's basically a sleeve that will hold about 15 or 20 index cards. Made out of our, you know, Cordura exterior and pack cloth liner. Same style as our big cases that we sold on Kickstarter. And then it's got a pin slot in the front that will hold one to two pins, depending on the size of the pins. It's just this super – Jeff uses note cards primarily. He doesn't use notebooks or pads or paper. He's a note card guy through and through. So this is perfect for him, and it's really tested out well.

Brad Dowdy: And, yeah, it seems like a no-brainer. I think it's going to be one of our more popular products because it kind of suits a need for people who are big fans of the 3x5 card format.

Myke Hurley: Could they potentially fit a notebook in them?

Brad Dowdy: They can fit the – like the flap journals, like the small – what's the – they have a traditional name. You know the small like little handheld reporter journals that are spiral bound on the top?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It will fit those, but it won't fit like a field notes notebook. They're too small for that.

Myke Hurley: And I saw a little – like a more traditional pencil case.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that was another special – that was a Jeff special edition for our new employees. That was our new employee welcome kit. But I love the style so much. I said – I told the new employees that I don't even have one of these yet, and I'm going to steal one of theirs.

Myke Hurley: How many new products are we going to expect from you?

Brad Dowdy: Ever or like when we launch?

Myke Hurley: Like maybe when you launch in like in the next six months.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, in the next six months, there will be several new products. When we launch, there's going to be – when we launch, there's going to be the index cards. There's going to be a paper product. There's going to be the index card holder, which is the best name ever. It's called the Fodder Stack, which I'm just – I love that name. It stays with our mountain theme. That's the name of a mountain here in the southeast.

Myke Hurley: That's the Cordura one, right? Yep.

Brad Dowdy: The case. The case itself is actually called the Fodder Stack.

Myke Hurley: And then you're working with Dudek, correct?

Brad Dowdy: Yep, and we have those in stock. They're done and ready to go once we turn on the store. It's called the Idea Dock.

Myke Hurley: You just said a paper product too, didn't you?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we're going to have a notebook that's – I think it's an A4 size. I'm not staring right at it. But it's a big – it's a large paper covered notebook. Think – you know the big white lines, the large white lines that are not hard bound or they're just a soft notebook. I don't know if you ever had one of those. But they're kind of like that. They're a large format but in a soft cover, if you will.

Myke Hurley: That's interesting.

Brad Dowdy: So they're very nice. I like the paper quality in those.

Myke Hurley: You probably will talk about this later so I don't want to ruin it all. But where are you getting the paper?

Local Printer

Brad Dowdy: From a local – we're working with a local Atlanta printer.

Myke Hurley: Of course you are. Look at you. Of course we are. And you're happy, right? You're happy with the paper?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, my God. I'm ecstatic with the note cards and love the paper smoothness and quality of it. So, yeah.

Myke Hurley: Will it potentially become the new review paper? That's what I want to know.

Brad Dowdy: Maybe. I've actually tried. We did a test run and it didn't photograph well. But I think that's more me than – I was using a blue test one that we're not going to release instead of our orange color that we are going to release. So I need to try that.

Myke Hurley: Of course it's orange.

Brad Dowdy: We're going orange with the first run. But there are many more colors in the pipeline. Don't worry about colors. If people are non-orange fans like Mr. Ed Jelly, there will be more colors coming down the pike.

Myke Hurley: I don't think that you should be catering for non-orange fans.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I want some blue index cards, so a blue line index card. So we'll be making those, I'm sure, sooner rather than later. I mean, I know it's my product and my store and me and Jeff's thing, so I'm obviously biased. But I think our index cards are going to kill. That's just me. They're really good. Yeah. Really good. So we'll see. The market will let us know, right? They sure will.

Myke Hurley: They sure will.

Brad Dowdy: But we'll have – probably in – I don't know which episode, but in two or three weeks, we'll have a full throwdown once we flip the switch and go live. But it's really close, and I know people are sick of hearing me say that. But, I mean, we're officially tenants, and we have bills to pay now, so we've got to get this going. Well, I'm excited, buddy. Yep.

Myke Hurley: Really excited.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Brad Dowdy: You talked about a specific favorite product of yours. So when I say Torsten, you know what I'm talking about, right? You know who I'm talking about?

Brad Dowdy: Yes, no, maybe? No. Mr. Rotorfaden, Tasha McLeider?

