The Grey NATO – 217 – A Birthday Bond Seamaster and a New Flyer GMT

Published on Wed, 23 Nov 2022 20:00:00 -0500

Synopsis

In this episode, Jason and James discuss the recent holiday of Thanksgiving in the U.S. and share what they did to celebrate. Jason talks about his recent trip to Los Angeles where he drove a Mazda Miata and hiked in the canyons. They discuss the new Mido Ocean Star GMT limited edition watch for Hodinkee that Jason is wearing. James shares about fostering a cat for a week. They analyze the new 60th anniversary Omega Seamaster 300M steel watch, debating the aesthetic details of the dial, bezel, and commemorative case back animation. For their picks, James highlights a new documentary about the U.S. Navy's Sea Lab program, while Jason recommends a car video reviewing the Camaro Automobili Evo 37.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacey Hello and welcome to another episode of The Grayado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 217 and it's proudly brought to you by the ever-growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support. And if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegranado.com for more details. James, I guess when this episode goes up, it will be Thanksgiving here in the US.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Let's, let's kick off with a big hearty Thanksgiving to everybody who celebrates it in the States. Thanksgiving is a pretty big deal in the States. It sure is. Yeah. I hope people get to enjoy it and you get a, you get kind of a forced long weekend, extra long weekend.
James Stacey I think between the long weekend and the fact that there's no thing like, there's no pressure to like buy gifts or that sort of thing. It's, it kind of is this, you know, It's one of my favorite holidays just because it's like you get together, hang out, eat some good food, see some family. And then there isn't that like hype surrounding it. Like, like you get the day after Thanksgiving.
Jason Heaton So yeah, I think, I think it's great. And you know, in Canada it's a lot more chill. We don't have as much going on. It's kind of a nice family hangout. Some people take it pretty seriously and do big things. And I always really loved being part of that when, when it was possible. It feels like that was a long time ago before COVID. Yeah. But yeah, I like the how seriously Americans take it. And I do like that aside from the kind of Black Friday element, which is kind of comes and goes and its level of grossness, people getting hurt for deals is obviously bad and has happened in the past. I do like that at least now you just do most of that from the comfort of your couch. And it's also super easy to ignore, you know, a la Patagonia or something like that. But yeah, a good one. And I hope everybody has a great time. And if you get to this episode a few days late, that's A-OK. And you have an extra plus because, hey, the Slack is live. probably something like 12 hours before this episode went live. Everyone who's a supporter, whether you're the $5 a month folks or the $100 a year folks should have gotten an email with an invite link. It'll be in your inbox. If you can't find it, you can go to Substack, just make sure you're logged in and you can find the post, uh, which is for subscribers only, which has a link to bring you into the Slack. We've been testing it for the last couple of days. It's going really well. We're super pumped, but all the details are in your email. Please read the email. I would appreciate that as well. And then click the link, make an account and hop in there and chit chat with us all you like.
James Stacey Yeah, it's so exciting. We've sort of did a soft opening with a few close friends within the past few days and already it's kind of cranked up to just be a fun little group and I can't wait once it starts to grow. I think it's going to get to be a bit of a distraction, so to speak, from day to day work. I'm going to have to you know, set some rules for myself when to dip in there and not because, uh, there's a lot of kind of cool discussions that'll happen. I'm sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And if you want to be part of the slack and also support the show and everything else, we talked about it on most of the recent episodes, cause it's been about a year, but there's a $5 a month option that gets you our monthly Q and a, and if you send us in a question, we'll include it in the Q and a as well. And then if you do the a hundred dollars a year, you get everything the same as the $5 a month, but of course you can also get yourself a 20 or 22 millimeter grain NATO, which is signed TGN, a crew sticker. and a thank you from Jason and I. Those are how you can support the shows if you want. But beyond that, Jason, how have you been? It's been kind of like I was doing a little bit of travel, so we've only touched base a couple of times in the last few days. Things good?
James Stacey Yeah, things are good. We had kind of a fun week. We had an interesting week because we, as you might remember, we lost both of our cats last year and we've been catless for the better part of 13 months or so. And we had talked about doing some fostering of cats and we did our first kind of short term foster care thing this past week. We, um, there's a kind of a cool, uh, crowdsourced, um, animal shelter network here in Minnesota called Pet Haven that, um, instead of having a physical location where they shelter animals, um, they just use this big network of volunteers that taken dogs and cats. And, um, and we are what, what's called a respite fosters. So it's when the longer term foster need to take some time off, go on vacation, travel, whatever. we'll cover for them for, you know, whether it's a weekend or a week or whatever. So we took in like an eight year old cat for the past week, uh, from, from a couple that were, that were traveling. What's the cat's name? Yeah. The cat's name was nugget eight year old kind of gray tiger striped cat. Um, he was a big boy. He was pushing 20 pounds. They said he's on a, he's on a bit of a weight loss program, you know, to which we contributed with, um, you know, very careful feedings and that sort of thing. But he was very sweet. He was very timid cat, but very gentle. And once he warmed up to us, he came out and was a real sweetheart. So it was, um, it was fun to have a cat back in the house and, and, uh, we were, you know, as usual, we got attached to him by the time he left seven days later. And, but, uh, it was a good, good way to dip our feet back into kind of the cat world. So that was fun. And, and, you know, aside from that, it's, it's, it was a cold week. I mean, it was, we got a decent amount of snow last week and, You know, I've been building a lot of fires and, and kind of reading books and hanging out inside. And, and, uh, I got out for a hike this past weekend again, um, which is something I'm, I'm trying to do more of this winter, just, you know, like weekly hikes just to get out on some of the local trails and that always feels good to get out in the sun. So for sure. But other than that, we've got a good friend is visiting us this week and we're going to, after we click off here, um, I'm going to go and start ramping up or we're going to contribute some cooked food for the Thanksgiving meal at my parents' house tomorrow. So we're going to start to start getting ready for that. What are you making? Uh, my responsibility is mashed potatoes. Now that's the, probably the easiest of the bunch, but we're going to do like, it's important though. It's the bedrock. Yeah. We're going to do like, um, some maple glazed Brussels sprouts and we're going to do some carrots and uh, what else are we doing? There's a third thing. Oh, uh, Kashani is going to make a, like a vegan, um, green bean casserole. So, you know, picture the green bean casserole with the cream of mushroom soup. It's not going to be cream of mushroom soup. It'll be some variant of that. So, uh,
Jason Heaton Man, you guys got two of the most important ones. Yeah. Green, green bean casserole and mashed potato.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah. I make a good mashed potato. I have to admit it's, it's, it's an easy thing to do. There aren't many ingredients, but I think it's all in the texture and uh, I've kind of got that down. So, and then my mom is going to do the all important turkey. She, she, she does that. She owns that. So that'll be great. Okay. Yeah. Do you like turkey? Um, in little bits. I have it once a year.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um, I'm really not a turkey fan. I've had a couple where like they were still juicy and it was pretty good and I'm sure your mom's is incredible. Yeah. But I find it's so hit or miss. Yeah. Yeah. It can really be dry. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I am really curious and this is obviously right on topic for the show. Very important. Um, what's the mashed potato plan? Do you, do you do like the whole sour cream? You do the garlic skin on any of that kind of stuff or just straight down the middle?
