In this episode Brad races back from the airport to chat with Myke about the many goings on in the pen world. Kickstarter projects continue to stay in the news, new pen resources are available, and Brad has completed a long awaited review.
Bonus: Tweets were answered!
Links and Show Notes
In this episode Brad races back from the airport to chat with Myke about the many goings on in the pen world. Kickstarter projects continue to stay in the news, new pen resources are available, and Brad has completed a long awaited review.
Bonus: Tweets were answered!
Links for this episode:
Sponsored by Squarespace (use code TALLYHO10 for 10% off)
Hello and welcome to the pen addict podcast weekly show where we discuss pens, paper and the analog tools that you love so did this is episode 77 I am Mike early and I am joined by a man who last week received a tattoo he just went to a tattoo shop and he received just lots of little dots all over his arm so he can do dot grid whenever he likes it's mr. bread daddy that's good cuz that could go that could have grown a lot of wrong ways yeah I didn't know where I was going with that that's good I'll take it I'll take it with a little dot grid pattern little half sleeve dot grid how about that half sleeve a dog and imagine all the important work you do I'll work on that I'll put that in the notebook for a future tattoo sketches how about that I think that sounds excellent all right so how are you sir I am very well good good good I'm hanging in there myself I'm coming in on two wheels if you follow me on Twitter I've been whining all week about I've been working out of town and I just got back about an hour ago it from my house my house so I'm glad we were able to get this get this in today me too I knew I had to miss it Tuesday because I knew I was out of town then I knew I was coming back Thursday it was whether I could meet up with you this afternoon and I'm glad it's worked out because apparently we have lots to talk about and I was worried about that we have a real grab bag of topics today yeah but that's my favorite kind favorite kind of episode so where are we going to start let's start with some quick follow ups okay one thing that came out is pretty much right after we recorded last week if not the next day the polar pin kickstarter wrapped and did you see the do you see the final numbers on this thing I'm looking at it now 817164 dollars Canadian style incredible that's a lot of money I know his goal was only 14,000 I'm wondering you know the guy's name is Andrew Gardner I wonder how bad he's freaking out or what because being on on having my own kickstarter live right now I know how stressful it's been just for the small amount that we've done comparatively to him I think we've done a lot for we've done way more than we thought we would do and to see something like this is is pretty nuts one of the things I mentioned about it last week though was the first thing that came to mind was the bucky balls desk magnets enough it came out in Canada I saw an article on CBC CBC Canada someone on Twitter sent it to me and said hey Canada may not allow him to sell these in Canada because of because of the magnetic hazard which was the reason bucky balls got taken off the market which I'll go and record saying I think that whole things bogus anyway it's not a children's toy children can get a hold of a lot of things that aren't meant for them it's not marketed as a children's toy so I don't see any reason why this gentleman with the polar pin or bucky balls or any of that should be removed from the market but I don't get to make the rules unfortunately you should get to make all of the rules I should get to make all the rules I should but anyway we'll put a link in the show notes to this story that you can go read and it's it's the bucky ball story all over again and I just wonder what's going to happen if the US chimes in or anyone else makes a comment on this so we'll see it's going to be interesting to follow that would be really rough for him because he won't have enough money to refund everyone right because after like the tax and kickstarts cut so people would lose money right so he can't just terminate the kickstarter and the money just gets reverted back into people's accounts so this one's funded kickstarter fees are removed and Amazon payments fees are removed that adds up to probably around the 9% range so he's 9% in the whole right now 9% of $817,000 is a lot of money and that's like that had to all go back and he may have already spent some money absolutely on because he has like production ready yep he has like 15,000 of these things to make yeah this could be a dangerous time for him I wish him the best of luck I know I totally wish him luck too I think I think it's bogus any anyone trying to stop you know a manufacturer from making a pin like this or toy in the case of bucky balls and but it's going to be interesting to follow just because it's kind of become high profile now so we will wait and see unfortunately I was right in my statement last week saying that this could happen and it looks like it might so we'll see you see you know everything no no I mean it just kind of ever since I first saw that pin that's all I could think of just one of those one of those things so bad for the guy I did too I did too speaking of kickstarter we had a new project that launched this week that has drawn a little bit of interest it's called draft not to be queued views with the drafts iOS app which I was like how does this tie in that would be pretty cool tie in but now this one's called draft and their title is a physical notebook that syncs to the cloud I find that title quite misleading in all honesty because it doesn't so they had a blog post and I don't have it in front of me maybe you can find it on their website wherever it was that I read about this project yesterday when it launched some site did an article with one of the founders and he said kind of the exact same thing that you're saying the they did like some a b testing on Facebook and they had six kind of taglines I didn't think this was the one that won I thought there was another one out there that explained it a lot better I'll have to find that article or you can probably find it while while I'm jabbering but it was a I don't know if it was boing boing or it was someone pretty decent size anyway they had this interview and they went through all these steps of how they came up with the tagline because to like they said the same thing you did it's hard to explain what they're trying to accomplish with this so what it what it is in layman's terms it's they it's a notebook