The Pen Addict 723/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	723
Title:	I Bet the Paper Is Terrible
Release Date:	July 2nd, 2026
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 723
Audio File:	Audio Episode 723
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 723
Length:	4848 min <br />0.8 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 723. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Factor. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: What's up, Myke Hurley? How are you? I'm good, man. Very good. Good. Good. I'm very good, too, man. I just got back from the St. Louis Pen Show this past weekend, so we're going to talk about that today. So you have arrived. I have. Sure. Yeah. Is that a word? Is that a French word? It sounds French. I'm going to say it like that, right? Have you had your coffee today, Myke? Just. It hasn't quite kicked in. No, maybe not. Maybe not. We'll see how we are by the end of the episode. Stay tuned for the end of this episode. We'll see. But last week, I had the lovely Anna Reinert on the show to preview the St. Louis Pen Show. So it might be funny if you haven't listened to that episode to go back and hear the preview of what we're going to talk about today. But really, we spent like a good half of the show just talking about other things, talking about stationary products. So you should go check out episode 722 from last week.

Myke Hurley: I assume everybody listens to every episode, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Sure. As they should, right? We're going to start taking like attendance. Like, you know, did you listen? And we'll have a little sheet. Jeremy. Julie.

Brad Dowdy: Jay Quillen.

Brad Dowdy: So yeah, go listen to that episode, you know, so you can check off the box on your attendance sheet. And let's get into this week's episode, which is my recap of said St. Louis Pen Show. It was fantastic. Just like straight from the jump.

Pen Show Vibes

Brad Dowdy: I'm a big vibes guy, right? Just you want to feel good in an area where you go, Pen Show or not, right? You know, whether you're doing any travel or you're doing anything. You know, I just want to like, I want to feel like comfortable, not anxious. I'm a very anxious person. Chill, relaxed. Everything's available. You know, people are there for questions and you can get them answered. The hotel is comfortable. Things like that. Good area. So St. Louis Pen Show was great for that aspect. So the hotel was awesome. It's in this, I know nothing about St. Louis, right? As a city, but apparently like it's a pretty traditional large American city in that it's very sprawly, right? Like it's not all self-contained into like one small downtown area and everything's there. So this was more out a little bit, not really a suburb, but like outside of the normal show, the flow of the city, right? The show was out a little bit further, but it was only like 20 minutes from the airport, which is great. That's a good amount of time. The area where it's in is called Westport. It's a Sheraton, but there's literally two Sheratons there, which I'm sure causes lots of problems. So there's one-on-one. So like if you take just like a big outdoor mall type area, for lack of a better term, even though it's kind of what it is. On like the south side, there's a Sheraton. And then on the north side is the Sheraton Chalet, right? And I'm sure that just constantly gets messed up. We were in the Chalet, Myke. Yep. I did not know this going in. I didn't really look at the hotel. It's themed. It's Chalet themed, right? So this is like a European mountain ski resort Chalet in the middle of St. Louis. They kind of pulled it off. I mean, despite the heat, it was definitely not cool, but it wasn't bad. St. Louis was funny. They were very much complaining about the heat and it was like 10 degrees cooler than I ever get at home. So I was like, oh, this is great. I'm loving this. So the whole Chalet themed area, there are lots of bars and restaurants around. It was kind of a mall on the other side. That was, you know, just kind of only restaurants left in the mall. Not a lot of retail kind of a thing, but it was just comfortable, comfortable to get around. And that was nice because when I go to shows, I'm usually pretty busy, even if I'm not working a show like a table. I'm just around and doing things at the show, which we'll get into later. This way I could just like walk across the courtyard area there and there was restaurants and bars and food. So I could get lunch and dinner like very easily if I wasn't doing it at the show.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: The layout of the show floor was kind of amazing. I really liked it. I called it like a T-shaped, right, with a long entryway. But it was wide with a lot of tables in there. Then that pours into like the larger ballroom. Kimberly, who writes for the Pennant, calls it a lollipop shape. So you get the gist there. But the hallway to get in was very, very wide and filled with vendors. And then into the big ballroom. It was just spaced out so well. And it was very busy, but it never felt like you had to wait in line to just walk down like an aisle there. So the spacing was great. The lighting was great. So it was very good. Vendor variety was awesome. Had pretty much anything and everything you wanted to see. The only exception to that being nib grinders. There was not enough. There was only two. And only one, Kirk Spear, was kind of taking like advanced bookings, I think. And then the others were the Kennedys from Indie Penn Dance who were just doing like a live list that day. So whatever they could get to during the day.

Myke Hurley: Is there like a vendor table to nib grinder ratio? Like some kind of formula?

