The Grey NATO - Ep 47 - Random Holiday Gift Guide
Published on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 08:43:02 -0500
Synopsis
Jason and James discuss Jason's recent trip to Cabo Pulmo, Mexico to dive with ocean conservationist Sylvia Earle. They talk about the great diving experiences Jason had and Sylvia's passion for ocean conservation. James describes his press drive of the new Aston Martin DB11 V8 through Southern California. They discuss the pros and cons of touchscreen displays versus physical controls in modern car interiors.
For their "Quality Queries" segment, they answer a listener's question about their writing processes, with Jason tending to write in one big burst close to deadlines while James takes a more piecemeal approach over multiple days.
They then offer a holiday gift guide suggesting items like the Atlas 46 tool roll pouch, Outlier's technical clothing, the Seiko SRP-B27 dive watch, a vintage film camera, and other unique gift ideas.
Links
Transcript
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| James | Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 47. And we thank you so much for listening. Hey there, James. How's it going? Hey, Jason. I'm good, man. I'm good. How's things? You got back from Mexico not too long ago, I guess, you know, a few days back. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I mean, it was, uh, I guess it was just, I was still there a week ago, which is weird to think about. Cause it's like twenties Fahrenheit here and we've forgetting snow tonight. So, uh, yeah, thinking back, that was, uh, that was pretty awesome as a whirlwind trip, but you know, nice to, nice to get to someplace hot, uh, this time of year. |
| James | Yeah. Very James Taylor. Yeah. How was, uh, how was, uh, how was the diving? How was Sylvia Earl? I mean, give, give us the whole rundown. I've been, I've been to, um, Cabo San Lucas. Haven't been to Cabo Pomo. |
| Jason Heaton | Um, it was great. You know, it was, I mean, I tell everyone that's asked me about this trip. It was, it was fairly life-changing for me. I mean, it was a really interesting experience to, um, you know, the diving was great and that part of Mexico, Baja is just a really neat place. But, um, Sylvia Earle herself is one of those rare people that, um, you know, I could count on probably two or three fingers how many people I've met that are kind of of her, I don't want to say caliber, but have had the effect that she had on me. She's a very humble person, very kind person. And yet she sort of radiates this passion for what her cause is, which is ocean conservation. And, you know, we might've talked about this in the past episode, but if anyone hasn't seen the movie Mission Blue, which is kind of about her current sort of passion project in ocean conservation, the movie, the documentary on Netflix is really kind of about her and her life story, but she's just a remarkable person and at age 82 to still be diving and not just sort of falling off a boat with a tank on her back. I mean, she's taken a big camera rig and she's just underwater. She just has this very childlike wonder still about the ocean, which is, it was really inspiring, you know, just a really great time sitting next to her at dinner and just chatting about her, her history and her, you know, what's changed in diving over her long career. And, you know, she started diving in the fifties. That's insane. I mean, imagine that, you know, she, she, she was diving when Cousteau was still just, you know, in his first decade or two of, of, of, you know, making movies and that sort of thing. So fantastic. A real, a real pioneer. And, um, you know, I, I've told people before, you know, this is, this was my second trip to, Cabo Pulmo, which is up the east coast about two hours from that southern tip where you were at Cabo San Lucas. And it's very rough. It's very rustic. It's all sandy, rutted dirt roads and sketchy Wi-Fi and no sort of cell phone coverage kind of area. A lot of sort of washed out riverbeds and mountains. It inspired me to kind of get back down there at some point. It'd be a great place to just kind of go and, you know, spend a month just sort of roaming around and camping and hiking and diving and sea kayaking and that sort of thing. But, uh, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to write this up at some point here for, for Hodinkee and we'll put a link up at whenever that, that goes live. But, uh, it's, I'm still waiting for some photos from the Rolex photographers that were along on the trip. |
| James | But, uh, I know that a couple of the guys that were on the Clipperton trip with me, they had gone two or three spots and like on their way down to Cabo San Lucas and they stopped in Cabo Pomo. And they said that for like literally next to nothing, they rented a place that didn't have power. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | So they had to like go to the bar to charge their phone, but it had running water. Yeah. And they were right on the beach. And then they had arranged something where some guys in a pickup truck dropped off tanks. Oh, OK. Yeah. So they basically just at a certain point in the morning, They would hear a horn honk, they'd get out of bed, they'd go grab the tanks, they'd pay the guys, and then they would come pick them up later in the day, like as they closed their route or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And so they did a bunch of diving there and had a bunch of pictures that they were editing on the boat and it looked great. And then one of their memory cards failed. |
| Unknown | Oh, wow. |
| James | So they lost a bunch of pictures that they had wanted. So they were just decided on a whim that when they were done with Clipperton, they'd just rent a truck and go back up. |
| Unknown | Oh, cool. |
| James | And I think that's, so they were, I don't know how long those two dudes were in, uh, were in Mexico. Wow. So, but they were having a great time on the, uh, on the peninsula for sure. |
| Jason Heaton | It's that kind of place. It's, it, uh, I don't want to say lawless, but it, it feels, it feels very rustic and old fashioned, very, um, DIY, you know, it's a lot of, it is a lot of old pickup trucks and old land cruisers and, |
| James | It's not the like fancy drinks with the umbrellas and the like, it's not the resort vacation, Mexico. |
| Unknown | Yeah. Yeah. |
| James | That I can't speak for Americans, but as Canadians, you know, a couple of spots in Mexico, which is where you go for resorts. And maybe if you're a bit older, you go to party or something like that. And this is this feels much more like if you get well outside of L.A. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Yeah. And you're still in California. And it's like very much it's more blue collar. It's not resorty. And it's very this is this is just an amazing kind of off the beaten path place where people actually live and, and, and it's a little bit, yeah, like you said, it's a little bit more rustic, a little bit more rural. Yeah. I thought it was amazing. Even just the drive from Cabo San Lucas airport or the Cabo airport down to Cabo San Lucas was, uh, the, the terrain is unbelievable. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I mean, it's got everything. It's desert, mountain, ocean. Um, and they've had quite a bit of rain there in the past month or two. And so it was very different from the, the time I was there before two years ago where it was very dry and arid and this time everything had kind of the desert had just sort of opened up and bloomed and everything was green and um and as far as the diving goes we um I was the only journalist on the trip that that did any diving the rest of the folks there were were snorkeling and so it was basically just me and and Sylvia Earle uh underwater which was amazing just just you know mind-boggling I mean I'm not I'm not a real hero worshipper, but I, you know, it was, it was truly like, you know, diving with Jacques Cousteau or something. I mean, truly an icon of diving and, and the diving itself was fantastic. We did, we did two dives. We did just one one day and then one the next day. And, and on the first day we dove off a small pinnacle that juts up out of the sea there called Islote. And it was just surrounded by this, the biggest school of sardines that, you know, I've ever seen. And then in the middle of it all was, you know, two dozen kind of fat groupers that were just sort of slowly ambling around in there. And I think that was what created this sort of frenzied bait ball situation. And we were able to just kind of swim in and out and kind of hover around the edges of this big bait ball of sardines. And just, we hung out there. We were, you know, maximum 30 feet deep and it was really nice and light. And the water temp was really warm. And so that was really fun. And then the next day, um, there there's kind of this resident school of, um, I think they're big eyed jacks, these big kind of silver predator fish that sort of just circle around in a, in a big school that kind of drifts around the waters there. And, and somehow the boat captain was able to kind of cruise around and the dive master was standing at the front of the bow of the boat dive boat, just looking for you know, some sort of disturbance on the surface, maybe it was birds or something, and managed to locate this school of jacks. And so we got close to that, and then the snorkelers, you know, jumped in the water and kind of finned over that direction. And then Sylvia and I and Kip Evans, who's this photographer that works with Mission Blue, he, you know, we went in and went down below about, you know, 40 feet below the school and just kind of hung out as long as we could. And that's kind of what Cabo Pulmo is known for. That's why it's a mission blue hope spot is because it was a converted fishing village that had been kind of over fished. And then they decided to put a moratorium on fishing and let the fish stocks come back. And it's, it's been a, such a success story. It's, it's kind of become the place to go if you want to see just a lot of life, you know, big schools of fish. So yeah, it was, uh, It was pretty tremendous, and you know, diving with the Sea-Dweller certainly wasn't shabby. |
| James | Hold up okay? It didn't flood or anything? |
| Jason Heaton | Didn't flood, no. Sylvia was, you know, she was diving with her gold Datejust that she's had for a few years. And it was so funny because, you know, there was one day I was at dinner or something, and she noticed that I was wearing the Sea-Dweller, and she said, oh, you've got the real thing there. And I said, yeah, you know, Rolex lent it to me for the trip, and she said, She just kind of casually said, yeah, I've got a couple of those. Um, she said, I, I, I wear the, I just wear those on expeditions though. You know, she wears the date just for the easy stuff. |
| James | So yeah, it's just her knock around. Yeah. Yeah. It's like cutting the lawn for her. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | And it back in Kabul. Yeah. Yeah. That's hilarious. That's great. What a, what an awesome trip and what a great opportunity. I mean, to be the only diver kind of attached to the trip, uh, from an external fashion to have that kind of access. I mean, Yeah, Sylvia Earle is nothing short of a complete legend and a hero, and her work is just outstanding. And to be able to, yeah, dive with her and experience that and have those chats, very cool. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. We're kind of between trips. We're recording this between trips because I'm off to Bonaire next week, but you just got back from an interesting trip, kind of, not quite the Baja Peninsula, but Southern California. It was hot, hot. Yeah, made it close. |
