Hello and welcome to episode 54 of the Panetic Podcast, a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analog tools we love so dearly. My name is Mike Herley and I am joined by the man who first stepped foot on the paper moon, that is Mr. Buzz Doudy. How are you, sir? Good, good. I like that man, you're good at this. Thank you. I was just sharing with you my fear before the start of the episode that whatever was going to come out of my mouth was whatever I said and as I looked around I saw my space pen and went with it. Yeah, that's why it's impressive because I stressed out about it for you and then you just come up and stuff up the top of your head that I couldn't swing at all. So yeah, well done by you, sir. Thank you. Brad Doudy, I figure I should just clarify that for any new listeners. Your name is Brad Doudy, not Buzz. Yeah, not Buzz, definitely. We may have some new listeners now. We have a guest today and I want to rush to get to that point. But just before we do, the current listeners of this show on 70 decibels, before the next episode, episode 55, this show will have moved over to five by five. We mentioned this a couple of weeks ago. You don't have to do anything, but at some point over the next few days, or depending on when you listen to this, it may have already happened and we apologize, you will see in your app of choice on maybe the iPhone or on the Mac or my Android or something. It will show as the pan addict having maybe 50 unplayed episodes. We didn't get really, really busy and record 15 new episodes. It just, as when we switch our RSS feed over, it just pops up to say that these are new. So you can just mark them all as played. You can listen again if you really want to. I mean, feel free. That'd be good. Or at least download them all again. Just say, oh, here's 15 new episodes and just download them. Yeah, that's so good. That'll look good for us moving over. Mr. Benjamin, I'm sure we'll likely look at that. But, yeah, so, and then from now on, you will have, you will be able to listen to the channel five by five and some point in the very near future, this show will broadcast live on five by five. Yeah, that's going to be fun. I'm actually looking forward to that. That's going to be a pretty cool deal. So our schedule fits in, fits into an open slot in the five by five live broadcast schedules. So we're going to go for it, not yet, but hopefully in a few weeks or so. Yeah, so those of you that really love the show can listen a long live and contribute. It will be a good fun. But anyway, Brad, please introduce our illustrious guest. Yeah, I'm so excited. And this is someone I've known for a long time in the in the pin blogosphere. And she is known to a lot of people in in circles where we run. And I'd like to introduce Miss Anna Reiner of the well appointed desk. Welcome on. Hello. Thank you. I'm very excited to be on the show. Hey, we're excited to have you. This is going to, this is awesome. I've been wanting to do this for a while and we've talked about it. Gosh, we started, you know, pinging it around months ago. So I'm glad we're finally able to get it done. And I think all the listeners are excited too. Yeah, I've had a lot of people comment on Twitter that they were excited. I think to hear what I sound like. Well, you sound wonderful. Thank you. So we're certainly glad to have you. So a couple of things that I wanted to talk about. And we're going to, and Anna and Mike and I, we're going to talk about some specific topics later, kind of, you know, just like our basic format that we do. But I wanted to talk with Anna real quick about how she got started in pin blogging because I remember way back in the day when I first started the pin addict before I even had my own domain. When I think I was, I don't even remember my blog spot. You are, I think it was pinaddiction.blogspot.com. I first started, you know, doing pin reviews and first started. I think it was probably about the time I started doing my ink links, you know, weekend recap. And back then there was hardly anything to post. And I found this blog and I found this girl writing it. And it was you. And it was this blog at the time, I think it was called Snow Angel. So for those who don't know, you know, the well appointed desk has only been in its current format for what a couple years, but you go way, way back in doing this type of stuff, right? Yeah, strangely enough I do. I went back and looked because the Snow Angel's blog is still there and it actually started back in, I want to say, 1999 or 2000, when people just started blogging, you know, so it had originally been on blogger and that kind of thing and had really been more of sort of a diary kind of a thing. And over the years I got more involved in, I discovered pencil revolution back in like 2005. And I went back to check and see how long Johnny had been doing the pencil revolution. And so in about 2006, I started posting the occasional like pen review or pencil review or, you know, some of their office tool thing and didn't completely commit to it one way or the other. And then about three years ago, I work at Hallmark in case people don't know, I work at Hallmark corporate headquarters as a designer. We bring people in kind of on a regular basis to talk about business or design or anything like that. And we brought in a woman named Aaron from a blog called House of Turquoise. Probably not something that anybody who listens to this podcast would visit and I kind of went because it was, you know, they have these lectures, if you don't go, they stop having them. So we kind of go whether it's something we're really genuinely interested in or not, but she's a home decor blogger. And her whole focus is places that are painted turquoise, not kidding. Very, very niche, very granular. It's freakishly so. And but she talked about in order to be like, and she's very successful. I mean, like she does this blog full time, she gets paid from people that she said if you want to develop a following for your blog, you need to kind of be very myopically focused to generate an audience. And so it was literally a kind of thing where it was like, either I needed to commit myself to doing this or walk