Hello and welcome to episode 86 of the Panatic Podcast, a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper and the analog tools that we love so dearly. My name is Mike Hurley and in a move where I'm slightly concerned about the root of the show going forward, we have another guest this week. These, my two gentlemen today, would fit perfectly in a groove together. Mr. Brad Doudy and Mr. Mike Dudek. Nice. I feel like you're trying to push me out Brad. No. Every week you're bringing guests on to the show now. What's happening? Not at all. Not at all. Hey, it's a it's a credit to you that the you know the show keeps growing, the audience is getting wider and they want to you know hear about hear more people on the show and I think it's only an only good thing and you know the sooner you're off the show the better. I was like exactly that way. Did I say that out loud? It's like in the last five five episodes, three of them have had a guest. Yeah, at least I mean people people want to hear hear other voices than ours and here's some here good stories and cool ideas and and and good bloggers like we have today and Mr. Mike Dudek. So it's it's it's all good and you're not going anywhere Mike. Good. Yeah, I'll keep you around. You know it can't rid of me. No, seeing that the show probably wouldn't happen without you. Oh so how are you sir? I am very well. I'm excited to show. Ready for Christmas? No. Yeah, we are recording on a Monday by the way which I guess I forgot to remind people today but we reminded them last week. Hey, it'll be a surprise. Yeah, it'll be an early Christmas present from from us to the listeners and we're recording on Monday next week too because otherwise it will be a interesting episode. That would be an awesome episode because it would be Tuesday about an hour or two before midnight. Yup. The years Eve. That would might have gone down as the greatest episode in panatic podcast history. We'll never know, will we? Never know. No, we count and count in the new year together. Yeah, yeah, that would be special in its own kind of way. Oh, I just had a terrible joke. So we get ready to count in the new year. Pen nine. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so let me save you. Let me save you. There's a reason you have to chop me off the show. Yeah, exactly. It's becoming obvious. One of our listeners last week, like right after we posted last week's episode, did maybe the single most awesome thing I have seen since we've been doing this podcast. Mr. John Hume, one of your, one of your countrymen, he's at Humdini on Twitter. He sent us a link after last week's show and I about fell out when I saw it. He said the tweet says, checking out episode 85 and following along with panatic podcast bingo. And he made his own bingo card for our episode, which features blocks you can bingo, bingo blocks you can fill out like Twisby 540, ROC, Visionaire, Field Notes, Retro51, Kickstarter, and you check all these things off to make your bingo. He actually, he bingoed on, let's say he bingoed on Twisby 540 rock vanishing point. He got the free bingo spot, high-tech sea and Lamy Safari. I like some of them. So Brad promises to review something. Mike makes a lusty noise. Oh dear, even a jellies click. His own spot on the board. It's got his own block. Everyone should strive to have their own panatic podcast bingo block. That's Moleskine Paper Sucks. This is excellent. Like, I, not only do I encourage, I encourage people to go and check it out because we've got it in the show notes. You can get those at 5x5.tv/panadict/ what episode are we on? 86, 86. But also, you know, so yeah, please go and find it for yourself. Play along for yourself. I encourage John to continue making more and all of you guys as well. Like, if this is something that you enjoy, maybe make your own boards and send them in. I think it's very funny. Oh, I would love people to send in pictures of their bingo boards after they listen to the show. John didn't just handwrite it. He laid this out in a document like a PDF. It's got squares. It's all printed out. It's all computerized. It's not handwritten. He did a good job. It looks pretty legit. Yeah. We should do something. We should work with John to provide the file to listeners or something like a downloads page or something like that. Yeah, I have a PDF. Okay. Cool. Sent me a PDF, so it's in the show notes. That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. So, print it out and play along and then we'll have to update it as we go. But this is pretty solid. I don't know if I would add anything to it. I'll have to think of something. But yeah, Mike makes a lusty noise. God, that's great. Talk about lusty noises. I made a mistake last week with the show notes. I didn't include a link to the Roto Fardin Tashkin book lighter. The case that I have for my iPad that I spoke about for a bit. I forgot to include a link. So, I've updated last week's show notes, but I'll also include a link to the Roto Fardin website in this week's show notes as well in case you wanted to check out the case I was talking about. So, I had a couple of people that wanted to look at it or buy one for themselves. And I forgot to include the link to the Tashkin book lighter. And apparently I pronounced that pretty well. I've been told. Good. Good job. Yeah. And it's well worth checking out. So, it's a pretty unique thing that they're doing. So, cool. And I mentioned last week that I bought a medium gold nib for my pelican. Yes, sir. And I couldn't be happier. Good. It's fantastic. I've been enjoying. It's the only pen I've used since I received the nib, which I received the nib like the day after the show last week. It's really, really smooth. I haven't had a lot of problem with ink drying times because it's a medium nib. I've been using the Eroshizuku. There's another check on the board. Interestingly, I don't really know what this says about me and you, but other podcasts have drinking games, but we have bingo. I don't know. I don't know what that says about us. Well, I mean, it's a podcast about pens. All right. So, we're already one foot into the grave. Yeah. So, I've been using the Eroshizuku for your gacking ink, which is the orange one that I've spoken about a bunch of times. So, the ink drying is fine. They're actually no more bleed through really than there was on the using the extra fine nib, which is interesting. There is one thing that I've noticed, and I know that there's a technical term for this that I don't know, but on the nib itself, not at the point, like higher up towards where it meets the pen. There's ink there, like spotted on there. What is that called? That's a good question. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, like on the front of the nib. Yeah, nib, creep, creep. That's it. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, creep, like it comes in like along like the tine line. Yeah, it goes up a little bit further to it is quite long. And it tends to be there tends to be some ink on it. It's never so much that it's a problem, but it's just not all of like, for example, the Twizzbee 540 ROC doesn't. It doesn't we need it. We need a bell. I think I can play, I could play some noises like that, but again, it doesn't happen on most of my other pants, but it doesn't this one is also happening on the extra fine nib as well. I don't know if it's just something that I don't know if it's a pelican thing. I mean, it's not an issue, but it's just something that I've noticed. My pelicans don't do that, but I mean, I have some nibs that are more prone to doing that than others just out of nature. I don't know the exact reason why I don't have that issue with the pelicans though, but I do notice on some are definitely more prone to having that creep or, you know, I mean, if you know, fountain pens can be so delicate, even like the slightest little bump or or anything will, will, you know, throw a spot. I ink out on the nib sometimes, so, you know, it could be anything, but, you know, I just make sure the pelicans are really, really simply made, so I just make sure that the, you know, the nib screwed in firmly and that, you know, the pistons fully closed and tightened and you should be in good shape. Yeah, that's too much. Yeah, it could be that I'm thrown in a bag and stuff like that. It could be a combination with the ink as well, maybe the ink is, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it's not an issue, but it's just an observation. Sure. But overall, I'm really, really happy with it. Have you tried the cold horizons yet? I have it. I'm kind of scared. I want you to because I know I'm not, I don't know what's happening. It feels like this, like, this tape is very different to me. All right, so your steer still having issues and I saw a jelly was posted a pic today where his covers like totally mangled, like cracking and that sort of stuff doesn't bother me. No, I haven't got that at all, but okay. All right, I'm just seeing more. I'm sure that the paper is bleeding through morning. I will break. I will break it up today. Thank you. Which one is I am from a man or not? No, I'm due for a new notebook. Right. Shall we, should we take a quick break and then and then talk to talk to the dude? Let's do let's do it. Oh, dear lord. This episode of the Panavic podcast is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to create your own website for a free trial and 10% off, go to squarespace.com and use the offer code tallyho12. Squarespace are constantly updating their platform with new features, designs and more support. They have beautiful templates for you to start with and tons of style options to adjust, craft and tweak so you can really create your own space online. They take care of hosting, SEO and even make your site automatically look fantastic on any device. It's incredibly easy to use, but if you need any help, they have over 70 dedicated employees that are on their customer care team, which are based in New York City. Squarespace truly cares about design and it shows throughout their whole website from the way that their public website looks to the way that your websites will look into the way that they look on the back end as well when you're at updating posts and making changes to your site. Last week we spoke about people trying to set up blogs for themselves. You know, when we were talking a lot about that, we've had people get in contact of us and say that they're gonna be signed in their own pen blogs, which is awesome. Personally, I suggest and recommend Squarespace. I personally recommend them. I've been using them for years. I have Mike Hurley.net there. I even updated my field notes page today with some of my additions that I've got recently. I have a special field notes page that I do and it takes minutes for me to just take the photos, drag and drop them into a new block and then I can resize them and add a little caption as well. It's very easy for me to do and I can just drag and drop them around the page. I build my pages in Squarespace the way that I would want to. I don't do any coding knowledge or anything like that. It's literally dragging and dropping stuff around in the web browser, which is awesome. I use them, Brad uses them, and the dude uses them too, so we're going to talk about his blog in a bit, so Mike Dudek is also a Squarespace customer and I would, as a disabled, are all very happy. As I said earlier, you can try Squarespace for free. There's no credit card required to do it and if you decide to purchase their plan, start at just $8 a month and include a domain name if you sign up for a year, so you really get the whole package. Don't forget that you're going to get 10% off and support the pen addict if you use the code "TallyHoe12" that's T-A-L-L-Y-H-O-1-2. So thank you to Squarespace for supporting 5x5, the pen addict, and me and Brad. