Hello and welcome to episode 91 of the Panadic Podcast, a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analog tools we love so dearly. My name is Mike Hurley and I am joined by a man who, if he was a magician, his main trick would probably be the vanishing point. Mr. Brad Dally. That was horrible. I'm so, so bad this week. Me and Brad have been sitting here for about 10 minutes while I've been trying to think of something. I'm sorry everyone, I've let you all down. That's all right. Funny thing on that, we've had a few listeners going back and listening through a bunch of episodes and I think it was one of our listeners Philip. He mentioned, did you realize like through the first 20 episodes that wasn't this and then all of a sudden it just like started. There was no, you know, title calling the name or any doing any kind of nickname or anything like that. Then that's about when it started. So I'd have to check Knewney Renish and sheet to see if that's that's the case. Started around episode 20 or 21. So it hasn't been from the very, very beginning, but it started quite a long time ago. When I find it now, I'm gonna go to her site and find the first instance and try and understand what happened. I mean, obviously a couple of people have mentioned my bromance fueled intro from last week. So I did have one today, but I felt like it was too obscure. But would you like to hear what the reject what off the cutting room floor? Sure. So today's was, he must surely be Stabiloboss because he's really highlighted some things in my life. But I wasn't sure if Stabiloboss was a big enough brand name outside of the UK. Yeah, maybe not. I mean, I knew I understood what it was, but yeah, that's that's pretty obscure. It was something like that. Say like, you really highlighted some things in my life. That was the best. So basically, it started with episode, well, with episode one, I just called you my illustrious co-host, the panatics himself, then blogger extraordinaire over at number four. 13 was my partner in crime. Trusty co-host 16 was the panatics himself, the man ashamed his addiction. You see, that's where it started. Then episode 22 was the high priest's pendant. Then it was the king of all pendant, because clearly, I can't think of two things in it. And then it was 24 is where all the wheels came off, the chief and the grandmaster, the all high wizard himself and Khan at the panatics chief panatics. And then it went on from there. And then it's that, you know, that that was where it kind of really took off. That's too funny. Too funny. So yeah, you've had, yeah, it's hard coming up with these every week now. There's since you've done it about 70 times or so. The worst thing that happened was that I had like those six or seven and then just threw them all out in one episode. Yep. Recently. That was not good. Yep. Never mind though. I am sure I'll come back with something amazing next week and I won't let this rest down anymore. That's right. That's right. So speaking of amazing, we have some amazing listeners. Did you know that? I'm pretty sure you know that. The best, in fact, they are. They really are. And they're from all over the world. Just like this email I got from Mel, who is a Japanese American currently living in Japan. That's so amazing. I know. So that means all over the place. What panatic is worldwide? Hi, Mel. Hi, Mel. She's awesome. I've talked to her a bunch offline, just doing, you know, talking about different things and some of the stationary and things she does and or purchases over there. But anyway, she sent us an email the way our conversation started is a couple, two or three episodes ago, we were talking about that Pentel Oren's mechanical pencil. That's the point two millimeter. Yeah. Yeah. Where you were kind of you were tripping out over the Google Translate button. I'm going to find it again. So let me explain to you. She she broke it down. She broke it down to us in an email. So she said, first the confusing web translation of the Oren's. She said, I just had to check what released from the sun was. And it's because the character that means day is the same character that means sun. So released from the sun is actually on sale from this day. So that means it's actually going on sale now. And so it on an extra note, Oreru, I think I'm saying that right means to break and the in zoo often negates a verb. So Oren's is a play on words, meaning won't break, which is interesting because point two millimeter pencils break all the time. So that's like a feature of that pencil. That would be pretty impressive that because I have point three millimeter led pencils and they just snap constantly. So I'd be interested to try that out. And she says on a similar note to that, in case no one has mentioned this, Kurutoga is a mix of Kuru for turn or rotate and Toga, which is short for Togaru for sharp. So rotate sharp. So anyway, I thought I would throw that out there too. And she also mentions that she went all the way back to the episode about Japanese pins where we're looking at the pilot juice site, you know, our favorite website in the world. And she says, this is actually a fortune telling site. She said not quite sure what it has to do with pins, but not quite surprised either. So anyway, I love our listeners. And they give us all this good stuff like that that I would never, never come across on my