away from it and just, you know, read your blog, read John's blog, you know, and just enjoy it or do it and shut up about it. And so I walked back to my desk after seeing this woman and I launched Tumblr and I signed up for well-appointeddesk.tumbler.com. And I did it on Tumblr for about about a year and a half before I moved over to running it on a WordPress blog and that's sort of where I've lived ever since. And for those who don't know, it's well-appointeddesk.com and we'll have all this in the show notes and everyone later. But if you're not familiar with Anna's birth, that's where she's found most of the time right now. As well as that, Brad, I also have in the show notes for this episode, penaddiction.blogspot.co.uk, which I believe is your site. It's still up. It's still up. I don't know why it's .co.uk, but it is. But it's there. I've got it. I found it. It didn't take very long to search. And there it is. Wow. That's scary. Not to totally hijack this, but that's what I'm good at. I find sometimes in just random Google searches where people just rip content off of an old blog post and they come up on these random blogger sites somewhere, I find some of my junk on there. Sometimes just these random posts out of nowhere from just these spammy blog sites. So anyway, I'm not surprised it's at some other URL who knows what. I don't even know what that is. I'll look at the show notes myself and see what that is. But anyway, back on track, so Anna, tell us, now the well-appointeddesk, I think, is one of the best blogs in our genre, the pens, paper, stationery, everything that goes along with it. You do a few more things other than that. So tell the readers who aren't really familiar with it, what you're doing there and what type of posts to expect and things like that. So tell us a little bit about the blogs for anyone who's not familiar with it. Sure. Well, I cover a lot of the same types of topics that you do in regards to pens, ink, paper, notebooks, but I've also tried to expand it a little bit to cover inspiring workspaces. I know there's a lot of people who work from home and might be looking for inspiration to plus up their office space as well as, I mean, I work in a beige cubicle. So looking at inspiring and on a floor with no windows, so I look forward to, someday, the opportunity of actually having a workspace that is more conducive to creativity, strangely enough. I work at Hallmark and I say that my office space is very uninspiring. But it's a very big building with lots of people doing lots of different kinds of work. I actually work around the corner from where they do brass tooling for printing presses. So my section of the building looks pretty industrial. But yeah. So I also try to include some other things that people need for their day-to-day work. So things like apps, desktop wallpapers, things like that. I mean, if you can't, like me, if you live in a beige cubicle and you can't do anything about the environment, you can at least change the wallpaper on your desktop or you can add an app to your iPhone or, you know, other device that kind of helps you get your work done. So... That's awesome. And you started talking about this and I didn't put this in my notes for the episode. But there was something very cool that you guys do at Hallmark and you let me in on this a few years ago. This might, I don't even know if this was pretty well appointed desk or not. But, you know, I've done some posts in the past about index cards. And you told me this cool story of what Hallmark does with these index cards and you sent me some from Hallmark. Yeah. And that just hit me out. I totally forgot about that until just now you were talking about it. So I think to share that story with everyone, because I think this is really, really cool. And this is one of the really cool things, because at one point in time, a lot of the printing for Hallmark was done in the building or in the building around the corner. And so we had a lot of paper scraps, you know, when they would cut off the cards and stuff. They'd have these paper scraps and one very clever man who was working for JC Hall, who was the founder of the company, had a pocket full. He had the guys in the print shop cut these cards down to three by fives. And he kept them in a shirt pocket. And one day he was in a meeting with JC and JC said, "I need something to write on." And the guy pulled out this three by five and handed it to him. And he says, "I need to get me some of those." And so they started just cutting the ends off and everything and just bringing these boxes over to the main building of these three by fives. And so they sort of became this ubiquitous thing. There isn't a conference room or a desk at Hallmark that doesn't have a stack of three by fives. And it was unusual for me when I came to Hallmark because I was sort of used to the culture of post-it notes and the sticky notes. And I asked somebody, "Where do I find some post-it notes?" And they said, "I guess you can get them in our supply closet, but most people just use three by fives. We recycle them, they're leftovers, it's just a good use of leftover stuff." And so I started using three by fives and have used them ever since. I kind of have always used them. Yeah, and you very kindly sent me a handful, probably 100 or 200 of them, straight from the Hallmark offices. So I thought that was really cool and I've definitely used those. And I think it's just great to have those laying around and especially to a place like Hallmark where you need those ideas to just jot down and go forward. So that's pretty cool. The funny thing is the writers, when they're writing copy for cards, will take a three by five and they'll fold it in half so that it looks like a little tiny greeting card so that they can write the editorial that they want on the cover on the front and then they write it on the inside and then they give it to the designers. So there's these little tiny cards all over the place of the editorial that you should use on a card. Oh, that's hilarious. It is pretty funny. So cool. Well, on the desk, on the well-appointed desk, I'm sorry, I call it the desk, I'm just used to... That's okay. I do too. So if