Editing The Pen Addict 471/transcript (section)

== Ultra Fine Parker Style Refills ==


'''Brad:''' No, we're busy. Cole asks, what is a good ultra fine Parker style refill? For example, 0.38.

'''Myke:''' I will almost always answer this question even though we get it very, very frequently. Because there's really, it's hard for someone to find a good Parker style refill. I am all about the jet pans. Jet pans. Go USA. Jet pans. What have we done, Myke? What have we done? Why did you put that in the show notes? You slipped. You slipped.

'''Myke:''' The Uniball SXR jet stream refills, the Parker style jet streams. And you can get it in 0.38.

'''Myke:''' A 0.38 line. Or a 0.38 tip size, I should say. Which will leave a little bit finer line with that. That's 100% what I'd go for, Cole. The problem is if you're asking, really, what's the best gel ink refill? And then you have a harder problem. Then I'm going with the Oto Flash Dry. But it's only in 0.5. And it's a needle tip. But it's a very, very nice writer. And it writes small enough for me. Outside of that, you're just in trouble. There's nothing great there. I've tried recently the KACO. K-A-C-O. K-A-C-O. K-A-C-O. However you want to say it. 0.4 millimeter blue black gel ink refill. And I did not like it. It wrote too wide and too scratchy for me. So I would stick with a known quantity like the Jetstream or the Oto Flash Dry.

'''Brad:''' I have three questions from Frame Sessions. Finally. What stationary product is making you the happiest right now? Golly.

'''Myke:''' That's a loaded question. Because I'm using the Shown Ultim to do notes while I'm talking to you. But I've only had a day. Right? I love it. So here's this. I'm staring at four pens that are close to me right now. Like my hand is covering them right now. And that means that I'm using them frequently. So it's the Shown Design Ultim. It's a Leonardo Memento Zero in Mango. The orange with the black trim one. The Tombow Mono .38 ballpoint in blue. And the Ajoto Pen Addict Pen in orange and black. I am having a renewed love affair with the Leonardo right now because of the extra fine nib. Right. On it. Is so good. That one's probably making me singularly the happiest right now. That when I pick it up and write with it I'm like dang this is good. Like every time even though I know what it's going to do when I pick it up to write with it I'm still like dang this is good. So let's go with Leonardo Memento Zero Mango extra fine nib.

'''Brad:''' I'm going to shill. It's the pen adding to Joto. Yeah. I love it. I love it. I love it too. I love it. There's also I'm having like a you know like a good bad you know like a good bad reaction. I have just a ton of that cast stone paper here. Oh. What are you doing? Well I'm not using it. Okay. We have amassed just an absolutely obscene amount of notebooks. Okay. As like a competitor research type thing. Like I tasked Idina to basically buy every journal she could find that had interesting marketing attached to it. Oh. Because I just want that. And we were going through them all yesterday. I'll send you a picture. Brad. I'll put it. I'll put it in the show notes too. Okay. So people can see because it is funny. And I just have we have like a bunch of the cast products. K-A-R-S-T by the way in case you're wondering. And the reason is because their marketing is so good. And I figure it must be good because the product is like it makes me feel physically ill to use it. And everybody that I've ever shown it to feels the same. So they must be doing something to sell these products. It's like the rocket book. Yeah. But the rocket book is just that annoys me. Right. But at least the product works. And like here's the thing. The stone paper. It does feel if the right pen. It does feel really nice to write on. But to touch it makes me feel really uncomfortable. So I don't know exactly what it is that they're doing. But they're doing something. And so did you see all the notebooks that we have?

'''Myke:''' No, no. Not yet.

'''Brad:''' I've sent it to you in Slack I think.

'''Myke:''' Okay. Let me open that up. Yeah. But yeah. There's nothing good that comes from stone paper. Oh my God. Okay. I see the picture now.

'''Brad:''' I wasn't joking.

'''Myke:''' No, you're not joking. We have a lot. We have a lot of notebooks. Not as a situation.

'''Brad:''' A lot of notebooks. I'm trying to understand what the market looks like. And so we have a lot of notebooks. And we have a bunch of the K-A-R-S-T cost products. And every time I pick one up it makes me feel really uncomfortable inside. And there's something kind of funny about that to me.

