Episode 164 - Interview with Brett Williams of Tool Watch Co

Published on Thu, 16 Dec 2021 03:00:00 -0800

Synopsis

This is a transcript of a podcast episode where the hosts, Everett and Andrew, interview Brett Williams from Tool Watch Company about his new watch, the Arctic Field (formerly called the Arctic Explorer). They discuss the design and features of the watch, including its titanium case, meteorite dial, and quick-release bracelet. Brett also talks about the inspiration behind the watch, which is centered around early polar explorers and environmental sustainability. In the second half, they have more casual conversation about other topics like audio equipment, Bluetooth speakers, and South African gin.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello, fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 and 20 The Watch Clicker podcast with your host, Andrew. I'm a good friend, Everett. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, how are you?
Everett So good. Yeah, no, I'm really good. I'm really good. It's been a good day. Work has been weird. We've hired new employees, and any time we hire a new employee, it's weird because I've got to do all the insurance stuff I've got to do. the payroll stuff. And then, and then I've always got like, I had like a weird website thing. Our website kind of went down. It's a terrible website too. And so I had to like get it back online. And then our WordPress was all corrupted and I don't know why. And so I had to like, but all that. And I was like, I just did everything. I was like, yeah, I got this.
Andrew Why don't you just pay people in cash at the end of the week? Solve all those problems that we just talked about.
Everett Like pure under the table. Yeah. Yeah. No, we should do that. But don't, if I do it, don't tell anybody.
Andrew I would not. Okay. I would also, you know, expect to be an employee.
Everett Okay. But you're going to have, this got to be value added. Okay. Exactly. All right. It's got to be some sort of pro quo.
Andrew I don't tell anybody. Yeah. That's how that works.
Everett I feel like this is how this is like the the slippery slope to organize crime and police corruption.
Andrew Andrew, how are you? I'm good. I am.
Everett I want that. I want that Elysian. Yeah. So I gave it to you. Full Contact Imperial Hazy IP.
Andrew They're just adding all the things together. It's 8.8, which is why I only brought up two. Yeah, because 8.8. Yeah. It's delicious, though. It doesn't drink like, well, it drinks like an 8.8. Wait till you finish it. Or like have three. And you're like, oh, fuck.
Everett I think they're just going to start adding. It'll be like the full contact belly flop, the Imperial New England Hazy IPA Sour. Well, Imperial New England IPA is a... Double Imperial Hazy IPA Sour.
Andrew Stupid, stupid oxymoron. Dipshit. But I'm good. You know, coming out of a tail end up a weekend. And it's been a good weekend. I've been productive. Had a second birthday party for the two-year-old today. Spent yesterday making birthday cake and wrapping presents and stuff.
Everett Wait, did you make that birthday cake? Yes. I didn't eat any of it yet. I'm going to have to go back to the house and get some. Hopefully there's some left. It's very good. Shit, man. I didn't realize you made a birthday cake for it. Who makes a birthday cake for a two-year-old?
Andrew What else would you do? I'm not going to go spend like 40 bucks on a birthday cake for a two-year-old.
Everett You go to Costco and get the like $11.
Andrew This was like maybe that much money. All right.
Everett No, I mean, I appreciate the effort. I just don't know that the two-year-old does.
Andrew No, but I do. And I wanted that. I enjoyed that cake. I made the white chocolate drizzle that went down around the outside. Fair enough.
Everett No, it looked beautiful. It looked really, I just assumed it was a store-bought because it looks good.
Andrew No, I made it. I'm very good at nothing. I'm pretty okay at most things. I'm pretty okay at all things Yeah, I mean not basketball not applying sunblock and not toweling off I always miss like a really large swath of my body when I'm drying off Did you get hit with a water balloon and that one spot in your back? No, I just didn't just I missed it. That's what happens Yeah, that's what your clothes do your clothes dry you off So yeah, those are the three things that I'm just very bad at and have never been able to improve on
Everett Speaking of like pretty good at things I I recently ordered a head unit for my car. I think we talked about this and I've been talked out of Installing it myself, but as long as you get it, I mean, yeah, I I have an appointment to have it installed my wife When's it coming? I haven't I have all the stuff and now I've got an appointment to get it installed. It'll be installed on Thursday so as you're listening to this my head unit will be but I was really kind of looking forward to trying to do this thing, and my wife was like, Everett, please don't.
Andrew I think it would have been a fun weekend project.
Everett Yeah, it would have been fine. Yeah, she asked me not. She talked me out of it.
Andrew Whatever. Yeah, whatever. It's more expensive and less stress, which is why you make money.
Everett Well, in any event, in any event, stereo installers or not, we're going to talk about watches today, Andrew. Sort of. Wow. I mean, actually, just directly, really, in real life. And we have a guest. To that end, we have a guest on the show today, and his name is Brett Williams, and he's here from Tool Watch Company.
Andrew Hello, Brett. Brett Williams, how the hell are you? So good to see you. This is somebody we've never spoken to, know nothing about.
Brett Williams Which, and yet, it feels so familiar.
Andrew How the hell are you? Summer Christmas, man.
Everett Brett Williams, South African actor extraordinaire from to a watch company with his new watch, two of them double fisting. So wait, if one of those, one of those is unobtainium.
Brett Williams One of them is unobtainium. You can only buy it in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I think. Is that a Marvel reference? Unobtainium? I can't remember. I think so. Yeah, it's X-Men or something.
Everett No, I think it's Avatar. Unobtainium is what they mine on Avatar. And I'm in the industry. James Cameron. You know, I think it is maybe also a word that predates even that for just things that you can't get. Yeah, but maybe not. I'm sort of making things up at this point.
Andrew I don't think it's from Avatar.
Everett So Arctic Explorer. You've got two of them. These were pre-released or up for pre-order. There's a blue version which I had the pleasure of hanging out with for about three weeks and we actually published a review that's readable today on WatchClicker.com.
Andrew We can click on it. Legibility is a whole thing. Legibility is a problem when I write articles.
Everett Punctuation is not a strong skill of mine.
Brett Williams I would recommend Grammarly. I use it regularly. Yeah, man. We've got a blue and a black version and we've changed it for quite specific reasons just to the Arctic field. We don't obviously want to bring on the wrath of the big R, you know, just in case. We've changed the field.
Everett And I suspect you didn't actually have any formal cease and desist or perhaps even any informal, but just a sort of precautionary measure.
Brett Williams Yeah. It's, it's the descriptor, you know, it's not even the name of the watch. It was, we called, you know, the watch Arctic and then the descriptor of the watch was Explorer. And it's now Field. So we obviously, we didn't, you know, we thought ahead and we were just like, yeah, we don't want to get into like sticky situations or anything.
Andrew So, which is so silly because so many other brands just totally steal the design entirely. And they're like, whatever.
Brett Williams Yeah, exactly. You know, and you know, we're trying to do our own thing. So, you know, at the top of the watch is the name Arctic because we're really big on story and the inspiration of the watches. And then, you know, Toolwatch Co is just what we do and who we are. And that's at the bottom. So every single watch is going to be uh, the type setting is going to be like that on all the watches. So there's a huge consistency going across the board with all of them. But yeah, I think it wears, it's, it's really comfortable. You had it for three weeks. I think, uh, I hope you liked it. I hope you didn't lie in your review.
Everett Well, a, I would never admit to it if I did. And B no, you know, I think, I think the, well, you, you know, you know me, right. I'm going to say, I'm going to say the things I think, right. Like, uh, You know, the hands are a little funny for me. I'm sort of a traditionalist when it comes in hands. You've got some kind of, well, actually, I love the minute and hour hands. I love the painted, those blue, those shades of blue, as it were. But like the second hand, for instance, I don't love it. And I just say in my review, this is maybe your thing. It's maybe not my thing. But with that said, I think that because of the really classic lines and just the size, it's hard not to just enjoy that shit out of that watch. You know, it's Super thin what like just under 12 millimeters, right?
Brett Williams But yeah, it's like 1120 or something like that. I think it's 1135 1135.