Myke Hurley: Oh.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that Torsten that sent you your Rotorfaden?

Myke Hurley: No.

Brad Dowdy: Right? Yeah?

Myke Hurley: Yes?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I'm very confused right now.

Brad Dowdy: So you got your Rotorfaden from a gentleman named Torsten, right?

Myke Hurley: I don't think so.

Brad Dowdy: You don't think so?

Myke Hurley: No.

Brad Dowdy: Damn it. Christian. Well, Christian? Well, I'm totally confused now.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Well, anyway, we have another.

Myke Hurley: Here we go again. Off mic goes to app.net to find out.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So we have another.

Brad Dowdy: I'll let you sort that out. But guess what I have in my hands? What do you have?

Rotorfaden Tasha McLeider

Brad Dowdy: Rotorfaden Tasha McLeider.

Myke Hurley: You have one?

Brad Dowdy: I have one.

Myke Hurley: Whoa.

Brad Dowdy: So that's a surprise. And it was a surprise from Torsten. He sent me an email, said, hey, I want to send you a Rotorfaden Tasha McLeider. I said, no, absolutely not. You're not buying me one. That's really, really nice. But I don't like people to do that for me. I'm just that way. I was like, no, I'm good. Just, you know, you're awesome. I love you. Don't do it. And he's like, no, no, no. He's like, we have like three of them at the house. And there's one of them I'm not using. And I'd like to send it to you as a thanks for, you know, everything you're doing on the blog and on the podcast. I was like, okay, I'm down with that. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Mine was sent to me by Christian Hessman.

Brad Dowdy: Wow.

Myke Hurley: So we have separate Rotorfaden benefactors.

Brad Dowdy: We do. I'm surprised. So sorry I messed that up, Torsten. I was thinking it was related, but it's not. Because I know Torsten's on app.net too. And he has a site called, I'm going to butcher this, reduziart.tumblr.com. He's got all kinds. He's got an awesome like pen collection. And I've followed him for a while. He does some great photography. But I'm wondering, does yours have a leather outer cover? Exterior leather?

Myke Hurley: I don't think it's leather.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I didn't think so either. So the exterior of mine is leather. And the interior, I'm going to call pool table green felt. It's awesome. It looks exactly like a pool table.

Myke Hurley: I have orange felt. And I don't really know what I would call this material, actually.

Brad Dowdy: Yours is green on the outside, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And it's like a... I don't know how to describe it. But it's not leather.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I have one now. We're brothers in Rotor Foden. What do you think? And I think I'm going to use it. And I'm going to talk about that a little more as we continue this episode. Because I have an idea. So I like the build quality. I love the size. And he said he included a Rotor Foden notebook in with it that fits it perfectly. And it's got the three clips to where it can fit the three notebooks. And it's got the small pocket. It's got like the three pockets on the front inside cover and the one large pocket on the inside back cover. I don't know what your layout is like.

Brad Dowdy: But yeah. And it's got a nice... It's got a heavy-duty elastic binding and a pin loop. So I think it's going to...

Myke Hurley: See, I have two pin loops. Okay. Because they're all custom made. Gotcha. So you say what you want. And then they put it together for you.

Brad Dowdy: But I'm really happy with the quality of it. And I'm happy with the layout of it. But... So my concern is using it appropriately. Like, am I going to use a three notebook setup? Because I can't use this with one notebook in it, right? It's too big for that. It needs to be fully populated, in my opinion. That's just me being me. So we're going to talk about how maybe I can populate that in just a minute. Because that just hit me right before we started this podcast. So we'll get to that. But before we get to that, we have a pin blog of the week.

Brad Dowdy: Miss Junie Lim from Althaven. I hope you're listening. I don't even know if she listens to the podcast. But she runs a great blog called althaven.com. I've linked to her on Inklings before.

Brad Dowdy: She's definitely active on Twitter and Instagram. She has amazing photography. Pen and product photography on here. And does some great reviews. And has some really unique products. Products that I don't normally see. Because she's in Singapore. So she has a good pipeline of products to be able to get to locally. Which I found from a lot of other readers and listeners from Singapore. They have a very good and active pin community. So Junie, your site is beautiful. Your photography is amazing. And the sailor that she has. It's called the Sailor ProColor 500. I've never seen before. It's like the top most review on her blog. It looks like a pin right up my alley. So I'm going to have to check this one out. It looks like a steel nib sailor with a clear blue plastic body. So I am all over that. So thank you, Junie, for listening, commenting.

