Episode 262 - Our Favorite Nodus, Yet

Published on Wed, 01 Nov 2023 20:51:24 -0700

Synopsis

The hosts Andrew and Everett discuss various watch releases and other topics in their fun and casual style. Some of the watches covered include a limited edition 18k gold G-Shock designed with AI assistance to celebrate G-Shock's 40th anniversary, the Christopher Ward C1 Moonphase with its stunning Aventurine dial, a collaboration between Worn & Wound and Maren with a square case, and a new release from Zin commemorating the 25th anniversary of their 356 model. They also touch on news like Spinnaker's handling of their recent "50 Phantoms" launch issues. In the "other things" segment, Andrew talks about his amazing dining experience at Roy Choi's restaurant in Las Vegas, and Everett shares his family's experience watching the new Five Nights at Freddy's movie.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello, fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 and 20, the WatchCooker 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 Super duper. Really good. I watched Young Frankenstein tonight. It's Halloween. It is Halloween for us. It's Halloween for us, not for you. I watched, I have one kid who is home with a fever. And so we watched Young Frankenstein. He was not pumped about it, like seeing the images. I think it just looked like an old movie.
Andrew Well, it is. So that's why.
Everett I think he's a little young to have appreciated it, but I do think he liked it. I do think he liked it. I, on the other hand, was struck by how amazing a movie that is. Mel Brooks. Yeah. Just, I mean, unmatched, I think. You actually mentioned something earlier that it's sort of a dead or a lost art, that particular type of humor. And I think you might be right. I had mentioned that Mike Myers kind of had some similar stuff. You know, I'm sure there's other examples, but yeah, I don't, I don't think there's that exact type of thing being made today, the timing and the subtlety. But also the opposite of subtlety, whatever that is. Yeah, just really terrific. Really terrific, not quite slapstick. Yeah, really, really very funny. Like it was making me laugh out loud a number of times. That's like good stuff. Yeah. But yeah, that's my night. That's how I am. I'm doing well. Andrew, how are you?
Andrew I am good. Also Halloween for me. We are recording together. Uh, we did, uh, that's how that works. Yeah. Well, maybe, I don't know. Like there's, there's also the very real possibility that we're doing some space age, like voiceover shit where we never in the same labs. Yeah. I mean, most voice actors don't ever meet their co-stars until the carpet. Anyway. Uh, good. We, we, uh, went over to a friend's house for a, uh, it's like an early ish dinner. Hmm. ahead of trick-or-treating and we went to a little neighborhood, it's not even that little of a neighborhood, but a neighborhood in our sister city over there and it's super flat. It's this old historic neighborhood where there's like five square blocks that every home has like a wooden hanging banner over its porch, like the whatever house. circa whatever year it was built in. It's all like a registered historic district. And so it's a really cute neighborhood. Great for trick-or-treating. The kids had a blast. It's nice to get a group of kids trick-or-treating because then they're paying attention to each other and not to you. And it was good. And I appreciated not working tonight.
Everett So, yeah. Yeah. When's the last time you had a Halloween off?
Andrew You know, I don't know. It's been a couple of years because Halloween kind of floats back and forth throughout the week. Um, so I've had one off, but I don't remember the last one I had off. Sure. Oh, it was good. It was fun. I haven't had any candy yet today. Weird. Yeah. I have had some. I'm feeling good about that. Uh, but it had ample time to just kind of chill today. That's good. Nice. Yeah.
Everett Well today we are. talking about watches. We're talking about watches as we are want to do. Uh, and I thought I'd get us started, Andrew. Ooh, how unusual. That is a little unusual. I'm going to talk about a totally absurd watch that you will definitely not buy. And by you, I don't just mean you, Andrew, I mean you.
Andrew Oh, I know what you're going to talk about. I'm kind of bummed. Yes, you. Uh,
Everett The 40th anniversary G-Shock G-D001.
Andrew God damn 001 is I think what it stands for.
Everett So a few years back, G-Shock made their their dream project watch. I think it was a D5000. It was basically a 18 karat yellow gold. Square G Shock, just like you'd expect it to look. And they made 35 of them. They sold for $70,000. They instantly sold out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a gold, it's a freaking gold D5000. All the bells and whistles, totally top of the line. Pretty neat watch. And if you had $70,000 just rolling around, Five years ago, maybe something you were thinking about buying.
Andrew There might be some on the secondary market currently.
Everett Yeah, I don't know. I haven't looked actually, but that's entirely possible.
Andrew Price of gold has gone up, so you're not going to be getting it for $70,000.
Everett Yeah, well, actually, I don't think... Well, I don't know. Maybe it is. That sounds to me like you're paying for more than just the price of gold on that.
Andrew You certainly are, but the price of gold. at their cost is going to have an impact on the final price tag?
Everett Perhaps. Yeah. Um, and actually, I don't know, I don't know enough about gold to know how that works. If you buy something that's not really attached to the price of gold, uh, does it fluctuate with the price of gold? I don't know. Um, in any event, that's not the watch we're talking about today. However, we are talking about another 18 karat yellow gold G-Shock This time, not a historic design, a totally new design, not like anything I or probably you have ever seen before. Uh, this is an AI designed or at least AI assist designed, uh, totally all new full skeleton designed G-Shock, top of the line G-Shock, one of their analog round, modules everything is outrageous uh solar multi-band six all of the things but in this absurd in this absolutely absurd case and bracelet all made out of gold with crazy Ridley Scott organic shapes in the skeleton. Uh, and they're just making one of them, Andrew.