Everett Yeah, you know, where's Including the crystal by the way, we're super thin It's titanium. So it's like super duper light, you know, I was a little sad that I didn't get the bracelet because I don't think you've gotten a bracelet either
Brett Williams I can't, you know, now I can't get up from where I'm sitting because I'm like strapped out. Hang on. I do have the bracelet, my friend. I do have the bracelet. Let me just, let me just grab it over here. So hopefully you don't get a view of my bedroom behind me. That wouldn't be the first time if you know what I mean. The bracelet is, you know, we didn't get the correct end links for our prototype, which we have redesigned. Um, that is the bracelet. It is three millimeters. And Andrew, it tapers.
Andrew That's, that's my thing. I want the taper and it's a nice taper with that butterfly. Ooh, I got titanium.
Brett Williams So good. The butterfly is just like so good, man. It's, it's a beautiful, beautiful, I designed this bracelet. Uh, this is not an off the shelf part, so you can't see it, but there's actually a taper. not a taper, a chamfer that runs all the way up here that comes to a point, which will come to a point right at the lug. It's a very small detail, but that's what I like. I like small, small details that you have to look for that, that sort of, you know, inform the whole of the watch. But yeah, that bracelet is amazing and strong as shit. It's great.
Everett And titanium, obviously. So it weighs nothing.
Andrew And it looks to be quick release.
Brett Williams Yes, it's quick release.
Everett Yeah. Quick release bracelets. Uh, you know, I almost think that's the way of the future. You gotta have it anymore.
Andrew I think the way of the present is even a better way to phrase that.
Everett You know, is it so, so let me ask you a question and not to put you on the spot here, but if you're a quick release bracelet, it's not a spring bar, right? If the quick release mechanism breaks, can you convert it to a regular spring bar?
Brett Williams Uh, you can. You can. I think so. You can take it out and yeah, you can. You can take it out and you can put a spring bar in there if it breaks. If you have a pair of pliers, I suppose.
Everett You know, it's a thing that I've thought about since quick releases sort of became a thing. It's a thing that I've considered on multiple occasions. Although I have no experience with that.
Andrew You can get a new quick release spring bar. How do you jam it in there? It's two pieces. So your quick release and your lever end is shorter than the entry point and that drops in there and it puts the one bar out the other side and then the other half of the spring bar comes and either uses just friction to hold together or imagine there's probably some that screw in. How else do you think they get it in? They don't like build the link around the fucking spring bar. Mill it out? I mean, shit. How do they do it?
Everett It's magic. It's like the ship and the bottle, right?
Andrew Well, that they just build, they just close the bottle around the ship.
Everett That's not the only thing. Yeah. All right. Fair enough, asshole.
Brett Williams Yeah. Yeah. Look, I had the same. I also wondered about it, but it seems like, you know, quick release spring bar is just so much easier.
Everett Yeah.
Brett Williams I've had watches where I struggle for like an hour. because the tolerances are so tight that you like you're struggling. And then you get the, you get the end link in and then it jams and it's just annoying.
Andrew And your lugs look like they've been through a garbage disposal after a single bracelet change.
Brett Williams Exactly. Exactly.
Everett We both had separate, you know, we've talked about this on the show, but we both had separate incidents where, you know, each of us has had an incident where we were up at like two in the morning on alley express. like looking at how fast we could get tweezers sent to our, you know, like spring bar tweezers sent to our house. So, uh, you know, like, and you know, there's a story there, right? So, uh, yeah, yeah. The, the quick release is, is a thing and I'm here for it.
Andrew Was that, was that a significant enough price increase that it was a decision or was that just something you were set on?
Brett Williams The quick release spring bar? I just sat on it, absolutely, without doubt. It was just a no-brainer. Personally, I don't think the price increases for the spring bars, I don't even think it factors in. It's just purely because for the end user, we want hassle-free use.
Everett Sorry, yes. No, go ahead. I was going to say it must be something that that is affordable enough because we're seeing it relatively frequently at this point.
Brett Williams I don't think it really factors into anything. I think the manufacturers are actually totally fine with it. It's either you get normal spring bars or you get quick release. The interesting thing is the other things that factor into watches that people don't realize how expensive materials are. Um, it's quite, and as a brand owner, you don't realize the price of things. Sometimes when you go, Oh, let's wait, maybe we should have this with it. Maybe we should have that for that. And that all adds up significantly really quickly. Um, you know, but it's, um, at the end of the day, what, what we want to do is, is gives a, like a quality watch. That's like packed full of like stuff that we want to watch, you know, we want like high quality. box sapphire crystal. We've got natural meteorite dials, Sellita SW200-1B movements with no ghost stop for the date, the HV1200 coating. It's stuff like if you wear a watch, you're like, okay, I don't want the watch to get scuffed and scratched. For an affordable watch, it's pretty packed, I think. That's my sale, my selling point.
Everett Yeah. You know, uh, you're, you're, you're doing a good job, I think, uh, in pitching me at the very least. Uh, why don't we talk about nuts and bolts because you, you know, we, we've sort of referred to it sort of, uh, adjacently at this point only you're here to talk about your watch, the Arctic field, not the Arctic Explorer. So what, what the hell is this thing? Uh, What is this thing? Available on pre-order now? I think pre-order prices are 500-ish.
Andrew It's 800 with a bracelet.
Brett Williams That's what it says. On the website. Yeah, on the website. And then on Indiegogo In Demand, we have a festive seasons offering of, I think it's up to minus 45%. What website is that? Indiegogo In Demand. I'll send you the link.
Everett And it'll be in the show notes for your, for your listening, for your listening, clicking pleasure.
Brett Williams So, um, you know, we, we, obviously we went from, we had a successful Kickstarter and we were in the pre-order stage and we still want to give, um, discounts to people. We want to discount our watches so that, so that people have it, have the option to get it before it goes, um, retail prices on the website eventually. Or you can still get it on the website for retail prices.
Everett Yeah.
Brett Williams Feel free. Feel free, feel free to do that.
Everett It's a 37 millimeter, which I think is, you know, any 38, 30, excuse me, 38, 30, it's 37 and change, right?
Brett Williams It's 38, but it's small. It's like, it's a, it's an interesting watch because it doesn't, you know, it doesn't feel like a sizey watch. It's,
Everett Absolutely not, yeah.
Andrew It's the titanium. It's the weight, because it's so light, it feels smaller, yeah.
Brett Williams And it's so comfortable. I mean, you wore it for three weeks. I find it incredibly comfortable, this watch. Chime in anytime, Everett.
Everett Yeah, well, I was going to say, you know, it feels, this is going to be an odd way to come about this, but it looks, from top down, especially, you know, in a photograph, it looks a little bit sharp. Right. It's, it's sort of angular. Um, it doesn't have any chamfering, um, on that top, on that top plate, it is horizontal and vertical surfaces is what it is. And so when you see it, it perhaps looks like it could, or even should be a little bit sharp, but because of the weight, I think in part, it winds up sitting on your wrist really soft, uh, um, was my experience, right? It just does not feel. like a hard or angular thing, the, the, between the weight and just its ability to sort of, you know, the anatomy of the wrist is such that you've got a little pocket there between the radius and the ulna. And for me, it was just perfect. It sat right there and disappeared. Um, not to say, you know, I hate it when people say, you know, you forget you're wearing it. I never forgot I was wearing it, but it really just sort of became part of my anatomy.
Brett Williams Yeah. It's a very, I look, I mean, I just, obviously I designed the watch. Um, so I take full credit. Um, I look, I wear this thing all the time. I've surfed with it. I wear it every day and it's, it's just so comfortable and it's, it's an interesting watch because it's difficult to photograph. I find.
Andrew Is it the domed crystal that makes it hard? It's the case.
Everett It is the case. Agreed.
Brett Williams So, so if when it's on your wrist, the case, I find the case really beautiful and quite subtle because of the lines. And, but I just, it is a difficult watch to photograph and it's hard to get that meteorite dial to really pop in, in photography. Some Everett did a really good job. Yes. Kudos to you, man. Kudos to you.
