The Pen Addict 531/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	531
Title:	Royal Pen Content
Release Date:	September 21st, 2022
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 531
Audio File:	Audio Episode 531
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 531
Length:	4949 min <br />0.817 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 531. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and SaneBox. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.

Brad: Hi Myke, how are you? I'm back baby, jet lagged.

Myke: You're back baby. Yesterday morning, it was a real long day, I'm still recovering. So I left, like I woke up in Memphis at like, I don't know, let's say like 7 or 8am Memphis time. And then I went to sleep the next day at 11pm London time. Oof. With like one hour of sleep in the middle of that. So I fell asleep for an hour on the plane. Yeah. I'm not sure how long I was awake for, but I think that's a really long time. So, you know.

Brad: That's the type of math that breaks your brain, but you feel it deep in your bones. Yeah, all I know is like. I am not right.

Myke: I was awake in a regular morning time and asleep regular daytime the next day in another country. Yes. So that doesn't feel like that was good. But it was one of those things where I wanted to sleep on the plane on the way home, but couldn't. And it was one of those ones where it's like the plane took off at like 4 o'clock in the afternoon or whatever it was. It's like it's too early to go to sleep, right?

Brad: Right.

Travel and Sleep Adjustments

Myke: And it arrived at like 7 a.m. And so I didn't really have a choice. And also, I know if I went to sleep in the daytime, like I didn't know I took a nap for a few hours and it sorted her out big time. But I know for me, that's not good for me. I'm not going to feel good in that situation. So I just powered all the way through and I made it work. Kate thinks I was awake for basically 34 hours with a one hour gap. And that sounds about right.

Brad: Yeah. With the travel gap. Yeah, probably so. I'm definitely on the Adina plan where I could take that nap and be okay. Where Mary Beth, my wife, would be on your plan. She would just have to power through because it would wreck her more to take like a two or three hour nap.

Myke: I get so confused. I don't know where I am. I don't know what day it is. I hate napping. I really hate napping.

Brad: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you sound good. Like you sound like you're up and at them. I think maybe you're still maybe on the high from the whole event. Can you give us a quick recap, all of us pen addicts who caught the ongoings last week?

Myke: So I was in Memphis for the podcast-a-thon for St. Jude because we are raising money for St. Jude all the way through September this year and like we do every year. But we're putting the focus on the entire month of September this year because September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. So for the fourth consecutive year, the RelayFM community is coming together to support the life-saving mission of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, finding cures and saving children. Because cancer kills more children under the age of 14 than any other disease. And that is a horrifying thing to think about. But because of generous supporters like you, St. Jude creates more clinical trials for pediatric cancer than any other children's hospital in the US. And because it's a research hospital, it takes what it learns and shares it with everybody else. Like for example, in 2021, so very recently, one of the trials that St. Jude undertook reported a more than 20 point improvement in survival rates for high-risk neuroblastoma, which is the second most common solid tumor in children. And they did it using an antibody produced at the St. Jude campus. What I love about being in Memphis, being at St. Jude, is getting to experience the warmth, the care, the enthusiasm from these people. You know, we are very lucky to be able to spend a lot of time with people at St. Jude who have either, you know, they raise money professionally or they're on the fundraising kind of teams. We meet doctors, we meet patients, we meet many survivors. We had a wonderful segment during the show from two cancer survivors who came together and they met when they were kids. They both work for St. Jude and they got married. And it's just like, just Joel and Lindsay, wonderful people. Basically, I want you to go and check out the podcast. Not only if you haven't, it's on our YouTube channel now. So you can go there and you can like skip around. Some very helpful people have put some timestamps in. So if you want to jump around to different segments, because really it's become like a like a variety show now. I kind of, there's a way I think about it. Right. And it's getting, you know, it was really great this year because we were back in person again. It was wonderful fun for eight hours and we raised more money during this podcast-a-thon than we have during any other. So that was just an incredible thing that we're so thankful for. Everybody tuned in and donated. But it's not just about the podcast-a-thon. We're raising money, as I said, for the whole month because we're doing the work here to try and fight and end, destroy, remove childhood cancer from becoming a thing. So if you go to stjude.org slash relay, you can donate. You can sign up to become a fundraiser yourself too. So you can spread it out across your local community, your friend group, your office place. If you donate, we have gifts available. You can find out more about those when you go to the page. If you sign up to fundraise, we have incentives of exclusive relay for merchandise, which is available there too. So go to stjude.org slash relay and you can find out more. And Brad, do you want to tell our listeners why they especially want to donate or maybe donate again if they haven't already?

Brad: No, I'm busy watching you eat some gummy somethings on here.