'''Myke:''' I'm glad we went from the products that make you the happiest to the make that make you the least happy.

'''Brad:''' It makes me happy in its own way. Right?

'''Myke:''' That so many people are getting suckered into buying this terrible notebook.

'''Brad:''' I don't want to call it terrible, right? Because like I've read reviews. People like it. Yes. But I don't know anybody that does.

'''Brad:''' I love it. Got a lot of notebooks. Yep. Frames also wants to know, Brad, why do you write in all caps?

'''Myke:''' I don't know why I started, right? Because I used cursive mostly through high school, upper levels of high school. Then at some point just converted into printing for no good reason. And then I took a construction sales job where I had to do hand drafting. And I learned how to write in that engineering architecture style. And then that style just turned into my normal handwriting. So that's why I write in all caps now. I could make other letter shapes. But I would have to practice them to change all of my lettering to a different style. So I like this style and I'll just stick with it. It works well for me. Yeah, like it just how it happened initially, I don't know. But how it got to be permanent was a job that I had that required me to write in a very specific fashion. And then that stuck. And then I was good at it and it stuck.

'''Brad:''' And how do you rotate through your currently inked pens?

'''Myke:''' That's a great question. I don't know. When I miss using one, I'll just go ink it up. And we've talked about how I kind of have to have two groups of pens going. Like I'll have kind of a review set of pens and then a personal set of pens, right? So the review set of pens, I don't necessarily worry about any type of rotation, right? I just want them inked up if it's a fountain pen or in use if it's a ballpoint pen and available at all times for me to test, get some ideas, kind of feel them out, make some thoughts on the product if they're going to be reviewed. Then you have the personal pens, which is the hardest to kind of keep in a kind of efficient rotation. So I will take kind of what I've been discussing this whole time. It's like, oh, I miss using X pen. Let me go get it. And then I just put it in, like right now I have a Brasstown case sitting right in front of me with all of these pens. I mean, it's got six slots, but I probably have 10 pens in it because I have pens in single sleeves stuffed in there too. It's a whole situation I have. But it's like, oh, I'm misusing this. Like say the Canalea, like I'm missing using the Canalea pen. And I'm going to ink up my Kona Cherry with Fire on Fire and the extra fine nib. Because I don't have something like that inked up right now. You know, I will just go do it. It's not efficient in being able to use all the pens and write them all dry. And then when I reach a certain point of just having too many pens inked up, I'll a lot of times just go in and clean, you know, a big batch of pens. Like I've already set three pens to the side right now that like, okay, I'm done using these for now. They're going to sit here and then I'm going to collect a group of those pens that are sitting there to go clean. And then I just kind of pick pens as I go. You know, you could use things like the Fountain Pen Companion to like actually manage some of this stuff and rotate through and have an official tracking. I just, I don't do that because I'm, I end up trying and testing so many random things. And I, sometimes I just get a feel for something and want to use it and we'll go ink it up. So it's nothing official and it can be a little out of hand sometimes.

'''Myke:''' But yeah, I just, I want to use the things I want to use when I want to use them. And then I'll pay the piper later.

'''Brad:''' If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on a future episode of the show, you could just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA or use question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members discord. You can also email them to hello at penaddict.com. At penaddict.com, you'll also find Brad's wonderful writing along with many wonderful contributors. You can go to notco, spokedesign.com.

'''Brad:''' And do you have a third place?

'''Myke:''' Twitch.tv slash penaddict.

'''Brad:''' I was thinking, I got lost about all the places you sell things, but you also do sell things in the penaddict. That's what it is. I wouldn't listen to you. They were the three places. Twitch.tv slash penaddict is where you can go to find Brad streaming many days a week. And you can also catch the video on demand of those on Brad's YouTube channel as well. If you want to do that, you search for the penaddict on YouTube and you'll find those if you miss the streams. Brad is penaddict on Instagram, Dowdyism on Twitter, and Brad on micro.blog. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you to Squarespace and the Canalea Pen Co. for their support of this week's episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]