own. And we have, you know, our listeners from all over the world, you know, our German listeners like to correct us on our pronunciation. I'm horrible. You're pretty good at the German roto fad and tashen big light. That was that was pretty good. Yeah. And but, you know, I butcher, like, I can't even say kaveko very well. So we get, we get all kinds of cool pronunciation tips on the on the podcast. So thank you, Mel, and thank you for everyone else who, who helps us not butcher everywhere that comes out of our mouth. As a mechanical pencil, right matches the needs. I want to take clean the note of teenagers and that I want to aim for performance up note clean. The character that was refreshing, thin, strong test and study learn day to day or in zoo. I will continue to support this. That's why you're so good at, um, at the ad read. That sounded like a, that sounded like an ad read. It was excellent. It's just just straight from the terrible translation to our listeners ears. So my turn. So your turn, I'm interested about this next topic very much. We have reached an end to the current search for the perfect pen. So basically, what I was going to do with my lady this weekend, we were going to go through a couple of things because she wanted to test out a couple of things again. She's actually been listening to the show and she's very thankful for all the suggestions that everyone's provided. So there's a couple of things that we've been going through. She was interested in the design of coveco. So I had from our friends at colt pens a bold nib that I wasn't using because she didn't like the medium nib. So I added the bold nib to the colt pens mini and also took my coveco. And there were a couple of other smaller items like the platinum because they needed to prove to her why it was terrible the first time because she'd kind of forgotten about that one. And she said, I just want to go through some of your pens again from the original lineup that I presented with. So tried out the coveco didn't like it. And it's interesting to see when she was using it. And then when I was using it too, the lines are incredibly inconsistent, especially when you're not writing slowly. So if you write quite quickly, it's quite a lot of skipping, which I hadn't really noticed before, but I've never really used a coveco with over a long period of time. Have you found that to be the case? Not with not on the EF side of the ledger, but on the bold side I have. And I've also found it on medium too then. Yeah, I mean, it's almost like for lack of a better term, a stickiness. Okay, yeah, that makes sense like that you feel you don't feel like the new it's not scratchy at all. Yeah, but it feels like there's a little almost like a sticky bump, like you just kind of a, I don't know how to put that in words. The feeling sensation of that, I don't know how to say it. But it's not, yeah, I know what you're talking about. And I have experienced that on some of the wider nibs, but never with the EF or even the F nib for a coveco, but on the the bold nib. Yeah, not crazy about crazy about that. So we took a look over these, neither of them were winners, but an order was made. So basically the pilot metropolitan has gone down a storm. I completely forgotten that that needed those special namiki cartridges. Well, it comes with a converter too. So I've done the way mine is, but it's around somewhere. Now you mentioned that that's good to know. I had a box of those cartridges anyway, which I've given to her because I don't use any pens that need them, because I don't use a vanishing point anymore, which is what I bought them for. I bought them when I got my vanishing point, because I thought it would be the most perfect pen ever to have graced the planet. And it costs me a lot of money, but it turns out I don't really like it anymore. So what we have, so basically, you know, as I said, the metropolitan has gone down a storm. She just loves it. She thinks, you know, it's great, which is, again, as we said before, it's not not not to my tastes, but I know that it is widely accepted to be a great pen. And you know, I actually used it a little bit more this weekend. And I was like, yeah, okay, I can see, I can see this a little bit more now, maybe, when I was removed from the hype that we had, you know, that had been built up before me and you ordered them. But yeah, so I can see that it's a solid performer, you know, it's very, very good for its price range. I was just hoping to have my mind blown off, but it did not in the initial term. So what, you know, as people will know, what we were looking for was not another pen. It was for a pen that could have a stub nib. So she was playing, you know, she was like writing now with my diamond mini that I have, my two speed diamond mini. She was testing that out. And I was sort of saying that it was a shame that she didn't really like the Twisbee, because it was kind of perfect. Or any of the Twisbee is really a kind of perfect. And the one that she likes the, like the look of the most, the classic post. And as I mentioned, that was an issue. So she said, let me have a look at the other designs. So we went onto the writing desk. And she took a look at the, there's a, they have three different Twisbee mini. So they have the all black, the clear and black and the clear. And she was like, Oh, I like the all black one. And it was