Brad: It's really great. So one of the things that I have done for the past few years is get with a bunch of friends in the community who donate different items to a raffle that I run at the Pen Addict. It's the Pen Addict Raffle for St. Jude. We run it for most of the month of September. We'll talk about the dates here in just a second because it's ending soon. But Myke, the support and commitment to all of our friends that we work with a lot, that we get to see at Pen shows, that we talk to online, that are often sponsors of our show, have really come out in full force. So we've talked about all of the products that we launched with and what tends to happen. And as I've shown over the years, it tends to gain real momentum as the weeks go on, because which is the reason why we run this for several weeks for a lot of people to get in on the action and see all the cool stuff. So coming back from Orlando, I brought home with me a River City Pens Bonaire eyedropper. I think you would actually like this pen, Myke, even though it's small. It's a really cool material in there. And this is in addition to everything we've talked about the two weeks ago when Myke was on. We have a Retro 51 30th Anniversary Tornado Rollerball. Did you ever get this pen? This looks like a Myke pen.

Myke: No, it was always one of those ones where I was like, oh, I should get that and just didn't. You know what I mean?

Brad: Right, right. We have a beautiful kit of stationery from Amarillo Stationery. This little ink sample box holder is just amazing. I opened it up on stream yesterday to get a good look at that because I was really impressed with it. Out of left field, Myke, came the Bungu Box 10th Anniversary Pilot 823 Fujiyama Blue. So I want to thank Bruce and Kairu for donating that.

Myke: That's a pen we haven't gotten to speak about yet.

Brad: Yeah, that's a whole segment. Let's save that till next week because it might have shipped by then.

Myke: Yeah.

Brad: So we'll talk about that. And spoiler alert, if I'm saying it might have shipped, I did get one. But it was a whole process. And I think that's worth spending some time. So noted for next week, we'll do a full Fujiyama Blue segment. But thank you to Bungu Box for donating this to Raffle to help raise money. And then we have our friend Dave at Blank Slate Paper Co. Where you can go build your own notepads, your perfect notepads. We have some gift cards for three packs of their pads. We have not one, Myke, but two beautiful Canalea pens, the Labelani and the Manta. Both of those are pictured here in the post. Again, this is just knockout fantastic stuff from our friends over at Canalea. And we have the Plotter. Plotter, you know, I'm a big, big Plotter fan. You know, these days I've been using my Plotter the most. And I've been talking with Plotter a bunch. And they offered up one of their brand new fifth anniversary sets. So they made some special edition, you know, a special edition setup for the Plotter in the Bible size. With this new green cover that is the fifth anniversary edition of the cover. And it's got a lot of additional accessories and colors and accoutrements. And it's just, this is not it. Like, I have at least two more things to add today. And you have, listeners of this show, you have until September 26th at midnight Eastern time. That's Monday.

Myke: What date were you going to say?

Brad: Yeah, I don't, I'm really not sure.

Myke: September 726.

Reading Challenges

Brad: I was reading the entirety. I was reading the whole range and then got thrown off. There were too many numbers. Oh, you're going to get your, you're going to get, you're going to have your moment here in a minute. So, so don't worry. Don't worry.

Brad: Yeah. So midnight Monday, the 26th Eastern time is the last time you have to get in your donations for the, this particular part of our fundraising for St. Jude. And I just can't thank everyone enough. We'll have a link in the show notes for you to go check out all of the wonderful raffle prizes prizes that have been donated to help us raise money for the kids. And it's just beautiful to see the community come together every year for this and the active participation that we get from everyone in sharing and donating and all, all of the stuff. So it's been fantastic to see. And we'll have a final recap for everyone on next Wednesday's show.

Myke: I want to just remind people, so what you have to do is you can make a donation. You can donate to St. Jude.org slash relay. You can donate to any of the sub campaigns that are a part of the overall relay FM effort this year, which you may have come across as you may not. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it. Go to St. Jude.org slash relay. For every $10 that you donate, you will receive one entry into the raffle, provided that you forward a copy of your donation receipt to stjudeatpenaddict.com with 2022 raffle in the subject line. These are all on the page, which will be in the show notes. You must do this before noon Eastern on September 26th to be entered. For every $10 that you donate, it's one entry. So if you donate at $100, you get 10 entries. Et cetera. I would also like to point our listeners to another relay FM podcast related raffle that's going on right now that they may be of interest in, which is for a gold Mark one. These are wild. This is unbelievable.

Brad: Myke sent me these pictures and I was like, whoa.

Myke: This is a steel like the Apollo. It's the second steel model that they've done. It is gold PVD coated. Bead blast finish on the body. Polished knock. If you make a donation of at least $20, that gets you one raffle ticket for this. And you have to put thoroughly considered in the comments field of the donation and then forward a copy to helloatstudioneet.com before October 1st. There will be five winners selected at random. Plus the top donor of the campaign will also get one. So if you want to make sure you get one, I think at the moment you have to donate $31,000. But you know, maybe you want the pen that much. I have joked with them if like potentially one of these people will take over the studio and factory, right? It's like the golden ticket kind of deal they got going on over there. So I put a link to that in the show notes too. If you also want to enter for that, I recommend people enter for both of them because you know what this does? You may win something, but it also goes to St. Jude Church Research Hospital. Exactly.

Brad: And that's why we're doing it. So we appreciate all of y'all's participation. Yeah.