James Stacey No, straight down the middle. I, I, um, I peel the potatoes first, then boil them until they're, you know, fork soft and then, um, drain them off, mash them up with a masher. Really good. Um, start mixing in, you know, blobs of butter and stir in the milk and, and, salt and pepper and, and just kind of keep stirring until it gets that nice whipped texture. And, and, uh, you know, in the past I've added, we've got some roasted garlic that I was tempted to kind of throw in. I love garlic mashed potatoes, but I know that's not for everybody. And I think I got voted down on that. So we're going to stick with really kind of the standard ones. Yeah.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey All right.
Jason Heaton Fair enough. Yeah. Garlic Philistines. I understand. Yeah. Right. You know, you mentioned how it's nice to go outside and go on your hikes and get some sun. That's kind of how my weekend went because, um, Uh, we ended up going to LA for like Friday from Friday evening until Tuesday morning, very early Tuesday morning, had a little bit of a project to do there on Monday and kind of felt like, why would I go to LA for Sunday evening to Monday evening? Yeah. If I had the option to go for a little bit longer. So kind of ended up being like an extended hangout with a few friends. We got to see Robert Spangle, which was awesome. Haven't hung with Robert in four years, face-to-face went and had some proper hot dogs and some incredible food in, um, in sort of the Eagle rock area. And that was great. And then, The other thing, like we just had some time to kill. Yeah. And we watched formula one, you know, it was very early. It was the last race of the year. So that's an Abu Dhabi. So it comes up really early. So it got up on kind of on East coast time, pretty early watch the race. And then was like, Oh, well, what do you really want to do? And I said, I would really like to go for a drive. Yeah. Uh, you know, I feel like it had been a little while since I'd driven something medium fast on the canyons. So, you know, Turo is a great option in LA when it's basically a like an app where you can rent someone's car short term. And I've done it several times before, usually for more utilitarian vehicles. Like when, when we went out to Newfoundland, we rented a route four. Oh yeah. It's pretty simple. Everything's done in an app. They already have your driver's license and your credit card, and you're not spending a ton of time like at a rental desk, which is a nightmare as far as fun goes. Oh yeah. So opened up the app and you know, it's LA, so there's like 400 cars available in whatever geo fence that I had given the app. Yeah. filtered it for manual transmission and there were four. So about 1%. And a couple of those were vintage cars that I didn't want to take into the mountains and were crazy expensive as well. There's like a 308 on there that was going to be like two grand for two and a half days. Wow. And I'd like a really well sorted 308 that like, I don't think will strand me on Angela's crest where there's no service. Sure. I could see like making that a once go. I drove my, I had a three way for two days. It was great or whatever. Um, that maybe not that much money, but you know, if, if it was a little bit closer to normal. Yeah. Uh, but I didn't want to get stranded. I didn't really want a car that was even remotely like a stress to park or drive around LA in traffic, the rest of it. Cause we wanted to see, we wanted to get out to Malibu. We wanted to do ACH. Like that's a bit of a spread over a couple of days. And we wanted to use it like to go to a few spots around this, around the city. So I actually ended up picking up a 2020 Mazda Miata RF, which is the folding hard top version. And you know, that like Fury or Furry red, that bright metallic red on a black interior. And you got to have a convertible, right? It's a, yeah, it's LA. And I had never driven a Miata before. This is my first Miata experience. And I, you know, I, I imagine the, the drop top is the one to have if you would just want pure sports, like, cause it'd be so much lighter. Right. then the folding hardtop, but the folding hardtop was nice. I could leave my camera gear in the car and not really feel like somebody was, you know, a sharp knife away from grabbing my bag or something like that. And the, you know, the transmission's great. The motor's really fun. It's not fast enough to get yourself in much trouble, but I had a really good time. And the overall experience was really good. You know, it was a few hundred dollars and we put probably 400 miles on it. Wow. Wow. And I finally had an excuse because it had been years that I've been going up to LA and driving in the canyons as much as possible a couple of times a year before the pandemic. And then of course not, not so much lately, but I had always wanted to drive this one road that's called stunt, stunt Canyon road. Um, and it's off of essentially Los Flores. So if you're going up the one to, to Malibu, you go past Topanga and I think it's the next one or the one after that is Los Flores. And you start there and it's this beautiful drive, but the road, especially when you get to stunt is like really tight. Yeah. And like the last six or seven times I had my own car or quote unquote, my own car to drive around LA, I was driving six, 700 horsepower supercars. Oh yeah. And this is like a McLaren seven 20 be way too much car for that road. You just always be in second. You essentially live on the brakes, that sort of thing. So I thought the Miata would be perfect for it. So we did a nice lap up Los Flores across to stunt and then down to Panga and it was awesome. Wow. You don't have like every now and then you feel like you've really put on some pace and you glance down and you're doing 60. Yeah. Which is nice. Cause again, in something like a seven 20 S or a, uh, you know, a Ferrari of some sort, you, you glanced down, you're doing double that. We did a whole drive across, like up to Newcombs and back down on Angela's crest highway on Sunday. And I would say the cool thing about that one is a lot of that road that the, the speed limits 55. And in the Miata, that feels like you're going pretty fast on a Canyon road. Yeah.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton So occasionally I glanced down and I'm doing six over the speed limit and you're like, Hey, not so bad. Uh, but yeah, I had a blast. It was, I felt like I, I said to my wife, it felt like I had been in therapy for a little while. Um, just to, just to blow off a little bit of steam and go for a couple of great drives.