Brad Dowdy: And she was a NotCo supporter. But that didn't have anything to do with it. She did a cool. Well, I discovered the blog. She reviewed the lookout one time. And I was blown away by the photography on the product that she did. So it's very awesome.

Myke Hurley: I like the old look of this site.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's very sharp.

Myke Hurley: Definitely. It's great. Super job. And you know where it's built, right? Is it really? It's a Squarespace website. I didn't realize that. Junie, the only way I know this is by clicking in the search box. Oh, it says Powered by Squarespace at the bottom. Okay. So good choice, Junie. You made a great choice. Awesome.

Field Notes

Brad Dowdy: All right. So I want to follow up on this Rotor Fodden Toschen Big Leiter eventually. And it's related to maybe the big news of the week for all the Pen fans and stationary fans. It's the Field Notes Summer 2014 Arts and Sciences Edition. Go.

Myke Hurley: We're going to take a quick break first.

Brad Dowdy: Let's do it.

Myke Hurley: I want to thank a new sponsor to the Pen Addict. And I know that you have worked with these guys a bunch in the past. And that is Huckberry. Let me tell you about Huckberry. They're an online shop and journal that unerks the coolest emerging brands and stories for guys. Huckberry features a variety of unique products like the world's first portable beer keg, knives made from 150 million year old dinosaur bones, just seriously, and so much more. Men's Journal named Huckberry one of their favorite online shopping sites. And they've also had positive press in both Outside Magazine and Complex Magazine. Huckberry makes it easy to find exactly what you're looking for by dividing their products into shops like Made in the USA, which is, I'm sure, a part that Brad is very fond of, is what I'm trying to say. General store essentials, everyday carry essentials, grooming essentials, and so much more. These shops are continuously refreshed with new products all the time. So even if you've shopped at Huckberry before, chances are they've probably added a whole host of new products since the last time you were there. In their everyday carry essentials store, they have extremely durable pens and all-weather notebooks, so you can always keep writing, rain or shine, which of course is very important to us pen addicts. And this is something you might want to pay attention to at the moment. They've even added a Father's Day gift store, so you can give your dad something way better than a mug this year. Or if you're a dad yourself, maybe you can make some hint-hint suggestions to your family members. Each of Huckberry's products have a distinctive look to them, combining adventure and style into a collection of high-quality apparel and gear. Many of their products also have free shipping options available. So go and take a minute to explore Huckberry's brand new site at Huckberry.com. That's H-U-C-K-B-E-R-R-Y.com. And here's something really cool. If you put in the offer code PENADDICT, all one word, when you sign up for an account with them. So you go in and you want to sign up for a new account. Put the offer code PENADDICT in. They're going to give you a $5 store credit just as a thank you for visiting. How cool is that? So you can go there, sign up, put PENADDICT in as the code. And they're going to give you $5, which you can go and spend on whenever you want. With Father's Day coming up fast, make sure that you order ahead of time and take advantage of your $5 code, your credit with Huckberry while it lasts. So go over to Huckberry.com right now. And thank you so much to Huckberry for their support of the PENADDICT podcast.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome. So let me go off the reservation and talk about Huckberry for just a second.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, please do.

Brad Dowdy: Because I've been working with them since they launched their site years ago. I'm a huge fan. I've been able to speak with the owners several times, the founders via email. And just genuinely nice guys who they love their site and it shows. You can tell when people put their heart and soul in their site and in their shop and in a situation like Huckberry. What I love about them is the products are always rotating through. So they usually last about 7 to 10 days if they pick up a product. You can get it for a little bit lower than you normally could. Like if you look at – if they have a certain watch, they'll have it for cheaper for 7 days or so than you could find it elsewhere. That's kind of their thing. So, you know, just – and they just redid their site about two weeks ago I think and it looks super. They did a great job. And then they have an awesome blog that you should subscribe to anyway. Their journal, they do all kinds of adventure type posts. They do pocket dumps, which I like. I always like seeing all that type of stuff. And so they have some great photography. And I'm just – I've always been a customer. I've always been a fan. I've never been disappointed. I love the products that they carry. I've ordered from them several times. It's always very smooth and easy. And really the products that they select to carry are top notch. And then, you know, products that do really well for them, they end up sticking around into their permanent shops. Like they have an everyday carry essential shop that carries, you know, some of our favorite Keras Customs products or Word notebooks or things like that. So they have lots of things for the pen addict listener in their shop. So definitely check them out. And while you're at it, if you are a penaddict.com reader, which I'm hoping everyone who listens to this podcast is, I've got a giveaway going right now from Huckberry for one of their architect's wallets that they carry in shop, which is a cool little wallet notebook pen holder in a very compact size. They did a really good job selecting this product. And yeah, check it out. That ends tonight, actually. So hopefully people will get this podcast soon enough and they're able to get in on that. And when they sign up for Huckberry, they can put in the code penaddict and get $5 off their first order.

