Editing The Pen Addict 399/transcript (section)

== Design Process Challenges ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Just like to mention it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Speaking of design, Myke, did you see the post about modifying the Platinum Curie DOS? So, like, this beginning section of the podcast is us talking about all the things we've talked about for weeks in a row because they never go away like the Curie DOS. And now there's a post who apparently this person was at the same event you were, Myke.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hmm. Hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hmm. So this is on the Fountain Pen blog. And Rupert has an issue with, you know, the bulges present once you remove the clip and things like that. So you can see that I wanted to share this link for anyone else who just wants to go full clipless on the Curie DOS and remove the protrusion that is left behind once you remove the clip.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, this isn't the problem one anyway, in my opinion. I agree. The issue that I have is the protrusion. It's at the back of the pen where the kind of mechanism goes into. But this is removing the little plastic nubbin that's left behind when you remove the clip from the pen, which I can understand for some people removing that would make it completely comfortable. But for me, it is the bump at the back that is more of a problem.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Agree. Which is not removable because then your pen would not stay in the writing position. As well. So, yes. I thought I would share this just for people asking. This is basically removing the clip from a vanishing point is what this boils down to. So this is definitely on the top side of the pen, not the back side where we might have a true issue. I don't know if I'm going to be able. We're talking about the Baltimore pen show later because I'm leaving tomorrow for that. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get a Curie DOS in Baltimore or not. I haven't heard. I think they're all delayed. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I saw the Platinum Twitter account. It's a Japanese tweet, but they posted to say that the new release date for the pen is March 20th.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I wonder why. It's coronavirus, man.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, yeah. Excuse me. That's completely why. Yeah. That's exactly why. If anything is delayed right now, it's because of coronavirus. That makes sense. The Platinum notebook I got last week that I discussed from the Choosing Keeping thing, I just wanted to clarify that notebook and still continue to profess my love for it. That's the Choosing Keeping house brand notebook that is Platinum stamped.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I love this notebook. Y'all should go look at these grouping of notebooks. They're very unique and full of patterns and crazy designs. I've seen these in their store.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I didn't put two and two together that it was the same notebook that they were working with Platinum on. I think it was very impressive that they color matched the pen so well. That's why I assumed it was Platinums.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. Right. And the cover is way simpler than anything that they have on offer through their website right now. They're very like 1960s wallpaper pattern style. But I was just really impressed with the build quality. You know, the paper is not going to be like your best fountain pen paper by a long margin. But I would be interested in like some A5 graph paper notebooks. They only do blank and lined right now. But if I could find, if I could get one of those like with graph paper, I'd be pretty happy. I was just really pleased with how that notebook felt and how it was built and how it was constructed. So come to find out, it's however choosing keeping is manufacturing their house brand notebooks is what I was fawning over, not a Platinum notebook. So I just wanted to clear that up a little bit.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We mentioned at the top of the show, this is episode 399. So next week's episode is episode 400 of The Pen Addict. And we've mentioned this, we've made reference to it in the past, that what we want to do for episode 400 is provide a, because this is the perfect number to do it, I guess, to provide a starting off point for people. Because we get this a lot, like what is a great place to start off with The Pen Addict, right? So over the next week, we would love your feedback on a few things. One, what do you think we should include in the episode? Like we want to go over some basics of pen ownership, right? Glossary of terms, basic pens, that kind of stuff to start with. So let us know if there's anything you think we should be including in that. I would also love if anybody has like specific episodes that they think are really great, for whatever reason, just let us know the numbers of them. And then we could maybe include those in the show too. But more than anything, we're looking for kind of like any suggestions that you have. We have our own ideas, of course, too. But any suggestions that you have, things that you think might be important, or things you would want us to cover in kind of like a Pen Addict 101 episode.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, and what I'll do, I said I was going to do this in the past, I just haven't had time. I will post up a Google Doc, just a basic form, and share it out with people. Just if you have any ideas, you can shoot them in there. And even though if it's just raw text, I can scroll through there real quick. And, you know, like if something slipped our minds and someone reminds us of that, it'd be like, oh, yeah, that's perfect. So I'll send that out to the world. How? Maybe by the time you're hearing this podcast, it should exist. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Where will people go to find that, Brett?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'll put it on Twitter, and then I'll do a blog post for it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cool. So you can find it at Dowdyism or at thepenaddict.com. Correct. All right. Today's show is brought to you in part by our friends over at Pen Chalet. They have everything you are looking for for your fountain pen, for your pen, for your mechanical pencil hobby. Because no matter what it is you're looking for, I bet Pen Chalet have got it. Because they work with your favorite brands. Brands like Pelican, Monteverde, Pilot, Sailor, Kaweco, and many, many more. They're an authorized dealer of all of these. They have rollerballs and fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more, as well as inks and refills, pen holders, fountain pen converters, whatever you need. Pen Chalet is always adding new styles of products. Every single month, they're putting new stuff on the site. I really like the posts that Pen Chalet do. So when they have a new pen go up, and they're really detailed, sometimes with videos and photos for stuff, especially on the pre-order stage, they're really great for that. So I like being able to see that stuff too. So Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality pens, and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. They sell internationally with great shipping rates, and if you order over $50, if your order that you make is over $50, and you're in the United States, you will get free shipping. So go to penchalet.com right now, that's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com, and click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password of Pen Addict for this week's special offers, which we'll talk about in a moment, and to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet at any time. Brad, is there anything that grabs your eye this week?

'''Myke Hurley:''' All the things. So this is a very focused list that Ron has put together for us, and wide-ranging. The Lamy All-Star, some of the stock colors are very pretty, and at a very good price that you don't normally see. Along with the Pilot 100th Anniversary Limited Edition Mini Box Set of Fountain Pen Ink. This is a really cool set, and I like the colors in it, and it's a pretty good price. Like, I mean, more than a pretty good price. Like, it's, yeah, it's good. It's like, makes me want to order another one, even though I already have one. And then the Visconti Homo Sapiens Skylight Fountain Pen, which is something I've been eyeballing. It's the newer one with the ink window built into the side of the barrel, which I love. And, you know, that's something I'm, like, constantly looking at. So I think that's a really neat pen at a really good price. And these selections are really great this week. So thank you, Ron.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So if you want to go yourself, go to penshelay.com right now, hit the podcast link at the top of the website, and use the password penaddict. Our thanks to Penshelay for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So one of the things we're super good at, Michael, is talking about the news. The news of the day, the news of the pen world. Like, I enjoy talking about new products.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We have to, otherwise we'd get bored on this show, you know?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, and it comes fast and furious, right? There's always something to talk about. And people want our opinions on those new topics. Or maybe they don't want our opinions and just want to yell at us for talking about the product they don't want to hear about. But we sometimes forget to discuss, like, things about what are we using, right? We've done this before. And we try to do it, you know, like once a month or something. And we just get off kilter because there's so many other things to talk about. But I wanted to bring that back this episode and, you know, just kind of keep it pretty simple.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So even if we, I was thinking about it, like we've talked about this before when we've done it before. It's like I use way more stuff than you do, right? So we could even do, like, Brad's, you know, like weekly, you know, what is he using type of thing. A little bit every episode. And I would feel bad, like, putting you on the spot every week because I know you don't change as much as I do. Even though you use lots of things, you'll use them for a pretty long period of time where I'll use more in a day than you'll use in a month.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I use new stuff. I use different stuff every day, but it's from a, I think, smaller pool. And I also, you know, there are some things like my notebooks that I'd never change. Like I'm with paper products and I've been this way forever. I find a brand and I stick with it. Like I don't mess around with that because I don't like that kind of variance. Like I find things that I like and I just kind of stay put.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So this week, I'll lead us off and I'm going to make you go this week, but I won't make you go, you know, every week if we can decide to do this every week or every other week or whatever.