anyone hears me say the desk, I'm talking about on his website. So you started to do something pretty cool on there and something that I'm interested in and something that I want to share with everyone. You started selling some products on there, just like in a small web store. So how did that come about? Tell us about the products that are on there and how that all came about and what made you start trying to do those types of things. So that's something that I'm very interested in doing with the pin addict eventually. Cool. It was something that I'd been thinking about doing for a while and just trying to figure out because really for the most part, the well-appointed desk is financed entirely by me. I do have some lovely sponsors, but really what they sponsor is what I can do for my readers in the form of product reviews and free product and things like that. So I really don't generate any money. So I hit a point where it's like when the bill comes to do for the hosting, I'm like, "Ah, I'm just bleeding money here." So I thought, "Well, what can I do to generate funds for the site in a way that seemed to fit?" I don't know. I didn't want to sell t-shirts or something, it just didn't seem like the right thing. And I am notoriously bad about buying and collecting vintage office supplies. Every yard sale I just scavenge for old staplers and tape dispensers and everything. And so I really exceeded quantities of stuff in my house. So I said, "Well, I'm going to start to sell some of these." Every time I find a stapler, I'm like, "Ooh, this one's my favorite." And then the other ones go into a pile. So I'm like, "Okay, there's this whole pile of really awesome staplers, but each one, the newest one is always my favorite." So I started to put those up and then I wanted to be able to have something that was sort of an item that I could replenish on a regular basis. So I'm very active with the Letter Writers Alliance, which is two girls up in Chicago organized this group of people who really like to exchange letters, and they do pen pal services, they'll hook you up with somebody that wants to exchange letters and things like that. So I write a lot of letters, so I thought it would be fun to make rubber stamps to put on letters. So the first one that I did is one that just says "good mail," and that seems to be the favorite and everybody really likes it. But then I designed several other ones, and it took me a while to find a rubber stamp manufacturer that I could work with and be able to offer the stamps at a reasonable price. Where I wasn't having to buy them at retail and then try to mark them up, because it just made me feel bad and nasty, and I'm not going to charge somebody $20 for a one-inch stamp. I just couldn't do it. So once I was able to find a vendor where I could get the prices to where it seemed pretty reasonable, I was very excited and I was finally able to put the site up. So that's been up for a month because I just got my first bill from Big Cartel. That's cool. I think it looks fantastic, and you all should definitely check that out. I thought it was a great idea when I saw it, and actually I was jealous. I was like, "I got to get on the ball and do something," because Mike and I have talked about it for years, you know, step out and do something like that. So maybe this is my inspiration to finally get it done, so I will work on that in the future, because I think your store is really neat. I think it's perfect for you. Thank you. Well, I look forward to seeing what you decided to carry in your shop. Yeah, yeah. I've got some ideas. I've been taking some notes, and I've sent some emails, and I've had some conversations with people, so we will definitely see what comes out of it. Cool. Awesome. Well, I want to get into a few specifics, you know, about pens, papers, some of the similarities that, you know, some of the products we use, some of the disagreements that we have on products, you know, you should have a tag on your blog about, you know, I'm calling Brad out on his post, and we're going to get into that, but we've only really done that once. I know. I'm just playing with you. And it was like, it was actually like the, like the gentlest nicest call on out ever. So we'll talk about that, but why don't we let, why don't we let Mike pay some bills real quick if you're, if you're ready for it, Mr. Hurley? Always ready. All right. Far away. So I want to take a quick moment to thank our friends over at squarespace.com who make this show possible, and they give you everything you need to make an amazing website. Squarespace is a fully hosted, completely managed environment that allows you to create and maintain a beautiful website blog or portfolio. They give you all of the tools that you need, no matter how experienced you may be, with building websites to put something amazing online. You don't have to worry about hosting, integrating with other services, scaling. You don't have to worry about finding a designer either. They have beautiful themes. Their templates are fantastic. They all feature responsive web design. This means that they'll look fantastic no matter what device somebody is coming to you from, whether that's a mobile device, or a, you know, much larger screen like a tablet, or even like a laptop or a bigger and bigger and bigger. Their sites, they reformat to look fantastic. They have a drag and drop platform, which allows you to create pages. So if you want to create a custom layout for any or all of your pages, you can do that using their drag and drop tools. So you select what types of content you want to be on the page, like photos, text, social media content, even, and you can drag and drop them around. It's very, very simple. They have 24/7 customer support. They have statistics that are built right into Squarespace. So you can see who's coming to your site and where they're coming from. And when Brad ever decides that he wants to start selling things through panetic.com, you can do that with Squarespace Commerce, because with Squarespace Commerce, you now have all of the tools that you need to build a fully integrated store into your Squarespace site. You can sell physical or digital goods. You can