Myke Hurley: Look at that. The real supporters of the penaddict. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. It's easy to talk about someone who you've used and loved. And yeah, it's kind of just a no-brainer for me. Huckberry is good people. Good people on the internet and very big fan of their store.

Myke Hurley: So let me just clarify that, Brad. I just want to make sure that everyone can get advantage of the code. So once you've signed up for an account over at Huckberry.com, click on the My Accounts page, click on Credits, and you can enter the code right there. Just penaddict, P-E-N-A-D-D-I-C-T, right there. And you'll be able to benefit from the fantastic discount that Huckberry is offering.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And you'll see $5 pop into your available account credits. So free $5. That's pretty sweet.

Myke Hurley: It is indeed. It is indeed.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So I'm chomping at the bit to get into this Field Notes thing. Because I think this was a – you know, I had my concerns about the Shelterwood edition that are well-known. And I was in the huge minority on this one, on that one. And this one, I think, might even be a more divisive edition. Myke, what do you think – what are your first initial thoughts about the Summer 2014 Arts and Sciences? Field Notes edition.

Myke Hurley: So this is my little story. So I was sitting on a runway in Chicago, which is quite funny that I was in Chicago after a connecting flight from Memphis on my way back to London, refreshing my inbox because I knew it was – the announcement was coming out. Right? Right? Right? And I was like, oh, I don't want to see this. I don't want to see this. And I didn't get it. And I didn't get the email. I had to wait for like eight hours until I arrived back in London before I could see the edition. So a very bleary-eyed Myke saw this. And the first thing that I did was log straight into the store and bought another two of them.

Myke Hurley: Because, I mean, how could it get any better than this? Like, bigger Field Notes. Like, it's awesome. And now I have another option. So I can put these straight in the Tachenberg Leiter and they can live there and I can have Field Notes everywhere forever.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly.

Myke Hurley: I am genuinely very happy about this.

Myke Hurley: I'm a little bit like, well, now I can't put them in the box, which is kind of a bit frustrating. But I will now have them in my Tachenberg Leiter instead. Because the regular Field Notes are just slightly too small. But I think they're going to fit in there perfectly.

Notebook Format

Brad Dowdy: I agree 100%.

Myke Hurley: And I love the paper. The paper is so cool.

Brad Dowdy: This is a great edition. I'm personally ecstatic about this edition. I love the larger format. We talked about when Chad Doan released his large utility notebooks. Yeah. His are 5x7. These are, what are they? These are 7.5x4.75. So right in that ballpark. Yep. That's my single favorite format. So when they did this, I was like, yes.

Myke Hurley: I was really surprised. Like, I think of everything that I would have expected. This was the one I never thought that they would have done was change the size of the book.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And that's what people are upset about. I say upset. It's relative, right? They're not really upset. But it's like, all right, I've invested in this leather cover holder. Okay. Field Notes. You're selling me Field Notes to be my pocket carry notebook. This is no longer a pocket carry notebook. I've invested in a leather holder for that. I've invested in a leather pouch to hold these in. I've invested in a archival box to store these in. And now you just blew all that up with this size format change. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, that is the strange thing about it. But I think the excitement that I have and the benefit that I've got that I think I'm going to get out of these far outweighs. Because I'll use these for different things.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly.

Myke Hurley: So these will now be the notepads that go in my Tashenberg Leiter.

Myke Hurley: And we'll be able to continue to use them in that environment, too. And I really like the colors. I like that there's the arts and the sciences, right? So one of them has ruled paper.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's called an engineer's graph. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. You said ruled. You said ruled. Yeah. Sorry. I'll let you go ahead.