Andrew That is, that's, what's crazy to me that they're just making one for an anniversary watch. It seems kind of like a miss for an anniversary watch. This is an awesome single release because they're doing it in conjunction with AI to manage the design and the engineering and the manufacturing process for this. So what, We have this bizarro thing that should be getting made. It bums me out that it's an anniversary edition G-Shock because this, it seems weird for just one. Who the fuck's going to get it?
Everett Yeah, I don't know. So it's going to go on sale at a Phillips auction. I think Phillips has estimated so, so December, 9th and 10th is the date of the auction. Phillips has estimated, I think, $75,000 to $140,000, but my guess is it'll probably go for more than that. Just based on the fact that 35 people instantly bought the squared cheese for $70,000, I'm guessing this thing will go for probably a quarter million, if not more. Probably, yeah. Um, yeah, it's neat. I think, uh, G-Shock is going to donate all the proceeds to charities, environmentally based charities. That's fun. Almost a throwaway at that point. Uh, I, I sort of wonder what G-Shock is going to do with this tech.
Andrew Yeah. Uh, so an interesting thing they're doing is they're using gallium as, as part of their solar, uh, cell in there, which is a unique application for that compound. Um, so it's not only is this a design feature, this is a fully specked 200 meters of water resistance, Sapphire crystal G shock, but with also emerging technologies and taking technologies from other industries to improve their own. It's, uh, This is a cool science project that they've undertaken and they're going to make a buttload of money in the way of an enormous loss, because I'm sure it costs way more than that to make all of it happen.
Everett Yeah, that's right. And the movement looks like a more this this is a more significant movement than you normally would find in a quartz. I guess they used lost wax, lost wax casting to make the the case and bezel materials, which is, is unsurprising. If you see any of the closeups or any of the macros on this, it's clearly got the look of something that's been made with lost wax, uh, traditional jewelry making technique rings. And, um, yeah, it's, it's a really neat watch. I don't know that I'd call it gorgeous or even that I'd call it particularly appealing.
Andrew It's stunning.
Everett It is. I think literally maybe, uh, in some senses, Yeah, I do think that there's the possibility that G-Shock is trying its hand at something new. This feels more like a, in fact, I think the Fratello article I read said this feels more like a prototype, and that seems fair, right? Like you see these crazy cars at the car shows or whatever, and then when you get the final version, the production model, it's significantly toned down.
Andrew Or a concept car you see once.
Everett Yeah, that's right. That's right. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come from G Shock.
Andrew I don't know, but. There's a lot of cool parts about it, the skeleton dial with what I'm assuming is still 18 karat gold. Markers rings around the sub dials. Which are it's weird to call them sub dials on a skeleton.
Everett Dial, but I think still appropriate. Yeah.
Andrew It's interesting for sure. And it still looks like a G-Shock. Yeah, that's right. Even without the branding on it, you'd be like, oh, that's a weird G-Shock. Right. That's right. Are these pushers?
Everett They are.
Andrew Yeah. No, on the bottom, what is it pushing?
Everett Oh, it's got a, okay. Yeah, but you know what? The good news is we don't have to worry about the manual.
Andrew No, the thing at the six o'clock.
Everett Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
Andrew I think that's a typical spot for a light, but I don't know if this is, who knows, man, 800 lumen bulb in there too, just for America's sake. Uh, yeah, no, this is, I think this is cool. Um, and seeing them kind of not just do this spectacle of design, but also introduce some cool tech into it. Um, I don't know what things it's a sign of to come, but it's certainly demonstrating some, uh, Interesting thought in the G-Shock world. Andrew, what do you got? Next up for me. First up for me, actually. What do I want to talk about? I wasn't ready. Oh, you know what? I just want to talk briefly about a watch that we did kind of touch on last week in the way of the Christopher Ward C1 Moonphase. was released the day after our... I think the day... The day our podcast aired, so exactly a week ago. The day of our show, yeah. And I saw it and I was like, I feel like we just talked about this, but we couldn't have, because it's just released. And I remember that we were talking about it in a time warp before the embargo. That's right, yeah. So with this, we have... I think the more I see it, the more I appreciate it. This is the most beautiful watch that Christopher Ward has made. Totally useless in the way of telling time. It's just gorgeous. Two layers of Aventurine. This is cool. Just working with Aventurine is cool enough for me. You don't have to do anything else and I'm sold. Right. But we'll throw in this big ass moon phase.
Everett Well, and Aventurine is such a perfect material for a moon phase, right? Has this been done before? And if not, why not?
Andrew I hope it's been done before. It can't be revolutionary to use plate that looks like the stars to display a moon face. Um, I don't know. We talked about price a little bit. Uh, I mean we, I just wanted to re bring it up since it's now fully released and acknowledge that this watch has come out. It is beautiful. Uh, and it's really cool. Um, the loom on it's neat. It's like just a gentle loom on the moon. Yeah, this is good.
Everett And you know, I, I, I can't say this for certain, but I don't think that this has any light catcher aspects. This is just a traditional case, as opposed to, you know, it seems like just about everything Christopher Ward is releasing these days is light catcher, not so with this.
Andrew No, it's like the, what are they, the, um, I don't even know if they were still making them. Uh, it doesn't matter. They were kind of like military-esque. field watches, um, you know, uh, 600 euros on a bracelet.
Everett What I will say about this watch is, and I don't mean this as a criticism, but this does to me have the feel of what's the name of that brand undone with the, just the, just the Swiss made poking out at the bottom. I've seen a few pictures of that, this and thought, Oh, it looks like an undone. Maybe that's, Maybe that's not fair. Maybe it's not good or bad. But I do wish there was just something a tiny, just a little bit more going on in the dial.