manage all of your inventory right in your Squarespace site in the back end so you can see what, you can just enter in what you've got in inventory-wise and as things are sold, it will take it down for you, which is very awesome. They have order processing. You can print packing slips directly from Squarespace, create customizable emails, and much, much more. And if you want to build a store, this is the place to go. I want you to go and find out more and sign up for a free trial. Go to squarespace.com/70desibels at 7-0-D-E-C-I-B-E-L-S. And if you want to sign up for a Squarespace plan after your trial period is over, their plans start at $10 a month for their standard plan and $20 a month for their limited plan. That's all-inclusive, all-hosting and everything. If you sign up for a year, you'll get 20% off that price. If you sign up for two years, you'll get 25% off. And don't forget to use the code 70desibels5 at 7-0-D-E-C-I-B-E-L-S and the number 5. This will give you an additional 10% off your first order, and it will also let Squarespace know that you found out about them through this show. So thank you very much to Squarespace for their continued support. All right. Thank you, Squarespace. I have to say that my site would be hosted on Squarespace except that my company has a firewall that blocks it. That is serious. Yes, it does not block a blogger, Facebook, or WordPress, but for some reason they have a thing against Squarespace. Sorry about that, guys. That is a travesty. I'm going to write a letter. I'm going to write it on one of those three by five index cards and mail it in. You can write just one letter on each and then they're pieced small together and they'll get a very strongly worded note from Brad. Yeah, that's right. All right. I'll do my best. You know, Hallmark card, roses are red, violets are blue, stop blocking Squarespace. I hate you. And actually, after listening to your podcast, I did actually sign up for Squarespace and I went through and got the account and everything paid for a year in advance and got to work, realized I could not check comments or anything like that during the day. It was totally blocked. And I called Squarespace and I said, "I am in this really awful GM. Can you help me out?" And they refunded my money and were very sweet. So good contact. That's awesome. That's a great story. See? Squarespace is awesome. We love it. All right. So, Ana, we talked about some topics that we want to discuss, you know, on this podcast and I thought you had a great topic that I've always wanted to explore more and you have more experience in this realm than I do and that's finding the best paper for fountain pen usage. And you know, Mike and I talk about things all the time, like, you know, even before the episode when we were just chatting before we talked about it, you know, Mike, it's convenient for Mike to use most skins at work. It's good. It's very portable. You use your fountain pens and it Mike, you use, you know, the bold Twisbees or whichever one you're using. I guess you're probably using the rock now a lot too, huh? That's what I use all day, every day. Yeah. And the retro 51, but you use them in a moleskin and, you know, that's your primary paper for your fountain pen usage. For me, I say most of the time, it's a rodeo. I mean, I know I'm known as the, the, the don't paper guy and I use it, you know, for all my gel pens, ballpoint pens, pencils, everything goes in don't paper, but for fountain pens, I like the performance of rodeo better. You know, Ana, you've tried way more than, than those type of things. So let's, let's talk about that a little bit. What, what do you find that's, that's good and bad about different brands and with different fountain pens and, and things like that, as far as paper goes? Well, for me, it's a cost value kind of thing, like, and also, I'm also left handed like Mike. So I have other issues that sometimes come up, which is that some of the really high-end papers, like Claire Fontaine, the ink sits up so well on the paper that even quick drying inks take too long to dry and I end up smearing what I've written and have it all over my hand. So the Claire Fontaine, I haven't written the review yet, but I just got the 1951 books because they were in green, beautiful, they're great little, kind of mini notebooks, great for like work projects and things like that, but for me with fountain pens, I don't think I'm going to be able to use fountain pens with them because the ink takes so long to dry. It's great. And I think for a right handed person, they would be awesome because they're like $4 apiece. So like cost value, really good for an individual project, like projects, or if you want a specific notebook, just a test ink or something. But for me, it's the paper's too good, so I have to kind of make a trade off. I have ever since you had mentioned the picadillies, I had been looking for one, and I finally got one. And for me, it hits a real sweet spot that the paper is a little bit thicker than what's in a most keen, but I don't have as much issue with ink drying because it is a little bit more absorbent, and you can't beat the price point. They're like $5 to the equivalent most keen, which is almost 20. Right, right, and I think that's why you use the most guns, right, Mike, because being left handed, it's a more absorbent paper. It really helps in that aspect, right? Yeah, I mean, I don't have any issue with them. I've been using. Some old skins before, I really started to get into this stuff. So I didn't really feel that there was an issue. And then after I started branching out, certain paper types weren't being so kind to me. I mean, rodeo was excellent. And as I said, I'll probably walk, I definitely will go back to rodeo at some point, but I don't know when that will be. And field notes was a problem, but as we discussed with the most recent, that's not been the case, like the paper that they've currently got in the America, the beautiful set is very kind to fountain pen. I was very impressed with the paper in those field notes. I was very excited. I don't know if you guys know, but I'm actually friends with one of the guys who works for field notes. And so he and