Episode 236 - Windup SF 2023 with Mike Razak

Published on Wed, 03 May 2023 21:17:31 -0700

Synopsis

This is a transcript from the podcast "40 and 20 The Watch Clicker Podcast" hosted by Andrew and Everett. In this episode, they welcome Mike Razak from the blog "A Blog to Watch" as a guest. They discuss Mike's experience at the recent Wind Up Watch Fair in San Francisco, including the overall vibe, brand displays, and new watch releases and announcements. They also talk about the growing presence of EDC (everyday carry) items at the show. Later, they discuss Andrew's recommendation for a sous vide cooker, Everett's new pruning tools, and Mike's humorous story about accidentally sending a PR person a dopp kit instead of the watch meant for review.

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 hosts, Andrew and my good friend Everett. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, how are you?
Everett Look, dude, the sun is shining. It's like the allergens have filled the air. All of the grass in the neighborhood has gotten green and mowed, filling in. Uh, no man, this is it for me. This is like, this is the time of year when I go from mildly depressed to just happy and ready for life.
Andrew And just fixing to work. Cause your front yard looks like shit. What happened to your front yard this winter?
Everett Oh man, it, it did. We got some, I had some infestations, some moss and shit. Uh, but I've seated and I've put peat moss over the seat. I think it's going to be great.
Andrew I think it will balance out. I mowed my front lawn today and I was so pleased with all of last year's efforts. There are no bald spots anymore.
Everett Yeah. Your lawn looks great. Yeah. I actually think our lawn looks good still, but it's going to take a couple of weeks. Yeah.
Andrew Yeah. In a month. They're all filled in.
Everett Everything will be great. Um, but no, I'm doing really well, Andrew. Genuinely. I'm drinking beer. I'm hanging out with a person I like and another person. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm doing really well. Uh, how are you?
Andrew I am good. I was super productive today. I spent several hours in my garage, um, just taking bites of the elephant because the garage has been neglected.
Everett Yeah. Your garage has gotten out of hand. Yeah.
Andrew Okay. It has.
Everett Easy way to say it.
Andrew It got way out of hand. And I spent several hours in it today, just taking bites of the elephant. It does not look different, but it is. But you know, it's different. I know it's different. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, I mowed the lawn. I made terrific steak and smashed potatoes for dinner. I had a great day. And I'm here drinking beer, hanging out with two people that I like. Fuck off.
Everett I'm a little nervous about our guest tonight.
Andrew Yeah, it's a little bit of a wild card. Yeah. But you know, we like that.
Everett We'll see what happens. So with that in mind and without any further ado, I'd like to introduce you to a writer of Worn and Wound, Mike Razak. Welcome to the 40 in 20 podcast. How are you? I got so much shit about that, Mike.
Mike Razak I got not shit, but continue to get people. who say intentionally that I write for Warner One and not a blog to watch, which is the actual site I write for.
Andrew I thought you wrote for Hodinkee.
Mike Razak But I, I, I, you know, I actually run all the watch sites. Most people don't know. So I'm like a shadow puppeteer.
Andrew He is the shadow government that we're all concerned about. It's Mike.
Mike Razak Yeah. Deep State right here.
Everett Yeah. You know, I said it, I said it on the following show when I made our correction. Um, there, It was just one of those things, right? I just said the thing. I know who you work for and I know the difference between the two companies. It was just, uh, you know, one of those things you say and you never think about it again.
Andrew Like who cares? That's right.
Everett That's right. I didn't think about it until you sent me a message. You're like, Everett, I keep getting congratulations today for my new position at Warn and Wound. And I was like, oh boy.
Andrew And to be fair, I don't know that we've had, I don't know that you've been with us since you, joined the team in a blog.
Mike Razak Oh, it's been, it's been ages.
Andrew So why don't you now officially accept your role with a blog to watch, tell us what you're doing there and kind of what you've been up to. I don't know the last time we had Mike.
Mike Razak Give us an update. So I have, I had two kids. A terrific goatee. Yeah, great goatee, much to the chagrin of my wife. That's how good you know it is. Yeah, my exciting, most exciting update is for my full-time day job, we just moved to a new building and I have fully furnished my office with two chairs I got on Facebook Marketplace, but they're from Article. Whichever it, I'm sure you'll know.
Everett I do know the article. I feel a little bit let down that you haven't shared a picture of this office.
Mike Razak That's the kind of thing we would share in our group chat. That is. Well, in being in the office, I've actually had to work. No. Which is why you may have noticed a change in my frequency there. But I also got a wall mural and then Will got one too of some really cool watch pics. So that was cool too. And after I furnished my office today, the second in command of our entire department came down and I said, do you want to sit in my new chairs? And he said, you're not supposed to have those. We're all supposed to have the same chairs because there's supposed to be consistency throughout the office. And so, I'm just waiting for them to take them away.
Andrew Two consistency chairs in the corner and then your chairs at your desk.
Mike Razak Just to pull them out. Grand Poobah comes by.
Everett So I'm not one of these anti-work guys, but that seems dumb. That's government shit right there. That seems like a relief.
Mike Razak It's 100% what it is. As you know, I do work for municipal government and that is 100% exactly what it is. That was my immediate thought was, well, that's dumb. And the chairs you provided are plastic and don't have arms. And I have to meet with people from other agencies and that's garbage.
Andrew They deserve to sit in a comfortable chair, man.
Everett Yeah. For goodness sake. You know, my, so my firm, obviously not government, uh, but as you walk through, you know, we've got, we've got 10 different offices. And as you walk through the office, every single office you walk into, you're like, Oh, this, even if you didn't know, even if the names weren't on the door, you'd know whose office it was based on the decor. And I love that. It's, I think it's magical. I'm a little sad about your, your terrible Kafka office?
Mike Razak Well, my office is phenomenal. Until they take away your chair. But the signature of my office is definitely the scent. I keep it funky in there so people know Mike works around here.
Andrew Do you have chairs that are just a single stick that you're supposed to sit atop? Is that what his complaint was? Sometimes it feels like that. That's all plastic, no arms.
Mike Razak Yeah, all plastic in the arms. No seat, pole, all poles.
Everett Well, good to have you. Glad to hear the update. We asked you to come on today because neither of us was able to attend Windup in San Francisco, but you, you were able to attend Windup in San Francisco. I did go. And you said, that you might be interested in coming on and sharing your thoughts. I did. So tell us, so, so, so, so first, have you been to the San Francisco windup before?
Mike Razak I hadn't, I've been to, uh, both of the others have been to New York many, many times. I mean, uh, I think every year it's been held since 2017. Um, and the Chicago I went to last year.
Everett So first time in California period, Mike?
Mike Razak No, uh, but first meaningful, certainly the first meaningful trip that is where I wasn't passing through to go somewhere else. Or I went to a wedding there, but through San Francisco and North, it's a beautiful wedding, but I wouldn't say I experienced any significant part of the state, uh, except for its Northern beauty. Like Napa or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that area. Oh, and I guess I did. I visited an ex-girlfriend there once, but again, that was at the Culinary Institute out there.
Andrew Was she an ex-girlfriend at the time you visited?
Mike Razak She was not, so I visited a girlfriend who's now an ex-girlfriend, right? Fair enough, fair enough. An important point.
Andrew That is an important question. I'm like, that's an interesting, I'm intrigued. Let's hear that story.
