In this episode Brad and Myke discuss the feedback they got from the EDC episode (#92) as well as further discussion on cold weather pens and inks. They also discuss new TWSBI products and the LA Pen Show before Brad questions what is really going on in the great big pen world.
Links and Show Notes
In this episode Brad and Myke discuss the feedback they got from the EDC episode (#92) as well as further discussion on cold weather pens and inks. They also discuss new TWSBI products and the LA Pen Show before Brad questions what is really going on in the great big pen world.
Links for this episode:
Sponsored by Squarespace (use code TALLYHO2 for 10% off)
Hello and welcome to episode 94 of the Pan addict on 5x5. The Pan addict is a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper and the analog tools that we love so dearly. My name is Mike Hurley and I am joined by the Willy Wonka of the Penn world, Mr. Brad Daddy. Oh that is cool. I like that. You are very much that kind of guy. Making things, collecting things, being an eccentric man about town, all that sort of stuff. Are you my Varuka? I mean anything you want really. I prefer to be a Charlie but if you need me to be a Varuka then you know it's kind of interesting right because the story, I mean I don't know how many people notice because I don't know how far rolled doll books reached but so there are a series of Willy Wonka books. When the last one, I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head right now, they're actually called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by the way. Yeah right. And then the books are Charlie and the something so like Charlie and the glass elevator was the second one and I think it might there may have just been two but at the end of it Charlie takes over the Chocolate Factory. Spoiler alert. Cool. So that's kind of like I am your Charlie you know I'm just slowly getting to the point where I take over the Chocolate Factory. I like it. I like it. That's all the good stuff we make. How should I don't even know where to go from there. Yeah is this a Penn podcast? Should we get on track? Yeah let's do that. Alright I got a good email from last week from Tim Drowdy. He he made sure to to pronounce his last name because it's very similar to mine although spelled completely differently and then email he sent me. He sent me a good email on a couple of topics that we talked about. First is the the everyday carry show. So let me read a little bit of what he says and I thought he made some some good points. So he says over the past couple shows there've been a few discussions that have spurred me to write this email. Firstly on the EDC show I know you touched on the fact that Penn addicts and EDC folks have different opinions on what EDC means. What happens when you were both in both camps and I think that's something I'm not some of that I can relate to and I think probably a lot of listeners can relate to. So he says as an EDC nut I want to pin that I can trust will write in almost any condition. As a Penn addict I want it to be a good writing experience. That's my reason for carrying a jet stream filled F701. That's the zebra pin we talk about a lot. This will get me through the tight spots in the grocery line or the garage. Sorry Fisher no space pins for this addict. He says but that isn't the whole story. I don't think you will ever discover a pen addict by only what is in his or her pocket you need a bag dump too. You need to understand what is being carried in the pen cases what notebook or planners being used and even what apps are on the guilty parties phone tabular PC and why those specific choices were made. That is where you will find the true nuances true nuances of the pen lover. Would you rather leave the house with your leech term or your iPad which do you take to a meeting which do you think about more. How much ink is in your Twisbee or how much battery is in your left in your iPhone. Penn addicts know the right answer as a tech nerd too. The answer is all of the above. I know I have issues. So I thought that was a good point and that's something I think about too. It's not just for the EDC side of the ledger for the pure EDC side of the ledger. It is just about you know the pen I think. Is it durable? Is it going to write in any situation? You know is it you know small and portable things like that but I think when the pen addict side of the ledger where you're worrying more about the writing experience I think the other parts come into play like well what are you writing on. You know what are you carrying your pen and paper in and it's kind of this whole I don't know this whole area that I think about a lot and you know I you know I like carrying you know my bag like I have my dome paper Mountain Briefcase, Topo Mountain Briefcase that I love and you know my not-go-brass town pen case goes in that and there's a roadie adopt pad in there and my Hobo Nichi planners in there and there's a field notes in there and this is all the junk that I carry that's like totally overkill but you know what if I left the house without that good stuff I'd feel naked. Do you ever get that feeling like if you don't carry certain things it doesn't have to be a lot of things but like even just like a pen and a piece of paper if you go out say you're just going out to the store and you don't have those things do you ever feel like I don't know you left your wallet at home you know I feel I get that feeling if I don't have certain things with me to write with. I don't carry a notebook in my pocket anymore so I don't really have that feeling so much. I don't like really not