Gold for the Masses (271)

Published on Wed, 03 Jan 2024 22:23:24 -0800

Synopsis

The hosts discuss various new watch releases and updates from brands like Longines, Seiko, Grand Seiko, Arcanaut, Boulder, and Rolex. They also cover Chrono24's best-selling watches of 2023 and share their thoughts on the movie Rebel Moon and the video game Tears of the Kingdom.

The hosts express their opinions on the designs, materials, and features of the watches, and provide details on pricing, availability, and technical specifications. They also touch on topics like lume, movements, and marketing strategies employed by some brands.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 in 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 I'm doing great. I was just regaling you with my exciting last two days of legal, uh, legal jiu jitsu. There was, there was some jiu jitsu. Uh, but no, I'm good. I'm, I'm mentally, uh, I'm mentally coming in a little ragged tonight just because of my last couple of days has been pretty heavy, but good heavy, not bad.
Andrew What's the martial art where they have like the, uh, the wooden dummy with the little arms on it. It's all real close in.
Everett Oh, I don't know. Uh, I don't know. I do. I do know what capoeira is though.
Andrew That's different.
Everett That felt more like what I was doing, just like twirling, cartwheeling.
Andrew Uh, what's it? It doesn't matter.
Everett It definitely does not matter. Uh, but yeah, no, I'm doing well. The, uh, the time that we get to do this is always like a nice, like space in the middle of the week. Like, all right, I'm going to have that time where I'm going to be not doing any work. Andrew, how are you?
Andrew I am Also good. I'm still, I think, recovering from having kids home for two weeks. Winter break is just taxing. Happy New Year to everyone, by the way. I think just like we forgot to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, we did not wish anyone a Happy New Year. That's primarily because we wanted ourselves to have it. So we didn't want to wish that upon anybody else, lest it maybe take away from our own. But I had a great Tuesday or Monday of football. Right? Monday. Yeah. Monday was when all the football was. It was a great constant day of football. I woke up, let the kids watch some TV for a little bit, turned on the duck game and then did not stop watching football until I went to bed. Yeah. It was amazing.
Everett You know, as sad as I am for the ducks to not have been a part of it, the college football playoff this year has thus far been the best of all of them.
Andrew And it's been the last year of four teams.
Everett Yeah, that's right. I don't know that that means it'll be less good in the future, but this playoff has been just, I mean, you have really two like barn burner games decided on the last play. Um, pretty epic stuff.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett Yeah. Pretty epic stuff. Really, really fun football game. So yeah, I'm with you.
Andrew I, I really, I, I, I've never felt so conflicted during a, during a playoff game. Uh, and that I, I really want, Washington take it all. Because we lost to them twice. But I'd also like their butts to be filled with bees after they depart the championship field.
Everett You say their butts? Bus. Their butts to be. Yeah. They said their butts to be filled with bees. Equally terrible. I'm kind of there too.
Andrew Uh, yeah, it was. It was a really, really complicated way to feel watching that good of a game. Both games were just phenomenal.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Fuck the Huskies.
Andrew Yes indeed. And I felt really good. But they're a really good football team. Yeah. I felt really good watching FSU get smacked too.
Everett They got beat by so much. I'm sorry. They got smacked. Look, if you're an FSU fan, let me just say.
Andrew I understand that half the team didn't play.
Everett A, I understand half the team didn't play. B, I understand that you kind of got screwed. You got screwed. With that said, there is no fucking way FSU should have been in that playoff. They're just not that good of a team. Even before their quarterback goes out for the rest of the season, they're not that good of a football team. So, um, but yeah, yeah. So in any event, we're not talking about football. This is not suddenly become a college football podcast. There will be some of you that will be so happy to hear that we're going to move on from college football. I'm sorry for you folks. I'm sorry.
Andrew We do it. Wing Chun.
Everett We're here to talk about watches. That's what it's called.
Andrew Wing Chun. Wing Chun.
Everett We're here to tell you today to talk about watches, not football. Andrew, we're talking about watches.
Andrew Hmm.
Everett Whose? Anybody's.
Andrew Oh, all right. Today we're doing a collection inspection of John Mayer.
Everett Dude, he's got a rad collection.
Andrew Yeah. which is why we're gonna spend a whole moment talking about it. And then we're gonna, right now, move on to some things that have caught our eyes over the last week. Some new releases, some interesting thoughts as we close up last year and move into this year, and just some things, some interesting stuff, some goings on in the watch world. So new year. New year, new you. New, new setup.