Brad Dowdy: There has to be. Yeah. Like to do some kind of like attendance or like, yeah, like volume of tables or volume of vendors to get. Like they could have used two more, I think. And they would have been busy the whole time. There is a tipping point, no pun intended, to where you don't ever want the nib grinders to not have work. Right? You don't. That's. So their income. I'm totally sidebarring here. Nib grinder's income is fixed. Right? It's a time-based money. You know, it's like a calculation. Right? Right. How many nibs can I grind in the seven hours that the show is open today? It's not like a retailer who is open-ended. Right? It could go really bad or it could go really good. Nib grinders, there's a maximum that they can make. Right? So you actually want them to stay very busy, you know, for the most part the whole time. You don't want them sitting around for two or three hours on a Friday afternoon not doing anything because they're just going to get soaked at the end of the day. So that's a little bit tougher. Where Kirk's a little bit different. Kirk has also a retail setup, Kirk Spear, Pen Realm. So it's a little bit of both for him. So anyway, there was definitely like we could have used one or two more for sure.

Brad Dowdy: The class schedule was insanely packed. So if you were someone who was spending at least a full day there, you could squeeze in a class or two. Or if you were spending multiple days there like I was, you could squeeze in more. One of the interesting things, which I didn't even know until days later, is they had a class scheduled for Thursday evening when people were arriving to the show and vendors were arriving to the show. And it was a journaling class. And they said it went extremely well for people traveling. And like some vendors got to take a class if they wanted to, right? Which they normally wouldn't on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So there was actually a Thursday evening journaling class that apparently went really well. And I was like, oh, that's a neat concept to like think about that. Like you're thinking about taking care of, you know, your attendees and vendors and having like one little extra thing. It's like you don't want three or four classes on a Thursday night. But to have one, to have something for people to do who, like me, I got there. I was probably there by two o'clock Thursday. I didn't realize they had this class. I might have taken it. And I was just kind of mingling, hanging out, doing things. I might have taken that class if I had thought about looking. Sorry, consider it. Yeah, that was neat. The entire staff and setup of the organization, the St. Louis Pen Show, was top notch.

Brad Dowdy: They provided breakfast and lunch every day for vendors, which is crazy. They had a dessert party one night. They had the room that they had like lunch in. You could just go and hang out in and grab a drink. They had another vendor space closer to the show floor to where, you know, you could go grab coffee or water and snacks and things for vendors. They super, super take care of the vendors. They always had volunteers running around to like table sit. Like if you're a solo vendor, right, it's hard to get away from your table. So volunteers were always roaming around to, you know, you could go to the restroom, go grab some food, something like that. So it just like flowed very well. Registration was good. You know, everything was good. Back to the classes, they were pretty much running all day, Friday and Saturday, and then some of Sunday as well. Okay. So like you had good variety of classes you could take. Like the hangout areas at the bar was great. It was, again, a chalet bar, Myke. You know, very, you know, had the wooden arches above, you know, look like a hunting lodge type of situation.

Myke Hurley: It's nice. I mean, I did see some pictures that you posted in your refill newsletter. And I was taken aback, but like I enjoyed looking at a hotel that didn't just look like every other hotel. Right. Like especially for like a pen show, they feel like they're in pretty standard hotel hotels. You know what I mean? Like it's just like this just looks like a hotel, which is fine, but it's nicer if it's themed.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And it was just nice to walk around the area. Like being like in that environment was like just kind of nice. Like it just worked. Like it was it wasn't overbearing. Right. It wasn't like you're like in a Disney resort where everything is like done to the nines. Like verily dear sir. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: What was I like for lunch?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, exactly. So but it was just very comfortable. And I keep saying that, but that's important to me. Right. There was just no stress involved whatsoever in this show or the event or the area. It was great. Good. Except the hotel shuttle that the hotel shuttle was whack. So they're like I said, they're only about 20 minutes from the airport and they have like two running shuttles. And like so I arrived from Atlanta. Flight was easy. Go out. You go to the location where the shuttle where you're supposed to be picked up by the shuttle. And then you just watch the shuttle do a drive by from like three lanes over. Never even tried to stop. And I was like, well, I guess we'll just get an Uber from here. And, you know, you can miss me with with waiting for your hotel shuttle. So that was kind of lame. But otherwise, the hotel was great. Yeah. My room was cool. I really liked my room. It was kind of redone. I think part of the hotel was not refurbished yet, but still like nice. And then I was in like a, you know, a year or two, you know, from refurbishing. Yeah. It was good. I gave a talk on. I hesitate to call it a talk, but we chatted. We had a Q&A. We had a Q&A. Gave a chat. But I didn't over try to overthink going into it, like to have totally have a plan. But I was assisted at this Q&A by my friend Andy Kuhn, who is a frequent questioner of mine. He's always sending me emails with like lots of questions like, what do I think about this? What do I think about that? He's been on friend of the show where we've turned the tables and he's interviewed me. So it was nice to have him kind of as like the moderator and the guide through the event. So we started out with a couple of questions. He, you know, hit me with some, you know, important questions to get me riled up. Like what city, if I could move anywhere in the U.S. to a city that had a stationary shop, what city would I move to? And I'm like sitting here in front of like a St. Louis crowd and it was like, you're really going to make me say Chicago in front of all these people, aren't you? So I did. So that got us off to a good start. So, you know, questions like that. There was a lot of questions asked to me, which was great. There was a good participation. And it's really, we just sat there for like an hour and just talked, told stories. And, you know, people were asking different questions. You know, we had a great question from the crowd, like one of them asked, like, hey, my favorite ink, Sailor Ink Studio 350 just got discontinued. What do I do? Do I hoard it? And y'all know my stance on this. This is one of my great learnings over all the years is you don't hoard limited edition fountain pen inks because they will make it again.

