The Pen Addict 329/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	329
Title:	Electric Raspberry Blurple
Release Date:	October 10th, 2018
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 329
Audio File:	Audio Episode 329
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 329
Length:	6363 min <br />1.05 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict episode 329. Today's show is brought to you by Harry's and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am so happy to be joined by Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: I'm happy to be here, Myke Hurley, and I want to start this show off with an apology. I apologize to you, Myke, because now I'm officially scared of you, and I've realised the errors of my ways in the past, and I would like to make amends because you are now the podcasting Don, and my Twitter feed was filled with Godfather images of the Don himself. And, you know, just last episode, I made your life difficult, you know, having, making you stress over edits and the words coming out of my mouth, and I have a tinge of regret, and I don't want to be kneecapped in the future. I don't want knocks at my door in the middle of the night, because you're now one of the top 100 tech superstars in the UK, right? I am. And you're the podcasting Don, officially, hashtag podcasting Don, and I'm a little bit nervous, so why don't you tell us-

Myke Hurley: You've got nothing to worry about for now. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: You know, I am your longest, like we said last time, I am the reason you're the podcasting Don. You know, I got a little bit in this, right? Oh, without a shadow. A little skin in this game?

Myke Hurley: It's all you, baby. It's all you. There is a, there is a, like, tech 100, like, UK tech 100, it's like the 100 coolest, I guess, people in technology in the UK that Business Insider put on. I was in it in 2016, I wasn't in 2017, and I'm back in 2018 better than ever in a higher ranking. And they referred to me as the podcasting Don, which is, I think, in equal parts, awesome and embarrassing. Right. Right? It's like, I like it. I like that name. It's kind of funny. But then it's also kind of embarrassing to, like, if I wanted to, out of context, refer to myself as the podcasting Don. But here we are. Like, I'm very honored to be on this list. It is full of really awesome people. And it feels great to be recognized here in my home country as someone of importance in my field. So I'm honored and thrilled.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I'm super proud of you. I just wanted to tell you that. And I've shared that with you all already. But I wanted to do it publicly so as I don't get my knees removed from their sockets. I made you an offer you couldn't refuse a very long time ago. That's right. That's right. You have the pictures.

Retro 51 Release

Brad Dowdy: All right. Well, the podcasting Don didn't have anything to do with this next one. I did a thing, too, Myke, this week. I released my next Retro 51, the Pink Robots Edition.

Myke Hurley: Finally. You'd seen this. This one's been in work for a long time.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. You know, working with Retro is a process just because like the manufacturing part alone is three months. Yeah. So all the pre-work you do is probably another three months. So it's like a six-month process from the first email to the pins get sold. And that's quick. Like that's as fast as it goes. Right. So I did this pin. It's a very personal addition for me. I wanted to really wanted to do this pin badly. I was really nervous of whether like it's too weird or too personal, too storytellish for a lot of people. A lot of people may not understand it. But I'm so happy with how it turned out. Feedback's been great so far. Sales have been gangbusters. And I wanted to announce it publicly. We announced it to Pen Addict members this weekend. I think we sold about half of them right out the gate. There's only 500 of them available. It's been awesome. I love this pin. I've used this pin more than any other pin. I've had the prototype for a few months. I carry it with me constantly. I am so happy that Matthew Morse agreed to work with me on this project. It's his artwork that the moment I saw it, I knew I had. He did this digital artwork. I don't think I totally relate this story. He did this digital artwork and shared it of this Pink Robots artwork. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is a Flaming Lips album. It's an album I love. Yoshimi is a story I love.

Brad Dowdy: And he did this digital artwork. And he shared it out. I said, this is fantastic. I'd buy a print of that. And he said, really? And I said, yeah. And he said, okay, I'll do some prints. He was just doing this to make art and hone his skills and things like that. And he ended up making like 10 prints of it. And I got one of them. One of them was on my wall.

Brad Dowdy: And this was before my second Retro 51, which is isometric. And I had been talking with Matthew. He had this donut sticker design that I wanted to use for the Retro 51. And I think I have told this story before. The donut, I sent it over to Retro 51. And it was literally the day before their donut dollies pen released. They're like, eh, we can't do a donut. Oh, no. So they actually laughed at me. And they said, just check your email tomorrow. I'm like, really? I was like, I really want to do this. I didn't have another idea. So my backup plan worked out great. So Hurricane Michael Jacobs came through with the isometric. And that pen turned out amazing. But then I kind of left Matthew hanging. And I was like, I think we can make pink robots into a pen. And there you have it. I think we nailed it. And I just love everything about it.

Myke Hurley: I think that this is, when I saw the initial design, it was not at all what I expected you to make. Like, it is very, I was like, okay. Like, it's really, is really very attractive. And it's a beautiful piece of art. I love the colors. The finial, the pink finial is beautiful. It's wonderful. But it was a big surprise for me. And then when I read your kind of story behind it all in refill, I fell in love with it more. And I believe you need to publish that story publicly. So people can understand exactly why this piece of art means something to you. I think you should do that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I'm going to do that on Friday. Great. Depending on power here at the house. We'll talk about that in a minute. I'm going to do that Friday and publish the story that was in refill. That, why this pin means so much to me. And why I hope other people will enjoy it as well. Because it's something you can really make your own. And it's a story you can tell yourself. And there's a lot to this pin other than it just being the Pen Addict Retro 51 for this year. There's a lot, a lot to this pin. So I will publish that on Friday. Kind of put the public launch out there, even though we're talking about it on this show. But yeah, so look for that Friday. If you haven't had a chance to see that yet, I will share that then. So, and I say maybe Friday, Myke, just to give everyone an update while we're recording this Wednesday morning. October 10th, the aforementioned Hurricane Michael is barreling directly at me. Like we are in the center of the path for this hurricane to get here. And it's a really strong and dangerous hurricane that's turned into something greater than even forecasted in the beginning. It keeps picking up steam. Where I live is far enough inland to where we get lots of hurricane remnants passing through. But never a lot of damage because we're not coastal. So they usually have died out by the time they get here. This time it's tracking right now to be a hurricane when it arrives at me still. Like hurricane force winds. So we don't expect any like grave issues here. But I might be hit or miss for the next few days as I can almost guarantee we'll lose power because we lose power pretty easily. Because it's all above ground. It's all above ground wires here. So everyone who is in the path, I hope you've gotten out. Anyone in coastal Florida, this looks really, really dangerous. I know it's too late for you to hear this message now. But I hope everyone got out safe and sound. And, you know, hopefully, knock on wood, it goes well here. And we get through it and we'll be fine on the other side.

