The Grey NATO - Ep 76 - Perfect Product #1

Published on Thu, 07 Mar 2019 06:00:18 -0500

Synopsis

In this episode, Jason and James discuss new audio gear they're using for the podcast. Jason talks about his recent impulse purchase of the Newmark HS Chronograph watch, with its unique asymmetrical case design inspired by vintage RAF watches. James recounts his experience test driving the new BMW X7 luxury SUV across the southern US states.

They kick off a new series highlighting their favorite reliable and unsung gear, with Jason praising his Blundstone boots and James recommending the Canon EF 50mm F2.5 compact macro lens for watch photography. For watch-adjacent items, Jason talks about a custom Rover Haven Bund strap for his Bremont Supermarine watch, while James praises the Toxic NATO straps for their simplicity and durability.

In the final notes, Jason recommends the "To the Ends of the Earth" documentary about the Transglobe Expedition, and the new Apollo 11 IMAX film. James mentions the Genie smart plug with nightlight function, and the album "Good Pain" by the band Yolk Lore.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacey Hello and welcome to another episode of the Graynado, a Hodinkee podcast. It's a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 76, and we thank you for listening. Hey, Jason, how's it going, man?
Jason Heaton Good, good. How do I sound? I'm on some new audio gear.
James Stacey Yeah, yeah, no, you sound good. I'm glad we're doing minor upgrades.
Jason Heaton Yeah, well, this was a long time coming. I mean, I had been on the original kit that that you sent me a couple years ago when we started doing this, which worked fine. But this Zoom H5 and then the Shure microphone, I've got a nice stand on the desk. I think it brings us into kind of parallel setups and it'll make it easier for us to record on the road and that sort of thing.
James Stacey Yeah, so I get emails about it every now and then so I can fill in some of these blanks. I've been using for almost all the episodes. I mean, right now I'm on Hodinkee's setup. I'm in New York and but when I'm at home or on the road, I typically use an H5N from Zoom, which is a field recorder, and then Shure SM58. It's a simple indestructible microphone.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And if you treat the microphone correctly, it provides fantastic sound. And you now have the same gear after using for several I mean, for 75 episodes, basically, you've been using a Blue Yeti Pro.
Unknown Right.
James Stacey So aside from new audio gear, which is always a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling, how's things?
Jason Heaton Good. I mean, you know, we just finished February and it was, uh, we got, uh, over a meter of snow. So, um, in old money, that's, uh, I think we got close to 39 inches. Um, so I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm a winter lover. I love winter, but I'm, I'm kind of done with it now. And today's today's really cold. Um, we're into March and it's, you know, it feels like January, but, uh, you know, um, things are looking up. We've got, uh, uh, Wednesday I fly out to to New York and I'll meet you there for the the Braemont townhouse event and you know we're kind of kicking into that spring season. Basel comes in a couple of weeks and yeah so I'm kind of looking forward to the warm weather and a little bit of cabin fever here but that'll be resolved soon enough. How about you? You're back in New York. How's the weather? What am I going to be walking into?
James Stacey I think it's about mid-50s. It's sunny. some mixed clouds. It was nice. It was super slushy this morning, but it seems to have warmed up nicely. I've been a little bit all over. You know, I did a little tour of the south with BMW last week, and then I was in Toronto briefly, and then now I'm back in New York, and then I'll be back in Toronto, and then I'm back in Basel. So it is fun because by the time anyone listens to this, we'll actually still be in New York, or you'll be going home, roughly. Yeah, right. That's true. So we're recording this episode a few days ahead of the Bremont townhouse, which is why Jason and I are loosely both in New York when you're listening to this. And then it'll come out that Thursday. I'm trying to keep the episodes recording as close to when they'll go live. It makes it a pain to edit, but it also makes it a little bit cleaner in terms of like audience understanding movement and things like that. So it's a plus that way. And then the next episode, so episode 77 will actually be from the Bremont townhouse where we actually get to record Uh, you know, face to face, which is nice. We take any, any opportunity we can.
Jason Heaton Right. Yeah. So how was the, uh, how was the Florida trip? I saw some posts. It looked, um, it looked very Southern. It looked like kind of flat and hot.
James Stacey Absolutely. Yeah. So I wouldn't, uh, I guess it was kind of hot because I'm so used to the really cold these days and flew to Tallahassee. This is for the new BMW X seven, which is their sort of full size three row SUV. Uh, you know, it's a, it's not necessarily, it's not the same platform as the X five, but the idea is it's a bigger X five in the same way that a seven series is bigger than a five series.
Unknown Sure.
James Stacey So it's super luxurious. It's all the tech that BMW has. It will be a flagship product, like a seven series, you know, it's a hundred thousand dollars or more. I can't really talk. Well, I can say, I can't, I literally can't, uh, talk about driving impressions as they're embargoed until later in March.
Unknown Huh?
James Stacey Aside from that, if you've been in a really well equipped x5 or even a nicely equipped to very good equipped uh 7 series it's just like that okay yeah i'm surprised bmw hasn't had a car or a vehicle like this for i mean because audi's had that q7 i'm guessing that kind of lines up yep against that um for for a while for a few years now yeah i already said the q7 and mercedes has a couple kind of larger vehicles the gls and such you know i i think i i just think bmw kind of took their time to make sure it was a product that they actually wanted to make and wasn't just the reaction to people wanting an alternative somewhere between, say, a highly loaded Navigator and a Range Rover.
Unknown Sure.
James Stacey So, I mean, I think this is much more Range Rover than maybe they would have made a few years ago. I don't know. You know, the interior is absolutely incredible. The stereo is wild. There's tech and screens everywhere. There's USB-C ports everywhere. Um, you know, I was, I, I did a big leg. So we, we drove from Tallahassee, Florida, which is on, you know, on the Gulf coast roughly to Baton Rouge. So basically a relatively straight line. East to west along the kind of top of that, that part of, uh, Florida and then Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana.
Jason Heaton And, um, wow, that's, that's a fair amount of driving.
James Stacey Yeah, it was a good, like eight hours in the car. So in the morning we had the six cylinder. In the afternoon, we had the eight-cylinder. Both were equipped, like literally no boxes left unchecked. So every feature that you can imagine in a modern luxury vehicle, it had, including like semi-assisted, like level two assisted driving, heated, cooled, vibrating, massaging seats, the incredible stereo, heads-up display. all sorts of like gesture and voice controls, if you want to use that, you know, the, the, the, it had a twin split, two-tone interior cream with Navy blue, a lot of wood, a lot of like, it was just nice. You know, it's, it's, it's a luxury SUV. It's it, there's tons of room in it as you'd expect. And I sat all the way into the third row. I can fit, I wouldn't say I was like, I'm, I'm six foot three, six foot four. I'm not that comfortable in the third row. I did, I did sit for a couple of hours. in the middle row, which was like a captain's seat in the V8, which had a screen where I could control the entire infotainment system.