Myke Hurley: One has ruled paper on one side and plane on the other. And then the other is an engineer's graph on one side and plane on the other. So the engineer's graph, which is in the sciences, right? It's like you would have seen this probably. I had this in my maths and science textbooks. So it's like tiny squares and then bigger squares and then bigger squares. And they're lined slightly differently. So they're like, go to the page. It would be in the show notes.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But it's basically when you have the notebook open, the right side will be either you're lined or you're gridded, depending on which notebook you're in. And your left side will be your blank. And I love that. I like that format a lot. I like any unique paper layouts, non-standard paper layouts. And I think this is a good one. I love what they did here with the paper.

Brad Dowdy: I love the format. I bought – my subscription ran out with Shelterwood. And every time I'd go back to re-up, it was still active on the Shelterwood. So I couldn't resubscribe because I would get more Shelterwood, which Lord knows I don't want that. And so I just held off and then forgot about it. And then I got the email on these and I bought four two-packs, which is the maximum you can order. I think these are great. I love them. I'm very happy with the size. I love the size. This is my format right here. Of course, I would love a fully gridded out one or a fully dotted one, but that's just picking knits. I love what they did with that. Their videos were cool again. They did like one, two, three, seven videos teasing these out that were really good. I don't know. I like these a lot. I have no concerns about the non-pocketability of them because you know what? Everyone who is a Field Notes pocket carry has 20 of these laying around that they're going to carry in their pocket anyway.

Myke Hurley: I'm happy that I now have my favorite type of notebook in another format to use in a different way. Yep. Like, I'm really happy about that because I'm on the last pad from my Tachenberg Leiter because I've got three of them, and I wondered what I was going to replace it with. Well, now I'm going to replace it with these. So they will last me a long time because I don't write very much in them, but I write sort of longer things in there. I'll maybe draw some tables for stuff that I need or longer notes that maybe I want to take. Yeah, this is... But now I'm going to have a bunch of them. They only come in two packs, which kind of makes sense, right? Yeah, so it's... Three packs would be quite a lot.

Brad Dowdy: So instead of three 48-page notebooks, it's two 64-page notebooks in a larger format, which totally makes sense. So I'm... And I think it's with the standard paper, right? I believe it is. I don't have mine yet, obviously, or I would be talking about that. I had to order mine.

Myke Hurley: It's an opaque 50 pound, which I think is standard. Yeah, and they have some cool little debossed logos, one arts, one sciences, and subscribers, color subscribers get badges, which I can't wait to get.

Brad Dowdy: Those badges are really cool.

Brad Dowdy: Both they match the color of the notebooks. It was what they call them, like a wine, reddish, and then the black, and then each of them have the little logos on the back for the arts and the logo on the back for the sciences, and those come in the button format. So I didn't get those because I don't know if I'll redo the subscription. If I see something really compelling, you know, added bonus, like the buttons, I don't think it will totally tempt me about that. So I like the six-pack holder from the Loggers edition. That's been the last thing that I thought was really cool. I don't need any more craft paper field notes. So I might just – and since the quantities are so high now, like before, they could sell out in a week, right, of colors editions. Like if you didn't have a subscription, there was a chance you didn't get to order. But now you get a chance to order. So I just – you know, the email came. I ordered my four two-packs, and, you know, we're good. So I don't know that I need to subscribe. But I might. If there's a cool little add-on, I might do it. Like I really like stickers more than pins. So if there was a sticker, I'd be tempted to do it.

Myke Hurley: I would say, though, they did a smaller run this time, 50,000.

Brad Dowdy: Yep, so 50,000 total. So we'll see. I'm interested to get some more direct feedback on this from podcast listeners. I want to know what you guys think about the edition. You know, I'm just reading everyone on the Field Notes page, and it's pretty split. I mean, I think most people like it. And obviously the people who are disappointed in the size, they still like it. But they're just like, you know, oh, you know, I can't carry this now. And that's what Field Notes are for. And, you know, well, this is for something different. This is an in addition to notebook compared to in relation to your pocket notebook. So and that's what I do anyway. I carry both. I carry the small Field Notes book, and then I carry my Dome Paper Utility large notebook. Carry them both. So not in my pocket, obviously, but in my backpack. So, yeah, big fan of this one. I like it. I think it's going to do well. And it might sell out before the shelter would.

Myke Hurley: Oh, burn. Well, because there was more of those. I know. I'm just kidding. But no. Yeah, this is an interesting one. I mean, I didn't get to see a lot of the people freaking out because I didn't catch like the immediate reaction. So hopefully, well, you'll definitely have yours by next week. Hopefully I'll have mine too.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So I hope so. Yeah, because you're still in the subscription. Loop, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Next time I subscribe, I might send them a note and be like, please don't send me any craft. I know, right? Like I'm never going to use them. I'm never going to use the ones I've got. So. Yeah. Save everybody's money.

