This is the pen addict podcast on five by five, a show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analog tools that we love so dearly. My name is Mike Kelly, and before I introduce my cohost today, I just want to point something out very quickly. So said cohost, I cannot say his name yet, because I have not introduced him was on the Anderson pens podcast this week. We'll talk about that in a minute. But right at the very very start, Brian Anderson listed like six incredible names like of the how I introduce the pen addict names for my cohost. Did he just did him in a line? Now I can't be beaten. I will not allow it. So buckle up everyone. And can you take a pen? Because this is going to take a moment. My name is Mike Curley, and I would like to introduce the Marker Maverick of Macon, the pharaoh of pen theft, the prince of Pelican, the ombudsman of office depot, the pulper of Pentel, the Sultan of office supplies, the nobleman of notebooks, and the Ranger of Rodea, Mr. Brad Dowdy. Thank you. Thank you. Now see, that was right. That's eight names. I have just basically saved myself eight weeks of work. But I will not be beaten. That's right. Challenge accepted and handled handled well, Mike. You did an excellent job there. Thank you. I like the ombudsman of office supplies. That was my favorite. I think that was my favorite one. You handled that challenge well there. And I think you I think you took the title. Thank you very much. Well, you know, it is it was my it was my belt in the first place. It cannot cannot let it be taken from me. That's right. That's right. So Anderson, how are you buddy? You sound a bit you sound a bit clogged up today? Yeah. So I've got I've got the plague or the SARS or something just a I just got a bad head cold and it's just it's just it if anyone watched the Anderson pins video from last night and you saw I had a little cough started and it's a it's ramped up quite considerably since then. So if you catch me if I don't catch my mute button in in time today, I apologize. But yeah, feel feeling a little under the weather. But I was excited to get this show going today. So we got a lot of lot of cool topics to talk about. So we're talking about I mentioned here that we got the Anderson pens podcast which you're on and I've listened to about 25 minutes of the show because 100 minutes long. Yeah, just awesome. So one thing for anybody that doesn't know I mean people know the Anderson's right they listen to the show. We spoke about the most part. Yeah, we spoke about them a couple of weeks ago that you know they're about just to open their own pen store and they're a husband and wife, right? Yes. As husband and wife team, I found it kind of amusing because I assumed that they're in different rooms of their house to record the show, which kind of made me smile. If that's the case. And they they had you on and you were talking about the show and you said very nice things about me in the show, which is awesome. And up to where I am at the moment, you've basically just shown off the the knock cases in video form, which is kind of cool if for people that haven't well, nobody's really seen them in the way that you showed them, I think. So that was nice. Actually, now that you say that there's a couple models that we've you know finished that are completely manufactured that I don't think I've shown other than like the static photos. There are some some of the static photos on the Kickstarter, but yeah, I showed up showed some of the cases that were ready. Some of the production cases that are ready to show. So yeah, y'all check that out if you want to sneak sneak preview of the cases, but in use. So what was the name of the one that where it falls out in the middle? That like the role that rolls out. Yeah, the brass town. Yeah, so you even show like the unfurling of the brass town. Yeah, yeah. And that was one I had loaded up and it looks really cool. And that was the midnight and foliage color, which I don't think a lot of people have seen. But I think was probably the most popular color across all of the like we had three primary color colorways, you know, the mandarin orange and mango interior and then the steel exterior and blue J interior, then a midnight exterior and a foliage interior. And I think when I told it it all up, I think the midnight, the dark navy with the foliage, which is kind of like the greenish gray interior. I think that was the single most popular colorway across all the products, which I found interesting. It was pretty cool. And then there were only two people that bought the orange ones, which was me and you. Yep. Yeah, that was the panatic podcast special just to do them. We got a lot of orange, not all orange orders. It was it was pretty close. It'll be interesting to break down the percentage. I'll have to do that since I it's all sorted out real nicely. I can break down the percentage of color choices. That'd be pretty cool. You should just take a look at mine, you