Myke Hurley: Stay safe, everybody, as always.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, yes, yes, yes. So I have an interesting tweet, multiple interesting tweets all at once to me yesterday. And it goes in relation to the Retro 51 we just mentioned. Have you ever heard of the Schmidt P8120 refill? No, Michael. I had not. So the Retro 51 ships with the Schmidt P8127. The refill I prefer is the Schmidt P8126, which is the exact same refill, except a 0.6 millimeter tip size instead of the 0.7 millimeter tip size. Well, I had a group of people. I had one person mention to me, have you tried the Schmidt P8120? It's my favorite. And I was like, I've literally never heard of that. And then I had more people chiming in saying, oh, it's the one I use. I was like, what are you talking about? Then I went and looked it up. And I was hoping this was something that would really knock my socks off in the other direction. But it went bigger, Myke, and bolder. This is the 1.0 millimeter Schmidt rollerball refill. And while I love the refill that this is and that's used in the Retro, it's definitely a wide refill. And this gets even wider. So that's a no for me, dogs. You know, I thought maybe we're onto something here. But I even got a picture of someone using it. I was like, wow, that looks really wide. I should go look this up and see if it's like a different formulation. What's this zero mean? It turns out it means 1.0. So what do you think about this? How many are you ordering?

Myke Hurley: I don't know if this is the right, if this is right for me, you know. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if I want this.

Brad Dowdy: It would be super marker-ish, right? Because this is max line width for me in, you know, a rollerball type pen. Because it's a liquid ink. It has a tendency to spread and bleed if you're not using it on the right paper. And increasing that tip size even more just means more ink. It would be pretty much a marker at that point. So, I don't know. I thought it was interesting because I'm surprised I'd never heard of it. And I'm surprised more people didn't know it was a thing or have used it. But it turns out, big fans of the 1.0 millimeter Schmidt refill out there, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I have no idea how we haven't heard about this until now.

Brad Dowdy: That's what blew my mind. I was like, of all the love we have heaped on this refill, we've never heard of this one. So, it was cool to see.

Myke Hurley: I'm going to find somewhere that sells them here in the UK. I'm going to pick up a couple just for the sake of testing it, really. Yeah. But yeah, very interesting. Again, I really cannot believe it. Dude is in black and blue, right? It seems like it's easy to get. I'm just really surprised this has never come up before. It was almost like when I saw it in the notes, because I saw a couple of people tweeting about it too. I assumed it was you. Right. Same here. But it's not. So, there you go.

New Pen Discoveries

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So, the other interesting thing we got, Myke, we both saw it on our friend Patrick Ng's feed. I feel like he's a friend, friend of the show. Long time stationary lover and chronodex creator and proprietor, owner. Not really. He's the design master behind the city superstores in Hong Kong. So, he gets all the sweet stationary before most of us get it. And he posted this picture of this concrete pen. So, what did you... Or a concrete pen and pencil set. So, what did you think about this?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's the Statler making this. And... It super surprised me. I just really like the look of it and don't recall ever seeing a pen made of concrete. And I kind of just wondered, like, what does that feel like to hold? How is it in weight? You know, like, I just... This is a material type that I am not familiar with when it comes to using a pen.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. So, turns out, I have reviewed a concrete pen on the Pen Addict. Or more specifically, Jeff Abbott reviewed it. But it passed through my hands first. Studio 22. 22 Design Studio Contour Concrete Rollerball.

Myke Hurley: I love everything about the design of this pen. Except for the nib section. Like, the tip section. Because it does that step down that I hate.

Brad Dowdy: It has nowhere to hold it. Yeah. You'll actually grab above that section on the flat sides of it. It was... I was shocked by this pen. Looks great. Bucks is great. It looked and felt great. Like, you'd expect some weight in it. But, like, it's lighter than a brass pen or a copper pen or a stainless steel pen would feel. It's not obscenely heavy. You don't notice it like a brick in your hand. It was shockingly nice to hold. The barrel was different. It had the ridge sides and then the flat sides. So, you know, you kind of grip...

Myke Hurley: Ooh, they did a dark gray one as well. Oh, my.

Brad Dowdy: And I believe... Yeah, it uses the Schmidt... It comes with the ceramic rollerball, the 888. Which is a little bit different. So, it must be a little bit different refill shape. But anyway... Cozy Amsterdam, who we linked that Y Studio. Who's where I bought my Y Studios at originally.

Brad Dowdy: Back a couple years ago. And we talked about that Dragon Foil pen recently. This is where we got that pen from to review. I adored it. So, I'd be interested to see what Statler does here. I'm interested at the price point. Because at the one we reviewed... I've already closed the link. But I think it was around $80. Yeah. You know, it was a small-scale manufacturer. You know, smaller batch. Statler's a pretty big company in the stationary realm. And this is a definite branch out for them. So, this is one to watch. I think the design is good. I kind of like the shape. I'm interested what the nose cone is. Like, the picture's not super clear. Is that a metal section just like, you know, in the other concrete pen that we were just talking about? You know, and is it just like the barrel tube, if you will, concrete? So, I would like to pick one of these up whenever they happen. And see what they're all about. Could be interesting. You know, I don't know if it'll be like a favorite knock your socks off. But I think doing something different like this and executing it well is always neat.

Myke Hurley: All right. Today's show is brought to you in part by our friends over at Harry's. The company that was founded because basically the guys that started it were just fed up of paying high, silly prices for razor blades. Full of unnecessary features that they just weren't interested in. The Harry's founders know that a great shave comes down to having great blades at your disposal. Made of sharp, durable steel that will last. And Harry's will cut out the unnecessary costs, allowing them to deliver you one perfect razor at an amazing price. They sell directly to you over the internet. And this allows them to be so much cheaper than any of the other leading brands. You pay just $2 per blade, which is like half the price that you may be used to paying elsewhere. Harry's bought a factory that's been making some of the highest quality blades in the world for over 95 years. This means that they know the stuff is good, right? Because it's got a long history. And because they own the factory, it also means that they can keep those costs as low as they do. So Harry's also offer a 100% quality guarantee. If you don't love your shave, let Harry's know within 30 days and they'll give you a full refund. Brad, you love your shave, right?