Everett I took all the pictures. No, Brent, it's interesting. It's interesting that you say this because there was a bit of an internal sort of existential crisis when I shot that watch. You know, I feel like I'm fairly accomplished as a amateur watch photographer. You know, I have at least the understanding of the lighting required to get pleasing watch shots. And I really struggled with photographing your watch. And at one point, I sort of emailed will, uh, in not, not full-blown crisis mode, but, but approaching that. And I was like, what, what the fuck am I doing? And we talked through it and it was fine, but I, I struggled. We're actually the one time I've ever reached out to will the watch clicker to say, I need help. Daddy was shooting your watch, which, which I think is surprising because it's not hard to look at in person. Um, exactly.
Andrew It's subtle though. I mean, the meteorite isn't, you don't immediately notice it. And in photographs, it's easy to grab because that's what we're trying to photograph. But when I first saw it, I was like, that's cool. Oh, that's, oh, that's cool. Let's, I want to talk more about the, the decision behind meteorite because it's, it's seeing a kind of surge in popularity. It's, it's a, it's a dial that we're seeing more often, but I'm curious your reason for going that direction.
Brett Williams Cool. Yeah, it's, you know, I, for me, every time if I design something, I want there to be a meaning behind it. I don't want to just design something or call it something or, you know, because it's cool or anything like that. So the meteorite actually relates to the Arctic for us. Our meteorite comes from the north of Sweden, from the Arctic Circle, north of the Arctic Circle. And the relation is that There's a crater that was found under the Arctic ice sheets, which is the largest meteorite crater found under the Earth's ice sheets. It's a dinosaur killer. We don't talk about that. It's called the Hiawatha Glacier Meteorite Crater. And I was like, you know, when we ran the Kickstarter, I got an email and I this guy emailed me and he was like, Oh, I love your watch. I love the meteorite. By the way, I'm the guy who found the crater and I just bought one of your watches. Here's a photo of us, um, at the crater. And I was just like completely blown away. I, it was like amazing.
Everett Totally nerded out.
Brett Williams I totally, completely like geeked out over it. Yeah. Yeah. So it's all these little aspects, you know, um, have to mean something. They have to, they have to relate to the story. I mean, our story is, for this first watch, is quite big. It's like inspired by the early polar pioneers like Peter Freuchen, the guy who was like a six foot seven Dane who married an Inuit woman and had kids and then she died and he fought off polar bears. He got frozen into an ice cave, which formed over a dog sled during a blizzard. And to survive, he chiseled his way out, forming a like an ice pick a knife from his own waist, you know, pretty much.
Everett Yeah. Not pretty much. I didn't want to say it. Yeah.
Brett Williams He, he actually did that. And then he went back to camp and he amputated his toes.
Andrew Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what you have to do.
Everett And you know, like a fucking badass wrote, wrote, wrote an autobiographical screenplay, which one, or a semi autobiographical screenplay, which one an Oscar, like he's, Uh, he's this one, the 64th million, $64,000. It would be a million. Uh, like the fifth guy ever to do it. He's this, like you, you read about this guy and yeah, fought Nazis. It's like, this is impossible. He is a real life. Forrest Gump is what he is. And I understand he was maybe a little bit smarter.
Brett Williams A little bit. Yes.
Everett A little bit. Cause he's like a professor and a lecturer and like, who is this person?
Brett Williams I know completely. I mean, it's totally amazing. I mean, you know, you look back at those guys. In fact, this is a segue to something else that's on Netflix at the moment. Um, you know, the, the, the, the kind of like mental stamina, stamina that people have in the face of adversity. And there's, there's a documentary on Netflix. If you haven't seen it called the 14 peaks.
Andrew Oh, yes. Uh, I haven't watched it. I saw the, uh, the tile for it. I watched the trailer today. And then didn't get a chance to watch it.
Brett Williams It's, it's, it's insane. It is insane. It like, like that guy, I've never, I've never come across anybody who's got the mental fortitude to keep pushing.
Andrew So the whole premise of this is a, uh, he's from Nepal, right?
Brett Williams He's a Nepalese climber. And, and of course, you know, when everyone goes to Everest, they have Sherpas to, to like lay the ropes and lead the way and carry the packs and, you know, all the work, do all the work. And he was like, and also do the climbing while doing all the work for the white people and cleaning up and cleaning up Everest, bringing all the shit down from the mountain that everybody leaves up there. Not the dead people though. Not the dead people. Well, they, they started, they've started apparently to a certain height.
Everett Yeah. Green boots is still, green boots is still hanging out.
Andrew He's not going anywhere. That guy's a, that's a monument at this point.
Brett Williams He's part of the landscape.
Everett What do they, what do they call it? Rainbow Valley? Is that what they call the, the section of the climb that's got, you know, just dozens, dozens of, of human bodies wearing brightly colored down, down sweaters.
Brett Williams Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's pretty intense. It is remarkable. Yeah. Because you can't, I suppose at that height, you just, You know, it's very difficult. You can't understand the exhaustion it takes just to like move somebody. But his, his whole thing was like, there's never been like a Nepali, Nepalese climbers never get the recognition they deserve. So he was like, cool, I'm going to climb. There are 14,000 peaks over 8,000 meters. I'm going to climb all of them in seven months.
Andrew Which is like what normal people do to summit Everest.
Brett Williams Yes. And the, the guy who did it, initially, I can't remember his name. He's a German or Swiss guy or Austrian. And he did one of those, one of those Germanic dudes. He did it in, uh, in years. He did it. He, he took years to do it. And this guy does it. I mean, he, fuck man, they climbed, I think it was Everest hung over. Yeah.
Everett Yeah. I mean, if you're going to do Everest as well.
Andrew Yeah. And the impressive part is that this guy was totally unknown in the mountaineering world. He just showed up and was like, what's up, bitches, and then put everyone to shame. Totally.
Brett Williams Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you watch it, you'll see the guy is like a positive force in the world. He's fantastic. I think he's amazing. He's, you know, he is obviously sponsored by another watch company, which is A great watch company.
Everett Wait, who is he? I don't know the, I don't know the answer. Who is he sponsored by?
Brett Williams Uh, Bremont.
Everett Right. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, that makes sense.
Brett Williams Is it Bremont? Bremont? Bremont?
Everett We prefer Bremont.
Andrew I think it just depends on how fancy you want to be.
Everett Bremont. Bremont.
Andrew If we were drinking champagne, we'd be, we'd say Bremont.
Everett You know, it's, it's interesting here. Here we are talking about this. I think, um, Tenzing Norgay has gotten an increasing amount of, um, real estate in the, in the, you know, the first Everest summit story, which I think is, is wonderful, right? Like we should be talking about Tenzing Norgay and perhaps less about other people who maybe were out there.
Brett Williams He does reference him. Yeah. He does reference Tenzing. And, but the interesting thing about Hillary and Norgay is, um, Hillary didn't say who summited first.
Everett Hilary didn't say a lot of things. Hilary didn't say I was wearing a Rolex. He did not say I summited first. The things that Hilary didn't say, I think, are pretty telling.
Andrew They're louder than the things he did, for sure.
Brett Williams It was such a specific feat. He was, you know, chronically ambiguous. Yeah.
Everett A little self plug. If you haven't listened to our Watches of Everest episode, it is one of my favorite episodes that we've ever done.
Andrew And arguably the most controversial. Yeah. Go check it out. So I think... Who was it? Did you get feedback? No. No.
Everett People don't listen to us. Brett, you don't even listen to us. Come on. I do.
Brett Williams I do.
Everett Oh, that came out wrong. I do. I did once. I did.
Andrew He's listening to us now. That's right. That's right. So, I mean, I think it's worth noting that here we are talking about these pillars in the adventure world, in the, like these feats of human experience. At the same time, we're talking about your watch and that just, just that we're even having these conversations at the same time, I think really speaks to the story you're trying to tell. And I'm why this story, like why these people's conquering human spirit in this watch?