also at that point that she realized that the middle of mine wasn't blue, because she only seen it a blue ink in it. Yep. So she thought it was blue. So obviously the ink does like, you know, it colors all of it, even where there is an ink inside. So if you didn't really think about it, or that it was a demonstrator, if you'd never really seen something like that before, you may not work used to that, then you're not going to necessarily know that that's the ink inside. So we have purchased a 1.1 millimeter stub nib, Twisbee diamond mini black. Awesome. I think that's a pretty great choice right there. Because they are, I'm just, I'm really pleased because I think it's the, I think from the, I think from the start, it was the perfect pen anyway for her. It's small, it's elegant. So she's not a massive fan of the diamond pattern. Yeah, I can, I can see that. Neither am I. But she says that she can overlook it, overlook it because everything else is fantastic. But then we, we realized we need ink. So basically we started also looking through on the writing desk for, um, like a roshizuku inks. We've also looked at je her ma, je her bo, je o bo, inks as well. Um, but we, we, she settled on the pilot, iroshizuku koo Jackie, which is peacock. Okay. I haven't used that one personally, but I mean, that's a pretty popular one. I think it was out of stock, but I remembered to get on Amazon. I've seen those half price deals. Why didn't realize, and I didn't really notice this until after I purchased mine, is it's like close to a month before they might arrive. Oh, really? Including mine, the one that I bought. I bought a green one. I can't remember what Warner was now, but like we purchased this last weekend. And the estimated delivery date is from Friday the 7th of February to Thursday the 27th of February. I guess, I guess, because it's coming from Japan or Hong Kong. Yeah. And they're just paying standard chip and I think on them. Yeah. Yeah. So the diamond mini, I believe, will arrive tomorrow. I'm going to fill it up and we'll be delivering it to her on the weekend this weekend. It's coming weekend. That's fantastic. I think that's a really just good all around choice. Um, you know, I love that pen. Yeah. So and the interesting thing is, I have now started using my, uh, stubbed of five eight year every day. It was just something about it. I was like, let me try it. So I've changed it over to Fuiyugaki, which is my, my favorite roshizuku bank, the orange one, and, uh, I'm now using it again every day too. Would you like to know which of my pelican and the rotary has been taking out of daily rotation? Oh, yeah. Ouch. It's the rotary. Yeah. Now they're wrong with it. I guess. But, um, I'd been using the pelican over the rotary recently. Um, I had a, I thought that something went terribly wrong with my pelican last week. So I, uh, I filled it and it started to feel really scratchy. I was like, something's wrong here. Um, and then the next day, ink just all over my hands. I was like, oh my God, what is going on? Somehow. I don't know how. Um, the nib had unscrewed a little bit. Okay. So it was, it wasn't, the ink wasn't flying through properly and then was spurting everywhere. Basically. Yeah. That makes sense. But yeah, I was, I was, I was pretty terrified at the time. Yeah. I had a pin failure over the weekend too. That my, my Twisbee Mini, the, uh, it's, it's my ink testing pin. I use it primarily for that. So I'm filling it and refilling it a lot. So, you know, ink in, ink out, clean in, you know, if, if I get in a run, you know, maybe three or four times a night, you know, and then just, it just depends on, you know, how often I use it. So I noticed the, uh, the, uh, the piston filling mechanism was getting a little tight. Um, like I needed to, you know, resellicon, grace it, you know, just for a smoother, smoother action. And I was lazy about doing it and eventually like the end of the plunger, like, you know, the rubber piece that actually fits against the, uh, you know, that seals the inside of the barrel. So the, and pushes the ink down or draws the ink up and keeps the ink from coming out the back separated from actually the stem of the plunger that, you know, screws it down or back up. It's like, Oh man, what did I do? I waited too long to do this, but I went to the, I went to the Twitter and Instagram and got some good tips on how to, uh, push it back out and, you know, just use the tiny little bit, uh, bent paperclip, pushed it back out and disassembled it and resellicon, greased it. Now it's back in full glory. So that was a little, that was a little annoying, but that was a self-inflicted wound. Before we went to the mini, we also looked at the VAC 700 because that's smooth all the way around. Um, but then realized it was going to be just ridiculously large with the cap posted. It's a giant pen. Did I tell you I got a VAC 700? No. So, um, a reader slash listener sent me one. She reached out to me on Twitter says, Hey, I don't really like this pen. Do you want to try it? You know, you can have it if you want it. I was like, yeah, I mean, I've always wanted to try it and review it just to see what the deal is, to see, you know, it's got really mixed reviews, right? Some people love it and some people just hate it and want to get rid of it. And, um, so I've got one. So I'll, I need to spend some more time with it because