James Stacey Yeah. I mean, a weekend driving in LA. I mean, that sounds great. I mean, I, LA is one of those places that it seems like a lot of people have been moving there for one thing. I mean, it's like almost this Exodus from the East coast out to LA and I'm like, well, I think cause so many people left LA for Texas.
Jason Heaton over the last two years.
Unknown Oh really?
Jason Heaton Oh boy. It's kind of a thing in like the top end of comedy and stuff like that. Like people who went to Austin cause the taxes are different.
James Stacey All right. That makes sense.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Even like Elon Musk and Tesla moved. Oh right. Right. There's been a lot of that kind of stuff.
James Stacey Yeah. Southern California on paper or when I just think about it, it's not like the first thing that leaps to mind as an attractive destination for me. And every time I get out there, I like step out of the airport or whatever and I'm like, Oh, This is what it's all about. Like it's like refreshes my memory. Like the weather, just the weather alone. It's just, and something about the sky out there. It's, it's so great. I've never really done the driving, but that sounds like a great, great adventure. I'm not sure I would do Turo myself. Like I'd, I'd, I'd be on the receiving end of, of a Turo car, but I don't think I'd trust somebody with my own car.
Jason Heaton No, I wouldn't either. No, no way. But the guy that I, the guy that I got from, he had like eight, nine cars in a little garage. So this was his business. I see. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think it always depends. Like I could see if you live somewhere where you don't drive that often, but there is some tourism and you want to have your car payment covered or whatever. I get it. Yeah. If, if like for somebody to borrow the Jeep, it's my only, it's my only car. Like I need it for some frequency. Yeah. No, I had an absolute blast. Super fun. I, you know, I, I don't feel any way about the way a Miata looks. I feel like they're almost like, one unit of sports car. Yeah. But if you could get some, uh, an experience similar to that in a car that I think had a more of a, an aesthetic value for myself, like, like an older alpha or something like that, then I think that'd be pretty good. And then you look at the price and those RFs are not cheap. That's a, you know, pushing a $55,000 car in Canada. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
James Stacey But you had an NC, right? Yep. We did. Um, well we had the, and with the retractable hardtop, it was the, what the previous generation. And I remember, Um, I had taken it in for service at the Mazda dealer once. And while I had time to kill, I, I asked the sales guy if I could take one of these RFs out on a little test drive. And he went out with me and he was kind of chattering away as I was going through the gears and took it on kind of a windy road. And it honestly, it didn't feel different enough from the one we had, which was, gosh, what was the year we had? I can't remember mid 20 teens or something like that. And no, it was an 08. I'm sorry. It was a 2008 that we had.
Jason Heaton So an early NC.
James Stacey Yeah. I love that car. I mean, I didn't fit quite as well. Ghoshani drove it most of the time and she fit perfectly in it. The RF didn't feel different enough that we felt compelled to upgrade. And also I, I kind of preferred the full retracting hard top to. I would too. Yeah. To kind of that, I don't know what you'd call it, a Targa style, whatever, where it has that, the kind of. The rear. Yeah. Um, I, I like that idea that when you look over the back, you feel like you're almost like in a boat, you know, like you look out over the long rear deck and you see. just road behind you instead of like a window or whatever. So, yeah, but I'm really fun. I mean, they're just such fun cars.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I enjoyed it a bunch. It was a really nice, a really nice kind of change of pace and something to do. And you know, the kind of like I, I always dream and we've talked about this on the show before. I always dream about having a car like that in Toronto and having the car is only one part of the problem. Having somewhere to drive it is the other half. And I always, whenever I go to LA or somewhere with a great road, even some of the driving around New York that I've gotten, gotten to do recently, I always get enamored with the idea of having a little sports car of some sort. And then I have to come to reality where like I'd have to drive 30, 40 minutes to even get a road that wasn't busy, let alone a windy road. Oh, that's too bad. Right. So it's just, I'm not sure that it's in my future right now as much as I'd like it to be. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll have to see if I got in with the right group of people and they were doing some drives occasionally and knew the right roads and that kind of stuff. And I could see changing my mind on it, but it's tough to, you need both, right? You can't just have a car that you love to drive. You have to have somewhere that you love to drive it.
James Stacey And it doesn't make that much sense when you talk about traffic and places to drive. When I picture LA, I think traffic and I think we spent a long time in traffic. Yeah. And I, I imagine you're not the only person who thinks on a weekend, Hey, I'm going to take my cool car up into the, up into the mountains and do some driving. Do you see a lot of other people just doing the same thing? And are you all up at like five in the morning?