should just pour mine out and have a read of it. If you haven't already, I don't know if you can take the second note of my survey. Not yet, not yet. We hadn't we hadn't shipped anything yet. We're probably a week and a half, no more than two weeks away from starting to ship the early birds. Wow, really? Yeah, yeah. So I don't think it might be late next week where I can get the early birds out. If not, it will be the following week. So I know that on the Anderson Pins podcast last night. So in case you all didn't catch that, that we're going to get these early birds going. Is that going to be just domestic or international as well? No, it'll be it'll be international. Whoever ordered an early bird, we had December ship dates on those. So those will be shipping soon. Wow. Could you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, check out that the Anderson Pins podcast. It's a it's a video. It's actually a vidcast, if you will. The link to be in the show notes. Never say that again. I'll never forgive you for that. Wow. So I've pushed a button there, folks. So I'm washed out and down for future use. It's just a podcast. It's just a podcast. Yes. And they call it a podcast. So good. Yeah, check that out. It's like Mike said, it's a good hour and 40, 45 minutes long. So set aside some time and you can see my ugly mug on the screen. And we talk about a lot, you know, about how the pinatic got started and just my pin addiction and how the blog got started in the podcast and then on to knock. And then we just talk about general pins in general. And it was a great time. We could have talked for probably another 30 minutes easily, but at some point we had to cut it off. You did? Yeah. But it was good. It was good fun. And I'm glad I didn't have the plague too bad when I was recording that. Just keep it for this show. Yeah. Yeah. So we got a few other updates that I wanted to talk about that. Some previous, a previous Kickstarter project we talked about called the polar pin. You remember this one, Mike, the one with the mag the magnets pins that you kind of build that did like 800 and something thousand dollars, I think. Yeah, 800,000 Canadian dollars. But my understanding is that that exchange rate is pretty similar, right? These days? Yeah, yeah. It's, it's pretty close to one to one. So it's, it's right around even money for exchange in the US dollars. So we talked about how the first time we saw it, the first thing that came to my mind was the bucky balls fiasco that happened in the US and I guess around the world, but there were US manufacturer, which are the magnets that got pulled off the market because they were unsafe for children. So I brought that up and you know, a few weeks later, I think I don't know if it was before the campaign ended or not that like can this this gentleman's based out of Canada and the Canadian Health Department said that, you know, they're investigating this to see if they're going to allow this to be sold to Canadians. And so their investigation came through. It looks like my friend on Twitter, on blanking, Greg, Greg is a Canadian and he, he keeps sending me the articles that post in the different Canadian websites that I'm not checking. So on CBC News, they actually came down with a decision and Health Canada has put a cease and desist out on this gentleman, Andrew, that is the maker of the polar pin. And what that means is they are not even going to allow him to manufacture these pins in the country. So this is where, oh yeah, in the country, I'm sorry, that's not what I was going to say, Karen. Yes, so so Andrew, you know, at the end of the project, he reading this article, he took an advance of like $100,000 from the project to start building out, I guess, the manufacturing and operations and warehouse and shipping to make these pins. And they're basically kicking him out of Canada. He's going to have to relocate to the US to fulfill and manufacture this product, which is just pretty crazy. It's a real, it's a real interesting follow. If you want to, you know, follow along the Kickstarter project to see what's happening with it, because it's, it's, I mean, like the Canadian backers, I don't know if they're going to be able to get their pins. Andrew's not going to be able to make them in Canada. I don't know if he'll be able to sell them to Canadians at all, like if they ship from the US to Canada, I don't know if that's allowed or, or what, but it's basically, it's basically a cluster. I mean, it's, it's not pretty. I feel bad for the guy. But do you, I don't know, that thought was always in the back of my head that this might be coming. I would imagine was in the back of his head too, if he's coming out with a product like this and seeing what happened with similar products on the market, you would think there would be, you know, some percentage chance in the back of your head that this might happen, but I'm not sure if that's the case or not. My only thought is that he must not have