a paper notebook subscription service well they'll send you X amount of months of notebooks okay so twenty nine dollars gets you three months of notebooks it's three separate notebooks fifty dollars for six months a hundred dollars for twelve months of notebooks all right so what you do is you take your monthly notebook you use it at the end of the month you send it back to them they scan it in and then that becomes all your scans become available for you to search online this is am I describing this right because honestly I didn't have too much research into it yeah that's what it seems like you send it to them and they scan it and you get another one right so you don't have to do the scanning or photo taking like when the Evernote Moleskin notebook came out you know you took a picture of it and it imported into Evernote there were certain Evernote branded notebooks with you know different things on the page that you could take a picture of and scan it in there and it would end up in Evernote and you're not doing any of the work except filling up a notebook for me something like this would never work in a million years for me because I don't fill up a notebook that fast yeah because they sell one like every month right yeah it's a monthly service I'm sure you could just send it back whenever you're ready but that's not what you're paying for don't you pay for the notebooks to be scanned as opposed to paying so if you get if you pay for six months and get six notebooks if it takes you a year to fill up those notebooks surely they'll still be scanned if you send them in I guess so yeah but I would rather I mean it's maybe it's not to their benefit but yeah from the FAQ one question can I wait to send the notebook back definitely if you need to hang on to your current notebook for whatever reason that's totally fine just send it in when you're done and we'll scan it for you then and also is another one what happens if I haven't completely filled by notebook by the end of the month that's fine we designed the notebook with enough pages 60 plus or 60 front and back so you should never run out of space if you send your current notebook anyway and we'll scan the pages you oh you've used oh no maybe you do then that doesn't make sense because that doesn't seem like that doesn't make any sense well how is if I haven't completely filled by notebook by the end of the month that's fine we designed the notebooks of enough pages so you should never run out of space simply send your current notebook anyway and we'll just scan the pages you've used so yeah you do send it in every month whatever you that kind of contradicts what they said the other I thought yeah yeah it doesn't we'll do some more research on that the way to do this in my mind is instead of saying you get six months you get six notebooks right that's what it should be what if I use more than one a month I should I should pay for six notebooks worth of scans not six months worth of scans yeah so I mean I know they're having to tie in the fees to their all the back end stuff that they're gonna have that's a lot of labor to do the scanning and you know storage and all that stuff a lot of labor is tied into that obviously a lot of people are asking them is in their comments they're saying it's something they're considering for the future they're planning to do it soon after launch it will start monthly but will add an option to do by request so you're in 100% control of the timing yeah sound even know that by request is even the best way I think if you buy one notebook it comes with the scan that price is whatever that fee on top of the notebook price that's what you get so I just want to back this but I can't yeah US only US only the just it's just the notebooks themselves are not very expensive and then comes in blank dot grid and rules so it's got some good choices they say it's you know got some thick paper I wonder I haven't read the paper specs but they did say it on the video I'm definitely going to be it's definitely going to be on their page to say it in the video so thick paper OK great they do say on the video it's they give the spec and I can't remember what it was but I remember thinking at a time that's good yes and that it was it did sound like a nice thick sort of rodeo like paper yeah they I think that the pricing of it's really good yeah I mean for what you get for this I think the pricing is completely fair and actually cheap so if that's something you're into if you're prolific this looks like a good thing so or even if you're happy to just send them in you know yeah sure or even if you want your content saved like that like six notebooks potentially fifty dollars like I think that's pretty good and then it's a really good value I can think I have to pay for the shipping though yeah first month shipping included gotcha and also just so we you know this the draft app the app that you would be able to view your scans yeah as part of this as well so we should mention that so yeah this seems very low priced it seems like a and also the really interesting thing that I think is that it seems to drop box and ever know so therefore you can have it OCR'd and searchable in ever know yeah that's a huge thing that's yeah yeah that was why I wanted it yeah yeah if I do if I ever do something like this it's definitely going to have you to have OCR recognition I feel like I should just get a scan on myself and just do it myself or any of what I choose I know I've threatened to all these years so see if I get does that I know that's every time someone mentions it I bring it up and link to Stephen's post where he talks about how he sets all that up so yeah and you two spoke about it on this show yeah when he filled in for me one day I'll find that episode actually okay and I'll put it in the show notes yeah yep I actually forgot about that episode that was a good episode but yeah I'll refer people to that conversation to that post of his a lot just because I think it's a good idea and people ask how you handle your filled notebooks and for me I just throw them in a bin but you know I have had to dig things out something you know I'm pretty sure I wrote this down once and you know it'd be nice to have some such ability backed up into that so cool so we'll keep it we'll keep it on drafts to kick kick starters kick starters jumping again these days it was kind of kind of a lull there for a while and now we're seeing some some new and interesting stuff speaking of new and interesting I'm the segue master today you really are speaking of kick starters speaking of new and interesting speaking of new and interesting do