Everett What'd you think of San Francisco?
Mike Razak Man, I'm sore. Yeah, a lot of walking. A lot of hills. A lot of hills. The walking, not the problem, the hills. It seems like there are multiple points in that city where you can turn in 360 degrees and every single degree is an upward hill. That's how it feels. We had beautiful weather. My friend Neil and I ended up taking the mornings and walking around kind of Did you go to Alcatraz and reenact any scenes from The Rock? I did not. We reenacted those at the Embarcadero and, you know, a lot of people obviously hollering at us, this isn't where that happened. Stop it. You're not Nick Cage. But you could be. That's not what Sean Connery sounds like.
Everett Well, great. Great. Um, we've kind of laid out a bit of an agenda for the show tonight, but I think we, we have the opportunity just to kind of free form it. So as a long time attendee of worn and wound, uh, or wind up, excuse me. And someone who's been to the recently, I think expanded is a fair word. New York wind up, what were your initial thoughts about the show, the overall vibe? What would someone expect if they were going to go to San Francisco next year?
Mike Razak Yeah, so this, I was talking to Zach Weiss, who's one of the co-founders of Born & Wound, kind of the creative lead. And he was telling me this was the largest show. So they expanded every, you were there last year, it was on a single floor. They expanded it upstairs. Oh, okay. Which is really, yeah, which is really cool. So, um, what that meant was more breathing room downstairs. So Christopher Ward basically had an entire end to themselves, like an entire end wall to themselves. Um, and there was a lot of space for brands to be creative. So Fortis kind of had a mini boutique. corner upstairs, and they had a floor-to-ceiling, I'd say, 15 by 15 Fortis vinyl adhesive poster. 15 feet by 15 feet, I should clarify. 15 inches by 15 inches wouldn't be impressive. Super dramatic. So, yeah. So, it would certainly pull people in, because they'd have to go get close to read it. You know, big anchor brands like Auris and Zodiac had huge... Auris and Zodiac always bring, I think, every single SKU they have, which for Auris is, you know, 400 Aquas, and for Zodiac is 400 Seawolves and the Kermits. So it's a really cool space. And it's just, if you've been to any of the other shows, it's that same enthusiast-driven vibe. all the brands are more than happy to talk. Having been to several shows, I am at least friendly with several brands, and so it's always nice. For me, it's very much a social event. There was so much so that I neglected to look at watches from some brands, and then heard about them afterwards and had to kick myself about that. So really social vibe, and the layout really works. Big open bar panel and discussions in a lounging area, which is what they had in Chicago, which was central. And I know they're trying to improve that in New York for next year.
Everett Yeah. New York last year, I thought it was a little bit too removed from the event, right? You had to go to a different place and it was kind of hard to get there in order to see the panels.
Andrew With the space difference, one of the, one of the issues that I had with New York this last year was it was like shoulder to shoulder, like going to your local county event center for any number of shows that there was not, you could move from one brand to the next without really seeing that you had changed brands. suddenly you're just at a new table. You're at almost a conveyor belt. And is this, were there more brands in this bigger space or were brands just able to like kind of put their elbows out and have a little bit of space to be independent of one another?
Mike Razak Yeah, it was a little bit of both. I mean, it was the most brands they've ever had. And I think they're getting really to the point where it's not so much that They can just say, yeah, you can come. Yeah, you can come. Uh, they're really going to have to be really, really choosy and turn down brands that say, I have, I have the money.
Everett Well, I can, I can tell you that I can tell you that as a brand owner, it's not as a new brand owner, it's not really practical to get into wind up right now.
Mike Razak Like you just can't do it. It's expensive.
Everett Well, not only is it expensive, but they just simply they're vetting, they're vetting hard.
Mike Razak Yeah. And, and, and that's not going to change. And the interesting thing is, you know, your experience of New York is exactly what they were trying to get out of. And I talked to Zach in New York and I talked to Zach, uh, this year and, you know, I know for, he was already frustrated with the space, uh, in New York last year, their first year there, um, they're actually going to expand downstairs to allow a few more brands but just open things up in New York but it was it was a as was Chicago San Francisco allowed for just a little bit more breathing room you know in addition that geographically Chicago and San Francisco are a little bit more they take a little bit more of an effort they're not in the middle of nowhere but it's not you know the New York show is just In the middle of the city, right? Yeah, it's pretty easy to get to.
Andrew But I think it's that makes it harder to get to because you're 45 minutes from either airport.
Mike Razak In New York or in Chicago, come from the airport, Andrew.
Andrew I guess I'll fuck myself. Chicago and San Francisco, you just don't have that same kind of gap between an airport and and almost any venue you're going to get to in the city.
Everett Well, it's not that close to the airport. The San Francisco show is not that close to the airport, but I think San Francisco just feels like a more accessibly navigable city than New York, at least for me, because it's daunting. I'm not used to that. New York scares the shit out of me. That type of commute.
Mike Razak Yeah. But I mean, I think the vibe was great and the space worked really well. There was a little bit of a impediment coming up and down stairs because, uh, on Sunday, the, uh, Zodiac put up a big screen and showed both basketball games. I was given to understand that there's some sort of playoff tournament happening in professional basketball right now.
Andrew It's March Madness.
Mike Razak Yeah. That's March Madness. Yeah. Yeah. That keeps, they keep dragging that on, don't they?
Everett Well, well into May at this point. Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, It does occur to me. So we talked a little bit of just about, you know, the, the way they're going to have to vet, you know, five years ago, if you, you know, had the ability to write a check, you could get a seat at wind up. Right. And there are a lot of these, you know, smaller brands. Um, not only is it now harder to get into wind up, but, uh, I think the vibe of the show was different, right? Rather than having 30 brands with, you know, two person tables and a drop on the front, you're getting, you know, these boutique style arrangements, you know, sort of watches and wonders, light type of displays. You talked about the Fortis display.
Mike Razak Yeah. I've never seen anything like Fortis before at one of these shows. I mean, it was, a whisper of a Watches and Wonders booth, but it was the same idea. Like, we are using a space as a boutique. You're entering into the, I mean, they had large kind of display towers that kind of formed that squared off that corner, right? I've never seen something, it was very cool. Chris Ward had a similar vibe, but kind of all against one wall.
Mike Razak I don't not want to see that, but you know, I do shed a tear for that smaller brand, more intimate setting, which is not to say, you know, the people who were there, Andreas Bentele, I think Goop, the owner of Fortis was there. So you're still getting a really cool experience, even with those bigger brands. You know, Mike Pearson was there from Zodiac, Josh Shanks, and Vijay Geronimo, who are kind of the marketing and then the CEO Americas for Auris, they were both there. You're getting a really intimate experience despite the size of their booths, but it is at the expense of those smaller brands. You know, the smaller brands that were there are very successful smaller brands. We're talking about Nodus, Brew, Astor & Banks, you know, Farer to an extent, which is kind of teetering towards the success of Chris Ward. So the small brands that were there were brands that had proven themselves. Um, and with very few exceptions, um, you know, a couple of brands that were betting on themselves.
Andrew Is that problematic for kind of the identity of wind up to, to transition from being this kind of hot bed of up and comers, this place where you get to show up and be like, Hey, I'm here and I'm ready to party. tending toward watches and wonders light. I see that as problematic. Or at least a bummer.