known of buckyballs because I feel like you would check. Yeah. I feel like at some point, when you, at least when you started to make some serious money and get attention that you might check. So this is where I'm a little bit confused. So in the, we'll put all the, both of these links in the show notes, which you can find at 5x5.tv/panel. The update to the Kickstarter page on November 15th talks through this a little bit, doesn't go into the fact that there's like a fine or whatever mentions that he's going to be. I don't think, let me correct you real quick. I don't think there's a fine. I think that's just money he's spent already. Sorry. That that's basically down the drain because he's going to have to rebuild his manufacturing facility. I hope he can relocate. I should say. I hope that he has enough profit in there at least. Yeah. That works out for him. I really do. Like in the end, I mean, he's going to be out of pocket for a while for sure. But yeah, so the, sorry, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't really mention that in the post on the update page. And what it mentions here is that Canadian backers, they're not sure if they're going to have to issue refunds or whatever. But the products will still be made. But in the article, it states that Gardner says he'll likely have to refund the about $1 million total earned through Kickstarter. So there's two points. Now, that was published four days later. So my thinking is either the CBC, is that Canadian business news or broadcasting corporation? Yeah, probably like BBC. It's probably broadcasting, yeah. They've either got that wrong. And then he's saying you just have to refund the Canadian backers of which, of course, there only be a portion or the product project's not going ahead in any as an update in forever. It's difficult for me to see. But I would assume that the CBC has misread the situation and that he might just have to refund the Canadian. Yeah, I think he's trying to circumvent that by moving the facilities to the US. So he wouldn't have to refund the entire full Kickstarter to everybody, right? I think he's going to move it to the US and then get it made there and fulfill as many orders as he can legally. It's kind of how I read between the lines on what's happening. But I did see in the comments section he chimed in and he's going to have a big update tomorrow, he said. So I'll check it out and see what he says then and see if anything's been made. He's the way he's alluded to progress has been made, like moving to the US to get the manufacturing done. So we'll see. It's interesting to watch for people who are fans of Kickstarter's and this just happened to be a pin project. So it caught my eye. And it's interesting all the things you can get involved in with all these Kickstarter projects. There's lots of interesting things going on in Kickstarter land these days. No doubt. Yes. All right. So cold horizon, Mike. Field notes, cold horizon. Oh, baby. Yeah. Did you get them yet? No. As you stand it, I will probably have them by next week. Okay. I checked my mail before the podcast and I still haven't gotten mine yet. Um, these look pretty cool. I think this is going to be a case where I think it's going to look even better in person than it does in the pictures. I don't know that the pictures look good and they show what they try to accomplish. It's like a gradient across the three notebooks that come in a three pack. It's like a blue gradient fades into like a lighter blue. Looks beautiful. It's a high gloss cover. And then the insides have each have it's a gray graph, I believe. And then each paper for each book has a slightly different shade. Um, like a, like a barely a light green and a barely a light yellow, I think. And I'm not looking at the page. Light green, light green, light blue and a cool gray of a light gray growth grid. So I'm anxious to see these papers in person and the covers in person. I haven't gotten them yet. I know some people already started getting theirs and they seem to be pretty happy with them. I think it's been pretty well received so far. Um, you know, it's not a, I don't think it's a knock your socks off edition. You know, like I felt loggers or night sky was, but I think this is a pretty, pretty solid edition here. And I really want to get it in my hands to, to get a look at these covers and see how they're going to hold up and what kind of durability they have. So what do you think about these? I opened the email and I was blown away. Nice. I, I, I basically opened the email and I went, oh my God, I just think they look stunning personally. And also I maybe even more than how good I think they look. I, I have so much respect, I think it's probably the word for this decision, but this art decision, like that idea and decision to me, like just blew me away to just think, because you can tell this is, this feels like a Kudal edition, because he's a graphic designer. Yeah, totally. So it feels like, like