Unknown Huh.
James Stacey Wow. So on the headrest, I could sit and like pair my phone to the wifi and to Bluetooth, the car had wifi.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey So I was able to sit in the back with a laptop on my lap, fire off a ton of emails, listen to some great music all while having like a conversation in a heated seat with my own climate control, with power from my phone. Well, you know, it really is that sort of like pseudo business class experience in the in the middle row.
Unknown Yeah, right.
James Stacey And then there's buttons everywhere to control the seat. So if you're in the back in the trunk and you're trying to put something in, you can click a button and all the seats disappear. Huh. If you've driven a nice X5, I think you have a rough understanding of what you'd be getting into with the X7. You know, it's not necessarily swinging for a brand new market. It's just offering something for a brand new, you know, it's offering something new to a BMW buyer.
Jason Heaton Interesting venue. I mean, I would have thought for a big luxury SUV, they'd put you in some twisty mountains or something like that.
James Stacey Yeah. So what, what they're doing is they're staging. This is a little bit, maybe too inside baseball for some, but they're staging the vehicle to go essentially across the, the Southern half of the U S in some metrics. So, you know, there was a press access that went down part of the Eastern seaboard and then across the panhandle that was us. And then There'll be another one that kind of stretches towards Arizona and then from Arizona into LA and, and this being the Canadian, Canadian, some American lifestyle and Indian wave. It just isn't, it's not, they're not picking the, you know, necessarily the A plus locale for the drive. Sure. But the vehicles have to get from one point to another, you know, they may be, they have eight or 10. X7s and, you know, in the, this, you know, promotional fleet and they'll, they'll eventually have done several waves. Like all car press launches happen in waves because cars have only so many seats, right? It's not a question of just having a bigger venue.
Unknown Right.
James Stacey You can only put so many brand new cars in one location and not have a problem with police or people who live there or those sorts of things. So yeah, they always work in waves. And then with Nuvo, I would sometimes get attached to kind of higher profile waves or more lifestyle ways. It would just depend on where they wanted to slot that one Canadian publication.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. So, yeah.
Jason Heaton So that'll be, uh, in the Nuvo magazine?
James Stacey That'll be, that'll be in print for spring. Correct.
Unknown Cool.
James Stacey Yeah. So that, that should be fun. Shot some nice, uh, got some nice photos. So it came out well.
Jason Heaton Awesome. Yeah. Well, um, I, I, I've got a watch related, uh, some news, uh, that this week, a couple of weeks ago, I made a bit of an impulse buy, um, I picked up the Newmark HS Chronograph, which was a bit of a sleeper, but it was a watch that I have kind of had my eye on for, I don't know, it's probably been close to a year when it was sort of introduced on the Military Watch Resource, if anyone's familiar with that forum of kind of hardcore military watch collectors. So just for a little background, Newmark was a defunct name of a British watch brand back in the 60s and 70s. who was one of the so-called fabulous four asymmetrical shaped chronographs that were issued to the Royal Air Force, uh, the UK Royal Air Force. And, you know, along with CWC and, uh, Hamilton, um, and I don't remember that the, the fourth one off the top of my head, but, um, Newmark was the name was revived by a guy named Ewan who's, uh, lives in, uh, the very picturesquely named British town of Bishop's Cleve. Um, which happens to be where the Smith's watch company used to have its headquarters.
James Stacey Ah, really cool.
Jason Heaton Okay. Yeah. Um, so he revived the name Newmark and he wanted to create one of these, um, sort of reissue style, asymmetric chronographs. And he went to some great trouble to ensure that the font for the name was identical. And he did a lot of measurements to the, um, dial markings and the case and the, the number of teeth on the, on the winding crown, et cetera, et cetera. and created this watch that uses that Seiko Mecaquartz movement. So it's battery-powered, you know, quartz timekeeping essentially in the background, but the chronograph function itself is more mechanical with a cam actuation and sort of that quick snap-back reset. And, you know, the movement was kind of the one thing that I think a lot of people had some issue with with this watch, you know, the purists. The original would have had a hand-wound like a Valjoux 7733 or something like that, I guess.
James Stacey Okay.
Jason Heaton But when Ewan was researching which movement to put in this watch, you know, there just aren't a lot of great options these days. That Valjoux movement I don't think is made anymore. The Seagull movement has some questionable reliability apparently, so he bypassed that and really it was only left with the Seiko. And to be honest, it doesn't bother me at all. Seiko has a bit of a history creating RAF watches, so if you want to kind of make that connection, you can make it work, you can justify it. But also, you don't know that it's a quartz watch. I mean, when you're wearing it, when you use the chronograph, there's no running seconds, so there's nothing ticking. And the chronograph feels, you know, for all intents and purposes, like a mechanical chronograph. It sweeps, the sweep hand, and it snaps back when you reset it. And, you know, what's cool about it is it's just a great little grab-and-go watch. He made two versions, so he made the 6BB, which is a black dial, more faithful to the original. But I have one of the CWC reissue ones, which essentially is the same watch with a hand wound movement. But I've had that on long-term loan with a friend of mine in Australia for, gosh, pushing six or eight months now, and I was kind of missing the feel of it. So I opted for the HS chronograph, which stands for Hydrographic Service, which would have been a watch that was used by I think the Fleet Air Arm or the Royal Navy or something with kind of a creamy white dial. And you know, I wore it and I've worn it for a couple of weeks now and it just fits well, looks great on a NATO. And you know, everybody I showed it to was like, Oh, you know, where can I get this? What does it cost? And you know, this watch is, it's like less than $400 US. So, um, he just, he just did a really great job with it. And, um, I kind of like his backstory. I like his kind of passion for it. And he did a really great job with it. So yeah, hats off. It's a really cool piece.
James Stacey I agree. It looks great. And yeah, what? 38 millimeters, 41, including the crown. It's under 47 millimeters lug to lug, 20 millimeter lug width. Yeah. Water resistant to 50 meters. What sort of price point are we working on?
Jason Heaton I mean, it's less than $400. It was $397. Oh yeah, there it is. Including shipping. the, what the British pound is, uh, what that, uh, equates to these days. Um, so yeah, just nice little grab and go. If you want kind of a military style chronograph, very simple, very little branding came in a little kind of Brown box wrapped in, in Brown wax paper with a little sticker on it. Very sort of authentically sort of military surplus looking.
James Stacey Um, so, Hey, I love, uh, I love a light colored dial with the kind of black markers and hands and, uh, this one looks killer. I like it. Great size too.
Jason Heaton Well done.
James Stacey Yeah, really nice piece. And then, uh, oh, the one thing that I have is actually follow up to something we talked about in the past, which was the, uh, super Alpine's Shalmonee magazine.