Myke Hurley: You just move on. Or you will find something. And you just move on, right? Like for the time being.

Fountain Pen Ink

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, you find your next favorite fountain pen ink. And instead of going to buy three or four bottles of that. I've lived that experience. So that was a great question. And, you know, so we had a lot of things. We had the first question, Myke. We might actually get to this later in the show. Very first question was, I'm going to London soon. What stationary shop should I hit up? So I actually had an answer to that, right? So that was cool. And I honestly don't think they knew that I had been to London. I think this was like, I think they said, you know, I'm kind of a new to all this. And it was fun. It was just a really fun. We had a great, great talk. So that was pretty much the vibes and feel portion of the event. And it was all just kind of great. Like really just like very tiny, minor things like the hotel shuttles, like whatever. You know, I'll deal with that. Everything else, it was perfect. I did take a class. I took Anna's Gamify Your Life class, which is very fun. So I'm going to be looking at that. I have a, there's like a little zine that came with it, kind of like your workbook and your dice. And you can, you know, set up a lot of different things with that. That's something I need to work on. I'm actually fidgeting with the dice today. I got orange dice, Myke. They're very nice. Shopping wise, I bought myself one pen and then I picked up just some other random stuff.

Myke Hurley: How about before we talk about the products that you bought? We take a quick break and give people a place to go buy products of their own. Look at you. And then we can talk about what you bought. So let's talk about- It's literally a chalet. There you go. Oh my gosh. Yes. We've been talking about a pen show in a chalet. But if you considered an actual pen chalet instead, our friends over at Pen Chalet, they sell the products that you're looking for from the brands that you love. And maybe even a brand you don't know you're going to love yet because Pen Chalet is always adding new products to their site. So you can always go online, find the best deals around and see new stuff. Pen Chalet, they sell pens. They sell mechanical pencils. They sell, you know, everything you could wish, but also accessories. Whether you want to get a carrying case, maybe for the next pen show that you're going to, or you want to get some ink, some refills, some converters. It doesn't matter what you're looking for. Pen Chalet have got it. They sell international with great shipping rates. And if you're in the US, you get free shipping on orders over $100. Pen Chalet has low prices and high quality pens with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So go to penchalet.com slash penaddict and you'll get 10% off anything at Pen Chalet. And to see some exclusive offers because you listen to this show.

Brad Dowdy: All right, Myke, we got some cool stuff over at Pen Chalet. I'm looking at the homepage. I'm kind of fascinated with the new Pilot 2026 Vanishing Point Limited Edition. This came out. I mean, it's not out yet. This is like the pre-sale, right? So they have a new Limited Edition Vanishing Point for the North American market, which they do every year. This one's called Golden Journey. And you know I'm not a big gold trim fan. But they did this one in a very unique way.