I have talked back and forth over the years about what they've been doing. And I sent him a very nice email about how awesome I thought the new ones were. I love them. I love the design, but the paper thickness and just the quality of the paper is perfect. And if they continue to make these, I will continue to be very, very happy. Yeah. And I've been talking about it for weeks about how I did some fountain pen ink test on the current, the America's beautiful edition versus just one of the basic editions. And I finally just got around to taking the pictures for the post. So hopefully in another week or so, I'll get around to editing that and posting next. I know I've been talking about that for a while, and there is a, there is a good difference. And that actually prompted me and I, I told Mike this offline, I'm just, I need to make, I'm making a chart of all, you know, going back and looking since all the paper information is in the back of all the field notes books, I'm just going to make a chart for everyone because people started asking, well, once this, this America's a beautiful edition came out with a different paperweight, paper density, they started questioning, well, what's in these other ones. So I'm putting together a spreadsheet that I'll share with everyone once I get it fully populated with all the, the paper information of all the, the notebooks they're releasing. There's, there's a pretty wide range so far that I found, which I didn't realize before until this one really, um, piqued my interest with, uh, really heavier papers. So that's pretty cool. Funny thing about that. And this is a little behind the scenes to mine and Brad's conversations and also a bit of insight into the type of person that Brad is. I had to help him with some of them because he wouldn't open some of the packs if he's filled notes and he knew that I would. So I had to fill in some gaps from him because he has some packs which are unopened that he refuses to open. So I either had to open mine, which I'm fine with, um, or just get the, the right ones for him. Yeah. There's going to be a few more coming to you. That's great. That's great. So now there's, um, it's the easiest way to say it. There's a new kid on the block in the fountain pen world that I've been hearing about and you've been hearing about. It's called Tomo river paper. I'm assuming I'm pronouncing that right. I've never heard it then set out loud other than reading, but it's T-O-M-O-E, right? I believe. I don't think I've heard of them. Have you heard of this? You haven't heard of this. Okay. So it's this, I don't know how to explain it. It's like, it's like if you were wrapping a present and you know, like the, um, you know, the white paper that you've stuff in the, um, you know, like in the, in the box or something just kind of like the filler paper that really thin, thin, thin white paper. Well, this paper, it's, it's this Japanese paper and we'll put a link in the, in the show notes. It's, um, there's a website that everyone keeps pointing to. It's called Nanami paper N-A-N-A-M-I paper.com. And they sell, it's called Tomo River. And it is, um, one of the listeners, Rachel, hi, Rachel, thank you for sending me samples of this Tomo River paper. It looks like you would not be able to write on it at all. It's so thin and so fine, but apparently it handles the, um, the paper that handles the fountain pen ain't just like incredibly, incredibly well. Um, and it turns out it's used in lots of, um, I think in some diaries in Japan, some um, planners, uh, I think, uh, it might be hoboo nachi. I think they might use the Tomo River paper, but this stuff will blow your mind. So you, you have to check this out. And I haven't done a review on it yet, but it's, it's like, it's really hard to explain. And that's why I'm, I keep struggling with it. It's, it's like Kleenex thin. I mean, it's that light, that thin. It looks terrible. It looks terrible and it feels terrible. It's like this crinkly paper, but when you put your pen on it, it, it doesn't bleed through. It doesn't spread. It's, you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of tracing paper. Yeah. That's what it reminds me of. And I was actually going to say this is, um, sort of, I, how I came to fountain pens in the first place is that one of the things that I like to do at work is actually do, um, hand lettering. And so I kind of came to fountain pens because I had been using, um, flexible nib, um, dip pens and we have a whole department of people who are incredible lettering artists that do all of this hand calligraphy. When you see it on a greeting card from Hallmark, um, nine times out of 10, it was hand lettered. So someone sat down with literally a piece of this and most of the lettering artists do work on what's either called marker paper, um, which is a little bit more, um, opaque than tracing paper or they work on tracing paper because it does, um, the ink does sit up on the paper, but it takes a long time to dry. Um, so it's a, again, for lefties, it's, it's a challenge, um, but, um, for right handed people, it may work really well, um, if you're willing to sort of wait for the dry time. Yeah. I'll put in a link in the show notes to a phantom, uh, FP Geeks fan pin geeks review of the term and they have like, uh, it looks pretty extensive. And one of the images that they have is of dry time with different pens and different inks and it looks terrible. Like it looks like it just doesn't dry for like half a minute in some cases. Yeah. Maybe a lefty. It may not be so good, but it's, it's fascinating looking and feeling paper. I haven't done a review on it yet, but, um, yeah, what were we going to say on her? Oh, I was going to say the review on, um, fountain pen geeks was actually by Aziza, who, um, is somebody that, um, I follow a lot on Twitter. She does some great, uh, fountain pen reviews and stuff too. So if anybody hasn't read her yet, we will find her website and put it in the show notes. Yeah. It's gourmetpens.com Aziza. That's it. Great, a great friend, friend of panatics. She does, um, some awesome reviews and now that you say that we're going to have to get her on this show. Yeah. She's on fountain pen