Harry's Razor Discussion

Brad Dowdy: I love it. I'm actually not sure I love it as much as my wife and daughter because they literally fight over the Harry's razor handles. Just this week, there was yelling in my household, Stop using my razor! I'm not using your razor! Mine's the orange one! No, it's not! It's the grey one! On and on and on and on. So, thanks, Harry's. I appreciate you for being so awesome that we have to fight about your products in our own household.

Myke Hurley: Harry's stands behind the quality of their blades, but they know that switching razors is not an easy decision. So they've created a special trial offer for listeners of The Pen Addict. You can get yourself a $13 value trial set that comes with everything you're going to need for a close and comfortable shave, including a weighted ergonomic razor handle, a five-blade razor with lubricating strip and trimmer blade, rich lathering shave gel, a travel blade cover, and all of this stuff in one wonderful package. You can join the millions of people who've already switched. Go to harrys.com slash penaddict right now to redeem your trial set. That's harrys.com slash penaddict. Thank you so much to Harry's for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: I wonder if our hotels in New York and Toronto will stock their own Harry's products or do I have to bring my own?

Myke Hurley: I think you're going to have to bring your own.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's no problem for me. No problem here. But we're like two weeks away. This is really, really soon that these trips are happening. You're even leaving earlier than me. So, like, are you ready for this trip? Because it's coming together nicely. I'm not going to lie. But you have more going on than I do. You have way more going on than I do. Me and Anna, we're just along for riding the coattails of the podcasting dawn.

Myke Hurley: I've got an awful lot to think about before we get to Toronto. Okay. So, right now, well, again, the Toronto stuff, that's going to be the easiest part of my trip. It's going to be super simple. We're just going to go have a good time. We're going to shoot some video in New York. We're going to do our stuff in Toronto. We're going to see some great Pen Addict listeners. Then me and you are going to record an episode in our hotel room. Like, easy peasy. Before that, I have two big live shows. Our first ever tour, right? Which includes all this travel where it's like if something goes wrong with the travel, like, what happened? You know? I've got all this stuff to think about. But, yes, we are going to be in all of these places. We've got tons of great stuff going on. I'm very excited. And I am actually going to be leaving at the end of next week, which is bonkers.

Brad Dowdy: That is bonkers. So, we're bringing this up because we have some dates and times finalized for meetups in both New York and Toronto. I'm really excited that we got this nailed down. And it's going to be cool. So, mark your calendars. Wednesday, October 24th, New York City at the Fountain Pen Hospital from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. They're going to host us for a meetup. So, me, Myke, Ana, and all of our closest Pen friends will be at Fountain Pen Hospital Wednesday night, October the 24th. Saturday in Toronto from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. We're going to be at Wonder Pen's, the big store. I'll have to get the address. Not the little store. They have a little satellite shop now. So, we'll be at Wonder Pen's hosting a meetup from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. that Saturday afternoon. And I could not be more excited that we have these things booked now, Myke. It's been a long time coming. We weren't sure what we're going to do. We weren't sure we're going to have time in New York City, to be perfectly honest. But it's worked out. It's a little tight, making you run around a little bit. But, yeah, it's going to be fantastic. And, you know, we'll obviously be at the Toronto Pen Show on Sunday. And we'll be trolling around the New York stationery stores on Thursday. But these are the official events. If you want to drop by, come say hi. Come hang out at Fountain Pen Hospital or Wonder Pen's. I appreciate their time and effort in getting these things added to their calendar and being super gracious hosts. So, I look forward to it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I'm going to put those details in our show notes so people can know what they've got to do, including I'll put some Google Maps links in for those two locations. I'm very excited for this stuff. And we really hope that we're going to see a bunch of you over in New York and in Toronto as well. So, yeah, we've got some great events. And, I mean, I'm really excited about the Toronto Pen Show as well. So, yeah, we've got some great stuff going on, man. I'm very excited.

Brad Dowdy: It's going to be cool. It's time. This has been a long time coming. This year, the project year has been an expanded one this year. And I'm getting back hyped up again to get out there on the road and do these shows. So, it'll be fun. All right, Myke. I got a couple of product things I wanted to talk about, if you will. Well, the first one, our friends at CultPens released two new inks in conjunction and collaboration with Diamine. They're iridesinks. So, they're sheeny inks. Their names, Michael, are Robert and Maureen. And do you know why they're called Robert and Maureen, Michael? I don't. Because this is my favorite. So, CultPens was going to let their followers and fans and customers name these inks. When they wrote up the poll, essentially, to name these inks, they said, you know, hey, here's our inks. We'd like you to name them. We'd like the customers to improve them. I mean, to be involved in naming these inks. You can name them Robert. You can name them Maureen. You can name them whatever you want. And, well, guess what they named them?

Brad Dowdy: I think CultPens didn't go into it thinking that that's what they were going to call them. They were thinking, you know, something, you know, looking at these inks, they're really bright and vibrant, purple and electric green. And they're cool colors. And, you know, I figured they were looking for, you know, electric, raspberry, blurple, you know. But they went with Robert and Maureen. And I'm just ecstatic that those are the names of these inks. I think it's absolutely hilarious that that's how it played out. And I got to be part of the launch a little bit by writing a little story for their newsletter. And they ended up posting it on their blog about my favorite inks. So we'll put that link in the show notes if you want to read an article. It's a little bit of my background story. It's a real short, short article. Just talks about my background, how I got into fountain pens and what my favorite inks are and why. So I did that for them this past week. And I got Robert and Maureen over at the house for a play date. So I have a bottle of each. They just showed up yesterday afternoon. I have not had time. Based on my day yesterday, I have not had time to crack open any of the packages. I'm actually pretty excited about these. They look wild. And I think they'll be right up my alley. So I'll do reviews of Maureen and Robert soon. But, yeah, that's something you should check out. And I appreciate Cult Pens for allowing me to be timed along with that launch there of posting my little article.