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you, Squarespace, and one quick thing before we move on to Mike. Since that we did the blogging episode with Ed, I've had at least two or three people flat out start blogs since that episode and email me to say, "Hey, thanks for doing that. That really helped out a lot. Here's the link to my new blog." That's been some pretty cool feedback that I don't think was necessarily expected by me. I wasn't sure about that episode to begin with if it kind of fit in with everything else, but I think it's turned out to be a pretty good resource for people and I've gotten lots of really good feedback from that. So keep those questions coming in if people still have questions about starting a blog and things like that. I had no doubt that it would fit in because this show came from a blog. The blog was all started and this is basically the audio version of the pen addict blog with a strategic person. It wouldn't have it any other way. All right, Mr. Mike Dudak, how are you, sir? Excellent. How are you guys? Good, good. I'm glad to get you on the podcast. Mike talks about how I've had so many guests recently, but it's because I like talking to interesting people and people that make me think and people that do good work and I couldn't imagine having a better guy than yourself, so thanks for being on today. Well, thanks. I appreciate it. Got it. This isn't a definitely to go back from before. We're not trying to interview for Mike's job or anything, so... Guys, lay off. Yeah, back off. So Dudak, where do people... I mean, listeners, the show, I reckon, will be familiar with your work. What do you do online that people will know? Well, I started the clicky post blog, pen blog, I guess you could say back. It's only been probably since... I think I officially started that blog in March and it just barely started sort of really getting heavy into it in May, kind of around the same time that you and I, I guess both of you and I got acquainted, I don't know, initially. So it's just kind of interesting how the timing all sort of fell together, but yeah, clicky post.com is my blog. I'm definitely a pen addict, so to say the least, yeah. You're one of those guys, like you're like a typical listener at the show where you start listening and you kind of kind of like this sort of stuff. And then as time goes on, you've just become like totally obsessed. Yeah, the rest of us. Yeah. Did you see the picture of his office on Instagram? No, I'll go on it and I'll take a look. Yeah, it's like loaded up with the... Oh, look at that. How is that? How has your office space changed in the past nine months or whatever? Oh, it's... I mean, I guess we could we could kind of go back to like when I started the blog, I mean, I maybe had a handful of decent pens, you know, I'd always liked pens. Like any other real... I love that everyone says that. I kind of like pens. I kind of like them. I like them a little bit and now they've ruined my life. It's like my marriage is in jeopardy. No, but I mean, like most probably panatic people, you know, you just enjoy certain types of pens and you try different types of pens. And then you end up, you know, on your lunch break sort of perusing pen isles and I mean, it's, you know, it starts getting bad. And so you have to either get some intervention or just go straight for it, you know, but that's... No, but my little office area, yeah, I'm even still trying to figure out new solutions for storage and, you know, Brad, you and I, I think, have exchanged some emails or texts about long-term storage. So if you notice in that picture, I have probably like six or seven, you know, cubes and blocks and grooves just going all at the same time for to just store my own stuff, let alone, you know. So it's, it's, it's madness. It pretty much is. What are, what are cubes and blocks and grooves? Oh, I didn't mean to segue. Is that... No, I want to eat you too. So it's good. Gotcha. Well, I, as a sort of a byproduct of the blog, it gives me a place to kind of record what I'm doing or what I'm up to. And one thing I really like about it is it's kind of like an ongoing journal. I guess you could say of my, my pen fanaticism and also a little projects that I'm doing along the way. And yeah, if you guys, I mean, I guess I think back to episode, I was looking it up. It's episode 55 of the podcast when we first kind of connected. I guess you could say, and I sent you guys a couple things. I sent you a, an iPhone speaker, an acoustic iPhone speaker, which I was, I was playing around in Tinker and with those for a while. And then a little pen holder. But I guess where the cubes and blocks and grooves started is I just found like a scrap piece of walnut at a local lumberyard that I was going to when I was buying some plywood to make some more iPhone speakers. And I thought to myself, well, I could make something kind of cool out of this. And so I took it home and, you know, I went out in the garage in the shop and, and I ended up, you know, kind of making these small little minimalist cubes. And I was looking back, like I said, as a diary on the, on the clicky posts. And I noticed that my first presentation of those to the world was on, I think May 29th, where I just had mentioned, you know, and posted some pictures that, yeah, I was out in the shop working and I put together these little things. And then I noticed that by June 10th, which is less than two weeks, I had the clicky trading post, which is my little shop on there up and running. And it, it honestly, like when I initially made those, it didn't even cross my mind necessarily to, to start, I guess you could say my little side business making pen holders. It just kind of all flew together really fast. And now it's a big part of kind of who I am and the persona behind the blog. And I don't know, it's just, it's turned out really cool. But I don't know. So what, what made you like wake up one day and start this blog to begin with, like what, you know, what was the impetus behind, you know, I'm gonna start writing about pens today, you know, I'm gonna go buy a domain name and, and see about doing this. Like, how does that, how does that happen? I mean, I know how it happened for me. But like, tell us, tell me about like just kind of the genesis of the clicky post. It, uh, it's going to be my first, my first go around with pen blogging to honestly wasn't oddly enough, wasn't the clicky post. I, I had actually played around with a blogger, like a blogger blog, I guess. Yeah. That sounded really intelligent. Um, but, uh, no, I had, I had started something a couple of years ago, and I think I threw up maybe a poster too, but and I can't even recall what I named it. I probably had some interesting name that I had put on it, but it just didn't feel like it was the right time. You know, I didn't feel like I was quite deep enough into it to really, to really start blogging, but you know, as then I, then I started getting