Myke: And I know you've done this and you've said this and I'm sure you've had the communication to people, but I also want to extend a public thank you to everybody who submits something into the Panadic raffle prize pot. I really appreciate people that do that. I know that there's real money in these products. Right. So I want to thank all of the vendors. And all of the companies that submit something for that.

Brad: Yeah. It's a real big deal. And, you know, we really, really appreciate their participation. It's just, it's fantastic. Fantastic to see.

Myke: All right. Should we take a break and then talk about the king?

Myke: I cannot wait. This episode of the Panadic is brought to you by Pen Chalet. Pen Chalet sell authentic, amazing products from your favorite brands. Whether you're looking for a Lamy Fountain Pen, whether you're looking for a sailor fountain pen, maybe you're looking for a new Kaweco, maybe you want a Pelican. It doesn't matter what you want. Go to Pen Chalet, see if they got it. They run special discounts. They're adding new pens. Every month you're going to find new stuff over on Pen Chalet. They're fast and reliable customer service. And as well as pens, they also sell the accessories that you're going to need. Whether you want a carrying case or a pen holder or a refill or a fountain pen converter or ink or whatever you're looking for, Pen Chalet have got it. They do free shipping on orders of over $75 in the US and they sell internationally with great shipping rates too. Pen Chalet have low prices on high quality products and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. One of my favorite things about Pen Chalet is how much they love pen addict listeners. So much, in fact, that they do two things. They'll give you 10% off anything at Pen Chalet and also they bring together, they curate a selection of discounts just for you. All you need to do is go to penchalet.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password pen addict to be able to see information about all of this. Like what is there right now, Brad?

Brad: Before we get to the sale page, I do want to mention a pen that we have talked about about a month ago, the Kaweco Original is now available at Pen Chalet and you can use our coupon code to get 10% off. This is the full length size sport pen that I am very interested in getting and it was one of those things that's like, hey, here's this new pen that's coming. Then Kaweco was like, yeah, you're all about a month ahead of schedule. So now they all had to pull it down. But it was like, again, it was like a, not a nefarious thing. It's just like about a month off in the timeline. So now it is back available. It comes in a few different options. So I'm going to have to look around and explore that. So you should go, you should go check that out. As well as all of the wonderful discounts they have with the Monteverdi One Touch Stylus, the new Conklin, the classic Conklin All-American Olivewood fountain pens. Again, the secrets are much, much lower down the page, like the Pelican M205 demonstrator. One of my favorite pens, the Y Studio resin fountain pen. That's, I don't, I can't say the price. I guess I could say the price. I'm not going to say the price, but you should go see it if you ever considered that. That is a personal favorite of mine. That is just at a ridiculous price point right now. And just a whole litany of other amazing pens on this page. So go check it out at PenChallet. Make sure you use the code that you find when you enter PenAddict into the podcast field on the sale page.

Myke: So if you want to go and find this for yourself, that's PenChallet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and use the password of PenAddict to find out more.

Brad: Michael.

Myke: Bradley.

Brad: I feel like you're a little bit off the hook given that we've had a week to decompress from all of the Royal Pen content that we got. But first off, let's say, you know, the Queen passed. Like, that's no joking matter, right? But, you know.

Myke: Yeah, this is, I haven't actually spoken about it on any show. Mm-hmm.

Myke: Affected me greatly. I'm very sad. And it felt very weird for me to immediately be leaving the UK and to not be here during this time has actually been quite emotionally affecting for me. Mm-hmm. People have varying beliefs and feelings about the Royal Family, but I am a supporter and lover of the Royal Family. I think it's one of the things that makes our country great. You can disagree with me and that's fine. It's up to you. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, I was, it really hurt when the Queen passed away. It was a big shock at that moment. Like, we knew it was coming. Like, we've known it's been coming for a long time. It feels like it's been kind of speeding up at an ever-increasing pace. But to go from literally one day, there is pictures of her swearing in on your Prime Minister, to passing away the next day. Yep. It was a big shock. And, yeah, I really kind of, like, had this weird feeling of not doing my duty as a British person by not being here. So, like, I didn't even get to see the funeral live. Like, we had to watch some of it afterwards. It was weird. It was definitely weird. Yeah. But we have a king now, which is also very strange. Like, you know, people say, like, yeah, the money changes, right? Because we've got the money will change. The stamps will change. Brad, our national anthem has changed. Yeah.

Brad: Ah, yeah. Like, this is all you've known for your entire life. And you're young. Yeah. I mean, compared to her reign. Yeah, seven years. You're very young.

Queen Elizabeth's Passing

Myke: It's like most people alive in this country have only been known with Queen Elizabeth.

Brad: Right. Right. So, all of the ramifications just from her passing, just in the standard day-to-day stuff, is quite overwhelming to think about, right? Like, and I can't even imagine being over there. And, like, I talked to you. The day you were packing to leave was the day she passed. I was like, oh, man. It's like, what's Myke up to? But, you know, as sad as it was, as the internet tends to work, the content starts happening. And, fortunately for me, maybe unfortunately for you, the pen content of your new king has been astonishing. It's next level. It's like the moment I've lived for my entire life because it wasn't once. Like, it wasn't one bit of pen content that we got. Hey, you know, we're signing over, like, the, not the transition papers, what do we call it? The proclamations and things like that. Oh, here's, you know, it's not, it wasn't what pen is King Charles using.