Myke Hurley: It was fun. I love those names. Love those names.

Brad Dowdy: Just for the record, yeah, just for the record, if I was naming inks, like, this is totally something I would do. You know, like, you just name the ink. Okay, this one's called Bob or this one's called, you know, Bar Room Floor, which would be a very nasty ink color. You know, it'd just be, like, really silly, stupid names. They're the best. Like, you know, I don't know. I just love that kind of stuff. All right, Myke. Did you know I'm getting closer to meeting my goal of 52 giveaways in 52 weeks this year on the Panatic blog? That is not surprising to me. Did you know I was even attempting this?

Myke Hurley: Yes. You did mention this to me. It is not surprising because you're such a generous person, you know, that you would give away so much.

Brad Dowdy: Well, it's not that so much. It's that my wife keeps looking at all this crap and says, you got to get rid of it.

Myke Hurley: Oh, no, no, no, no. You're a generous person.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, okay. I am so generous, Myke, that I want to give something away every week to the wonderful readers of the Panatic. But this one was cool. Like, I don't always mention these because it's every week. And, you know, but sometimes something cool comes along. And y'all know I'm a baseball fan. And there's a game out there that I've played for, I want to say, almost a decade. It's been around forever called Out of the Park Baseball. It's a simulation game. It's not like a video game where you're controlling, like, the batter's swing and the pitcher's pitch and things like that. It's like a management type of sim. And if any, you might be familiar. I know you're not a sports ball guy, Myke, but Football Manager is such a hugely worldwide popular game for soccer. This is the baseball version of that. It has that type of level of inroads in the communities that love these things, if you will, right? Like, it's an institution for what it is. So they reached out to me, wanted to give away a copy of the game, plus tie it in with the CW pencils, baseball scoring pencils, plus tie it in with the scorebook that I use to score games on occasion. So we put together this whole package right here at baseball playoff time to do that. So I just wanted to make a point of that. You know, the entries close on Friday night, and I just thought this was a really cool, neat thing to do. So get in on that if you're interested in baseball or know someone who is, and you get this game, and you get the pencils and the scorebook, which I think are really cool. So thanks to them for doing this.

Elemental Paper Kickstarter

Brad Dowdy: Next up, I wanted to circle back on elemental paper. The notebook Kickstarter, that was super popular where they did, each of the elements had their own notebook, and they did the different colors and the spectrums on the edge of the pages, and they just came out beautifully. And there was a lot of variance in the paper quality. So people started seeing reviews saying, well, my paper was fine. Well, my paper was terrible. Look at it. And I was part of the campaign. So I got notebooks too. So I started testing them out, and I was actually a little bit nervous. I was like, hmm, maybe mine's going to be terrible for fountain pens. And that's what a lot of people were finding. You know, liquid ink pens are the biggest challenge for paper because they will bleed and feather the most if they have the opportunity to do so. But so Kelly at Mountain of Ink, which we referred to her review before, her ink writing samples looked atrocious. Like her paper did not handle fountain pen and inks at all. So I decided to break mine out. I'd been using it mostly with pencil and drawing pen for my journal. So I decided to use the back of it and test out the fountain pens. Mine came out perfect. Perfect. Like it's not Rodia, right? And we're going to talk about that in a minute. I wanted to elaborate on paper types in a minute. So I put all that in the show notes. But, you know, it's not a coded page like Rodia, but it's a quality page like Voyage Term where it dries fast. I had no bleed, no feathering. I used, you know, broad stub nibs on one page. I used medium stub nib on another page. I used an extra fine nib. I had zero issues. And that's, I wanted to post this not in like a show of support necessarily, but as a look. We all get different products sometimes. And there's variants in things. And that doesn't invalidate one person's point of view over another one's. I'm only as good as the product that's sitting on my desk, right? And Kelly's only as good as the product that's sitting on her desk. She can review the paper she has in front of her, and it's terrible. I can review the paper I have in front of me, and it's good. What I'm not sure is taking place is what Elemental's doing about it. Like, is there a way to swap out these books? Is there a way to even tell? Like, how would you even know? Like, they've talked about some, you know, manufacturing, you know, issues. But I don't know, is there a way? Like, if you got a bad one, can you swap it out? How do you know you got a bad one? Is there a way to tell without opening it up? Like, I have another one sitting here that I haven't opened. Is it the same paper as the one that I have that's good? So, those are questions Elemental, I think, needs to be upfront and clear on. Because you don't want to go into a product purchase not knowing exactly what you're going to get, right? That's the challenge. So, it's good that there's all these product reviewers out there that can have these different experiences. You know, sometimes we all have the exact same experience. That happens more times than not. But sometimes, you know, there's a kink in the plans and, you know, there's something that is different between products and there's variants. And that's when it's always good to hear from the manufacturers, like, the what's and when's and why's and how's. So, I think we've sort of seen it from Elemental. I would like to see more personally. Because they did such a good job on the Kickstarter. And I think they're going to continue to do a good job making these notebooks. They have a Tomoe River notebook coming out.

Brad Dowdy: And they obviously want to be part of this community. So, I think, you know, I implore them just to be clear about what they're doing with any notebook issues. That's the only thing I'm not clear on right now. But, I mean... For as much as you know, why would it differ so greatly from one book to another? So, they had... Based on what I read from their answers in Kickstarter, it was basically a source issue. Like, the source paper was all the same. Okay? So, imagine you get a pallet of paper. Like, literally a pallet. Like, as big as a refrigerator. Right? Well, maybe you have two pallets of this paper for the order. And the second pallet didn't get pressed correctly. Or the temperature was different. You know, these are things no one on my side of the table... You know, I'm relating myself, like, as knock or as elemental. No one on the vendor side of the table is going to know those things about each and every sheet that gets put into these notebooks. So, I could have two pallets of paper sitting next to each other. If the manufacturer had something that they didn't know, no one knew, sitting right next to it, you know, what could be the difference in those things? It's probably a list of technical things that could be different. They shouldn't be different. Your expectation is that they are not different going into it. Right? You buy Paper XB32. Okay? You expect Paper XB32 to be exactly like the paper you've tested, the paper you've put into your sample notebooks, the paper you've taken the photographs of, and the paper that you've based your product descriptions on. So, Paper XB32 shows up. And there's now four pallets of it. We keep getting bigger. They sold a lot of notebooks. So, four pallets of paper. One of those papers, one of those pallets was produced on Wednesday, and the other ones were produced on Tuesday. And, you know, Bob went out for a lunch break, and the humidifier in the factory went off. So, the pressing of the pages didn't go exactly as planned. Do you get where I'm going with this?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. No, I understand. No one knows. Yeah. No one knows. How could you know? Right? You can't. Exactly. Science and any slight change in the circumstances at which the paper was forged can affect it. Forged. I get it. I get it. I just wondered. I understand it now. I didn't know that 10 minutes ago.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Your only recourse at this point, I mean, no way would I expect Elemental to open every book and test it. But, it's unacceptable.