into it more, I would have to say in listening to what you guys do. And I mean, Brad, I've been following penatic.com for, I don't know, probably four years at least, you know, just kind of keeping, keeping tabs on what you're doing. And it turns into where you feel like you need an outlet, I guess you could say to, to talk about pens, because you can try and do it in the workplace, or you can try and do it with family and friends. And you get these like, you know, frilled brows and weird looks from people that, you know, you start going into, into, you know, line widths and, you know, bleeding and, you know, nymph sizes and stuff. And you completely lose people and they think you need to check into some sort of institution. But it's, uh, you know, so that's really kind of where it started is I, I just thought to myself, you know, maybe I should really pursue this and, and, and just find a place to just let it out, you know, and talk about it and, and share with other people that I know are kind of like minded with what I am. So yeah, I can't believe it's been less than a year. I didn't look back at the at the dates, but I swear it's, it seemed like it's, I don't know, maybe that's, that's testament to how good of a job I think you do. It feels like it's been around for years, to be honest with you. And, um, you know, I just, I, how did we even first start talking? I don't even remember. I just, I think I must have stumbled across your blog somehow. And then we started talking and I know it's kind of gone on from there. Yeah. Oddly enough, I think it was just, it was when I, I think in April, I reached out to both you and Mike about making you a pen holder, just because I guess you could say it's just a means of saying, thanks. And I appreciate the time that you guys put in to, because this is a huge commitment that you guys do every single week, you know, to put this together. And I know lots of people enjoy it. So I had, I guess, some woodworking skills to where I could, I could actually put together something for you guys just to kind of as like a token of appreciation. And that really is kind of what started the dialogue. And then yeah, really from there, it just, you know, episode 55, I guess it was sort of a, a changing direction for the clicky post. Um, because you guys gave a lot of, a lot of shout out to it, particularly the Dellerin render K that Mike. Yeah. So it's just, I don't know, from there, it's just sort of, I think we've just continued on since then, it's been a wild ride ever since. So I know Mike, I don't want to speak for Mike, but I think it's fair to say that we were impressed from the get-go with the quality of the cubes and the blocks we got. Um, they're just, they're so cool. I mean, they fit right in with my guests, their style that I'd like. So yeah, it was, it was easy to share those when it's something so cool and something, you know, handmade, you know, by a reader and listener. Now a blogger. Mine here. There it is. Sir. They're great. There's a super fantastic. So you like have a, I mean, essentially a full board would work working shop in your garage. I'm guessing or something like that. Yeah, I've actually, um, I'd have to say the, the shop, I don't know, it's, it maybe isn't as sexy as it seems, you know. Sure. Yeah. I know. Yeah. I, I try and, I try and have some appeal with my shop, but no, it's, I've converted kind of half of my, my garage into just my woodworking space and my shop space and I've kind of built all of my own sort of portable work benches to hold my tools. And it's, it's been something that's developed over time, but you know, it didn't come overnight, but it, it's, it just a place that I can go out and tinker and, and kind of have, I don't know, ideas come into reality. I don't know. I've, I've always been kind of a hands on guy as far as creating things. It's like I move from what, like the iPhone speakers or I did think I did coin rings for a while, which people thought were pretty cool. And then now into these sort of pen, pen holders, which, it's just fun. I mean, I don't know. It's, it's therapeutic, definitely to say the least, but it's just, I enjoy it. There's an artistic side of it as well, that when I create each individual piece, I mean, it's, it's all hand done. You know, I mean, it's me out there working in, you know, every brand that's put on it is hand branded every, every sand is hand sanded. And so when I send them out to people, there's kind of like, I don't know, I'm kind of parting with a gift. I know that they've bought them from me, but it's like I'm, I'm exchanging, I don't know, it's like a little piece of artwork every time I send it out, which is, it's kind of a neat experience. Now, is there a pottery wheel stuck over there in the corner? There's not. Hold the, hold the ghost jokes, everybody. Patrick's lazy. But no, I, Brad, that's, that's really funny. Brad and I were texting yesterday and, and we were talking about kind of show topics and things and I said, Oh, my, my history as a potter, which is real, actually. So I know, right? I'm a man of surprises. And no, I, for actually all through, all through high school and into college, I, I took a lot of ceramics classes and ended up, actually, I thought I wanted to go into education and teach ceramics. So I was pretty, pretty deep into it. So once I'm a war, it's got some of my pieces shown. What's kind of neat, I guess you could say what sort of started my path of where I could create something and, and have people appreciate it and, and either A, want it or B, want to buy it from me, actually started in high school with my ceramics. I had, I had lots of people that, that's where I sold my, I guess you could say like my first commission pieces, you know, to make certain vases or water pitchers or things like that that people wanted. And so I just kind of, maybe you could say it was a time in my life that it built a little bit of confidence around my abilities to sort of create things and have them be, you know, meaningful, meaningful pieces for people. So yeah, well, I think that background it actually shows in, in making things, you know, like your pen holders, because they're, I don't know, they're very well designed and well thought out. And I don't know, it's just the simplistic