Andrew Yeah, I think I agree with you in the way it has kind of have some of the same feel of the current fashion brands making releases. But there's just on its own side of it. Right. Because this would this would be a really easy thing to do with any other dial and paint. Yeah. But when you when you include the fact that this is a fantastic and really difficult material to work with, an in-house movement, like there's a lot of special happening here. And I think it's, you know, like looking at any boring field watch. Oh, that looks like any other fossil watch that's been released. Sure. And then you really get a second look at it and you realize there's so much more happening. Like how, how boring is, is just the Rolex Explorer, right? It's the most perfectly boring and unoffensive watch on the planet. And so special.
Everett I think, uh, when we were talking about the new gold, uh, the 12 watches you had, you had made a reference to Movado, right? And, and you do, You do get a bit of that with this watch too, maybe less so with that Aventurine and the Big Moon, but there's something to be said for finding that balance of austere and simple.
Andrew And what are Normies gonna buy? Movado sells a fuck ton of watches. Fossil sells a bucket load of watches. Maybe this is kind of hinting Christopher Ward throwing their hat in maybe upmarket fashion type stuff.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and, and Yorg, I think is really, you know, you know, their, their entire design team, but, but Yorg in particular has always struck me as someone that wants to be making significant and interesting Horologically interesting pieces.
Andrew So yeah, I think we're gonna see more and more of this And I love that it's happening in conjunction with new other new releases in their mainstream line Yeah, I look forward to their next year's Kind of last quarter release so we have the bel canto last year This this year next year is gonna be something real cool
Everett Correct. Um, I want to talk about a watch. I want to talk about a watch by these guys from Los Angeles called Wes and Colin. Uh, they noticed released a, uh, not a new watch, an iterative, an iteration on the sector sport, the sector sport being, I think the essential watch in the sector line. This is, I think in some ways, at least notices interpretation of the essential steel sports watch. Inexpensive, or perhaps affordable, legible, inoffensive at every turn, made in their sector line, which is, you know, this sort of chameleon mid case, Uh, this is a sort of unadorned bezel, pretty simple crystal, still the sector dial, but done in a very inoffensive way. But with unmistakable notice styling, they've released a sector sport in with bronze accents, bronze crown, bronze bezel, bronze dials. So an anthracite, an anthracite colored double bronze disc dial with bronze colored accents on the inside. At least I'll say bronze colored. Steel mid case, steel bracelet. It's gosh, I think this is terrific. Surprisingly good considering it's just a sector sport with a gray dial, a dark gray dial and bronze accents.
Andrew And your total aversion to guilt. It's surprising to me that you are
Everett You think I have an aversion to guilt? I don't think I do.
Andrew I would look for it, but there are too many episodes for which to look through. But you've said on multiple occasions.
Everett I think I am increasingly enamored by guilt, but to hear it doesn't even feel offensive because you've already got all that yellow at the forefront.
Andrew This just works for me. This is my favorite two-tone watch I've ever seen. This is a two-tone watch I could buy and wear.
Everett And it is sold out. So I won't. I'm sure they're available in the aftermarket. They only made 500 of these. I think that this was a, or excuse me, they only made 75 of these, but they sold them for $500. Sorry. And I think they have said this is limited. So we may not get exactly this again, but they've indicated that they're going to do something similar. Certainly these will be available in the secondary market if you're patient. Uh, but yeah, what a terrific release.
Andrew Yeah, it's a good release.
Everett And just sort of popped in out of nowhere. They'd been quiet for a while. Well, you know, they released, we didn't talk about it on the show, but they released their Canyon. Oh yeah. Which was the Matt Farah collaboration. And, uh, we actually had to have a conversation with Will about who Matt Farah was. Uh, we did, you know, Matt Farah sort of famous. I believe it's appropriate to call him a car journalist, but, but really known for the smoking tire podcast, as well as his podcast that he did with, um, Cameron Weiss. And I'm totally blanking on the name. It was crown and caliber put it on. What was the name of the Cameron Weiss, Matt Farah podcast talking watches? No. Was it? I can't remember. Anyway, but also, you know, just a terrific dude who's into, and a bro, the bro-iest of bros, into cars, drove a Lexus LS 400 with over a million miles on it. Yeah. But he made that watch with notice. I think a lot of folks when that came out... Watch and listen. Watch and listen. I think a lot of folks, when the Canyon came out, thought, well, this is kind of big and it's sort of different than what Notice has done. I think it's a beautiful watch, clearly designed by the spokesperson. And yeah, it's great, but it wasn't really a watch for me.
Andrew No. Well, it was kind of the way the Sector Deep wasn't really a watch for me, but the Sector Deep was closer in alignment with what Notice has been up to this point. The canning is a little bit of a, not a departure, but a deviation, certainly.
Everett Yeah. You know, I think it's great. I think they made a watch for Matt Farah that Matt Farah wanted and that Matt Farah was able to say, this is the watch I wanted. It's not really like anything else that Notice has done. It's certainly in their design language. It's not something weird or off the wall. It's just a little different enough. So, and I think they, I think they did right by him on that. So. But this is more like, yeah, give me more of this.
Andrew Yeah, this is it. I wonder what they've got in the tube because they've got to have some fire coming out soon.
Everett Yeah, maybe some collaborations.
Andrew Yeah, I hope so.
Everett Andrew, do you have any other watches you want to talk about?