ever having my bag with me and when I have my bag with me I have all the stuff that I need you know I have a couple of pens and I have a couple of field notes and my iPad because they go in my - I'm pretty comfortable with that. Right and I think that's the point you know I think that's the point maybe that Tim's getting at is like for the pen at for us panatics it's not just about the pen it's about the whole shooting match right I mean if we care that much about the pens that we carry we're not just carrying any old junky paper to write on you know we thought about the paper that we're gonna write on and then we thought about maybe the pen case that we're gonna put our pens in and then maybe about the bag that we're gonna carry all this stuff in that we've been suckered into buying you know by this dang show you bunch of enablers. So Tim went up Tim's second part of the email it's just what I really wanted to get into and I thought he made a good point it was about when we talked about the how to carry pens in the cold weather yeah we got quite a bit of feedback about this and the airplane actually maybe we should talk about planes after this yeah yeah so we got a some feedback on that when we were the question was the Twitter question was and I forget who asked us last week but um was how do you carry your pens and cold weather and both of us said don't we got some we got some flack for that so let me read what Tim said he said secondly I wanted to call you out on last week's compliment about cold weather carries. I live in Canada if the only answer to the question about how to manage pens and inks and cold weather is don't then I may as well start looking for the pencil addicts podcast because I would only have the use of my pens for about eight months a year. It says believe me I know cold also carry fountain pens. Last week I received a new bottle of je herbal pearl noir via mail it was negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit no problems. Carry your pens in your inside coat pocket request inks be held for pickup vendors know vendors that know how to deal with cold weather will take a little out of the bottle and still occluded in a separate vial so that there was room for expansion yes us vendors too. I feel that the issue of how to handle pens and cold weather is no more stressful than whether you should use a converter instead of a cartridge. Neither things are a problem if you're smart about it. You wouldn't leave a can of soda in your car overnight when it's freezing while it ain't be any different so that's the common sense aspect of it that we've talked about. It says I don't want to leave the impression that living in the Canadian prairies is akin to living at the North Pole. I know what negative 40 feels like in the winter and I know what 100 degrees feels like in the summer. I enjoy my pens in both we have peters and air conditioners so he said sorry for rambling thanks for keeping the podcast awesome keep it up. So yeah I mean he's got a point there you know and and I definitely you know that's probably a lack of experience on my part and and maybe your part too to where we really haven't had to deal with like super extremes. Yes it gets cold here but not like wicked cold like he's getting in Canada and things like that so common sense plays a lot into it and you know Tim does go through a few extra steps to ensure that all his pens and inks are taken care of and I definitely appreciate that feedback to get some perspective from someone who actually has to deal with it instead of me who is wearing flip flops as we do this podcast. Should we talk about planes very quickly in the same sort of idea. So we kind of mentioned never take your pens on a plane and a few people got in touch and they're like I'm fine you know basically they're at different pressures fundamentals can react peculiarly while your mileage may vary on that one. I think it's maybe the best way of sort putting that. Sure you know yeah I would advise some variance. Yeah I would advise don't because the one time that it happens is so much is so much more of an effect than the thousand time that doesn't thousands of times it doesn't happen to you. Mm-hmm but yeah. Jay I think the key the few the few tips that we got were to definitely keep them in an upright position at all times and I've always heard to keep the if you're using you know a converter or even I guess it would go for a cartridge too is to ensure that the ink is full so there's not I don't know so there's not a lot of room for it to expand into other areas but I don't know I don't I don't have enough I'm not a frequent flyer enough to be willing to test out all these theories but people most people seem to not have too too much of a problem with it and flying with I think the one email we got the person was flying with like five or six fountain pens loaded up that wants and say no problems at all so so that's good I just you know but yeah what you said is exactly right it's for me it's the one time that it explodes and makes a mess is not worth you know the ten other times where I can control control it by not doing that yep so all right we got some some new products releasing and in our show notes I was a little I guess explicit in my description of what I felt about this but for for those playing at home we're gonna go with bleeping Twisbee and their bleeping prototype pictures I didn't write bleeping in the yeah but I and I use bleeping in the kindest way possible because it's awesome what they do what Twisbee does but man they're such a tease it's a tease that it's like why even follow their Facebook page