Editing The Pen Addict 337/transcript (section)

== Black Gel Pen Sampler ==


'''Ana Reinert:''' Those are good picks. Thank you. Okay, so my picks for this category are the black gel pen sampler from JetPens. It gives a novice a range of gel pens to try out. And I think it's basically the gateway drug. And I picked the black. But if you know specifically someone prefers blue pens or has a favorite color, JetPens has gel pen sampler. In a myriad of options. So if you know someone prefers blue or you want to do the blue black or gray or pink or orange or some other color. But I went with black because I feel like that sort of like start there. And then they can discover that they love the high tech C that's in there or the Uniball Signo or whatever. And then they can go and discover that there's a million colors and different point sizes and the whole thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah, I think that's an awesome pick because I talk about all the time how cheaply you can try several pens to figure out what your pen is. And this is kind of the perfect way to do that and narrow down what you like and dislike. And then go down that path of, you know, whether you like the Signo or the Energel or whatever it is. And then start exploring there. I think that's a killer, killer idea. I went with the Leuchtturm A5 softcover. I think I picked the softcover one because it feels great. And it's not as big and thick or intimidating as I think, you know, some of the A5 hardcover, you know, serious business notebooks are. I don't want to intimidate someone right out the gate. And the Leuchtturm is such good quality. Any pen they have will look good in it, especially the pen I stole from Myke, which you knew it was going to happen at some point. The Retro 51 Tornado. But I specifically put in the lacquers edition because you can get this pen for like 20 bucks in those colors. And that was my introduction into Retro 51. And you can see what happened from there. And I've had so many people use either a Retro 51 or the Baron Fig Squire or the Mark 1, even though it's not out. I know some people that tested it and were never familiar with the refill. When they try the Schmidt refill that was in this Retro 51 and now is in a bunch of other pens,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' it changes how people think about what a good pen should be. So that was kind of the idea I had behind that. So I think all these are really good choices. We did better there than I thought, even though that was kind of a difficult category.

'''Ana Reinert:''' The one nice thing about your Leuchtturm notebook and Retro 51 combo is that you could color coordinate. Yeah, matchy-matchy. Matchy-matchy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Leuchtturm, like in the past year or two, like they've expanded like the hardbound color covers for years. Now these soft covers come in just a myriad of colors. Like there's got to be probably 20 choices. So yeah, that's a great idea. Good call. All right, Myke, let's get nerdy. Yeah. So we all have, I mean, we're all geeks. We all have our geeky friends. And a lot of our geeky friends are into like the stationary stuff. So I thought this would be kind of a fun thing to throw out there. So Ana, what do you think about your geeky stationary friends? Kind of what do they need?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, the first thing I thought of, of course, was these fabulous Skylab Letterpress D20 coasters.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They are so good.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I had to throw that in there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And we, just a, you know, pro tip, like we sold, you sold several of those last time you mentioned these. If you guys haven't seen these, you need to check them out. Yep.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yep. So if you have a geeky friend who likes to play games of any sort, the D20 coasters, it's a perfect gift. It's fun. It's silly. I really get a kick out of them. But if you would prefer a more pen nerdy geek option, I found a really cool enamel pin that is a fountain pen that says mightier on it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's super cool. We love enamel pins, obviously.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Would you call that the pin pin, Brad? Is that the pin pin?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That is the pen pin.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The pen pin.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That took a lot of work, effort on my part. So I'm not going to do it again. Honestly, buddy, I'm sorry. It still sounded the same. Yeah, it's the pen pin.

'''Ana Reinert:''' It really does. Is that the name of a panda in China? Pen pin? It's a panda in China?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, man. That's a tough one. I still got to share with y'all the email I got from the professor who was trying to break it all down for me. All right. So I went with I really wanted. I didn't know what I wanted for this category at first. And then it hit me. I wanted that post-it note set up where you pull the notes off and then it ends up building like a scenery. Yes. You know, like a mountainside or a house. And I couldn't find them for sale. They're called the Omaroshi Block. And everywhere I looked was not in stock or sold out. I really think this is a super, super geeky thing. Because it went viral. It did earlier this year. So I think this is like a perfect geek stationary thing to have kind of this experience with your post-it notes. So I did find some other post-it notes that I like because y'all know I like those like small notes and post-it notes. And I was hoping President Correct would actually have the Omaroshi blocks. But they have these other ones just called block notes. And they look really cool on a desk. Like this is like this would go with your D20 coasters on your desk. These block notes would fit in. It's different color palettes. And, you know, you can make different shapes. I mean, different color layouts, you know, like on your desk, things like that. So that was something to check out. But, yeah, if you can find those Omaroshi notes, that would be the ticket.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. For this one, I am going to go with, because I think it has to be included every single year, a Pen Addict membership. As the geeky thing for the pen nerd in your life. Because you get to read a wonderful newsletter every single week where you get to learn what's rattling around in Brad Dowdy's brain, which is always an interesting thing. Sometimes it's scary. Could be scary. Mostly interesting. And you also get a bunch of great links as well to stuff that you may have missed. And it's always stuff that I've missed because Brad is very good at curating that. And you also can get yourself discounts at the Pen Addict shop and giveaways and wonderful stuff. I think that the Pen Addict membership is wonderful. Penaddict.com slash members is where you can sign up. And you should. And is Refill, which is the newsletter that you get, is my favorite membership newsletter. And I subscribe to a bunch of them. I read it every single week. And I think that if you have not yet subscribed, you should definitely do that. Awesome.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yay. Thank you so much. I saw that in there. I was like...