Everett Why don't you get us started tonight? Yeah. I want to talk about a, uh, a watch from a company called Longines. I think it's a long engine. Long engine. It's a train company. Uh, Longine has released a gold watch. It's a gold watch. Uh, they're calling this the Master Collection GMT. It's in their classic series, and I think this is... I think Longines is doing some, like, like, serious capital H HOTE. No, that's not HOTE. This is luxury, though. Yeah. This is a freaking luxury watch, and I kind of hate it, and I kind of love it. Roman numerals, a little tough. But the case on this thing, so this is a watch that's available in both yellow and rose gold. Let's get it out of the way. This is a $15,000 watch. It's got an ETA exclusive to Longines, ETA movement, I think they're called, let's see.
Andrew The L844.5. An 844.5, I think.
Everett This is a three and a half hertz, 72 hour power reserve, silicon hairspring movement. It's kind of dope. They're making 500 of the yellow, 500 of the rose. This is a 40 millimeter by 10.4 yellow gold GMT dress watch. God damn it. I fucking love it.
Andrew But even as dress watches as it is, the lines on the case are super sporty. Yeah.
Everett This is good. It's a beautiful watch. I can't afford it, but I am like, if I'm going to buy a gold watch today, I might look at this one. Hmm. So here's some things I like about it. So there's nothing about this thing. So, so a GMT dress watch, I think is kind of baller. Just going to throw that out there.
Andrew How thick is it?
Everett 10.4. Okay. The lines on this thing are crazy good. The font, the font on the 24 hour ring, which is prominent, I'd say the 24, it's sort of a sector dial with the 24 hour ring being the outside section. The font on the 24 hour ring is I think really, really nice.
Andrew Um, and it's gold and it's gold. I think with that 24 hour ring font, they did a really good job not getting too thin and that scripty. Mm hmm. The ink doesn't trail off. It's still a good line as it tapers.
Everett I think it's a terrific, gorgeous font. I love the logo. I love the font on the dial. I, you know, I could give her, I could take her, uh, take her leave. What do you say? What's the saying there? Take her leave. I don't care about the Roman numerals. They work here. They match, uh, they match the aesthetic of this watch. This is kind of a weird release. You know, this was on all the websites this, this year. And I was like, or this week. And I'm like, well, this year, also this year, all of this year, all three days, three. Yeah. This is the kind of release that I sort of like, I saw a bunch of like posts and I was like, I don't even know what this is. Uh, this is weird. And then I looked at the watch and I was like, Holy crap, this thing's kind of awesome. I've got a, I've got one alibi to that.
Andrew Okay.
Everett It's got a 21 millimeter lug width. They did the bull of a. That's a weird move. You know, I'm sure. that there was someone who was on the design team that was looking at proportions. I do not believe that making this a 20 millimeter lug width would have changed the proportions enough to have hurt someone's design. Uh, I don't get it. 40 by 21, the 40 and 21 podcast, not going to work.
Andrew Really different ring to it. They could be doing that for like, proprietary reasons that they want to make it a little bit harder to get off the shelf stuff to go on it. Maybe they're like trying to be a pain in the ass.
Everett I don't believe that. I think it's a design decision, but I don't like it. I don't like it. But with that said, I like everything else. I like everything else. I think this is a terrific watch. The case back looks phenomenal numbered. You've got great sort of markings. The, decoration on the movement is fantastic, as you'd expect for a watch in this price range. And the lines on the case, really, really well done. This is a cool watch. A little outside of what we normally talk about here. I almost have to say, stop saying that, because I've been increasingly mixing it up. But I think this is pretty terrific. Well done, Longines.
Andrew It's a good release. Uh, I'm going to start with something kind of caught my eye and got me into reading. So Rolex has released their price increases for 2024, which most brands do. They don't necessarily release their pricing, but most brands have an annual increase. Things get more expensive and in order to remain profitable, they increase their prices too. When I was selling beer every October, So September your numbers were off the charts because people wanted to save like a dollar a case. Mm hmm. Yeah. Okay. Fine. Whatever. Buy three months worth of beer to save, you know, $300 way to go. Uh, but this was interesting. So, uh, across the entire catalog, we're only seeing about a four to 5% sometimes cases seven, but a single digit, year over year price increase. And some are low. The, uh, the, a gold Daytona 4% increase. This is interesting. We're seeing it cool off in a really meaningful way. And I really dig that because that means that someday I won't have to pay a mortgage for a brand new inbox Explorer. I like this. 5% increase. I think on average, we're like, if you, if you average all the price increases, which they did not do, um, we're looking about 5%, which is tiny.