| James | Yeah, I went from San Diego out to So over Palomar and the adjoining mountains there, which then take you down into the desert. So this was the press drive for the Aston Martin DB11 V8. Wow. So the V12 has been out for a little bit, and then they basically borrowed an engine from Mercedes, a twin turbo V8, four liter V8, same that's in the AMG GT and a lot of the new AMG sedans and such are using the same engine. And so they're sharing the engine with Aston Martin. And Aston Martin changes some of the intakes to kind of make it sound more Aston Martin-y, but you end up with just a 503 horsepower twin turbo V8 in a nice big GT car. It's got a nice transmission and the interior is unbelievable. But yeah, we drove from San Diego, so we went up along the coast You know, saw the surfers and then cut across and then up to Palomar, which is I think a little over 5,000 feet of elevation. Wow. But there's not a ton around it. Like there's other hills and such, but you, so you get a real impression that you're up pretty high. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | And then from there, we went down the backside of Palomar and then across this Montezuma Valley road to a place called Borrego Springs. Hmm. And if anybody listening lives in California and likes to go for a drive and for whatever reason hasn't done this, maybe this is a very common route. I don't know. There were almost no other cars there. And you basically come down into a huge basin. It's the same part of the desert where the Salton Sea is. |
| Unknown | Oh, okay. |
| James | And so we just didn't go quite far enough to get to the sea. And, uh, we had lunch at Borrego Springs and then drove out along a couple other roads and made like a loop back into San Diego. It was maybe, uh, 450 kilometers. Huh. Wow. Were you in the car alone? |
| Jason Heaton | Were you, did you do it by car? |
| James | No, I was in the car with a woman named Alexander, who's a writer for Elite Traveler. |
| Unknown | Oh, okay. |
| James | And so we kind of shared the car. They had spots mapped out on this book where you could kind of trade and take photos and that kind of thing, so. Nice. And how was the car? Car's fantastic. I mean, what do you expect, right? Yeah. It's not going to be a piece of junk. It's a modern Aston Martin that's co-developed with input from Mercedes, especially when it comes to things like, I mean, they're using a ZF transmission. So you don't have the paddle shift problems that might've plagued some of the earlier DB7 and even earlier DB9 based cars. And this is a brand new platform. This is one of the first models in their like second century plan. So they've, they've survived a hundred years of being acid Martin, and this is kicking off the next one. Uh, mine was the one that I had was very well equipped. It had pretty much everything. and really gorgeous interior, the nicest interior of any car I've ever sat in. Certainly the leather work's unbelievable. My only qualms with the cars, I mean, Aston Martin is a brand that has to try and blend traditional elements, things that are Aston Martin, with what people buy in cars now. You know, the interior is kind of traditional, but it has a lot of it's like real buttons. It's not all touchscreen stuff, but then the center console, like, you know, where your gauges would be, that's just a screen now. |
| Unknown | Oh, okay. |
| James | And for whatever reason, it looks fine today. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | I just don't know what happens when, like, if I look back on a DB9 now, or even a DB7, there's so much that I like about it because they had those kind of clock face gauges. Right. And, and they had elements that kind of bounced around being timeless. Yeah. And now that they've, if you just transition all the way to screens, you just have screens. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Yeah. The screen's very high resolution and it's response rates fantastic and it works in sunlight and all and it works with polarized sunglasses. It's all fine. But I just don't know what happens in 30 years. Yeah. When like I'm sure maybe I'm not saying the screen won't still work. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | I'm just saying I don't know how it's going to look. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I mean that's something you and I have talked about. You know it's it's kind of a you could almost do a whole show about that topic. You know you and I have talked about it a lot is that that aging How well are these sort of modern cars in the past decade with nav screens and just lots of, you know, less switches and less gauges and more screens? How are they going to age? |
| James | And then like even other Aston Martins, like the last generation Vantage, there were models, I want to say in the first half of the facelift, maybe it progressed further on, but in my experience, the earlier ones, you know, they had a nav system that was from a Volvo, but they made it so the screen folded down. So you didn't turn the nav on, you didn't have a screen. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | And I think, you know, you see a lot of people going back and Porsche is now offering more and more cars that don't have to have the kind of higher end MMI. Yeah. You know, the new Carrera T can be optioned without it. Obviously the 911 R, you could be optioned even without AC if that was a problem for you. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | And that sort of thing. So it's funny because you can see these brands that know that they have an aesthetic that's tied to analog. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Gauges and analog switches and things like that. And they're all just trying to find their way. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | And I think all of it's fine right now. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | But like if you see the entire dash in the newly announced Continental GT Bentley. Yeah. It's like they've gone to great lengths to hide all the screens. Huh. So you click a button and like a beautiful panel moves out of the way and then you have this great big screen not unlike what you see in a Panamera. Like it's a huge glassy MMI, but they're all trying to balance the fact that this stuff could look really outdated. Like you look at that weird generation of Ferrari after the 456 and into the 612 with the GTs where they started to put the screens in them, the 430, and they look ridiculous. It looks like somebody bought a Clarion and pulled out the whatever was in there and slammed in a doubled in Clarion. And the problem is that even for the basic functions that you want, which is basically everybody just wants to Bluetooth their phone into the stereo. Right. And then use Waze. Yeah. Yeah. To get around. I mean, unless like it could be a little, I was thinking about this while I was driving. It could be different if you're in Europe and you have to change countries a lot and you may not have like, cause you know, if you, if you go on a drive in Europe, you're going to go through a handful of different countries. Right. And I don't specifically know how their cell phones work. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe GPS is a much bigger issue there. Like for me, I only really need GPS when I go to the States. Right. And I'm never going to drive my current car. Like the likelihood of me driving to the States and not ending up there via a flight is unlikely. So, I mean, I keep like a nearly 10 year old Garmin for that reason. The highways aren't really going anywhere. In many ways, I think you might start to see more and more people retrofitting these transitionary years. with little shelves or pockets to hold their phone or their wallet. And then hidden somewhere in the car is a very simple, like a hundred dollar T-amp with a Bluetooth receiver. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Wired into the original speakers and you're done. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see how it goes on the Aston Martin. It was, it worked beautifully. Everything worked great. It just, it's one of those things where you have to wonder like, how does this look in a few years? Cause now the technology is so much better than it used to be visually. Yeah. And, and generally functionally. But yeah, I don't know how it necessarily totals out. |
| Jason Heaton | I was going to ask, are you hearing any sort of whispers of snobbery or anything regarding, not snobbery, I guess, but, um, about Aston going to the Germans for, uh, for an engine for this car? I mean, is there any sort of sense of a letdown that they didn't use a, you know, a hand-built British engine in this, in this car, or it doesn't matter to you or to anybody else? |
| James | It certainly doesn't matter to me one bit, because in my opinion, AMG makes the finest engines in the world. Yeah. Especially when it comes to performance engines, that's what's in Pagani's. That's what's the basis for like a huge, unbelievable fleet of performance vehicles rely on their engines. They're still hand-making engines. Yeah. I think that they simply make some of the finest performance engines in the world. And certainly when you get into things like what Pagani gets, it's arguably the best engine in the world for its task, for being a hugely expensive, inefficient monster of a power plant. Yeah. They'll definitely be people who want to spend the extra, it was like 18 grand for the V12. And I get that a hundred percent, but it's 243 more pounds on the front axle in a car that's already 3,800 pounds as the V8. So it's not a light car to begin with. I mean, that's 800 pounds more give or take than the McLaren. Yeah. Roughly the same power. And, uh, and then, you know, in the vein, uh, because you have roughly 500 horses with the V8 and 600 horses with the V12, the McLaren's 563 or something like that. And it's interesting to think that somebody might mind because of course, previous Aston Martins, their V12 was like two V6 Mondeo engines with a, like a, uh, you know, the block was designed to carry both. Yeah. Both engines. I mean, Aston Martin. has been their their engine, sure, but they've been using other people's technology to keep that company alive for a long time, whether it's you go into an Aston Martin, and you've got Volvo parts, you've got Ford parts. Yeah, there's all sorts of stuff going on there. And so I'm not sure that that the like, prestige of a specific Aston Martin engine necessarily holds up when the company they went to for the V8 could probably build a better V12. I see. Yeah. So I ultimately, I think that comes down to people who would bought be buying a v12 for the prestige and i think depending on how you want to drive the car and if that v12 badge matters then sure otherwise i think the v8 is probably the move you save some money probably in that car the v8 volante is probably the move which comes out in the in the next like six weeks or so which is the convertible oh oh nice because it's not a track car yeah right so |
| Jason Heaton | Well, that's awesome. And then now you're, like me, you're between trips. You're, you're headed, are you going to Monaco? Is that where you're headed? |
| James | Yeah, I'm going, I'm flying to Nice for a press trip with Maserati to drive a somewhat updated Ghibli. You know, they recently updated the GT. Yeah. So yeah, that should be good. And yeah, we're going from Nice to Monte Carlo and then back. And I actually think it's like, I think it's four days of travel for one day in the car. Cause I have a huge layover in Frankfurt. I got to hang out for a little bit. Um, so this will actually go up the day I'm almost coming back. So, okay. Wow. By the time we're talking about it, most people would have seen it on Instagram already or whatever I can post from France anyways. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that should be fun. Obviously it should be good. I've not actually driven a Maserati ever. This will be a first. So, uh, I know I have to look into, cause I don't really know what the base for the Ghibli is. you know, being where that company gets some of their parts and such, it could be a Chrysler of some sort. Underneath, I'm not actually sure, but that's worth looking into. Cool. And yeah, so that, that should certainly be a good time. I mean, there's not really a bad day in a Maserati in the South of France, so. Yeah, really. Not exactly going to complain about any stage about that. And it looks like roughly around the time that I'm there, you're in Bonaire. So that should be amazing. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, headed back there this Saturday, so I'll be three days into the trip by the time this episode goes up. And yeah, it's kind of become an annual thing for my wife and I, and we're going with a new diver this time. Our sister-in-law is getting her certification, so it's always fun to dive with somebody who's a new diver, and I'll be taking, I've got that, what I've termed the Kraken, that Citizen 1,000-meter EcoDrive log. Should be fun. I'm actually taking my old 1985 Aqualand as well. So kind of doing the two ends of Citizen's modern dive watch heritage. |