this is, the idea for me is taking three notebooks and putting a single gradient across them. I just think that is such a ballsy and just really cool move. I, I think they look fantastic. And the, the glossy cover I'm really excited about because I have loved the, the, the sort of soft, sort of cover that's been on the, on the, uh, drink locals, which is just about to finish another drink local, actually. Nice. So I'm about to, as we speak, I am going to be grabbing a one of the, uh, what are the new ones called? The black ones. Um, I'm having a look now, pitch black. I'm going to use my first pitch black. Sorry, I wasn't mute there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pitch black. I, I did get a three pack in. Um, I haven't, I haven't opened them up to try them out yet. I think that actually might be the next one I use. Um, I don't know, depending on when these come in, I'm almost done with, um, us, a logar's edition, a few pages left and, uh, yeah, I mean, they're going to try the pitch black out just to see how the, you know, the dot grid is and how the paper is or give one of these a shot. Cause I like, I almost like the insides more than the outsides of the cold horizon. And I like the outsides a lot. So I'm interested to see the different color paper. Cause you know that I like the different papers and different grid lines. So that's kind of a thing of mine. Indeed. I need to remember to scan that, that filter. Oh, yeah. There you go. Do it maybe. Did you see, did you see, uh, your friend, your friend and, uh, he's probably your flatmate, Johnny. I've, right. I've wished. Yeah. Sir. And, and by the way, it's sir, Johnny. Sir, sir, Johnny. Sir, Johnny. Um, he's not your flatmate. I wish he was. I thought y'all you Brits live together. That's not how it works. Okay. Only because he lives in California. I know. Otherwise whenever he's here, we, we, we bumped together. Yeah. So we mentioned this in passing when it first cropped up. There was a, um, the, I guess this, the charity is called Red. It's been around. It's, you know, I guess it's Bono. I don't know. Yeah. It's on his primary charity. It's, it's been around for at least a decade. I bet. Oh, for sure. I remember the old iPods, but the circle, you know, with the circle, uh, touch that had the black ones with the red in there. So Bono's been having this red, um, red charity for a long, long time. So they did a south, south of these oxygen, oxygen, sothebes, sothebes, sothebes. I'll, I'll blame the, the cold on that. It was, uh, basically where Johnny Ive and Mark Newson, Mark, Mark Newson's a designer, isn't he? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Um, they got together and curated a bunch of items. Some were new items that they designed together. Some were things that they handpicked. Um, and they basically put the red treatment on them. Yes. In some, and they, and they just made one of each. So there's just, there's not multiples of these out there. And I mean, it's everything from old, um, you know, old, is it Lisa cameras, Lisa? I don't know the connect. Well, that's, that's not an old, like a camera that like, you know, they remodeled, they remade a new one after the old style. So yeah, but well, actually, like, I still make the cameras that look like that. Okay. Like that's how like a cameras look that. Yes. They, they look old fashioned, but they actually still make digital cameras that look like that. But, um, they, they redified, yeah, one camera and put that up for auction. And they did that for all kinds of different items, including the new Mac Pro, which, you know, a lot of tech bloggers were talking about. It's this stunning red, um, canister, basically lack of a better term. There is 43 items. Would you like me to list them very quickly? I can do that. Do you want? No, but I saw the, I saw the Range Rover. I know. Right. There's a stormtrooper helmet. Yep. Um, a cosmonal space suit. Um, let's tell them about the important one. What's the one that we care about? The red Mac Pro? No. That's your, that's your other, that's your other shows. So they basically took a Lamy pen set, which includes a Lamy 2000 fountain pen. I assume a Lamy and then so a Lamy 2000 ballpoint pen, a Lamy 2000 mechanical pen, rollable, and multi-color ballpoint with a total of four colors. So it took the whole Lamy 2000 line and turned it into this absolutely stunning red version. So it's, it's a beautiful red with, um, stain. I mean, it's, it's red and silver, basically. Except the fountain pairs, a 14 karat gold nib, coated with platinum, but they also on that one have a gold sort of accent that goes around. Yeah, it's, that's actually the ink window. I see ink window. Yep. Nice. Yep. Which you can't see on a lot of like standard black, Lamy 2000, um, pictures because it's integrated so well. And when the ink's in there, you can't totally see it, but in the right light, you can see it. So that's actually the ink window. Man. Y'all got it. I know we