geeks, um, podcast now. Yep. And she does some of the fountain pens TV and all that stuff. So they're, they're doing a good job over there. I really like her Instagram. Yeah. She does a good job. And she, she's the one I, I give her a hard time because, um, I guess it was her husband that gifted her every color of a Roshu Zuku ink and it was like the coolest thing ever. She took a picture of every bottle like on the shelf and I was like, Oh my gosh. I saw the pictures, but I didn't hear the explanation for how she acquired all of those. Yep. I think her husband, I don't know if it was a birthday or anniversary present or something, but that was one of the coolest things I've seen on her blog. I was like, wow, now that's a gift. That's impressive. Yeah, that's cool. So I've, I've got this Tomo River paper and it looks silly. It looks ridiculous and it's just getting rave reviews. I've got, I've got to try it. So I will work on a review for it. You know, it doesn't come in any other format right now other than like these loose leaf sheets like you see in their review. And I know there's someone that's, you know, buying these and binding them into, into journals and things like that. I forget his name, but I'll put it in the show notes if I can think of it. He's, he's, um, Juliet, um, pins, paper, inks, whatever has done a review of this product, what this journal that this guy's making with this summer over paper. Anyway, if, if any listeners out there have, have you, have used the Tomo, I'd like to hear, you know, shoot me an email or a tweet and just let me know your feedback on it. You know, what you, what you think of it and how it, how it's doing and, um, yeah. So what, one thing you mentioned just a second ago on it was the hand lettering and I wanted to mention his name and I'm blanking on it, but there's, I know I've, I've followed someone. I've had conversations with, um, on Twitter center several times, one of the calligraphers at, uh, at home. That would be Josh. Yeah. Josh Scruggs. Josh Scruggs. Yeah. Mm hmm. He's actually one of the type development designers at Hallmark. So he actually takes, he, he does his own hand lettering, but he also takes, um, lettering that other people have done and, um, converts it into fonts. So we actually have our own font development team, which is my dream job. Yeah. Just saying. Hit. I'll, I'll, I'll tweet Josh, but he's a super nice guy, um, he's, he's active on Twitter. Um, so I'll, I'll, I'll find his, um, his Twitter name. We'll put that in the show notes. Y'all, I'll go stock him, but Josh is a good guy. And he's still done some stuff for, uh, Jet Pen's, uh, years ago doing some, uh, calligraphy samples and things like that. So he's a really good guy. Really good guy. Yeah. He does beautiful lettering. Yup. So, uh, another thing, and you, you mentioned it now, we mentioned it before, you know, last week, um, when we were just talking on our own that, you know, one thing that's difficult and it came up earlier, we were talking about index cards, you mentioned post it notes. And I hate post it notes. And the, not for their utility, their utility is awesome, but it's some of the worst paper ever. Uh, there's no pins that work on post it notes that I think, except maybe a sharpie. They, it's like they're coded, they, you know, the, they reject ink very well. So is there, is there something besides the posted, besides an index card, have you found anything like that? That's good. I really have not, and you know, I've looked at other companies. I know that like companies like chronicle books often do really nicely designed, posted notes that, you know, are created by artists and things like that. And they stick terribly. They resist ink. I've just had no luck. Cavolini does the same thing. It's just, I, if anybody out there knows of like the world's best posted notes, we want to know about it. Yeah. We were talking about that often a lot and we couldn't come up with anything. And I think the reason is they have to have that adhesive on the back. So the coating on the, on the, the writing piece of the paper has to be, you know, able to stick, you know, to, to make that pad together. So I think it just turns into just like tragically bad paper to write on. So. And I'm wondering if it's one of those things where you have to go really old school and get that, you know, that tamping powder that comes in the little like, um, cheese cloth a bag and you have to like tap the paper first to like remove the, the film or the oil and create a new surface out of it. But I'm like, really, who has time to do that with a posted note? Yeah. We're not going to go, I'm not going to go medieval on my, uh, post, I think that should be the title. Yeah, that's a good one. Um, and then another thing I wrote down while, just while we were talking in, and I forget you're into so much stuff and we could, we could talk for hours and hours and hours. But one of the other things that I've just started to get into on my blog and in my fountain pen purchasing and, and Mike's kind of getting the bug a little bit, but you're a little, a lot more experienced, um, it is in the area of vintage fountain pens, like an esta brook when I was talking about buying an esta brook, you were sending me all these links and you've done all these reviews and you, you buy a lot of vintage stuff, don't you? I do. Actually, to be honest, I started in fountain pens with vintage esta brooks. Um, I, um, one of the things that while I was learning to do hand lettering and I'm still learning, I have, by no means, you guys have seen my writing on the blog, I write terribly. Um, but while I was learning, one of the things that is challenging is having to continually dip, um, like a crow quill or a flexible nib repeatedly, um, in practicing. So someone had suggested that I look at this vintage, um, fountain pen that had a flexible nib and then that way, I, the one thing I didn't have to worry about is how often I was dipping the nib into the ink to, um, you know, to get ink on the paper and, um, that was my first, and then he showed me is one of my friends at work, his name is Rob, um, he showed me his, um, one of his vintage esta brooks and that was one of