Brad Dowdy: They will have to deal with their manufacturer for something. They will have to figure something out to replace any defective ones. I don't know what they're doing. But, like, from their perspective, they ordered an exact thing, and they expect the exact thing. And they got a lot of the exact thing, but somewhere mixed in there was not the exact thing. It was almost the exact thing, and it worked differently than the exact thing. So, like, it's an impossible situation to rectify cleanly. Like, there's no black and white in this situation.

Brad Dowdy: So, from going forward, I think there just needs to be some clarity on what happened here and how we can do our best to ensure this never happens again to have a consistency issue. Because you don't, paper's one thing where you don't need a consistency issue, right? You don't need two different people having two different experiences with your product.

Myke Hurley: No, if you want to keep selling multiple versions of it to the same person. Yeah. Which you do.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, right? Yep. So, that was a long and rambly way of saying manufacturing is hard, and there's just things you can't account for. And that's not an excuse. It's just a fact. Like, it's not perfect. And it's never going to be. You try to get there, and sometimes you can't. And you try to figure it out as you go. So, I mean, we're dealing with that right now with these stinking Tallulahs that I can't get to show up. So, we all have our struggles. And it's just how you handle and communicate those things is, I think, is what drives your company forward and propels it forward. And, you know, and I think they'll do it. Like, I have full faith in the folks behind Elemental that, you know, going forward, their products are going to be great. I'm really happy with them. So, thinking about this made me realize that I speak in categories of paper, Myke.

Brad Dowdy: If I didn't ramble enough, I wanted to talk about that a little bit because, you know, people ask for recommendations. Paper is a very hard thing to recommend to people because it depends on the pen and ink that you're using. And even if you tell me what you're using, it's still not easy because I don't know how you write. But I've noticed over the past few years that I've categorized papers in a certain way. And I wanted to throw those out there. So, when I talk in general terms and say a brand, like I'm talking about general performance characteristics. Like, I use Rhodia as a comparison a lot because, number one, it's very fountain pen friendly. But it's very fountain pen friendly because it's a coated paper. It has, you know, like to the touch, you can feel a smoothness on the page. And that makes the ink sit up a little bit, dry a little bit slower. But from a fountain pen perspective, you get to see more of the ink properties and more shading and more sheen. So, when people ask me to compare papers, I'll say it's like Rhodia or it's not like Rhodia. And then I have a group of papers called the Japanese group where these are almost like Rhodia. You get the same performance, but they're not as coated. So, that's like an entirely different group of paper. And it's really high performance stuff and high quality. It's probably my most used group of paper. And I'm talking about like Life, Midori, Kikuyo, Apica, all of this, all of the Japanese paper. So, that's a group that I categorize paper into. Tomoe River, that's its own group. You talk about Tomoe River like completely separate from everything else because it's so different. That one's easy to categorize. So, it's either exactly like Tomoe River or nothing close to Tomoe River. And pretty much only Tomoe River is exactly like Tomoe River. Then I think you hit the majority of papers. And Elemental is what made me think of that. I place it in the Leuchtturm group. And what that group is, is your good for everything paper. Maybe not the best for the one single thing you want it to do. Like Tomoe River, you want to see the shading and sheen of the ink. You're not going to get that from Leuchtturm. Leuchtturm, it's going to give you a really good dry time. You're going to see some ink characteristics. Not the full shade and sheen ink range. But it's also going to dry faster. So, you can use gel and rollerball inks. Unlike on Rodeo where those are going to smear a lot of times.

Myke Hurley: This is your very good everyday paper.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So, I put a lot of papers in this category. Leuchtturm is like the middle ground where I compare all papers to. It's like right in the middle. So, this is your Elemental Notebooks. This is your Knock Notebooks. This is the Pano Book. Like everyone knows like what this middle range category is. It's like it's good for everything. If you have a specific use, it may not be the best. But it's going to work nine times out of ten for what you throw at it.

Brad Dowdy: And then you have the Moleskine Group. And that is good for everything except for fountain pens. You know, no liquid inks. No fountain pen inks. They're very challenging to write with on that page. You get inconsistent performance. But they're good for gel, ballpoint, rollerball, things like that. Then you have the Yupo Group. Which is kind of its own little group subset that comes up from time to time. And it's very specific in that it's a waterproof paper. So, you're right in the reins. And your Field Note Expeditions. So, that's where your ballpoints and pencils only. Like anything else does not work on those papers. The last one I just included as a joke. It's stone paper. Because it is a joke.

Myke Hurley: Stone paper is the worst thing.

Brad Dowdy: Nothing compares to stone paper because it's garbage. Yep. I have had horrible experiences with stone paper. I think people sometimes like it and sometimes don't. Its heyday came and went real quick. I think it's not even a factor these days. It was like a hot, hot thing going in there real quick. And then it petered out quickly once people saw that it's not really as nice as what everything is. So, I don't know. So, I classify. I just wanted to throw that out there because when I talk about paper, there is actually... I end up using these brands as kind of the gauge for, you know, gauging other papers and, you know, new papers that come along. Well, what is this like? Well, it's kind of like Leuchtturm. You know, it does these things well. You know, but if you're looking for something else, maybe you need to look at the Rhodia paper. You know. So, anyway. I just wanted to throw that out there. So, that's kind of how I gauge things in a general sense. You know, there's exceptions to every rule, obviously. But in general terms, I've noticed myself comparing things to certain brands more and more. And a lot of things coming out fall on that Leuchtturm category. So, I just wanted to bring that up as a grouping of paper. So, I thought that was something worth mentioning, Myke.