Brett Williams I really enjoy stories. So, um, it's pretty simple. I, uh, it's, it's actually very simple. I don't feel for myself that I want to produce a watch based on nothing. You know, I want there to be a story. I want, I want people to have fun with the watch. I want them to, to learn more about, um, about the world. I mean, look, we have a polar bear on the on the case back, right? Sorry, a little polar bear. You know, it's the symbol of Greenland, the Arctic, it's it's synonymous with with what's going on. And, and it's also synonymous with, you know, the fact that we live in an age where the ice in the polar regions is, is not what it used to be. In peril, we can draw attention If we can draw attention to, you know, other cultures or the plight of the polar bears in any small way, you know, we don't have to like bang the drum too hard. But like, yeah, I know that the watch world is quite conservative sometimes about things. So, you know, we as a company, we are trying to create small ripples of sustainability in what we do. Our packaging is sustainable so that you don't get like reams of bubble wrap and it offsets the CO2 from shipping. I mean, shipping creates a lot of the issues.
Andrew I guess probably the bulk of your footprint.
Brett Williams Yeah, it does. It's actually really bad. The shipping is actually really bad. But we're also sourcing our leather from overstock fashion houses in Europe so that we don't just go, okay, we want leather, let's just get new leather. There is there are resources out there that people are just not using. So that's really important to us. We don't expect the end user to cheerlead us or anything like that. We just want to provide that service to people. Yeah. That's my sustainability drive right there.
Everett But it means a lot to us. It's more than that, right? You know, it's, a commitment, which I think is important and you don't have, it doesn't have to be a fancy, you know, you don't have to be a Mr. Beast, you know, YouTube show or, or whatever, right. To, to be conscious of those things. And, and, you know, you, you recognize like all we're doing is offsetting our own art, the, the, the waste we're creating, right. You're not pretending to do something you're not. So no, it's just consciousness. I think we've got to get to a place where everybody's, you know, making more conscious decisions about these things.
Andrew I think it's also a really important component of the story that you're telling. I think it'd be really shitty if you're trying to tell these stories of these grand wilderness adventures and encapsulate the, the thing that is those things while also actively shitting on those things.
Brett Williams Absolutely. And unless it impacts, I think, you know, sustainability is kind of, there's a lot of greenwashing in the watch industry and other industries. People just kind of say that they're doing stuff to fit in with the, I suppose it's fashionable now to do that kind of stuff. We're giving away, we're part of a drive with Stripe, which is a payment system to give away 1%. I know that sounds like very little, but we are a very small company, but 1% of our profits you know, to sustainable causes. We obviously cannot afford to do more than that right now. But this is something that we are geared to do. We really feel passionate about the planet. And I think unless it really starts to impact you personally, people tend to not see it. I mean, when I go surfing, every time I go surfing, whether I've surfed in Bali, in Australia, I surf here, I'm always putting pieces of plastic in my wetsuit to take to the beach to put in the bin. Yeah, that's just a direct impact of the human environment.
Andrew That's so funny. I do just the opposite. I like fill mine with debris to leave behind.
Everett He actually goes right behind you and replaces what you pick up.
Brett Williams It's like, why is there so much shit in the ocean? You're like, you're just like unloading, unloading behind me.
Everett It's like the shampoo and the shower trick. You just pour a little bit more shampoo in there.
Andrew I love that. I bring a hand planer and I just, I just remove my surfboard and then swim back to shore. But no, I, I, I love, I love that, that this is all a cohesive story. And I think that's, that's really noteworthy because it's easy to tell a story or easy to, you know, to grab somebody iconic and say, Hey, you know, this is who this is. This is the person where, you know, we're, we're doing a watch for, we're, we're doing it to honor these people or these things. And there's plenty of brands out there that are where we're paying homage to this organization or that organization. And, and it's just marketing.
Brett Williams Yeah. Every Everest is the big one, obviously, you know, for like, Arctic watches, climbing watches. So it's, you know, we, we like the underdogs and we like smaller, smaller stories. You know, there are cool stories out there to be told. There's not people like you and me, not like you and me, but, but like, you know, I was just going to say, there's nothing small about Peter Fragon.
Everett I mean, he's, he was giant without his toes and size 13 boot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, you mentioned something right. The, the watch community is, you know, relatively conservative, I think, in many respects. And I don't mean purely politically conservative. But, you know, it's just a conservative community. And I think you've done a good job balancing sort of any sort of environmental impact statement with, you know, Peter Fruyken, right? Peter Fruyken balances many, many scales. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, if you like had uh like a like a Rachel Carson on the back or something it may not have this quite the same effect so.
Brett Williams No.
Andrew Can we talk about bracelet design? We talk a lot about watch design and it's not that I'm not excited about your watch. We don't often talk about bracelet design and you have already said that you designed your bracelet and and just for if for those of you who haven't seen the bracelet this isn't like a Swiss army knife or like fossil Gerber tool bracelet, right? This isn't something ridiculous. This is a very refined, very classic, very familiar bracelet. But I want to talk about that because we're really accustomed to talking about familiar designs and watches. I want to talk about familiar design in a bracelet and where you started, how you got to where you were going, what you were trying to achieve in that.
Brett Williams So our bracelet is an H-link. It's an H-link. It's an H-link. There are a lot of H-links out there. Obviously, because it's a popular design. But this one is mine. It's very comfortable. But this one is mine, exactly. It's a very popular design because it's really comfortable and it articulates really well. So, I wanted to use the H-Link on this watch and we will be using this bracelet going forward with all our watches.
Andrew Are you going to do a case commonality or are you going to change metal types? Yes.
Brett Williams Our methodology is that we want to be consistent with what we do while, you know, consistency in different types of applications, you know, chronodiver, that kind of thing. I think that lends itself to brand longevity quite well. And it's also a recognizability of a brand. These are just, you know, things that I we were thinking of. But the H-Link, I think, sort of works for everything. So I wanted something that was thin, and I wanted something that was tapered and was unique to us. So I designed within the parameters of what I could design, manufacturing-wise, an H-Link that I thought was really nicely balanced. And we are using a butterfly clasp. I know that's not everybody's tea, a cup of tea, but it's, um, this one is surprisingly strong. I was very specific about the mechanism we were using. Um, you can see it there. I'm sorry for the listeners at home. It's very simple. Uh, it's, it's very well made and it's very strong. The, you know, even if you, you know, that was a bad example. Yeah, that was a bad example, but it doesn't really use, you know, you have to actually,
Andrew Just compressing the buttons doesn't open it. You have to actually open the bracelet.
Brett Williams You have to open it. It's really beautifully sized. It's so comfortable. I really like it. For me, it's actually the best bracelet I've owned. And that's not just saying that. I mean, I've owned quite a few watches, and this one is... I love it. It's so thin.
Andrew Will it open if just one of the buttons is compressed? Or is there enough ass on each of those Yeah. No, he's, he's, he's given it a good heartshake.
Everett Do you sacrifice adjustability? I mean, I, I'm, I'm asking that a bit rhetorically, you know, what, what's your sacrifice adjustability? I'll just say it with a butterfly. And how do you, uh, how do you make that right? I don't think, I don't think you can completely cure it with that design.
Brett Williams You can't, you, you know, this isn't a, it's not one of those like, um, You know, it's not a dive strap or anything like that with, you know, multiple micro adjustments or anything like that. What I did was I made the links as small as possible.
Everett Yeah.
Brett Williams So it is a refined, it's not a big garish H-link. It's a very refined H-link and it seems to fit from what we've tested. It seems to fit really well with people. You know, the links are like six mils.
Andrew Well, and the benefit of H-links is that every adjustment is almost a half link.
Brett Williams Yeah, exactly. It's very, very, very small.
Everett So, um, in six mils, that's about the size of a dive crown.
Brett Williams Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Six mils is, is like the smallest crown you would probably get. I think, you know, unless you're doing a fashion watch, a two millimeter Michael Kors crown.
Everett Yeah.
Brett Williams But I wish, you know, I do wish I'd sent you the bracelet. I just, the decision at the end of the day was that the end links were just not right. And it would have given a negative impression in the review.