Andrew I do. Next up for me is a Timex collaboration with Second to second? Maybe. Uh, I don't know. It's second with an E at the end with backslashes. Seconde. Seconde, seconde. I'm not a hundred percent sure. Um, and it also doesn't matter. So this is a collaboration series. Kind of, it's, it's working what appears to me to be the foundation of the Q Timex and just adding some not even quite tongue-in-cheek fun dials into this line. So they're doing a lot of color. The two that I've got pulled up are the Hulk and the Coke. And their branding on it is terrific, right? This green Hulk Timex has got a big Hulk hand in the center of the dial. I think it's actually the second hand. Yeah, as the second's hand. And the Line under it is like hangman with an H and a K in two blank spaces. If you know, you know, and that's how they're, Oh, geez, I somehow just closed it. It doesn't even make sense. Uh, I just closed a tab on my phone and I didn't even touch it. So that's the Hulk and the Coke is a traditional Coke. It's a black dial, black and red bezel, a burger as the second hands. And it's just fun, right? This is the kind of fun stuff that I like from Timex. I'm surprised it took a collaborative effort to get there for it. But it's cool, I like it.
Everett Yeah, and these are episodes three and four. I saw that and I didn't take the time to look up what episodes one and two were. I didn't either, don't care, I like these. We've got, the Hulk is actually a Q Timex, a green, all green Q Timex. which is unsurprising. And the Coke is an M79, an automatic M79. Uh, so you're getting some options, you're getting some differences. You've got the details aren't the same between the two watches. Uh, yeah, this is a fun, it's fun. It's fun. Uh, I don't know much about second day.
Andrew Uh, yeah, I'm reading this, uh, this, comment because I looked up episode one of this review. Very disappointed. Watch arrived dead. Have opened multiple cases with Timex and they haven't yet to even get back to me. Why do you keep buying it? You clearly, you don't care enough to not buy it. So episode one has a straw, like a, like a, a bendy straw as the, uh, as the second's hand on a, on a cute Timex platform.
Everett Yeah, I see that. This is episode two is a slap. These are emojis, I guess. I like three and four better than I like one or two.
Andrew I like the the coke. Yeah, I can get down with a burger on them at the center of my dial.
Everett Yeah, it's fun. Yeah. How much do these cost?
Andrew 300 bucks. Can you buy them? I don't know if you can buy these. You can't buy one and two. So 200 bucks for episode three and 300 bucks for episode four. Which makes sense, given an M-79 versus a Q. Yeah.
Everett Are they in 500 pieces per episode? And out of stock on the Coke and out of stock on the Hulk.
Andrew So I apologize for even bringing this up, folks.
Everett Sorry.
Andrew Fun releases. I expect we can probably look forward to episodes five and six, though. And just be ready. Yeah.
Everett Just got to just got to be ready. Hey, have you heard of this company Zin or Sin? Sin? Don't you think that they're, can't we, why, why can't we agree on how to say this? Cause we don't speak German. It's some, some people are very committed to Sin and others are very committed to Zin. And I feel like I go back and forth because it depends on the last person that I heard say this in a committed way.
Andrew I have a coworker who spreckens and I'll, I'll write the word out for him. and have him say it in German.
Everett And I don't care, right? It's like, uh, you know, some people when they go order Mexican food will be like, oh, that drives me nuts. I'll have the carnitas. Yeah. It's like, no, just order carnitas.
Andrew No, shut up. You don't even hablo.
Everett Can I have some extra tortilla chips?
Andrew Yeah. If it's somebody who ablos, I can get with it. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. But if you don't ablo, you don't get to ablo.
Everett So, uh, maybe it's like that. Maybe it's like, well, don't be an asshole and just say sin.
Andrew I'm sure they don't do it when they go to like Greek or Middle Eastern restaurants is when they throw hands in there and stuff, you know, like they don't do that.
Everett Got it. Oh, I hate that.
Andrew I love it. I just watched, I was watching the new girl yesterday and, An episode where she or one of the characters is ordering in a Mexican restaurant. She says it and her ex-husband. Oh, and there's the eye roll. My God.
Everett How did you see me? So so Zinz, maybe I'll just try to make it ambiguous. Zin? Zin? Zin? Zin? Zin?
Andrew Zine is probably how I would say it.
Everett Oh, boy. A limited edition 500 piece of a what they're calling The 356 Pilot Classic Anniversary printed on the dial. I think for the first time ever, it says at six o'clock, Flieger Classic with Ks. Classic. This is a Bicompax Precision Timer with an SW510, which is a Bicompax Valjoux 7750 base. This is like the sixth, 25th anniversary.
Andrew Additionally, they've dropped this year. They're like going big for this birthday.
Everett And I wonder, this isn't the 25th anniversary of the Sin Company, is it? I think it's of the 356 specifically. I think that's right. So these all have sort of a pewter or perhaps anthracite dial there, or these all. It's a pewter anthracite dial with silver subs on a leather or nubuck strap or nubuck bore. They're coming in at a pretty reasonable 2,990 bucks for a SW510. Terrific movement. Uh, size is good. I believe these are 37 millimeters or 38 millimeters. 38 hyfe. 38 hyfe. It is 50. So this is a 7750. It's a big bitch. So it is 15 millimeters thick. Unsurprising for this, for this movement. Um, pretty classic Zins styling all around. I mean, it's a three, five, six.
Andrew I love it. Yeah. The only thing that bums me out about some of their watches is that they don't come with a bracelet option.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew I want this on a bracelet. Cause cause too often. Cause their bracelets are really good. I really liked every one that I've put on.
Everett I do imagine that any Zen three, five, six bracelet would fit this.
Andrew Yeah. But I don't want to have to go buy a bracelet also.
Everett Of course not. And I'm, and I feel you on this, but uh, if, if you wanted to make it happen, I do think you could make it happen. Okay. Yeah. I'm just saying, I'm just saying there isn't, there is an option out there. Uh, but yeah, no, I'm with you when they came out with all the colored, the fancy colored, um, 556 is. Yeah. I want to have bracelets on those.