Break Announcement

Brad Dowdy: All right. Should we take a second break this episode? We should because we're about to tell stories, Myke. Pen addict horror stories. We got some good feedback from last week. So, we'll hit the horror stories. We may not get to the Ask TPA this week, but we'll see how this goes. I want to talk about these.

Myke Hurley: So, if you do have some kind of horror story and you need to make yourself feel better with a new pen, go to Pen Chalet. Pen Chalet because they sell authentic, amazing roller balls, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more. They have all the accessories that you're ever going to need. They have ink. They have refills. They have converters. They have carrying cases and pen holders and just everything you're going to want. Pen Chalet work with all of your favorite brands and they're adding new products all the time. They ship internationally with very reasonable shipping rates and they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States. Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality products and offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee. You can go to penchalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password Pen Addict for this week's special offer and to get the code you need to save 10% on anything at all at Pen Chalet. I was told by Ron this week that there is a wide array of products. I love it when he tells me this. He's just like, there's a lot, Myke. There's just a lot, okay? Stop asking. There's just stuff.

Brad Dowdy: There's a lot of stuff. So these first two items, this is like the Brad edition of the Pen Chalet deals. They're both from Enso, which I'm a huge fan of Enso's pens, including the Enso Uno, which is a very particular design pen. It fits the Pilot High Tech C. There's a pencil model.

Brad Dowdy: I think they're killer. So the section of this pen, it's a very slim line. It's about as thin as, I don't know, a chopstick maybe, something very, very skinny. Yeah. But the grip section's almost normal size and it spins to where it covers the tip of the pen. So it's actually a really kind of cool fidget pen. I keep one at my desk because you can just kind of, you loosen it and then you just swirl it and it like spins all the way closed. What's funny about it, which I didn't think it was going to work as far as keeping the tip dry. I mean, keeping the tip wet, but I've never had a problem like just writing with this pen. It doesn't make sense. Like I thought, well, maybe it'll dry out and I have to write with it a little bit to get it going. It always works. And this price is like way cheaper than I've ever paid for any of mine. So it's a really good price.

Myke Hurley: There is a pen on this list. I don't even know if we should really even say what the pen is. I didn't get very far. You go down a few more from where you are. Is it purpley?

Brad Dowdy: Maybe. Okay. I was just making sure because that caught my eye too.

Myke Hurley: Look at that price.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's. It's. It's got a special red banner on it. That means special offer. So. And it's. It's a pretty special offer. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: And you can get these special offers just by going to penchalet.com and hitting the podcast link at the top of the website. Use the password penaddict and you can get your grubby little mitts and all of those wonderful offers. Our thanks to Pen Chalet for their support of this show and Relay FM.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So last week we asked for your pen addict horror stories and we got some mic.

Myke Hurley: Did you think of this? I don't know if you mentioned it because it's October. Is that where this came from?

Horror Story Topic

Brad Dowdy: No. So the idea came up. It was probably late September. Maybe it was early October. But when Andrew in the Slack room mentioned it, I said, number one, this is perfect. And number two, it's the perfect month to do this. So, I mean, it was just fortuitous timing, if you will. But yeah, it all just worked out. So number one, great idea. Number two, perfect timing.

Myke Hurley: So what are we going to do here? We're going to read some. I'm going to read some. We're going to decide if any of them get into the Hall of Fame.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, we could read them and we can mutually decide, you know, is this story good enough? And I think, honestly, we should be very strict. Like the Hall of Fame is not the Hall of Very Good. So here's what I think we should do here.

Myke Hurley: One, so you don't completely lose your voice. We will round rob in these. You'll read one. I'll read one. Once we've read them all, we'll decide if any is Hall of Fame worthy. I think because then you can compare them to each other, right? Yeah. Rather than just being like, oh, that was bad. Because we don't have a baseline yet, right? For what is Hall of Fame worthy. Maybe we'll get there today. Maybe we won't. We'll see. So do you want to go first?

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So I'll get this first one from Junie, our friend over at Althaven. Wonderful blogger. She does a great job. So she says, I am a proud owner of a Lamy 2000 with an extra fine nib. It was one of my few gold nib pens then. I kept it inked up frequently and I love taking it to work. So one day the pen decided to roll off my table. It's not something it hasn't done before, but this time it fell nib first and it died. The nib was completely bent. Thankfully, Sunny of Straits pens. We all know Sunny. Shout out to Sunny. Fixed it for me. It writes, but it was never the same. It wrote wetter and broader after the fall. And I was pining for the old nib. At one of the local monthly pen meets, someone was selling a ground extra fine nib that writes finer than what I had. The price was too good. So I took a leap and got the second one and sold my original Lamy 2000. Then it happened again.

Myke Hurley: Oh, no.

Brad Dowdy: My new Lamy 2000 took a nosedive, nib first, less than a year later. I've since come to the conclusion that the Lamy 2000 and I are just not a match. Somehow they never liked me enough to stick around.

Myke Hurley: That's bad. Because at first I was like, we've all done this. We've all dropped a pen. But to buy a new one of the same pen and have the same accident?

Brad Dowdy: That's pretty bad. This is signs that you're a pen addict, right? If you go through this process and it ends up the same way, I might have even bought a third one, Myke. I'm not going to lie. It's like I am like it's the Sisyphean thing where I'm just going to roll the rock up the hill and I'm going to let it smash me on its way back down. Then you know what? I'm going to get behind that dang rock again and we're going again. So that was Junie's entrant. I think we can all feel her pain in that one.

Myke Hurley: So this one comes from Jonathan. I started collecting pens from the 1970s to the 2000s and found during my search, Rotaring Pens, my favorite. I've always been, my favorite has always been the Rotaring 600 Newton Copper fountain pen. This is quite a rare pen and was the jewel of my collection. And then it vanished from my pocket. The search began again. And after several months of replacement was found, the world of fountain pens was once again in balance. But this is where my horror story begins. My favorite Rotaring vanished again from my pocket, leaving a clue. Sounds familiar. Yes. Yeah. Leave. It left a clue this time. A clip from the pen cap was the only trace. I cannot be without this pen. Yes, I am a fully paid up member of the Pen Addict Club. So I am on my third Rotaring 600 Newton Copper fountain pen. To keep my nightmare at bay, my Rotaring 600 Newton is kept under house arrest and will never leave my study.