Everett I mean, I think it's tracking cola internationally.
Andrew So it is, but it's with the way the secondary market is, they could have raised their prices 30% and still not caught up to what their used products are making. Yeah. So I'm hopeful of that.
Everett We're seeing... You know that the Explorer 2 is just 10,000 euro at retail? Yeah. Man. You know, you look at these prices and it's like, well, this doesn't matter. That's how I feel when I see this. Like these prices don't matter. No. Like the price increase Rolex makes, it doesn't matter.
Andrew Cause it doesn't affect me. I will never be able to get it until France trade commission, whatever. Most of the late croissant day trade or something will make them sell online.
Everett Andrew, I don't want to talk about it today, but I do want to talk about it at some point. Do you know anything about the Sky Dweller?
Andrew Not not much, just that it exists, and it's probably one of the only Rolexes you can buy off the shelf in an 80 right now.
Everett You know, I don't know. I didn't know anything about a Sky Dweller. Someone encouraged me to look it up. It's a really cool it's a really cool watch. I think it might be. Like the sleeper coolest watch in Rolex's collection.
Andrew That for me, that's the Milgauss.
Everett Let's we'll come back to this. I think we'll come back to this. Let's come back to this meaningfully, but the Soros movement in the Sky-Dweller. Anyway, so yeah, Rolex price increases 5%.
Andrew Not much. And they're coming down secondary market. We're almost in the buy zone, folks.
Everett Seiko 5 GMT. Seiko 5 Sports GMT. They released two new colorways exclusive to the Asia market this week. Limited editions, both of them, which in Seiko terms means they made about $450,000. But they're really terrific. They're really terrific colorways. So, um, One of them is. I think they're both are. So they've got a like red and kind of ghost gray bezel with this maroon dial. So it's kind of like a cardinal red and ghost gray bezel on a maroon dial with a gold GMT hand, silver markings. I think that this is when you see it, you're like, that's weird. And then the more you look at it, you're like, Oh man, This is really good. And the other one is a cocktail time blue dial. It's not, it doesn't have the texture of the cocktail time dial, uh, but like a royal blue or maybe even a cornflower, e blue and black bezel with a red GMT hand. I think these both work incredibly well.
Andrew That blue is money. I love that. I saw this and I was like, of course it's Asian market only.
Everett So references are SSK 029 and SSK for the for the light blue and SSK 031 for the passion red. Man. I kind of want one of these available now ish in the Asians market. They're going to be available here. Take a look at these. I think if you want sort of a low key five sports GMT and you're not going to get the notice watch clicker GMT, these are pretty interesting choices.
Andrew So, so these are being released in Malaysia, Brunei, Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore. So not even full Asian market. And only a thousand of each. So you might not ever be able to get your hands on one.
Everett Now you'll be able to get one. You might have to buy them on the secondary market, but you'll be able to get these, I'm sure of it. They're popping up.
Andrew When do they release?
Everett January. So the available January now. Sometime soon. It's January.
Andrew Well, it's not necessarily released yet.
Everett Oh, this is soon-ish though. Now-ish for all intents and purposes.
Andrew Okay, so since we're on the Seiko world topic, doing interesting placed releases, Grand Seiko is doing a new thing with three new SKUs to already existing lines that are online purchase only. First up is a S. B. G. A. four six nine. It's coming out of their heritage collection collection. It's got that blue textured dial and it's just freaking gorgeous. Next up is the. Oh, and seventy five hundred bucks for that, by the way, which makes sense. It's spring drive, spring drive.
Everett Yeah, it's a really classic spring drive power reserve.
Andrew Yeah, what's the thing? Which movements in it? That's the nine R-65. Next up is the SLGH-011 from the Evolution 9 collection. And this is a green version of that white birch that came out. Was it last year? Well, it had to be last year because it wasn't this year. I don't know if it was last year or two years ago, but it's a green variety of that white birch that we saw. And is also gorgeous.
Everett And in sort of like a, what, what, like a dark Jade is maybe what I'd call that.