Jason Heaton Uh, I mean, that was the original plan, but then we ended up doing this, the formula one race, which is early Sunday. Yeah. And then we went out more in the middle of the day, uh, more cause I just figured like, Hey, I'm not going to drive with my hair on fire in a Miata to begin with. Yeah. So we, and, but there was a lot of just people driving probably to go hiking, probably to go, maybe, maybe they're finishing camping or who knows, like whatever. There was some people on, there's a whole sections that, you know, I probably had 10 or 12 minutes at a time with nobody kind of impeding me. But then occasionally you'd be going and you know, in my mind I'm going like, Oh, I'm going kind of fast for Miata. And then you'd get buzzed by five sport bikes. Oh, sure. Yeah. Um, that are doing, you know, three times the speed. And, uh, and then at every big turnoff, as you go up, there's a huge like parking lots, essentially at every one of those, there was stacks of, of enthusiast cars. Oh yeah. Um, and then at newcomers, there was 15 or 20 cars, you know, guys who'd clearly driven up in a crew and we're stopping to chit chat for a little while and then maybe keep going. Yeah. If I'd had more time and more effort, I probably, I think this car would have been, it's a little small and underpowered for the road, but as you get up a CH, you can turn onto, I think it's 10 highway 10, but upper big to hunger is what it's called. And that road, especially in something fast is ridiculous. And they've repaved a big section of it. So it's also like super smooth, which is fun. Wow. So I probably rambled enough about driving around. It was a fun weekend, had a good time. And I had a couple of interesting watches with me. So one is part kind of into the main chat, the risk check. We'll get to that. I'm very excited about it. It's been months and then we can finally talk about it because it's out. But the other one I wore quite a bit, especially on the flight, like the day where I was flying was the new Garmin Mark adventurer gen two. So the Mark is that like very premium line that they offer. I mean, this is more than $2,000 for a smart watch. Yeah. you know, think of all the garments that we've tried from something like an instinct or a Vero to the Phoenix stuff to the descent stuff. This is peak garment. Absolutely. The case is incredible. It's grade five titanium. It's beautifully made. You'd swear it was, it could easily be something from Tag Heuer or I would say like in some, like depending on what you're talking about, like the titanium X 33 regatta from Omega. So like it definitely feels the part. And then the biggest difference here is that it has an AMOLED screen. So it's a screen that would absolutely compete with an Apple watch screen or your smartphone screen. It's like pitch black, really bright colors, really high resolution. And like if you, if you, if you're really into the Garmin world, I could see this being like the, the dream spec, but you also get almost everything that this does in a Phoenix, just not as nice a screen and not quite as fast. This thing, every button, the response is immediate. So it must be, I don't know, maybe it has more Ram or better processor. Huh? that kind of stuff. So I wore that a ton, super comfortable, really enjoyed it. I'm still bouncing back and forth with how I think about the Apple watch ultra, like what I think it's really good at and what maybe isn't. And the garment is really, it's so it does so many similar things, but it does them all differently. So, you know, there's no apps. It just has points of data. Whereas the Apple watch has like its own apps and can be its own phone and, and, and that kind of stuff. And then on top of it, you get an entirely different world in terms of battery life. didn't bring a charger. Cause it said like I had 16 days, I was only going to be in LA for four. And then over that time, because I wasn't wearing it to track my sleep, I would shut it off at night. So I came back with 16 days. Wow. Wow. Just a battery life's really good. I think I used a day of, of in terms of hours in, um, in the, you know, maybe two days I wore it going to and from LA. So that was really good. And I'm impressed by it and we'll work out how, how it needs to be covered as a story in the future. Maybe it's something for, a TGN or maybe it's more of a written sort of story. I'm not so sure yet.
James Stacey Yeah. I remember you and I sat in on the, on the mark, um, presentation from Garmin a few weeks back and it looked like a real step up from any other Garmin, but also even from their gen one mark series that you and I both got a chance to try a couple of years ago.
Jason Heaton And yeah, the gen one was a really impressive watch, but I felt like what it missed was having a super premium screen. So I think they've nailed it with this, with the new one. Yeah.
James Stacey Kind of cool that you're able to try that out on alongside the Apple watch ultra. Um, I don't think that they're direct competitors in either brands. Three times the price. Yeah. But kind of cool to, to kind of experience two high end, you know, very of the moment smartwatches at the same time. That's a, that's great.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And especially with getting back into figuring out what the exercise scenario will be over the winter. Yeah. Yeah. Between weights and a trainer for the bicycle and maybe going on hikes and you know, if it stays not too icy, little runs and stuff like that. It's nice to have these to kind of pick them up and use them for those purposes and see how they kind of do the same thing, but from their own kind of, from their own side as a, in terms of like a style or an execution. Yeah. Yeah. And then, yeah, other than that, we can probably get into risk check, uh, because I've, I've, the thing I've been wearing the most, I have it on my wrist now is that new Mito Ali with Houdinki, which I'm just like super, super in love with.
James Stacey Yeah. That's a cool watch. I love the, uh, kind of, uh, I mean, Hodinkee always does a great job with kind of the launch platform, you know, the accompanying videos and photos and this one particularly. So it was really cool. That watch looks great.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So I saw this a long time ago and I've kind of been like excited about it and then it was going to come out a little bit early and then it didn't and like things shift around, you know, with these limited editions and that kind of stuff. But this is the Mido Ocean Star GMT limited edition for Hodinkee. By the time this episode comes out, I believe there will still be some available on the shop. Otherwise we probably wouldn't spend more than two or three minutes talking about it. But think about how often all I talk about is like what it costs to get a GMT, right? And you can get a really good caller GMT where the 24 hour hand is, is independently adjustable for another time zone for like three, four or $500 cycle. So you're a really nice one for a little under 500 bucks, right? With the SSK series.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton But for a long time, if you wanted a, I'm going to call it reasonably sized, which might upset a few people. But when I say reasonable, I mean in the middle 39 40 ish, uh, if you wanted that size and you wanted a flyer GMT, so GMT where the hour hand, the main hour hand is the one that jumps. So when you land in a new time zone, you just change the hour hand. You don't stop the seconds hand. You don't mess around with it. Yeah. You just change the hour hand and keep going. And preferably if you cross midnight, it advances the date as well. So, What we have in this one is a 40.5 millimeter case. It's 13.4 millimeters thick and 47 millimeters lug to lug. So it's, it's within shavings of a millimeter of an SPB 143. Yeah. And it uses an ETA CO6 flyer GMT. So you get all the features. It's the right size. I think it's super pretty. It's based on the look of one of those multi center chronographs that he made in the past. It has a very classic design. The loom is white. It's not like an aged faux loom. It has a 24 hour bezel. I'd love to see a version eventually with a dive bezel, but this is a 24-hour bi-directional bezel with sort of silvery white markings on a black base and a red. It has a loom pip. You can still use it to time stuff I did several times over the weekend, but it isn't a dive bezel. The minute track is on the Ria, and then you have sort of a multi-sector sort of dial and a red, a very subtle, I would say, red second time zone hand for your home time zone. I'm absolutely in love with it. It's the easiest thing. It's $1,390 and it comes with a leather strap. a nylon strap and a mesh bracelet, all of which are quick change.