mentioned it before and we linked it before, but y'all got to go check this out. I don't think we have, I don't think we have spoken about this before because in our one episode, just in passing. Oh, because this is the first time I've seen it. Okay. Well, maybe I mentioned it on Twitter then. Yeah, I think that's what I did. I mentioned it on Twitter. So when it, when it came out, I mentioned it on Twitter, but now that the auctions ended, um, I'm assuming you looked at the price that it sold for. There was an estimate of somewhere between 10 to 15, 15,000 US dollars. Do you want to tell them how much it sold for? 31,250 dollars. Basically every single item in this went extremely over the asking price. Like for example, they made a desk, right out of aluminium, just a desk with an estimate of between 300 and $500,000, sold for $1.685 million. 1.2 million. Blue out every estimate on every product, which is pretty amazing. The piano that they did somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000, $1.9 million. Yeah. Like, but this was basically you could go to any item and like the Leica camera that you mentioned, 1.8 million. Wow. They just blew it away because probably what they did was, look, this is, this is Johnny Ive, Mark Newsom, right? Anything that they did was going to be incredible, but they obviously know, uh, they know people, right? Yep. Like, so they're just like, the Mac Pro, $977,000. Incredible. I think that was, that was probably the most shocking one of all, the price that it went for in relation to the estimate. So I wonder who, I wonder if that's a, I wonder if that was an Apple insider there that, um, that punied up and you might see that in like a Steve Jobs Museum or something. Yeah. Do you know, Michael, I might put a bid in. Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. I knew he was watching it when it, um, when it started. That was the impression that I got from Twitter as they did put a bid in, but he said, no way. Yeah. Out of that level. Wow. Well, I mean, you know, he might be able to afford it, but he wasn't that true. But anyway, I thought that was interesting that, um, just for the, the Lami 2000, you're never going to see anything, you know, like this again. And, um, it's a one of a kind item. It's, it's worth clicking a link to go see this because it, it's, they pulled it off in a stunning fashion. This design, it looks great. I would pay good money for that pen. Yep. Oh, I would too. I would, I would pay real good money for that pen. So it's, um, it's sexy, huh? Clearly we need to, we need to do more sponsors. So we can, we can pay like $200,000 for a, that's true. That's true. Once you get on that and, um, I'm going to go, uh, I'm going to clear my brain for a second. Yeah, you do that. And I'm going to take the first step towards me and Brad, uh, buy in our own red llamas. And that's by thanking Squarespace for the support of this episode. 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So your content is going to look great on every device every time. They're really design focused. They care about design so much. All of their templates are so clean and they've also made sure that the back end is really awesome too. They've made not only is everything really easy to drag and drop around, but just things like the, you know, the how you post to your site and add new pages. It's all really easy to understand and it just works the way that you would want it to. They even have recently added their e-commerce platform as we've mentioned before. So if you want to set up a shop and sell things, you can do so in just minutes. Squarespace plans start at just $8 a month and they include a free domain name if you sign up for a year. And I want you to go and sign up for a trial so you can give it a go yourself. So go start a trial with no credit card required. You don't need to enter a card at all and you can start building your own website today. And then when you decide to sign up for a Squarespace plan, make sure that you use the offer code TALIHO11 that's T-A-L-L-Y-H-O-1-1. That's going to get you 10% of your first purchase and show your support for the pen addict and all of 5x5. Thanks so much to Squarespace. They give you everything that you need to create an exceptional website. So we got a new pin out on Kickstarter that a bunch of people have sent me and it's not a pin in the traditional sense, but I think Mike you're all over this one. It's called the Circuit Scribe. Have you seen this? Did you check this out? I went and took a look at the video. It's pretty crazy. It's amazing. What people come up with is pretty awesome. It's basically take your standard big stick ball point shaped pen and what they've done is they filled it with a conductive silver ink. So this ink allows the circuit or I guess the electricity to run across whatever design you lay down on the paper and if you add your additional electronic parts like different batteries or different switches or