Andrew Yeah. And I'm sure a 556 bracelet would probably fit on the fancy colored ones.
Everett It does. It's the same. Yeah. It's the exact same thing. And I'm just saying, I, I agree with you.
Andrew Yeah. No, I, I, yeah. They do weird stuff with their braceleting options. It's like they have a lot of confidence in the leather straps that they're, they're selling.
Everett Yeah. You know, I wonder if it's a manufacturing Delta. I don't know. Like a supply chain delta, right? They're able to get more of the cases made than they are bracelets.
Andrew It's hard for me to accept that they're able to get more movements than they are bracelets. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. That's a, that's a hard pill for me.
Everett It may just, it may just be like a, I guess I'm suggesting the possibility it's a manufacturing delta.
Andrew It could be, but it's, it seems so frequent that it seems like a choice.
Everett Solita makes more movements by a big number than Zen makes watches put it that way. So, uh, anyway, that's all I have to say about it. It's a cool Zen three, five, six anniversary limited edition 500 that you can actually buy. The first watch we've talked about tonight that you can actually purchase. I bet you can't buy it right now. I think you can.
Andrew Let's look.
Everett I stink.
Andrew You can, you could for sure. At one point, the problem They have, I mean, I think maybe they just have supply chain issues, um, because they're, you can never buy them direct from them.
Everett Oh, in their websites. Oh, it's such trash. The worst, the worst website in all of horology. Uh, please send me, but let's do that. Find me one worse. I dare you. Let's talk about the worst watch manufacturer websites. Send your nominations. You can send them. either via a comment card on the website or as a DM to the Instagram. Send your nominations. We will talk about the worst watch websites on a future episode.
Andrew I think this is it.
Everett I think it is too, but I'm happy to, I'm happy to be proven wrong. Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew. What do you got?
Andrew Okay. So I have, um, this is a little bit of a cheat, um, cheater because I wouldn't have talked about either of these watches independently of one another had they not kind of been released so close together. So the first one we're going to talk about up here is the man and man, man, M-A-E-N and worn and wound. Maine, I believe. Maine, Manhattan. It is a square watch with an interesting sunburst to black dial. Uh, first color is kind of an interesting blue, like oceany blue. And the other is a, red wine red these are really kind of like deep hued colors that go into black they are integrated bracelets and they're interesting because they're different this is not a this is unlike any of the other worn and round worn and wound collaborative releases that are out there the size is uh terrific for a square watch we're coming in at 37 millimeters which is perfect, I think, for a square cased watch.
Everett Well, I don't want to steer your show, but quickly, I think that this is exactly the same case and bracelet as the main Manhattan that came out at least a year, if not a year and a half ago. But I do believe that the dial on this is totally new.
Andrew Is that all they're changing on their collaboration?
Everett I think for the, I think for the Manhattan that is, it is just the dial that's new. I think the rest of the watch is the same, but I could, but again, I don't, I don't know that for sure.
Andrew Regardless, contemporaneously a, another brand in the way of uni design has released their model one, another square, Watch decidedly different than the Manhattan and clearly taking design cues from elsewhere in the watch world. Yeah. Just, you know, if I had to, had to take a guess. This watch looks familiar for a couple of reasons, but what's intriguing me is more square watches showing up in the world. And I like that a lot. And that excites me. I'm not super excited by either of these watches, but seeing them, seeing these releases so close together suggests to me that there is a, an industry idea of maybe attacking that market.
Everett Yeah. You know, I'll, I'll, I'll say a couple of things about this watch. One, the uni design or the Manhattan? Yeah, I'm not going to talk about the uni design, and I don't really know why I don't want to talk about it, but I don't want to talk about it. I don't. There's something about this watch that turns me off. So I'm just going to pretend we're just talking about the main Manhattan. Is that OK? Yeah, that's fine. So one nine hundred bucks, which is a terrific price. Will has spoken highly of main watches. recently on our show. I have heard nothing but good things. Uh, this is a 9.3 millimeter thick $900 watch under a thousand bucks. Great sizing. Um, Salida 200-1. Man, I'm, I think this is great. Yes. I think this is great. I think the prices now, there aren't very many of these being made. I think 150 total 75 of each. Uh, I do believe you can still get them as, as of the time of this recording. Um, and so if you want one get on there now, I don't see that they're sold out in either color. So that's good. Maybe just the right. price versus quality to not insta-sell out. I think the crown might be a little bit undersized, but that's subjective. And the dials that Warner One has gone with are both terrific.
Andrew Concur.
Everett You get both a little bit of the roundness that kind of softens it up, but also a pretty clearly square case. I love it. And at 9.3 millimeters thick, count me in. I think this has been the year of Everett criticizing watches for being overly thick. I think specifically with this style of watch, with the real heavy Genta influence, at 9.3, I'm in. I'm a buyer.
Andrew Here's my one concern about the wearability of the watch. The case back has coin edge
Everett finish. Yeah. And it might leave a depression.
Andrew That might not feel great. It might, it might not be bad.
Everett Hard to say, but it's also going to leave an interesting, I've read a number of reviews on this, not this specific watch, but the, the Manhattan 37 and I haven't heard anybody talk about it.
Andrew So, uh, 748 bucks from the, uh, main website and they're in their traditional ones. The, uh, the worn and wound colors are available only by morning round. Yeah.
Everett Yeah. Cool.
Andrew Watch an interesting thing happening. And I hope, I hope to see some more square watches. Cause I think there's a, it's an interesting space to work in that gives you a lot of new options and it's not super tapped, right? Like everyone goes with a, with agenda inspiration or a Monaco inspiration. And there's a lot of things that can be done that aren't that.