you want to say that anymore times yeah I'm practicing my newsman voice oh it's good I like it yeah okay I'll work on that all right so before I drive us totally into the canyon the field notes has come out with a what do they even call this the gentleman's memo book cover after you have to when it says gentleman's you have to say it in a different tone of voice line gentleman's memo book cover so they came out with a leather product last year last year when the pony express pouch came out yep I never got one of those did you I thought that was the best product out of the whole lineup that came out even including the box I just thought it was really cool it's just kind of a mass storage holds three field notes I never got one it's pretty expensive I mean for others expensive but it's good quality stuff you know I've got one my one leather dome paper memo book holder that I love that's really the only one to need leather you don't need too many of these but this one has a few extra things so in this field notes gentleman's memo book cover it has a pin holder slot for pin holder it's got credit card slots and you know it's kind of got the back pocket there you can slide money and other paperwork in there too so it seems pretty cool they did on it is which they do on the pony express to is they have their their field notes um oh this is the everyday carry memo cover yeah that I'm reading sorry I'm getting them mixed up there's two there's a gentleman's memo book cover and there's an everyday carry memo book cover yeah the gentleman's is is not new now that's the old one yeah they came out with the pony express I did I was confused I did think it was called the what they calling it the FNB EDC yes so it's the everyday carry memo book cover which makes a lot more sense for what it is my apologies but they've added the the field notes logo the famed Futura font on the front and it looks pretty hot I like the way this looks I wouldn't pocket carry this because I don't like carrying I like carrying my notebook in my pocket and I just can't carry a pin in my I carry this in my back pocket and I can't carry a pin in my back pocket but this is good for like a backpack briefcase type of thing I don't know what do you what do you think about it Mike would you carry this I think I might buy one yeah I think this looks right up your alley yeah I could put everything in there yeah it looks yeah I'm seeing it's got two credit card slots and one pin holder slot and then the notebook goes on the right side then it's got an extra pocket on the left side you can just kind of slide stuff in the back side of the pocket comment like a wallet pocket cool yeah it's it's it's got the waxy surface I like the waxy surface on these pocket leather pocket notebooks that's how my donuture utility journal holder is it's got that kind of waxy feel I like that yeah I'm thinking about buying it is okay it looks good we'll do it and we'll get a full review by you not I don't know when that will be there so I'm not I'm not gonna buy it because I like the one that I have this is not something like I said this is not something I need to have and would necessarily work for how I carry but it sure is good looking in that but there will sell a bunch of it because there's lots of people looking for things like these not cool sorry and finally in our follow-up section of events I just saw this link probably I think when I got off the airplane and was waiting for my baggage something like this and out a couple hours ago I saw a link from JetPint from there's a website that is kind of new on the block I guess in the past few months and it's called the pen paper ink letter it's pen paper ink letter dot com I love a link in the show notes and I've just been following it back and forth there's been just kind of a slew of posts just I don't say generic but very few you can post kind of link into some giveaways and doing some other things on some other blogs and what they did recently was added a page called the massive review index on their blog have you been able to look at this mic I've never even heard of this before yeah I've never been heard of it before a few hours ago you have the page pulled up I'm opening it as we speak okay cuz mine my internet's going slow here yeah I can tell I'm sorry the podcasting professional is going to shoot me by the time we're done with this episode because my my internet is misbehaving and no so pen paper ink letter dot com is not coming out for me no it's not me either oh oh we fireballed it just the two of us trying to get to it at one but one time has taken it down all right it's coming up now well good it's not just me then it is some of you anyway so what um gosh I forgot his name not the sites coming up I can't remember his name the gentleman behind paper ink letter dot com has decided to is aggregate the white work he's decided to collect every review of every product ever and link it on this page called the massive review index what are your thoughts on this mic I would have more thoughts if I could see the web page is every review that they have done on their site negative every review that everyone's done on their websites how many websites are we talking well he's just starting so let's see how many he's got so far like what websites are they including in this all right so you're in it yeah gourmet pin holy brown there's a lot of stuff here wow maybe that's why it's not coming up so it finally came up from here so it's all alphabetical ish it's kind of alphabetical by category yeah pen paper and ink but I like that they've got like as you're scrolling down they throw in the alphabet a few times jump around this is insane it's barely scratching the surface it's a genius idea though yeah I don't know if I'm going that far I don't know what to think about this yet I think the jury is still out to be quite honest with you why well so this is presented as a resource right this is I consider this a resource so this person's done all this work to build this resource it's a great resource if there's any monetization on top of this I'm gonna have a problem with it oh coming as a content creator I mean I know he's just linking to my site I gotta think about this I don't want to say anything that might come back to bite me in the butt I would say I would say to play devil's advocate what about ink links in yeah and I thought exactly about that with ink links what I'm doing is sharing the current stories of the week and then those vanish of course they're still in the archives but that's kind of a one time shot and it kind of goes through and you know points the things that I like