Jason Heaton Oh, it's so good.
James Stacey So issue one, I guess if you call, I don't even know, you can call it a magazine. It's basically a book, right? So this, uh, very kind listener, Richard reached out, uh, to offer a copy of the magazine and Jason, you had already bought one. So I gave him my address and they sent it and I've been absolutely loving it. Just like with Hoding Key magazine. It's one where I kind of only do a few pages at a time.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey and I kind of enjoy it. It takes me a long time. It takes me the bulk of the span between one Hodinkee magazine and another to really finish it because I'll just read one story in a sitting. I don't, I'm not going to get through the whole magazine in one go. Like Sunday afternoon, I'll do one story or I'll keep it on a plane and read one during a flight, something like that. And so I'm now traveling with the super Alpine Chamonix and I love it. It's like the photography is incredible. The print quality is incredible. The content is great. I highly, highly recommend it. Just a small follow up because you had talked about it on a past episode. It's probably five, six, seven episodes.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And it's not, there isn't, you know, there isn't a lot of, it's not heavy copy. There isn't a lot of writing in it, but the photography is great. The layout is just, you can tell these people know what they're doing and are really into the aesthetics and nuances of publishing. That cover is sort of this, sort of faux texture, topographical map, sort of varnished finish. I mean, it's just, it's just beautiful. Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. I'm really impressed. So I'm, I'm happy. I got a chance to check it out and Richard, thank you very much for your offer. I'm sold really, really cool. Definitely worth checking out if somebody, even if you're more interested in the photography angle or the quality of the layout, that sort of thing, then Chamonix specifically, I think there's a lot there.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Awesome. I'm glad you got to check that out.
James Stacey All right. How are you feeling about jumping right into the old main topic?
Jason Heaton Yeah, I think it's a good time, you know last episode we talked about we sort of answered a listener question about how to manage all the various hobbies and sort of expensive diversions and things that we're into like watches and adventuring and diving and all that sort of stuff and it was during that episode that I was sort of alluding to something that that might have you know offered a little help in that regard and that is sort of focusing more on kind of the gear and activities and Things in life that, that last and maybe don't cost as much, or maybe you pay for once and then keep for a while, as opposed to always focusing on kind of what's new and shiny and you know, the latest and greatest that, that, you know, we read about and watch on Instagram and on the blogs and things. Um, and, and to that end, I think, you know, you and I thought that we could introduce this new series on TGN and which, you know, we talk a little bit more about the reliable and maybe unsung gear that, that you and I use a lot, um, stuff that we've owned for a while. stuff that's well built, classic, versatile, you know, nothing terribly glamorous for the most part, but just, you know, just stuff that works. And, and, you know, I think we tossed around the idea of, you know, kind of doing a laundry list of products that we like, but I think, you know, we, we decided in the end to make this into sort of a, an ongoing series. And this happens to be volume one. So we each picked a, a product to talk about, kind of just a piece of gear that we like. And then just for kicks, we thought we'd add sort of a watch related item to that list as well.
James Stacey Yeah, given the kind of nature of the show, you and I, not only do we experience a lot of product, but we get to actually use it, whether it's something that's a loan to us or we come across on our own. You know, we spoke a lot about the idea of buying right and buying at once. And I think that we have a podcast where we'd like to continue making episodes. So recurring episodes are kind of fun. But on top of that, I think it's something that we'd like to apply some focus to. Yeah, like you said, one non-watch item and one item within the watch world. It's probably not going to be a watch. Yeah. A lot of the way that you and I see watches are as enthusiasts, which means you may be not existing in a position where you want to have only one.
Unknown Right.
James Stacey Uh, so it's tough to say what a perfect tool watches for everybody or something like that, but there is a lot of really good stuff within the watch space. Uh, and I think that's what we can focus on. So, uh, Jason, why don't you take it off?
Jason Heaton Yeah. So, um, the first item that, um, that I wanted to bring up is actually my pair of Blundstone boots. And I know you recently got a pair as well. I'm wearing them.
James Stacey They're on my feet.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I'll be wearing mine to New York as well. So I got turned on to Blundstone quite a few years ago. I remember I was in, you know, I'd kind of heard of them and heard of the name. And to be honest, for years I thought they were a little bit quirky, kind of ugly, to be honest. But I remember I was in Sri Lanka back in 2005, I think it was, and it was the year after the, just a few months actually after the tsunami. And, uh, I was there doing some, some kind of aid work with a group that was building some, some temporary houses for, for displaced people. And, and there was this, you know, as you'd expect this, uh, sort of cliched Australian guy, um, who was kind of heading up our little group and, and he was wearing this battered old pair of Blundstone boots and they were just, you know, kind of dusty and beat up and and he was wearing them with shorts and socks and kind of looked kind of nerdy and whatever but it sort of stuck with me that you know okay this is this is kind of the right this is the right venue for for these boots and it kind of it piqued my interest a little bit and then I remember coming back home and and around that time I had started writing for Gear Patrol and and the PR rep for Blundstone back then sent me a pair of the uh the 500s which is kind of their original style and I wore them for a number of years, probably over 10 years until just last year, uh, the bottoms, the soles blew out. And at the time I didn't realize that it would, they would be easy to, to resolve. So I actually upgraded to what are called the super five 50 style, which is, uh, kind of a more recent offering from them. They look identical to the five hundreds, but they're a little bit softer leather and they're actually lined with leather. Um, so no, not much difference. They're basically the same boot. Um, and you know, I've worn them for, for over a year now, kind of, almost nonstop. Again, I wore them to Sri Lanka when I went twice last year and I wear them, you know, all winter long. And, um, you know, I, I think they're kind of a polarizing design. I think, you know, I was talking to, uh, I think Felix Schultz who writes for Time and Tide used to be a Hodinkee writer back in the day and he's, he's based in Melbourne. And, uh, I remember he commented on a photo that I posted on Instagram and said, you know, I think all the, all the school boys in Australia, you know, had a pair of these growing up and, and I think they're just sort of an institution down there. And they've spawned a number of kind of other similar styles, many of them with some ties to Australia. The Redbacks are one brand that's made down there. And RM Williams is kind of what's become sort of the high-end version of the Blundstone. They're made of one piece of leather. They're actually made in Australia. They're a little bit dressier boot. And Blundstone has moved their manufacturing offshore, so they aren't made in Australia anymore. You know, all this aside, they're just, they've just been rock solid, fantastic boots. And I love them because, you know, I've always been a real Red Wing boot fan. I've got a couple of pairs, I think three pairs of Red Wing boots, which I wear fairly often. But kind of when I just want to grab something to go out the door, I tend to wear my Blundstones. They're super light, really easy to just pull on. They've got that, I guess what's called a elastic sort of goring, I think they call it, on the sides of the boots, like a Chelsea style boot. Um, which makes them really great for kind of going in and out during the winter. You know, you'd kick off your shoes as you come in the door, um, going through security, um, in airports and, and that sort of thing. And, uh, you know, they're, they're really versatile. They work well with khakis and a sport coat. You can wear them with jeans. I mean, as I said, I've even worn them with shorts, which, you know, that's a move. I know that's a bit of a fashion faux pas. That's a move. Yeah. But you know, you got to own it.