Everett And it wasn't just me, you know, I received that watch from a reviewer and I sent it to a reviewer too. So, you know, we're always willing to hear out owners when they talk about what's going to change. And some things changed on your watch from the prototype that I had to what people are actually going to receive. We're always willing to talk about those things. But it includes, you know, this is what it looks like for me. Brett says he's going to fix this bullshit, but this is what we have for now. So yeah, you do. I think you're right. You've got to be careful. And if it's not ready to send out for reviews, you don't send it out for reviews.
Brett Williams Yeah. Look, we, we, we sent our watches out for review. And initially as you, as in your review, it was, um, the bottom text above the six o'clock marker was Toolwatch Co, Sellita SW200, um, I don't even have my glasses Explorer. Um, and we got a lot of feedback about the Salida SW 200. We had a, uh, we had a reason for doing that because we wanted to highlight the movement based on the region of inspiration, but people didn't like it and we removed it. We, we made the decision to remove it because people didn't like it and we weren't going to give something to people that they didn't like, you know, I think as a brand, um, there's a balance between listening to what people want and, and keeping brand integrity. And we've decided to remove it.
Everett You know, one of the things I noted in my review is that the, you know, I think this was actually my one criticism of the watch was that I think your, your hour markers are, or your big Cardinal markers are sort of pushed a little bit to the outside. It's not a bad choice. It's just a choice. I thought that it sort of created some crowding on that outer track, but what it does do is, give you this really lovely sort of wide real estate of dial that is got that texture. And I think that the decision to remove some of that text is a good one because it's going to really highlight what I think is one of the most interesting things about that watch, which is that meteorite dial.
Brett Williams Yeah. I think, you know, that's a conscious thing that we did because, um, Every watch, our intention is to use natural materials where we can for every dial that we're going forward. We don't want to use just plain dials. We want to use natural materials that have different textures where color variation will change slightly. It's really interesting because the watch out of sunlight just looks like this beautiful navy. You put it in sunlight and the meteorite comes alive. If you photograph it with a macro, the meteorite looks different again. It's got all these unique qualities. And we also, as you said earlier, you said sometimes meteorites can be quite garish and bright and glossy. So, of course, there's a process to color meteorite. Meteorite is generally an iron color, right? And it goes through a process, but we decided we wanted actually a matte, a more matte finish to our meteorite instead of that glossy kind of meteorite that, you know, metallic, the metallic look. Yeah. Yeah. For me, that, that doesn't really work for me. I I'm quite an understated person. Uh,
Andrew With an IMDb page.
Brett Williams With an IMDb page. Let me just say, let me just say I was speaking to someone on, who's got a channel called something like Too Bad, or Too Good, I don't know. It's like he reviews terrible movies, terrible movies that are good to watch. You know, he does a lot of Steven Seagal. So I actually- I liked this guy. Yeah. He's like, Oh my God, is Steven Seagal actually going to move this time in the movie? So he, I actually spoke to him recently. I told him I actually did a movie where I asked to be removed from the IMDb on that movie. It was so bad. I asked to be uncredited.
Everett Were you successful?
Brett Williams I was, I was, it was, it was truly awful. Yeah. Truly awful.
Everett You're going to have to give us the dirty deets after we stop the recording.
Andrew So with that, what's future plans for dials? Because I mean there are a lot of natural materials out there that can be cut wafer thin, that can be used for a dial, but you know you've got wood options, you've got metal options. There's ocean plastics, which I think is kind of an interesting play, but I think would still kind of fit in your niche of responsibility and all these things. You got mother of pearl. What else is out there for you? Skin. You could do human skin.
Everett Human flesh.
Andrew That'd be super cool. There'd be an odor, but you know, sort of like an evil dead.
Brett Williams It's like a terrible scratch and sniff watch. But Yeah, look, there's a lot of different stuff that's happening out there. Obviously, natural materials, you are somewhat limited regarding natural material and yeah, nature. There's nothing out there.
Andrew Fur. We've got shit to do.
Brett Williams But look, just, I just want to say that I saw the Oris, Oris, Oris, Oris, Oris watch with a plastic dial.
Andrew A wreath.
Brett Williams It's pronounced pronounced. Um, but I saw the plastic dial and I was a little bit skeptical, but then what I saw was that their packaging was actually, um, also all recycled. They'd taken what they'd done on the dial and done it with the, you know, Morris is legit, man.
Everett That company's fantastic. That dial is fantastic. That watch is really spectacular in person. You see it and you're like, Oh, this is really cool.
Brett Williams I really like it.
Everett I've got nothing but good things to say about AORUS. AORI, as it were.
Brett Williams AORI. Yeah, I was really impressed by what they did. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think it looks fucking cool. It's different.
Everett It looks fucking cool. That's it.
Brett Williams Yeah.
Everett That's it. They should put that. You know where they do the testimonials on the website. They should put that. It looks fucking cool, Brett Williams.
Andrew But it's not weird. That's the thing. I mean, that's the careful balance to meet. something that looks cool, but isn't like, Oh, that's cool. But I wouldn't come near that with a 10 foot pole and I would never wear it. Yeah.
Brett Williams Look, when I, when I started getting into watches, I, I, um, geez, I'm plugging like so many watch brands. When I started getting into watches, I really liked Cobalt, you know, Cobalt. Yeah.
Everett Yeah.
Brett Williams The James Gandolfini middle finger, like ad was like insane. And they've got a whole Nepalese thing going. I really respect those guys. I think what they're doing is great. And that's like real, genuine, cool stuff. I think, you know, I would love to do the Conor McGregor, fuck you. I don't know if you saw his bespoke suit, his pinstripe suit. I would love to do that. But our brand is not that, unfortunately. But yeah, I think it's amazing.
Everett Now, you know, you mentioned this and so I'll just tell you, you know, we have any number of folks with really drastically different personalities that have come on this show. Without a doubt, the most positively reviewed owners we have on the show are folks that come on and say, I love this brand. I love these micro brands. I, you know, met these guys here. You know, our listeners, Bless their hearts are thanks mom and dad are real enthusiasts and they are, you can't sell them on anything. You're not going to sell our listeners and they want to know who the people are. So when you come in and you say, these are the brands I like, you know, they don't see you as pitching other watch brands. They see you as. coming on and actually just being a real person that they'd like to hang out with.
Andrew That's my feeling. And sharing the inspiration behind your watches and the brands that inspire you and the things that you like that led to this. Like we get to see the parents and the grandparents and the genealogy of this watch that's in front of us now. And I think that's something that our listeners, I mean, I like it. I like to know where it came from. Like I like to see how the sausage is made. And I think watch people generally like to know how the sausage is made after they eat the sausage.
Brett Williams That is a great analogy.
Everett And if they're listening to this show, they're eating the sausage.
Brett Williams I'll tell you that much. They're definitely drinking the Kool-Aid and eating the sausage. Yeah. I love that, man. For your listeners out there who don't know, I am trying to match both of you. It is, quarter to eight in the morning. And I am drinking red wine out of a teacup.
Andrew That's America right there. I mean, you might live in South Africa, but you'd fit in just nicely here.
Everett I will say it is a very nice Le Creuset. Le Creuset? Yeah. It's a very nice porcelain mug. Yeah. Porcelain mug. Yeah. Those are like fancy That's crate and barrel shit right there.
Andrew Yeah. Graduated green scale color on it.
Brett Williams Yeah. Yeah. And my, um, my funnel over and, uh, I think this was $5 bottle of wine, which is wine is so cheap here. It's the South African version.
Andrew South Africa is great wine country, right?
Brett Williams Yeah. Oh yeah. No. I mean, if you guys ever visited, you would go to places like Front Shook, and Stellenbosch and you would visit the wine farms, which are, you know, they're not just wine farms. They have incredible restaurants and tours and it's like, it's stupid. It's beautiful. It's so beautiful. Our food is incredible. Our wines are incredible. We have like, there's a gin distillery down the road from me.
Andrew That's where I'd be.
Brett Williams It's crazy.
Everett So do you, do you drink gin? I've always, I've always suspected that people that drink gin, like people whose primary drink is gin are folks that have just like given up. They're like, I'm, this is who, this is who I am. I drink gin. Like if you buy gin in half gallons, you're, you're there. That is, that's it. You've, you've developed a personality.