'''Ana Reinert:''' I'm a subscriber. Yay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I saw you put that in there. I was like, that mic. Sneaky. Sneaky mic. I'll always get you. All right. This next category is near and dear to my heart. And I think to Anna's heart too. And actually to Myke's heart too. The messy desk. How are we going to solve people's messy desk problem? This was one of those categories that comes up a lot throughout the year on the Pen Addict. And it comes mostly because my desk is a wreck half the time. And when we were in New York, I fawned over the Muji acrylic five drawer storage little mini cabinet that would fit on a desktop or in a closet on a shelf. It's just... It was five trays. It looks like it would fit hundreds of pens. They have some larger size ones that would fit notebooks. So that's kind of the thing I look for for desk storage is what I can fit a lot of things in in a small space. And I still kind of like to see them. Like I like the acrylic see-through look. Like I have no problem with that. And then for portability, I think the Knock Co Sinclair case is the best case we make at Knock. I carry the Brasstown more because I have a bunch of pens and I'm usually carrying a bag where I'll keep a notebook or I'll have a notebook in my pocket. But just for singular carry, pens, paper, notebook, notes, loose stuff, I think the Knock Co Sinclair is a great choice. And I'll go ahead and announce this now. I have started to receive the violet and black ones. So I'll have those up on the site hopefully tomorrow for any of your last minute Christmas shopping.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. So I am going to take Brad's acrylic five drawer situation and expand it significantly to talk about the IKEA Alex, which is a drawer unit that I use. You can have it on wheels. You can have it not on wheels. It comes in a bunch of colors. I really love it. It is a large scale solution. They do it in a couple of different sizes, but I have the kind of the larger one. And I've got some like rubber insets that IKEA do as well. So stuff doesn't roll around in there and I have everything in there. All my pens, all my paper, all my inks, all in these drawers. And the drawers are in varying depths as well, which is really good. So you can put larger stuff in the bottom and smaller stuff in the top. It is a great, great little office based storage system that I have for all of my stationary supplies.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I love it. I've seen pictures. It's super cool. I really like that a lot.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, you guys pretty much took the two things I was going to say. So I really had to scrounge around to find something else.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I think you did pretty good because now I'm like, I'll let you say what it is and I'll tell you how that would work perfectly for me.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, so my next thing, because I actually have an Alex IKEA storage as well and I store all of my flat items. So like papers, it's actually where I do all my photography for the blog is on top of the Alex. But inside of it is papers, notepads, all kinds of junk. But yeah, putting pens in there is a great idea. And I'm laughing because I'm sitting here looking at my five by five foot, six foot by six foot IKEA bookshelf. So really, if you have a messy desk, that's really what you need is the giant bookcase with the drawer units and the cupboard fronts on there. And that might put a dent into the messy. But we now have two in our studio. Bob has one and I have one. So that's what 12 square feet of storage. And my desk still looks like hell. So my suggestion then is the Razcog utility cart, which is where I keep all of my things to review. And it is overflowing and literally like it's a little three wheeled metal storage container. And anyone who has one ends up loving it and then ends up buying another one because they're they're only $30 US each. Yeah. And they come in. You can right now, I think they have like white, navy, blue, and black. When I bought mine, I got it in steel gray. I've seen them in a couple other colors, too. But yeah, they roll really well. They're super easy. And they'd be a pain to wrap, though.

'''Ana Reinert:''' But, you know, you put that that one nib that you paid a ton of money for on top in a little box and then wrap the whole thing in one of those like big bags that they wrap kid gifts in. And you've got your entire holiday covered.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There you go. I like it.

'''Ana Reinert:''' But my other suggestion was the Retro 51 bamboo tray, which has like a plexi cover on the front of it. And will hold I think it holds 15 or 16 Retro 51s. So if you know anybody, and I'm not naming names like Myke, who has a large collection, the tray is great for not only storing your pens, but then also displaying them because they don't get dusty or anything. So you can see all of them. And I confess we have two of those trays, too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I grabbed two of those as well. And they're loaded up. I love them. I want this Raskog because I just moved the Knox shipping department to my house. And I have when we ship, we always have these little accessories that we need. We need like a, you know, the hang tag for the product or the stickers or the little loops that the hang tags goes on or an infinite amounts of tapes. Like just all those accessories stuff to just move around and to have in there. I think it would be a great solution for me. So I'll be looking into that myself.

'''Ana Reinert:''' It rolls really well, too. So even once it's loaded down, whatever wheel system they put on those, they roll really nicely. So, yeah, for me, it just means I can like roll whatever products I'm reviewing over to the light box and back. And usually Laura just comes over and laughs at me because she's like, So how much of this stuff do you want me to take? Could you take all of it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All of it. Yes.