Mike Razak You know, yeah, I would say a bummer, right? I think that it is, you know, problematic would be, you know, they have big brands, right? They have G-Shock, they have Oris, they have Zodiac. Downstairs, they've got a literal quadrant of Citizen Watch Group. brands, right? Citizen, Bulova, Accutron, Alpena. Outside of the... and Fortis is a larger brand, but I don't... so, you know, Citizen Watch Group, I think, is the largest producer of wristwatches in the world, right? Across all its brands. And so, you know, I think with Oris and Zodiac, you still have... those are kind of... they're kind of a mixed market between mass-market and enthusiast-driven pieces, and I think more and more it's enthusiast-driven pieces. Fortis has always been kind of an in-the-know brand. I think we're not at the point where it's a problem, but it is kind of a bummer, right? It's a bummer because I think Worn and Wound was founded, and the wind-up watch fair started as a place where you could see all these kind of up-and-coming small brands.
Andrew Oh, it's where they made their announcement. I mean, if without wind up without that kind of environment, I don't think we have brew. I don't think we have notice. I don't think we have brands of that ilk. I don't, we, you know, I could go on forever on brands like that.
Everett The Sea Ranger, the Sea Ranger was the Cinderella of wind up, you know, whatever, 2018 or whatever. And that was, yeah, Andrew had been making watches for, years at that point. And that was sort of his coming out party. Right. And so with that said, Andrew, I not to pick on you. I think I agree with Mike. It's a bit of a bummer, I think, for those of us that that long for that. But I think that there's a I think evolution is natural for a company like Warner. And I'm so happy for those guys. You know, these are fellows that I've known for years. And that company is just really turning into an amazing big company, but I do think that it creates, I think it creates room for shows like district time to, you know, come out and say, Hey, we're, we're doing that still. Right. It's not gone. Um, it's here, right. Check us out. And, you know, district time, obviously Washington, DC, that's not super accessible for, for everybody, but you know, maybe, you know, maybe, you know, notice is doing their, um, Oh boy, what did they call it? That LA event?
Mike Razak What did they call it? Intersect?
Everett Yeah. Yes. But there's this room now for folks to sort of come out.
Mike Razak You've got Microlux, which is Chicago. I want to say Austin and LA now. Yeah. You've got Intersect. You've got District Time. And, you know, I am offended as a at least D.C. adjacent resident, you know, everybody knows that Washington, D.C. is the Geneva of America, watch capital of the country.
Andrew That's what I always say. That's it is known.
Mike Razak But but it is that they are filling a gap. And, you know, I I've been to much like wind up. I go to and it's much more convenient, but I go to district time every year. I'm very good friends with Lauren, who runs it. I've helped him out with the show. You know, that's a vibrant. It's a much much smaller show, but it's a vibrant show and those Brands are just as excited to be there and you have some of the same brands, right? You've got notice and Laurier and Formex are there and then occasionally some other brands that show up that it that crossover but it is it's it's It's then the brands that are smaller than those brands not and none bigger Right. So it is, uh, but they're covering those bases that, um, windup has left unoccupied.
Everett One of the things we talked about after New York was what we perceived at the time to be probably the beginning of a trend, but brands like the James brand, um, were featured at windup New York. And it seemed like windups is going to expand and they're going to have more of an EDC presence. And I understand that that came true here at San Francisco. Tell us a little bit about that.
Mike Razak Yeah. So if you came in, so San Francisco is kind of, it's this building with a double door side entrance and you walk in and the double door side entrance is right in the middle of the side of the building. So you can either turn right or left. So left is kind of where all the watch brands are and then the stairway staircase upstairs, right? And then, uh, to the right, uh, what you had was what they called EDC alley. So you had Standard H, Estabrook, Triple Aught Design, um, Giant Mouse Knives, and then, uh, Grant Stone, uh, shoe, the shoemakers, um, which I just look at and then sob that I'm never going to buy a pair. Um, so that's, uh, you know, Knife, design, clothing, and this New York-based pen company that makes, you know, really cool pens. I know somebody who bought one of the pens, and he also bought a knife. I know, you know, my buddy Neil that I mentioned earlier bought a, like a, kind of almost a soft canvas work shirt from Standard H, and I chatted with the Standard H guy. So they are putting in and reserving some space for this EDC community that has been, you know, obviously for a long time exploding, but on watch sites and especially Worn and Wound, you know, they have, I think like their toolkit, uh, sub series. Um, EDC is really big, I think for those, the people that work for Worn and Wound and just for the Worn and Wound community. So they're kind of tipping their hat to that, um, and inviting these various brands. And, you know, I think it's cool. And I think it adds diversity. You know, when I posted up on Instagram, you know, uh, any questions, you know, somebody said, show me the stuff that wasn't watches. Right. Cause that's, I think if you're not in that community, it's harder to keep up with.
Everett Right.
Mike Razak And, and I think that also happened to be where the open bar in the lounge was. So it was a triple nice area.
Andrew So no wonder people are buying knives. Like fuck I'm hammered and I want that knife.
Everett I think it's really, you know, everybody who's been in this community for longer than a minute knows that nearly everybody in the community has some sort of EDC tilt. Right. And it's, it's, it's different for, for different folks, but you know, everybody, you know, one of our, one of our segments on the show, other things is all, you know, very often an EDC item, right. You know, I picked up this. pocket knife where I picked up this, this pouch or, or whatever. So it's, it's a really organic, I think it's a really organic crossover.
Andrew It's more than adjacent, right? A watch is EDC stuff. Yeah. That's the thing you put on every day. It's intentional. It's curated. Right. It's, it's more than adjacent.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and, and you, you had good thoughts about the brands that they had and the owners and felt good.
Mike Razak Watches or EDC? EDC, yeah. Everybody, you know, that's, I think that's one of the, what differentiates these small shows, and I say small relative to SIHH, or Watches and Wonders, I should say, and Geneva Watch Week, where, you know, those are really industry events. These are enthusiast events, right? Same for District Time, Microlux, Intersect, right? These are events where individuals, watch enthusiasts, can talk directly in almost every single case to the person who owns the brand, right? Chris Ward brought damn near their entire staff. I mean, there was, I think they had seven or eight people there, Mike France included, Will Brackfield, who's one of their lead designers, Yorg, who's their, head technical officer, chief technical officer, whatever.
Everett He's their Jorg.
Mike Razak He's their Jorg for sure. The guy, my favorite name of the show, Declan Strange, who is the head of their showroom in England. And he's terrific.
Everett He's a terrific fellow.
Mike Razak He is great. Olivia, who is one of their salespeople, who's just absolutely one of the nicest people I've ever met. So just this incredible team. And all of them are just eager to talk, love the product, And, and, you know, one of the things that stands out is it's not just about their brands that almost everybody there themselves, almost every brand owner in person there is friendly with, you know, half the other brands is watch enthusiasts themselves. Cause that's the nature of these small brands, right? Um, they love the other brands. They love the event. Um, so, you know, I think I didn't have a negative experience amongst any encounter I had, peers or brand owners, and that's been consistent every single show I've been to. Was Fears there? Nicholas Bowman-Scargill was present. He was co-located with Collective, because Collective is actually the US, is the only US AD, oh no, that's not true, I think Toppers is, but Collective is an AD for them. And they actually have several ADs in the US, I misspoke, Collective was there with some of their collabs, but among them, The Fears line, really, and their collabs. And so he was at their booth, kind of, and he told me, you know, I am not here selling, per se. I am here as a guest of Collective to kind of add a little bit, right? So he did not bring anything. He just showed up.