Brett Williams You've made it. I drink, I don't drink the, I drink like good. So I hate the word bespoke. Uh, I'm trying to think of a small batch, but I think small, thank you. Boutique, boutique, small batch gins. Um, there's a bottle store about like 15 minutes from me that has like 200 different gins.
Everett What do you, do you buy like, do you get liters in South Africa?
Brett Williams I assume 750 mils.
Everett You do guys. 750. Okay. All right.
Brett Williams Yeah. I don't drink it all at once.
Andrew Yeah.
Brett Williams But, but you know about, you know, about the gin, the gin babies and the gin kind of pandemic in England.
Everett No, tell me more.
Brett Williams I'm ready for it. So, so, so we're ready. I'm a bit, I'm a bit vague on this, but basically, um, barley and hops was too expensive to create beer. So people in England in the seven, 1800s or 1700s drank gin because it was so cheap and there were, and, and, pretty much everyone became an alcoholic.
Andrew Which is why gin has the reputation it has.
Brett Williams Yes. As like a depressive, like, yeah.
Everett They were like, this is just made from shit in the forest. It costs nothing and you get super drunk. It's amazing. That's where I want to be anyway.
Andrew Who cares about how it tastes?
Brett Williams Exactly. Our gin is very good, by the way.
Everett South African gin is good.
Brett Williams Yeah. It's fricking amazing, man. Because we have really good botanicals here. You know, which you can, uh, there was a bar down the road from me that used to go and forage botanicals on the mountain. I, as you saw earlier, I faced Table Mountain and we have, um, this, this bush called Fanebos. It translates to fine bush, and it only sort of grows here. And it has a complicated fucking translation. Oh no, Fanebos, fine bush. So, um, So they would go and forage and they would use it in their gin infusions. It's pretty cool.
Andrew I'm going to do some looking up. I'm going to get some South African gin because I was familiar with South African wine. I worked in a restaurant for a long time that was a wine place and as a result of that got really familiar with global wines and South African wines were among my favorites.
Brett Williams I'll send you guys some photos when I'm at the bottle store next.
Andrew Don't send photos, just send bottles.
Brett Williams I'll send you bottles.
Everett Can you do that? Is that legal? No, that's not. Okay, so don't do that.
Brett Williams Is it not legal?
Andrew It's not in the US. You can see, like when people ship beer to like homebrew competitions in the US, you have to declare that it's a liquid because if it's leaking, they want to know why it's leaking and what it's leaking. And you're supposed to label it as a yeast sample.
Everett Hmm. a used sample yeah that sounds dirty yeah it sounds like something medical let me just say that i have sent two bottles to the us before but now that now that you said that obviously i can't send you yeah of course of course definitely don't do that that's illegal do not send it do not well okay so to a watch To a watch go Arctic field available now available via Indiegogo on demand in demand. Yes, in demand in demand, no longer available on Kickstarter. Am I correct in that?
Brett Williams No, but we do have up to 45% this this month. Festive holiday offers for all your summer watching needs, which is really a fantasy.
Everett I mean, it really makes this a very affordable watch is what I would call. Not that 800 is an outrageously priced watch for what you're getting, In the $500 range, this is an affordable watch. Just clearly, totally, completely custom. Bang for your buck, $480 right now. Swiss movement, gemologist certified meteorite dial, titanium case. Thank you, I forgot to say that, yes. No, I got you, Brett.
Brett Williams Thanks, man.
Everett Yeah, I got you. Available now. Also, check them out, toolwatchco.com. You can check them on the gram, at toolwatchco.
Brett Williams you can check them out on snapchat also at tool watch co and only fans that's a different demographic um we we haven't quite hit tiktok and snapchat yet or i'm just joking the only fans is real though it's just a different name yeah we we are on we are an only fan so i have to say that but you have to be a subscriber yeah fair fair enough is there like a trial period like
Andrew Like two days, three days, trial period.
Brett Williams If you, if you Google images to watch only fans, you might get lucky.
Everett Perfect. There, there is the unlimited blue dial version, obviously still available. You've got a 300 limited edition, 300 count black dial. And I believe the 150. Oh, excuse me, 150 black dial. And, and you do have a couple of those left, correct?
Brett Williams We do. We are definitely in competition with the protect Tiffany.
Everett Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's clearly correct.
Brett Williams Also.
Andrew So if you can't get one of these also, you know, take, take an opportunity to get a, get a Tiffany.
Everett The extremely limited silver white doll has been pulled. I understand.
Brett Williams Yes. Yeah. That is good. We, we have, we have some plans for that actually in the future. Okay. Yeah. We have some secret plans for that in the future. But we did pull that. That dial is extremely difficult to get right, which is why it was 1 of 10 initially. But the blue is unlimited, and the black is 150. And numbered. And numbered. Both are numbered.
Everett Yeah. So there you go. Anything else you want to add about the watch to a watch company or the Arctic field before we transition here?
Brett Williams I would love to. Um, just quickly, the Saffiano strap that you got, I think is really beautiful and comfortable and very, very high quality. So you get, what you get with the watch is you get the watch, you get the titanium bracelet, the Saffiano leather strap, the watch tool to your warranty card, which is actually stainless steel. because we try not to use plastic where we can. Leather watch pouch and your extremely lightweight modular packaging.
Andrew Jesus, they also get like your home phone number, like so much stuff.
Brett Williams But wait, there is more.
Andrew God, your American accent is just terrific. And you throw it down at just the best spots.
Brett Williams Yeah, it's
Everett Anytime you want to sound like an asshole, you use your American accent.
Brett Williams Oh, my God. Yeah. Oh, my God. I can't believe it. I'm actually auditioning for something tomorrow, um, which, uh, end of, end of the world, uh, Christian TV series, which should be interesting. Um, yeah. So that American accent is going to come in strong.
Everett Oh, man, we should leave that one right there. We should leave it. Well, wonderful. We've talked about watches. I'm ready. I'm frankly, I'm ready to talk about other things. Andrew, how do you feel about other things? I'm barely ready. Barely ready indicates some readiness. No, prepared, yes. Other things, what do you got?
Andrew I got a Bluetooth speaker recently.
Everett Tell me more.
Andrew You know how I always do the, I'm going to see if this, like, I think I want a thing. I'm going to buy the cheap thing to see if I do in fact want slash use this thing.
Everett Do I actually want a thing? Do I actually want it? So I'm going to buy the cheap version. Man, this is a good segue, but I'll come back to that.
Andrew And then should I want it, I will buy the nice thing. Okay. Yes.
Everett I'm aware. So I got a Bluetooth speaker. We got to get those co-speaker folks that sponsor everybody. We got to get them to sponsor us.
Andrew Yeah. Or like Sonos. Yeah. They also sponsor everybody.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew It doesn't seem like you even have to have a listenership.
Everett Or like League of Legends.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett Okay, keep going.
Andrew Bluetooth speaker I got, I got off Amazon for $50. It says list price $128, but I bought it a month and a half ago and it's still $50. This is a promo sale. Yeah, it's like it's buying an Invicta, I think, where like MSRP is $2,075. Right. So I got it from, it's a company called Vanzon, V-A-N-Z-O-N, Bluetooth speakers. I got the X5 Pro, portable wireless speaker, V5, with 20 watt, loud stereo sound, TWS, not 100% sure, 24 hours playtime, waterproof, suitable for travel home and outdoor.
Everett Yeah, I've heard the V5 is way better than the V4.
Andrew It does it. It does it? It does it. I haven't gotten it wet because there's not really any reason to get a speaker wet.
Everett Does it have like an IPX rating? Did you say that already? IPX8. Oh, IPX8? That's like put it in the bathtub.
Andrew Yeah, but I'm not going to do that. It's in my garage, not my bathtub. I'm just saying, but so it has all these things and first time I powered it on it was like there was no I turned it on and I immediately hooked up my phone to it, which is a good sign. There was no like odd build up to it. It came fully charged. I've played a significant amount of music in it. I think I mean Bluetooth 5.0. Yeah, it's got it's got all the things and a good full sound quality. Now this isn't like This isn't, I know, I know what it, this isn't audiophile quality speaker. This is a Bluetooth speaker. So we're not going to get audiophile for a reasonable price. Sure. This fills my garage, controls easily off my phone, easy hookup, charges easy. I'm pleased. And I think this is the thing that I wanted and didn't realize that that's what I wanted.