it's an interesting pen, but it, it's a gigantic pen. And, uh, I would think she would not like that at all. Did you know that Thomas sent me some pens? More? Yeah, I have awesome. What did you get? It's two Edison perlets, but when it's the nibs that you wanted me to try. Okay. So they're both Masuyama nibs. Mm hmm. One is a point eight millimeter italic. The other is a point three millimeter italic. Uh huh. I haven't, I haven't ink them up and tried them out yet. Okay. Did he just send you the nibs or the whole barrel? He sent me the, the, the whole barrel. Cause did you, did you get that black purple celluloid one? Um, of his. It's got like a, it's really dark and it's got a clear ink window. Yeah. And it's kind of like, kind of looks like outer space. It's kind of shimmery, right? Yeah. That's a cool pen. Yeah. Yeah. I got that one. Sorry. That was mean of me to talk about something we can't really link. But I knew which, I knew which pen it was because I've had it before too. I hadn't really paid too much attention to it. It's not kind of just, you got to get it in the right light. It's impossible. It's impossible to photograph and show it off any good. I've app tried. Oh man, but it's a wicked pen. Yeah. Guys, just imagine something that looks amazing. I haven't ink them up yet. I'm a little bit intimidated by them both. Um, but I'm going to, I'm going to. So like the same that, uh, you know, I've got the ink that was sent to us by a doodack, but sent to me and he just sent me his message and he was like, just do whatever you want with the thing now and just use it. But I'm still scared. Right. You know, because there are other people's pens. I'm really like about it. Oh, trust me. I'm very much the same. I have a few from other listeners. I don't want to spoil that surprises, those surprises for future episodes. But I have, yeah, I have a couple other ones as, as well on my desk right now. And that always makes me nervous when I'm barring other people's, other people's pens. So, but I didn't, I did make a new purchase this week or late last week since the last episode. Um, kind of, um, going through, through that wish list, uh, in a rapid, in a rapid pace so far earlier, early in the year, it's still only January. And I have scratched another thing off my list. I wanted to buy, buy, um, another sailor pen this year. Um, a, a more full size one. And I happened to stumble across when I could not pass up. And it's actually a brand new model, but I found it on fountain pen network classifieds and got with selling it. He, um, did not like the nib with and I was able to pick up the sailor 1911 black luster fountain pen, which is a new release for sailor. I guess they introduced it back in the fall, maybe something like that. Um, it's a new release called the 1911. Yeah. That's the, their main line. One of their main line, uh, names. I'm assuming that's when the company started. Yeah, makes sense. But, but what's interesting about this pen is one, it's beautiful. It's got, you know, all the, you know, it's basically black on black for lack of a better, better term. It's black resin barrel, you know, normal black. And then every other, I'll wear all the chrome pieces would be or the, in the nib, you know, the silver rhodium plated nib. It's all this black ion plated plating. So it's this really dark shaded, um, finish on all the, what you would normally think of the chrome parts of the pen. But what sets this pen apart from other sailor 1911s and other sailor models period is it has a metallic grip section. So I don't know if you're seeing the pictures that I put in the link, Mike, like the whole section is metal. So what that does is it changes the balance of the pen when you're writing, you know, it's a more, um, more heavy. I don't want to say heavy because you can't really feel it, but it's more weighted towards the nib of the pen, which is supposed to make supposed to make for an easier writing experience, you know, moving the nib across the page to help you out a little bit easier. I think it kind of goes along the lines of, um, engineering pencils, engineering and drafting pencils, they're very bottom weighted, if you will, or I guess they're more weighted towards the the tip of the pencil. And that's for balance and control. And, um, you know, to help with the writing and help help you control your lines a little bit better. So I'm really pleased with this so far. I got it for a really good price. Um, you can feel the weight in the pen when you're holding it and not writing it. Um, like if I gave you the pen capped and told you to hold it, I don't know that you necessarily know that it was heavy, but if you uncap it, you can feel the weight in the grip section when you're just holding it. But when you write with it, you don't feel it at all. It just feels like any other pen. Medium nib. Medium nib. Um, because that's what he had. And that's what he didn't like because it was too fine for him, which is why he was selling it, but he had only inked it up twice. So it was essentially brand new. And, um, yeah, I am, I am super pleased with this and we'll be reviewing it soon. And, uh, this is going to be a heavy rotation pen just because the, the nib is excellent. It's a 21 karat gold nib super ridiculously smooth and fine enough for me to use without any, you know, any desire to change, change it into something smaller, you