Andrew Were you wearing your... your F.E.A.R.S. watch when you walked up to him and said, Nicholas, hello?
Mike Razak I did not bring my F.E.A.R.S. watch. I certainly should have. That was a missed opportunity. We did talk about it, and he said surprisingly that he was surprised the F.E.A.R.S. archival, though certainly not their newest piece, really in design or release date, was the most popular watch amongst the F.E.A.R.S. they had on display. Because rightly so, because it's their very best watch and the best watch at the show.
Andrew It is phenomenal. It caused some consternation for me.
Mike Razak I mean, I was right next to you. I saw you shaking. You watched it happen. Yeah.
Everett Some of my pants get a little wet. Well, walk us through some of your highlights of the show, because we've talked about the vibe, we've talked about the city, we talked about the EDC, but there was a bunch of cool shit that kind of was announced in the wind-up week. What were some of your favorite things you saw or touched?
Mike Razak I think the biggest release that was there that people were seeing was on the ground floor was Christopher Ward the 12. That's cool. Their integrated bracelet. It's gotten a lot of flack and a lot of love and usually from the same people in the same sense. Um, I'm one of those people, right? In a silo, it is a absolutely beautiful watch. I tried it on, it's available in steel and titanium. The dials are incredible. Maybe the only problem is the dials are so, um, textured that the indices don't stand out, um, as much as they would on a flat, flatter dial, right? But I mean, who cares? Cause that dial is a wow. And it's purple and it's a good purple, which is so rare. Um, really beautiful watch. Talking to them, I said, you know, I said to Jorg and Will, because I'm a bit of a dick and willing to say these things, I said, you know, guys, this is a beautiful watch. I love how it wears. I love how it looks. On and on. It doesn't look like a Chris Ward. Can you tell me a little bit about that? And they said, you know, this is a design we like. And sometimes it's just that simple. Right? And I said, well, okay, that's I can't, there's no criticism for that, right? Yeah. That's the best answer. I mean, so there are, you know, that, that's one facet of it, you know, and I think comparisons have been rightly drawn to the Chapic Antarctic. And I do believe that, you know, it, it's, this is not, it's not open overtly public information, but it is stuff you can find out. Um, you know, one of their designers is also a designer for Czapek was involved with the Antarctic. And so there's some obvious crossover there. Yeah.
Andrew Yeah.
Mike Razak There's some obvious crossover, but you know, and there are, it's a silhouette crossover, right? There are, there are a lot of nuanced differences. And I also think you have to understand in steel, this is a sub $1,000 watch, which I didn't realize when I got to the show. I, For that value, it is an absolutely incredible watch.
Andrew I've got this at $1,225. It's because it's on a bracelet. We always price Christopher Ward on rubber because their bracelet's $300 and it's totally worth it, but on rubber, sub $1,000.
Mike Razak Got it. Sub $1,000, which is crazy, right? But even at $1,200, whatever, right? What a I mean, the finishing is incredible. The dial is incredible. It wears perfectly.
Andrew I mean, it's an exceptional watch. How did it feel in titanium? Light. You're welcome. Unsurprisingly. Thank you. I really appreciate your super insight.
Mike Razak I'm sorry, lighter than the steel. Is that more helpful? Yeah, actually. I mean, the finishing, you know, I hear brands... Because titanium finishing is hard.
Andrew Titanium finishing is often like it's brushed. Neat. Cool.
Mike Razak Yeah. Brands keep saying titanium finishing is hard, but then I keep seeing titanium watches that are not just bead blasted, right? Mido has one. Rolex, the smaller micro brand that couldn't make it to the show. Right. And those are three of the three I can remember right now.
Everett But in fairness, in fairness, the titanium on the bracelet, $1,900. I will say one thing about the titanium version of this. Uh, they only have the ombre dials and, and I'm, I'm a no on that, but like, give me a regular dial. I don't like an ombre dial, especially this dial. I don't like in an ombre, but that's, I'm nitpicking, obviously.
Andrew No, that's a reasonable critique. That's not nitpicking.
Everett I don't like it. I, I'll tell you, there's a couple of times companies have done this where they made decisions to do one thing with one thing. And I thought, well, I want, I want that thing with that thing. The other one I remember was Orion releasing the, the, the Hellcat with the maroon dial in brushed and the black dial in blasted. And you know, that was early enough in the process that I reached out to Nick and I said, Hey, can I do the blacked out with the brushed finish? And he did it for me, but I don't think he's doing that anymore. I, you know, so it's like you get, you get the design choices. Sometimes it feels a little bit arbitrary, right?
Andrew But that's also kind of product design. Like how often do you get to say, well, I want that LG TV in this size and not in this size or like, That's just... They make it in all those sizes. But that's consumer goods, right? Bad example. Yeah.
Everett They actually just make that TV in every size that you can watch.
Andrew It was a bad example. But it's rare that we get to look... You know what it is?
Mike Razak It's the car trim packages. Well, but I want the sport wheels without the navigation system. Oh, you can't do that.
Andrew No, that's not right. You have to build it yourself and then it's $20,000 more. But that's... I just want to change the wheels. No.
Everett Yeah, we only have the turbo in this glacier white and this black and you can't have the green that you want.
Andrew You can have it painted yourself. Yeah, that's the thing. That's consumer goods. We get design choices and we get pigeonhole decisions.
Mike Razak I will say that the ombre that you see on these renders and stuff, it is not quite that dramatic. It is, you know, it's more of a, bright purple fading to dark purple with a black chapter ring.
Andrew It's very nice. Cause the renders look hard black to purple.
Mike Razak Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, and maybe if you, you know, shot it dead on, but that's not how we wear watches. And so like you kind of, it's constantly playing with the light and there is a shimmer to the dial that the renders do not capture.
Andrew And that's also a thing that Christopher Ward does really well is capture color, that you're never looking at the same dial.
Everett What else, Mike? We've got a list of quite a few watches here that we kind of thought we might talk about.
Mike Razak Let me stay on the first floor. A quick note on the Accutron DNA. So this is not the kind of remake of the space view, which verges on unwearable because they literally took the same lugs and case shape and just shoved that new movement in it. This is the one, this is the DNA model, which is the same movement, but with a case befitting the new movement. Um, it is, it's really cool. And the movement is, I won't dive too deep. There's a lot of explainers online. how it works and what it does is a little bit like magic. It's kind of a blend of a Citizen Eco Drive, a Seiko Kinetic, and sort of a Grand Seiko like Spring Drive. So, and it's just a cool, super futuristic. It's kind of like a roided out version of the Boulevard Curve, right? Yeah. Yeah. Which is the super sleek modern movement. So that was cool.
Andrew And it's one of the most comfortable watches I've ever worn. If the curves weren't all so ugly, they are so comfortable. They're the best wearing watch I've ever worn.
Everett Yeah. This guy almost bought one in Mexico.
Mike Razak They're just ugly as sin. The final one on the first floor was Vero. So Vero, I'm wearing one of their old SW stainless steel, um, that were one of the ones back when they were manufacturing everything in the US, aside from the movement. Extremely comfortable. So Vero last year put out the Workhorse Chrono, which is this chunky, outdoorsy, colorful watch that I, you know, it just, it doesn't really look like anything else you've seen, right? Right.