because all they do is tease so they put out this they gotten a run last week after not posting anything for weeks where they posted several new products on their Facebook page so one of them the first one that I wanted to show talk about Mike is the Twisbee they're calling it the PPO 36 precision fountain pen and we'll have all these links in the show notes 5x5.tv/penetic/94 did I get it yeah you got it yes good man I never think about that before I say it and I always hope I say it right so and if not you can just go to Twisbee's Facebook page and you'll see them they're plastered all over it this pen looks fantastic sorta it's I'm guessing it's a it's an aluminum barrel pen the design looks great it looks like a hexagonal barrel the design looks awesome with the cap posted it looks kind of ridiculous it's really large but it looks like the cap also threads on the back of the pen which is a problem with you know aluminum with metal barrel pins right you it's hard to get a good feel when you're just sliding on a metal barrel cap posting a metal barrel cap on the back of a pen it it's not necessarily flush so this one looks like it has a threaded cap on the back end of the pen for posting which looks great it just looks like it makes it gigantic makes looks like it makes a really huge pen but it's it's really good looking I mean they've done a good job but you know it's like do you even bother talking about this if it's not even going to exist yeah and that's my challenge with the Twisbee's fountain pen page and why I use the the colorful colorful language because it's like this tease of this product and it's like it may never see the lie today or it might be two years down the line which a lot of the times it does but you know I do appreciate the fact that they're sharing and sharing their ideas and getting some feedback and I'm sure that's a good resource for them on Facebook to kind of go through these things right what do you think about them showing off like prototype pictures just hey look what we did we may not ever make this but what do you think I guess it's kind of like the the new cars where they you know make the prototype cars right that never go to market but they're using it to learn about new manufacturing technology and things like that I have no problem with them doing it as long as it's clear what it is I'm looking at so like car manufacturers say blah blah prototype or concept you know and I'm cool with that like it's not an issue as long as I know that that's what it is but I don't know then I kind of get a bit frustrated like you're releasing it you're not you know give me an idea yeah and actually on that one it's really not clear I don't think the the PP 036 I don't know that they're they are super clear is this just a prototype I mean Twosby does say it's a piston filler don't know the price yet so that makes me think that hey we're gonna make this pen right yeah that seems like you know but it also doesn't look real right this one so it looks like it's been done in that CAD like it's a computer aided design it's just software so yeah that might come out but it might be 18 months away right right so it's cool I definitely appreciate Twosby you know putting this stuff out there I believe me I'm not dug in them at all but it's when they load up their page like they did yesterday with all these new things that you don't know whether they're real or not you just kind of get your hopes up and then they're kind of dashed when it's just a just maybe a prototype so this other one they call it the eye rock I RC so that obviously stands for something like Republic of China right so I think the way this one is gonna be is a limited edition like the pen that you and I enjoy so much the the 540 ROC yeah which was you know just a is a basic 540 plastic barrel I think this one's gonna be there's an article on fountain pen geeks where they they dug through the comments and found a little more I think this is gonna be like a really high-end pen so I'm I don't know what the material construction is and it might even have a gold nib I know it's gold colored on this picture but I think it actually might be a gold nib because they were talking about on fountain pen geeks that the price of this pens can be like 350 dollars so this is gonna be like a top-end Twosby you know something really high-end that they're exploring I guess I mean I'm it again is this really gonna exist I am guessing so but I don't know for sure but it's cool to look at I mean this isn't a pen for me I don't necessarily like the aesthetics if it was solid black I'd like it it's got kind of a floral pattern on here which they've done exceptionally nice I just don't you know it's not something I'd necessarily spend 350 dollars on no no no for me and then the last one this next one Hawaii the closest to coming to real and it's really sweet and it's gonna be the 580 with the aluminum piston that we talked about a few weeks back where they posted the colored aluminum Twosby 580s this one the picture they just showed is the clear one with the silver aluminum it's got an aluminum section and aluminum piston filling mechanism it looks awesome I hope they released the color ones at this at the same time but they do say it's that they're thinking about calling it the 580 al that that's what they were asking for sort of advice on what what people thought but they did say it's gonna cost 60 dollars yeah that's great that's an awesome price I'm really excited about that one I am too so that will be in the image as well yep yep so that will be pretty much a day one purchase for me you know whenever that one