James Stacey Yeah. I've been impressed with, with Mito in general over the past few years. I mean, it's one of those brands like Sertina. I remember, I think it was the same Basel world several years ago, probably pushing five years now that I remember visiting both of those brands for the first time and being like, okay, this is, you know, you're onto something. It feels different than Tissot and Hamilton and some of the other mid tier swatch group brands. And, uh, And Mido's got a great legacy, great history. I mean, I love that vintage logo on this one. It's, it's really cool. Yeah. I love the nods to the, to the old one.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Vintage logo, no crown guards. It's in a different case than the decompression timer. So this is a new case for them that this is the first time it's being used. We'll presumably we'll be using lots of watches. Yeah. I just really like it. I think the price is right. You know, if you, if you want a wearable again, I'm using that if you want a 40 ish millimeter, flyer GMT. Your other option, of course, would be like a BB GMT, which is a little bit bigger at 41 millimeters and a good bit thicker than this Mido, but it's, you know, the better part of $5,000. Right. Yeah. So I just think like this is offering something that a lot of people have asked for. And I know in my case, as soon as I saw the rendering, you know, months ago, I said, yeah, put me down for whatever, whatever it is, I'll buy one. I'm happy to. And, uh, and now I finally have it. You still get 200 meters water resistance. So if you want to take it on vacation and go snorkeling, sure, whatever, you're good. It's the right size. It fits really nicely. The loom's pretty good. You know, the markers and hands are small in terms of the loom size, but when it fires, it fires. You can read it at night, which is kind of what you need. And otherwise I like the aesthetic. I've got it on a gray NATO now. I guess the only note, the thing that that comes up is it's, it's, we're now into another, in my opinion, really good watch. That's 21 millimeter lugs. That's a thing now. Right. It seems to be, I'm not really sure why or how or, or what, or, or, or, I mean, I guess when you sell a watch and you include three straps, most brands would be like, you're covered. Yeah. Right. What could you possibly need? I have it on a 20 millimeter NATO. The gap doesn't bother me. There is a tiny gap there, but it doesn't bother me. But I guess it's worth asking like, is we should put a pole or something out to, to all the supporters. Like how, how do you want us to try and get a, uh, you know, a proper 21 millimeter Grenado made. Is that something people would be keen on? We could, we could probably sort that out. Um, if, if there's enough interest, if there's only like 30 of us, then I don't know.
James Stacey I mean, even if there's just a hundred folk that are interested, I mean, that's a, that might be justification. We'll see. Let's uh, let's do that. I mean, just throw it in the comments. I mean, informal poll, cause what, what watches are out there that are 21 these days? I mean, I'm wearing one today. You're wearing one today.
Jason Heaton You just had the Pelagos 30 new Pelagos, um, new sub, the current sub is 21. Yeah, true. Maybe this is kind of a thing, you know, the speedy was always 19. So you had to have 19 millimeter straps. And now apparently 21 is how we're going for around 40 millimeter sport watches. I, you know, who wouldn't have preferred 20 just so that I, you don't have to change straps. You want, it was weirder. It's not so much that I didn't have a strap that would fit it. Cause I don't really, like I said, I don't mind the gap that much to go to the 20. I don't have any 21 millimeter bars. Cause this has all quick change. Oh, that's the weird one. Yeah, true. Right. So like you'd put a 20 in there and they'd fit. And then the moment you strap the NATO on, it would pop. Yeah. Yeah. And so make sure that you, yeah. But order yourself a little bag. I mean, I have an order from Esslinger, so I don't mind. I didn't get a deal or anything. I can say, but Esslinger for that. And I need to buy, I've bought now two sets of female spring bars for a vintage watch. I just got back from service. My chronograph Swiss. You were able to find something? Oh, I found them. There's not the right size. They're the right size when they're extended, but they don't compress far enough. Oh, so I'm still looking. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll do yet another spring bar order. Wait, you know, I'll never actually get to wear this watch again. We'll see. But yeah, this, that's the new Mido Oceanstar GMT. Uh, I really like it. If you have any questions about it, put them in the comments or hit us up on the Slack, which you'll be able to do by the time this episode comes out, check your email for that link. But I'm absolutely thrilled. It wears really well. I'm going to, I'm going to wear this a ton.
James Stacey I really like it. Yeah. That's one of those watches that has you written all over it. I think, I mean, given the specs and the size and everything else, I think that's a, that's super cool.
Jason Heaton For sure. Elegant and well-traveled. This sounds like me. Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. That's you. Yes. All right. What have you got on wrist? Yeah. Well, speaking of 21 millimeter, uh, lug width watches, um, I have one that's also somewhat pertinent to today's topic. I've got my, uh, Seamaster professional 300 meter diver, um, which, which I've called the Arctic bond with the, with the white dial ceramic, um, bezel and dial. And, uh, and I threw it on the, the steel version of the no time to die mesh. I ordered this, um, bracelet. Gosh, probably a year ago. And, um, and I found I haven't been wearing it much and, and, uh, you know, okay, this is a bit embarrassing, maybe a little maddening when I ordered it. I didn't realize that what I was ordering was a 20 millimeter width. And so there is that slight gap. I mean, it's a millimeter. It's, it's hardly noticeable at a glance, but if you'd like really study it, it's like, there's this gap, you know, with, with the bracelet where it meets the case. But I've kind of come to come, you know, come to peace with that, um, that kind of oddity. Um, and it is a great bracelet and I do like this watch. I kind of go in spurts with this one. I wear it for kind of a long period. Then I put it away for a long period. And, uh, given today's news about the new Bond watch, which we're going to talk about in a bit here. Um, it just seemed like a good time to pull it out and throw it on, on this bracelet, which lo and behold is, is on that new watch. Um, presumably the one that actually fits it.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I love the white one. I'm excited to talk about this new one. You know, I'll be, I'll be honest. Like we were, we were toying with the idea of not doing an episode this week cause it's a holiday. We were both, it's like, we're still just kind of scrambling to be ready for tomorrow. We thought we'd take the week off. Right. Yeah. And then, In short order, the Mido finally launched and I really wanted to talk about it. And then now we have a new steel, kind of like proper bond of the 300 meter. Yeah. So why don't, why don't we jump right into that? I mean, we know the white one really well. I'm a big fan of it, but I got to say, but the bond alleys typically miss me pretty good. Very much.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton But the, the no time to die one is so cool in person, despite the faux vintage stuff. And now they have the new one. really like this.