those beautiful sort of icicle ones. Um, I think I put a picture up recently when we did our show at, um, at Hallmark of his tray of esta brooks, which is, um, glorious, this trailer, maybe 30 or 40 esta brooks in a range of colors. Um, but he actually gave me one of the infamous flexible nibs. I think it's 91, 28 is the number on the nib, um, to use. And so I went and bought a, I went on eBay and I found a pen that I could put the nib in because there are that you can twist in different nibs. And that's one of the great appeal. And I think that's why esta brooks were successful for so many years was that, you know, if you were in accounting, you could get a very firm firm fine nib. Um, if you were, you know, uh, somebody who was just addressing their, you know, thank you cards or something, you could get more of a decorative nib, like a flexible or a stub. Um, but yeah, and then they were, you know, if they were very inexpensive, they were often known as dollar pens, you know, because that's how much people paid for, um, just a single pen. But yeah, so that was actually how I got into fountain pens. And then I realized that, um, maintaining an upkeep of an esta brook was not conducive to sort of everyday use. And so I started looking for, was there a modern pen, fountain pen that I liked using and, um, that sort of opened the floodgates? Now I have lots, but I do tend to stay on the cheaper end of fountain pens. I have not crossed the line into pens over a hundred dollars. I'm having trouble with that. Yeah. I, I used to be that way. Brad doesn't have trouble with that. I used, I used to be the worst and I've been called out on it several times. It was like, you know, I could never see myself spend, I used to make comments all the time on the blog. I could never see myself spending that much money on a pen. I can't see myself spending that much money on a pen that I would never use. I would just sit there and collect dust and now look at me. So yeah, I've got a problem. That's for sure. That's okay. It's a good problem to have. It is. It is a good problem to have. Um, speaking of problems, you've been a little bit of a thorn in my side in the past. I don't mean to be. I'm not. I say that. I say that in, in, in all, Justin and Anna and I are the best of buds. And, but she, she likes to point out a few, a few areas where she disagrees with me. And, and I think, and I think that's awesome. That's, that's why, you know, writing about pens and paper, what you think would be like the silliest thing ever and no one would have a conversation about it. But it, it, it's a really personal thing. And, you know, what I like is not going to be what my likes or what Anna likes or what, you know, the listeners like. And, you know, we all have to, you know, adjust things to, to fit our particular situations. And, you know, like you've talked about, you know, I put a link in the show notes to where you, I did a, um, Mike and I did a podcast where we did, um, we did a gift guide back in December. Just, you know, just kind of touched on some basic, some main areas in, in pen purchasing, you know, beginner pens, fine pens, Kickstarter pens, things like that. And, you know, like some of the ones like I put for a beginner fountain pen, like I put a Lamy safari, but you know, that's a pen that like, you know, there's certain things about it, especially being in a lefty that you, that you're not a huge fan of the safari for like an entry level pen, right? Um, personally for me, no. And just for the record, um, when I listened to that podcast, I was literally yelling, like, what are you guys talking about? That's not the only option. And, um, yeah, so that's why I had to write the post like right then and there. I was like, I'm sorry, but I got to put my two cents in here. But, um, for me, um, and actually it was funny because I thought of that post. And I, so I pulled my, I have a Lamy, um, all star, which is the same as the safari only. It's an aluminum case body. I pulled it out. I tried it one more time and that thing still gives me nothing but trouble. And so I think for some left handers, it's just, it's harder to get just the proper angle with those. And so, um, my instinct on that is it's not necessarily the first pen I would recommend to someone who is left handed. And I also think that there are, you know, it's one of those like pros and cons things where, um, it's nice that the Lamys, you can switch out the nibs very easily for maybe what $10 or $15 you can swap out nibs. So it's, you know, it's not a huge investment if you discover that medium is way too broad for you or the extra fine is too fine and you can, you know, adjust that. Um, but yeah, it is not my favorite pen. I'm sorry. I think they're pretty. I love all the bright colors, but yeah, that's not, I'm actually thinking I'm going to unload that on somebody. Anybody want to? I don't know. Do you have the lime green one? Certainly you can't give that up. I don't actually mine is sort of a, um, blue gray metallic. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Oh, that's right. The, the AL star gotcha. So what, what do you recommend since we got you and the other super lefty in Mike? What, what do you recommend for left handed users? This is a question I get constantly and I'm sure you get it quite a bit too. It's, it's, you know, we're a good fountain pens for lefties. We're a good pens for lefties. Do you have some particular favorites? I was just about to say because I just put this in the notes here. We have always said that we would love to do, and this is right back from the start. A lefty righty episode. We've never done it. So I would propose lady and gentleman that we have Anna back at some point in the very near future to talk about this. And I don't know. Anna, maybe you, I don't know if you know it'll be here, but you might want to prepare papers and pens that you would suggest for a left handed person. Okay. Because I think that that would be very, very useful because people have always asked for that. And also as well, I think it would be good because I think between left handed people and right handed people, there are far more differing writing styles in left handed