Myke: Well, no, that was how it started.

Brad: Well, it started with someone else. I guess, I don't know what the member of the group was called that had the initial image was, hey, someone is signing official documentation with a pilot disposable fountain pen, the V-pen, which is like, you know, 12 for, you know, a dozen for $20 or 20 pounds. They're signing, like, one of the most official documents in the country with this disposable, not even just like a disposable rollerball, like a disposable fountain pen. It was like, what is even happening here?

Myke: Well, you know, for me, I get that, right? Like, people were, I mean, I'm, look, here's the thing. I think this is the same for him, that, like, you are going with, in that moment,

Myke: whatever you find to be the most comfortable for you, right? Like, he's using, it's some kind of nice fountain pen, right? Is it? Is it though? No, no, no, no, you can see he's using, he's using something else. He's not using a pilot varsity. Oh, no, not the king, but the initial image that came out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so what I'm saying is, the king is using that one, right? That's what I'm assuming he feels comfortable with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're one of the other people, if you're not comfortable with that, don't use that, right? Like, this is an incredibly important document, which is why also there's this other thing, like this video footage of him, like, trying to get people to remove things from the desk. Yeah. Right, and this is like a whole other meme, because it's like, look, I have an incredibly important, why is all this crap on the desk? Look at what I'm doing here. Like, I get it in that moment, right? Where, like, I have the most important thing I've ever done in my entire life, and there's just crap all over the desk, right?

Brad: Yeah, and you know, so he's moving the ink wells, which he is actually using, but the tray he's trying to get off, like, that's my favorite part, when he's making the face and

Myke: like, get this thing off my desk. It's a tray full of pilot varsities.

Brad: It's the tray of varsities.

Myke: And it makes, like, I don't understand why that was there.

Brad: I got, I, it must have been from the previous, you know, like, the previous pages where, you know, the first person had, like, the main picture that got out with the lefty using the pilot, the V-pin. And it's just like six or eight more V-pins in this little tray. And on his desk, while he's got his nice pen, right, we found out later that we, it's allegedly a Mont Blanc 146 Solitaire, which is a beautiful, beautiful pen. And I have comments on that later. But the get this junk off my desk face is just, it, it was everything for me.

Brad: But that, I think that might have come after the, no, I think that was maybe before whatever this last.

Myke: Yeah, that happened before. But I think this ended up becoming viral after the, I don't even know where, like, why this was filmed. But, like, there was a video of him. It's like a subterfuge thing. And it's like, he's, no, I don't think it was. Because I don't think anyone would be able to put that in the room. It was something being filmed. And he's signing a document. And he then just has this thing that he's really mad about. It's like a visitor's book or whatever. Yes. And looking at his article. And he's just saying, oh, I hate this pen. It's going everywhere. And he says, I can't bear this bloody thing. Every stinking time he gets up. And I just loved it. Because we've all been in these moments, right? Yeah. The pen isn't working the way that we want it to. And it's like, why did it keep making me use this freaking pen? I hate this pen.

Brad: It's very good. My favorite parts were all the handkerchiefs coming out. So not only his for the ink on his hands. Well, here comes one of the aides. As he passes it over to Camilla. And it's just filthy. You can see the black ink everywhere. And the aide comes over with his handkerchiefs coming out. And Camilla is like, oh, my goodness. So hang on. We've got to rewind. Kate's saying that the lefty that was using the pilot was Prince William. Really? That's the first time I'm hearing that. I didn't know who was signing that document. I knew he was left-handed, but I wasn't sure whose picture. Because that picture that we got was only a hand. Wow. That's unbelievable.

Myke: Because at first, people thought that was King Charles using the V-pen. Right. Right. Wow. Yeah. So that may potentially answer that, or there's another lefty.

Brad: Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. So yeah, that's wild. But this whole thing, it turned into just a madhouse on Twitter as it does. And especially filling my feeds. I was taken aback the entire day of looking at all of this pen content on there. And there's even more stuff that you put in, like some of the fan stuff, right? Yeah. They were handing him pens.

Myke: There's a good TikTok that I saw on Twitter where he's meeting people in the lines, etc. And someone gives him a pen and says, just in case, and he starts laughing. And I just think it's like a real great moment, you know?

Brad: Yeah.

Myke: Just in case. So like he takes it and he just starts laughing, which I also like because it shows that he is aware of the fact that this has become like a... Yes. Right? Because if he didn't know, that's not funny to him, right?

Brad: Right. You know? Yeah, because it's over and over and over again. That's the thing that we don't normally get in this type of situation. Normally, it's like, okay, what's that pen? Or here's a little quick pen foible and we're done and we move on. It just kept on coming because like Kate mentioned in the chat, there's a lot of things to sign. And it's all on TV. Like everything is recorded.