Brad Dowdy: That's kind of why I didn't do it. I mean, it's just I don't need those. So, yeah, I'll just go ad hoc. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Field Notes, guys, if you're listening, make that an option because people like me who subscribe every year will continue to subscribe every year that I can because I just love your products so much. Allow me to say just keep the craft.

Myke Hurley: Because I have like 20 of them now and I've still got stacks of the color additions to go through. I'm never going to get to them. Mm-hmm. Exactly. There you go. Maybe give me a calendar. Oh, they do that anyway, don't they? Sometimes.

Pen Grips

Brad Dowdy: Send me a note. Well, they have the black standard ones, the black dark red ones.

Myke Hurley: I don't need any that are not colors additions. Gotcha. In all honesty, because I have so many. Fine, Michael. Because I end up buying like another two packs of them every time anyway because I love them all so much.

Brad Dowdy: Hey, I'm with you. That's why I didn't subscribe because I don't want those.

Myke Hurley: But I like to know that they're just coming, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Yes, I agree with that. Like I would have had mine already.

Myke Hurley: And plus as well, I'm sure it's really important to their business to have subscribers because they've got banked. They have banked income. Hugely, yeah. Well, they can plan. Yeah, so I like to be able to give them that because genuinely one of my favorite companies, like not just one of my favorite paper products. I really, really love Field Notes and everything that they stand for even though I'm not American. Yeah. I love their – I just love their marketing style and just all the cool stuff that they do. Before I let you go this week, Brad, I have a very, very quick rant that I need to make about Twisby. Awesome. Awesome.

Myke Hurley: I think that their quality of their products sometimes leaves a little bit to be desired. Okay. So if you'll remember, I had – I've had – I've now had a second breakage of a Twisby product. Oh, really? So I had the – if you remember previously on my rock, I had the cap snap, the acrylic snapped. Yes. And the cap came off. Well, if you remember my quest for the perfect fountain pen for my girlfriend, Adina, a while ago we got her a mini. Now, I can't remember how it broke. I think I broke it. Basically, you know the end where – so, you know, like in most fountain pens, you unscrew the grip, right, to fill it. That's not what you do with Twisby. But I think for some reason, I think I twisted it a little bit and it snapped off. It just came clean off.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, wow. Wow. Like the piston filling mechanism on the back end, right, it twists up and down. Whoops. I actually have one in my hand. I started twisting it with ink in it. Whoops. Okay. So it has a piston filling mechanism that twists up and down and you broke that off.

Myke Hurley: No, no, no. The grip.

Brad Dowdy: Huh?

Myke Hurley: So the grip, the end of the pen where you hold the pen.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. You actually broke that part unscrewing that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I wasn't unscrewing it. I think I was – I just like – I think there was some ink on the end or something. I twisted it a little bit and it just snapped straight off. Just snapped clean off. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So like the section, the grip section where you would actually hold it is not an integrated piece, right? It's always been a loose piece, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, exactly.

Brad Dowdy: So it's a loose piece. So it rolls around. So I guess it takes on – it can take on additional pressure.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Which is not necessarily a good thing as you're saying.

Myke Hurley: No, because it doesn't really roll. Like I don't know how it's affixed, but it just snapped off. And I tried to glue it back together, but all that left was a leaky mess. So that TWSBI is now out of action.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's not good.

Myke Hurley: So, I mean, Idina's back to using the Pilot Metropolitan, which she loves. Mm-hmm. But that's the second time I've had one of their pens break. And it's frustrating because they're so good. I mean, and I know they're not massively expensive. Mm-hmm. It's expensive enough. Oh, yeah. And it feels like that from the comments that I've had before is I'm not alone in this because when I said that it broke previously, everyone had already had an option for how to get things replaced. Right. And I don't think I can really – I can't have this part replaced. The entire pen would need to be replaced. Right. And I have tried to fix it myself, which maybe I shouldn't have done. But I just thought that Superglue would fix it, but that for some reason did not. And it just left it leaking, basically. And it's just a shame. It's a shame. It is. Especially when you're trying to bring someone into the fold.