comes out I'll buy it like I still haven't bought the classic yet I just haven't been in a rush to get that one I didn't think it was I mean it looks great and I will definitely own one I just haven't been in a rush to get this one this one oh ahead and get because I use the 580 so much and this looks like a sweet upgrade so I've looked at the bottom of the post they're gonna go with 580 al and it will be within out within two months great so there you go great great great so hopefully we'll see if they do the with the colors like that like they pictured you know a few weeks ago where they had to what red blue orange green and purple which they all looked really good orange one the orange yes yes yes yes so anyway I guess my point of bringing all this up is a brows temp Twisbee's Facebook timeline at your own risk yeah right so if you're gonna see some stuff on there that's really awesome but it may not ever come to fruition and it's gonna there's no point in saying this because every time they do it we talk about it on the show so they do a really good job of design I know yeah you might as well just go and follow it anyway because we always talk about it I know it's like hey check out all this cool stuff but ignore it that's not really fair is it we're just as bad actually I know I know I'm totally guilty I know that's why that's why I wrote it in the show notes as I did is because it's I say I'm frustrated but it's it's it's faux frustration right I'm just I'm not frustrated at them I think it's great what they're doing and I just think it's funny because they they do do they do post a lot of things that you know may not ever exist and get us all get us all hyped up because and you and I are both fans of the product and when you enjoy a product as much as as what Twisbee does you get excited when they post out new stuff like that so anyway that's cool definitely go check out those pictures if you haven't already seen I know a lot of you have been posting them on on Twitter and get me to look at them and things like that so now a lot of you are aware of that page but check it out if you're interested now something else cool happened this weekend was the LA Pen Show which is I think between someone correct me if I'm wrong but I think between the LA Pen Show and the Washington DC Pen Show I think those are considered the two big pen shows in the US every year so like all the big heavy hitters go to these don't miss those two shows because they're so large and so popular so one of the people I follow on Instagram her name is Castle Jim she's very nice she sent me some actually actually sent me some Ackerman ink samples in the past so I follow her Twitter feed and I saw over the weekend these pictures from the LA Pen Show struck start popping up and she ended up having about I don't know 20 25 pictures in her feed so for anyone who hasn't been to a pen show or at least a large pen show she did a great job of capturing you know kind of like the feel of the room all the different vendors there all the different products there and then she took pictures of a lot of people we talk about on the show like Brian and Lisa Anderson there's a picture there Mike Masayama she's got a great picture of Mike in there and on and on and so if you're ever wondering about a pen show and haven't been to one or wondering about you know some of the people that I talk about and have met before she's got some excellent excellent pictures so we'll we'll have that link in the show notes so make sure you check out her page did you get a chance to look at any of that Mike I'm just looking now yeah it looks like it was a real busy real busy room when she was there so it looks it looks quite packed and quite full oh and Brian Gray from Edison Pins he's got a picture in there so she did good did a good job and it looks like you know at one point there's a she's got a picture of a line out the door to get into the room I guess in the morning so it looks like it was a pretty popular show I'll have to listen to Brian and Lisa's podcast this week to see what they thought about the the crowd and the business level at the LA Pen show this week so if anyone else went I got I did get a couple emails from another couple other people that when I saw saw a bunch of tweets and a bunch of pictures on Instagram let me know let me know what your experience was like at the at the Pen show shoot me an email or get in touch I'd love to hear it because I'm getting anxious for the Atlanta Pen show in April and this this doesn't help when I see all this cool stuff like this happening and I'm not there I want to be there Mike me too well I really want to be there be an LA man that's cool I know our friend Keegan from one star leather he went he sent me an email get this so Keegan went he said oh I tried out these and I got to try out a nakaya got to try out the sailor or the black bluster that you that you bought recently I tried out this I tried out that I didn't buy anything so Keegan I'm calling you out on that one and come on again I replied back to him I was like what you you went and you didn't buy anything so I gave him some grief so y'all give Keegan some grief if you if you talk to him he went to that and he needs a bumper stickers I went to the LA Pen show and didn't buy anything something like that a t-shirt yeah to the LA Pen show and all I got was this lousy t-shirt so bad job by you Keegan crazy yep crazy crazy all right I got a kind of a short maybe interesting slash ranty topic I want to talk about this week so why don't you talk about our our fine friends at Squarespace man if there's one thing I love it's a