Myke: This is what I love about my king now. It's just a funny thing. Because it's like that, you know the meme, right? Nothing but respect for my king. Yes. Like I was kind of playing on that a little bit. He clearly is discerning about his pens, right?

Brad: So let's talk about this. Let's talk about this. So my question, and I think it's probably unanswerable question, is what, why don't we have an English maker represented on this most important day from a pen perspective, right? Why are we not getting some classic English? Why are we using, I mean, Mont Blanc is world known. It's also a German made pen. No problem with that. But we're now becoming the king of this country. And this country has a long history of writing instruments and has current manufacturers in the country. Why it was not, it didn't seem to be like a consideration, right? The pen is obviously not a consideration because, you know, the tray of the Pilot V-Pens and the son's gift of the Mont Blanc.

Myke: I'm still thinking there's a reason for that V-Pen, by the way. Because it's such a specific thing. I don't think I just went to the local WH Smiths and picked up whatever was on the shelf. That's what a lot of people were saying. No, I reckon there's something about that, right? Because if you were going to just choose a pen, you'd choose a gel pen, right? Like, I think I expect that there is a reason. It's like something about the ink or whatever. And they're like, this is what we need for this, right?

Brad: That's my biggest remaining question is the ink used. I don't know that I'll ever get an answer on that.

Myke: But I reckon there is a reason for that. Or it's like they decided it was like a decision was made. We're going to use a fountain pen for this. And if that's the case, like, what is the easiest one to get for most people? Like, what, you know, like, I reckon that there is a reason there. So, like, let's put that one to the side. Like, the fact that they had them all there and nobody else used their own pens, like, that is like a consistency thing that they did.

Brad: I guess, but it could still be a British pen. Like, why don't they go get a bunch of Euchres? Like, that wouldn't have made any... A bunch of what? The Euchres.

Myke: I have no idea what you're talking about.

Brad: Yeah, that's your favorite pen that you used when you grew up. Y-O-O-K-E-R-S. Euchres. You know, the little pencils you have?

Myke: Y... Well, say that again. Y-O-O-K-E-R-S.

Brad: Yeah. Yeah. That was your, like, one of the student pens, right? Oh, no, that's the... No, I'm... Yikes. Yikes. I got them confused. Yikes. Okay. Yes, yikes. Yikes and Euchres. Sorry. I don't even know if that was a British pen.

Myke: And anyway, it doesn't exist anymore. Here's the reason, Brad. And, like, genuinely, I just don't think that there is a brand where it is, like, it's prevalent enough that it even makes sense anymore. Like, I can't even think of one.

Brand Preferences

Brad: Yeah. The Queen used Parker, which was a French brand. Yeah.

Myke: Because Parker used to have this English connotation to it, right? Mm-hmm. But it doesn't anymore. Like, this is the thing. Right. So, the way I see it is, like, they went with the pilot varsity, because whatever, and that Mont Blanc, I expect someone gave him that, and he loves it. Like, I could imagine Camilla bought him that.

Brad: Well, the story I got was, it was Harry and William. There you go. See, that's what I imagined. I don't have a link to that, but my...

Myke: In that moment, he wanted to use something that was, like, personal. I agree. So, that's why he picked that, and they didn't just put whatever they wanted in his hand. Because, also, if he said he didn't want to use the pilot varsity, what are you going to do? He's the king now, right? Right. You can't just be like, sir, please use the pen. Say, no, I'm going to use this one. I'll make the rules. I'm king now.

Brad: Look at me.

Myke: Look at me. I'm king now, you know?

Brad: Yeah. So, it was a bad week, you know, that the queen passed, albeit expected. But, you know, I'm not going to lie. This was just a pure joy as a pen fan to see everyone, like, all these news outlets talking about all the king's pens. And it was just nonstop, and it was glorious there for a minute. So, we'll see. Well, that's probably the bulk of the pen content we'll get going forward out of the monarchy just because of all the cameras around and all of the transition documents that had to be signed and all of that.

Myke: Yeah, we're at the height of the king needs a pen season. Right. Or at least that, like, that you're going to see. You know what I mean? Right. Right.

Brad: So, we'll see if the Mont Blanc is going to be his pen for the future signing documents. And, like you say, you know, being an important pen to him, it probably will be. So, that's just super interesting, super interesting how this all played out. I still have so many questions.

Myke: And also hearing last week's show with CY, which was fantastic, by the way. Yes. Thank you to CY.

Brad: Shout out, CY.

Brad: I want a Mont Blanc. Well, Myke, let me tell you.

Brad: Tell me what? About this Mont Blanc that you're going to own. But I thought we were maybe doing a sponsor first.

Myke: Oh, yeah. Okay. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. This is not going to be the Mont Blanc for me, but I'm surprised about it anyway.