Everett Yeah, you know, this is very similar to design to my anchor. And I wonder if it's a clone. I'm sure they're the same place that's making these.
Andrew It's probably the same thing with maybe like a slightly different shell.
Everett Yeah. And it's got better specs. I mean, way better specs than my.
Andrew I was kind of shocked by the specs, which is why I went with it, because I was like, this is this maybe should be good. And it's good. It's 50 bucks. Yeah. And it fills my garage with audio.
Everett I just got one. I think we need to be really clear, right? Because this is one of those things that people do on YouTube videos where someone says, Hey, can you talk nice about our product and we'll give you money? And they're like, yes, of course I fucking can. Uh, we, we don't get any anything. We've never received a single dollar from talking about any of it.
Andrew I don't know how many things we've sold for other people, but I mentioned this in our show notes for our Christmas lists last week, just as our, a reminder, we don't have affiliate links.
Everett Which is not to say we were even opposed to those things. If we could figure out a way to make money, we'd do it. We'd just fleece you guys.
Andrew Yeah. Brands don't pay us to get on the show. We actually pay them to come hang out with us.
Everett We paid Brett a lot of money to come on the show.
Andrew A ton of money. He's expensive, you guys. We are very honestly doing this because it's something we like doing.
Everett So when we tell you about this fucking stupid speaker, it's because it's actually fucking cool.
Andrew Yeah. Cause I like it. And I think that if you're in the market to buy one, I, I think it's like, this is a, you know, me, you don't know me in person, but you've been listening to me for hundreds of hours, hundreds of hours, 169 ish hours this, this week. I think you can kind of trust me and I'm not lying to you. When I say I like it, it works for me. And I think that is a more reliable review than any of the five star reviews you see on Amazon. I don't know if I give five stars. I don't really believe in five star reviews. I'm a solid four star guy all the time. Yeah. Unless like they like send me a golden ticket with something for free in the box, then they're not going to get a fifth star.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you.
Andrew But yeah, it works. It's I mean, it's 50 bucks.
Everett Yeah, and there's a lot of $25 and $30 options out there, too. Sometimes it just makes sense to spend a little bit more.
Andrew That's why I went with it, because it's just a little bit higher spec than some of those $25 and $35 options. And if it doesn't, it fills my garage. That's what I wanted it for. And I'm not going to be crushed when I break it, or my kids break it, or its IPX8 rating isn't actually what it says it is, because I'm not going to put it in the hot tub to play music from the bottom.
Everett Yeah. I've also got audio equipment this week. Do me. So a few weeks ago, if you remember, if you're a keen listener of the show, if you make it to other things, some people don't make it to other things, that's cool. If you do and you listen and you like it, you'll remember. I did make it to other things. That a few weeks ago, I talked about a set of cheap earbuds. You did. The JLabs Go Air. Are you recanting? I'm not at all. Okay. I still have them. They're fantastic. They're really, really impressive for how much you pay for them. They do everything they're supposed to do. They're still working just fine. No recanting. However, for my birthday, which was recent, I was gifted a pair of Apple AirPods Pro. And it has, I'm just going to say it has changed the landscape for me a little bit. They're superior. I'm, I am no longer, I am no longer using the $28 J labs very often at, I'm not using them at all. So, you know, this is one of those things where you hear people rant and rave And you say, okay, that's, I mean, it's a lot of money, right? I think that these things are regularly 200 plus. I got mine for just a little bit less than that. I believe I, we, I, you know, I, I still paid for them even though it was a gift. I mean, that's how these things go. Your kids bought them. Right. Um, you know, I think ours were a little bit less than that 180 I think is what we spent. Um, that's just a fuck ton of money. If you ask me for a pair of headphones that I'm going to lose, I'm going to lose at least one of these. Yeah. You're going to lose only one. Yeah.
Andrew Or the charging case.
Everett And so it really is hard for me to bite the bullet on a purchase like that. It's just hard for me to bite the bullet. And so when I hear people talk about them, I think I'm maybe like almost motivated to be like, that's silly, right? I can find something just as good for less. That's right. Like active noise cancellation is like, okay, whatever. Do I need active noise cancellation? These have these like, I can't remember what they call it. It's like a sound stage mode where it'll take music and separate it into parts and sort of throw it around the drivers, like in different places so it sounds like the music's coming. It's like, that's stupid. I don't understand it. A, I don't really understand it. B, it's stupid. Okay, so I get these things and I'm kind of excited about them still because it's new tech and I like new tech. Or new for me, it's not a new tech. Within about six minutes of having these things in my ears, I am I'm fucked. I will never be able to use cheap headphones ever again. AirPods, you know, first of all, active noise cancellation. That shit's crazy. That shit's crazy. I don't understand how it works. Sorcery. So listen, I drive a 2003 Lexus, you guys. That's some noisy shit. I am the opposite of an early adopter, right? I like cool tech. I'm just 2003. I'm just 18 years late. Okay. I, it's just how I roll. It's how I roll. So I know a lot of you guys are at home. Like, yeah, no shit. Knucklehead here. Here's where we at where this is where we're at. I've just discovered that active noise cancellation is fucking nuts.
Andrew And soon he will get a 2010. Lexus LS 400.
Everett It's fucking crazy, man. And then, and then there's this thing, there's this thing where you can, with special music on, on like Apple music, right? So it's, it's all ecosystem based, right? Yeah. But you can, certain tracks have a thing where they have like parsed out parts of the track and placed them on separate sides of like duets coming from different sides of your head. So if you're like, if you're like facing forward, and you turn your head to the left, the music stays to the right of you. See, this is we've got good microphones. What? The music stays to the right of you. And then you turn your head to the right and the music goes to the left. It's fucking nuts. And it's like, who cares, right? It's that's still true. It sounds stupid. It sounds stupid, but it's not. But it's not. It turns out that it's actually just amazing. I will. I would use. Those J labs are fucked. They're going on an airplane fantastic.
Andrew I get on an airplane with headphones plugged into my ears and nothing playing because I want to be left alone.
Everett No listen, you have two kids dude. You need active noise cancellation, Andrew. I'm telling you right now. I'm just going to bring them over. I'm going to hand them to you and I'm going to I don't know. I'm going to say put these in your ears and you're going to put them in your ears and then I'm going to turn on the active noise cancellation. You're going to be like oh
Andrew my God, no, it's magical, but my kids are still young enough that I must hear what's going on. If it's silent, there's trouble.
Everett Nope, open a bottle of gin, South African gin specifically, active noise cancellation, plastic bottle, whatever, pretend it all doesn't exist. I'm just joking. We're very happy people, you guys. We love our families, but also plastic bottle gin is the truth. Brett, other things, what do you got? Okay. So don't act put out. Come on. We're surprised you have a, you have a dick on your shirt. Yeah.
Brett Williams I don't. Oh man.
Andrew It is when you can only see you from above the peel up.
Everett Don't act offended. Everybody says that. No, gosh.
Andrew The problem is that we've seen you from just above the peel curl up for most of the time. It's a banana. Well, yeah, it's a banana if you can see the whole thing, but there it's not a banana. It's a, it's a, it,
Brett Williams I know, I know. It looks like I've got a dick poking me in the chin. But it's actually a South African brand that's just come to the United States called Mami Wata.
Everett Johnny Chimpo. Yes. All right. I suspect you were about to say something serious. Go ahead.
Brett Williams So this is a South African brand that's now in the States called Mami Wata.
Andrew And it comes from a dick.
Brett Williams Maybe this should be my thing. Yeah, it looks like a dick in my face. But Mami Wata means mother water. It's like this fucking cool South African brand that kind of celebrates like African surfing throughout the continent. Because apparently, and I don't want to ruffle any feathers here with the Hawaiians, but apparently we were doing it first. But, um, yeah, but anyway, geez, I'm throwing down the gauntlet, but my thing is a little thing that's changed my life.