lights, you can do all these crazy things with this conductive ink. It's pretty fascinating. I never got into, like when you're a kid, you've got those electronics kits where you can build all these things and I never really did that. But that's what this looks like that reminds me of and it's blown out. It's Kickstarter funding real quick. I don't know if it was a 45-day project, but it's got 35 days left and it's already at $332,000. This is the sort of project that deserves that sort of money. That's incredible. This is the sort of thing. They mentioned it in a video and usually people scoff at it, but this could transform science lessons in schools. Because basically they show a picture of somebody drawing a circuit in a workbook and I remember doing those, right? So you draw out a circuit and you draw out a little switch and complete the circuit. But why don't you actually complete the circuit? Like actually complete it by drawing it like that. So like Brett said, I don't know how clear it comes across, but it's a pen that has a special ink in it. So when you can draw on a piece of paper and if you add a battery to, so like you would draw maybe two lines and then you would place the battery, like a little battery module that they give. It's just got a little conductive pad underneath obviously. When you lay that on to the circuit, the electronic, sorry, the ink becomes conductive. So it then has power throwing, throwing through it. So they can do things like light up little lights and they even have a, I think they've got a, yeah, you can also use an Arduino with it, which is like a little programming module. And you can have it do all sorts of awesome stuff. And they're making their own little components as well with the company. They're called electronics. And they're making LEDs, photosense, sound buzzer, loads of stuff. So it, and it all works with what they've made. And it just looks fantastic. Watch the video and it will make instant sense to you what they're trying to do. But this is really, really cool. Like really cool. I mean, I would buy it if I had any use for it. I don't. Right. But yeah, exactly. If my kids were a little bit older, I would probably do it because that's what it's perfect for. It's perfect for teaching and learning and classroom experience. I mean, to be able to have the kids, you know, just physically do this, I think the understanding of what they're trying to accomplish would just come so much quicker. I, that's exactly what I was about to say. Like if I was, if I was in science class learning this, I would pick it up in the afternoon as opposed to weeks. Exactly. I would totally understand what an electric circuit was and the conductivity of it and stuff. It would just make instant sense to me. You'll just get it. And I think that is incredible. So yeah, definitely check out this project. If that's something you're interested in, the only question I had, and I just found the answer in the fact, and this is coming from the pin point of view, not the electron engineering point of view, is what happens when the pin runs out of ink or out of the conductive ink and how long does it last? And so the, in the fact there's a, are there refills? And the answer is not right now. We're looking into producing a CircuitScribe Pro, which would be a metal pin with refillable cartridges. So yeah, I saw this as a, you replaced the pen type thing. Yeah, yeah. So you just buy a new pen. It's still not refillable yet. It says it'll get about, it goes from 60 to 80 meters. So 196 to 260 feet worth of lines with one CircuitScribe. That's good. And so what's, what's one pin cost? It was $20? $20, yeah. Yeah. So, so not refillable, but you know, for $20, you know, it's, it's worth checking out. And this is, this is, this is the kind of stuff you like to see on, on Kickstarter. It's, it's, it's really cool. They have bundles as well. You can get five pens for 90 dollars or 10 pens for 175. There you go. Okay. Save some money as well. They have classroom kits, $200. You get an activity book and 10 basic kits. And the basic kit is like, LED boards and pens and loads of other cool stuff. And this is great. It's good. It's, it's, it's an eye opener type of thing. This is exactly what you want to see on Kickstarter, you know, these type of prop, these type of projects. You know, when you see something on Kickstarter and you're like, damn, I could have done that. I could have done that. This is not one of those things I couldn't have, you know, and that's why I think it's so amazing. I could never even imagine this. And that's why I think it's so cool. Yeah. Like you could totally make a pen case. It's like any Joker could make a pen case on a lot of people's projects on Kickstarter. Like 14 pen cases before breakfast this morning. I've just not yet put them on Kickstarter. Yeah. I mean, man up and get some engineering and, and, and make a real project next time. Okay. Yes, boss. Speaking of real projects, this is a, this