Everett Yeah. You know, the watch that I have in my collection that I think has a lot of similarities to this, although it's a totally different watch is the Formax. Yeah. But this has, to me, especially looking at the bracelet, this feels very similar to that watch in a lot of ways. The case shape is obviously totally different, but similar vibe. The way the bracelet goes together and everything. Yeah. I'm going to talk about a watch that came out in August. Okay. And the reason I'm going to talk about it is because Will posted an article about it yesterday. So October 30th is actually when he posted it. But this is the Farrer Milan, which is in Farrer's Tonneau line. And this is terrific. The dial on this is great. The case is great. This was Not a watch that has been on my radar just in terms of watches that I was like, Ooh, I want that. I want that.
Andrew Um, Farrah finds a way to avoid the radar. And I'm like, and I think that's a thing. I don't know why they're doing it. They rarely hit my radar. They rarely hit your radar. It's not because they're not doing stuff and it's not because we're not plugged in.
Everett I think that's right. They just sort of sleep. Yeah, I think you said it right. They just sort of avoid the radar. Freaking B2s up in there. A couple things I'll say about this watch. One, the dial fonts are crazy good. Two, I really like the hands. Three, the case is deceptively complex. Fair? Yes. This doesn't feel like any other tonneau cased watch I've ever seen or looked at or thought about.
Andrew It kind of reminds me of like the Belova Curve series in that from a top down view, it's, it just is. But when you get into it, you're like, Oh, something interesting happened to get us to where we are. because it's got a really interesting curvature of the case. It's, it's a really lovely case.
Everett You know, if you're not in the habit of reading Will's watch reviews, I would recommend you get in the habit because he really does a terrific job. He goes through, it's, it's methodical, right? So each of his reviews goes through the same steps, but in doing so he doesn't miss anything. uh he doesn't will is not the most uh bombastic watch reviewer he very rarely throws vignettes into his reviews or anecdotes or even humor i mean sometimes you gotta go you get a line that it's funny because it's funny not because he was trying to be funny with that said he hits everything and he moves through each step of the watch and this one's no different One of the things I noticed in reading his review, Andrew, and I think this is the only, well, I don't know very many other watches that do this besides the bull of a curve. This watch has a curved sapphire crystal that tracks with the curve, the pretty pronounced curve of the watch case. I can't think of any other, right here, as I sit here today, any other watches besides the bull of a curve that do this.
Andrew I mean, I can't think of many other truly curved cases, right? There's plenty of cases with, with dimensional shifts throughout, but very few cases have a true curve to them.
Everett And we've got some interesting detailing on the case sides. This is a relatively small tonneau case. I think they've said this is, well, Another thing that I love about Will's reviews. He always has the dimensions posted. 35 millimeter case.
Andrew 35 millimeter case. 10.6 thickness. What does he have on the on the wrist thickness?
Everett You know, I just I was just talking him up. I don't think he has his little dimension. Where's his grid? His dimension grid here. Boo. Boycott.
Andrew Will. Thanks for this.
Everett Anyway, Pheromone, you can read about it. Link will be in the show notes, but also just go to WatchClicker.com. It'll, I think will still be the most recent review when you go to WatchClicker.com. I think so.
Andrew Andrew, what do you got? Um, I like that case a lot. Let's talk about another watch that we did. Have we talked, have we done the full moon field watch in a roundup? I don't think so. I can't remember because I know we talked about it last week. I feel like we maybe have talked about it before, but it is still worth mentioning because it is 100% one of the coolest releases of the year. It still has all of the studio underdog things, right? We've got cool color application and in breaking outside of the molds of expectations of a watch. in the way of a sapphire dial with applied or with painted markers on it so that you get a floating aspect to this dial.
Everett This being the new three hand studio underdog 02 series. Yes. Field watch in the full moon colorway.
Andrew Yes. It is fantastic. It's so cool. That's all I have to say about it. I'm, I'm smitten by this.
Everett I, I don't know that they're available, um, anymore, but yeah, that's, that's the problem with this type of watch is they're going to sell out.
Andrew Um, he's gonna do. Okay. So I recall talking about this. He's going to do a limited ordering period. So you'll be able to get in, order your watch. I don't know if he's gonna do pay up front. I don't know if he's gonna, how that's gonna work. But if you order the watch, it will go to fulfillment. There we go. Yes, these are cool.
Everett Oh, oh, oh, oh, Andrew. That brings me to one other thing I wanted to talk about. Okay. Do you have any other watches you want to talk about? Not that I'm super excited about. I don't want to talk about this watch. We've kind of talked about it already when Will was on the show to do his windup recap. With that said, I did want to talk about a thing that happened. So Spinnaker, Vishal Talani has been on our show to talk about Spinnaker and AV8 and the numerous Dartmouth brands. Spinnaker released their 50 Phantoms watch, which we talked a little bit, kind of a terrific, fun, Super Mario feeling, Super Mario ghost watch. They released this thing. I think a week-ish ago for about $500, and there was a 25% discount code that was supposed to be borderline universal. And there was problems. There were problems with this.
Andrew It was too hot. It was too hot to handle for the website.