ranty topic very good at those I enjoy those so I want to take a moment to thank our friends over at Squarespace for bringing this episode to you Squarespace they are the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own website for a free trial and 10% off go to Squarespace.com and use the offer code Tallyhoe2 Brad are you still there you're probably muted yourself to take to take a quick drink yep I want to talk to you this week about Squarespace if that's okay and I didn't tell you that I was gonna do this because people have heard me talk about our Squarespace always updating their platform with new features new designs and more support how they have beautiful templates that you can get started with it's all drag and drop they have 70 dedicated employees on their customer care team they have Robar responsive web design all built into all of their templates you can do loads of stuff but I want to talk about e-commerce because I was talking about this on command space this week with Britt texture and he kind of mentioned it and I said that you'd spoken you know me and you had spoken about this people have heard it on the show in the past but you're gonna use Squarespace Commerce for not co right right right yeah and I actually listened to that episode with you and Brett last night so I did hear you talk about that so you're gonna go ahead and use when it when the time comes to open a store you can use Squarespace Commerce why did you decide to go with Squarespace Commerce well basically it it seemed the simplest with the most tools available I guess if you will it had everything that we needed that I felt we needed to build a shop you know it's got it had inventory management it's had you know the different ways of presenting the products with the with multiple products and you know for something like us where we're having to choose different colors and different sizes it's all just it seemed really easy to put together and then even since we've chosen to go with that they've added on additional things like having more shipping integration and having more accounting and integration which is all stuff that I don't have experience with so having them kind of lead the way and point me to the right tools I need to you know to set this shop up and have it be successful and you know not cause me headaches on the back end really and that's what it's mostly about I think in all of the front end stuff you know obviously looks great and that's probably the things you see the least as a consumer but for someone who's actually using it all the back end tools that you have I think that's what that's kind of what set it apart for me in looking or in shopping around and trying to pick and choose which e-commerce platform are we gonna go with thanks that buddy sure square space commerce as Brad said it's it's that it's the system you can plug right into any square space site to allow you to natively and easily sell physical digital goods a great new thing about square space commerce is it's now available to everybody across all plans that used to be on their business plan now if you want to set up a shop and sell things in just minutes you can do that on any square space plan as I said earlier you can try out square space for free there's no credit card required to do so now if you decide to sign up it's just eight dollars a month and includes a domain name if you sign up for a year or more make sure that you get 10% off and support the show by using the offer code tally hoe to and just one last thing if you are an engineer or a designer world square space are currently looking to hire 30 of you by March 15th this means that they're going to be bringing potential candidates and their spouses to be New Yorkers for a weekend completely on them so if you want to hang out with the crew over at square space and have an opportunity to take a really awesome job go over to be a part of it dot square space dot com thanks so much to square space for supporting 5x5 and the Panatic thanks for helping out so it's a job that on you yeah you drop that on the blue that was that was unplanned but I was ready for it because you know they make it easy so and actually you know we'll do this again here in a couple months once we actually do go live and I'll have more time to you know dig into the nuts and bolts me and Steven were playing around with the comish platform huh me and Steven were playing around like he had a bunch of prompt stickers they wanted to sell so he set up a store last night which is open for a few hours until we ran out and it was so easy yeah we got like an email every time anybody sold one and the email had all of the information that you needed so you could write like we could basically create the ship information and labels and stuff and it would do things like you you put in the email we put in the amount of stock that we had the inventory right and it would like email you alerts as we were running down like oh you only have three of these left you know right yeah that's that's important for us where it's not yeah we're not we're not selling a digital good that has you know infinite infinite purchases available you know we're selling pincases that there might only be 50 of and you know you need to track those things so yeah we're we're excited about it getting it getting it going and it's like super easy to restrict countries because obviously you know to keep the cost down we were only shipping to the US and the UK because I had a few here to right so we were able to just from like a list just select the countries that we wanted and then you don't end up losing out on you