Brad Dowdy: What's the style of art? Kintsuji is where, you know, like if you have a cracked pottery, right? And then you seal it up with like, say, like a gold, you know, like filling the cracks. That's what the pen looks like. The pen is like the Kintsuji design. It's like the gold cracks through a navy barrel and then like a gold trim pen. It's fantastic looking. So this is the 2026 Limited Edition or the Vanishing Point. Pen Chalet also has in... I saw this at the St. Louis Pen Show and I was kind of fascinated by it. So they have the new Navalure Fireworks Fountain Pen. So it's the shape of the Nautilus, but it's an aluminum barrel. So like my Plonjour, if you recall that pen, was a hefty titanium barrel pen. This is the same style, but it's an aluminum pen. It's lightweight. I almost bought this at the St. Louis Pen Show because it's just kind of got like a splatter ink. Like ink splats over like a navy blue barrel, like blue and, excuse me, yellow, red, orange. You know, it's called Fireworks for that reason. Looks like a fireworks explosion. I really, really like that one. Then you have the Bennu Peach Blossom and White Lily with the painted barrels on the Bennus. These are just fantastic. And I think this is the Talisman model, which is one of the models that I really, really like. Between the Talisman and Euphoria, they're both the longer, very fun shaped pen. And this is Peach Blossom is a cotton peach resin enhanced with subtle gold shimmer and a gentle pink color shifting glow. I'm kind of fascinated by this. And White Lily is sky blue resin transitioning into soft blue green tones. They look spectacular. So they have the hand painted. Last one. And I still haven't gotten one of these pens yet. And I'm curious if anyone listening has. So Dominant Industry is making pens under the Kino Stationery name. And they've come out with like two or three models so far. This is the 001 Serenity Edition, which looked really cool. It's coming out here in like the next month or so. But I think they're doing just the right amount of extra detail where they're having like the acrylic barrel and then some good like cap work and band work and clip work to add in some, you know, more than basic details. And they're always like a pretty good price. They seem like a pretty good price. So I think it's pretty cool. So lots of good stuff over at Penn Chalet, especially a lot of new stuff. Yes. Which is pretty cool this time of year. So, yeah, head over to PennChalet.com.

Pen Chalet Discount

Myke Hurley: So don't forget, when you go there, go to PennChalet.com slash PennAddict. So you'll get the 10% code that you need to save on anything at Penn Chalet as well as checking out any special deals that they have for you because you listen to this show. A thanks to Penn Chalet for the support of this show and Relay.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. I bought a pen not available at Penn Chalet. Otherwise, I would have bought it from Penn Chalet. But I've been looking at D Squared Arts pens for the past couple years because I've had a couple friends here in the community showing me these really unique pens made by Daryl at D Squared, who takes the acrylic pen material. And actually, mostly he pours the material himself. I think most of this is hand-poured by him. And then he hand-turns the pens, which is a normal thing for a lot of acrylic or other types of pen makers, wood pen makers. But then adds in different shape and subtle lines and notches and different finials. It's a very tactile pen. It's hard to – this is one of the hardest pens to explain or styles of pens because, one, he has like 20 different models. And, two, he just does them all by hand, adds in this – like the type of turning he does is – you know, couldn't be replicated by a machine necessarily. I'm sure it could. But you know what I mean. Yeah. It's definitely like a hand – With great difficult turned up. Yes. So what I bought, it's called the Tordray. And this is actually one of the more simple ones. But Tordray is twist in French. And he uses a lot of French names. In the product naming. So this one – Very French show today. So – yeah, very French show today. So this one, if you take – if you're looking – and I'm trying to describe this to people who can't see this. If you took a standard acrylic pen and held it in the center, that piece is cylindrical, okay? But then as you go to the right towards the end of the pen or you go to the left towards the cap of the pen, it has a slight rotation. And then it ends up being almost like a rectangle towards the end. But a very, like, rounded, smooth rectangle. So there is a twist. If you can imagine, if you took an acrylic pen and held it in your hand and then turned your left hand and right hand opposite of each other, just like a quarter turn, that's the twist, if that makes sense. And it just feels so cool to hold. And that's the thing with these pens. This is a tactile pen experience. So getting to shop there in person at Daryl's table, you go through all of these different shapes that he comes up with and see which one feels the best to you, right? Because, like, you might not like the shape that I got with the twist, the tordre. And you might prefer something with, like, he'll do some, like, grooves through the barrel, which is a very fun shape. And then, you know, a finial could have, like, a very more of a tactile finish. So, like, when you're holding the pen, you can feel, like, a roughness on there that's purposely built. So, again, it's a super, super hard pen to describe, but it's when you're there and checking out all these pens, you're going, oh, yeah, this is really cool. I'm going to come away with one of these, and how do I choose which one's mine? I literally, I don't know, out of the 20 or 30 different pens there, like, I handled them all trying to figure out which is the best, and you end up gravitating to, like, one or two, and then you figure it out. So, yeah, they're literally like sculpture in a pen. And, you know, I've gotten to test these out for a couple years, so I was finally excited to get to pick one out in person myself. So, I got that. Mine's a yellow and blue color, acrylic. It's very, very shiny and very bright. It looks really, really neat.

Myke Hurley: This was the glow-in-the-dark one?

Brad Dowdy: This one is not. So, I put a link in the show notes. Mine looks like it could glow-in-the-dark. There's not a lot of inks to this shape pen. So, I found one that I could put. And if you look, if you scroll down, and I'm talking to you, Myke, you scroll down, you see kind of the capped version of the pen. It doesn't look like a cylinder, right? Okay. So, you can see kind of the twist to where there's, like, a block rectangle on each end, but they're kind of, like, counter to each other, right? So, it's super subtle that you don't really see in all the pens. And if you scroll to the bottom of that page, you can see some of the other shapes that he does.