Everett They have expanded that.
Mike Razak So like Tuna meets G-Shock meets... Tuna meets Sepharni meets G-Shock meets Rollcage, right? Or maybe Roof Rack. Because who knows? And so, right, you never know. They have expanded that to a three-hander in partnership with the United States Forest Service, which is... uh maybe not the united states most exciting service uh and so they've got four colorways it's a 39 millimeter dial but it's the same aesthetic you've got crown on the left kind of ear crown so crown on the right for time crown on the left for an internal bezel and then a pop of color pusher for the power reserve because it's a psycho kinetic movement so four colorways that take inspiration from, you know, the ranger uniforms, the ranger trucks, uh, the hot shots uniform, um, and then the choppers that they use. So really excited to see those 39. It, they were very wearable, um, and just really, really cool. Um, and did they have free handers a little bit more?
Everett My speed, did they improve on the strap at all? That was my one may big objection to the original workhouse horse. The strap was so bad, like felt worse than a cheap strap?
Mike Razak I, I, I kind of handled, it was on and off quick. They were fine. I didn't, in my very brief experience with one of them on my wrist, uh, noticed that I hated it. Um, but I also will say I never had the Workhorse Chrono on my wrist, so I can't compare anyway.
Everett Did you get an opportunity to take a look at the new Meridian?
Mike Razak I did. Um, so, uh, The new Meridian is kind of, they're bringing back their Vero, I forget, was it the, they just called it the 36 or something? And they, a model that they did a collaboration with Worn and Wound on. And that, it's cool. You know, if you're familiar with the Vero 36, you're familiar with this watch. It's got a really cool stepped bezel. It's just a two-tiered bezel instead of something sloped or rounded at all. It's just boom, boom. So it drops down a little bit. It's a very flat watch, thin, comes on a bracelet, uses actually the Nodex micro adjust clasp, which is cool. Always good to see that getting used by other brands. So yeah, I mean, it's a really cool piece. I think it's something, you know, it's smaller, but not too small. It's a watch that's going to appeal to some people and not appeal to others. I think, you know, I think that's kind of Vero across the board, aside from their open waters watch and maybe their SW, their newer SW line. But, uh, you know, they always kind of do stuff that isn't just like, Oh, everybody's going to like this. Right. It's got a little bit of quirk, but it's, it's not divisive.
Everett This Meridian feels like a bit of a return to Vero's.
Mike Razak uh roots with yeah with the dial colors and the the case structure yeah i walked up to chris and i i said oh this is you're you're bringing back the old the old um the old 36 models he was like yeah yeah yeah we are what next so moving up stairs and these stairs by the way were in a corner and for the size of the show were not matched you would expect like a double wide massive stairwell like a high school stairwell this was fire escape yeah this was this was slightly wider than a fire escape and it was identified as an issue by almost everybody all of the brands though i didn't hear anything from anybody it's like the overly steep stairwell up to the attic at grandma's house yeah exactly um so uh quickly the oris kermit is they had two of them there. I didn't try it on because I've tried that model on before. It's like a toxic sludge green, right? And the whole Oris booth was draped in that green. They were leaning into the Kermit.
Andrew And they're only making, what, like a thousand of them?
Mike Razak Yeah. I don't think it's going to be terribly hard to get those. You know, Oris isn't a brand Oris isn't a brand that I'm aware of where people are like super eager to grab Ellie's just for a flip, right? And this is a highly niche watch.
Everett With probably not, probably not insignificant licensing fee.
Mike Razak Yeah, probably not. I mean, listen, they're going to sell out. And I say it's highly niche, but the reality is that Kermit, it's just a green watch. And one day of the month, our old friend Kermit shows up, right? Hi guys, Kermit the Frog here on the 31st. Um, and so, you know, I think people who just like the color might just buy that watch, right? And go, okay, well, you know, weird Muppet shows up every once in a while as their want to do. Right. Um, so that, that was that, um, Let me see. Here we go.
Everett I'd like to talk a little bit, if you don't mind, about the Notice Unity because I think that's a really fun watch. I've seen this watch for, well, I think I saw it the first time about nine months ago on Cullen's wrist. I think this watch is terrific. It's different than anything else I've ever seen, but also very familiar and inoffensive. You know, it's not...
Mike Razak I think you hit it on the head right there because I was thinking about this watch before the show and kind of since I've seen it. I saw it in New York as well. It's since been put on a fitted bracelet, not integrated fitted, fitted end links. So it's got a really smooth, I didn't, I like it much more on the bracelet than I did on the strap that they had it on in New York. But I think you hit it on the head because this watch continues what I think Notice is known best for, which is doing things that you haven't seen before that are simultaneously quite familiar. I think we saw that with the duality, perhaps first and foremost. I think to an extent with the second-generation Avalon. I think it's definitely with the sector, right? The case the dials on the sector, uh, the sector pilot, the sector field, right? This is, this is notice doing what notice does best, which is different, but familiar. Right. And in that vein, this is a watch that is not for everybody. I'll be upfront. This is not a watch that really interests me as a buyer. Um, I'm not wild about the matching ceramic bezel.
Everett But that said... That is sort of the defining characteristic of the watch.
Mike Razak That's the defining characteristic, plus the sandwich dial, which Nodus loves, textured dial, which Nodus loves, and it's that sandwich loom, which they kind of did for the first... They were one of the... Like on the cutting edge of... Yeah.
Andrew With the duality.
Mike Razak That they introduced kind of with the duality, right. And so it is exactly the kind of smaller, you know, dressy watch insofar as it is that I would expect from them, right? Very creative, very approachable, not entirely for everybody, but done really well. It comes on the bracelet with their refined Nodex clasp, right? Their first generation after the Stumbling Block was It was just a matter, and I talked to Wes and Colin about this, it was just a matter of continuing to work with the manufacturer to dial in tolerances and understand, and this is something I've talked to them before about, just pushing and pushing and pushing manufacturers until they get it right. Right.
Everett And you know, they do a really good job with that. Yeah, they do an exceptional job. I've witnessed their ability to do that. You know, working through them with with projects they were working on or whatever. And so they do a really good job with that. And you can tell the products, you know, Andrew talks a lot about iterative releases. And in some ways, you know, their entire sector line is an iterative sequence. But you can tell the small differences that they make from watch to watch, release to release. They're always pushing.
Andrew Batch to batch. If you buy a watch in January, it's not as good as the watch you buy in July. Which is a little problematic, but also really awesome. I do have a question for you about the Unity. How do you feel about the date window and wheel? Because you are a notorious date window hater. Every time I see a date window, I wonder how you feel about it.
Mike Razak Um, I'll tell you when I, when I saw it, it is not something that stood out to me. You know, um, it's, it's got the sandwich layer with the loom frame, which I think is super cool.
Everett Yeah.
Mike Razak I've not seen that before. You know, I, I think they, it's symmetrical. So for me, date windows, the worst offenders of date windows are date windows that are forced in and or afterthoughts. 215 date window.
Andrew How do you feel? What's that? A 215 date window. Yeah.
Everett Aneurysm. And this is neither of those, right? It's not forced and it's not an afterthought.