| James | I like that. That's a good story. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of Bonaire, you know, we got a nice note from one of our listeners, Kelly, who's on Instagram as at Beer underscore N-Y-E. Beer Nye. Beer Nye. Yeah. Kelly had written a while back, a couple of months ago, probably asking for You know, because I'm always raving about Bonaire. And he had asked for some travel tips because he and his wife were going to go on their honeymoon somewhere and they'd considered Bonaire. So I gave him a few tips and he wrote us just, I don't know, this past week and said that they went there and had a great time. And, you know, Kelly, thanks for writing. Thanks for giving us the trip report. He sent a couple of photos, which I think I saw also on his Instagram feed. You know, Kelly, great to hear you had a good trip, and I'm glad you had a good honeymoon. And thanks for the new restaurant, Intel. I'll definitely have to try out that place that you suggested. So good on you. That's great. Congratulations on being a new diver, too. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah. And, you know, last episode, we were kind of talking about clothing choices, and you just got something in from Outlier, right? |
| James | I did, yeah. So Outlier emailed me a little while ago. or emailed us, emailed the show and Outwire is a New York based apparel brand that has developed a really respectable cult following for making these really high performance kind of future focused, but minimally designed clothing. Yeah. So I know that like lots of brands and even some of the stuff we spoke about on the last episode that like a lot of brands say that they make casual clothing to the same level as technical clothing. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | So I'll get to more details obviously, but this is casual clothing that exceeds any technical clothing I've owned. Just in terms of general wearability like typically something like sweatpants or those Eddie Bauer pants are about as good a pants experience from wearability that I've ever come across. But Outlier had sent us an email and made an offer and then I lost track of the email and then in that same span of time I actually came across a story on GQ about Outlier and I was like this is like reminding me of something I know. And then I was traveling and, you know, happened to get a wifi connection and I got an email and they were like, Hey, any response? And I was like, Oh, sure. Yeah. Let's, let's set this up. So they were very kind. I didn't pay for this. They sent me a pair of pants and a t-shirt and the pants are called the OG climber. And, uh, they're, uh, these are a black, basically look like a slim cut jean. Yeah. But they're made out of this, um, Scholler dry skin extreme. It's a Swiss material. It's a blend of like polyester and nylon and elastine. Hmm. It's not like anything I've ever worn before. Certainly, uh, at a distance, it looks like denim. It's not shiny. Huh. It's super light. It's really stretchy, like more than sweatpants. Huh. And it's just like everything about it feels like the most amazing pair of pants I've ever worn. Wow. They're not cheap, but I actually don't think they're very expensive for how nice they are. They sell these for 220 bucks. And the pants that kind of made them famous are these slim dungarees. They're like the most over-engineered, but aesthetically minimal chinos you can imagine. They come in a handful of different colors, and they're about 200 bucks. Yeah. And they're definitely on my list. I'll be buying a pair of those. Either the next time I'm in New York, I'll try and swing by their store and get kind of a bigger experience for the brand, or I'll just make an order. Uh, I am, I'm absolutely sold on the idea. These, uh, these black ones are probably the first pair of black pants I've owned in like 15 years. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James | That's a tough color. That's a tough color to pull off, isn't it? So now I just find I'm wearing all black. Like, like, cause I don't know how to dress for black. I don't have shoes. I don't have no shoes that go with black. So right now I'm wearing, I'm wearing these OG climber pants and a black Henley from ice breakers. Yeah. Yeah. I'm supremely comfortable. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | But I look like, yeah, I look like I got a chip on my shoulder. I always, for whatever reason, I know it's not. And like the black thing's always funny. I don't know if you ever remember, like, uh, what about Bob? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James | The Bill Murray movie. They tease the kid, his son for always wearing black. He's in mourning over his lost childhood, but he's like eight years old or whatever. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | And that's the first thing, as soon as I dressed in black, I just felt like I looked like that kid. And, uh, and yeah, so, I mean, back, back to the point, if you were in the market for, Just really like you want your normal everyday casual wear to be super high end, beautifully designed, but have no visible logos, no weird stitching, no offcuts, no accent details, really nothing just look like these look like a black pair of pants. Yeah. And then, you know, I was at a, I went to an event in Vancouver and a couple of the Red Bar guys, we'd been chatting about outlier and they're like, oh, are those the outliers? And then suddenly I had two or three people just kind of petting my leg to feel the material. And, uh, and it's great. I would say they're very slim, so be sure to use their sizing guide. I use the guide and it fits perfectly, but they are very slim and I'm a kind of tall, skinny guy, so it fits okay. But if they were any tighter, I would probably need a different sort of cut, especially for the thigh. Yeah. Um, I think this is exactly how they're supposed to be worn judging from, you know, the models and the pictures and that kind of thing. And then they sent a matching t-shirt, which is made from, uh, ultra fine Merino is what they call it. And it's, uh, it uses this McKenzie 17.5 Merino Jersey. So it's not like I've had a ton of Merino t-shirts before. Yeah. It's not like any of those. It sits differently on your body. It like has its own shape and it's a little bit heavier, but it's not thick. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | And it's unbelievably soft. And the only, my only, my only problem with this t-shirt is they're 110 bucks for one t-shirt. Oh, ouch. Yeah. And like, don't get me wrong. I've dug around and like you go on Reddit and find the guys talking about Outlier, people are paying that money and are super happy with their t-shirts. And there's a bunch of guys that I read about via this GQ story and then into Reddit that had like removed most of their wardrobe from their life and are down to just Outlier stuff because it's It's much higher end and it doesn't deal with sweat the same way. You don't have to wash it as often. Yeah. And it just allowed them to essentially build a uniform that was kind of tailored to biking to their job and then doing a job where maybe you work a long time. And then if you wanted to go right from there to the gym or to the climbing gym or whatever. Yeah. You had this all together and it was always in this very relaxed, casual, unbranded look. Yeah. Yeah. And I have no doubt that if I was in the market for $110 t-shirt, this would be the one I'd be looking at. But I mean, I just bought three t-shirts I really like from Kill Hubris, and it was like 75 bucks. Right. For three. Yeah. So I'm not questioning that they have a market or that it's too expensive. It's just that I think I'm not the guy buying $110 t-shirts, but I would, and I absolutely plan to once I pick the color, buy a pair of these slim dungarees. Yeah. I think it's just a blend of what you want to buy and whatnot. But I do highly recommend anybody, any of you that are kind of like obsessed with quality and, uh, and, and, and maybe wanting to minimize your either logos on your body or the aesthetic or whatever, check these guys out. I've not really come across a company like them before. And then in the show notes, I'll throw in that GQ story that I read that kind of gave me a good primer on the guys behind the brand and what they're attempting to do. Yeah. It's, it's cool. I'm, I'm, I'm definitely sold on it. And, and obviously I think there are people a ton for, uh, being open to sending us a sample and, uh, and, and basically it roped me into, uh, probably at least one more pants purchase. I think they, uh, I think they look great. |
| Jason Heaton | That's great. And you, you, you've got, um, you've got a watch in for review that, that as you're talking, it makes me think it must match your outfit really well. |
| James | Yeah, I do. It's, it's a little bit strange, but it definitely does. Cause it's on a black leather strap and it's also a watch that like, I'm, it's not one that I'm going to put on a NATO. Yeah, right. So I have this new, the new Nomos Tangente Neomatic 39 silver cut. Yeah. So they launched this like at work series, which is like a little bit ham fisted in its advertising where suddenly Nomos is offering a men's watch for the office. And it's, it didn't really translate that well for North Americans, but the products are neat. Basically what they've done is they've re-imagined their four core models. as 39 or 38.5 millimeter roughly. So you have the Tangente, the Metro, the Tetra and the Orion. Yeah. And now they offer them all in this slightly bigger size with the pneumatic movement. So previously the 38 millimeter versions use the alpha or generation versionals of those, they didn't have the pneumatics. Yeah. And so now you have a pneumatic in the core aesthetic. And all of them, you can still get the normal looking version with the kind of silvered cream dial. You know, they call it a silver white dial, something like that. But then all of them have another version, which is a deep blue dial, they're midnight blue. And then another version, which is the one that I got, which is the silver cut, which is a, it's a normal dial, but the finishing is a kind of, it's not rough, but it's a much more pronounced horizontal brush to the dial that gives it a really fantastic texture and it changes color in different light, much like silver does. The dial is not made out of silver, but it reacts in a similar way to silver where warmer light, you get a warmer tone, bluer light, it's a bluer tone. And the watch is really good. It wears pretty big at 39 millimeters. Certainly when you put it on, you'd notice it being a lot bigger than your normal Tangente. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, and that watch has those long lugs. That was always kind of the issue, but I'm looking at your Instagram photo that you posted, and it looks fine. I mean, you don't have like a beefy wrist. Your wrist is smaller than mine, and it looks fine on you. |