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've been using the Leonardo Memento Zero a bunch this week. I was late to the party in the beginning, like last year when they became super popular because I was waiting for a specific color and a specific trim and I was finally able to get it. And it was, it lived up to the hype, like from the jump. And we talked about it when I bought it. I think I bought it in Atlanta last year. So I've had it almost a year. And this was the pin, if you'll recall, it's called Blue Hawaii, but it's essentially like, I don't know how many different acrylic sections I caught. None of them lined up, which drove you insane. Do you remember this conversation? There's like six different acrylic sections and not one of them matches. I hate it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I can't stand it. Like it's, the body is so nice, but like, it's really difficult to line up acrylic. Like I get that, but there are so many different pieces. It's, it's too much. Oh, they didn't even try. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, they purposely didn't try. I absolutely love how this pin looks. It is, it is just like the Calico Cat of pins. Like it's just wild and I love it. Um, I mean, because the colors are great, but what strikes me about this Memento Zero, every time I pick it up, it's just so well built for writing. It is like one of the most comfortable pins that I've picked up. The nibs are great. There's stock steel nibs. You can upgrade into 18 karat gold nibs. Um, and I, I've been using it again because I've never actually reviewed it on the blog. This is just one of those pins I have inked up and I use a lot. And then I've never like committed to finishing the review on it. So that's coming up in, you know, probably the next couple of weeks. Sometime I'll have that review done just because I need to, uh, on the blog. I know, um, Susan's reviewed some Leonardo's on the blog before, but I need to do my own review, give my own take in. I mean, spoiler alert, it'll be glowing, right? It's just, it's the right pin, the right design and the right price point for, you know, what people would expect for like there, this is like your, your first upgraded fountain pen, right? This is after you've decided you like fountain pens, you know, you've, you've bought the safaris and the Twisbees and things like that. And you're looking for something a little bit more special, a little something that fits your style, a little bit of a upgraded, um, performance. Um, this is definitely one to go to. I've inked it up, which I bought this at the same time, the Robert Oster Carolina blue, which is Jonathan Brooks's Robert Oster ink. It's like the perfect bright blue match for the way this pen looks. You know, I do like to do the matchy matchy. So I put a really beautiful blue ink in there. I use it on the Rodea ice pad, which is kind of like I use two desk pads. Like when I was sitting there looking at writing down, like, okay, what am I using? I think I had like four active notepads on my desk open at the same time, like literally either spread open or turn to the page that I was using on using to write on, um, at the same time. So this is one that I use is basically like my scrap notebook, travel around the house notebook, move from place to place notebook. It doesn't necessarily live on my desk. Um, and it's the graph version of the ice pad and the a five Rodea size. I prefer graph in the a four sizes. I do prefer the dot grid. The graph gets a little overwhelming in the bigger sizes. Um, last thing that I've been using a bunch this week is the Futura number two pencil, which is a collaboration with CW pencil enterprises. And I think the manufacturer is called moon. I don't know if it's a moon pencils or what it's called. Um, it's a pencil I've raved about for years and I'll be making a change to my CWPE pen addict, uh, starter kit. You know, pencils, pencils for pen lovers. This one's going to move in, into that category. I'm actually making two changes. We'll talk about it. It's not finalized yet. They haven't updated the set yet, but we're going to make two pencil changes to that set. So we'll talk about it when, when they do, this is one I wanted in the beginning, but I was unsure because it's like a CWPE exclusive, right? But if this kit's coming from them, I was like, well, can I use this? And they're like, oh yeah, sure. No problem. Like, dang, I should have asked in the beginning because I've used this pencil for years and it's now sitting on my desk. And I love it. So those are kind of what I wanted to try to capture is not everything I've used this week. That's a, that's a, that's another segment coming up, but these are, these are the things I've used the most this week by a pretty good margin. And I do that when I'm working on reviews, like for the Leonardo and just, you know, other things I just generally scribble with and write with when I'm sitting at my desk or doing whatever I need to do. So how about you? What are you, what have you been using recently?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I could tell you what I'm using today. Mm-hmm. I'm using my 1911 large Royal Tangerine. The King of Pen, I should say. Sorry. The King of Pen version I've been using today, which is a very special pen. That's a great pen. And I have Fire on Fire in it, your ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because I think. Perfect match. It's a perfect match. Because what I like about Fire on Fire, for as funny as it is, it's just a name, is the, I really, I just really like the fact that it's multiple oranges in one. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, and that's kind of what I enjoy about that pen specifically, is that it's an orange of an orange sheen. Whatever, right? Like, I can't think of the right word, but you know it. Yeah. You designed it, I guess, so.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.