know somebody from out of Mongolia wants a sticker and then we're paying like $20 and you've just blown all of the money from the rest of the stickers right right so yeah I really look forward to getting getting that going for more reasons than just testing out the Squarespace Commerce platform good stuff yeah so I'm gonna touch on the pin blog of the week real quick before this is really cool yeah are you doing this this this site is called Bliced Tift no I just meant that we're doing this this site is cool I just think it's cool that we keep doing this I think it's nice I do too we've got we've done it two or three times and we've gotten really good feedback on it I'm real happy with being able to spread the love around if you will but Bliced Tift is a gentleman named Matthias and do you do you know what Bliced Tift means Mike for lead pen lead pen yes so I actually had to look it up wait I cheated sorry yeah it's German for Rotter Foden Tossen McLighter but now I back when when I first stumbled across the blog I did have to look it up I was like what does this mean so I knew a long time ago it essentially me it's German for pencil essentially and Matthias does a great job of really digging in to different pen pencil reviews and recently he got what made me want to point out this week and I always feature him in inklings because he does such a great job and he always tells me thanks every week I put him in there he always sends me a comment he's like oh thank you so much for putting in the link he seems like a really nice guy but there's this project that Pelican started I don't know exactly when it started you'll have to read about it and Matthias's post but it's called the Pelican wanderlust project and they're basically sending this box of Pelican products around the world and he was one of the ones to receive it so he goes through what all is contained in the box and you know he does like a ink review that in comes with it and he's supposed to do certain things you know testing the inks right in letters and things like that so definitely y'all check this out and not just for this post but for all of his posts that he does he he does some really great photography does some really interesting post about pencils and finding you know different pencils and hard to find pencils and things like that and like a lot of the guys that do the pencil blogs every time I read them I always want to get more into pencil so I you know that's on my list the who knows maybe list but I find it fascinating to read about so thank you Matthias and Blystift for being awesome and that's the that's I call it the pin blog of the week but this time it's a pencil blog of the week so definitely check him out all right Mike you ready ready so I've been using a phrase that I need to stop using because it kind of a noise I annoy myself when I say it but I've been saying it for the past few weeks I caught myself saying it on the last podcast I think I've been saying have pins been solved like has this certain type of pen been solved is there anymore is the answer always the same when someone asked for a recommendation or what's a good pen or or you know different different things like that so I got to think in are there certain pins that have been solved you know what my frustration is not so much of pins been solved but where is the innovation at as far as gel ink pens and ballpoint pens and roller ball pens you know is there are their new products coming out that I'm not seeing or their new products coming out that aren't new products at all but repackaged and are my expectations too high that I should see all this change am I jaded in the state of the general pen industry so you know I just wanted to talk about a few different few different pens and few different pen categories and just kind of discuss it with you and kind of get your thoughts to on you know what are we done innovating with like gel ink pens for example right I mean for people who aren't in necessarily into the panetic podcast and the blog I'm kind of not talking about all of us right I'm not necessarily talking about me and you who where you know we know if there's a certain need that we have we can probably go find it but I'm more talking about the everyday user the office user just you know teachers you know doctors whoever using pens going to the store buying pens are they just getting stuck in whatever you know marketing that pilots throwing out there right for like the pilot G2 pilot markets it as America's number one selling gel pen so I can't remember a store shelf that didn't have a pilot G2 on it and it's been the same pilot G2 for a decade I mean the exact same pen so does pilot have any incentive to change that and should I care you know am I am I barking up the wrong tree here wanting to see pilot mix things up a little bit and come out with something new am I asking for too much knowing that I can go somewhere else like a jet pins or any other Japanese importing get something much cooler much better than that I don't know am I am I barking up the wrong tree here Mike am I even is this even a topic worth discussing am I just or am I just gonna end up frustrating myself I don't know man I feel like it is just a route of frustration like I don't think to say that something's ever gonna be solved I don't think is correct because you never know what's gonna come next and I think we've spoken before about like I said this a couple of times like how I always feel like I find the perfect pen for now but I don't ever stop looking because no pen is I was said it's a couple weeks ago right no pen is the perfect pen for me right