style of them is, is, I don't know, it's kind of hard to explain. It's not like a basic wood block, but it's just, it's really cool. It's got a lot to it. So it there, there, I don't know, I guess I'm just really impressed that someone, you know, can go out to the garage and, and end up shipping things like this, that they, you know, they've done completely, you know, by themselves, it's a very impressive thing. Well, thanks. Yeah, it's, I don't know if I would call, I'd probably call the style that, that the, the doodec modern goods style is kind of a minimalist, because they're all one solid piece, which is a little bit different than the pen holders that I sent you and Mike back in May. Those were pieces that I cut angles and they have like a little window inside. And so I'm not making those, but the ones I have now, all of them through the cube, the block, the groove to the new display. That was just, I just released that one just within the last month. What's kind of cool about it, what I like is they all sort of fit in the same family, because they're made from, in essence, the same stock of wood. They'll, they'll start from the exact same size. And if they're all one solid piece, so I, I take the one piece of wood and then you just subtract material to where you end up with, with kind of these different shapes and, and it's, it's fun to work through the process of kind of engineering them and, and coming, coming up with the designs. So I don't know, I, I enjoy likewise, it's like they're kind of a modern look, because they're very angular and square. But at the same time, the dark walnut and the sort of satiny finish gives them sort of a timeless look a little bit like kind of it's, it's a piece you could have, you know, 50 years from now, and it would probably still sort of fit in no matter where you're at. So it's kind of fun. I don't know. It is hard to explain. Yeah, there's no doubt that it's definitely kind of a timeless piece. And that, that kind of leads me into my the next path I want to take. One of the things that is a recurring theme on your blog that just makes me drool. And, you know, you know, I get called, you know, an enabler for making people spend their money, but you have this thing with Rotorings, where you've gone off the deep, you've gone off the deep end from, I don't know, how did this Rotorring obsession start and how out of hand is it right now? Because I got to admit, it looks completely out of hand. Yeah, yeah, you're, you're probably spot on with that. I'd probably say it's like a borderline Rotorring sort of illness now, like a, like if there's a syndrome around Rotorring obsessions and purchases, I'm definitely affected by it. But it's, I don't know if I would consider myself with all pen brands to be like a collector of sorts. And I know that Brad, you've, you've definitely talked about, you don't really feel like you're necessarily a collector. Mike, we know collects the Retro 51. That's a bingo slot, by the way. But with the Rotorring, I guess there's a certain side of it that they don't really, there's not really anything like it on the market right now. There's some, some pen companies that try. They really do to sort of capture what some of the vintage Rotorrings used to be. You know, I mean, they're, they have kind of a, they're like a futuristic but kind of a timeless piece at the same time, particularly the 600 series. But I, yeah, I mean, I look back, I think my first, my first post on clicky post was back in May, actually, I think when I posted about the lava ballpoint that I got for a really good deal. I just did it, didn't I? I did it. I made the noise. I want so bad. I want the fountain pen version of that. And Julian has one. Mm hmm. Yeah. I, I have to admit, I ended up getting one of those two. Oh, come on, man. Yeah. We can talk, Mike. I can, I can help you come to the decision to buy one. I will help you do that. But I don't want to have that conversation. They're on eBay. They are. Yeah. You can find them for pretty good deals. With, with Rotorring, the thing is like anything. I would even relate it to, okay, go, sorry, going back to the idea of collecting pens. They're really the only brand that I've now sort of found myself collecting is Rotorring. Because, like I said, they don't, they don't, most of them are all discontinued models. Like Rotorring ended up being sold to Newell Rubbermaid, which owns brands like Sanford. So like Papermate, Papermate and Rotorring are technically under the same umbrella now, which you kind of think of the, you look back at those vintage Rotorings and you think like there's sort of a, there's kind of a romanticism to them because they're just so cool and they're so iconic and they're, they look like, you know, an engineer spent hours just drawing and designing them and, you know, they're just, they're really cool pieces. And so not to discount Papermate, but to sort of throw them in the same bucket nowadays kind of, you know, it doesn't have the same saver, I guess you could say is the previous ones, but there's just a lot of different older models that, that they, they used to make, particularly the, the 600s, I ended up correcting myself, because they're actually are two different models that people call the 600. I guess if we're going to go into a little Rotorring education, is that okay? Yeah, please, yeah, I need that education. Yeah, because it's, there's the 600 series, which is the hexagonal barrel, metal barrel, all brass, and they have the knurled ends and the knurled grip and a little twisty top thing to change the, you know, the nib size or the color indicator. And then there's the, the next step after that, which it almost looks identical. Like if you were to kind of, if like you, you were looking at a glance, you made, you know, you may not be able to tell the difference, but they switched to a model called the Newton, like Isaac Newton, to where it's still shared the same hexagonal barrel, but they lost the knurling. The pens were a little bit smaller, and then they eventually, even after the complete takeover by No Rubbermaid, they introduced an additional Newton line that had more rounded edges and like an angled clip, not clip cap and barrel connection. So, but yeah, so there's, I mean, the two