James Stacey That's a Vancouver move is what that is. I mean, in Vancouver, these are, it seems like it might even be pseudo Canada, but definitely Vancouver. That's where I first came across these en masse.
Unknown Oh, yeah.
James Stacey Because you would see like a woman in a sundress and blonds.
Jason Heaton Oh, sure.
James Stacey Yeah, right. Just out and about. You'd be walking down through Kitsilano or something on 4th, and that's where one of the Blundstone stores are. Yeah. And man, I own a pair. They're on my feet now. I put a huge scratch in them earlier on the butt. Must have been on a sharp piece under an airplane seat.
Jason Heaton Oh, sure. Yeah.
James Stacey The kind of thing that would have really hurt my foot.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey If it had gone. So mine are now very well damaged. Yeah. They're really hard wearing. I still don't like the way they look when I look down at them.
Jason Heaton I don't either. They're a little too round or something.
James Stacey They're too round. They kind of look like work boots. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, but when I see them in reflection in a store window or something, I like the silhouette quite a bit. And then when I see them on other people, I always like them.
Jason Heaton Yeah. They look good with like your pant leg rolled up and kind of from the side angle with those pull tabs sticking out. Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. Um, they're super casual, but like you said, like, and, and I was laughing, uh, you know, I was bringing the subway into, um, the Hodinkee office today. And I, you know, I was like, there isn't a lot of press engagements in New York where I, that I could wear Blundstones to, but Braymont's one of them. I mean, there's a certain roguish charm to the way that Braymont's aesthetic operates and these work just fine in that space. And like you said, uh, from, from like hiking pants or even shorts, if you're in the right locale to, you know, a button up and a blazer, they just kind of work and they don't have that much to say about themselves.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And I mean, they are very comfortable. I was surprised by how warm they are. If you buy, I bought mine a half size up.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey So I wear a thicker insole when I'm wearing one pair of socks. And then in this winter, I went to, they come with a thinner insole and you just wear two pairs of socks.
Unknown Oh, sure.
James Stacey Yeah. And that seems to work beautifully. I think these are an absolutely fantastic product. They're significantly less expensive than something like a Red Wing. They don't last as long. They can't be resold.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Well, they can be resold. I discovered they can be resold.
James Stacey Oh, I was specifically told mine couldn't. Maybe I have something else.
Jason Heaton I don't know. You can even search on YouTube and there's guys showing that they resold them. They just peel off the old and glue on the new.
James Stacey Oh, glued in. Okay, fair enough. Cool.
Jason Heaton Yeah, they're not stitched down. Certainly they're not the same Goodyear welt or whatever. Goodyear welt construction that Red Wings are. Okay. I've got a friend that went to the O.R. Outdoor Retailer Show in Denver and the Vibram booth was doing sort of free re-souling and he was there with his brother who's a photographer and his brother had an old pair of Blundstones and he gave them to them and they like swapped them out for like some bright orange like Vibram souls or something on the spot. Okay. So I'm kind of excited because yeah like you I mean I thought they weren't re-soulable and then that's kind of why I tossed my old 500s after 10 years but I'm definitely going to keep these a long time because Uh, yeah, they'll, they'll just go on and on. The leather uppers, I think will, they look as good as, you know, my old ones looked as good as the day I bought them other than the, the outsole. And, um, so yeah. And I've got a buddy who's, uh, spends a lot of time, uh, shooting photos around shipyards and things like that. And he's got a pair that he's had for many years and he, he bought the, the actual work boot style with the steel toes and the leather's worn through and you can kind of steal and see the steel cap underneath and whatever. But, but, uh, Yeah. He, he swears by those as well. So on their website, they list these, the ones I got, I got the rustic Brown premium leather, um, super five fifties, they call them. And, uh, they list them for $189 us, which is not cheap, but like you said, it's not a red wing, you know, it's not a $400 boot. And for something that'll last you for, you know, you know, I got 10 years out of my last ones and you just sort of keep, keep ahead of kind of oiling the leather and, and, uh, they'll, they'll, they'll treat you well.
James Stacey Yeah, very cool. Yeah. I, a great pick for the, uh, the start of this, uh, kind of perfect product series. I think that they've made something that is what it is. It doesn't need to be improved. They last a really long time. They're super comfortable. Um, I have pretty picky feet now due to some, uh, some arch damage over the years. And these are great. I put the right insoles in them and they're as comfortable as anything I own.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And I can, I, you know, it's also one of the few shoes that if I get on an airplane, I don't have to take them off or Obviously you can't, but like unlace them to help with just general comfort. I find them really, really comfy. They kind of wear like slippers. You can have your hands full of stuff or your arms full of stuff and reach down and hook your finger into one loop and pop them on each foot. Yeah. And yeah, they're good. They're easy to take off. I think there's a lot of benefits and even if it's just your literal knock around footwear. Right. I think that that's basically what they were designed for.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Very cool. Yeah. So my first is one that I'm actually surprised I don't see way more often in this line of work, which is say shooting watches, especially things like trade shows. Yeah. And it's the Canon EF 50 millimeter F2.5 compact macro. So what it is, is a very small, very inexpensive. It's under $300. I believe I paid something like 230 Canadian dollars many, many, many, many, many, many years ago. And it's a 50 millimeter one to two macro. So it's not true macro. It's, uh, but it is very close focusing. It's something like, uh, just 23 centimeters from the sensor of the camera. So you can get probably within, you know, really you can get very close to something like a watch or even a person it's 50 millimeters. And, uh, if, if you've ever seen any of my watch reviews, anything I shoot at something like a Baselworld or an SIHH, this is the lens.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey It's the only one I use. It's a cheap. It's plastic. It has a very loud focusing motor.
Unknown Oh, okay. Yeah.
James Stacey It was designed, uh, roughly around the same time that I was. So it's, you know, 30, 32 years old, something like that. The, the design and there is some speculation online that it might be discontinued. You can't buy it at BH, which isn't a good sign. There are tons of them in existence. They, like I said, they've been making them for a long time. So it is an autofocus lens for the EF system, but it's cheap. It's insanely sharp. I don't shoot it at 2.5 like a lot of Canon non L lenses. You have to stop it down a little bit to get it tack, but at 3.5 or 4, which is great for a wrist shot. It's awesome. And the secret here is the focus is close enough that I can comfortably hold my wrist up and take a photo for a wrist shot.