Myke Hurley: That this shape, that kind of, like, this kind of, like, flowing shape reminds me of, like, a Newton pen. Yes. There were some Newton pens from back in the day that had this kind of profile to them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'll be corrected if I'm wrong when I say this, but I think him, I think he worked with Sean a lot when he was starting out. They're both from the same area. Yeah. Sean Newton. That would make sense. So, that did not surprise me. But, yeah, it's really unique, really fun product that's, like, different than, you know, anything else I have. So, they're just a really, really cool shape. So, that was my pen. I also bought a nib holder from Derek, from Daryl at D Squared. It's called a Seahorse. I'll have to take a picture of that. I didn't find a link of that. But, as you can imagine, it's got, like, a Seahorse-esque shape. Just a very subtle nib holder shape that really just kind of locks into my hand, and it's a really beautiful pink. So, I still owe lots of pictures from this show if I was more prepared and less busy. I would have had pictures up to put in these links of my exact products. But, they're very cool. I'll have more coming soon.

Brad Dowdy: Aside from all the other stationary accessories and notebooks and inks and stickers, I picked up a ton of stuff. You know, at the show. Or, like, review or just for fun. I ran into, like, one of the stupidest purchases I've ever made, Myke. Okay. And I'm pretty happy about it. I was just walking by a table, and it was just, like, an individual seller. Like, a personal collection type of vendor, right? Okay. Not a retailer or anything like that. And they just had, like, two tables worth of pens. And then they had, like, a table worth of notebooks. And I saw this notebook with this wild pattern on it. And I was like, oh, that pattern is sick. What is this? And I picked it up. And I was like, oh, this is a Gucci notebook. So, I am now the proud owner of a Gucci red and blue geometric notebook. What is the story of this? I don't know. I don't know. I would say incredible looking notebook. It's rad, right? Like, I couldn't, like, the best thing we could find is, like, it came out in 2018. Okay. And it's Gucci, and the logo art is insane. And you found a link on a resale website. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I might have overpaid a little bit. Okay. I thought in my head, the problem is when you see something like this.

Myke Hurley: Oh, there are a logo on every page?

Brad Dowdy: Every page. Sick. Yes. That's what I was going to comment.

Myke Hurley: That's what sealed it. For the Gucci logo, I want to see it all the time.

Brad Dowdy: Literally every page front and back has an alternating red G or blue G.

Myke Hurley: You're going to be ready for next season when the Gucci Formula One team.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. Ooh, maybe it's my F1 notebook. Maybe it is. Maybe it is. So, I don't know what I'm going to do with this. I have no clue what I'm going to do with this. But I couldn't leave it on the table. And it was very expensive. But, like, as I do, I was like, oh, like, in my head, if they say it's this price, like, that's too much. If they say it's this price, it's probably okay. And it was, like, it was $150. Like, I'll tell you. Like, it was $150. And I was happy to pay it. I would do it. It looks like you can get them for, like, $130 or something like that.

Myke Hurley: I would do it. I would pay $150.

Brad Dowdy: It's really insanely well made, obviously. I have no clue what the paper quality is going to be like once I use it. And I'm pretty stoked about this. This is definitely a highlight of the show for me. That is a good find. Yeah. Because that's the point that I'm at now, right? Like, I don't need another pilot or sailor or platinum. You know, I could add another one. You know, I don't need, you know, certain things. But, like, that leaves room for this. You definitely don't need another notebook, do you? I don't. Right.

Myke Hurley: So, if you're gonna, it needs to be a Gucci notebook. Yeah. I mean, have you seen this notebook? It's amazing, Brad. I'm very jealous of this, actually. That's a statement notebook right there. It's so ridiculous. I bet the paper's terrible.

Brad Dowdy: I bet it. It kind of feels like it's just gonna be, like, copy or paper. There's no way this is gonna be fountain pen. It's not what it's about. Yeah. But, yeah, it's, I don't know. It's good. Now, on to the coffee shop, Brad. That's a conversation. I've never done anything like that before, where it's just, like, something, like, really stupidly ridiculous. And I did. So, yeah. That was it. So, overall, just had a big W at the St. Louis pen show winning. I got some fun stuff. I have so much stuff to go through. But those were my main acquisitions. The D-squared art pen and the Gucci notebook was one and two in my heart there from the show. But I got so much other stuff. So, we'll go through that as the time goes on. I'll have some reviews. I'll have some giveaways. All kinds of stuff from the show. Only my second show of the year, which is a good lead-in to my third show of the year coming up at the end of this month. Right, Myke?

New York Stationery Show

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I thought we should probably do a better job of reminding people about this and that we're going to be there, which is the New York Stationery Fest, which is happening on... What are the actual dates of the festival? July 30th to August 1st, 2026.