Brad: I also, just related, I kind of do. I've had a Mont Blanc. I still have a Mont Blanc. But I want a different Mont Blanc. I want a traditional, better style and fitted for me. But Myke, I got a link about a month ago, maybe more. And I thought I might have shared it with you, but I might not have.

Myke: I had only seen this for the first time this morning. Okay.

Brad: I didn't feel the imagery I got was fit for public consumption because it is such an outlier that I didn't think it was real. But there was a more detailed imagery showed up.

Myke: I'm still not sure I believe it's real, Brad. This is so strange to me.

Brad: Of the Naruto Mont Blanc.

Myke: Why is this a thing?

Brad: And this shouldn't be a thing.

Myke: Why is this a thing? Why of all brands? Is it Mont Blanc?

Brad: I don't know. So, speaking of CY, he and Jacob covered it on this week's Tokyo Inklings. I told CY on our episode that I'm usually like a month behind. But I had time this morning. I was listening to other podcasts. I was like, oh, let me listen to this one. And it was like the last segment, CY had a link to the Naruto Inc., which they think might be Lucky Orange. You know how we've talked about how...

Myke: That looks like Lucky Orange.

Brad: Mont Blanc reuses the inks, right? It's just the one ink. And then they'll stick the current, you know, whatever project they're working on. And it'll be the same previous ink. So, that's a whole thing.

Brad: And I get the ink. But we have... This is a pin unlike anything I've ever seen from Mont Blanc, a collaboration unlike anything I've ever seen. It's all the way down to the luggage. Trying to confirm this has been hard, right? Like, some of the links that I've seen, like, don't even work. It seems real. It also seems very exterior to the pin base. Like, someone could just make it. Yes.

Myke: But it looks like it could just be an elaborate prank on you. I don't understand. I don't understand.

Brad: Yeah. And so, see why I mentioned that this is actually... Looks almost to be like a store-exclusive setup. Not like a... But they still have to make it, though. There. It looks pretty cool. I'm not gonna lie. It is not for me.

Myke: It also looks like the body of the pens are engraved.

Brad: Yeah. Like, engraved and etched. Yeah. And then some part of it colored in, part of it not. Right? So weird. Like, it's really detailed. As Mont Blanc does on their special editions, it's really detailed.

Brad: The clip treatment is awesome. I don't follow the Mont Blanc stuff that much. And usually, the barrels are, like, really detailed or there'll be a new clip design. This is, like, an anodized clip, orange.

Brad: It's... It looks great. It looks... Like... Yeah.

Myke: If you're into Naruto, like, this is, I guess, the one for you.

Brad: Yeah. Like, even CY said, it's like, I want... Like, I've never watched Naruto, but I want this pen. And I've never watched Naruto either. I do not want this pen, but I love this pen. And I find the whole idea of this pen fastening, like, this is one of the things that, like, I get really excited about seeing because it doesn't make sense. But apparently, I think it's real. Because, like I said, I'd have to look and see where I got the first image of this. And it was not even as good a quality image as these are that we have linked in the show notes. It was at least a month ago. And, like, there's no way this is real. Like, I'm not going to talk about this. I'm not going to share this at all. Like, this is fake. And it might be real. So, there you go. It's so interesting to me. I find the whole thing fascinating. And, honestly, I think it's beautiful. And the right people, like, are you just going to eat this up? Like, we saw the Pilot Sterling Silver Pokemon pens. Like, they instantly sold out, right? And that was a really small run and just a beautiful pen. And, like, as someone who's not a Pokemon fan like myself, I would own one of those pens. They're just fascinating to me. So, it's great.

Myke: Wow. Mm-hmm. Let's make sure you run down to your local Mont Blanc store.

Brad: Yeah. Or maybe this one specific store. I forget. I'll have to go. We'll put a link into the latest Toku Inklings podcast. They mentioned the store name, but I did not copy that down. I was just listening earlier this morning.