this week and there's some interactivity to it and the fact that I've put this together from reading you know different different blogs during the week and sorting out the ones that I like the best and put some thought into doing it this is a permanent resource that will be linked to continuously by the person doing this as hey come look at this look what I've done here here's all these people's content put in one place granted they have to click the link to come through to my page yeah given you the page view right so I don't think it says I mean obviously I'm not the one that's creating here but I think I know okay it probably is it probably is I just it's weird I don't know you know how you know how I am sometimes so like my my other question would be to you is well why don't you do this on your site I have no interest in doing it exactly but this makes it really easy for people so like the next time that I'm thinking about buying a pen I could go here and see somebody's review from a trusted source you know rather than just googling pan addict to see if you've done it sure yeah you know so I think it's it's interesting I think that I understand where you're coming from but my my other thought would be okay they might let's say they put an ad on this page or whatever if a person comes through to your site they may not have ever found it otherwise and then you actually might end up with a new reader yeah that's fair and they're more ad sales of your own yeah I just look at it like for example I have a tumbler that I link that I collect content of that's tagged a certain way like on Instagram so through IFTTT I've created a website that aggregates all this content all these images based on all these tags that I find it's a private website that only I can see because I don't want to say I'm putting together a website of all these links that I found on Instagram it's not my content who am I to share a website and you know have an ad on it with all these other people's pictures on it that are tagged fountain pen yeah but then the difference is is it's not linking it's just flat out displaying no it links it links to every Instagram page links to the page okay yeah yeah yeah but then people that people can't make that money on their own so it's I understand where you're coming from but I think it's not different I think in the end it's fine it kind of caught me off guard put it that way he didn't ask I mean not that he has to I mean but it would have been nice to get it a heads up hey that I agree with sometimes if you're going to do something like this just a simple email at least is the right thing to do you know so then you can if you say nothing then fine you know I'll take your denial of response as it's okay to do this and then he and then he's set it up to rate people by the quantity of the reviews that they do yes it's weird yeah so maybe I'll shoot him an email it would just been nice to get a heads up that hey can I put you know several hundred of your links on this page and then point people to this massive review index that I created yeah I don't know I don't know what my answer would have been to be quite honest with you I know you were I think to say that you would say no because you would have had that reaction like you had instantly whether you'd have ended up changing your mind or not initially you would have you know it would have got your back up a little bit and you would have said no I don't want to do it yeah I don't know why am I so particular about that I don't know I mean I don't know I just I don't know it's okay you're allowed to be precious about your content yeah and it's not that I'm it's not that it's just I mean people can link to my people link to my blog constantly and do it all the time and do you know they're on ink links posts and that's different like I look at this as something different than you know standard linking anyway we'll let it go because I like I said I haven't had that much time to think about it and I have an email dumb and I'm gonna pull up his name now off the page loads he hates so I'll be I'll shoot heath and email and see what what's the what's the deal going on here so maybe I'll have more to report next week and maybe I'll have happy fun good news Brad goes on the email defensive again first vision air well I mean I don't I don't feel it's fair for me to talk about people without getting their input as well I agree with that that's that's the gentlemanly thing to do yeah I mean I'm I'm open I'm an open book can I say again just how much I love my Edison pearl yes you can that's all I saw it on the what did I see it on the Instagrams this week or on the Twitter's you saw it on Instagram yep it's a sexy pin they don't really have much to say I just I just freaking love that pen I know it's I'm really glad you bought that pen and I didn't even think about recommending it to you because that's one that I would have wanted you to try instead of buying you know we talked about it when it first came out and you know that's just something you want to try before dropping the cash on it but I'm glad you got to try it just like we talk about all the time people should try these things if at all possible sometimes it's not and boy you have got yourself a winner I'm very very happy with it I just love this the ink that already yeah I'm gonna have to get I might order that next week it it's just such a great color and it just adds something yeah yeah speaking of winners Mike yes how about square space how awesome are they they're total winners that's it that's what they are so this episode is brought to you by the fine folks over at square space the only one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own professional website or online portfolio for a free trial and 10% off go to squarespace.com and use the offer code tallyhoten now you've heard me talk about squarespace and how they're always adding new features and they have their 20 beautiful templates that you can start with over 20 I believe that one awards many awards they have a 24 hour seven day a week award winning customer service team to squarespace plans you can get a squarespace plan and start your own site online with their amazing tools starting at just eight dollars a month and that includes a free domain name I want to talk about squarespace commerce a little bit and Brad can I put you on the spot for a moment sure so I think that I spoke a little about squarespace commerce last week and we've mentioned that it's something that you're going to be using for knock yes and I just wondered what was it about squarespace commerce that made you choose