Everett Yeah, maybe that's it. But essentially what they realized is at the end of the day, the folks who wanted one of these, by and large, weren't getting them or were having so many problems that they decided to release. And so they had 500 black, 170 gray, and they almost instantly sold out. And they were not satisfied that people had got one. They released a series of posts last week, our 50 phantoms launch with Seconde Seconde was a success, but also some sort of a mess. Some of our notification emails never found their way to your inbox. Some discount codes were incorrectly issued. We even had an inventory glitch. At the end of the day, many people felt unfairly treated. It's clear we weren't adequately prepared and didn't deliver our best amidst the overwhelming enthusiasm. So we're looking for a way up. That's why we are now considering launching this blue variant as a non-limited edition. and available during 50 hours through a pre-order window beginning 8am GMT time on November 4th and ending 10am GMT time on November 6th."They followed that by saying, to those already screaming, you're just greedy and opportunistic. This was all scripted and rigged from the beginning. Well, no, we would have gladly avoided that sequence. Despite that, we probably won't change your mind anyway. Basically what they're doing is they're opening this up to the world and they're saying, hey, if you wanted one of these, you couldn't get one. We're going to release a non-limited version. It's not the same as the limited versions, so we're not screwing anybody over. Right. But we're making this available. We're going to have a lowered price, which is essentially the 25% off price. You're not going to need a discount code. If you want one, order within this 50 hours and you're going to get one. Obviously there's going to be a lead time on that. But I kind of wanted to talk about this just because from what I can tell, the reception on this has been almost universally allotted. Um, you know, I don't, I don't think Spinnaker is one of these brands that has, you know, a culty following, you know, they're sort of like they ride that line between being mass produced basic B watches and insider watches. They've got a couple hits in their in their catalog is what it is. And when we talked about this watch we said almost that very thing like this is a cool watch from a brand that sometimes misses. This is actually pretty neat. You know I think that the reception to this approach has been really good. I think they basically just you know took one on the chin. Now I will say You release a watch like this, you don't know how popular they're going to be. Who in their wildest mind thinks I'm going to sell 670 watches in borderline blink of an eye?
Andrew Especially not Spinnaker, who has probably never done this before.
Everett You know, I don't know. I don't know. Spinnaker sells a lot of watches. With that said, the fact that they're doing something and they're admitting, Hey, we screwed up. We had some problems. We're going to try to fix it for everybody in a fair and judicious way. You can get the watch. You can get the watch. Uh, I like it. I think it's good. It's a cool move. I think the only people that would be upset about this are folks that wanted to have something that would be heavily special that they could flip. Uh, and I think we can all agree, fuck that guy.
Andrew Yeah. He's the reason the website crashed because he had his bot set up to buy six of them, which was the maximum amount you could buy. I don't know that, but he, he had his bot set up to buy the max amount, the pre pre filled out a discount code and the, the micro second that it became available to order his bots had it ordered and he was sleeping on the couch.
Everett I think this is pretty cool. So it is a big watch. It's a 43 millimeter watch, 12A thick. It's an NH38. It's not a particularly special watch, but for the dial, the appeal. It's cool. They're going to be unlimited. They're going to be $370. It's going to be the... So unlimited in quantity. But limited in ordering time. They will never make this watch again. Or at least that's what they're saying. Limited time release. So if you want one, you can get one. Expected delivery March 2024. Andrew. Other things. What do you got?
Andrew So I went to Las Vegas a couple weeks ago and it was a great food tourism experience. Our first night we went to a restaurant called Best Friend. And it is a Roy Choi restaurant, who is a celebrity chef, famously from Los Angeles, and really famous for his kind of LA fusion with Korean and other Asian flavor profiles. Phenomenal chef. And coming from LA, he brings a lot of LA influence and Uh, it's awesome. So we go to his restaurant, which I've seen on TV and you know, you see a restaurant on TV and then you go to it. And my couple experiences of that, I've been kind of underwhelmed by the restaurant itself. Uh, I get there and it's exactly as cool as I thought it was going to be. We get a table where I get to look into the kitchen from the seat that I chose. I'm looking at the kitchen through the entire. meal and they have a chef's menu, which is like six courses. Actually like it was super affordable. I think it was 69 bucks for maybe 79 bucks. It doesn't matter. It was under a hundred bucks for a six course, five course chef's tasting menu. Not bad. The deal is everyone at the table has to get it. Tragedy. We all get it. First round comes out the banchan, which is absolutely phenomenal. Then we get the what? Banchan. It's, it's a Korean. Bon Jovi? Sure. Korean kind of side dishes, like vegetable pickled side dishes, uh, comes out. We get through it. We get through it. Like every bite of the meal is better than the last. And it's making me forget what was previously the best bite of food I've ever had in my life. One dish in particular, like slayed me. It was the slippery shrimp, slippery shrimp. was something that came out of a restaurant in Los Angeles. He now has his own spin on it and it is slippery shrimp. It's the slipperiest, but these are jumbo shrimp.
Everett Um, so mine's a cocktail.
Andrew Yeah. Uh, I was thinking like, like little salad shrimps, not even Bay shrimp. Yeah. Anyway, that put me on my hunt of like, okay, I now have a project. I'll never be able to recreate it, but I can do something almost as good. I'm in the Google world and I find that Roy Choi has a masterclass available. And one of the entree items that came out were Koji tacos, which were phenomenal. They were just short rib, twice glazed tacos, and they were amazing. They didn't hold a candle to the shrimp, but this whole taco recipe And all of the condiments that he uses for it. So his, what he calls mother sauces, those recipes are available for free through his masterclass website. So now I have the recipe. The masterclass is free? No, but the recipes, like it's, there's like three free pages in that masterclass that are the recipe for the tacos and then the recipe for his salsa and vinaigrette that he uses in it. So those are on the grocery list because it was The best taco I've ever had in my life. Nice. And it didn't hold a candle to shrimp. That's how good the shrimp were. I need some slippery shrimp in my life. I could make quarterly trips to Las Vegas to be able to eat there and not feel bad about the expense.
Everett Did you have, uh, was there enough food? Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I was stuffed. Nice.
Andrew Yeah. Yeah. It was great. All right. Link in the show notes. Link to, yeah, to his masterclass will be in the notes.