Mike Razak I mean, it is color match date wheel. The date window is thoughtful. It's trapezoidal.
Everett Um, it's, uh, Which goes in line with the, you know, you could almost mistake it for a marker at, at a quick glance.
Mike Razak It matches the flow of the watch. I think too, with the textured, more so the texture, which is this radiant, um, grooving, if you will, um, there, it almost would like texture, right? Um, It matches those lines. If you had a square window there, you would have angles. They would be cutting against each other, but here it kind of flows with those lines. It's thoughtful. It's a well done date window.
Everett I'm going to say the only thing I don't love about this watch is that texture dial. That's the only thing that I'm not wild about. They haven't changed this since the prototype, and that was my only thought about this watch. I don't love that dial. It's got that there's that company Stella that makes terrific watches and the owners are super nice, but their dials are Marcella. Yeah.
Mike Razak Yeah.
Everett Their dials are all like heavily textured. And I'm like, not even, Oh, not even for a moment.
Andrew There's also that company grand Seiko that would describe this as Arctic birch bark. Uh, I, when I saw these in New York, I was totally smitten. I'm kind of in the same boat. You are. I'm not a buyer for this watch. This watch isn't for me, but I am,
Mike Razak absolutely in love with it yeah and i'm gonna buy i'm a buyer i'm buying in pink there you go i can see that also upstairs uh was the astern bank sea ranger mark ii i think he's calling it m2 or mark ii so this was this is it looks nothing like the original sea ranger but it's a beautiful watch andrew's great He had four colors. This was the first time he'd kind of presented them all.
Everett I think he had these in New York too, and he was kind of showing people, but it was like... Kind of showing.
Mike Razak Yeah, it was on his wrist, but they weren't on display.
Andrew Yeah. It was like inside the trench coat showing.
Mike Razak One last one was the Argon. There's not a website.
Everett Yeah, I was going to say, tell me about these.
Mike Razak It is from the same guy. Yeah, so this is... I think they are on Instagram. This is futuristic. watch design you know the app the aperture for the display it's a digital display not digital computer but digital like what numbers are rotating right um this watch is not a watch that's necessarily about um telling the time it's more about art it looks like a spaceship on your wrist but a sleek sleek spaceship yeah this is this is a star a star trek watch yeah it's like a transponder
Everett Right.
Mike Razak Yeah. Try it. Computer. Computer. And so, really, really cool. So this is from the St. Guillaume Lade, who is responsible for Nevada, as well as, gosh, is it not Iraine, as well as one or two other kind of zombie brand revivals. This is I believe kind of his first foray into a brand new brand. And I think he knocked it out of the park. This is going to be a really, really cool watch. I think it's launching, uh, in a couple of weeks, uh, maybe the 11th or the 14th. He told me just a very, very cool watch.
Everett So I love this. Mike, I love this type of watch. What do you know about this thing?
Mike Razak Almost nothing. Cause I saw him in passing, um, as I was headed back downstairs to get lunch or something, and I saw it on his wrist, and I said, oh, is that the new Arc? Is that that new watch? I couldn't even remember the name. He said, and he's French, he said, Arc-en. And I said, uh-huh.
Andrew That's not how you say it, bro. Well, that's Indian.
Mike Razak It's Argon. So I know that the carbon fiber, is one of the cases, like the whole thing, and it's very cool. Um, I feel like this is kind of the watch they may wear on Krypton, like Karl might've worn this, right?
Andrew So for, for what we're describing, they do have a website. It is welcome. Argon watches.com manufactured on earth. It's important.
Mike Razak Hardly.
Andrew Jumping hour, Swiss automatic movement. Another important fact. Affire cockpit. Assembled in France. Starting at €1,499. So this is actually super affordable for the... For what that is. The zone that this is kind of landing at in like that kind of Richard Mille-y... Urwerk. Urwerk. It's Urwerk, right. Urwerk. MB&F, perhaps. But like super postmodern, not a watch, but definitely a watch design, high fashion kind of zone.
Everett You know, there's another company that came out, I believe they're a Chinese company, Ottawa. I'm probably saying that wrong. Yeah. But they make the Ettore and they released the Wandering Hour. The Cobra. Yeah. You know, so that's it. I think people are I think they're brands that are jumping into that space. You know, I've thought about buying that Ettore in the past because it's such a terrific watch. And so, yeah, in their suit, those are about the same price, I think maybe a little bit less. Uh, this is, this is interesting. You know, one of the things about MB&F and Urwerk is you get these really insane movements and you're obviously not getting that with Ottawa. I don't know about Paragon. Do you, do you have any indication there? As far as the movement? Yeah. You know, with, you know, one of the things MB&F and Urwerk both do is they have these
Mike Razak like one-off crazy complicated movements versus the Ottawa which I think it uses just an edda movement right like they're they're using uh yeah where they've basically hint linked discs to the right um you know cannon pinion and that's driving the disc I mean you know and I think this is a brand that like Ottawa um like Chris Ward with the bel canto is demonstrate, it is taking all of the things that super high-end brands used to use to justify their prices and saying, not anymore. Like, this is, you're not doing anything crazy.
Everett Here's a $3,000 chiming watch.
Mike Razak This is doable. Here's an $800 wandering hour. Here's a, you know, and, you know, look at Horage, which is actually still Swiss, you know, they have an $8,000 Swiss-made tourbillon. Right. So all of these small brands are figuring out, through, you know, creativity or nice funding, how to kind of pull back the curtain, as it were, on these larger brands and super high-end brands. Speaking of which, one quick mention. I ran into Carol Bachand of Barrel Hand Watches. If you don't know these watches, you have to check them out. He made 10. They were $30,000 each. They took seven years to develop. He basically built a cottage industry to produce the entire thing in the US. Um, this is a guy who handmade, who basically on his own disassembled and then built his own over 102 or something.
Andrew We got to see some prototypes of those.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. We got to see some of the parts. Vero actually did prototyping for, was doing prototype manufacturing for those guys. Doesn't surprise.
Mike Razak So, uh, Take a look. He is super chilled down to earth. Another person, he was just sitting in the lounge and I recognized him. I saw it on his wrist, sat down and chatted with him for like 30 or 45 minutes. Anyway, those are kind of the highlights. It's a great show. Anybody who can ever get to any of the windups, I cannot encourage it more. Whispers of Expansion, possibly to London. will help all of your European listeners, I suppose. Of which there are many, actually. Several people actually asking for Austin, which I think would complete the United States diamond.
Andrew Austin would be such a great venue for this show. I'd go to that show.
Mike Razak Yeah. So we'll see. They've got a lot of big things and they're only growing. And so, you know, adding another show is just going to mean there are going to be a couple more brands that can participate. Um, and that's a good thing.
Everett So with that said, Andrew, other things, what do you got?
Andrew Here we go. This is something I've talked about before, but I'm going to re highlight it. I'm going to bring it back to everyone's consciousness cause I've been using it a lot to Sue the cooker. You, You can't repeat. I'm going to repeat.
Mike Razak Can I say that I've been on this show maybe three times and to be hit with a repeat. Insulted is the word I'll go.
Everett Did Andrew talk about Suvi when you were on the show before?
Mike Razak You know, it's entirely possible.