Unknown Oh yeah.
James Stacey And yet when the watch is on a table or on a tray or something, I can put it very close to the front of the lens and still get it to focus.
Jason Heaton That's tricky. I mean, I think our sort of world of watch photography is a fairly niche one, but I think it could be applied to other products as well. But I think, you know, you, um, you know, I always hear people remark at, at how good your wrist shots are and I've seen you work, you know, on some of the press strips we've been on and, and it is very difficult to find a good lens that you can hold, um, hold your wrist out and then hold the camera and actually still compose the shot with the camera up to your eye.
James Stacey Yep. One handed.
Jason Heaton Yeah. You know, instead of really contorting yourself to do it, which often results in sort of shaky, a shaky photo or something like that. Yeah.
James Stacey Or you can't get, you can't get an oblique angle.
Unknown Right. Yeah.
James Stacey So you end up, you end up off angle with the watch. So you see these wrist shots where the watch is kind of tilted away and like, that's fine if it's like something we'll say more artsy or lifestyle for like Instagram. But like if I'm shooting a review, I think there's six or seven photos that have to be exact. Yeah. And I can get all six or seven of these, including like, like go back and look at my recent, the data graph with the, uh, gold dial.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Go back and check that out. That was shot on this 200 and some odd dollar lens. Like if you, if you are patient and you learn how to balance the flash against the, this is the, this is the lens for the Canon system to shoot watches.
Jason Heaton And just for those who don't know, including myself, actually the EF system or EF lens mount, is that on the, 5D camera, like kind of their, their full size.
James Stacey So EF is everything that's been autofocus for Canon is EF. Oh, okay. Uh, so up until the new RF mount, which is on the new mirrorless.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey So if you go, uh, all the 5Ds are EF, um, and then there's, there's a sub to EF that's called the EFS, which is a crop sensor. So you can buy, you can put any lens on an EFS camera, but you can't put an EFS lens on an EF camera.
Unknown Okay.
James Stacey because it is a different, uh, distance to the sensor.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey So you can use basically this lens on. So if you, this is also kind of fun. If you take this lens, this 50 millimeter and put it on a crop sensor camera, you have an 80 millimeter two five macro. Oh wow. So won't work for wrist shots anymore, but if you want to shoot portraits with it, it works really well. It's sharper. People will argue with me, but it is sharper than the 51 eight, which is only a little bit cheaper. And I think, I genuinely believe that unless you want to shoot at like 1.4, which I love shooting at 1.4, but the 50 1.4 is more money and not as sharp wide open. But if you want to shoot watches, you want to have, you want to set up a little product studio for your eBay business at home. This is a great lens because you should be with product photography. You should be supplying typically your own light. So the fact that you can't shoot at 2.5 or I wouldn't recommend you shoot at 2.5 because it gets really sharp. It gets noticeably sharper between 2.5 and 2.8. Yeah. and then again to 3.5 and then again at 4. Like it's just, you stop it down a little bit and for the money, I mean, the flash costs more than the lens. Right. I think this is the winner. It's a great lens.
Jason Heaton Well, and I think it's a good recommendation too, because, you know, I mean, the Canon, especially like the 5D, I mean, it's almost ubiquitous. I mean, people are still using that camera just all the time. Yeah, yeah. And I've seen you carry that lens and it is very compact and Um, if it's light, all the better because, you know, especially when you're dragging it around on press trips or traveling with it or whatever, it's just nice to have something compact and light. Yeah. That's really great.
James Stacey I mean, the camera becomes loosely unwieldy when you put the flash on it.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Especially when you're going for that very awkward portrait style wrist shot. So the camera sideways, your arm is kind of craned. I can do about one or two of those before my arm starts to shake.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey I just, I really liked this lens. And I think that the ability, if you're, if you were budding watch photographer, you maybe you want to get into the business from the photo side. I mean, you could go out and on Craigslist, get a nicely loved and well used 5D Mark II, which is a fantastic camera that doesn't do video. So you're not paying for some of the features on the Mark III that I don't even use. And then this lens, and then, I mean, Sure, you could go out and buy a 580EX2 or the new 600 flash, but I also think you could buy like a Godox flash for $100 on Amazon and just learn how- you're shooting products so the light isn't changing. Right, yeah. Just shoot it in manual. If it's too dark, turn your flash up. If it's too bright, turn the flash down. I still run my flash like that and I have the one- like I have this $600 flash that does ETTL and I still think sometimes it's just easier, especially when you get into a room with five different colors on the wall and bouncing the light around. It's just easier just to know like, that's too dark, but I can't make my shutter any slower. I want 200. So I'll turn the flash up. And as long as you're not at plus three, i.e. there's nothing left on the flash.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey You're good.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey That's the, I think it's a winning combo and I like that it's not expensive.
Jason Heaton As, as camera companies continue to improve the the bodies and sensors of cameras. The lenses are often what can migrate from one system to the next. Absolutely. From one body to the next. And I think it's kind of like, uh, you know, that, that good backpack or that good, uh, uh, good pair of boots. I mean, having a good sort of quiver of lenses and you don't need 10 of them, you know, you need probably three or four decent lenses and in your bag or, you know, maybe just travel with one or two. And I think having a go-to like the 50 millimeter 2.5 you're talking about is it, you know, that becomes, that's the lens you use for wrist shots. You know, I mean, that's the lens you take for, you know, shooting a certain type of photo and you know it, you know exactly what it will do for you.
James Stacey Yeah. I mean, unfortunately for cars or for travel or for like kind of general Instagram fun, 35 is just way better.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey But as soon as you're into small products or people, I mean, like there's been portraits that have ended up in Hodegi magazine that I shot on the exact same setup I would shoot a watch with.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey 50 millimeters works just fine for people. Leica loves it. It's great. Like it's, it's a perfectly fine setup. It's no different with Canon. My, my only tip with any of these is kind of a silly one. I recently got back the quote to repair my Zeiss lens.
Unknown Oh yeah.
James Stacey Don't drop your lenses. Oh no. That lens will not be happening. We are no longer a pair. It costs almost as much to repair it as it would to replace it entirely. Oh, geez. So that that's a that's a bummer. But certainly, that's another statement for picking a lens that costs a two or $300 and has to be in your bag all the time. Yeah, versus something like that Zeiss lens, which like Canadians, I don't know, 1500 bucks, something like that. Wow. So Canon 50 millimeter 2.5 compact macro, I would buy one on Amazon or on eBay, like I just don't think they can't be that hard to find. See if you search your local Craigslist. Make a deal.
Unknown Yeah. Nice.
James Stacey What you got for your watch adjacent?