| James | Yeah, the Orion has the most pronounced of their lugs, and I'm not sure what the lug-to-lug on a 39mm Orion would be, but for this 39mm case, it's a 48mm lug-to-lug, which is super wearable. And 7.2 millimeters thick, that's one of the big benefits of them transitioning away from the alphas to the pneumatic movements is the DUW-3001 is a thinner movement, so you get a thinner overall case. Sure. So at 7.2 millimeters, it really has the feel of a much more expensive watch. If you've ever picked up a Piaget, anything like that, then suddenly you understand both the size and the thickness pretty well. Yeah. So it sits on the wrist really nicely. You get a display case back. The dial is, apart from the silver cut finish, is just tangente. I mean, there's not that much more to say about it. It's super legible. It's almost style agnostic in that if you put, I would say the only thing that you would ever change on a Nommos is maybe the color of the strap. Maybe you'd buy the brown one so that you'd had two options. But yeah, when you pair this up with that kind of outlier aesthetic and it all kind of works because it's all very minimal. yeah and uh and it almost the outlier stuff almost makes Nomos feel over branded because like i had to dig around into the leg of the pants just to find where it said outlier on them and the package they sent me had no literature no note nothing yeah a folded up pair of pants in a white bag and a folded up t-shirt in a white bag and nothing else And, uh, and yeah, so either way I have the, I have the gnomos for a few more days. So it'll, it'll actually have already gone back to a gnomos when this episode goes live, but the review should go up sometime, sometime roughly around the time that this episode goes up. So if there's a link, I'll put it in the show notes. If not just watch Hodenki, that's where it'll show up. And I mean, it's, it's hard to say like nothing that gnomos does is ever especially new. Yeah. And I think that's to their credit. They just kind of work with anything the Nomos. I mean, the legibility is great. And I like that they're using this kind of bright red seconds hand on the sub-dial gives it a little bit more flash. Yeah. And there's a bunch of new models in this at work series. So I'll throw a link in the show notes so you can go to Nomos and check it out. But like each of the four core designs from Nomos, each one of them, there's four or five models. Hmm. depending on the dial. And then some of them have a dial with color and without, and then like the Metro, you can now get in a rose gold case. So I think that's their first time making a core model in gold. They had the Lamba and the Wybgold previously, but those were entirely different things that like Lange helped them design and make. And now you have a core model, the Metro in a rose gold case. And it's, I think it's like 12 grand Canadian. Hmm. So I don't, my guess is they don't plan to sell a ton of those. That's not only quite a bit of money, but I think the Metro is one of their more quirky designs. Yeah. But it's interesting to see them kind of fanning out. I don't know what this means for the 38 millimeter core models. My guess is they'll disappear slowly. And then if you had a tango mat, which is the automatic tangente previously. Yeah. Now this tangente is automatic. So my guess is the tango mat is on its way out as well. Oh yeah. Which would only make sense. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So you're rocking the architect look these days from head to toe. |
| James | Oh yeah. I need like some, I need some like really clean glasses. Exactly. Exactly. Maybe we're like clear. Right. Yeah. They would have to be clear. Cause I wouldn't want to draw any attention to the fact that there wouldn't be any lenses in them. Right. Right. And then I would have to start shaving I think too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is a bad scene. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | But yeah, I've got the, I'm just head to toe in black. |
| Jason Heaton | With a Nomos. |
| James | With a Nomos. Yeah. And yeah, I've spent a lot of time today looking at mid-century modern furniture. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. If you're going to do a look, just lean into it. |
| Jason Heaton | Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. |
| James | And I'll slowly become a character from like one of the lesser Wes Anderson films. Right, right. But yeah, I like The Watcher. I'm a big fan of Nomos. My problem with Nomos is I typically have choice anxiety in ever considering one for me. Yeah. And the funny thing is, is the one I want the most right now, and it may well work out in the future, is that I still like that Campus Club the most. Oh, yeah. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Which is, it's now by far one of the cheapest watches because it uses an old movement. It's not a pneumatic. Yeah. But I love the aesthetic. And every time I see one, I think they look really cool. That gray on silver with the red. I just think that's a cool watch. I love the Cali dial. I love that it's it's the weird one. It's kind of the same, same thing with my EXP-2, the Polar. Yeah. Is it's the weird one. Yeah. Right. So I could very well see myself getting one of those and, you know, wearing it on a NATO. I think it would look pretty cool. So I might have to at least test drive that sometime in the future. |
| Jason Heaton | Nice. All right. Well, what do you say we jump into our next section? For sure. You know, we tried to do this last episode. We got so, you know, down the clothing rabbit hole that we skipped over it. So we kind of you know, we get enough questions these days that we aren't able to, you know, keep up with or answer regularly. So we're going to put, put this new series into the shows that we're calling quality queries, which is we're taking some of the more interesting questions that people send in. Maybe it's about, um, you know, products or, you know, um, the freelance life, um, uh, you know, recommendations could be anything. It could be anything. Um, and we thought we'd kick off today with a question from a listener named Brad, who emailed us to ask about kind of the way we work, you know, now that we're both full-time freelance writers. Brad asked if we sit down all at once to write things out, or he says, does it take place over a couple of days? Are you making notes while you go along that get turned into a full article? I'm guessing, you know, you and I probably work a little bit differently. Maybe we have some overlap. How do you tend to work on a story? |
| James | For me, it entirely depends on my experience writing a similar story. Yeah. So if it's my first time writing about this thing, then I go full into research. So I will write essentially a side paper of a lot of random thoughts and anything I can find essentially like a running bibliography of any information. So if I'm writing a profile for Shifted, which is kind of a new thing for me, it's not a watch review, it's not writing about cars, uh, I'll end up with a huge text file of research and then I'll try to string together a timeline and then go from there with some sort of a piece that's being written. With a watch review, I typically just have to wait until I have an idea for what I want to say. I try and only say one thing in a watch review, like have one point. Yeah. So if it's a 42 millimeter Panerai, the point is that the 42 millimeter makes all these guys that we're waiting, guys and gals possibly, that we're waiting for a submersible that they could wear. Yeah. These benched Panerai fans now have a watch. That was the whole, you could sum up that whole review into one sentence. And I think that's probably the best way to go about it. Yeah. The rest is like color. It explains photographs or I tell you how the bezel feels or some stuff like that, which is going to matter to some, but not to everybody. Right. And, uh, and then with cars, so far, it depends on whether or not I'm doing, if it's a drive, like with the Aston, I try and make it about the experience. Yeah. So I talk about the roads I'm driving and what the weather was like and all that kind of thing. And so far that's worked out really well. And it's a much more approachable way, especially because, uh, Nuvo is not a car magazine. It's not a buff book. Yeah. So I have to respect the fact that most of the readership to Nuvo is coming there for travel stories and culture stories. Sure. And more lifestyle based stuff. And, and so that I blend that in by instead of saying, having a paragraph that lists all the specifications. I try and blend it in into a random sentence here or there so you're not kind of like bombarding people with it. It's almost the opposite of a watch review. Oh, right, right. So yeah, I mean, and then how I write, I don't know. I'm still pretty new to, not to writing certainly, but to like this being my day to day. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | So if I already know what I want to say, I'll go to a coffee shop and put on like one song by Wolfpack for three hours and just write the whole thing. If I'm not really sure what I want to say, then I'll probably like go write a half hour somewhere and then move to another place or to another place or do it, just stay in bed. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I'll bounce between YouTube videos and then writing a sentence. And then finally I'll hit a sentence. I'm happy. Like that moves, moves me to another thought. Yeah. And then it's, it's over, but I'm, I'm still learning about that process. Currently there's not that much process for me. I like to write, I like to write in bed if I can. Huh. Interesting. Um, just because I'm, I'm comfortable enough there. And then when it's something that I'm not that excited about, because I don't really know what I want to say yet. I usually trade 30 minutes of writing for a YouTube video or a drink of water or something like that. Yeah. So that you pace it out instead of putting all your YouTube videos at the front and then watching, you know, suddenly it's noon. Yeah. You've been finger quotes writing for three or four hours. Yeah, and you've got nothing. I mean that word documents empty Yeah, yeah, but yeah, it's a pace is important and then I almost never write This would be interesting because maybe you do because sometimes when you you put something in slack, you'll be like I wrote this today Yeah, I don't ever start and finish something in one day. Really Wow I'll write like for tomorrow, I'm going to write the NOMOS review. So I'll write whatever, it's probably, I'll shoot for 22, 2300 words and then I'll cut five or 600 words out. Yeah. And I'll do the first phase of that tomorrow and maybe the cutting phase tomorrow, but I won't be like at a point where I would send it to Hodinkee and be like, Hey guys, I'm done. Yeah. Like I want to sleep on it. Yeah. And my brain kind of keeps thinking about whatever you wrote. Yeah. And then I go back to it the next morning with like a cup of coffee and a different perspective and then try and cut more if I can and that kind of thing. |
| Jason Heaton | Huh. This is almost like psychoanalysis. I mean, your style is, it's, it's quite different from mine. And I, I don't know how it reflects on other aspects of our lives or our personalities, but I, I'm, I'm someone who I don't take a lot of notes and I write extremely fast, but I tend to do it. I don't want to say at the last minute, but I do it all at once. I usually will sit down and plow through You know, up to 3,000 words just in one go and, you know, three, four hours. |
| James | And like even then send it? |
| Jason Heaton | Like submit it? No, no. What has to happen for me is I have to have the first sentence. Once I get the first sentence. Oh, a hundred percent. It's the rest absolutely just flows to the end. And then I always struggle a little bit with the ending, but usually. Yeah, endings are always hard. Usually I try to tie my ending to the beginning and then it's, it just feels right. And then I, I shut off. I just, just. I'll set it aside and then I will read through it the next day. And that's when I make my edits. I rarely cut. It's interesting to hear that you cut, you can cut, you know, whatever you said, six or 800 words, or I I've never cut that much. I, I might rearrange a paragraph, like move it around, but I, I rarely cut words, um, other than, you know, half a sentence here and there, but, um, my stuff usually emerges sort of fully formed, but the danger in that is that I tend to wait until And I hope none of our editors or my editors are listening because I tend to wait till like the day before something's due or day before I've promised something and then I will just sit and just plow through it. I think I need that sense of pressure. That's not to say that I'm not thinking about it or that I'm not formulating it because, you know, maybe it's maybe it's kind of a justification for watching a lot of YouTube videos or tinkering with the Land Rover or going for a lunchtime ski or something. But it's all right. It is, it's all writing. I like to think that I'm on input for long periods of time and then the output kind of comes in kind of a one big rush. But I'm not, I'm more of, I think I'm more of an emotional writer. I don't, I'm not heavy on the facts, I guess, unless it's a story that requires that. I've got a piece in the upcoming shifted that required a bit of research and, you know, certainly wanted to get the facts right. I'm generally kind of a, I kind of try to come up with a, you know, like you said, sort of a thesis or a theme that, that I'm going to tell. And then, then it all just kind of comes from there. Until I have that thesis in my head, I can't put a single word on the page. |