is a Mike Hurley. Oh, mama moment. Oh, I, oh, I, I have known about this for a little while. Yeah, we've known about this for a while. And now it's finally becoming public. Oh, mama. So the Keras custom ink, if you have not heard of this, or not seen it or not follow the Keras customs, it's just kind of, I won't say it's leaking out. It's out public now, but it's, it's the wrong is the wrong. Yeah. Well, they're not, they're not hammering it yet. I mean, if it's a fountain pen, you don't want to say it's leaking out. Yeah, no, no, but they're not hammering the promotion for it yet, but they've started to put out images. Keras customs, um, you know, the maker of the, the render K, the retract, the bolt, machine pins is coming out with a fountain pen. Oh, mama, it looks so good, man. And they chose the orange. Just like they knew it was, we were going to see it. I'm very, very excited for this. I have not tried one. I have a one in my hands. Um, but the shape of the pen is exactly what I would like to see. You know, as far as the design goes, this is the kind of design I like. Um, it looks, it looks beautiful. Um, Dan and the gang at Keras customs, I think have, have a winner on their hands here. So we'll see they haven't launched yet. Um, I don't know when they're going to launch, but when they do, we'll get Dan on the show actually texted him right before the show because we were looking at the pictures here. Um, and we'll get Dan on the show to talk about how this came to be. And I'm really pleased with the design of the pen. So I think more, more will be coming out soon. Um, I think for specifications and pricing and, and all that stuff, but if you're a fountain pen fan at all, you need to check this out. It looks great. Saying about how it came to be, I think that me and you should take, you know, some of the blame in the good way. I feel like we've both bothered Dan enough to make a fountain pen. Yeah, it's always been, it's always been in the back of his head. And we've always told him that, you know, we wanted a fountain pen if he could pull it off. And I think he pulled it off in spades. I mean, you know, this looks, this, this might be my favorite thing that they've done so far. And I don't, I don't, I haven't even used it yet. So I'm looking forward to getting able to, to try one of these out, um, getting a feel for it, see how it works. And, um, I am very, very pleased with the design aspect of it. Um, it looks really cool. It looks exactly, you know, what a pen like this should look like. And, um, they did a good job of putting their Keras Customs Touch on it. You know, it doesn't look like any other pen out there on the market. No, I think it's, I think it's going to kill. I mean, I think it's going to do extraordinarily well. So doubt, but no doubt there. Yep, that's one of those ones where I'll, I'll definitely be, uh, be in early to get to get, get, if they do an early bird or early backer special, I'm going to have to like set an alarm for that and be all over it. So it's real good. Um, one bit of follow up we had Mike, um, one of our listeners sent me a comment the other day, always try to post, um, you know, even though our episodes, you know, pop up on five by five, five feet and show up and everyone's, you know, if they subscribe to iTunes or any podcaster, it comes up automatically. Subscribe to, I always try to post it on my blog to just one, to make people aware if they haven't seen it before and two, to allow people to leave additional comments. You know, sometimes that's a good place for people to leave comments on, on an episode. And we just got one yesterday and I thought it was a great question and I wanted to follow up with you and it's from flounder, um, which is, uh, his fraternity, his pledge nickname, apparently. Um, he said, I forgot to ask about this when I first listened to episode 75, but how's Mike getting on with his Parker vacuummatic? If it's not picking up much ink, even after giving a plunger a load of strokes, the breather tube might be loose or blocked. The diaphragm might be something to look at too, giving the excessive nib creep mention. So what's, uh, what's your vacuummatic status? Have you been using it? How's it working for you? Any issues? So when I first mentioned that it wasn't, it didn't feel like there was much ink. It's total user error. I didn't know how to fill it. Okay. I thought that you just plunged it once. But then I, when I went, and then like not too long after that, um, I think after it, because I basically, I, I filled it up again, like last week, but in between then and now, I'd been to the Edison page where you were speaking about the fact we'd spoken about it, not like a little bit before. Um, and I'd been to that page and it has an animated GIF of the, the filling system. Yeah. The men, the men low, the men low pump filler is a similar filling system. Yeah. That's it. Cause it's, it's based on that sort of idea. Right. The plunge. Right. Right. And, uh, I