Brad Dowdy: Third time's a charm, Myke.

Myke Hurley: I love the idea of the clip being left behind. Right? It's like teasing you. Where did it go?

Brad Dowdy: I... How is the clip attached and the pen gone? This is it, right? That's some real CSI stuff that needs to be looked into. But Jonathan, he went for round three, Myke. He was not playing. No.

Myke Hurley: We're still going, right? The search is not... Hey, here's the thing about this one. Yes. Here's the thing about this one. Mm-hmm. Why this is, I think, particularly bad. This is a pen that you can't just buy. Yes. That's what makes this particularly bad. Also, I just found some images of it. Gosh darn, it is beautiful. Like, wow, I've never seen one of these before. That is a beautiful color.

Brad Dowdy: I thought the same. I'd never seen this pen before.

Myke Hurley: All I've got is a not great eBay listing that I'll put in the show notes. Just so people can see what it looks like. But yeah, that is... I'll put a picture. Oh, okay. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: I didn't put it in the show notes, but I can do that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So, yeah. Get me that picture, and then I can share it with everybody. But yeah, this is a bad one. This is a bad one. That's expensive. It's going to set you back.

Brad Dowdy: What's the eBay listing for? Oh, $70. Okay.

Myke Hurley: This was in 2015, though. So, you know. Oh, okay.

Brad Dowdy: Andrew probably... Or Jonathan probably bought it.

Myke Hurley: You probably did.

Listener Story - Pilot Murex

Brad Dowdy: All right. This one's from Patrick. It says, Hi, guys. Eight or ten years ago, I got into nicer pens and stationery items. I discovered a couple of inexpensive fountain pens and soon stepped up a level or two. And about the same time, I developed a benign essential tremor. In other words, my hand shakes when I try to write badly. Oh. So, now I have a knot case full of fountain pens with more in drawers, of course. And I have to brace my right hand with my left whenever I have to write. Now, Patrick goes on here. And I'm going to read these other parts. That's a straight-up horror story right there. Yeah. Like, that's brutal. That's brutal. That's brutal. That's brutal. That's awful, Patrick. So, he says, in case that doesn't qualify. He's like, I think that qualifies as a horror story.

Myke Hurley: I don't want to put that because this is a different type of thing, right? Yes. You know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So, he says, I discovered the Pilot Mew Murex and bought my first on eBay. Wow. This needs to be in a museum of modern art. We agree, Patrick. You guys know what I mean. Stainless steel body flowing straight into the nib. Compact when closed. Perfect length with the cap posted. It's a little stiff, but the beauty more than makes up for that. Then I discovered it leaked. Right where the body screws together.

Myke Hurley: Ugh.

Brad Dowdy: Along the same lines, I bought a Parker 25 from Susan Worth at the LA Pen Show. Nice lady. Anyway, after inking up the Parker, I discovered it leaks too. Right around the nib. Another beautiful pen. I can't carry with me, Myke. So, those shopping horror stories and leaky pens. I mean, that's a thing, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that's bad. That is bad. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That is bad. Especially when you lay out for the Murex. Because, again, that's a pen you just can't come across every day. And not having it work as intended is just like the worst tease there ever is. All right. You're up.

Myke Hurley: This comes from Gordon. My second fountain pen ever was a Lamy Vista. I love that pen. The size, the look, the feel, and seeing the ink inside made me adore it. I've been watching YouTube videos on how to clean pens, including removing nips, and decided I would give my Vista a thorough clean after using some Emerald of Chivore in it. My mistake was in not watching a video of a disassembly of a Vista. I reinserted the feed wrong, and it only went halfway in. I couldn't get it back out, so I grabbed it gently with some pliers, and upon pulling, I ripped the feed in half. I still have that pen in its ruined state, and I still get sad when I see it sitting there ruined forever. I need to replace it one day, but I feel that a new one won't be as special as the original one once was. Thanks for allowing me to speak about this unthinkable act and get it off my chest. All right. So, here's the deal with my feelings on this one, Brad. I want to give you a bit of commentary on this one. All right. All of the others, they're like, oh, this is really bad, but it's like, what are you going to do? This one feels like the worst to me so far, because this was like a straight up, I did something stupid, and I would be annoyed at myself. Right? Like, this feels like the worst to me. Like, if any of these, like, you know, like the pen's leaking, or like dropping the pen, or whatever, they're like really unfortunate, but you can blame the world. But in the case of this one, Gordon can only blame himself.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm reading this and listening to you read it. I'm nodding my head and raising my hand, because I've done this, and I think a lot of us have probably done this. And it's extraordinarily frustrating. Like, it's like anger-inducing to me. Like, when I do something stupid that's self-inflicted, because it's not working as I thought it would, and I just get mad, and like, I've definitely broken feeds in pens just from trying to, like, force things. So, it's, yeah. I think we can all relate to that. And that's the thing about these, Myke, and we got two more to get to. They're all relatable. We're all going, oh, yeah. Been there. Been there. It's horrible. So, Evan, though, he thought it would never happen to him, Myke. Okay. That's what he says. He'd been collecting using fountain pens for a little over a year and a half in September of 2018, when I decided it was time to go in for a larger purchase. Till that point, I'd never purchased a single pen over $100 in cost. Instead, filling out my collection with interesting discontinued pens like the Rotring Core and the Tombow Egg Pen, or buying staples like the Lamy 2K and Pilot Vanishing Point. Only when I was able to find them used for cheap. But after a year and a half and many months spent listening to Myke's growing obsession, I decided it was time for a sailor. So, he's blaming you. That's good. That's how you get picked. I selected the full-size Pro Gear as my pen of choice and then went around looking for the best price and color combination. I ultimately settled on an Imperial Black model that was being sold like new on Amazon Marketplace for an unbelievable, but still much higher than I'd spent before price. From a seller I'd bought from before. I placed my order, went about waiting for the pen to arrive, which surprisingly happened fast. It came the day of the 2018 Pelican Hub. So, this is a recent story. And while I opened it up to take a quick look outside of the Baltimore venue, I didn't play with it inside because I wanted to wait and give it, give my first sailor slash most expensive pen purchase. I wanted to take my time with it, which led to a very heartbreaking Saturday morning. I'll attach the video, which I've seen. I did not link to you. And I'll describe what I saw in the morning light. This like new pen was covered end-to-end in scratches. Not the normal micro scratches one expects, but long scratches and some wide as well. There was at least one on the cap that was wide and deep enough that I would call it a gouge.