Brad Dowdy: It's a Thursday start. Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Thursday and Friday being the two big days.

Myke Hurley: In Brooklyn, New York City. Yep. We will be there all three days for significant portions of the day. We're going to be participating in some events that will be announced at some point, I suppose. Yep. But we're going to be there, but we'll also be hanging out and we'll be going around the show floor. The show... I say the show floor, the show warehouse. Yeah, it's huge. I'm so excited for this because I don't really know what to expect from a stationery festival. Like, I loved hearing you and Anna talk about it last week, but this has got me really jazzed. Like, I'm kind of... I've got the same level of excitement that I had for, like, the first Atlanta trip of, like, oh, I'm going to go. I'm going to buy some stuff I've never seen before and I'm going to have a great time. So, I'm really looking forward to this. We're both going to be there. And so, if you're considering it, come down. If you're going to be in town, you're going to be going to the show, come and find us and say hi. You can find out more at stationaryfestival.com, which is an incredible URL that they have. And I've also put a link in the show notes, too. But it will be cool to see Pan Addict listeners spending time at the New York Stationery Festival later on this year.

Brad Dowdy: We'll talk about it more in, like, a creepy show. Later on this month. Later on this month. Yeah, it's, like, three weeks away, like, four weeks away until we travel. So, we'll talk about it more in the lead up. We'll do maybe a preview show. We actually need to, you and I need to talk about our schedule around then. So, we do have three time slots booked each day. I'm going to hold off until, like, the last episode before we go to... Because all that stuff can move. But we'll be doing, like, interviews and conversations with people that y'all will be able to come see. It's all free. We have a space dedicated at the show. It'll be an afternoon time slot. At least that's what they are right now. So, yeah. We'll have more details on that coming soon. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. I think your socks are going to be properly knocked off.

Myke Hurley: I can't wait, man.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It should be good. Bring an extra bag.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I mean, you just went shopping. I did. At your own stationery fest.

Tessa's Store

Myke Hurley: Yes. So, a couple of weekends ago, I took a trip to Tessa's new store in South London, the stationery. It's a beautiful space that Tessa has got built out. And so, good to go in. The shop was hustling and bustling. Oh, good. I get the impression that it's been like that. I think it's so good to Tessa's like it's been busy all the time, like busier than she expected it would be, which is wonderful. I hope for her sake that it quietens down to a point which is like manageable. But she seems very excited about it. And yeah. So, if you're in London or planning to be in London, this is a great visit. It's on a really nice little high street that's got a couple of coffee shops, a bakery, a couple of pubs. So, you could actually like go to Tessa's store and then spend time in the area. Like you could have lunch or whatever. Oh, that sounds perfect. It's a nice little high street that she's on in a place called Forest Hill in South London. Because it's out of the way. You would not be in this area. It's not very far from Central, but like you wouldn't be there. But this, you know, she's not like the only store on this high street. So, when you're in the area, there's lots of cool stuff. Yeah, there's things that you can do. But yeah, it's a lovely little shop. And I picked up a selection of Uniball products that I was interested in. So, I got a Uniball Zento and a Uniball One. Okay. I don't like the Zento, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: So, let's specify which model you got. You got the basic like $3. Yeah, it's just like a kind of dusty pink. The standard. Yeah. Yeah. Standard barrel, Uniball Zento. What don't you like about it? The ink, the flow, the feel.

Myke Hurley: I think it's the flow. I think the flow is the issue. The feel is fine. You know, it's a 0.38. So, it is, you know. Okay. I'm aware of the fact that this is not what I would necessarily want thickness wise. Right? Sure. But I found the flow to be inconsistent. Okay. Where I also got the Uniball One, which is the little chubby guy, which I... Yeah. Very strange form factor. Like, I'm not sure how it feels in my hand, if I'm being honest. Like, it's weird. But I like it. I also like the kind of wavy, recycled plastic look that it has. Yeah. You know, that kind of marbled look. Yeah. I much prefer the Uniball One to the Zento from like the refill perspective.

Brad Dowdy: The ink perspective. Yeah. What size and color of the one did you get? The ink. It's 0.38 black. Okay. 0.38 black. The 0.38 black one is kind of my favorite, one of my favorite gel inks right now.

Brad Dowdy: It's... Because it's much, much darker. Right? It's a very dark ink. Mm-hmm. And I find it smoother than the Zento. The Zento is just average. Right? The Zento is like a good rollerball. Like the Pilot Precise V5. One of the best pens ever made. Like the Zento is like that. Right? But it's just... It's not as good as Uniball's gels. I don't think.