this platform the short version is I gave Jeff the login to it who has never used squarespace Jeff is my business partner and knock for those who didn't know and I gave him the login to that I told him to look at big cartel and I told him to look at Shopify he started using the squarespace interface and said this is so easy I said okay I don't even need to look at it let's do it and that's because I mean I'm putting my mouth I have a squarespace experience that sounds good to say I'm used to the interface I'm used to all this stuff but in this business partnership Jeff needs to know all these tools as well and you know there's new things added in with commerce and there's different different things to build on and things like that but just the basic aspect and he had already by the time I think we did a 14 day free trial and I think the second day I just went ahead and paid for it because he'd already built out like all the framework of all the site that he wanted to see so I knew he liked it and never having used squarespace before and he found it easy so that was that was all I needed so from having never used squarespace before to like two days later you've got an entire website with a commerce platform oh yeah yeah definitely now it's not something ready to launch because we're not at that point yet but yeah I mean we have you know we probably have 10 product and test products built out with full descriptions skews inventory pricing shipping all that stuff just in the background I mean no one can see that yet until we make it go live but yeah just playing around with it we've built all that stuff out I mean you know the thing that you're going to find really difficult is being able to take payment though right? No no that's another thing is because not to have anything against PayPal but you know PayPal is good and it's it's the biggest name in the game but Squarespace uses Stripe and the Stripe integration is just I don't know it's a few clicks of a button I got to sign up with Stripe I've gone through the page I hadn't signed up yet because we're not active yet I didn't want to start my account there's no additional fees or anything though they take a 2.9% fee Squarespace takes no fees for that I just pay them like my monthly hosting fee essentially is what it is for the commerce side of things and then Stripe takes I think it's 2.9% I'll let Mike verify that 2.9% and 30 cents on top 30 cents for transaction or successful transaction which is super competitive and I don't know I haven't looked at a comparison chart but just in general it's it's either as good as or better than any other payment processor on the market so and it integrates right in with right in the Squarespace it's literally a matter of a click of a few buttons to set up that account so thanks Brad so go and check it out for yourself if you're interested in starting your own website or even starting a commerce platform of your own so go to Squarespace.com sign up there for a free trial and when you're done with a free trial don't forget to use the code tallyhoe 10 it's going to get you 10% off whatever you spend at Squarespace so thanks so much to them for sponsoring the pan addict and for supporting all the 5x5 yes thank you Squarespace so finally I'll go on oh no I was just going to say one more thing about Squarespace is Jeff and I can't wait to get this site going the Kickstarter has been awesome we're you don't want to say your ideas validated because really we haven't even started yet if you will business wise but we feel like things Jeff and I are so excited to fulfill this Kickstarter and open this store and be able to just explode all the ideas out of our head into a store which we can't do until we do all this Kickstarter stuff first the store is going to be the products we're going to be able to offer it's going to be awesome that's all I can say I wish I could share more but the ideas in our head and the the synced up wavelengths that we're on it's going to be nothing but good stuff I didn't know I would ever be to this point is as far as being you know creative and business wise but I'm beyond excited for what is to come for not co as are we all yes I just wanted to throw that out there anyway so what were you going to say so finally you've reviewed the Pelicanum 205 yeah so what did you think to read that review yeah it wasn't what I was expecting yeah we didn't really talk a lot about the pen yep I did that on purpose okay good kind yep I mean I don't it's hard writing a basic review for every product yeah you don't want it to get stale and not that I mixed it up on purpose it's just that I had more personal feelings about this pin than I did about you know a pilot G2 gel yep that definitely came across because I want one even more right and it's hard these are things that are hard to talk about and hard to write about how your personal my personal feelings about how I feel when a certain pins in my hand I try to come across and I try to get that across and I try to say things that you know try to make people relate to that but it's a hard thing to do and that's was the hardest part about the Pelicanum 205 because if you just look at it in a picture okay if you put two pictures side by side and I show you this black pelican M205 with black ink in it and a price tag that says $140 and that's in the left picture and I have a picture on the right hand side with a Twisbee 580 loaded up with cotton pecky and it says $60 what do you I mean what are you gonna buy I mean I think you know if we did that a that a B test I think it's probably gonna be about 80 20 Twisbee just from a picture alone and the price point right I mean maybe I'm delusional in that but so taking a pin that most people would say looks extremely simple and having to explain how good of a pin it is especially into relation to a pin that is more than half its cost it's hard to do so I hope that came across in the review and I think from the feedback I got on it I got a lot of tweets on this I didn't get too many comments there's a handful of comments on it I think that came across I think I was successful in what I was trying to share about this pin and that's what I you know I don't want to I want to share my experiences with the pins I don't want to necessarily tell people what to buy because I can't do that because we all have different tastes but I want to share my experience and maybe you can relate to some of that and maybe you can understand why $140 pin is different than a $60 pin for certain reasons that doesn't mean you should buy the $140 pin that didn't mean the $140 pins better but there are reasons why