because I know that there can always be a better X about it right and I think that's where my frustration lies is number one yeah I want to stop saying have pins been solved because I don't think so and it's kind of a stupid statement but I find myself saying it over and over again so I thought if I get it out maybe I can stop stop stop myself from saying it because it's kind of a stupid phrase but it's frustrating when you go into a store and it's the same thing and it hasn't changed for ten years I mean it really hasn't I mean so the way that I see it though it's just a totally different market like yeah those pens are sold to different people those pens are sold to people that wouldn't buy our pens and our pens are sold to people and we wouldn't buy the pens that are sold to regular people right if that makes sense yes so P I mean you know we talk about you know what pens are available on the store shelf and I think that's a totally valid topic and because I want people who are new to the podcast to at least you know think about the pin that they're buying they can actually make a good decision even you know just go into Staples or Office Max there's some good choices in there but that never changes I guess is what I'm saying you know like if I sent if I'm sending someone to Staples who hasn't ever tried out a pen it's always I'm always gonna tell them they wanted if they want a jelly pen I'm always gonna tell them to try the uniball sino 207 that's my favorite jelly pen that they can find from a store shelf and that conversation's over right but I don't know they and you know maybe that's good for what they're looking for and you know that's all they need and and you know that they can explore we're from there to see if they wanted something else or not but um you know that that answer hasn't changed in years and I don't know if I'm just being silly and wanting that answer to change I guess is is what it boils down to I don't know them wanting something new in that aspect in that in that gel pen shelf you know what what can be new that's why you know I get excited over silly pens like the Pilot Juice which is essentially a G2 but it's got archival ink properties which the G2 the regular G2 doesn't have and it's got cool colors which the regular G2 doesn't have so you know and it's a pen that costs a dollar sixty or whatever it is so those kind of things excite me but then when it doesn't translate to the public I don't know I get a little frustrated but I shouldn't I guess is I don't know this is this is like a psychiatry session for me I'm laying on the couch yeah I feel I feel like that's the way I mean what ideally though what do you want like do you want people to like the the average user the average person that we talk about this a lot in the technology world do you want them to be using these sorts of pens like you know what is the G2 is is really good you know yeah no I do want them to be using these pens and not I guess that my my goal would to be for them to discover that there's more out there but that's kind of a pipe dream but and you know these things in the stores are kind of the gateway to that you know it's better than the generics that they're getting at the office that are just you know no name brands you know stepping up to a G2 or a 207 or a Pentel Inner Gel you know that's way better than any stock pen you're gonna get in an office and then finding those things and I think my frustration is that's the end for most people they're done we're done got my G2 we're good and that's like barely scratching the surface from my perspective but I don't know like I said maybe it's just a pipe dream of mine I need to be the pen ambassador or something and yeah I need a TV commercial I I'm Brad and I'm the pen ambassador let me tell you about the pilot juice I think you know what I think part of the problem if we look at something like the pilot juice is where where do a lot of the best pens that we buy come from yeah I mean I know I mean they're I mean they're all Japanese like companies don't I might I'm potentially not taking a risk on consumers mm-hmm like maybe people would you want to use a I don't know secure a pigment micron if they were available in the stores for them to buy yeah yeah I know I know and you know it just I see I don't know what shows I was watching but papermate of all people has been running this inkjoy commercial here in the US and I've seen it over the past month on various channels and I'm like oh man that's a horrible pen and all the marketing dollars they're putting behind this pen is just like oh you got to be kidding me with this mess so I don't know but I mean ball ballpoint pens are the or the prime example a ballpoint pens are done I mean if you're not using the jet stream or the Acrobat I mean there's nothing else that can really hold a candle to it there's good pens and there's pins that people will enjoy and use every day they're not as good as the jet stream or the acrobat those hybrid inks are way better than any ballpoint so what's the point of you even go into the store and looking for a ballpoint pen is kind of my struggle I guess I don't want to say I'm getting I'm not getting bored with like the standard gel roller ball ballpoint pens but I don't know I just want to be able to I want to be able to see uniball come out with a new product that I can champion and that hasn't happened forever does that make sense they're just not a brand that you want that you should be paying any attention to really I guess they don't do what you want I know I just want it to be I just want more people to get into this this great