James Stacey I do too. I do from the front and we can get into the back and a little bit.
Jason Heaton Yeah. The back is weird for sure. For sure. The back is weird. And look, let's be honest. There's also a second version in cannabis gold with a gem set bezel. And like, if that's your jam all good, it's not done really fit for us. Right. Uh, you can, you can absolutely catch it online. I think, I think the dial is very cool, but the overall execution I'm, I'm deeply about this new, 60th anniversary in steel. So Jason, why don't you give everyone the rundown? Because they're not breaking the mold, but they've done some cool stuff.
James Stacey Yeah. I mean, compared to what I'm wearing right now, this white Seamaster 300, it's the same case. So it's the 42 millimeter steel Diver 300 case that we're all so familiar with. And it's kind of a mix between what they tried to do with this watch is do a blended tribute to the very first Um, Seamaster diver 300 that Pierce Brosnan wore back in Goldeneye in 1995. And then the no time to die one that, that Daniel Craig finished up with here just, uh, just this past year. With regard to the second one, the no time to die version, we all loved it. Um, with the titanium case and the titanium mesh bracelet, they've done this one in steel. So it's more familiar to those of us that have worn diver 300s over the years. And so they'd done a couple of new things with this one. So they went back to a dark blue. dial in anodized aluminum, as opposed to the ceramic that we've been seeing on so many Seamasters in the past few years, and also an anodized aluminum, dark blue bezel. So we've got a steel case with the blue dial and blue bezel, and the dial is now back to those kind of microwave pattern that we saw in the earlier Seamasters, as opposed to kind of the bigger, bolder, deeper waves that are on the ceramic dials. The bezel, they've replaced the inverted triangle, kind of the pip as we call it, at 12 o'clock or at the zero point on the bezel. They've gone with a 60 in reference to the 60th anniversary of Bond. And I saw a lume shot of this watch. We haven't seen this watch in person, of course, but in the lume shot, that 60 is colored differently. The lume is, I think it's like a bright green as opposed to the blue and the rest of it. So very cool. It has a lollipop sweep seconds hand. So that's... Looks good. That's kind of a cool little new feature. Comes on the steel mesh. So that, that wonderful adjustable mesh bracelet, like the one I'm wearing on this one, they're providing it on that strap or that, uh, that band as well. Um, and then when you flip this watch around, it has a Sapphire case back that is laser engraved with the gun barrel, kind of, that's familiar from the opening of all the Bond films. And then they've done this kind of weird quirky innovation where there's like this moiré animation of, of James Bond, like walking across, the gun barrel, like we see in the beginning of a lot of the movies. Um, and it's somehow tied to the, the, the seconds hand mechanism in the movement of the watch. And it's, it's like two overlaid circular discs that kind of move across each other continuously to, to make this illusion of bond walking across the gun barrel. You know, having only seen it online and in some animations, it's cool. It's, it's over the top for me. Um, I would wear this watch and, and, You know, it's kind of a party trick to take it off and show people the animation on the back. But I'm all about the front of this watch. I just think the aesthetics have a bit of a retro look, kind of back to the Brosnan era, but in a really nice deep blue. I really like that blue.
Jason Heaton I absolutely agree with what you said on this. I think that the back is goofy, but like there is a little bit of goofiness to a lot of these Bond things, whether it's a 007 on the seconds hand or whatever. And the way I see it is if you keep the goofiness to the case back, It's all good. Yeah. Uh, I think it's fine. You know, we've even seen versions where that, that rifling effect is on the main, the, on the dial. And that's a bit too much for me. I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm saying that's like a super subjective. It's a bit too much for me. Right. And the thing on the back with this one, with the little bond that's stepping across into the thing, I think it's executed in a way that's very cool. But the overall thing just probably too much for me. Yeah. Yeah. That said, if I were in the market for a 300 M right now, would that stop me from putting this at the top of my list? Absolutely not.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton I think this thing is really cool. I think the 60 minute bezel is a little weird, but I get it for this one. And I like that they have at least gone to the extent where yes, you don't get a pip, but like you mentioned, the 60 is the green glow loom, which matches the hour hand on an, on a Seamaster, which is also green.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton So you at least get a little bit of a nod to that idea. I think the execution is really good. I think it's cool that they made it in steel. I absolutely adore the dial and the fact that they did it without any other colors. Yeah. Same here. So there's not a yellow or red accent. It's very steel and blue. Right. And, and I think it's super handsome. It'll be neat to see who wears this in an upcoming bond movie. And if it is the exact same, or if they, of course they'll, I'm sure they will of course make another one for the next film. Yeah. But you'd at least guess that when whoever it is gets announced, this is what's going to be on their wrist. Right. And they've got a shot with the double stripe, gray, blue NATO. And I don't even like stripe NATO. So I think it looks pretty good at seven grand. That's not like a massive premium or like it's a lot more, but it's not like a massive premium for one that has the mesh bracelet. Do you remember what you paid for the mesh bracelet clean?
James Stacey I don't. I did get a nice deal from my friend at the local Omega dealer, and I remember it was a couple hundred bucks off whatever they were charging for it. But yeah, it's not a cheap outlay of money. In fact, I would highly endorse people go for that Heimdallr version that you have, which is probably 90% of the same one.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. And then the other thing to keep in mind is if you're just looking for the blue, they already make a blue one. Right. With a normal bezel, a normal case back. It's the you know, ceramic ZR dial. So it's a little shinier than I assume this one will be.