it's a good pin and trying to explain that you know it can be a challenge you know especially for something like this and that's just kind of kind of the way it came out you know this was this pins more about feel and I don't know feel and I don't know just how I use it and how I feel when I use it as opposed to specs right this pin isn't about specs because it's going to get beat in some specs and sometimes it's more about how it makes you feel and the heart of it that makes it special because if it was all about specs then there'd only ever be one great pen right because I have a bunch of pens which some people consider to be their favorites which are not mine sure so look at something like the high-tech see I don't like it but people right a lot of people consider it to be the best pen ever made but it's so many things in personal taste and the way that you write with the pins like for example the vanishing point I don't rate that as high as you do anymore it actually falls below many pens that I have now it's you know yeah and that's the thing I mean your taste change over time too and the more you learn the more things change you know the more you're able to take what you've learned and process that information and make you know buying decisions related now on the new information that you've gained over the years so I think that's happened to me a lot too so actually it was funny when I was out of town Mike Dudaic sent me a message and hope he doesn't mind me sharing it I don't have it I don't have it right up in front of me but he basically said just out of the blue we were having a conversation about something totally different and he said out of the blue are you sick of reviewing regular pens that you found at the office supply store and that was it was like a one sentence little thing and I said absolutely freaking not I mean I'm excited about finding good pens and cool pens of any type you know he's I guess he was saying that I'm reviewing a lot of fountain pens recently and I am yeah so he says his exact messages do you feel like you're kind of over reviewing gel and other office pens my response was not at all so and in the gist of it was I still like a good pen no matter what it is but what I find to be a good pen has changed over the years yeah so and it's just a constant learning process and that's kind of what I was trying to share with this review and really with my blog as a whole you know I want to provide information and you know let people use that information to make the most informed buying decisions they can so maybe that's why I shouldn't be upset if all my links are on the massive review index or whatever whatever that thing's called because maybe it'll help someone right Mike maybe it will all right I feel like I've turned your your thinking you you know me well enough to know exactly what I thought when I saw that but I but all I did was kept telling myself is don't jump to any conclusions you what are you doing you know don't be a fool man but yeah the M205 I would I'm going to end up with several of these pens just to be perfectly honest with you the M205 or pelicans the M205 why several of the same pen because they they make a demonstration version this is this is the exact same pen that's the yellow highlighter one that I bought that I haven't even inked up yet I don't know how you've kept that thing just I've been so busy I don't care Brad you should be highlighting all the Kickstarter money you're making I have been so busy but I promise I will ink it up this weekend because I really am interested in that a lot yeah but it's the exact same pen as this one 100% it's just in a clear yellow plastic and they make them good then they just came out with a green one this year and they came out with a blue one not too long ago that's still available so I just found it on the writing desk for 80 pounds yeah so what do you think 80 pounds I paid under $90 on sales that's way cheaper what I paid then yeah I mean but once I've you know done what I need to do to get the thing here sure oh and I know I know what what I'm saying is it's a common enough pen even in your neck of the woods to where you might can find a sale they do go on sale from time to time so I don't know it's not going anywhere fast so you don't have to rush into purchasing it like I waited and waited and waited and and uh yeah sent out a tweet saying hey love interest got these on sale I bought it within 5 minutes I'm definitely not gonna buy it until you've reviewed it I'll do that soon yeah I'm really interested in it though so obviously it's a different is it a different model M205 duo yeah I mean the build is the same I think it's just that because it comes with the double broad nib in the highlighter ink so it's marketed as that so I found it for a little bit cheaper on our website but I don't know if I can trust it all right well I'm gonna do something real quick and you said we can wrap it up but I promised all my Twitter followers I would answer their their tweets because I was I was worried I would have enough talk to talk about I just found it for 50 pounds on Amazon yeah see that's the right price that's about that's closer to what I paid now I'm thinking that might as well just buy this pen right now yeah that's a good price that is pretty good right mm-hmm oh Brad what have you done how much does it cost me to ship it though at this rate you might have it inked up before I do oh man oh okay oh this show so I'm gonna I'm gonna yeah we get that we get that email a lot don't we or that tweet actually we just got one few minutes ago where to go yeah I heard it come through on the podcast two weeks ago already ordered far too many pens just got to the episode with your Kickstarter campaign broke yeah what thanks thanks Martin Walsh well Martin as you can clearly see it happens to all of us absolutely just listening to my co-host and I'm thinking I'm just about to spend fifty eight pounds because I can get the special ink all Brad hey we both of us have purchased products on the air several times all right so let me get to these tweets because there's some good ones and I promise that I would do this I don't want to leave these hanging okay all right because there's that there's all and all and all not that many of them but where is the first one all right Dave Rhodes says any recommending recommendations for an ink on dark side of red pairing with a Lammy A.L. Star and Rodeo Webby I am not a red ink expert but I have used a few the diamond oxblood gets rave rave reviews for its color it's kind of a deeper darker red I got an ink sample of it I have not reviewed it yet I