Myke Hurley: I'm hyped to be on belief. Like I know there's different barrel styles. But I don't think I understand it now.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I have... If it tells you anything, in my fancy Zento barrel, the signature, I have a one refill in it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I would do that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So they're swappable that way. Interesting feedback from you. Like that's good feedback to have. Because like, yeah, the Zento is perfectly fine. Right? Yeah. Like I think the .38, I use it on occasion. I keep one at the desk because I keep, you know, always wanting to test these things. The Zento gels are just better. And I'm including the One in that. Now, the One does have its own challenges. I don't praise the One universally like I do the Zento because I think the color gels in the One are very inconsistent. I bought a part of the colors.

Myke Hurley: And I do like them because they're fun colors. The color is great. Yeah. They're not as good as just the regular black. Yes.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. That's where I'm at with the One ink formulation. So, yeah. I would agree with that. So, yeah. Interesting feedback on the Zento and the One from you. I'm glad you got to try those because they are, the One is pretty different, I'd say, than the Signo. I can't. You mean Zento when you keep saying Signo? No. No? I keep saying Signo because the Signo is the best gel Uniball lineup.

Signo Pens

Myke Hurley: Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's the classic. I used the Signo forever.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So, I still think the Signo has the best color gel inks. I think the Uniball One black is very, very good and maybe better than its Signo counterparts. And then I classify the Zento completely differently. As like a different ink formulation. Right? I don't think it's a gel ink. It's like a gel rollerball hybrid. And I still am unclear on that. And it's good. Like 0% wrong with anything about the Zento. It's just not as good as like a Signo gel or a One black gel. And they've never done more colors with the Zento yet, which I think is kind of telling. They're leaning into all the barrels and styles of the Zento. So, I want to see once they do start doing colors, then maybe we can have a different conversation on that.

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Brad Dowdy: I have been. And what Factor solves for me is the I don't want to deal with it problem. I don't want to deal with cooking lunch in the middle of the day when I'm busy and doing things. And I can just knock it out with Factor and have like an awesome meal that makes the rest of the family jealous. I was like, what did you have for lunch? It's like, oh, I had a ham sandwich. What did you have for lunch? Oh, I had salmon and rice and like zucchini. And it was fantastic. It's like, what are you doing? It's like, well, I got these factors and you can't have them. So, yeah, they're spectacular. I've told you every time I say it is like you have to hide the factors in this household because they're so good and they're so unique and they're easy. They're just easy. I walk to the fridge, grab it, poke a few holes in it, put it in the microwave, two minutes, bam, amazing food. So, yeah, I'm a huge Factor fan and it's about time to get that next order in for me. So I should have hopefully something coming soon here.

Myke Hurley: Head to factomeals.com slash penaddict50off and use the code penaddict50off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th, 2026. See the website for more details, which is factomeals.com slash penaddict50off and use the code penaddict50off. Our thanks to Factor for the support of this show and Relay.

Brad Dowdy: All right, Myke, we got our shout out of the week. Shout out of the week. Julia here. One of my favorite people on the internet has recently, and a multi-time shout out of the week participant, has recently written an article for the Penaddict on their 2026 Dutch Pen Show experience. What a fantastic article. It was so good. Like, I wanted to be there. Like, the event looks awesome. The town looks awesome. The area looks awesome. So maybe that's where you and I meet next year. Like, we're meeting in Brooklyn this year. Maybe we meet in Utrecht, the Netherlands next year. This is in Utrecht?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Oh, my God. All right. So I was going to make a joke. Wow. Hello. Hello. There is a museum in Utrecht, which is the Apple Museum. Okay. And I'm going to go to it at some point as part of the new podcast. Right. They have an incredible collection of stuff. Okay. So I don't know. We do all of that. I don't know what to say.

Brad Dowdy: Well, turns out. That's so funny. That's so funny.