Andrew I'm clouded by being so offended. I relish your offense. In fact, I'm going to double down. And after this, I have another other thing that I'm going to repeat. Oh, good Lord. Get to it. A sous vide cooker. So I've been using my sous vide quite a bit recently, which is also in conjunction with a vacuum sealer. But I gotta say, I made rib steaks tonight, which are rib on ribeyes. I threw them in the sous vide and just let them cook 129 degrees. Two hours. They just sat in there. And I threw them in the pan two and a half minutes on each side. They were perfect. Yeah. Season them in the, before you hit them into the bag, seal them up, throw them in the bath, pull them out, season them, throw them in the pan. Dude, they like.
Everett It is the most industry correct way to cook a steak.
Andrew There is just no better way. Yeah. There's I've, I've had.
Everett And it's, and there's no better way to get it. Like it's the, it's the lowest. Marge or the highest margin of error way to cook it, right? Because yes with the sous vide you get it at that perfect temperature And then all you need to do is have a pan that's hot enough not to cook the shit out of it Exactly.
Andrew I had tri-tip about two or three weeks ago out of a sous vide and that's what he did He had the whole tri-tip in a vac seal bag in the sous vide for a few hours, like let everything get tender, broken down. Then he rubbed it and he threw it on the, on the grill.
Everett You fucking torch it as high as, as hot as you can.
Andrew So he has one of the gravity series grills and he had it at maxi. It was like 750 and he just threw it on and just like fire to sear the outside. It was perfect. It was like prime rib. Yeah. Perfect. And here's the thing. So I'm using an ANOVA, an old generation ANOVA, which is kind of the industry's needs. Yeah. It's the thing. There are ANOVA units for a hundred bucks right now. It's Mother's Day of sales because people assume that these are only for moms.
Everett This is very much a dad's tool. This is a moms can use it too. Yes.
Andrew This is adjacent to grilling kind of cooking there. They range from about 300 bucks to about a hundred bucks on the ANOVA website. There's a hundred brands out there. I like ANOVA. It's got a Bluetooth capability. As long as it's connected to my wifi at my house, I can, go through the app and affect my unit wherever I am. So I have to adjust cooking temperature halfway through. It's totally fine. This is the way to cook beef.
Everett You just reminded me I need to run my backyard sprinkler.
Andrew Light it up. This is the way to cook beef. I'm going to just link to Anova. They've got a great recipe book if that's something you're interested in. I love this unit and they've gotten tons smaller. So the ones that I, the one that I have is probably 30% larger and half again, as powerful as their current equivalent model makes me think I should just get a new one.
Everett Well, you know, that's the trick with these things, right? Is you've got to know when to, when to upgrade.
Andrew I know I might be in the window cause I use a five gallon kettle. I don't use their like a Nova little plastic thing. I use a five gallon kettle. It works great. If you haven't somehow, I think this is kind of like adjacent to the air fryer craze. And I think you can get by without an air fryer. You can pass on that. I do think that now is the time to get down with a sous vide.
Everett I'm here for it. Mike Razak. What do you got?
Mike Razak I have an air fryer.
Andrew I'm ready for it. A ninja air fryer. Thanks for having me. Ninja air fryer trash.
Mike Razak Ninja air fryer trash. Yeah. I've had this for a while, but I just used it on my trip to San Francisco and loved it again. It's one of those hemorrhoid pillows. Yeah, it is. But but weirdly enough, it's a It's also a dopp kit. A toiletry bag, if you will. So, my process for buying things, insofar as I'm able to do this, as you guys also know, I did this when I got a camera bag. I buy, you know, six or seven versions. Try them all out. And then return the ones I don't like. Right?
Andrew I did that with
Mike Razak toiletry bags. I had had a zipper square that zipper rectangle that was like felted on. It's a terrible toiletry bag.
Everett Yeah. No, no felt on a toiletry bag.
Andrew Do you have the one that hangs in the shower?
Mike Razak No, no, no, no, no. Those are garbage for garbage people. Um, so I, I wanted something that was as compact as possible zipper, um, in some sort of color that could hold all of my various things. Um, I don't travel with a lot, but I travel with more than, uh, you know, toothbrush, toothpaste. Um, so I ended up with the Bellroy toiletry kit plus in bronze. Um, it, it, you know, it has magnetic closures for some things and zippers, and it just has all the little slots and slips and zips that I needed. Right. The saga of ending up with this. was I think I landed on ordering three different bags. One from Briggs and Riley, which was fine, but the footprint was too large. One from Peak Design, which was... I like that one. I like it. It worked, but it takes up a considerable amount of volume, the larger model that they have. And it can't be compacted, because it's kind of a shell. It's structured, yeah. It is that size. So the Bellroy, you know, if I don't fill it to the gills, I can push it down a little bit. So it fits in my bag perfectly, kind of no matter what the situation. But, you know, I had to return the Peak and the Briggs and Riley, and so at the time I had a ball watch in for review, and I had those packages next to each other ready to go, and I took the labels out. And I sure did put them on the wrong boxes. And so, I get a text three days later from the PR rep for Ball. Two phone calls, which I ignored, because I was like, I don't know who this is. And then a text saying, hey, so and so. And it's from an international number. Yeah. So and so, the guy who I sent it to, who it was going on to for further review, He's wondering, do you know why you might've sent him a dop kit from Briggs and Riley? And so about a day and a half or two of panic ensued where I was desperately trying to figure out how do I intercept this watch, this $3,500 watch. Uh, you know, the guy was nice enough. He just sent the dop kit back to me. That was not the problem. So. That was nice of him. Cause I would have kept it. It was nice of him. Yeah. Fair. Um, it was like a $90 dop kit, which I, not the price I would have put on it, but that's what it was. Yeah. That's fair. So it was the, the, uh, at that time it was in Shamrock, Texas, which if you don't know is well known for its water tower. and a service station that was used as the model of Luigi's in Cars.
Everett I've been to Shamrock, Texas, by the way. How is it? Is it great? It's tiny. That's what I'll say about it. It's a place.
Mike Razak It's a place, yeah. The FedEx people and Briggs and Riley were both like, don't worry. This happens. We'll put a note in. It got bounced back. It came back. The PR rep had a a very subtle veiled threat was, you know, as long as this, uh, I don't see a reason to, uh, involve Ariel, the founder of a blog to watch, you know, as long as this, uh, gets back to the guy we need to get to. I was like, Oh, okay, then I guess I'll make sure this happens. So all ended well, but two, two or three solid days of panic and real diarrhea, I imagine.
Andrew Yeah. And what? And real diarrhea. That nervous diarrhea. Yeah.
Mike Razak Yeah. The shakes. That comes with the shakes. Yeah. So my other thing is the exceptional Bellroy toiletry kit plus. Everett, will you share with me your?
Andrew And the service of the FedEx folks in Shamrock, Texas, a town of which I've also been through. Didn't know it's that small. You wouldn't know.
Mike Razak It's that, that was, they did put me at ease. I'll tell you what the Briggs and Riley and the FedEx people. Very nice.
Andrew Should have kept the Briggs and Riley.
Everett I will, I will share with you my other thing, but first I want to ask you a question about your Dopp kit. Did you by any chance review or checkout or test the Nutsack Dopp kit because I've been in the market and that is the one I've got my eyes on. It's a waxed canvas model. I, it's a little pricey, which is the thing that, that is opposed to.