| James | I know with, I know with watch reviews, I can pretty much sit down, like I'll know that the ask was 2000 words. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | And like all, I can probably sit down and just write 2000 words. Yeah. I'm a lot more comfortable if I sit there and I forget spelling and like most punctuation and just kind of like go stream of consciousness. Yeah. And then at the end I go, Ooh, nobody's buying 2,600 words of this. And then you just trim it down to what's good. And then I don't, because I mean, everybody who listens to this show knows that I tend to repeat, um, when I'm, when I'm looking for a point and then what everybody listening to the show doesn't realize, and Jason, you do realize this, I really cut out a lot of rambling in most episodes. So like earlier in the episode, you would have heard me, I don't know, talk about the displays in an Aston Martin. I guarantee that was six times longer. Cause I just, I just kind of rambled my brain still trying to find maybe the final position or you're, you know, and, and especially when it comes to like a conversation, you're taking input. Right. And it's kind of the same where you sit there and like you write something about a watch and you're like, Oh, was this the first one? And then you go to Google and you start kind of digging around and you're like, well, not this one and that one. So you're in this input phase where you're having this sort of conversation with yourself. And I find that that reflects... It depends on what I'm writing about, basically, whether or not I'll have to cut a lot. If I have a pretty solid idea, like the panner I want, I just sat down and wrote the whole thing. And then it was a sentence or two off. But it doesn't always work out like that. And certainly like with the I also have a piece in issue three of shifted, and that one took an unbelievable amount of work for me more than it would have for you or for somebody else, simply because it was kind of my first swing at that kind of content. And it required a huge amount of research to establish a timeline, deal with things written in other languages, and all that kind of stuff. And then when I was done, I would overwrite a lot of things and re-say them or say them in ways that had already kind of been covered. And anything you can say once is probably fine. So just delete it. Yeah. But, and then there's, there's also like, there's a disparity in our experience and our skillset. I'm a fast writer and I'm like, I'm okay writing to fax and things like that, but you're a much stronger writer than I am. And you've been doing it longer than I have. So that you would think that would probably play out in your ability to sit down and just kind of create a roughly finished piece in one go. Whereas I might take two. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, and I think you pay much more or give much more care or attention to the actual facts. That sounds terrible. But, you know, I think we'd had this conversation a while ago about when you were doing a watch review, you would actually take your calipers out and measure the watch. And you thought that was a very important element to the review. And I hadn't even considered doing that. |
| James | But it made me think about it. Almost nowhere includes lug to lug. Yeah, right. I don't have to tell you what a 42 millimeter watch feels like. Yeah. We've all owned a 42 millimeter watch, but like thickness is very important and case profile and lug to lug is important, and I think weight is very important. Yeah. So to measure that, you need calipers, you need a simple kitchen scale, things like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I've always, since I first got into reviewing watches, I thought... I always liked when you'd go on Watch You Seek and a guy was that Right, right. He knew the audience that well. And to be honest, maybe that's not the audience that's reading Hodinkee, but they may not want those details. I did get some comments where people really liked that I included the lug to lug, so I'll probably hold onto that. But sometimes I could be too tied to that, you know, just processing spec after spec after spec, which isn't that really interesting from a reader standpoint. It might be helpful if you were actually planning to buy the watch. Yeah. Otherwise, maybe it's a disservice. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I think this is what makes our business so interesting is that there are so many of us that write in such different ways and different styles. And it's kind of the strength of, you know, you and I write for Shifted and we both write for Hodinkee. And I think people can read both of our stuff and appreciate both for different reasons. And I think it's just fascinating to find out how different writers work differently. I'd love to almost interview others and see how they work as well. |
| James | But, uh, yeah, well, I mean, and there's some, there's some really solid writers at Hoding Key. That'd be, it'd be very interesting to learn if you could, in my case, if I could pick up on some of their good habits. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so that, that would be an interesting thing, uh, to consider if maybe we readdress this, uh, Brad's question sometime in the future as, as part of our interview series. Yeah. |
| Unknown | Nice. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, thanks Brad for, for writing in on that. That's a, that was a good, uh, really good question. And we'll, we'll try to get to more of these, uh, in future episodes. |
| James | Yeah. And then, uh, I do actually have a request for questions. Uh, so in the next little while, I'm going to do an interview with, uh, a real legit, highly trained Wostep watchmaker. And I just need questions that you would like to ask a watchmaker, but you wouldn't ask the guy that you maybe take your watch to, or you don't know a watchmaker as frank as open, whatever you want. Thegreatnadoatgmail.com. Please send me your questions. Maybe even if you could just do me a small favor in the subject for the email, say like watchmaker question. Oh, yeah. Just so I can process them a little bit more quickly. The email things become a little bit insane some days. And, and I get to every email and everybody gets a reply. But with these ones, I just like to be able to very quickly kind of categorize them. Yeah. And that way we can, I can kind of collate the questions and make sure as many possible topics are covered. But if you have questions about movements or service or, or whatever, just send us the questions and I can get them to the watchmaker as soon as we do the the interview. So with that, We're nearly at an hour before I cut out all my rambling. How about the main topic? We were, we were thinking about doing a gift guide, a buying guide, uh, an item idea guide. And I think we kind of settled on a format where we just didn't want to kind of offer the same items that you might find on other gift guides. Right. Or that you would already know if you've listened to a lot of Grenado stuff. Yeah. So we're not going to do a lot of repetition here. This is going to be fairly fast. And obviously you should still swing by places like Gear Patrol and Outside, Adventure Journal, all of these guys, Primer, they'll all have these buying guides for this time of year that will give you the kind of standards and deeper into various aspects that those sites are best for. For us, these are things that Jason and I either personally bought this year with our money or that we got to experience to an extent where we would spend our money to buy one for someone else. Yeah, definitely. So Jason, if you want to kick it off, first on your list is as good a spot as any to start. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, this is a good one. This really wasn't on my radar, but it came about, I don't know, about a month ago when I got that Land Rover that we talked about a couple of shows ago. So this vehicle has sort of a little under seat storage area. And given that it's an old British car, there's need to be carrying tools with you. And, um, sure. I was asking you about it and you, you kind of came up with, with a really good idea and I went ahead and bought it. It's from a company called Atlas 46 and it's, it's just called the tool roll pouch XL. And, um, as the name suggests, you know, it's, it's kind of a half roll. Like you'd almost picture like an oversized watch roll. but then instead of sort of slots for putting wrenches and things, it actually has zippered pouches of varying sizes that then you sort of roll up like a burrito and then clip it with, um, you know, it's sort of a clip and then it has a handle and even a shoulder strap, um, that can also be used to hang this thing vertically. Like you would maybe, uh, one of those bathroom kits that you'd, you know, hang in your hotel room or something. And it was $60 and I ordered it directly from Atlas 46 and it's made of kind of a nice, I got the khaki canvas, just simple. I mean, there's not much to this thing. It's, it's, as I'm describing, you can, you can check it out in the show notes, take a, take a look at their website. It's really cool. It's, it's, it's really compact. It fits nicely in the space that I've got and it holds a surprising amount of tools. I just think it'd be a great gift for anybody who, you know, is kind of a tinkerer whether it's sort of something you want to, you know, take it on the road, maybe keep it as a, an emergency backup tool kit in the back of the car. You can throw some wrenches and I keep, you know, zip ties and, and tape and, and, uh, you know, multimeter and, and screwdrivers and that sort of thing. And it's working out really well. So, you know, I've got you to thank for, for that recommendation, but I went ahead and bought it and, uh, I recommend it really, really awesome. |
| James | Yeah. I actually found that one. Here's a small pro tip for anybody that's likes to look for products online. Jason pinged me and said, I'm looking for something to store some tools under the seat of the Land Rover. And I asked him a couple of questions about the size of the seat and kind of got an idea for what it was in my brain. The next step is don't go to regular Google, go to Google image search. Oh yeah. And type in what you think, and then just start scrolling like mad. I didn't even scroll that far. And there was a picture of this roll, the Atlas 46 tool roll and turns out it was good. So I find more things that way. By using image search than I do normal searches simply because the response rate you're seeing all the responses immediately rather than clicking into them Oh, yeah. Yeah, so that's my small pro tip for anybody hunting out hunting out various conveniences when it comes to product and such Yeah, nice. What's your first item? My first is one I didn't pay for but I've now bought One and it'll be a second one shortly for gifts for Christmas this year and this is the big eye designs titanium pocket clip So I talked about it on a previous show. We, we spoke about this like basic metal pocket clip that I got on eBay and then, um, Big Eye Designs, or I guess as they're, as they're known, kind of their full name is Big Idea Designs, but it's BigEyeDesign.com. They make this titanium clip and it looks kind of like a little wrench and they, they were kind enough to send me one. It has a little flashlight in the top. And it's a, you know, a simple kind of imagine, uh, like a hook and it has a loop at the bottom where you put your key chain, has a tiny button on the back to turn the flashlight on like a dead man switch. It weighs nothing. You can open a beer with it if you want, which came in handy in like Tennessee. We didn't, didn't have a beer opener and I had this thing in my pocket and then you look like a all-star when you rip this thing out. And I've been carrying it since they sent it to me and I absolutely adore it. Huh. It's worth every dollar of the 50 bucks. If you have a key chain, like I don't carry car keys, so I just have a couple of normal sized keys, house, mail, that sort of thing. Yeah. And it plops into your pocket. It keeps your keys from going to the bottom of your pocket. They make a version that's 10 bucks less at $40 that doesn't have the flashlight. It has a one quarter hex bit driver kind of in the hook and all the edges are smoothed off. So it's not going to rip or wear against your pants. It doesn't weigh anything. Yeah. These guys did a really good job. It's well-designed. When I first got it, I thought like, oh, this is big. It's like the size of a key. But the fact is it's perfect. And I've already ordered one through a family member in the States. And I plan to do at least another one just because I think they make a really great gift. And it's kind of a different thing. Like if you know somebody that doesn't drive, they probably don't have a giant key on their key ring. Yeah. But again, if you don't drive, you also don't have a place like a car to put your keys down. Yeah. Or, you know, into the dash, if you're driving a car that has like a conventional key. Yeah. And this way they're just always at hand. They're never in the way. And with the, with the $50 one, you got a little flashlight in case you drop your keys on like you, not your keys, but if you drop something on the ground or you want to see a keyhole or whatever, it's come in handy a few times where I didn't have a larger, more legit flashlight on me. I highly recommend these and I think they've made a great product. So easy choice for the opening for the gift guide. Nice. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I've got my next one is it's also kind of an EDC, everyday carry thing. It's called the Embassy Pen. This is something that's been around a long time. A number of different websites sell it, including the Hodinkee Shop sells it. You can also get it on CountyCom, which is that sort of military surplus kind of real heavy into kind of the EDC scene. Anyway, the embassy pen is, I guess the backstory is that this is sort of an issued government pen that was issued to diplomats and I suppose different military folks. And it actually has a, like a US government stock number sort of stamped into the pocket clip on it. And it comes in a number of materials. They make one out of stainless steel, they make a brass one, an aluminum one, and then they even make a copper one. I'm looking at CountyCom's website. I have the brass one, and I don't know offhand how much it weighs, but it's a heavy pen. It is incredibly... I'm not even a pen geek. I know there are a lot of people out there that are into writing instruments, as they call them. This is just a pen. This is a heavy pen. In fact, some places have read that TSA, you know, here in the U.S. airports will sometimes confiscate them as a potential weapon because you could use it as like a coubaton in your hand. But it just has such a quality feel. It's just a joy to write with. The cap screws on and then in your hand it just has this weight to it. But it's not slippery. It's the right length and it has this knurling. And then it uses a Fisher space pen insert. So it's one of these you know, pens that you could write underwater and in zero gravity, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and of course it's refillable, but, uh, I got mine, I got the brass one, um, when I was in New York a few weeks ago and I actually was coveting the one that, uh, our friend Jack Forster had in the office and, and, uh, I worked out a little trade for, for something and, and I ended up going home with it and I've just been in love with it ever since. They're, they're a bit spendy that the brass one I have goes for, ninety eight bucks on county com you can get the aluminum one for seventy five so this isn't this isn't your disposable sort of big pen but uh... uh... if you're someone that kind of enjoys you know just a well-crafted instrument of any sort whether it's a flashlight a watcher or in this case a pen uh... it's just it's it's a it's a cool gift in that kind of middle price range so uh... good choice yeah what's next for you? |
| James | Well, let's keep the EDC ball running. Uh, the next one for me would be the EDC watch fold from worn and wound. Oh yeah. Uh, so I was given this as a gift, uh, earlier in the year and awesome. Really, really cool. If, uh, if I'd had a chance to see one kind of in person, which is always the struggle with, uh, some of these goods that are pretty much only sold online and I didn't make it to wind up, uh, certainly. And, uh, I wouldn't have known, but this is now has become the only way that I kind of take watches out and carry them around. It's just the right size. And on a trip where I want to say two watches, so one's going to be on my wrist, one would be in the case, then the other side could hold a spare strap or two, maybe a change tool, whatever. Yeah. It's also a good place to throw a few bucks in case you lose your wallet or some, that kind of scenario comes up. And I've got this one, it's kind of like a military green with an orange keeper, like an orange strap. And then the inside is like gray nylon. And I mean, the Warner One guys should be really proud of these things. They're 70 bucks, which in the realm of watch cases is not that much money. Yeah. And they have a new version that's made out of Harris tweed, a little bit of a classier thing. These ones are a little bit more, um, just kind of normal utilitarian. I think they're, I think I really liked the one I have. I wouldn't necessarily trade it for one in tweed, but if you want one, that's a little bit dressier, a little bit more Tweedy, if you will, it's a hundred bucks. And for that price, I think it's totally worth it. You can get more complicated rolls for that money, but I think the simplicity that this offers, the way that it sits in a bag and the way that it maintains, you know, you basically put one watch head down and one watch strap down, and then the heads, the cases of the watches aren't in any contact, even if it shuffles around a bit in the bag. Right. And yeah, a hundred percent. totally happy with these and as soon as I have the opportunity to buy one as a gift to sort of return the favor, I will. I think they should be really proud of it as a product. I've been happy with it. Cool. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I'm going to stick with the watch theme and jump into a watch actually. This is one that a friend of mine, Brian, locally here in St. Paul, actually lent me, I don't know, probably a month or so ago to just wear around because when I saw it on his wrist, I was I was just blown away, and I actually posted a photo on it on Instagram stories a few days ago, and I got so many direct messages, people asking what the reference is. So I'm going to mention it here. It's the Seiko 5 SRP-B27. And I think it retails for about $375, but you can get it, we'll put the link in the show notes, you can get it on eBay, at least as long as it lasts, for $169. And it's just a killer watch. It's so cool. sort of a super compressor dive style, but it has two crowns. It has a crown at three o'clock for, you know, time setting and winding. And then the crown up at just above it at two o'clock is for operating the internal bezel, which isn't a ratcheting bezel and it's bidirectional, but it moves really well. The case is, you know, nicely done. It's got a beautiful, very crisp dial. The particular reference here that the 27 is a black with some gray accents on it, good lume. I'm so smitten with this watch and I don't own one yet, but I'm tempted to get one. And I think it's just one of those watches that, you know, let's say there's somebody who, maybe it's a teenager or somebody's husband or, you know, just anybody who says, you know, What should I get? You know, this guy wants, he's kind of interested in watches. Um, what would I get for his first mechanical watch? I would, I'd go with this one, you know, every day of the week. I think it's just, uh, it's a great value of course. And everybody knows the Seiko for what it is, but, uh, I just, I really liked the styling of this and, uh, yeah, so you can, you can get one of those and put it in the, in the, uh, worn and wound, uh, pouch. |
| James | Yeah, for sure. I think that's an absolute winner. It's a great aesthetic. It's a little bit out of left field because it's not an SKX007 or 009. Yeah. 100% looks really good. And really, it's always hard to go wrong with a Seiko 5. So if you can find one that has such a nice aesthetic. Right. All the better. Yeah. I'm going to go full left field with a weird thing that I found via a YouTube channel called a dimple.io. And I'll try and explain this as quickly as possible because it's only going to apply to Android users. But basically, uh, obviously Android and iPhone have NFC near field communication. And basically what this is, is a sticker that has four buttons on it. Yeah. And then each button can be programmed via NFC to run a shortcut essentially for your phone. Oh, okay. So it adds four physical buttons to your phone that requires no charging, no anything. It's just like a, it's a thin sticker that goes on the back of the phone that kind of has kind of like four rubbery buttons, almost like the buttons on a GoPro. Yeah. And you can talk, you can go into the settings and set them up to do whatever you want. So if you have an Android phone or maybe your kids have an Android phone. And you want to show them maybe a little bit more about the technology or about programming or whatever. Like I actually just found it nerd wise to be fairly interesting. Yeah. When I saw it and then I bought it on a whim and I bought a few of them as gifts and you know, they're 18 bucks for this thing. And it's a gray, I think it's either gray or purple and you stick it on the back of your phone, kind of wherever your fingers sort of fall on the case of the phone. And then I've got it programmed to launch the VPN from my phone, toggle Bluetooth, toggle Wi-Fi and turn the flashlight on or off. |
| Unknown | Huh. |
| James | So now I don't have to go into a menu to do any of that. And all you have to do is basically turn the phone on, press and hold the button and Bluetooth on or off. Yeah. And sure. Does it save me any legitimate amount of time? |
| Unknown | Nope. |
| James | Not at all. But I like the nerd aspect of it. I like that it runs on NFC. I kind of like it as a product. And I find the functionality to be useful because I can bury a couple apps like my VPN I do a fair amount of travel now. And even when I'm at home, I'm using random wifi connections at coffee shops. So I do everything through a VPN. Right. And here's another suggestion. If you or a family member is in a scenario where you use unprotected wifi, like wifi that's not at your house, you should be using a VPN. And I recommend PIA, P-I-A, private internet access. It's so private, you can even pay with a gift card from another company if you're that concerned about it. I pay via PayPal. I don't actually care if there's a record that I have used PIA, but I can connect to the shadiest Wi-Fi in the world with a high degree of certainty that I'm okay. And that's a great gift too at about 60 bucks a year. Oh, nice. But back to the point, this is called the Dimple.io and it's NFC buttons for Android phones. It's 18 bucks. Link is in the show notes. If you have enough experience with NFC or Android to kind of follow the the concept of what that is, these weird stick-on buttons, then I highly recommend it. It's fun. It adds some functionality. And if you're moving around a lot and you have to turn Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and all that kind of on off, then it's pretty handy. I don't believe it has any functionality with iPhone. |
| Jason Heaton | That might be the most interesting stocking stuffer you could get. That would be. |