Myke: This episode is brought to you by SaneBox. Inbox Zero is a thing of the past because we're all inundated these days. There's so much email. It's not about responding to everything. It's about responding just to the important things, the messages that really matter. And SaneBox helps you get to them by getting your email inbox in order. It works on top of your existing setup. You don't have to create new accounts or anything like that. You don't have to switch email providers. You don't have to download a new app. So SaneBox just makes everything you're currently using better. If you've ever met somebody who's used SaneBox, you'll know that the initial SaneBox purge can be really powerful because after that cleanup that it will do for you, SaneBox will automatically put a bunch of email in some folders that you can deal with later on, and then will allow you to manage your daily emails more efficiently from there. So one of my favorite things about SaneBox, it creates a bunch of filters and folders for you, so it can put email where it's meant to go. So all of my newsletters go to my Sane news folder. Email from new people, people I've not interacted with before, maybe some pictures, that kind of stuff, it goes to a folder called Sane later, and I can deal with that when I want to. They also have a feature called the Sane black hole, which is like a manual thing, where if you get email from someone, or else you get signed up for some list, and you don't ever want to see it again, and you don't want to click through to the unsubscribe, because then you might tell them you're there, you just drag it to the same black hole, and you're never going to see email from those people ever again, making sure that your unwanted emails just continue to go down. They have a reminder function called Sane Reminders, so if you have sent something to someone, and you want to hear from them again, Sane Reminders can help you do that, like resurfaces the email, so you can check on it later on. You can snooze emails with SaneBox, so if you're using an app or a service that doesn't have email snoozing, SaneBox can let you do all of that. It really is amazing, and all of this works with any email client, any app that you're using, anywhere that you check your email. With over 600 reviews on Trustpilot, and glowing reviews from TechCrunch, Forbes, the New York Times, and emails everywhere, including me, you can rest assured that you're going to fall in love with email again. See how SaneBox can magically remove distractions from your inbox with a two-week trial. Visit samebox.com slash penaddict to start your two-week free trial today, and get a $25 credit. That's S-A-N-E-P-O-X dot com slash penaddict. Our thanks to SaneBox for the support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad: All right. We have a few new things I wanted to approach. First up, we have a new series on the Penaddict blog called Meet Your Maker. Uh-oh. Which, I love that. I love that name in a creepy kind of way. This is an idea that was pitched to me by a reader of the blog, Caroline. And we've been working on this for the past couple months, and thinking about, you know, who she really wanted to do an interview series, and didn't really have a platform to host it on. She's like, well, hey, can we do this together? You know, what do you think about doing this? I'm like, I'm, of course. I'm like, yes. Easiest yes ever, right? So, Caroline, over, you know, the coming months, and hopefully years, you know, you never know how long these things go, but hopefully forever, we'll be talking to makers in our community, and kind of getting their backstory, why they do what they do, what they do well, and what they enjoy the most about this. You know, it's a great look at just kind of some insight of a lot of the people you hear us talking about. In this instance of the first one, Sean Newton, longtime, longtime friend of the show, and the podcast, and Pen Show, attendee, we've seen many times at many different Pen Shows over the years, and just a wonderful, wonderful person, and has a lot going on, not just in Pen Making, but also in their scholarship fund that they've been running for almost a decade now.

Miranda's Twitter Engagement

Myke: Like, the OG. Like, I think it was the OG, right? Absolutely. Like, this type of maker pen, like, Sean Newton.

Brad: And still one of the youngest, and still one of the youngest ones. The OG, but still one on the younger side of the scale. Sean's just a great, great person, and Caroline did a great job of interviewing. And what Caroline's goal is, is to kind of have the same general bucket of questions for everyone, but it's a very, not necessarily in a Q&A style. It's just more of a conversational style, and it came out beautifully. So go check that out. We'll have a link in the show notes for that. Up next, I want to give a shout out to the Words and Roses podcast. This is a new podcast that many of you probably have not heard of. They're only on episode two right now. But it's for my friend Miranda, who I met streaming on Twitch as part of the Stationery Brew team. So Miranda Sanchez, she is the executive editor of Guides at IGN, but she is a very passionate stationary fan. She does a lot with journaling, planning, has a lot of fountain pens, big fan of Sailor.

Myke: Miranda's like one of the perfect Twitter followers for me personally, because it's like pens or games. It's like great. Right. Yeah. All your content.

Brad: Yeah, she's brilliant. She's amazing. I got to meet her in person for the first time in San Francisco at our Stationery Brew meetup, where I also met Chelsea, her podcast partner in this of Those With Words. We'll have all the links to all of these shows and Instagram handles and just a fascinating, wonderful Instagram account, Those With Words. Definitely go give them a follow. But this show, I listened to the first episode. There's already a second episode out. I have not caught yet, but it's going to be awesome for someone like myself, who kind is more on the edge of journaling and planning and thinking about, always thinking about like dabbling in doing more with my journals, planners, notebooks, stationery. And they're going to talk a lot about that, how they use things for note, for as far as notebooks, planners, journals, goes memory, keeping commonplace books and everything that goes along with that. And it was just an awesome listen. Like they did a really, really good job. With the first show, I was, I was very much, I was almost taking notes, listening to them, how they use things because I found it that, that interesting and fascinating. So if you're into that, you know, the, the notebook keeping, planning, journaling, as well as, you know, general stationary and pen stuff, definitely give Words and Roses a follow. And Miranda and Chelsea on Instagram. And also the stationary brew team on twitch.tv, which Miranda and Chelsea are also a part of. So we'll give a shout out to them. So wonderful, wonderful people. And I'm glad they kicked this off. It's great.

Brad: Lastly, Myke, I have had an item on my shopping list for what the entire year so far. So it seems like since the beginning of the year, I've been waiting for pilot of Roshizuku ink cartridges.

Myke: I feel like we've spoken about it so many times. I'm surprised they weren't available before now.