Everett Andrew, do you know anything about Five Nights at Freddy's, or as the kids call it, FNAF?
Andrew I've heard about it a lot more than I ever thought that I would like to up until about two weeks ago. About two weeks ago, I've learned a lot about it and continue to hate it.
Everett Well, I don't have any love or hate of it, but as the As the parent of three tweens, it is a topic of much discussion in our house. And as some of you may know, last Friday, nearly a week ago from the time you're listening to this, the Five Nights at Freddy's movie debuted in theaters across the country. And my kids, all three of them, were pretty pumped to go. And so I told my wife, yeah, I'll take the kids to see FNAF. Uh, not really knowing what I was getting into or, or all or caring all that much. Uh, because that's not the point. Uh, I took me and six, 10 and 11 year olds went to a movie, uh, which is an experience in and of itself. However, it is not my other thing. Uh, the kids were all, relatively well behaved. We sat in two different pods, which was fine. It was fine. The pod that was not close to me was a little noisier than I'm totally comfortable with in a movie, but that's fine. So let me preface this by saying if you're a fan, I'm sorry, because I know nothing. I actually just know nothing. I know that these are based on video games, a series of video games, which involve animatronics and jump scares. Um, and really beyond that, not much. My son has explained some of this to me. Uh, you know, the goals of the game are to survive for five nights in a pizza parlor with these possessed animatronics. Um, super easy to be able to accomplish that, you know, and I don't know, maybe it is. Uh, with that said, I didn't have any expectations going in. Um, But the movie was fun. Was it? The movie was fun. I'm not going to talk about plot because I don't think that's important. I will talk a little bit about the way they did the movie, because I thought as someone who knows nothing, I was able to appreciate certain things about the movie just by being in the theater. So one of the things that I discovered pretty quickly was that this movie was made for fans, which I like. Even as a non-fan, the excitement of the people around me, by and large, all of whom seemed to be sort of dedicated. It's opening night, so maybe that's unsurprising, but these people were into it. Many costumes, um, people were stoked, right?
Andrew Things kept happening. This is 10 years in the making. The first movie announcement was made in like 2014.
Everett Sure. Right. So, so they've been working on this and I think that there were some editorial decisions made to cater to the fan. There were at least two different cameo appearances from people who I don't know, but who all of the people in the theater knew and they were very excited about. At one point, I think the guy's name is Matt Pack or Mac Pat or something like that, but he's a YouTuber and he's made hundreds of videos about Five Nights at Freddy's. And he's got a tagline that says, well, that's just a theory. I hope I'm not spoiling this for anybody. And at some point he says that in his character in the movie and everybody lost it. Like you could just tell the people were so joyful, but it wasn't like the type of thing you needed to know what was happening in order to understand it. The movie was fine. This is a cut your teeth, beginner horror film. That's PG-13. And I would say that's probably the right age for the average parent. My kids have been exposed to all sorts of stuff. And so we felt comfortable with it, but I think a more conservative family might decide that this would be too mature. It is gruesome in some places. Uh, it is a touch scary in some places, not scary. This is like, this is like junior saw is really what it felt like. Um, but it was fun. The acting was good. The plot was totally followable. It was weird. It's weird. It's a weird premise. It's a weird premise, but it was fun and it was entertaining and it was good and I really enjoyed it. And I would say if you're a parent of someone who's interested, uh, and they're not totally fragile, it seemed fun to me. I really enjoyed it and I really enjoyed going to my, going to a movie with my kids. that wasn't my idea. You know, it was fun to, to have that opportunity to go to this thing that they wanted to do independently of me that they enjoyed based on their knowledge. It was a really fun experience. Uh, and something I don't think I've not done anything quite like that with the kids where they were like, we want to see this thing that we're independently of you into. It was fun. And the movie wasn't bad either. I wouldn't call it good. You can see on the rotten tomatoes, I looked at it earlier today. I think the critics reviews are like 25 and the audience review, audience scores are like 89. There's something there. Yeah. There's something there, right? The people who want to be there are going to enjoy it. If I think that the folks who are professionally trained and biased towards, you know, whatever objective standards we apply to cinema, good stories, Yeah, sure. They weren't loving it, but the people who are there because they want to be are loving it. Yeah. And my kids loved it.
Andrew When you get a disparity like that in a rotten squirt, you know that's going to be a fun movie and a super enjoyable movie. Perhaps or not. Right. I don't know a single movie that has a disparity like that that I didn't enjoy. I also don't rot in most of the movies that I watch.
Everett I rot in everything. But anyway, that's all I got. It's a good other thing. Five Nights at Freddy's.
Andrew Go check it out.
Everett Or not. Or don't. Yeah. Or don't. I probably won't. Or don't. Andrew, anything you want to add before we hang them up for the night? I'm out of things. Hey, you guys. Thank you for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20, The Watch Clicker podcast. Do me a favor. Check us out at watchclicker.com where you can find a review of the Farrah Milan as well as dozens and dozens of other watches and you can find every single episode of this podcast. You can check us out on social media at watch clicker or at 40 and 20 underscore watch clicker. Don't forget us to send us your, don't forget to send us your recommendations for the worst watch websites.
Andrew Not watch websites you hate, the worst ones.
Everett Watch brand websites. If you want to support us, and oh boy, we hope you do, The way you do that is you go to patreon.com slash 40 and 20 and you donate some money. All of the stuff we do here, we do for free. We do have some contributions for the folks that love us and decide to support us. And that's how we pay for microphones and software and hardware and hosting, which is really expensive. Yeah. Thank you guys for supporting us and feel free to check us out. Patreon.com slash 40 and 20. And don't forget to tune in next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life. and other things we like.
Andrew Bye bye.