| James | Yeah, I think so. I think if you've got a friend who's tied into even just an Android tablet or something like that, then yeah, I think You're definitely going to get a weird look because it's just this weird little sticker. Yeah. Right. And then when you start to explain it, there's a concept behind it that you have to kind of understand and then set the setups really interesting. And you can, each one can be programmed to do even a series of things. Yeah. And then there's an API, so other people can design functionality for the buttons. Nice. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | It was fun. I'm enjoying it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Well, I'm going to go decidedly more analog swing back to the other end of the spectrum here, and I'm going to recommend a book. You know, we've in the past talked about sort of adventure books and that sort of thing, and you're kind of our car guy, and I think we've talked about cars a bit, so this sort of merges the two. It's a book called First Over Land, and it's about the Oxford-Cambridge-London-to-Singapore journey by Land Rover that was done in 1955. It's just one of those fun sort of rollicking adventure stories that, as the title suggests, was a group of guys that were sort of college buddies, early 20s, had just graduated and decided in the mid 50s that after they graduated that they wanted to take on something monumental, some sort of adventure like we've, you know, lots of the stuff that you and I dream about a lot. And they approached the Rover Car Company to get a couple of what were then new on the market, series one Land Rovers and took about a year to put together sponsorships and organize the logistics. And they set off from London and they drove over land, obviously had to cross the channel before they could get to France. But then from there it was all on roads all the way to Singapore. |
| Unknown | Fantastic. |
| Jason Heaton | And it's just, it's a great, it's a great book. You can get it on like Amazon for about 15 bucks. The author's name is Tim Slessor. He was one of the guys that did it and he wrote the book not long after the trip was completed and they've done multiple reprints. I found on YouTube there's like a half hour BBC special that kind of looks back at the journey they did with some of the original film footage. You know, it's one of those trips you couldn't do today because of the countries they were traveling through are now, you know, politically just, you know, volatile and dangerous and, you know, that overland travel is just very different than it was back then. Um, just, you know, just a really cool story. So, um, you know, for, for a $15 book, great sort of stocking stuffer for somebody who's into overlanding or, or just a sort of adventure travel. It's a, it's kind of a neat gift. |
| James | So that's a great one for the like office, Christmas pool, whatever's going on with your secret Santa or that kind of thing. |
| Unknown | Yes. Yeah. |
| James | I mean, I, you know, maybe, maybe you'd land in a secret Santa scenario where the person has no real interest in that, but even still. Maybe you'd open their eyes to it. Yeah. Here's one that I could recommend. When I get into like the, say, $25 to $100 gifts, my goal is always like, can you remove a pain point from somebody's life for that much money? Oh, yeah. Because that's a tiny amount of money to remove a pain point. Right. And so for that, this is a real left field because I'm not especially handy when it comes to like repairs and fixing things. I get lucky sometimes, but I don't really know what I would do without a simple electric screwdriver. Oh yeah. I think that they're overlooked. You see them every time you go into a Home Depot or Canadian Tire or whatever. And I've seen, you know, Amazon's got them for as little as 25 bucks. I have one from Ryobi, that's four volts. It charges in this little cradle. You never think about it, except when I have to hang a painting or fire a screw into something to fix it. And then I don't want to pull out a great big drill that like either I forgot to charge, you have to plug into the wall. Like I prefer a power, like a wired drill. And those are fine when you have to construct something. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | But I find that like not even nine times out of 10, 99 times out of a hundred around the house, when I need to go fix something, I'll either grab one of those pick quick screwdrivers. You know the ones I mean that have all the bits in the handle? Yes. Yeah. Those are like eight bucks. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Buy those for everyone you know. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | They're really nice. And suddenly the person's what maybe, maybe, maybe they've got this Atlas 46 tool roll pouch. |
| Unknown | Yeah. Yeah. |
| James | Get them, get them two or three pick quicks in there too. Yeah. It's going to bring you to $75 and you've made it. So the person could have a condo, no real interest in fixing things, but like could remove the shroud from a lamp to replace the bulb, something like that. Yeah. Without having to dig through like dad's leftover screwdrivers or whatever. Yeah, with the electric screwdriver and a simple driver set and a bit set, you can pretty much do most of what drills are required to do. Yeah. And I find them very handy. So I don't care about brand or any of it because at a certain point, they're kind of disposable. Right. Some of them you can't even remove the battery, at least the Ryobi you can like unscrew and remove the battery. That's how it charges. And you could replace the battery, but really who cares? Yeah. Yeah. If you've got, if you've got a kid or a niece or a nephew, who's kind of just into that age where they might be taking apart computers or building things or whatever, this is a really good gift. They're supremely handy around the house, especially in like, I live in a condo. So I don't really have a workshop. I don't have space for a ton of tools, right? Whatever I have has to be like, what's the most versatile. And this is the one I seem to pick up the most often. So for 25 bucks, you might actually simplify somebody's life. They might, they might, you know, be able to stop carrying a big drill to go do something simple. And then half the time the drill is too powerful for what you wanted to do anyways. And you end up stripping a screw or whatever. Yeah. Hmm. Nice. Weird tip from me, admittedly, not the handiest dude around, but I find I use mine all the time. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| Unknown | Nice. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, my next pick is kind of back to, I guess, our sartorial, you know, selections again, going back to, it's sort of clothing. It's, I guess, it's more of an accessory. It's the stringback driving gloves from our friends over at Autodromo. Oh, sure. Who most people might know for their their watches, but, uh, you know, in the past they've done some nice sunglasses and these gloves have been kind of a staple of their collection for a few years now. And I have a pair of, I've had a pair for, for several years. I think even the first year they offered these, um, driving gloves, they're, they're great. They're, um, you know, even if you're not, uh, you know, driving like a wooden steering wheel triumph or something like that, or alpha Romeo or whatever, um, you just, they're so nice for, for not, um, Not so much for cold weather. I mean, they don't really provide much warmth, but they're great for sort of getting a grip on the steering wheel. And these look particularly nice. You know, you can get some driving gloves that maybe look a little too retro, you know, the kind with kind of the cutouts for the knuckles and things like that. And the Autodromo ones are just, they're soft and sort of buttery. I don't know if they're like deer skin or something on the palms, but then the back has this sort of nice cotton mesh, you know, stringback style. Um, elastic around the cuff. Um, they're, they're, they're just really sharp. They're 125 bucks and they come in a few different colors. And, uh, you know, they just add a little panache to your driving and they're, they're kind of a nice gift. I just think gloves in general are great gift. I, I seem to never be able to have enough pairs of gloves. So these are, these are some of my favorites. So yeah, check those out. Uh, Autodromo is of course usually spot on with their, their design. And I know you've got one of their watches and the gloves are just a great, uh, just a great addition. So check those out. |
| James | Yeah, the gloves, the gloves are really cool. I don't, I don't think I could really pull them off behind the wheel of a Mazda. Um, but if you've got the right car for them, I'm sold. I think they look great. And, uh, and certainly if you've already got the, if you're kind of into the Autodromo vibe with the watches, I think it's a good suit. Same with the sunglasses, which look fantastic. |
| Jason Heaton | I've actually thought too, with just quickly a little addition here, these driving gloves, I think would actually make quite good cycling gloves. Um, probably. yeah or you know anything that requires just kind of a nice grip but you don't need bulk or or warmth or whatever um especially guys that are kind of riding old steel framed road bikes kind of that retro style wool jerseys and that sort of thing i think that did work well for that too yeah i agree yeah uh i got one more i'm gonna cut my list a little bit short i will say that uh |
| James | In designing the list, we didn't go back over a lot of things that we've talked about in the past. So if you want to hear about straps or watches, just listen to previous episodes, all of that stuff we still like, and we definitely recommend as a gift. But this is more to try and pick kind of oddball stuff that we just find either to be especially gifty or especially helpful. And to kind of end, at least my list, this is a desk lamp. Those who know me know that I'm a little bit obsessive about lighting, especially in workspaces. So like I have, and I'm currently speaking in a very small office in my condo in Vancouver. It's five by seven and I cannot get enough lumens in here sometimes. So I still will be like, I'll have the light on and a desk light on, and then using a, like a headlamp to look into a shelf or a box or something. Yeah. And it's just a problem with me, like my eyesight is fine, but I can never just like, I always want that one last like, I want that last third of the dial on the light switch to be like, ooh, you got to squint. Oh yeah. And so in hunting for a desk lamp, desk lamps, there's tons of them. I wanted an LED desk lamp that could offer some charging because you can charge up like camera batteries or Bluetooth headphones, headsets, things like that. And then Aukey makes this really nice lamp. It's well-reviewed. I'm not the first person to talk about it, certainly, but I think it's a bit of a left field play for the podcast. It's this very simple kind of modern styled black plastic lamp. It's 42 bucks on American Amazon. It's about 50 on Canadian Amazon. So that's a plus given the currency scenario. And it gives you four or five different color temperatures. So like right now it's the evening. I've got the color temperature quite a bit warmer. And if I go to work in the morning or if I'm going to do more work rather than just chat into a microphone, I might set it to a cooler temperature, a little bit more study ready. It's got a variable, you know, brightness. It has a nightlight feature and it has like a timer. So if you use it as a bedside table, you can actually tap the timer and it gives you something like 45 minutes. Oh, nice. I really love this thing. And if I knew anyone else that needed a desk lamp, this would be their gift. If Aukey offered the ability to string two of them together, so that I could click one power button and two of them would come on, I would buy two. I'd have one on each corner of my desk. I absolutely love it. I love the way it looks. It's very unobtrusive. The charging is really handy because I can just leave the charger for my A6500 batteries right next to the lamp and then just drop the batteries into the charger and they charge. It's a five volt plug. You can charge a phone at a normal pace. It's great for pretty much whatever you got, and it sits very nicely in a corner. It's nice and high. It adjusts in many different angles, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's a really good desk lamp. So if you want to buy a nice gift for somebody who you know spends some time at a desk, or I would say it's only, I would say the only issue with it is that it doesn't have any retro appeal. Oh, yeah. It's a modernist. It's sort of like a modern today sort of modern, not like mid-century modern or postmodern. It's like now. Oh, yeah. It looks fine on a clean, tidy, simple desk. It doesn't have the appeal of some nautical lamp that puts out 12 lumens and like you barely know it's turned on. It's nice and bright. It's relatively simple. It doesn't look like a piece of office furniture necessarily. But I'm really happy with it. And I think that if you're sitting at your desk or you work at a desk and you're like, I don't like my lamp, maybe just take a look at this one, read a few of the reviews. It's a great product. Nice. |