Brad: Well, because they got delayed and I'm still not convinced that the delay is over, but other stores outside of Japan, they're starting to trickle in. Right. So I think they were available. They got delayed. Then they became available in Japan. And now for example, Yoseka stationary, stationary, I got a link that said, Hey, Yoseka is stocking them. Holy cow. These are expensive. Like I knew they were going to be expensive. All ink cartridges are a bad value. Right. But there is a trade off in, you know, usability and ease of use and portability and all those things. But a six pack of pilot is Roshizuku ink cartridges set me back $12. I said, I went with one, one six pack of cartridges instead of buying like all the colors. That's like, even the sailor ones are a little, might be like four for $6. Like it's still not great, but it's still better. Wow. So we'll see if my idea, I bought a Suki, Oh, which is like a midnight blue. And that's the ink I always use in my Namiki galaxy. And so I thought, well, maybe I'll try cartridges in this and I'll just stick with only cartridges and that. So that's, that's my idea right now. Maybe I'll end up with a second color, but man, they are, they are less cost effective than cartridges are normally are right. Cartridges are normally not where you want to shop. If you're looking for a best, a best cost per milliliter, but this one is even more. It's like, wow. So hopefully we'll start seeing them more widespread here as through, throughout the end of the year. I think all of your standard retailers will start to get these in soon. At least I hope they do. And I think they'll, they'll do fine, but yeah, that's, that's a pretty big ask for ink cartridges. So anyway, I have mine on the way and I will be testing them out soon.

Myke: All right. I'll look forward to it. Cause I want to know if this is something that I want to go for.

Brad: Right. You use enough pilot pens. You have like your M90 that you always use. Like that's a good candidate.

Myke: I would love some options for that. So I think that's one I've mentioned before too.

Brad: So I'm looking at the link,

Myke: the pilot ones, like the kind of like the red or the purple cartridges or whatever. Right. I would love more color options for that. That would be really fun.

Brad: Right. So a Roshizuku's, I think the full lineup is about 20 or 24 inks. So in the cartridges, they're starting with 12 colors.

Iroshizuku Ink Cartridges

Myke: So you should have a, wow. That's a,

Brad: that's more than I would expect you to start with. But guess what? Zero orange.

Myke: That's okay.

Brad: They have, but they have two oranges. You think one of them makes the cut for cartridges, right? But who knows? But like, if you have neither, uh, for you, Gaki or you, Yaki made the cut. So, we'll see.

Myke: I mean, I have enough orange.

Brad: So, yeah. And I mean, listen to me, I'm the one that ordered a blue. So,

Myke: yeah, I like, but I didn't know. Mimiji is nice.

Brad: Mimiji is really, really good. Uh, but I didn't order Shinkai, right? I, I'm about through a bottle on that, but I knew.

Myke: Murasaki Shikibu. Murasaki Shikibu is a bucket purple, like a lilac. Yeah. That's really nice.

Brad: Both of that one. And, uh, Momiji is, is really, really good. That's one I really enjoy. So, you can't go wrong. I mean, oh, Roshizuku is a good color. Yamabudo. Good colors. They're, they're pricey though. It was, it was interesting to see the price point. So, it was like, yikes.

Myke: I'll wait to see what you got to say. I don't think I want to, uh, jump in on those prices and then have to deal with the shipping and all that stuff too. Yeah.

Brad: I'm sure it's going to be perfectly fine, but it's like, am I going to want to like stock up on these where I was thinking, oh, this could be a good thing for me to rotate more pilot stuff in there without having to necessarily like, you know, using bottles or travel more with them, but we'll see. We'll see. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Myke: All right. I think that's it for this episode. Action packed,

Brad: action packed. Good to have you back. I've been saving all these links, links anxiously to talk about, uh, them with you. I already have a list of topics for next week, um, that we didn't know that I either didn't put in, uh, this week because I knew we'd have plenty to just chit chat about. Um, and then we'll, we'll have a whole, whole new list of fun stuff to talk about, including the wrap up of the, uh, the pen addict raffle for St. Jude.

Myke: Yeah. Please go to, uh, go to the show notes and you can find the links that you need there. And you can please go donate at st. Jude.org slash relay. And you, you know, helping us in the fight against childhood cancer. And you can also have the chance of winning, uh, something really awesome for yourself too. Uh, thanks again to everybody who donates. Thanks again to everybody, including Brad, who helps put this together. Really appreciate you. Um, but go to relay.fm slash pen addicts, five, three, one. If you want to find all of the links to this episode, we've got quite a lot of links in there, actually, especially if you want to see it in the route of Montblanc, maybe it's, it might be worth, it's worth the click. Yeah. That's worth the price of admission right there.

Brad: Even if it's not real.

Myke: I just don't know what I think about it.

Brad: They tag Montblanc in this post. If it wasn't real, this post would have been taken down. I am sure Montblanc does not play around with this stuff.

Myke: Possibly. Uh, that would actually make a lot of sense. Mm hmm. Who knows? Uh, thanks so much for listening to this episode. Thank you to Pen, Chalet and Sanebox for their support of the show. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com. He's at Dowdyism on Twitter, penaddict on Instagram, twitch.tv slash penaddict. If you want to find Brad streaming three times a week, I am at I Myke, I M Y K E. And we'll both be back on the next episode of the penaddict. Until then say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.