have reviewed diamond red dragon though and that's super dark and it looks wonderful so that might be the one to take a look at take a look at my review and see if you like the color of that for diamond red dragon I'll put that in the show notes yet but then show notes you can find the five by five TV slash pan addict slash 77 the official show mascot canoony Rynishin says you're stuck somewhere and you're allowed one pin one ink and one notebook let's assume endlessly refillable for all what do you pick those are always brutally impossible questions so I'm gonna get papers I think oh god it's not going to play papers easy um boy all right notebook I'm going with the don idea journal large size which I'll still contend is the best all around notebook ever produced from mr. Chad down I love that thing um pin I have to use I'm gonna go lommie 2000 Wow really yeah interesting I guess it's just you never gonna be upset with it are you? yeah I hope I get it good I hope I get a good one isn't it yeah I mean like more likely it's never gonna do anything to you that's gonna ruin things yeah yep and ink that's hard I think I'll move I'm gonna have to go Shinkai Roshazuku Shinkai which I put at number one it's just a good blue black I think I get bored of colors too easily I like I love mixing up colors but for short time periods I think for long forever writing sessions allow me 2000 don idea journal and pilot a Roshazuku compact key I think I could be pretty happy there you want to get in on this one? if I'm gonna pick one pen one ink I'm probably gonna go compact key what was the name of your one Shinkai I'm trying to find it for the notes but I can't I don't know how you spell that I'll get it I'll get it for you one pen well one pen is the retro 51 so the ink doesn't really mean anything yeah um but then I guess I'm gonna get the whatever the refills are where they Schmidt well they call the the RAF 5p the retro ones because they rebrand them but yeah so whatever is the standard retro 51 refill but let's say let's say fountain pen then just because you know I picked an ink um I I agreed probably be hard pressed actually no I'm gonna say uh wizbee mini okay that's an awesome pen hey did speaking of Twizzbee mini as I run the show on for two hours did you see uh our friend Jeffrey Abbott's post on the pen on Monday I did see that what's what are you up to yeah just uh expanding the empire running things man but I thought that was a that was a good review I love that Twizzbee mini I'm gonna have to buy that that model now I have to all clear one that black with the clear body that looks pretty slick it's the bad boy I've got yeah that looks better in person than I thought it would all right let me oh no I haven't got that one I've got the clear one but it's got some black accents but it's not that one yep so uh Jeff isn't another writer in your staff now yes yes Jeff is Jeff isn't actually he has a Twitter question oh good he has a good Twitter question for us momentarily all right I'm a dean who is a field nut um which stub nib is the best lamie or Twizzbee um that's hard because they're different actually the Twizzbee is a better writer if you're a cursive and you want a nice flowing it's more of a cursive italic stub nib where a lamie is more of a just straight across firm stub nib and like the 1.1 lamie is finer than the 1.1 Twizzbee and if I just had to pick one I picked the lamie actually because I like that sharper thinner line um but the Twizzbee if you're just doing long writings writing especially if you write cursive you will like that better um also asked favorite light blue ink that's probably cotton pecky if that's light blue enough and I think Mike would agree to that I'm a big fan of that ink yep uh Tony Sculambrine who is uh my friend uh Tony from everyday commentary the EDC blog he wants to know how the Topo don't bag is working out it's working out amazingly well that's my everyday work bag um I did not use it for my trip I was gone I tried to pack it for my trip it doesn't hold it's more I mean it's a briefcase it's the Topo mountain briefcase so think of it like that it's not going to hold mass storage so I took my Topo Rover backpack which held I could jam things like my jacket and I had an extra notebook and just all kinds of junk in there that I needed more for a trip that I couldn't fit in the doughnut bag but the doughnut bag is my everyday work bag easily and I'm very happy with it loving it and stay tuned for a review of that one and maybe something a little more alright ooh Mattias I'm gonna go with Mattias talk about the best green ink I like green but end up with terrible looking inks red and green inks are not my thing at all you have a few of each but the one green that I have used that has been spectacular is the all gold green it is a killer shading ink it's not a traditional color it's amazing looking I would I would load that ink and I do load that ink in one of my daily carry pens it's that good and I'm not really a green person so that's a fantastic looking ink alright so here's Jeff Abbott's question this is for both of us what is your significant other think of your hobby you want to take that one first trauma best to hide it I have so many strips the hobbies that she thinks are strange this is just one of them in all honesty like this is just one of the many peculiar things that I do that I'm interested in so she just judges me with the same amount so it's basically where you get the roll eyes it's not even so much that it's just like okay this is that thing you like my wife used to be that way and I used to try to hide it from her but now she's like well help me find a pen that I like and did you get it what's this charge for a hundred sixty sixty dollars for it's for a new pen oh okay so that's the that's the phase that I'm in right now where I didn't even get likes smacked around for that just a random pin charge on the credit card I mean that's just because you know you just point out your hidey successful kick saw a campaign that's right so she turned she has turned the corner into like actively active interest put it that way hmm oh I see okay this is what he does yeah instead of feigning interest it's active interest yeah yeah I bet yep yep Brad that's funny that buys a lot of jewelry that's right that's right that's right she likes that but she doesn't listen to the podcast no I'll get her to download the Brad Thorneboro EDC fountain pin update what type and how do you carry still looking for a better field notes and pin combo for all situations I'm pretty much secure a pigment micron in my field notes for the majority of