Myke Hurley: When is it?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like, usually the first weekend in June. Okay. Literally, like, a June 1st type of situation. Could be the worst time of year for me. Yeah. It's WWDC. So let's say I'm not doing that. You never know, Myke. You never know. You never know, Brad. You never know. I don't know. Yeah. So anyway, go check out this article. I thought it was fantastic. Really good. Really cool looking show. Everyone that's been to the Dutch Pen Show in the past says, I need to get there. And, like, this doesn't help. This definitely doesn't help. This looks amazing. So, and I put a link in the show notes. There's also, Julia did a video recap on her YouTube page. So read the article, watch the video, and start making plans, I guess, to attend in a future year. Because it looks ideal. Some of the vendors there, like, you know, that haven't really traveled to the U.S. or somewhere that I can go see them. And I was fascinated by so many of them. Really, really cool stuff. So, all right. Lastly, let's end on a bad note, Myke. What's in the show? Which is a good note for me. Okay. Like, you know, when you get to talk bad about products, that's always good. Because people say, I don't talk enough. I don't talk about bad products enough. Well, let me tell y'all. The Sailor KSARRA erasable pen is horrible, and you shouldn't buy it. How's that for? How's that? It's a legitimately bad product. So, the sales pitch of the KSARRA is, it's an erasable gel ink pen that is a Pilot Friction competitor. We did this when they launched. We covered, like, what the KSARRA is. It's goal to erase the gel ink on the page. They've met that goal. Okay. So, you put the ink on the page. The eraser erases it from the page. That part is good. It works. Where it fails is that the ink is so bad, you don't actually want to write with it. So, it's not a good pen experience, regardless of whether the ink is erasable or not. So, you don't actually get to the benefit of this pen's existence because the ink formulation is so bad, you actually don't want to write with it. So, it's a 0.8 millimeter. So, I got sent a black and a red. And, as we talked about, Pentel is under the same plus umbrella now as Sailor. So, it has this inner gel style front end grip section and refill shape. And, the ink is very, it just kind of railroads from the jump. The ink tip is very messy. And, it just becomes a mess. And, then one of the interesting things that you see with this is, have you ever written on a whiteboard with a whiteboard marker? And, then you have the words that you've written and then you can write over with a whiteboard marker and it erases that? Yes. This wipe, it wipes away itself on paper. Interesting. And, it's bad. It's a bad feel and I don't like it. So, I can't even get to the erasing being good. Which, it's good. Right? It's a completely different thing. It's not a heat sensitive erasing. It's a rubberized ink. And, I'm going to say, I just did a little scribble here. I'm going to send this to you while we're chatting. And, like, I wasn't even watching what I was doing. Right? I wasn't trying to make a point here. I was just, like, scribbling while I was talking. Let me see how fast I can send this over to Myke. Because, it's a perfect example of what I was talking about. And, I'll do it later.

Writing Products

Brad Dowdy: You know, for, like, Instagram or whatever. I'm going to review these very soon. Because, they are actually very poor. And, I want to kind of, like, put that out there.

Brad Dowdy: So, let's see. But, as I was doing this. Here, I'm going to take this picture. Hang on. Okay. Let's see here. Can we get this for Myke? So, you can see what I'm talking about. And, I just did this. I'm going to send it to Myke. It is on the way in Slack. And, I wasn't even looking. I was just writing lines. I was doing lines while we were talking, Myke.

Brad Dowdy: It doesn't work. It's not a writing product. Because of how.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it doesn't look good, does it?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And, that's just me, like, doing straight lines on the page.

Myke Hurley: I mean, it's just the rail. The rail. Is it railroading?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's, yeah. Like, you want it to work. Like, you want it to work.

Myke Hurley: It looks like the words that you've written down. Uh-huh. It looks wet.

Erasable Ink

Brad Dowdy: So, the ink.

Brad Dowdy: It's essentially a rubberized ink, for lack of a better term. Yeah. Okay. And, that's how they're getting their version of erasable gel. Okay. So, they're saying, we have a different ink formulation. To where the ink. You can erase. I can erase this with my finger. If I started rubbing my finger over this, it would basically pull up the ink. Because of that formulation.

Brad Dowdy: It erases well. Like, it's no problem with that. But, like, I'm never going to get to that point. Because it's just a bad writing product. So, I'll have a lot to say on this. I'm going to do a review. And, I really appreciate being sent these. Just because I haven't gotten any yet.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I, it's. I hope that they continue doing something. Like, the friction was not a great product when it launched. I tried the very first frictions. Their ink formulation was so faint and light. It wasn't great. And, then they improved on it. So, maybe we can hold out a little bit of hope that the K-Sara. Because, I think this should be a product. Right? But, they've got to figure something out. The ink formulation works for erasing. But, it doesn't work for writing. And, I think that's backwards. Right? And, if you want to sell a product. It's got to be good writing for me. To allow me to even get to the erasing. So, I think that's where we're at with the K-Sara right now. So, hopefully, they can do something. Because, what happens when you see the ink like this. It starts gumming up the tip as well. Like, it gets messy and gunky. It's just a very... I'm extremely unimpressed with version 1 of this product.

Brad Dowdy: And, I hope they can refine it. Because, I think this product should exist. Right? That's one of my favorite things about Stationery. It's like, they've got something here. Their erasing product works. But, the ink does not. So, you can't even get to, like, the good stuff. Because, it's just not fun to use.

Myke Hurley: If you would like to get the show notes, the links to all the things that we've discussed today. It's very easy to do that. It should be in your podcast app of choice. Or, you can go on over to relay.fm. I would like to thank our sponsors for this week's episode again. That is Penn, Chalet, and Factor. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com. You can go to spokedesign.com. And twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can find me here on relay. And at theenthusiast.net. And cortexbrand.com. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.