saw that basically you have to like plunge it a few times. I didn't know that. Yep. Yep. It's a good, you know, three or four times. Um, and, uh, so everything's, everything's working well for you. Right. Yeah. It's, it's absolutely fine now. It's absolutely fine. Cool. Cool. It was, it was just simply, I hadn't, I wasn't really familiar with that, with that, uh, system. So, um, I kind of, kind of screwed up a little bit. Cool. Well, um, you know, I think, uh, we, we kept this show short purpose sleeves today because I'm not feeling so hot, but I think we covered a lot of good topics. It was like, uh, it was like the panatic news of the day episode. I kind of like it sometimes, you know, to, to kind of catch up on some topics we've mentioned and passing and things like that. I did have one more, one more quick thing and, um, not that anyone out there cares but me, but, uh, my, uh, my nibmeister of choice, Mike Masuyama. I got the email yesterday that he is, his move is complete. He's back at work and he's taking, uh, taking orders at this time. So, uh, I'm gonna, um, I, I ordered some pen, I ordered a pen recently, a pilot. Um, I'll have to send you a link to it. I didn't prepare it for the show, but it's a, um, it's a pilot custom heritage 92, I believe is the name and, uh, it's a translucent blue barrel piston filler in order to a bold nib just so I could have Mike Masuyama transform it into like a blue, um, I mean, a blue into a small stub nib, like a micro stub nib, like a really fine stub nib. So I bought this pen. I'm not even going to ink it up and I'm going to send it over to Mike to get it to work on. So that's the, that's the extent of my, um, of my passion right now and my obsessiveness over these pens. I'm ordering pens to not even use before I send them off to get worked on. I feel like I need to do something like that. Well, you know, it's funny. We talked about it on the Anderson pins podcast last night and they were talking about how I like to do that. And the question arose, like, are you afraid that people are just going to do that, that, that don't need to? And I wasn't, you know, I said I wasn't afraid that they were going to do it, but you know, you don't want to do it. Not every pen you buy actually needs work done. It's only if you want a modification of your own done to it, right? It's something personal to you that you might want to modify. Um, you know, not because your pen's writing bad. I don't want people to think that I'm, that I get a pen and I send it off to Masiyama because it writes every pen I buy writes bad and I want to get it smoothed out. That's not the case at all. I think over all the fountain pens that I bought, I've had one that I felt didn't write real well. And that's the law me 2000. And he fixed that for me. Every other pen I've bought, you know, like a Twisbee, a Pelican, a sailor, whatever, they all work great out of the box. You just, you just really want to work with a nib Meister. If there's something particular that you want in a nib, like an extra, extra, extra, extra fine nib or, or a super, or a super fine, curse of italic or something special. So don't think that you have to do things like this to have a good fountain pen experience because you don't. Um, it's, it's a personal thing that, you know, if you want to do a change that's going to suit your writing style better, that's when you want to start looking into the services of, of a nib Meister like Mike. So I just wanted to throw that out there. All right. So I think that's about it for today's show. Brad, I appreciate you being here today, even though you're clearly feeling under the weather. So thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate it. And you, you kindly offered to a post bonus a couple days, but this, this worked out okay. And I, I, I plunged through and now we'll also see if I can go get some, uh, get some meds in me. That's pretty good. Good idea. If you want to catch up with Brad, because he'll probably be tweeting some sort of hoos and, like hallucinogenic type tweets later on. Yeah, pay attention tonight. You want to do that. So that's going to be over at Twitter. He is at Dowdyism, D O W D Y I S M. I am I Mike. I am Y K E and of course, go check out Brad elsewhere on the internet at penad, penadict.com and knockco.com. So that is about it for today's episode of the show. Thank you so much. If you want to find the links that Nathan discussed today, go to five by five.tv/penadict/82. And we will be back next week for another episode of the pen addict. I think we're going to record a little bit later next week. We'll be releasing the episode next Thursday, just so you know, because I know there are a bunch of you that like to get the show as soon as you can, but we're recording on Thursday next week. So a little bit longer waiting usual, but I promise you it will be worthwhile. So thanks so much for listening. Till next time. Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.