Jason Heaton Well, um, so mine's a strap. I mean, you know, with watches it's, uh, it's tools or straps or pouches basically. And, and, uh, you know, I've, uh, I'm going to talk about the strap that I'm going to be wearing on my, uh, Bramont Supermarine 2000 when I head out to New York this week, uh, when I see you, uh, it is, uh, a beloved Bund strap, which, you know, as people probably know, I've been sort of on a Bund love affair, uh, the past six months or so. Um, this one I got from, Roverhaven. So Roverhaven is run by Myron Erickson, who's based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He's, full disclosure, he happens to be my Land Rover mentor. He's got a 1964 Series 2A Land Rover and he's had it for over 20 years. So that's why he named his strap company Roverhaven. And he kind of specializes in cordovan, shell cordovan straps in general. Um, but I was looking for a boon strap that I could wear on, uh, originally my, one of my old docs of T graphs and asked him to put something together for me. And he, he made one, he he's made them before. He doesn't sell a lot of them, but, uh, um, so he made me this, this really cool strap. He doesn't have a name for it or whatever, but, uh, but, um, but you can order it directly from him that the shipped price, uh, is a little over $200. You know, you pay for basically the strap, which is about $150 strap, two piece strap. And then the pad, he, he adds on $60 to make the pad. And I think what's unique about this strap, um, and I'll have to show it to you when I see you is, um, the bund pad itself, um, is, you know, it's made to fit watch cases up to about, he says about 43 millimeters, but I've got it on a 45 millimeter watch and it works pretty well, but it's actually two layers of shell.
James Stacey Um, Oh, okay.
Jason Heaton But then the top layer has, when you kind of pull the watch away from it, there's a circular cutout in the middle of the top layer that actually fits the case back of the watch. The watch is actually sitting only against one layer of shell. Um, but it sort of comes up around it, uh, around the edges of the watch case with that second layer. And it's, it's really kind of a unique way to, um, to make that the watch sort of sits down, sort of nestled down in this like little, little holder ring on the bund pad and just kind of snugs it in place and then you run the straps through these slots in the strap rather than kind of that stitched down slot that you see on a lot of other bunds. His is sort of just cut out on each side so you can run the straps through it and he makes it for 20 or 22 millimeter watch straps or lug width watches. My Doxa has a 20 millimeter strap width And that's originally how he supplied it, but when I put it on the Braemont, which has a 22 millimeter strap width I actually had another one of a Roverhaven strap that that matched the same color as the Bund and so I just swapped it out and kind of squeezed the strap through the Through the slots on the Bund and it works really well. I mean I've posted pictures of this on my Instagram and you know people seem to really love the way it looks and and I just think it You know, this is a huge watch to begin with. You know, it's very tall. It's 45 millimeters across, but for some reason on this really nicely tapered boon strap, it just really looks the business. And I think what I like about his straps is it has a bit of more of a rustic, almost unfinished look to it. It's, it certainly has, you know, nice stitching, but, but if you look at it from the sides, it's sort of unfinished. It's not, Um, it's not sealed or painted or sort of glued. Like you see a lot of, uh, sort of high end straps or sort of sealed along the side. And this one, you can actually see the, the two layers of, of shell and just has this bit of a rustic look, which I really like for kind of a big, big tool watch. So, okay. Yeah. So that's mine. I'll, I'll put, uh, I'll put a link to Rover Haven. Um, we'll put it in the show notes, but, uh, um, he doesn't sell the strap specifically, but you can get in touch through his sort of contact page and check out some images on his gallery. paged if you want to see what the strap looks like, or just, just check out my Instagram feed. So that's what I got.
James Stacey You got a strap too, right? Yeah, mine's a strap as well. I mean, and, and like people who've been listening to the show for a long time will remember our supporter bundles, which is how we used to kind of finance the show. Yeah. And those used, uh, Terry's Toxic Nato N80s, which it doesn't even look like he's calling them N80 these days. That's just the toxic nylon watch strap. Oh, okay. So this is a simple, relatively straightforward. It's like it doesn't, it's not a special variety of NATO. It's just my absolute favorite one.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey When you factor for price and hardware and material, I like a NATO that isn't that smooth or shiny. I really like the Phoenix ones, like the original MOD style ones, but they're very thin and then the hardware is polished.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And at a certain point when you've, I don't know, at this point I have, I literally have like, um, a double width shoe box full of Nados. I have several, like hundreds of Nados. Yeah. With that scenario in hand, you end up just having the ones that you always go for. Right. And for me, it's no question. I travel with a 22 and a 20 in case I'm trying a different watch or I want a different thing. It's these straightforward gray toxic nylon Nados from Toxic Nados. These are the same ones that we included in our supporter bundle, which was a strap and a sticker and a patch. And there's something that we did, for those of you who don't know what those are, that's something that we did a while ago to help kind of support and finance various aspects of the show. And we worked with Terry to get a buckle that says TGN on it, and there's maybe 200 of those in existence total. Yeah. And so I still wear mine constantly. And if somebody was to say, what's your favorite NATO, I just wrote a little follow-up piece for Hodinkee this past weekend about my introduction to liking NATO's and where it eventually landed. And like the photo I use for that is my Explorer 2 on this gorgeous gray NATO, which is the toxic NATO. It's my absolute favorite. I think as far as the, the overall mix goes, you can get NATO's that are more like a seatbelt material. That's not my preference. I like that this one, the fabric has a horizontal like pattern to it. That doesn't look like a weave as much as it just looks like the structure of the fabric itself.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And the hardware is really nice. It's really easy to live with. You can modify it if you want to run it more like a single pass. You just cut the understrap off. When it frays, you just hit it with a lighter really quickly. Everything about it is just simple, straightforward, and they're $21. I absolutely love it. I always have mine. They get better the more you kind of chew them up.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And then you just drop them. I used to just put them in the dishwasher. Or I eventually just started putting them Uh, like just under hot water with a bit of hand soap, like a soft soap, and then letting them dry on a table overnight. And then you just keep wearing them. I love them. And this is the absolute way that I wear almost all my watches. So I'll put a link to that. I'll put a link to that specific strap in the show.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's a good one. I mean, uh, I've got, you know, a pile of toxics. I've got so many NATOs just like you and NATOs. They, they kind of become very much a sort of a personal thing. It's like a pair of boots. I mean, you, you just, You like what you like and a lot of it comes down to hardware or strap length, whether you like to turn it back on itself or you want one that's just long enough to kind of fit through the two keepers. And, um, I think if I want the style, um, sort of just a no nonsense NATO that folds back on itself and has really good chunky hardware, definitely the toxic ones are, are the ones to go with. And, uh, yeah, that's a good pick. I think it's a great, uh, yours is actually a really great pick for kind of what we're talking about today with sort of this, unsung, you know, favorite sort of reliable gear, because I think that, that toxic NATO strap for 21 bucks is, is akin to, you know, a pair of Blundstone boots or, you know, an inexpensive Canon lens. It's a perfect, perfect match.