know, like a fine or an extra fine. It's, uh, it's fantastic. Really happy with it. Just got it a few days ago, so I haven't spent too much time with it. As a matter of fact, just inked it up last night, uh, for the first time. So, um, yeah, check it out. It's, uh, it's a really neat pen. And, uh, it's pretty much designed for me. You know, it's everything I want in just a design of a pen. And, uh, I'm real happy with it. Good stuff, man. Yeah. I hope that you got a good discount because boy, things expensive. Yeah, no, I did. I mean, I'll tell you, I paid 240 for it. Hey, that's really good. It's like half price nearly. Yeah. So, I mean, if you order it from Japan and the reason I actually negotiated the price and because if you order it from Japan, like one of the vendors that I use over there, sometimes it's new over there is like 234. So it's in the ballpark of what I should have paid. So I was good with that. It's a good deal. Good deal. Glad to have it. Should we take a quick break? Yeah, let's do that. 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And you can go in and you can tweak things yourself to make sure that they look it looks fantastic. So you can change some of the fonts, the fonts that you want, you can change colors and widths and some of the layout stuff as well. So the site really has your own taste and flavor on it as well, which is really cool. Because you want it to to look good and to have that great design direction, but you want it to to be like your own place online as well. And that's what squarespace gives you the ability to do. Squarespace take care of all of the nasty stuff too. They take care of hosting. They take care of SEO. It's really difficult things to do if you like someone like me. You don't really know what to do in those areas, but they take care of it for you. And they make sure that your site looks fantastic on any device as they feature a responsive web design from right out of the box. All of their themes look fantastic on all manner of devices. 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If you sign up for a year or more, it really is the whole package over at Squarespace. And don't forget that you're going to get 10% off and show your support for this show. By using the offer code, tallyho1, that's T-A-L-L-Y, H-O, and the number one. Thank you so much to Squarespace for their continued support with the panatics and all of 5x5. Awesome. Thank you, Squarespace. So I got an interesting email about two weeks ago. And I wanted to share that with you real quick and share that with the listeners because I think it was a really good idea. And it's something I've talked about in the past with some things I do in my blog. So let me read this real quick. This is from Bob. He says, "Really been enjoying catching up on the podcast I've missed over your past two-year run, learning a lot and expending much funds as a result. You guys do a great job. With all the pin blogs starting to pop up, including mine, have you ever thought about maybe giving a short plug to a different pin blog each week, maybe right after the Squarespace dad? Real short plug and maybe mentioning the show notes, not a full review or anything big. Our pin blog of the week is blah, blah, blah.com. Be sure to go and check them out. Now back to our show. I said, "I appreciate you guys wanting to drive traffic to panatic.com, but you're so far and away. More popular than any of us little guys will ever be. I doubt it would have a negative effect on your hit count. Just a mention on the Panatic website got me nearly 400 hits in a day, so you're reaching the pin community is huge, just an idea to consider. Thanks for all your hard work in the pin community. It shows you love what you do." Bob, I thought that was a great idea. I mean, it's been happening for the past year, but when we did our blogging episode, it was back in '80 something, about getting started in pin blogging. Even since then, there's just been a huge increase of not just pin blogs, but really, really good pin blogs. These guys and girls are doing articles and reviews and things that put me to shame. It's really awesome. I enjoy spreading the word about these things. I think Bob has a great idea that I can share this type of information. Maybe not every week, but I think having just a focus on some of the great pin bloggers out there and some of the new pin bloggers out there, because some of this new stuff, like I said just a second ago, is awesome. I've linked to Bob. I don't know, once or twice on ink links, he's done some good reviews. He did a pilot cocoono review not too long ago. That was really good and a write code notepads review that I enjoyed. Then he also did a review or did a post, just a general post, talking about, do you keep your pinboxes? Do you keep your pinboxes, Mike? Yes. I used to not do that. I keep boxes for most things that I buy. I'm weird. No, I don't think that's weird, but I now keep my pinboxes, but it's a thing where I realized after the fact that I might need them to ship them. If I trade a pin or something like that, that's a perfect shipping vessel for the pin. I keep them more for that than anything else. Anyway, Bob's blog will be in our show notes. It's called My Pin Needs Ink, which is a great name. I think this could be a recurring theme. What do you think about this for the show, Mike? I think