Myke Hurley: What did this?

Brad Dowdy: I'm going to tell you what I saw, Myke. I watched the video. On top of that, the matte finish of the pen was simply not apparent. When I posted a video of what I was looking at to the Pen Attic Slack group, another user described the pen as looking like it had been used for longer than the model had ever been released for. So, this is that black, that all black and ruthenium sailor.

Brad Dowdy: Needless to say, I initiated a return and refund immediately. I highly recommend that anyone who is purchasing used pens online do so through a payment platform like Amazon Marketplace or PayPal Goods and Services or some other platform that will protect the interests of both the buyer and the seller. In my case, the seller was quick to respond and agreed to a full refund, including my return shipping expense. I'm still waiting for my refund before I go looking for another sailor to be the happy ending to the story, but it could have been so much worse. So, I saw the video, Myke. It looked like the pen had been thrown out of a car window while going about 50 miles an hour. Under no circumstances was this a like-new pen. It was awful. I don't know that I've seen a picture of a pen that was in worse shape that didn't say, look at this destroyed pen. Yeah. It was trash. So, while this is a horror story, I don't think it's Hall of Fame worthy, but this is a good...

Myke Hurley: It would have been if Evan did not get a refund, I think.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but this is a good story that I wanted to share because it is a reminder that you do have some protections using certain services. So, you know, keep that in mind so Evan was able to get his money back. And he did all the right things up front, right? Like, he had used this purchase... He'd bought from this person before and had a good experience. So, sometimes, what are you going to do?

New Listener Submission

Myke Hurley: All right, Myke. Our final submission comes from Amit. Amit says, It was the December of 2013, and I was cleaning out my desk in my office a day before beginning a new phase in my life. The next day, I was going to a very big official ceremony in which I was to be introduced to the President of Israel and some other high-level dignitaries. As the new phase in my life was a big professional promotion for me, as well as fulfilling a lifelong dream, I decided to treat myself to a tour of the fancy Mont Blanc boutique in a shopping mall in northern Tel Aviv. I love how international our audience is. It's so cool. I was very happy to find the special edition ink titled Season's Greetings in both pine green and red berries. Two inks that not only had perfect colors, they were scented. The green smelled like pine trees, and the red smelled like strawberry or something of the like. I put the ink in a plastic bag, put it on a car seat next to me, and drove through traffic to a lunch date I scheduled of a dear friend from my former office. In one of the traffic lights, I absolutely had to smell the ink again, so I reached out, took the bottle out of the bag, opened the cover, oh my god, where is this going, and sniffed it. Then I closed the ink, put the bottle back in the bag, and kept driving. I think it was two traffic lights later that I felt the need, what are you doing, Amit, to re-smell the ink. So I reached into the bag, and I felt something on it. As it turned out, the bottle of red ink was not properly closed. Now, if you know the Season's Greeting, Red Ink by Montblanc, you know it is a very vibrant, fresh red. So here I am, one day before the most important day of my professional life, prepared to shake hands with the president. And my hands now look as if I had just completed some mass murder, all bloody red. I kid you not, folks, I thought I would die either of shame or because my wife would kill me for being so stupid. However, as it turns out, the Montblanc Season's Greetings is a great ink, but it's not really waterproof. I got to the ceremony with only the faintest hints of serial killer hands, and I got the job. Wow, that was a rollercoaster. And again, this is horrific, but Amit got the ink off. If Amit was left with the ink on their hands, this would have 100% gone in the Hall of Fame. I just love, why didn't he feel the need to keep smelling it? The traffic lights, you've got to keep the ink closed, Amit. Come on. You did it twice. Come on. You're tempting fate. So, Brad, are we in agreement that whilst we have some close, none of these are Hall of Fame horror story worthy?

Brad Dowdy: I want to put Amit in, but I feel your commentary is correct in that this was somewhat self-inflicted, and it was fixed before the real damage was done.

Myke Hurley: It doesn't bother me too much in this case, right? Because if anything, I actually feel like, again, that makes it worse because you can blame yourself, and it makes you more frustrated. But if Amit would have gone to the meeting with the president with blood red ink all over their hands, 100%, like, top of the tree goes right in. I thought this story was like he was on his way to the meeting getting this ink on the content. So, you know, I would say you've now out there all heard these stories. If you think you have something worse than this, where should people send these messages, right?

Brad Dowdy: Hello at penaddict.com. Put something in the title, like horror story or whatever, so I see it, because my inbox is a tragedy right now.

Myke Hurley: This is my challenge to the penaddict listeners. I want to see something in the Horror Hall of Fame before the end of this month, because I feel like we've got to induct someone before the spooky month is over.

Brad Dowdy: This was fun. Y'all did a really good job. I love these stories. Love these stories. This is really great. This is awesome. I just keep scrolling back, looking at them, going, oh my gosh.

Myke Hurley: You did what? That was my favorite. Amits is my favorite story. I love the way that it was written. It was really, really fun.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I was worried about his car seat at first. Me too. I thought spilling blood on the car seat was going to be bad.

Myke Hurley: Like, I had it in my hand, and then I had to, like, start accelerating, and I dropped the whole bottle of ink all over my front or something.

Myke Hurley: Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of The Pen Addict. If you want to find our show notes, go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 329. They'll be in your podcast app of choice as well. That's also where you can find information about our New York City and Toronto meetups at the end of October. We really hope that we can see some of you at one of these, or both, if you're a wild person like we are. There might be one. Yeah. Thanks so much to Harry's and Pen Chalet for their support of this show. You can find Brad online at penaddict.com. He is penaddict on Instagram. Dowdy is on Twitter and at twitch.tv slash penaddict. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Follow me on Instagram. I would really appreciate that. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.