| Jason Heaton | 45 bucks. Not bad. Yeah, really cheap. Geez. Well, I've got something kind of that could be that price range. I'm going to close out kind of our little gift guide here with this sort of an oddball one. I, I'm all for buying people or even getting yourself a vintage film cameras or a vintage film camera. I've a few years ago, you know, we're, we're of course very much into photography and, and both for our work and for hobby. And a few years back, I bought an old Nikon FE, kind of a mid-80s Nikon. And it brings a lot of joy. It has the appeal of just a well-made instrument, same as that embassy pen or a nice pair of sunglasses or a watch. And film cameras are just dirt cheap now. You can get an old Nikon or Canon or Pentax with a lens for less than $100. most often even a lot less than that. And it kind of, you know, for someone who's used to just doing a lot of shooting, you know, for Instagram with your phone or with digital cameras, it kind of slows you down a little bit. For me, it gives it kind of an appreciation for the process of, you know, making pictures. And then you can kind of go as deep down the rabbit hole as you want when it comes to, you know, buying the different kinds of film for you know, three, four, five bucks a roll on up from there, if it's some more sort of obscure, you know, vintage films. And then you can, you can start, you know, you can do your own processing at home. You can do enlarging and printing at a lab. A lot of local, you know, dark rooms open to the public. It's kind of one of those hobbies that, you know, it's pretty harmless. It's something that's very portable. You can take it on holidays or just kind of walk around the neighborhood and shoot photos and I don't know, it's kind of added a whole different slow element to my life that has nothing to do with anything else and it's just brought me a lot of joy. It's such a harmless endeavor that if you try it and if it's not your thing you really aren't out that much money. Sometimes they even just look good as a paperweight on your desk too if you're not into it so much. Old film camera, I'm a Nikon guy but I'd go Pentax or Canon or anything like that. Well, that kind of wraps it up, doesn't it? |
| James | Yeah, I think we're pushing up on an hour and a half, so it's going to be a long show, which I'm fine with, but I'm pretty much okay with just buzzing final notes. Yeah. One of them is going to be real shouty on my part, and then the second one is just some YouTube videos. So do you want to kick it off? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, sure. My first one is kind of a shout out to an Instagram buddy over in the UK. His name is John Henry Phillips. He goes by the Instagram handle Battlefield Archaeologist. Interesting name, but it fittingly describes exactly what he does. He's a bit of a war historian and a trained archaeologist, a young guy actually, who has this ambition to locate and dive on a World War II landing craft that took part in the D-Day invasion in Europe. And he came about this through meeting a very aged veteran, a British veteran who was actually on that ship and it sank and the guy survived the sinking and he's now quite old and John sort of befriended him and promised this guy that as part of his work he would try to locate the landing craft and dive it and just kind of come away with some sort of tangible evidence of where it is. and kind of tell that story. So John is crowdfunding this expedition and a companion documentary film that he's calling No Roses on a Sailor's Grave. And he's doing it through Indiegogo. And we'll put a link in the show notes. I think it's a really admirable project. It's the kind of project that, you know, I, you know, you or I would probably love to take part in or undertake on our own. So, you know, hats off to John The interesting aspect of it is that, you know, John is a very accomplished archaeologist, but he's not a diver. Well, he's a newly minted diver. He just actually learned to dive in order to carry out this expedition. So, you know, certainly he's got his work cut out for him and he's actually got a trailer for the movie that he's cut or that he had an editor cut and he's put up on the Indiegogo site. Um, check it out, you know, I think it's a worthy cause and, uh, um, it'll be, it'll be interesting to see where it goes with it. So. |
| James | You can dive an LCU in, uh, Waimanalo Bay. I dove it in Hawaii. It's a fantastic dive. I don't know how that compares to this specific size or specification of the LCU that he's looking to, to find and dive. But the one in, uh, in, uh, Hawaii is a fantastic, one of the best dives I've ever been on. It's in about a hundred feet of water. Crystal clear visibility. Great dive. Basically formed a cave. We've talked about it on a previous dive, but it flipped upside down on its way down. So it's just a cave full of black tips. That's fantastic. Yeah. Really fun. That sounds like a really cool project. And this is great. This is the sort of stuff that Indiegogo is so good for. Yeah. Nice. |
| Unknown | All right. |
| James | So here's my first. It's very much in line. I want everybody to listen up really carefully. Blue Planet 2. That's it. I'm, by the time this comes out, three episodes will be up. I've watched the first two episodes and they both encompass two of the most amazing things I've seen recently. Huh. It's absolutely fantastic documentary, like nature documentary stuff. It's not only way better than the most recent season of planet earth. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | What the difference in camera quality alone. Not only what these groups, what these guys that do the planet Earth stuff and the blue planet stuff, not only their experience, what they're capable of doing, just the camera quality difference between the first blue planet, something I've watched probably over a dozen times and have loved, to now is unbelievable. I really hope that a 4K version of this exists, but I mean, amazing animals, like from the first, from the start of the first episode, The footage is unbelievable. The second episode, bonkers. Like I don't want to say anything to give any of it away. I really would encourage everybody not to go to YouTube and watch like the trailer for Blue Planet 2. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | I'm the trailer. Just go watch it. Huh. Where's it available? It's from BBC. I'm going to be honest. I downloaded it. Yeah. So I went with it that way and it's just, it's just so, so good. Huh. I'm not giving any away. I'm not going to tell any stories. Blue Planet 2. Blue Planet 2. That's it. You're going to love it. Nice. |
| Jason Heaton | What do you got? Well, mine's just a real quick one. Last episode, our clothing episode, we talked about Blundstone boots towards the end there. In a similar vein, I've recently picked up a pair of pull-on boots. They're called Extra Tufts. I think a lot of people might have heard of this brand. It's sort of the unofficial shoe of Alaska. Yeah. I've got a few friends who live up in Alaska and they swear by extra toughs. I think that's kind of the origins are up in the kind of the fishing commercial fishing community up there. They're the rubber pull on boots designed for like offshore sailing and commercial fishing. There's sort of the if you picture like a sort of refined British Welly rubber boot, Wellington boot. These are like the Alaska version of them. So they're beefy, they're big, they're indestructible and, you know, can survive any sort of, you know, probably chemicals and fish guts and everything else you could possibly throw at them. |
| James | Oh yeah, I know these. Sure, sure. My first guide on Baker, this is all he wore. Oh, okay. Like until the ascent. Oh yeah. Like for the entire hike in and out, he just wore these. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah, they're really versatile. I have these, they're called the like the performance rubber ankle deck boots. So they're, they're kind of the low cut ones, which are real easy. I just keep them by the back door. Um, especially getting into this time of year where it's, uh, we're getting kind of into snowy, slushy, sloppy season, um, just to run out and shovel or, you know, take the garbage out or something like that. They're, they're just kind of perfect for that sort of thing. And, um, yeah, I'm not gonna say much more about them. They're, they're not terribly expensive and, and they're available, you know, probably all over the place, probably Amazon. shoe stores and things like that. But, uh, yeah, extra tufts. |
| James | All right, cool. Let's wrap it up with a brand new YouTube channel. I found this via Jalopnik today. It's called futureclassics.tv. And I think when I grabbed the link today, they had like 135 subscribers. So get over there and subscribe. And basically what they're doing is it's, uh, we've talked about Petrolicious in the past. They're kind of great car slash interview videos. Well, futureclassics.tv is doing that, but it's, they're shooting everything on 16 millimeter film and they're much shorter. I'm hoping that they expand into longer pieces, but they, they put up three episodes in the last day or so. Uh, they're two to three minutes long, so you probably watch all of them in a coffee break pretty comfortably. And it's in that same Petrolicious format, but instead of being a 250 GTO or some rare, uh, Porsche or something like that. These are more enthusiast cars, so they had like a late 90s Merc, a fast Merc, and they had a 240. And just more, not like common, just more accessible vehicles. And the aesthetic is almost like vaguely music video-esque. Yes, that's what I thought too. I really, really like it, and I like what they're doing. I like that they're attempting to do something a little bit different and tell more accessible stories when it comes to car stuff. And look, I just talked at length about an Aston Martin, so it's definitely calling the kettle black. But I like that there's some stories to be told that are about things that pretty much anyone with some garage space could probably find, acquire, and then build out into the sort of car that they like. So check these out. It has this warm West Coast music video sort of style, and I think that Hopefully, you know, enough people maybe throw some comments in and say, could you guys go a little bit longer? It'd be fun to see them at more like five to seven minutes. Yeah. Um, obviously maybe it's a film thing. I don't know that it's easier to keep it shorter. It's less expensive to keep it short of that sort of thing, but there's, they're trying something new and I think it's worth the support. So swing by their channel, give them a follow, throw some thumbs up and check it out. Like I said, you could easily get through all three in a, in a coffee break. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I enjoyed it. I, um, I watched the ones you sent over and I agree. I love the production quality. I love that sort of grainy warmth to it. But like you, I'd love to see some kind of longer episodes. So be interesting to see how they evolve. |
| James | Yeah, for sure. But yeah, you know, I think that's probably as long a show as we need at this point. We're pushing up into an hour and 40 minutes or so. So you want to wrap it up? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, let's do it. As always, thanks so much for listening. Hit the show notes for more details and all of our holiday shopping recommendations. You can follow us on Instagram. I'm at Jason Heaton. James is at J.E. Stacey and follow the show at The Graynado. If you have any questions for us, specifically, as James mentioned, questions for a watchmaker, please do write thegraynado at gmail.com and subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. Music throughout is Siesta by JazzArr via the free music archive. |
| James | And we leave you with this quote from Samuel Beckett who said, ever tried, ever failed, no matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. |