shedding light on new bloggers and bloggers of old as well. It's only a good thing. Yeah, there's one thing that I want to make clear though that I don't want it to be part of the ad, so I don't want people to think that they have to have a Squarespace blog to be spoken about. Absolutely. If you have a Squarespace blog, excellent and more power to you, and thank you if you signed up using our code, feel free to tell us that because you will get the extra big thumbs up from us. But that's not a prerequisite of us talking about your site. Absolutely not. Totally 100% unrelated. He was just mentioning, "Hey, maybe this is a good spot in the format before you get into a topic." It's the perfect place. It's definitely the perfect place for it. It'd either be then or right at the end of the show, but sometimes I get all emotional. Let's get into something I want to talk about real quick and then if we have time, I have a few Twitter questions that I want to rapid-fire and get through because there's some good stuff out there. I did a review last week on a pen that I've been wanting to review for a long time, and I'm anxious to get your feedback on this. But Jet Pen started carrying the Retro51 Tornado Fountain Pens, and I got the black acrylic model. They also have the bigger models, the Lincoln, and I forget what the other one's called, maybe white gold. I'm not looking at it. Anyway, you've had a Retro51 Fountain Pen for probably more than a year now, at this point or at least a year, and they've been on the market for a while and I've just never ordered one to get. I've just had other things to purchase at the time. It's never totally chomping at the bit to order one, but since Jet Pen's got them, I finally got one to review, and I got to say, just cut straight to the chase. I'm not impressed. The design of the pen is beautiful. It looks like a Retro51 should look. The black acrylic and chrome exterior is really, really, it's a super attractive pen. The nib was an eye opener. It's shockingly good, like off the charts. Awesome nib. Like I said, I think I said in the article, it's like a 10 out of 10 nib. They used Schmidt nibs. This is a medium. Is this a fine? What did I get? I can't remember. It's a fine. Fine nib, but they do offer medium. The nib is amazing, but there was two gigantic flaws that make me never, I'm never going to use this pen just because it's not comfortable to write with. One is the section is completely cheap, if you will, cheap feeling, cheap looking. It's this cheap kind of satiny plastic. It doesn't fit in the design with the design of the rest of the pen, in my opinion. It's not comfortable to hold because my fingers slide around constantly on it. It's that slick. It's just not enjoyable to hold. Related to that, it is a poorly balanced pen. With the cap un-posted, it's a small lightweight pen. I liken it to the pilot praira, which a lot of people have. Everyone knows that's a short pen. With that cap un-posted, it's very light. People don't necessarily like to write it with that, but unlike the praira, when you post the cap, the pen's balanced and perfectly able to write. This one you can't write in a balanced situation with the cap posted or un-posted. Un-posted, it's too light and too short. Posted, it's too top heavy and unbalanced. I had a real struggle getting comfortable with this pen, despite how good it looks and despite how great the nib looks. I was disappointed, obviously, because it looks good. I wish it was better designed. It gets me to thinking what goes into the design process here to where they can't spend two or three more dollars to improve the section. This pen was $43 on JetPens. I'd rather pay $50 for a pen that I'm going to use than $40 for a pen that's going to collect dust. That makes sense. Do a better job, charge me more, and make a better product. It's like they phoned in the section completely. When you say the section, do you mean the grip? So here's an interesting thing. Remember, I always put this one on my most favorite pen's all the time. I hadn't used it in a long time. I think a few days before you posted your review, I didn't even know you had it. Just while I was going through finding with the perfect pen quest, I realized how cheap this pen feels. It's the exact same deal to you. From the time of having bought and used this pen frequently to now, I've had such different experiences going back to it, so I've not used it since for a long time, really. It's just sat in my pen case. I realized how light feeling it is, but not in a good way. It is cheap and slippery. It's too short for the size of the nib. I think that maybe the Lincoln or the White Nickel might be better feeling because I have more weight to them because they're made of metal, rather than acrylic or plastic. Obviously, I just want to address the grip issue that you had. But I feel at least make the overall feeling of the pen a lot better. Yeah, those are a little bit heavier, obviously, and they're just a little bit longer too. So yeah, I agree with you on that. Not having used one, but looking at them, they would be much better balanced and feel better in the hand, despite having still having the section issue. So I think that that would go to fixing 50% of your problem, but obviously, the grip is an issue. Yeah, so that's... This does fill me with a lot of excitement for the cast customs