Mike Razak I think I set myself a hundred dollar limit. And it's just over that. It's just over and looking at it, not, not the style I was looking for. I want, Ideally I wanted a zip top kind of a opening clamshell, if you will. Um, you know that, yeah, this is, this was, and this is just not a style I would get. So I, I did not. And you know, recently I bought a zipper and an opening.
Everett Recently I bought a briefcase and you said, when I bought it, you said, Everett, I love that briefcase for you.
Mike Razak That's, yeah. And I love this bag for you. The problem is this bag doesn't have pockets.
Everett I wanted... It's pretty minimalist. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty minimalist. It's got, it's got the one pocket. Oh, okay.
Andrew Well, fair. I like the angle zipper on, on your choice because it gives you all the volume you need, which is frequently lost in a straight across, like bisectional, bisecting zipper.
Mike Razak These people think of everything, but Everett, I'm tired of this duck talk. What Tell me your story.
Everett So over the last two years, we're in the beginning of the third year now, I guess, I have been on a mission to establish my yard tool pruning kit. And I started... Is that a euphemism? No, it's not. It's for literal. So what I've been trying to do is get the best tools that you can get for various yard work. And so I started with, I think a very obvious, with a very obvious category and I bought pruners and I looked a long time. I checked out a lot of different pruners and I went with a Japanese company called ARS. ARS is a company that you may not have heard of, but they make perhaps the best pruners you can get. I got the VS8Z pruners, which are kind of their simple go-to model. I've now been using those for two years, and I freaking love them. They're incredible and wonderful. And then last year, so I'm doing this one tool at a time because none of these are cheap. They're not particularly expensive either. Last year, I got a saw. I needed a saw, just an everyday pruning saw. And I, again, another Japanese company called Silky. And I purchased the Silky Gomboy Curve, which is well known in EDC communities. A lot of people use these for their EDC kits or their, you know, camping, hiking kits, their bug out bag, their bug out bag. That's right. So this is a it's essentially like a 13 inch pocket knife construction with a locking blade. But it is a wonderful, wonderful small saw. That's what it is. It's basically a small pruning saw. I've used the hell out of both of these. This year was the big year, this year. And I knew it was going to be the big year because I knew these were going to be the most expensive items in this three, this three part kit, but I needed a pair of loppers and loppers because they're bigger or more expensive. Now I've had a number of different types of loppers over the years. I've had cheap loppers. I've had, uh, you know, sort of the like big box Fiskars loppers that you can get, which are fine and good even, but I wanted something better. And so I went with a Swiss company. It's a company that landscapers use. This is one of those companies, buy it for life type of companies. I went with a company called Felco out of Switzerland and I purchased the Felco 21 two-handed trimmer. The famous entry in this category is the 24, or the Felco 22, which I think is like a 34-inch pruner, which is too big. It's too big for what I need. It's got a giant blade, and they're like serious pieces of equipment. I didn't need anything quite that big, so I went with a slightly smaller, a 24-inch two-hand pruner called the Felco 21. These things are replaceable blades, full aluminum bar construction, fantastic handles, ergonomic. Like you can buy every part of this thing straight from Felco and replace the broken down part. So, you know, the rubber guards. So this is a true buy it for life type item. I received them about two weeks ago and I immediately went under the yard and started cutting things, even things that I probably didn't need to cut that Kim was like, why did you cut that? Cause I was like, cause look at these pruners.
Mike Razak Did you drift a little bit into Andrew's yard?
Everett I haven't yet.
Andrew I wish you would. I have a lot of bamboo to deal with.
Everett I think I got for the average homeowner the very best two handed lopping pruner that you can buy. And having used a number of loppers, I have never handled a tool that felt this much better than the average thing you get. That's a little, I'm being a little bit over the top, right? But it was just instant. I pulled it out of the package and I was like, I did it. I got the best tool that you can buy. Now these aren't cheap. They're 173 bucks on, I think on Amazon, a little bit more expensive if you buy it from Felco.
Andrew Felco is $201.27. And I think I got them from 175 on. So this is, this is not a,
Everett This is not a flyer yard tool purchase.
Andrew You don't get loppers for $12. That's right.
Everett Or like 12 bucks at Harbor Freight or 30 bucks at Lowe's. Right. And they're probably gonna work just fine, frankly, but it's just not how I buy things. It was instantly apparent to me running around the yard, cutting things, dog tails and kid fingers and tree branches that I have got the best tool, which is one of those things that brings me joy. It brings me joy to have the best tool. And in fairness, 173 bucks, it's not like, uh, what's the name of that, uh, power tool company that makes the, they make the alternative to biscuits. It's Swiss. They're all green or it's German. They're all, no, no. Anyway, there's going to be 800 people listening to this podcast, yelling at their, uh, stereo right now. There is a German company that makes, very high end mechanical tools that you find on YouTube all the time. But they're just like twice as expensive as anything else you can get. This is the same, right? Felco makes the tools that you buy at Lowe's that look and better operate functionally the same, but are just better. It's the same kind of deal.
Mike Razak And I love it. This entire time All I've been able to do is imagine you outfitted like all of the Ninja Turtles in one, with leather straps, with different implements, just locked in, ready to attack your lawn.
Andrew What you're missing is that he only wears chainsaw chaps when he does yard work. That's true. It's weird because he doesn't use or need a chainsaw, but that's what he wears only.
Everett Festool. That's the name of the company, Festool. They make very high-end routers and jointers and yeah, very high-end shit. Festool is extremely expensive.
Andrew I'll be posting pictures of Everett and his chaps.
Everett Yeah. Gentlemen, that's all I got. That's all I got. The, the Felco F21, if you want the best loppers on earth, I found them. You should buy them.
Andrew For residential use.
Everett That's right. Well, if you want the best on earth, get the 22s and yeah, you'll be able to cut all of the things on your 30 acre farm down.
Andrew I'm intrigued because I don't like the exertion of cutting even like two inch branches.
Everett Well, you live close enough. You can borrow them anytime you like.
Andrew We'll just trade.
Everett Mike Razack. Thanks for joining us. Is there anything you want to, is there anything you want to say before you go? You want to plug what you're doing?
Mike Razak I mean, you can see, I'd say 95, 99% of my writing on a blog to watch. Are you going to be adding more reviews to a blog to watch? I am. I really appreciate you asking that. You know, we have upwards of 3,700 now in the back catalog, but it's light. It's light. It's not enough. So by tomorrow, I'm hoping to get that up to 5,000.
Everett Well done. Well done.
Andrew I think you can do it. Are you on call tonight? Because if you are not, yeah, if you were, I think you would be there.
Mike Razak Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Well, maybe maybe I'll give myself a little bit more time, maybe two days. Andrew, what do we want to add before we go?
Andrew I think I'm out of things.
Everett Well, hey, you guys, thank you once again for joining this episode of 40 and 20. The Watch Clicker podcast. We want to thank we want to thank Mike. You can find him on Instagram at Mike's What Got Watches. You can find us at Watch Clicker dot com. That's where we post articles, reviews, and of course, every single episode of this podcast, you can find us on the socials in particular, Instagram at watch clicker or at 40 and 20 underscore watch clicker. If you want to support us, and this is the important bit, folks, we really hope you want to support us because we make very little money and everything is expensive. You can do that at patreon.com slash 40 and 20. That's where we get all of the money for hosting and hardware and software. All of you are supporting us. We appreciate it so much. 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.