that get interchanged is the 600 and the first Newton, which Brad, you used to have, I think, one of the black roller balls. Yes, of that one. That, it technically is a Newton, but people interchange 600 with Newton. So, I would say if you call it a 600, it's not wrong, unless you're like a hardcore, like, rotering enthusiast, which I wouldn't call myself a hardcore, like, where I'm going to correct somebody. But it's just one of those things that, like, I didn't know until even as the past months have passed by that I continue to investigate it, but... Well, yeah, it's one of the most confusing brands on the market. Honestly, anytime I've tried to research it, it's like this rabbit hole where there's no way out. I mean, from the original company to essentially shut down to rebranding, repurchasing, you know, and just all kinds of things in between. It's hard to kind of track that lineage of the pens and, you know, which were made where, by whom, at what time, and which model, and, you know, which parts and things. It's a very difficult thing to kind of track down. So, I know it's a... It's kind of a challenge to kind of newbie, rotering people like myself. You're like, I can't tell the difference between all these things and why is this one $300, and this one looks the same, and it's, you know, $60 and things like that. It's tough. It's tough for anyone, like, trying to get into roadstrings. Well, and the price points on M2 are just absolutely crazy, because you could spend, if you're just, you know, on a whim, decide I want to go on eBay and I want to buy a 600 fountain pen, you know, new old stock, black, and an F nib. I could find one probably and drop $350 on one. Somebody's got one listed as a buy it now. That has... I would probably say way overpriced, because you could... I mean, if you look for them, you have to kind of scout eBay and sort of understand what you're looking for, but, you know, you might be able to get the same pen in an auction for, you know, less than a hundred bucks, you know, if you really were looking to get one, but, I don't know. I think these types of pens, they do have such a... Like you said, Brad, like a mystery about them. Like, because of the merger with Newell Rubbermaid, they... There's a lot of information that gets lost, you know, like sort of the lineage gets sort of broken up, and I don't know, people just are fascinated by them because of the looks and and sort of the company, because you can't find really a lot of good info about them. So, it blows me away that the new roaching hasn't pursued more of the traditional line, other than like their pencils, the 600, and even like 800 pencils, because those are... I mean, those are some of their probably best sellers, and their workhorses, their tanks, and people love them, but why have they not moved forward with fountain pens and roller balls when, you know, they obviously can do the same research we do, and see them for 400 bucks online. Like, to me, that's like red flags of money going up saying we should probably talk to the marketing department and get something going with this, but... Because they don't do any at all anymore, do they? None. No, they have small, like, inexpensive rollers, but nothing along the lines of the 600 or even the Newton series, but... Oh, sorry, go ahead, Brett. No, no, I was just going to say nothing with the impact of some of the designs of these older pens. I would probably call roaching now like an art company. They sell more art-related products, and they dabble in pens. Yeah, I don't know. So, that's accurate. That's pretty accurate, but like Mike, I lust after one of the lava models. You know, one of my online friends, John Gaffney, who writes for a gear patrol in some of his posts, he has the lava multi pen, which is his favorite pen, and he carries it around a bunch, and every time he posts it, always send him a note saying, "I hate you for posting that pen." It's just that I love the lava finish on these, and no, I don't know. Mike, me and you are going to have to go on a research project and see if we can come up with some reasonable lava fountain pens for ourselves, because I think that's something I would like to add to the collection, just to have. I found the one eBay, but it's... I don't know. I'm funny about eBay. Well, especially for something like this. I mean, they're not badly priced, and they're saying that they're minten box. Yeah. So, what's your favorite rotoring, Mike? My favorite? I probably would have to go with... I don't know. They're all good, but I really like the 600 fountain pen with the neural grip. There's something about it. It's a big pen long. I don't know. When you use it, it's cool. It's one of those types of pens that you can appreciate the design aspects of it, and sort of the engineering that went into it, because what's cool about them and the dutans that you had, Brad, it's... When you put the cap together, they engineered it to where there's little teeth. It's like a gear almost to where the lines and the barrel have to line up. So, I mean, it's just a small thing, but it's just super cool. There is a pen that I do want that I don't have yet. This is part of the collector in me coming out. I got that collector itch about it, but there's a 600 ball point that it has a retractable tip, but it's just a retractable pen, but they're much rarer, I'd say, than the other ones. But they... I mean, people overprice these ones to astronomical amounts, like $400, $500, and I just... It's like there's no possible way that a pen... That pen could be even worth that much, you know? But so, who knows? Someday, maybe I'll pass one on eBay or something that fits, but... No, the fountain pen, the 600 fountain, it's... If you can... If you have an interest in it, definitely... I mean, be prudent. I mean, I definitely wouldn't recommend a new fountain pen person to just up and spend 200 bucks on one of these pens, just because it's... I don't know. It definitely takes a level of commitment to buy one. Yeah, for sure. Or like 20, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, you got to take it in strides, but... Which I have not done, so... Well, I think we can all... We all kind of understand that. One of the other things you do on your blog, which has always