ink. Yeah, why? Well, it's the same nib. The nib. Yeah, I was only going to say you can use the nib. Because I've got the still got that medium prototype one here, as I mentioned earlier, and I was just writing, I was just playing around a bit while you were talking. And it feels really good to hold, and obviously, this has a medium nib, but you've got the fine nib and you say the fine nib is awesome as well. It's really awesome. I was very impressed with the nib. So I think that because this is a much more quality feeling body than that of the Retro 51, it's the shame because I did love this, and I remember what I obviously loved, what I was blown away with was the nib. Because when I wrote with it, I was like, "Wow, this is a good nib." But I'd forgotten how kind of it isn't great feeling. Yeah. So I guess what really got me riled up was I know they can do better than this, and I don't understand why they didn't. And those are things that we'll never understand, right? I just feel that they could have spent a little bit more money and charged a little bit more for a better product. So this is something that I think about quite a lot in regards to pen manufacturers. Why are they panatics? Yeah, I think about that all the time too. Because it's perfectly fine for the average person. I don't even think anybody would notice that. We will. Right. But I don't necessarily know if, perfect example, he who shall not be named with product that should not be named. Right. You know, perfectly fine for him, perfectly fine for other people. But for panatics, doesn't cut the mustard. Right. Because we hold these things to a much higher level of scrutiny. And I think we said that at the time. So maybe that's simply the case here. Yeah. It was fine. And I did before I got really deep into this. Sure. Sure. Part of the journey, right? It actually is, and I feel like this is a good example of that, because this is a pen that you don't like. Now I don't really hold in his highest theme. But at the time I was like, this is the best pen ever. Right. Right. Right. All right. So I got, let's, let's wrap it up with a bunch of Twitter questions I reached out for. Well, I hadn't done this in a while. So I got got a few quick hits on Twitter. I'm gonna go through. Father Mike Gossett, who's been a follower forever. Really good supporter. He says, ever have any problems with a retro 51 rattling when you write? I love the pen, but the noise and movement drive me crazy. The retro 51 tornado roller balls? No, never. But the snappers, the retractable ones, always, they rattle. So I don't know specifically which one you were talking about, Father Mike, but with the tornado roller balls, I don't have any issues. How about you Mike? No, not at all. Yeah, not the tornado roller ball. I think one of the reasons why we enjoy it, not just for the refill is it's, it's just dead solid. I mean, it's, it's no sound, no movement, no nothing. So something's up if it's, if it's the roller ball and not the snapper. Isn't that what the retractable ones called? I think it's called the snapper. Something like that horrible name. We do this every time. Whatever. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, we'll go with snapper just because it sounds stupid. All right. Tim who, who writes the daily carry blog, he says, I would like to hear some strategies working through goo lay pens, ink drops and recording impressions hard to hard not to keep switching. He says, or just ink samples in general, what kind of stuff you'd record for the future when you're looking to buy an ink you've tried. I've always had it. I've had trouble with this and I got so many samples that I was trying to keep up with. And one thing that I always wanted to do and never did was either get, is get some kind of dip pen to do testing to where you didn't have to ink up a pen and clean it just to try a sample of an ink that you may not like. So my friend Thomas, he sent me a link. You know, as I've talked about this a lot, just buying a glass dip pen or something like that. He sent me a link to something called a mora set M-O-R-I-S-S-E-T dip nib. They're not easy to find, they're old. But what it is, it's a traditional fountain pen nib with a glass feed and it holds the ink really well. And it's like perfect for testing. But you kind of got to, there's no real place to purchase them. So you just kind of got to stumble them on eBay or there've been people who'll make some and you need a holder for it too, right? It's just a nib with a screw on section. So, but it's worth looking for because they're not very expensive. I mean, like we're talking like $5 for a nib and then you got to find something to hold it in. I haven't bought that yet, but I'm going to in the near future. And that's how I'm going to do some of my ink sampling now. And that's just how I get a good feel. I try to get them all on the same paper, you know, keep them all on the same notebook or, you know, I use the memo sign. What's it called? The word cards, you know, to do all my ink samples so I can pull them out and check them out later, things like that. So, but I'd get a dip nib or a glass dip pen, something like that that you can do is you can test a lot of inks quickly with. And that's something I'm working on myself. Josh on Twitter says, "What makes a good bullet journal and what pen works good on the paper?" He says, "Man, I love