Brad Dowdy: Right. I mean, you know how much I talk about them and love them. And I certainly don't want to sell people on poor quality products. And we will definitely call people out who continue to manufacture inferior products. So I'd be interesting. I haven't had a problem, but I know a lot of people have.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And I've gotten some emails saying I will never buy another Twisby again. Because I've gone through two pens or three pens now. And none of them are functional anymore because they keep breaking in certain areas. So, yeah. I mean, I can't disagree with that, obviously. I mean, it's definitely the truth. It happens. I haven't experienced it directly, but I know exactly what you're talking about. So I guess maybe it's to a point now where it's something you have to consider instead of going in blindly.

Myke Hurley: It's maybe just a quality control thing. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Which is completely fair.

Myke Hurley: It happens. Yeah. But I think it's something I'm going to bear in mind now that maybe they're a little bit more fragile than they should be. Gotcha. Because the ways in which they've both broken, it shouldn't break. Like the first time I was screwing the cap on, it was just a light amount of pressure. I think there was some ink. I think it leaked a little bit anyway. Maybe. I can't remember why I would have done it. Maybe I was just fiddling. I fiddle quite a lot. Sure. You know, quite frequently you hear this on the shows and that's me dropping things. Yeah. I'm always fiddling. And so I may have been just fiddling with the pen and it just snapped. And it was a clean break, which suggests some sort of failure to me.

Brad Dowdy: Yes.

Myke Hurley: There was no crack in it. It was just clean came straight off. Wow. It's a shame. Because I love the pens and she loved the pen as well.

TWSBI Pens

Brad Dowdy: Oh, you know what? I take that back. I did have a problem with my Twisby vac. Oh, yeah? I sure did. I had a bad feed. Yep. I had to send it back.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah. It's a shame. That's a shame. But I'm going to bear it in mind now. I'm sorry.

Brad Dowdy: Not the vac. The micarta. The micarta. Excuse me.

Myke Hurley: Oh, I remember that now. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Myke Hurley: So, I think it's just something I want to put that caveat now in with them.

Brad Dowdy: I think that's fair. I think it's earned and I'm with you.

Myke Hurley: But, you know, in the instance where I contacted them, they were very, very responsive at getting a replacement piece. But you couldn't replace this piece. It would be an entire replacement of a pen. And I'm not as comfortable in asking for that.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. And they did replace the feed in my micarta too, like very quickly.

Myke Hurley: The replaceable parts, I'm happy to contact them. But to say, well, I need a whole new pen now. I don't know. It's me, myself. I'm happy. I know maybe it's not the right thing. But I'm happy to just complain about it than write them an email and be like, please can you send me a new pen?

Brad Dowdy: Well, if it was your first time, maybe you would.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking about it. Maybe it's worse to complain about it on the show than to email them. Maybe that makes me a worse person. You're terrible, Myke. Maybe. Maybe that doesn't make me a bad guy.

Brad Dowdy: But well, it's funny. This whole time I've been doodling with my new 580 RB, you know, the rock redo. So we'll maybe talk about that next week. Okay. And I'll carry it more. But as you're talking about this, that's the pen that's in my hand. And I almost shot ink all over myself on accident while we were talking because I'm a fidgeter too.

Myke Hurley: It's a shame. It's a shame. I mean, I love their products.

Brad Dowdy: So we'll have more next week. I'll talk about my new Twisby and talk about more. More new pens. Got lots of new pens.

Myke Hurley: Last very – sorry, super quick thing. Somebody on Twitter, I can't remember who now because it just popped into my head, asked me for an update on my Faber-Castell. Not my Faber-Castell. I always do that. My Franklin Kristoff that you bought me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Still my pen of choice.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome. It was Mr. Modern Stationer. I can't remember his name. I think it's Dale. I think his name is Dale. I can't remember. But yes, I saw that question. It's a great one.

Myke Hurley: Then I would still say to get one. It makes all of my other pens feel slightly inferior because of the size.

Myke Hurley: Size matters, Brad. I hear you. And with that, we'll be back next week. If you want to find the show notes for this week's episode, 5x5.tv slash penadict slash 110. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Brad is at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. And he also writes over at penaddict.com and sells fantastic products very soon at notco.com. If you want to get in contact with us, you can go to the 5x5.tv slash penaddict page. And you can also press the contact button to send us an email. We'll be back next week for another episode of the show. Thanks so much to Squarespace and Huckberry for their support of this week's episode. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.