hobby of ours and find cool stuff like we do and you know get enjoyment out of like when we first found when we discovered like the retro 51 I mean it really knocked our socks off I mean for lots of good reasons and I don't know I want people to be able to discover these things too and there's there not a lot of opportunities for them to do that unless they're as weird as we are in search for pens on the internet which actually a lot of people still do yeah and I think I think that's part of my transition into fountain pens a little bit you know I write more and more about fountain pens and less and less about traditional pens one because there's not as much change in the traditional gel roller ball ballpoint pens and fountain pens there's almost infinite possibilities right between not just brands but between combinations you can do with nibs and inks and things like that it's like fountain fountain pens are the lego of the pen world I mean you can do so many things you can create your own pen that's perfect for Brad or perfect for Mike and I think that's kind of the enjoyment I get with fountain pens it's not just the writing experience it's the customization aspect so I don't know if fountain pens are actually spoiling me because of that and I get frustrated you know when I have when I'm reviewing you know just another ballpoint pen that's not gonna hold a candle to you know a jet stream or something like that what's why should I talk about just another ballpoint pen I guess so I don't know just some thoughts I wanted to throw out there no and I it's interesting to think about yeah and you know I've been trying to think about you know from a reviewers aspect I'm able to you know take a ballpoint pen that I get from jet pens or something and it's good that I can review any pen and compare it to any other pen I've ever used you know I think that's one of the advantages of you know pen blogs you know is someone like myself or anyone else and or on a or anyone who's been doing it for any length of time you know they have kind of a knowledge base where they can take a new pen that they get and say it's like this other pen it does this better than this other pen it's does this better than worse than this other pen and you kind of get that knowledge base built around it but at some point it all becomes the same thing at some point the gel pens the gel pen and this gel pen doesn't write as good as the sino 207 so don't bother I feel that I'm getting to that point now with basic pens you know if I review a ballpoint pen from you know manufacturer X and it's just average there's not a lot to say about it anymore I guess it's an average pen you probably shouldn't buy it buy this and that has become more frequent I guess is what I'm getting at if a pen doesn't live up to the standards of the top pens in their category it doesn't exist I don't know I is in it I think it's an expectation thing on my my part and then in a lack of innovation and I'm not really frustrated by it I mean I enjoy reviewing like every single pen I get they're all different and you know they're all good and bad in their own ways and like be able to I'd really like being able to share that information you know I like saying that you should buy this pen or you shouldn't buy this pen or here's and here's why I enjoy that aspect of it but the challenges are when every pen is the same now and there's not a lot of change and I think maybe it's just me a little bit getting a little jaded or antsy about I want that next big thing and maybe there isn't a next big thing maybe I just need to enjoy more of what we already have kind of thing it's a very harmonious way to end that yeah enjoy what we have Brad I know because what we have is good you better leave it maybe yeah and maybe I shouldn't be frustrated by all the good things that we have because believe me I want to champion good pens and there's a lot of there's a lot of good pens out there there is something kind of cool about being part of a little club though it is oh believe me I totally enjoy that part of it but you know a lot of I think this comes from kind of the fountain pen angle now that I'm getting more into that when I thought I would never get into it period and people ask a lot all the times why fountain pens instead of you know just you know a regular gel pen or whatever and you know it's it's always been kind of hard to put into words why but I really think it's that that whole customization thing and and just the the change like I can have one pen and unlimited bottles of ink and I could change it every day if I felt like it you know it's kind of cool to be able to do that and can't necessarily do that with a gel ink pen unless you buy all the different colors or whatever but I don't know I'm getting into rambly state I think it's I think it's more of a it's not you it's me kind of thing that I've been feeling here recently and so maybe I maybe I should just enjoy more what I have and embrace embrace the mass market pen embrace it that's right oh welcome it of open arms right spread the word I think we come to the end of this week's episode yeah would you agree yeah I think so I mean I could keep rambling but I don't think I'll say anything new if you want to catch us showing us for today's episode go to five by five dot TV slash pen addict slash ninety four if you'd like to catch up with Brad online he is at doubt d-s-m-d-o-w-d-y-i-s-m he's also writes over at pen addict calm I am at I'm like I am y-k-e we'll be back next week for another episode of the pen addict podcast thank you so much for listening until then say goodbye Brad goodbye Brad