been interesting to me, and I've learned so much just from reading it, is reading your blog, is you kind of have a reach to where you found a lot of neat, interesting, smaller business-type companies or individuals that have kind of related products or things that, you know, us in the pen blogosphere would enjoy, or just some really neat design work that have helped you do things on, you know, with your cubes and your woodworking, you know, like... Is it Josh Paley, one of the... Who did the stamp for you? Oh, the brand? The logo? Oh, that's actually Brandon Wilson from Contrabrand. His... Yeah, honestly, what kind of where that came together was he... When I first launched them back in probably June, he and I kind of were following each other on Instagram, and he reached out to me and said, "Oh, hey, you know, where can we buy one of these or whatever?" And so we just kind of corresponded that way, and I ended up following him and seeing all his work that he was doing, and I reached out to him and said, "Hey, I mean, you look like an amazing graphic artist. I need a logo. You know, can we work something out?" And so we ended up kind of working back and forth, and he came up with the Dudek Modern Good's logo with sort of that offset kind of 3D cube, which just like blew me away, like when he presented it to me. It just is so awesome, but we ended up doing kind of a little collaboration, because he does this thing called the numbers project. If you guys haven't checked it out, I definitely would. He... This year, he took a day, every day of the year, one through 365, and he designed like a logo around the number. So like the number 17, or the number 100, or the number 320, he created a logo around it, and what we ended up doing is I ended up working with him and making some clocks out of Baltic birch plywood. I got it laser etched and everything with his designs on it. It just turned out awesome, but yeah, the blog, in my work, I guess you could say like my personal life, my work, I work for a software company that helps small businesses. So it's like a marketing software, but I have a soft spot definitely for artisans and craftsmen and small business owners, and I look at the blog, not just as a place to, I guess, promote and talk about different pen companies or different pen models, or to even sell my own products, but like a place to showcase what other people are doing that I find really interesting, or I think is just cool. Like you said, Brad, it's like related products that sort of fit within. It may not even be like a direct correlation, you know, it depends, but it's sort of along the same niche of kind of stuff that people that really enjoy pens might enjoy this kind of stuff as well, but networking is a huge part of like, I guess my satisfaction that comes out of the clicky post, it's making friends and like finding these small businesses to not only, I guess, promote, but even sometimes partner with to come up with cool new things creatively, and it just, it gives them some exposure and otherwise like where they may, you know, they may not necessarily get as much, you know, through other channels, because the pen community is super open to cool stuff. I mean, that's just, that's just the natural thing of what we do. Yeah, and you have a, you have a, a page on your site called the Small Business Showcase, and we'll put that in the show notes where you, you know, got some features on some of these products, you know, like Don't Paper, Caris Custom, you know, One Star Leather Goods, we've talked about Keegan before on the show, Mike and I have, and, and Bassan Lokes and things like that. So I know that's something that, that you, that you appreciate in that, and we definitely appreciate you putting those things out there for all of us to check out. So. Yeah, it's cool. That's cool stuff. It is. It is. Well, I think, uh, before we go to think, yeah, I was gonna say you got anything for Mr. Dudek. Oh, well, it was for both of you, really, and we haven't spoken about it. Have you, have you seen the Twisbee Classic? I have, and it is about ready to order, right? Yeah, because the writing desk are doing pre-orders for it. Is it a UK based, um, pencil player? I don't know what you thought of it. It looks really interesting. It's very classic looking. Yeah, so they, Twisbee, Twisbee does a interesting thing, and I, you know, I, on their Facebook page, they post a lot of prototypes very early, early on in the process. Some of them make it through, and some of them don't. This one, they posted probably six months or a year ago that they were working on something like this, and I thought it was pretty cool at the time. And looking at the pictures now that it's ready to go in production, I think it looks great. I mean, I think this is something now I will definitely order. I'll have to see how the prices relate to like the 580, because actually looking at the writing desk prices, that seems higher than I thought they were going to be. I thought it'd be more like in the 20 pound range, but these are like, yeah, these are like in the 40 pound range. That seems high to me. I'll have to look, but yeah, I thought this was going to be like the entry level Twisbee pin. Well, a diamond, a diamond mini is 42 pounds. They're more expensive. So it's the same sort of, like, it's the thing like, there are so many, like basically all the supposed to be range on the writing desk. So you've got the mini, the classic, and the 580 or 42 pounds. So they're probably going to be like 40, 50 dollars. See, I thought these were going to be like in the Lamy Safari range of pricing. So that's, I mean, that's me being mistaken, just since they're new coming out. So yeah, I mean, you know me, I love the Twisbee products and not. And they, if anyone could pull off a rotoring style, they can, they've made some mechanical pencils that, you know, I don't know how well they sold. I've never bought one, but they're like around $20 that look really exceptional, like engineering mechanical pencils. And, you know, Twisbee's willing to try a few different things. And have you ever reviewed any Twisbee products, Mike? No, I actually just recently got my first couple of Twisbees. I got a, I ordered a 540 in the amber. That's right. That's right. Color, which