James Stacey I think, as you said earlier, so many of the kind of Bond commemorative watches, not the ones necessarily from the movies, but the commemorative ones with the gun barrels and the 007s on the sweep hands, they always feel a little too, too garish, a little over the top. This one is almost subdued. I think it's, it's a darker, Um, more of a Navy blue. There's no date, which is great. It's refreshing. It's kind of like the no time to die one. It's the 8806 caliber without a date. Um, which really cleans up the dial and, and, and like you said, no, um, not even a red accent on the dial, which I'm surprisingly like this, the stark kind of Navy blue and white with no date. It's, it really is, is nicely kind of understated. I really think. And I think putting this on, assuming you could source. 21 millimeter straps, which, you know, they're out there, of course. Oh, for sure. Can you imagine this on a gray NATO? How lovely that would look just, just really look incredible. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Tone down really great. It's just one unit of a really nice dive watch. I like the aluminum. I like these other elements. I love that. It's all white. Yeah. Emission, like white daytime coloring for the loom. So there's no Fotina. It feels very like modern and crisp and like, this is Bond now. Yeah. Yeah. you know, referencing something from the past. The Bond that wears this might not be driving in DB5. Right. He might be in the Superleggera like 007 was in No Time to Die. Yeah. Yeah. True.
James Stacey Yeah. So, and apparently this is not a, um, a limited edition. It's limited production. I'm not quite sure how to explain that, but, um.
Jason Heaton Usually means it's not numbered, right? The box isn't numbered, the case back isn't numbered, but there won't be that, theoretically, there won't be that many of them. Okay. Right. Right. Yeah. That'd be my guess anyways. Yeah. I think it'll be popular. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think so too. And, and you know, with Omega, sometimes their limited editions are seven, 8,000 watches, right? So you just have to keep in mind that Omega plays in every market in the world. Like we were talking about Mido earlier, like Mido's hugely popular outside of North America. They have a huge following in South America and in parts of Europe. And, and whereas Omega, that's a, that's a global thing. So like a, a low number of watches for an Omega release is, you know, we've seen ones where a James Bond one was 7,007 watches, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's cool. I think it's a, it also like it, it gives me a little bit of a buzz for like, who's the next bond. What's the next movie. Who's directing it.
James Stacey Well, speaking of that, did you, uh, you know, I'd mentioned last week that I'd finished watching SAS rogue heroes and I, I kind of thought that Jack O'Connell who plays Patty Maine might be a good candidate for the next bond. Did you have a chance to watch that while you were traveling?
Jason Heaton I tried to decide where I want it, which I want to do first. And I decided to save SAS rogue heroes. I watched them season two of gangs of London. Oh, okay. So it's a show I've waited a few years for. I feel like the first season came out in 2017, 2018, maybe, yeah, 2018 probably. Yeah. And, uh, it's from the people behind the raid, uh, action movies. Huh. And it's this story, it's a really convoluted kind of crime story in London that kind of immediately falls into very dark territory. And with these incredible action sequences, Um, I'm actually not sure I can recommend it. I just finished the second season yesterday on the way, on the way home. And it's like among one of the more violent things I think I, someone could put on television. So if it sounds like that's up your jam, maybe watch a trailer. I enjoyed the first season quite a bit, but it's gnarly. Oh yeah. And it's not something I would necessarily put in the final notes cause I'd, I'd hate to recommend it to someone who gets eight minutes into the first episode and feels like they're going to be sick. So. Yeah, yeah. But no, SAS Rogue Heroes is still on my list. And I totally agree. O'Connell's probably got to be in the running, right? He's on the spreadsheet.
James Stacey Yeah. Richard Madden would be good. I mean, picture both those guys like being announced as Bond wearing this, you know, blue dial watch. I think I could see it. I'm excited. I hope, I hope, I hope we get some news in the next couple of years. They're, they're pretty, pretty coy about even telling where they are in the process, but you know, they're out there looking, so.
Jason Heaton And it'll be a big thing. You remember how big it was when they launched? Oh, Craig. Yeah. The boat on the Thames. Oh yeah. Yeah. Helicopters, you know, they flanking gunships, all this sort of stuff is nutty. So yeah, I talk about pomp and circumstance. I like that stuff. And then I don't want it on the back of the back of the watch. I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with me. Yeah. Yeah. Clearly. I think they've, they know their market better than, than we know, you know, the market of our own wrists. Right. But right. Yeah. I think it's a cool thing. I'm just thrilled to see like a, like a chill take on a bond watch. It has, it has such a relaxed normal watch feel to it that I could absolutely see people buying this simply because it's a great iteration of the Seamaster. Yeah. Not necessarily because it's a, you know, the 60th bond thing. Right. Which is kind of how I felt about that specter 300 years ago with the 12 hour bezel. Oh yeah. Right. That was in the lollipop hand. I thought that was rad. Yeah. It was at the time I was like, Oh, maybe with the discount and this and that. And it was like, Nah, dude. Yeah. This is way too much. But yeah, it's good stuff. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's probably enough on Mito's and Omega's and all that kind of stuff. I'm excited to see how this hits the crew in the Slack and everything. So be sure to get in there and chitchat as you can over the weekend. What do you say we jump into some final notes? Yeah, sure.