James Stacey Yeah. I kind of wanted, like, I think, and I think like the two that you picked, these are things that like, not only connect with what we do, but how we do it.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And I think between this, for me, this, I don't do this job without a NATO strap in my pocket or on my wrist or this lens.
Unknown Right.
James Stacey Yeah. All right. Final notes.
Jason Heaton Yeah, let's do it. Um, I will, uh, I'll start with a really cool two-part documentary that I tracked down. Um, I've been, I've been on my own the past couple of weeks. My wife's been visiting her family over in Sri Lanka. So I've been watching a lot of like space and history and adventure documentaries. And I tracked, um, I tracked this one down on YouTube. It is called to the ends of the earth, the trans globe expedition. Um, and. It is, it's the documentary that, that was filmed during the Transglobe Expedition, which is, um, it was the first of its kind to circumnavigate the globe, crossing both poles without leaving the surface of the earth. So Sir Ranulph Fiennes, who, you know, many will have heard of, he's the, the great, uh, British, uh, explorer. Um, he's well into his eighties now, um, who circumnavigated the earth, uh, around the polar axis. So not around the equatorial or kind of the around a line of latitude, but around a line of longitude, starting at Greenwich in England and kind of working his way down across Africa and kind of, you know, land rovers and boats and on foot, um, into a ship down to, uh, Antarctica where they jumped off the ship and then crossed the continent were picked up on the other side by the same ship and then back up, uh, passing Australia and West coast of North America. And then they went up the, uh, Northwest passage in small inflatable boats and then tracked over the North pole across the Arctic ocean down the other side where they were again picked up by the boat and back home to England. And it took them over three years and they had hundreds of sponsors. Their goal was to do it without having to pay a penny of their own money. They wanted to use all sort of sponsors and supporters and that sort of thing. Prince Charles was their patron. So it was, it was just, it was one of those epic expeditions that I don't think will ever be done again. Um, at least in the style that they did it. And it just had this sort of rollicking, um, sort of very British sort of quirky way about it. Um, and, and the movie, this two part documentary that's on YouTube, I had never even heard of. I've got the book about it, which was great, but, um, the movie was great. It was, it's actually narrated and hosted by Sir Richard Burton. Oh, very cool. The famous actor who, you know, was married to Elizabeth Taylor and he was kind of a, uh, bit of an alcoholic and, and died sort of before his time, you know, back in that on when it was eighties or nineties. Um, and he has this very dramatic, great voice for, for narrating it. And then all this really wonderful footage of, of the expedition. Um, and, uh, you know, just on a, on a watch note, I happened to spot, uh, um, this mythical Rolex that, that the three, members of the surface team were wearing. It's a, actually it is a, um, an explorer too. So reference 1655 from the early seventies. Um, but they had made a special request to swap the dial out of these watches for a GMT master dial. So the big, uh, red pointer hand for the GMT and then the normal kind of Rolex hash and, and dot, uh, dial. So, um, if you can picture sort of that, that fixed bezel from the, from the 1655 with a GMT Master dial and hands, it ends up looking very much like the black dial version of what you own. 16570. Yeah. In fact, I would, I'm still kind of digging into this a little bit, but I actually think that this was probably kind of a prototype for what became of the Explorer II and basically what it was after that point. And you can kind of catch it in, you know, you pause the, You pause the movie and kind of lean close to the screen as we do.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton But, uh, just, just a great, great two-part documentary on YouTube. And I'll put a link in the show notes and it's, uh, it's, it's pretty easy to find pretty easy to watch and it's, it's decent quality for, you know, something that was happening in 1979 through 82. So kind of a bit grainy and warm colors and bad hair and all that kind of stuff. But it's, uh, it's really good.
James Stacey Awesome. Yeah. Well, that sounds like a good one. I'll, I'll certainly check that out on my upcoming flight or something like that.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey So my first one is actually just a product he came across, you know, I'm setting up a new place in Toronto, and doing a little bit of the kind of like home automation, Google Home sort of scenario. And in looking at some of the the various platforms for the smart power switches, yeah, to control lights and such, I've actually found one that has a nightlight built into it. And the nightlight runs on a separate program, essentially within the within the programming of the switch itself.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey So it's made by this company called Genie. They make, you know, it's a competitor to something like Wemo. And it's a it's a little plug. It's a kind of looks like something like Apple would design. It's like white plastic with a clear ring around the plug itself. And the ring is what lights up. But when you actually go into the app, you get one that's you get one quote unquote switch that turns the plug on or off.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And one that turns the nightlight on or off and both can be programmed.
Unknown Oh, okay.
James Stacey So whether it's for a dark hallway during certain times of the night, or in my case, a kid's room, you have full control over it. And it was like, it's like 17 bucks.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey It's pretty handy, especially if you come into, in my case, it's kind of an older, cool, older house. Yeah. And so you don't have a lot of light switches or control over various plugs and you don't really want kids playing with the plugs either. Right. I came across it and I was just kind of thrilled to see it. These two things that would typically go into the same two plugs now in one.
Jason Heaton Okay. So, so the plug operates like a, like a timer. If you want a lamp to come on at six o'clock PM, you'd program that. Yeah.
James Stacey Or, or you can say like, if you have, I don't want to do this because it'll turn people's Google homes on, but you can say the trigger for Google home or for your Amazon Alexa platform, you can say the trigger phase and then say, turn on the nightlight. Oh, okay. And it just turns it on or you can say turn off the nightlight or you could have it come on at a certain time and operate as an alarm clock or a wake up clock or a wake up light or something like that. Oh, you're a coffee maker or whatever. Yeah. Yep. You can do all that kind of stuff. Huh. So yeah. And that way, yeah. If you put it, if you put it in your kitchen, then it could run as a proper nightlight if you got up to your glass of water or something. And then it could also not block a plug. Yeah. Uh, in the pursuit of, yeah. Having a timed cup of coffee that you didn't have to make when you're sure.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey half awake. So I just, just every now and then you come across one of these clever products when you're setting up kind of a new space.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And, and I, I came across this at like a random hardware store in Toronto and I was like, I don't really know this platform. I Googled it quickly. It seemed kind of robust and well integrated with Google home. And sure enough, it integrates really nicely. So you have all kinds of one interface for your lights and I have a mesh network of four or five speakers. So they all, all the rooms play the same songs with no delays and that kind of thing.
Jason Heaton So, Oh, nice. Yeah. Oh, that's really cool. I definitely need to move away from those kind of really noisy sort of mechanical timers that you kind of twist.
James Stacey Oh, sure. Yeah. With the blue tab and the red tab.
Jason Heaton Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
James Stacey Christmas light timers. I'm for sure.