I've been, I am that one for a long time. And luckily I found one since they discontinue in it. And then I ended up picking up a mini in the classic finish, which I love that pen with the reservoir that's, I don't know, there's some, there's kind of a theme on the clicky post to where I usually review metal pens. Like if you look through, it's, it's usually always metal barrel pens. And I don't know why it's just that appeals to me. I don't know. It's like the sleekness of them or something like that. But, you know, the Twisbee, it's, it's an excellent pen. Like the, the mini particularly I'm, I love using that thing. It's great stuff. Along that line real quick, the, as far as if you want like a roaching esque pen, there's a couple that, you know, you don't necessarily have to drop a ton of money to get them. We both reviewed recently the Levenger LTCH fountain pen, which that I think they did a phenomenal job. There's some history between roaching and Levenger even. So retro 50 one even made a pen called a ballpoint called the hexomatic, which that actually, I picked that one up several months ago before I even got deep into roaching. But, you know, I think it's like 30 bucks and Google hexomatic. Guess what comes up first? Perhaps the clicky post. Yeah, it's your review. Yeah, that's good. So yeah, check that's an awesome pen. I, I, I, that's been on my wish list that I keep forgetting to order, but I've got to get that one. Yeah, it, it actually relates to, um, it goes, the design elements behind the hexomatic go a little bit further back in roaching to the, to actually being a true 600. Because again, like there's the Newton ballpoints, which have the smooth grip, but the hexomatic has the neural grip. Sorry about the doorbell. I didn't realize people were coming. Some roaching delivery. Yeah. But the ballpoint has a neural grip like the original 600. So they went a little bit further back, but I think they did a really good job on it. Cool. I have to get one of those. That's, yeah, my wish, my wish list. It, it goes from extremely long and then I knock out a bunch, then I remember that, you know, hey, I wanted this pen and that pen, then it gets back to being like uncomfortable long. Yeah, I actually these days try and I don't, I actively do not keep a wish list. Yeah. Because it gets too expensive of a wise, I wait until I have an impulse to buy something. Unfortunately, my impulses are pulling me towards a, a roaching 600, but we'll try to go that one. Yeah, I was going to say impulse shopping is a much better way to go about it. Yes. Yeah. Since when the implant impulse. Yep. Yep. Well, this has been educational and awesome. And you know, I, this was, I was happy to get you on finally, because I know we, we talked a lot and we got so much in, in common. And I really respect and enjoy what you do on clicky post. And I wanted to make sure that everyone, you know, out there knows your home on the internet and, and checks it out because I think you're doing good stuff. And we really appreciate you coming on the show today. Well, I appreciate it. You, I appreciate you guys giving me the invite to come out. Absolutely. And we will, we will do it again. Because you, you were pro. Yeah. You brought your A game today for your, your first panatic podcast appearance. So awesome. Why don't you tell everyone where they can find you again real quick? And we'll have all this in the show notes, but let's, let's get it out there again. Sure. Yeah, the, the blog is clickypost.com. Not, it's called the clicky post. And I might do not own going the clicky post. I knew you were. I knew you were. You better get on that because he will not let you down. If you're going to call it the, you need to have the domain name too. Yes. Mike, Mike, you should buy the clicky post and start up like a, a site about puppies or something like that. I don't know. I'm joking. The, the domain is available. You need to get it quick before. All right. I need to get on there. I'll do it today. Yeah. Somebody's going to jump in and grab it. But yeah, so the blog is just clickypost.com. There's giveaway going on right now. Not to give a little shout out to that, but a little incentive maybe, but there you go. So I, I'm also on Twitter at clickypost. I'm not as active on Twitter as I am on Instagram. And my Instagram is at Mr. Mike Dudek. That's primarily where, because I'm a very visual person, I end up posting a lot of stuff there just because I like to see it too. So that, that's kind of where I'm at. Yeah. Between you and Ed, Jelly Doll's photography just puts me to shame like the way you style everything. It's like, like I'm embarrassed some days when I look at the posts that I look at the pictures I've taken. I'm like, well, I really have to post this up there. And guys with all, man, guys, it's going to make me step, it's going to make me step my game on these guys. These young ones are putting you to shame, Doudy. I know, man, I'm glad to see it. Hey, that's, you know, it's all about community here in the, in the pin blogosphere. And you know, I love these guys and gals out there and they do awesome work. And I want to make sure it gets recognized. Easy as that. Simple. Mm hmm. All right. If you want to catch up with me in Brad's, a couple of ways you can do that. You want to go to thepanadect.com. So you'll find Brad's blog and he is also at Doudyism D O D O W D Y I S M on Twitter. I am I Mike. I am Y K E. I would like to wish you all a very happy holidays. I hope that you will get the pens and the inks that you wish for. And I'm sure that Brad will say the exact same. Absolutely. And you get to have some lovely stocking fillers as some description that will satisfy your panetic needs. And we'll be back with another episode before before the year is out. Yes, we're going Monday next week again, Monday next week. So you got another early episode. Special holiday schedule. Indeed. So we'll be back again next week. I'm sure Brad will have some sort of pen related goodness that he receives for Christmas that we can talk about. I have no doubt. We shall see. So thank you, Mr. Dudek again. Thank you, Brad. And we'll be back for another episode of the show next week. Bye bye. Bye. Oh, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.