Everett You know, it's not active noise cancellation, just to be clear.
Brett Williams It's not, it is not, but I spent a lot of time at home working, especially during the lockdown COVID has been horrific. Sorry. I am plugged in. So you guys can't see me. There we go. We're clear, but I, I bought a Logitech, this is so basic, a Logitech Bluetooth adapter for my beautiful 1969 Sensui amplifier. And I connect it to my Spotify on my phone and I have music throughout my house with my incredible Goodman speakers from also probably 60s period. I'm like you, I don't catch up to technology very quickly. It scares me a little bit sometimes, but the, this tiny little box, this Logitech box.
Andrew That's like a $30 box that attaches to your amp. And then you're, you're like super good, full speaker, like full sound. Okay.
Brett Williams That's awesome. It's very, it has a drawback in that if your notifications on your phone are on, you get every time, every time there's a notification. Yeah. So I just turned that shit off. But the music is amazing, man. My son came here. My son is a rapper. And he's prolific. He's made like 200 songs. He is a prolific rapper. He is an incredibly good lyricist. And he came here and he played his music and he was just blown away. So he's much more of an audiophile than I am. I do have a record player and lots of records that I don't play because To Spotify. I'm lazy. Yeah. Spotify. I'm lazy, man. I'm lazy. I like the, I love the record art and stuff like that, but I'm lazy. So I Spotify stuff and it's quick and easy. I can like whip through my Spotify and put it on like, you know, um, album, find an artist, put it on an artist radio, stick it on my, uh, my Spotify and it's through my Logitech straight through my, you know, pre-century, pre or last century amplifier. It's great. It's changed my life.
Everett Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. Uh, I love shit like that. You know, actually there was a time, uh, not too long ago where I had considered, uh, you know, I'm sort of like nineties Japanese tech and nineties Japanese amplifiers, or maybe sort of like peak home audio, you know, in terms of affordability, it was like everything fucking Japanese did in the nineties. It's like, we're doing this the best, fuck the Swiss, we got this. Uh, And there was a period of time where I had looked at hardwiring a Bluetooth amplifier, a Bluetooth receiver inside, and I've just not gotten there. And it's one of those things that it'll continue, you know, Bluetooth 5.0, you can get Bluetooth 5.0 receivers for pennies off of eBay at this point. And I'm still going to do it at some point.
Brett Williams It's such a good investment. And I, you know, I'll just show you how old my little amp is.
Andrew Oh yeah, that is so sexy.
Brett Williams I grew up with that amp. That is fucking cool, man. It is cool. And my Goodman speakers are like these old, they've got this patent.
Everett Yeah. Look at that cover.
Brett Williams It's so good. Let me just say, I did make, I know it looks a little messy, but I did make that shelf unit out of Miranti myself.
Everett You know, handsome, handy. Fantastic.
Andrew Dick in his face. Is there anything this guy can't do?
Brett Williams I would say Hansy. Hansy is probably not the best word to use, especially now that I'm 46. You know, when you get to like your 40s, you stop being cute and you transcend into that stage of like creepy old guy.
Andrew No, you transcend into that silver fox daddy.
Brett Williams Oh, that's better. Yeah, that's better. Yeah. But I've seen a lot of like mid 40s guys who think they've still got it. You know, and it's just like, oh dude, don't, please don't.
Andrew You gotta, you can't think you still got it. You just have to know. I have it.
Everett Yeah, you do. I have it. You do clearly. You know, there's that, there's that, you know, half plus seven, always, always remember half plus seven rule and carry on. That's, that's the way I was. That's the way I operate. I'm married. I don't operate that way.
Brett Williams I don't, I don't operate. I have a girlfriend. I don't operate that way either. I just, I noticed it in a lot of, in a lot of people who, who don't though. Yeah. But, um, but yeah, back to the Logitech, uh, I would highly recommend it for that. Did you like that? Like razor sharp said Segway kind of brutal car crash at the Segway.
Everett Smooth as sandpaper.
Brett Williams Thank you. For me, it's changed my life. It's, um, It's tiny. It's $30. You can get it on Amazon and it's worth it.
Everett Do we have a, we've got a link for the show notes.
Andrew You already, already did it. Been working this whole time. Also found a link for that t-shirt. Did you? Yeah. I found a link to the home website. They don't sell it from their home website anymore. They must've realized the implication, but it is still available through third party retailers.
Brett Williams Let me just say that I did not buy this. I was gifted this by the, the owner of mummy water. I had a meeting with him. two months ago. I wanted to pick his brain about his Kickstarter because they, they did a Kickstarter for their book and he bought a t-shirt for me. I have a white one like this that you used to be able to buy, maybe still can, but the black and white is pretty cool.
Andrew They've just adjusted the angle of the banana. It's now horizontal as opposed to like rusting. The banana is still available.
Brett Williams Like that basically. Yeah. And every time you like lean down to do something, it's pretty graphic. Yeah.
Everett So, yeah. You know, at some point, I refuse to believe that that's not at least, at least partially intentional, right? There's no way. You know, the owner, we don't, but I'm just saying. You don't do that on accident.
Andrew That's not a big enough company for that to have just accidentally slipped in.
Everett That's right. You know?
Andrew Johnny Chippo is just a monkey.
Brett Williams Let me just say that we don't know one another personally. face to face and we have spoken over the years, but you seem to know me very well. I did. I did. That was when I put this t-shirt on, I was like, I wonder if they're going to think it's a dick in my face. Ah, what the hell?
Everett And you know us very well.
Andrew And I sort of hope they notice.
Brett Williams I hope they notice.
Everett We also noticed you were wearing pants, Brett. That's not important though.
Brett Williams I have, I put, I have, I have baggies on.
Everett That's what we call those. What are those?
Brett Williams Baggies. Baggies. Is that like, that's like a 90s term. Hey dude, you've got your baggies on for sure.
Everett It's like, uh, again, the American accent when you're doing an asshole.
Andrew It's which using international slang as an American, you know, if you weren't so handsome, you'd be a real asshole.
Everett Okay.
Brett Williams I'm, I can do an American accent as a really nice guy as well. I just can't think of anything right now.
Everett We have that effect on people. That's totally fair. We're aware of that. Yeah, that is 100% fair. Andrew, we're here. We're here. So if you want to add something, you've got some time right now. I'm out of things. Brett Williams, once again, thank you for joining us. What do you want to add before we check out?
Brett Williams I just want to say thank you for having me on at such short notice. You were
Everett Brett, we've been planning this for like a year. Yeah. What are you even talking about?
Brett Williams I know. I know. As soon as I said I was available, you guys were like, you are our guy. You are our guy. You are our guy.
Everett You know, the booking agents are a little awkward, but we're fine. We'll do whatever it needs.
Brett Williams We managed to, we managed to come to an agreement with my agent. And, um, and let me just say that I will very much enjoy that new Porsche. Um, But I just want to say thank you very much. Yeah. I love you guys and I really, I love what you do and I love kind of chatting to you face to face. I know we talk through social media, but it's really fucking cool to talk to you guys face to face. And that's not just the South African wine talking.
Andrew And he said it in a South African accent. So, you know, it's true. That's right.
Everett That's right. We feel the same.
Brett Williams And that's not just the South African wine talk.
Everett Totally the same, Matt. Uh, we'll have you back soon. Thanks again. And, and thank you. And thank you at home for joining us. Thanks for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20, the watch clicker podcast. Uh, you know, you know, you can check. Brett and to watch, go out at to watch, go on Instagram to watch co.com. You can check us out on Instagram at 40 and 20 at watch clicker, or of course at our website, watch clicker.com weekly reviews, increasingly non review articles, which are my favorite. Check out the website. If you want to support Watch Clicker, and we really, really hope you do, you can do that at patreon.com slash 40 and 20. Look guys, that keeps us going. It keeps the lights on, keeps the wheels turning. Please, please, please, if you can, anything would be amazing. And don't forget to tune back in next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Bye bye.
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