the time if it's not that it's gonna be the oto graphic liner and if it's not that it's just gonna be whatever fountain pen that I've picked up that day and think might work well in the field notes I don't use a lot of fountain pens and field notes so he's won an EDC fountain pen for that I mean any kiwiko model is going to be the way to go just for the size and they're so good the nibs are so good they I don't have a better choice than that honestly because I really use the secure pick or micron more than a fountain pen in my field notes my everyday carry has changed significantly yeah the perlet field notes and space pen just in case I need something to you know throw around but I'm using the perlet in the field notes and I'm also got the vacumatic with me as well and I carry those in my don't leather case holster that's awesome so it's a little too much to keep in my pockets all the time but I am yeah so I'm going back and forth with my carry right now I have too many things to ink up and test so I try to carry I try to carry minimal I'd love to carry just like three pins but I'm back up to like ten or twelve right now I'm a lost cause but tomorrow I'm going to a conference and all I'm taking with me is a blank field notes book and the Edison I just cannot get enough of this pen man. I love every little thing about it. All right Anna Elizabeth has wants to know thoughts on disposable fountain pens they're good if I mean if you're qualifying disposable as non refillable most of those are pretty bad but in dairy I guess every fountain pen is kind of disposable in the fact that you can refill them forever but I think she's what she's referring to is just kind of the easy to access lower end of the market like pilot preppies, excuse me platinum preppies, pilot varsity, things like that which are decent quality. I really have no issues with them. I love the platinum preppie for $3 that's it's got a great fine nib. I love that. So I'm not sure if I answer that right. You can you can email me Anna Elizabeth because I like your name because it's the reverse of my daughter's name. I see we mean just it's Elizabeth and not written in exact reverse. Not not exactly that would be weird. That would be awful. Definitely. So Ryan Gray wants to know is it just fountain pens from here on? No. And I covered that earlier. So that was your Ryan got an early answer to that question that I didn't even know was here. This is a tough one. Vaughn Johnson. He's he's had several good questions over the years approximate total expenditures per month to feed your habit. And let me go along with the very next tweet is from sometime guest reviewer Brian Draggy at Sketchscape. Do you have a pin budget for each year? Do you keep tabs on how much you spend and is it more or less than you expected? I don't know how much I spend per month. I don't keep a pin budget. I tried to be reasonable. I'm also afforded the luxury of having my blog sponsored by JetPins. So I get some of this stuff for free. Then I get other fortunate to work with other great vendors like Kaveko who send me products to test out. You're really trying. Was that on you? I am because now I feel I feel dirty if I say it the other way. So but I should try to capture my expenditures one day. I do kind of have a pin budget in the fact that I don't go berserk buying every pin I want. Sometimes I have to wait months to buy a for a pin to fit in my budget just like that Franklin Christoff. It took me probably four months so I pulled the trigger till I felt like I had the money to buy that one. So I don't go gung ho crazy on buying pins but I don't have a strict budget that I follow. I like this question. This is from Jim Cant. What is your single most valued sought after feature in a fountain pin? Let's take decent nib off the table. See Mike, you were right. We should have saved these for next week but you know Twitter. It's time based. Next week these people wouldn't care. Mine is a good feeling section where I grip the pin. If it's got threads in the way, if it's got sharp ridges, it's going to be unusable to me. So companies that design the best sections are going to be my favorite fountain pens. Sorry I'm scrolling through my Twitter feed. I think we about got it here. Oh, last one in from Jim Cant. Whether fountain pin or not or both. What do you think is the most glaring omission in pens currently on the market? A pressurized fountain pen. That's kind of a joke but still I mean fountain pens are not travel friendly. So a more travel friendly fountain pen which relates back to the everyday carry type fountain pen. Is there been anything that's really stuck? I mean there hasn't. It's hard to find a great road worthy. Travel pin. I mean we all carry. I mean I carry my fountain pens everywhere around town but if like I just traveled out of town for four days I didn't carry a fountain pen with me. Just because I didn't want to deal with it. So I don't know how to solve that question. But that's one idea for sure. You have any ideas on that? Anything in a pen you're looking for that you just can't get. I don't know. Yeah that's a hard question but I think there's an answer to that question. I just need to think about it more. I honestly don't know. Yeah. There's nothing that I'm like looking for. Yeah where I'm like oh we should have this. Because I wanted a really good mini fountain pen and I'm kind of going to with those now. Yeah I know. I've kind of expanded my arsenal there too. So I just still want more. Like I said more road worthy fountain pen but I mean that's talk about being picky about something. I would be totally picky about that. Maybe it's the Twisbee Mini. I don't know. That could be one. I don't know. We'll see. But anyway those were great questions. If I missed anyone. Let me know. Tweet me back. Say hey you missed my question and I was certainly answered. Thank you so much everyone for sending in these questions. I was begging this morning for a little extra content today because I wasn't sure what I could put together. But Mike had my back as always. So I roll. Yes sir. All right I think we're done for the day sir. Cool. Excellent stuff. So if you want to follow us online you can do that in a couple of ways. You can go to Panadic.com and knockco.com. That's where you'll find Brad. He's also @doudismdowdyism on Twitter. I am I Mike. I am YKE. And that is it for this week's episode of the Panadic. You can find the show notes for today's episode at Panadic. Sorry. 5x5.tv/panadic/77. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next week. Until then. Bye bye. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]