James Stacey I've got, I've got kind of a fun one. And actually I'm one of our longtime members and who was kind of a early member of our Slack group. Uh, in the past couple of days, Chris soul took part in this along with Ben Lowry and his father, Greg. Um, these guys are all big expert historians slash, um, fans, nerds, whatever you want to call them around C lab. So this was the U S Navy program back in the sixties that put men on the bottom of the sea and habitats. And they were visiting the man in the sea museum down in Florida. And they got to take part in and be a part of, uh, a short documentary film that's now on YouTube. That's called C lab legends, man in the sea. And it was produced by, um, a friend of theirs who's on Instagram at Lord life official. That's Lord with an E Lord life official. We'll put a link in the show notes of course. And, uh, it's, it's a, it's a kind of a short documentary film that, that visits with a couple of the guys that took part in the C lab program. You know, many of them, um, obviously all of them are quite old and many of them have actually passed on. Um, but they did the filming right at the, the man in the sea museum in one of the old sea lab habitats with a lot of really cool memorabilia around, um, a bit of a buzz to see Chris and Ben and Greg pop up in the video and be interviewed. Um, you know, after, after meeting them and actually I got a chance to dive with, with Ben and Chris in Chicago when we were there for wind up this past summer. And, uh, these guys have a real passion for this. I think, you know, the sea lab program is something that has always fascinated me. And I remember reading the book by Ben Hallworth a few years ago, um, called C lab. And I highly recommend that book if you haven't checked that out. Um, you know, this was a program that the Navy was doing at the time when, when NASA was, was putting people in space and on the moon and it just did not get the attention that the space program did. And that's a real shame. And I think now we're starting to see a resurgence in interest, uh, largely due to, to guys like this, um, that are promoting it, um, through, social media and through short films like this, you know, uh, Ben runs the submersible wrist, uh, Instagram account and, and he's gotten quite a nice following lately. And he posts a lot of great old archival photos and videos of, uh, from the C-Lab program among other things. Yeah. I just recommend, you know, checking and checking this video out. I mean, this is like, these guys were the real heroes. These, these C-Lab aquanauts, they were akin to, you know, the Buzz Aldrin's and Neil Armstrong's of their day doing really bold uh, you know, dangerous, cool stuff, um, while wearing really cool watches as well. Um, so, you know, check that out. Um, be sure to, to give Lord life official and of course soul and a submersible wrist to follow on Instagram if you don't already. Um, and yeah, just enjoy that video. Uh, sea lab legends, man in the sea.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's awesome. I, uh, I saw this come through in, in, You had mentioned it and it definitely looks, um, looks really cool. And I'm looking forward to digging into that. You know, years ago I was asked to write a piece for gear patrol that kind of summarized, you know, it was a paragraph or two paragraphs about a lot of the undersea habitats. Oh yeah. And like to be told like, no, we can, you can do 450 words. Yeah. Not 4,500 words. You're kind of like, yeah. All right. And then at least you get stuff like this where somebody, they got the 4,500 words, 45,000 words, whatever, uh, to, to really dig into it. That's some cool stuff. And what an insane time that was because it feels so emblematic of its era, the space travel, the, the, you know, figuring out how to live under the ocean and what we might learn down there. And this, like it kind of, there was so much less maybe pessimism to the idea of like, what do we get when we just try something, which I, which I really dig. And that's a, that's super fun. What do you have? Yeah, for my pick this week, it's actually another of these great sort of historic videos slash car reviews from Derek Tam Scott, who does stuff with the ECME official. So they do a series. They're now in their 11th episode, and that's what I'm recommending called BTS with DTS. So behind the scenes with Derek Tam Scott and this is the Camaro Automobili Evo 37 is an insane thrill ride of a car. So this is the Camaro Automobili Evo 37 is an insane for a ride of a car. And I really like these videos. I've come to really enjoy Derek on his podcast, which is called the Car Mugging with Jason Kamisa. He's kind of a delight and a nice guy. I've traded a few Instagram DMs with him, you know, just gets to drive a lot of cool cars and enjoys both what the car is today and then the history of it. And I think you see that in this video. It's a huge amount of backstory about Lancia and their progressive rally program that would eventually come to the 037 and the Delta and all these sorts of things. And a couple of years ago, we saw these guys, Automobili Amos create the Delta Integrale Futurista, which was sort of a carbon fiber recreation on a Delta chassis to kind of modernize the platform, but also make it a little bit more special and rare. And they did like 20 or 22, like very few of them. And this is sort of the same idea from a different company, Camara Automobili. And it's, You know, it's over 500 horsepower. It's less than 2,500 pounds. If you know the 037, it's a very specific aesthetic, but it's one that I love. It's kind of brutalist. And it really calls back to a time when like rallying was still done by rear wheel drive cars. I absolutely love it. I've only ever seen a couple 037s in person. And this is kind of the, it's not so much like a singerization, which, you know, it's kind of like a cliche, but it is like a rethinking. Like they've taken the car, they've made it a little bit hotter, a little bit lighter, a little bit more aggressive. and kind of made it something that gets to connect to that legacy, but it may be a little bit more of a car for today, which I think is kind of an interesting thing to do in general. I just highly recommend it. It's an interesting video that gives you a cool backstory and that introduces this really gorgeous, you know, supercar essentially. And I can't really get over the way it looks. I just think it's jaw-droppingly cool with the wild wing and the big fenders and the incredible wheels and the color and the rest of it.
James Stacey It looks like a concept rendering. I mean, every, every image I see of it, I mean, it's just a wild car. What a beautiful car. Wow. That's cool. I'm going to watch this right after we click off. Geez.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's 600 pounds less than a modern GT. Wow. Like I've been in a modern GT three touring a couple of times and they are not a car where you go like, Oh, that's, it's a little bit too heavy. You see me do some cool stuff. I believe they're like a retailer or like a dealer of, of kind of rare cars. Yeah. If look, if the outcome of a dealer selling expensive cars is they make cool videos like this, I'm on board. I get it. So yeah, that's the, uh, this one, BTS with DTS episode 11. You can hit, hit that in the show notes for sure.
James Stacey Very cool. And I'm going to watch that after I click off and before I get on my mashed potatoes. All right. Well, that's an episode kind of swatch group heavy, but, uh, you know, we dipped into some, uh, a very cool car and, uh, and the C-Lab program. So, you know, fun, uh, fun episode for a week that we were toying with not even doing an episode. So I'm really happy we fit that in. Sometimes the wash world provides. Yeah, exactly. And, uh, you know, to all of our American listeners or anybody out there that's, uh, celebrating Thanksgiving, have a, have a great one. And, uh, we'll be back here next week. Thanks so much for listening. If you'd like to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even grab a new TGN sign NATO, please visit thegraynado.com. And of course, if you are a paying subscriber, we'd love to see you over on the Slack channel. So look out for that email. Music Throughout a Siesta by JazzArt via the Free Music Archive.
Jason Heaton And we leave you with this quote from Willie Nelson, who said, When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.