people. Because the Safari, I have no problem with. So I, I, what I would do as well for that episode, if Anna, you're willing to oblige, I will take a picture of how I hold my pen to put for that episode because I think that I think there's some very interesting sort of little, little points to that which could make it very different. So if you would both agree, I think that would be a lot of fun. Absolutely. And I can share a picture of my wonky writing style too, if you guys want to see how, what I look like when I write. Yeah, we'll all do it. We'll all, we'll all put something together for that episode and we'll, we'll, we'll work on that. I'll, I'll, I'll spearhead that and we'll, we'll put some topics together and we'll do a full lefty versus versus righty episode. Although it's, it's going to be two versus one. I'm not sure I like that. Cool. Well, maybe we'll have to find somebody else for you, but left handed people are so, you know, we are so underrepresented. Maybe it's about time that we get, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So that'll, that'll, that'll even it up a little bit. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Cool. But we'll, we'll plan on that. So one, one, one more thing I'm going to, I'm going to challenge Anna on is her, you know, I, I know she loves everyone who, who reads Anna's blog. She, she's a huge fan of green and I love green and lime green and everything. And then she caught an episode of a pilot metropolitan molar. I wasn't bagging on green. I was bagging on gold. So she went out and she went out and maliciously ordered a pilot metropolitan in the gold just because I wouldn't order it. So she gave me a hard time about that. So I can't do it. There's, there's no way I could own that pen. Okay. Two points. One, it was the only one left on jet pens. Yeah. That's why I've got the gold one as well. Yeah. Both of y'all. And the second, it's really not as bad as you would think. It's, it is a brushed gold metallic. And it writes so well, I can sort of overlook it's lovely on the inside. There you go. So you, you, you may have heard the episode Anna, but I wonder if you agree with me that it writes very well, but it's Nina. There was, it isn't enough to that pen that blew me away. Like I was very impressed with it, but I wasn't very like, wow, is it the best thing ever? It is very much. And I think we've, we've both had enough experience with a lot of different kinds of pens, higher end, lower end. But to be honest, it's one of the pens that I would recommend to someone who is saying, I'm just getting into fountain pens. Can you recommend something that's going to write well? It's going to be easy to use. I would actually, you know, I mean, for $20, basically you get the pen, you can get the pen and a converter for it. It writes really well. It's not super pretty. It's not super fancy, but for the price point, especially for somebody, you know, for guys, for people with larger hands. You know, I mean, to most girls, I will recommend a Coleco Sport in a heartbeat. It's small. It fits in your pocket. It's, they write beautifully. They're $20, $25. Just an exceptionally easy to use entry level. But actually the pilot metropolitan, I, you know, again, it's not if you don't have the range of colors and options that you would with like a lommie. But you're right. It's just kind of a very aesthetically, it's just kind of middle of the road. Maybe if we both had like the silver one or the black one, we would have different feelings about it. Yeah. The gold. That's what I'm holding out for. But you're right. It's, this is, this is a huge value proposition pen. I think that's why it's getting such rave reviews, right? Because it writes wonderfully. It's got, you know, I love pilot nibs. So I know I'm going to like it when I get it, but I'm just holding out just because they haven't been in stock and I refuse to buy the gold one because I'll review it and I'll never use it again. And I, I know that the pen I want to use want to use in the future because yeah, it looks pretty cool. And I think it's, it is going to be one of those pins that gets recommended a lot for an entry level fountain pen. And I'm like you, Brad, I really like fine nibs. You know, I go for the 0.3, you know, in my gel pens and stuff. But this is a medium nib and I, I don't have issues with it. It's a little bit wider than I'm accustomed to, but not so much that it makes me not want to use it. So I mean, I think it, it hits a sweet spot. And I think for a lot of people it'd be a very comfortable pen to use. Yeah. And we're going to link your review in the show notes and your, your writing sample at the medium is, it's, it's a very fine, fine line and which is, you know, we talk about all the time the difference between Japanese and German nibs. So I think it looks great. I could even, I could even swing a medium in, in this and with, with no issues at all. So yeah, it, it looks really good. Looks really good. So I think, I think we've, I think we've covered it today. This is, this has been a fun episode and, and something I definitely wanted to do for a long time. And, and you know, we're definitely going to have you back soon. And we'll, we'll definitely get, we'll work on this lefty, righty episode. I think that'll be fun. And no, I'll have to see if I can get, get some backup on this one and see what we can do. But regardless, I, I loved having you. I definitely want to have you back again, hopefully frequently. Thank you. We can talk about all kinds of different things. I'll put you were fantastic and I think the listeners are going to love here and you and love this episode. So thank you so much. Great. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. And I tell people where they can find you online. I can be found online at my blog at wellappointeddesk.com. You can find me on Twitter at well, a P P T desk.com desk. And you can find me on app.net at Anna, A N A. And Brad is dowdy D O W D Y on app.net dowdyism D O W D Y I S M on Twitter. He also writes of course at panatic.com. I am I M I M Y K E. Thank you very much for listening to episode 54 of the panatic podcast. We'll be back next week. Take care. Bye bye.
