Editing The Pen Addict 95/transcript (section)

== Pen Design ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' It just breaks up the whole design. I mean, it loses. It's jarring. The design of it, it's very, very strange. And I don't know what to make of it because the pen is great looking. Otherwise, but that little jewel. And it's not, I mean, you can tell it's just a little cheap piece of plastic. It's, in my opinion, it's a poor design decision. Some people may like it, you know, whatever. But it kind of overrides what's normally or what I think is actually a pretty good pen. And although I really think, you know, if you're looking for a Jetstream multi-pen, I think some of the lower end models are just as good, if not better, than this. That you can get for anywhere from like $7 to $15. The Jetstream multi-pens that I've used are really, really good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Do you have any feeling about the multi-pen versus the standard? Like, do they run out quicker that you've noticed or anything like that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, they'll definitely run out quicker.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So they're thinner, are they? Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So you can pretty much, just one of the safe assumptions you can always make is a multi-pen refill will run out quicker than a standard ink refill. Just because they can't put the full size ink cartridges in the multi-pens. Okay. So you can pretty much always assume that. And then when you get into gel multi-pens, you burn through those like crazy. So you have to be prepared. Like with the Coleto, you know, if you're a heavy user of the Pilot Hi-Tech C Coleto, you need to have like refills handy to swap in. Because you will run out at a moment's notice. But, you know, for a lot of people, myself included, they're worth it just because they write great. So, anyway, I just wanted to talk about that Jetstream because I thought it was a great addition to the product line. But it's a little pricey and it's a little bit thrown off design-wise on what could be a lot better design, I think. One pen I do like the design of, and I just posted this review yesterday. Oh, baby. Is it the Sailor Regulus Fountain Pen? Yep. This pen's been on the radar for ages. I finally got one from JetPens late last year. And I reviewed it, I don't know, a while back. And I never posted it. You know, I try to keep things backlogged, you know. So when I have time, you know, I'll go through what needs to be posted and posted. So this one just took me a while to get to. Because I hadn't written it up, I'd done the handwritten review and the photographs and things like that. And sometimes it just takes me a while to write it up. This is a great pen. I'm very happy with this pen. I obviously went with the orange barrel. I mean, that was kind of a no-brainer. It's got black, blue, and gray. But I was actually, the pictures look awesome of the orange barrel. In person, it's a little bit lighter and a little bit more sparkly than I'd like. I think I'd actually maybe prefer one of the darker ones. But this pen writes so well. And the combination of it and the Sailor Nano Ultra Black cartridges, which, if anyone's familiar with that ink or not familiar with that ink, it's like one of the high-end Sailor inks. It's just this rich, black, pigmented ink. I mean, it takes a little bit of extra maintenance. You've got to clean it a lot between cartridges. You know you need to clean it because it'll kind of dry out quicker. But the writing experience is awesome. I mean, the pen just glides across the page.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've just taken a look at the image, and now, like, I've looked at it on the flicker and I've zoomed it in. I can kind of see what you mean by sparkly. I couldn't see the sparkliness before.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And, like, the product pages on the JetPens, you can't see it at all. In person, this pen looks a little bit different than it does in the way it photographs. Like, the way I photographed it, it looks, I mean, as weak as my photography skills are, it looks exactly like the JetPens photographs. In person, it doesn't look like that. So, yeah, you can expand on the pictures and maybe you can see the little glimmer it has. But it's not bad. I mean, I totally, I use this pen a lot just because it's the right size. The nib is amazing. I love the ink. So, it's just one of those pens where I'm dead set on, all right, this pen gets this ink cartridge, and I know this is the writing experience I'm going to have. Like, this pen I don't play around with much. I don't have a converter for it. I'm not doing all kinds of different inks. This is it. This combination is done for me. I ink it up just like this and go to town because I love it. I've actually burned through a couple cartridges on this. I've written with it so much here in the past few weeks or so. So, it's really cool. And I kind of liken it to the Pelican M205 from a price point perspective. It's not a cheap pen by any stretch. It's $115. And the Pelican M205 is around $130. And they're kind of that in-between, no-man's-land zone, right, where it's hard to – there's considerations you have to take. Well, why should I buy this pen instead of a Twisby? So, you know, it's a pen you need to do your research on, you know, make sure it's a good fit for you, just like the Pelican M205. But in the end, I've been happy with it, just like the Pelican M205 I was ecstatic with.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And one other recent review, which has kind of got me down this path that I've kept thinking about going down, and then I never really get going. And now I've kind of got this bug a little bit about woodcase pencils. So, I got the – someone give me the right pronunciation because I've mentioned it before. I want to say Faber-Castell, but I know it's probably Faber-Castell.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would call it Faber-Castell. I can't even believe that you'd call it Faber-Castell.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't call it that, but it's hard to – it's just like Kaweco. You have to think – I have to think about pronouncing it, but I think it should be Faber-Castell because that sounds right and that looks right. But no, I – you know, it's just American of me, I guess. I don't know. But the Grip 2001 is a Faber-Castell classic. I mean, this is a pencil that's been around for – I don't know. I want to say decades in a company that's been around for hundreds and hundreds of years.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is one of their more popular current line pencils, and I tried some out, and the set I got from JetPens contained three lead grades. And lead grades are a whole different discussion that we'll have sometime. And we've kind of talked about it in a way, way old episode before, but I'm not that experienced with it, so I always have to refer to a chart. And the ones I got were kind of in this middle range, but I found – I always thought I wanted the darker lead pencils, that I would like those the best. But there's a tradeoff, you know, generally, in general terms, and, you know, hardcore pencil people will probably correct me. But in general terms, the darker the lead, the softer it's going to be. Well, I kind of like a harder lead, a more firm, you know, lead to where the tip's not losing shape as quickly. You know, I like to keep a sharper point. So I found that the HB grade pencil was really, really great to write with. And the review, actually, I did with the 2B, which is the softer of the 3. But when I was done with that, I just kept writing with the HB because I could write these lines that were fantastic. And if you, you know, you blow up the picture, you can see that my lines are just neat and clean. And it was a super enjoyable experience. So I've gone on from there and ordered several more pencils from JetPens. So I want to be reviewing them, you know, maybe not as thoroughly as some of my pencil compatriots. But, you know, we're going to have to work on doing some more pencil reviews and maybe some pencil talk on this show sometime. And we might – I'm working on a guest for that as we speak. So hopefully soon. And, yeah, that's something I wanted to bring up because it's definitely an outlier for me. I feel like with the pencils, Myke, it's back when I started – it's like starting the blog all over again. It's this whole learning experience. It's like I don't know much, but let's try to figure it out together.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't know much, but I know I love pens. That's right. That's right. I was pretty proud of that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't know much. Should I just leave?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That was great. No, that was fantastic.