this show. Appreciate it, Josh. That's how you get your tweet read." I've always thought the Leuch term 1917 was a good bullet journal if you like grid paper, but really anything. I mean, the field notes is good. The word notebooks is practically set up for you already for bullet journaling. So, that may be something you look at as the word notebooks. They handle inks really well pretty much across the board. Fountain pen, gel, rollerball, ballpoint. So, take a look at the word notebooks. Our friend, Tophra, this is for you, Mike. You ready? This is for both of us. If you had to fight Mike to the death, what pens would you both choose as your weapon? Who would win and why? So, we're going to fight to the death. I'm going to maybe... I'm probably going to go with... I'll definitely take one of yours, actually, I think, because you have those razor sharp nibs. Yeah. What's yours? I think I'm going to go with the black matte vanishing point with the extra fine nib. Oh, yes. I mean, it's very slicey and stabby. I think, first, I would probably poke your eye out. Okay. And then, while you're leaning over a crying, I'd probably slice your Achilles. Right. Okay. This is good to know. Carry on. And then, you know, we would just, complete the evisceration from there. See, here's the thing, though. This is why I'm going to win. Because you're going to go like, you know, you're going to do something, you're going to try and blind me or something. I found my new pen for this. The copper, caris, customs, bolt, one club, you're down. Down and up. So, heavy as pen known to man. Yeah. I would reach in for the eyeball, and you would just bonk me on the head and I'd be done. That's it. That's a good one. All right. Danny Roll on Twitter. This is, this is a hilarious question, and it's simplicity. Do you own an ultrasonic cleaner now? And he probably didn't think it was funny, but I think it's funny because I'm having a lot of people going back through our old episodes now, calling me out on things I said I would or wouldn't have or, you know, completely dogging something out way back when and loving it now, but I do not own an ultrasonic cleaner now. That's one of those things I said I would never own. Right now I don't, but I'm never going to say never again on that one. John Mayhem wants to know, Mike, if you're going to the Bristol Pen Show on Sunday, February the 2nd. I didn't know about it, but I'm going to be on a train on Sunday going to Glasgow. All right. Awesome. Curly McD on Twitter wants to know where to buy UEF nib for platinum 3776 in Europe. That's a good question. I didn't look it up. I don't know if Colt Pence has him or the writing desk. We'd have to sort that out. Adam Blaine, Adam's a new follower, and he's been very active on Twitter and Instagram. He says, "Can you calm down on the enabling? I'm holding you responsible for a Twisbee mini EF heading my way." So we will not calm down on the enabling Adam, and sorry for the hit to your wallet, but good choice in Pence, as you can tell by earlier in that episode. We highly approve of that purchase. Have you seen the movie Gravity, Mike? No, I haven't. Okay. So we're not going to know the answer to this question. Craig wants to know what's the pen floating around in the movie Gravity. I guess our guess would be it's a Fisher Space Pen, but we sure don't know. All right. That concludes our Twitter blast for the day, and I think that's all I got this week, Mike. Hey, that sounds pretty good. Yeah. I'm trying to see if I can find a pen, a ballpoint pen. I'm not looking at it. Gravity? Yeah. I haven't seen a jet, so I don't know. I'm doing some Googling. Yeah, there was a ballpoint pen floating around of Sandra Bullock, but that's all I've got so far. It was a ballpoint pen, all that could mean anything. Yeah. Cool. Okay. So if you want to catch some show notes for this week's episode, there's a great place to do that. Go to 5x5.tv/penadex/91, so you're going to find all that fun stuff. If you want to keep up with me and Brad, you can do that on Twitter. I am I Mike. I am Y-K-E, and Brad is @doudism, d-o-w-d-y-i-s-m. If you want to submit a blog of your own, I'll just get in touch with us. There's a couple of ways you can do that. Probably the easiest, if you go to 5x5.tv/penadex, or go to the show notes page, hit the button that says "Contact" in the master head at the top. That's going to send an email directly to us. It's the easiest way, rather than trying to remember an email address. Go to 5x5.tv/penadex, and just hit the contact button that's right there. Did I say pad? Brad's blog, pen blog. Brad's Ben blog, which is over at penadex.com. I don't know if I mentioned that already, but you get another plug. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the Penadex. If you'd like to submit the pens that you think could be us both in a fight, feel free to do that on Twitter. Good idea. Bring it. Tell us how you're going to take care of business. I just don't want to hear the pen, but give us some details. Exactly. We'll be back next week. It's going to be on Thursday next week, so I'm going to be away for a couple of days. You will have another episode, but it will be coming to you just a little later than usual. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the Penadex podcast. Until next time, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. [BLANK_AUDIO]