Jason Heaton Exactly. So I've got all those all over the house, but I think it's time to upgrade those. But you made me think of something. I wanted to get something that would turn on our outside front light with kind of the conventional flip switch. And I knew there had to be something that would do that. And sure enough, there's something that you actually It magnetically fits over that flip switch on a regular light switch, um, with a little slot cut out for the switch itself. And then you, you connect to it via Bluetooth and you program the times you want the light to turn on and off and, and it does it mechanically. So when, when the time comes for it to turn on, there's actually, you can actually hear it. It's quite loud, which is a little annoying and the cats always get startled. But the, it's like this little servo motor or something, little switch that like buzzes and then clicks up the switch, you know, mechanically and turns on the light and does the same thing to turn it off. And you can program it for sunset to sunrise, et cetera. Um, it's a little crude and a little bit kind of clunky, but, uh, yeah, I wonder how that solved the problem.
James Stacey Yeah. And it seems to work in the, in the cold.
Jason Heaton It's inside, it's inside the house. It's our, it's our inside light switch. It's just in the front hallway. Um, and it's a company called switch mate. So maybe we'll throw that in the show notes too. But if anyone's looking to solve that problem too.
James Stacey I've done the one where you actually remove the original switch from the wall and just hard wire in a new Wi-Fi switch. Yes. But I guess if you don't really want the day-to-day control, you're happy to have it on a timer. Yeah. So you're not connecting the Bluetooth all the time, then what's the difference? If it works, it works. You set it up once and you walk away. That makes sense. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Tell me about your second one.
Jason Heaton Uh, second one is probably well known to a lot of people. Um, it's the, the big CNN films, Apollo 11 documentary, um, in IMAX that just came out this past week, actually, I think it opened last Friday in theaters. And since we're recording this fairly close to when we're going to actually air the, this episode, um, it will still be in the theaters. I was told it's only out for a week. Um, and you know, that's no guarantee that it's going to be everywhere that all of our listeners are, but if you happen to be lucky enough to be in a city where this is showing, um, or maybe it moves on to different cities in different weeks. I'm not sure, but here it's only running for a week. And, uh, so I went and caught it over the weekend and in an IMAX theater and you know, it is truly spectacular. It's of course the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing this year. And, um, the filmmakers gathered all of this, you know, hundreds of hours of 70 millimeter film footage that were shot by NASA during the kind of day of the launch of Apollo 11. And then of course, during the mission itself. And, uh, it's really wonderful. The sound in the theater, just, you know, as the, as the Saturn five is lifting off, it just sort of rumbles through your chest and, um, you're looking at it on this huge screen. And I think what was even more interesting to me than a lot of the sort of onboard footage, which was spectacular, but I, you know, I've seen a good number of that. Um, or I I've seen a good amount of that kind of footage. was kind of the behind the scenes stuff of the engineers and the flight controllers and all these guys kind of sitting at mission control of the spectators that were sitting out down in Cape Canaveral for the launch. They really did a nice job of filming a lot of the human element of it. And so you see a lot of the styles and hairstyles and sunglasses and watches and guys chain smoking cigarettes and name tags and old cars and that sort of stuff kind of lined up on the grass. It kind of just really kind of dropped you into that era and kind of the feel of what was happening and the excitement of that whole thing. And, you know, just as someone who's such a longtime space nerd, it was kind of a no-brainer to go see it. But, you know, if you're lucky enough to be in a city where that's playing, don't hesitate. Go check it out on the biggest screen you can find. That's great. Yeah, it's really awesome.
James Stacey It does lead me to an apology. Uh, which is, uh, to a listener, Nathan, Nathan, you wrote in asking me if either of us had seen Apollo 11. I had been not sleeping for a couple of days and replied to this email along with about 20 others in kind of a chunk. You know, we get a lot of email these days and I am committed to getting back to everyone. And Nathan, I read this, my brain said Apollo 13. Oh, the, uh, the Tom Hanks vehicle, uh, You know from several years ago, and I was like Nathan. We've definitely both seen Apollo and I even typed 11. So what? We've definitely seen Apollo 11. It's good. Certainly classic, you know all the best and thanks for Nathan. I'm really sorry. I Have not seen Apollo 11. I've seen Apollo 13 Jason has seen Apollo 11 and I apologize for You know essentially being brain dead as I put that email together But yeah, so I'm glad we were able to address that on the show. I owed Nathan an apology. As you were talking, I was like, oh, wait, there's a new thing about Apollo 11.
Unknown Oh, yeah, yeah.
James Stacey Which is, of course, drastically different than 13. Fantastic.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey So I'm glad we're able to sort that out. Nathan, I'm sorry. So my final one is an album from a band called Yolk Lore. That's Y-O-K-E space L-O-R-E. And the album is called Good Pain. It's on Spotify. I will put a link to the Spotify and if you don't have Spotify, I will put a link to one of the songs either good pain or beige, probably from YouTube. And the it's a this really fantastic band, they kind of a genre crossing cross with folk and some kind of newer electronic elements. And a lot of kind of soundscape work. It's hard to explain. I don't I'm not going to go into like a long process of explaining how music sounds. So What I really think is worth doing is just take a moment and list the album only has like six or seven songs. And I think it's definitely worth checking out. The band is relatively new. They're playing a lot of shows all over. You know, they're playing a lot of shows from many different places. So they might be playing in your area in the next little while. And it's an album that I've become very much obsessed with. They also do this really cool thing on Spotify where instead of album art, it's like a gif. So the song, you'll glance down at your phone and there'll be like a, a little line drawing of a guy playing a banjo or something. And, uh, I really enjoy that kind of stuff. It's a little bit more immersive. Uh, the band's great. They have a ton of music, but this one album, um, good pain, I think is where is the starting point and, uh, a good kind of entry to the band. So I'll throw that in the, uh, in the show notes, but just something to kind of add to your Spotify, YouTube, whatever title existence.
Jason Heaton Nice. Yeah. Always good to get new music recommendations. I'm always, uh, always looking for new stuff. I checked out, finally checked out Fleet Foxes on your recommendation from like two years ago and it's fantastic.
James Stacey Dude, Fleet Foxes is great. Yeah. Oh yeah. I listened to it all weekend and I got the new, uh, they got the stereo set up at the new place and had lots of Fleet Foxes on.
Jason Heaton Cool. Well, uh, I think that wraps it up for us. Thanks so much for listening and a big thanks to Hodinkee for supporting the show. Hit the show notes via hodinkee.com or the feed for more details. You can follow us on Instagram. I am at Jason Heaton. James is at J.E. Stacey and follow the show at The Graynado. If you have any questions for us, please write to TheGraynado at gmail.com or just drop it into the comments on the Hodinkee article. And please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive.
James Stacey And we leave you this quote from the American economist, George Stigler, who said, a transition period is a period between two transition periods.