Andrew And the, and the way they did the texturing on, on it, it, it kind of lightens up at the tips very much in the same way. Birch wood, almost Birch, not Birch wood with it, with a U. Wild. Also a, uh, This is the 9S85 movement. Yes, 80 hours. 13.6 on that one. But you can get them online, so you don't have to go find an AD. And then the SLGH019, which is a not a white. It's it's the same line. Powered by the 9S85 movement, but this is a titanium case. That same kind of texture, but it's almost horizontal lines and a little bit smaller pattern than that vertical birch that we see. And, uh, this is so good to see finishing like this on, on titanium is fantastic, but it's 15 five. Yeah, this is expensive. So, um, good news is you don't have to travel to a grand Seiko ad, which is good, because you're going to save on airfare, but bad news is that these are spendy. These are some, some expensive Grand Seikos, but a really cool colorway releases and an interesting thing. I'm wondering what they're like, what they're trying to pilot here and releasing online only.
Everett Um, you know, I think the evolution nine proportions are bad. Uh, I think it's a really terrific looking watch, but it's got a 22 millimeter, lug opening with a 40 millimeter case. And I think it works. You don't notice it right away, but once you notice it, it's like, Oh, that bracelet's real wide. Um, which I think is too bad. Cause I think these are really terrific looking watches. Um, especially that the, what are we going to call that? SLGH 019, the blue dial here. It's sort of a really dark indigo blue. This thing is a stunner. I have a problem with the proportions, though. And of course, these are fucking almost 12 millimeters thick, each of them. It's like, come on.
Andrew Yeah. Yeah. Well, they have to get all those surfaces to be able to polish them good. Like any thinner and you're not going to really be able to appreciate the high polish.
Everett Now, I talked about this with someone recently. The Spring Drive, I think, is the ultimate evolution, or at least today is the ultimate evolution of watch movements, right? The way the energy is produced and then transferred to the hands, I don't think there's anything as good as that. on the market and good. I mean, the capital G good. I think it's the best, but they're so freaking thick. Can somebody please make a spring drive movement that is not seven and a half or eight millimeters thick or whatever these, these things are coming in at, because I mean, can you imagine if, if they're, if they're only able to razor these down to 12, five, I bet with Penny and you're at like seven and a half, eight, I don't know. We could look, I'm sure the information's available right now. Yeah, me either. With that said, I don't think that, I mean, I don't think that they're really, can you imagine a fucking snowflake that was 9.8 or something? Like, it would just, it would change the world. A spring drive snowflake at 9.8, come on. Come on. That'd be pretty baller. Even just 10, call it 10. Yeah, just call it 10. Give them the extra .2. give me a spring drive snowflake at 10 and I'm going to be in love for forever and ever.
Andrew And you might be taking his money. So just, just you're hearing it now. Grand Seiko. You've got one, definitely one, one purchaser. If you can, if you can shave some weight.
Everett Did we talk about Nevada just like last week?
Andrew I think we've talked about Nevada several times in the last several weeks.
Everett So Nevada's got their, chrono king chronograph. It's a chronograph watch. They have announced this week a, they're calling this a Paul Newman orange chrono king. And I was like, I don't understand why they're calling it that. And then I figured it out. So why they're calling this the Paul Newman, I believe is because of the font on the sub dials. It is a very evocative, uh, it is a very evocative font. So they've released this in two colorways. One of these is a, I believe a Mecca Quartz, or not colorways, two, two iterations. Uh, one of these is a VK 63. The other is, this is the interesting one. They've released this with a new old stock Valjoux 23VZ movement. I think that they found a handful of these. I don't know exactly how many. I want to say it was like a hundred or something like that.
Andrew Where are people finding these things? You know, just the shoe box in the back of the warehouse.
Everett Like, oh, look at that. I think that I think it is like that. I do. I think it's exactly like that. These things are terrific. The, the dimensions are pretty good. It's 38 by 13 millimeters, which is this really vintage shape. The colors on this are terrific. It's a Chrono King. It's not going to blow your mind if you know what a Chrono King is. Um, but I love these new old stock movements. 15 of them. Yeah.
Andrew 15. Yeah. Not very many of them. So that makes, that's a number that I can get more okay with them finding.
Everett 4,990 bucks. These are not cheap. I don't know if they're even still available. They may.
Andrew They may. 15. I'm sure they were gone the moment they went live.
Everett I don't know. Let's see. Let's see. Put it in the cart. Buy now. They're sold. Delivered in February. They're sold out, though. But geez, this movement. So if you get a chance, click on the link in the show notes. or just go to Nevada, they're still available on the web, or they're still up here on the website. The movement on this thing is really, really good. Just, you can see all the gears, you can see, man, oh man. It looks to me like they've paired this with a really shitty strap, which kind of blows my mind. Maybe it's not shitty, but it doesn't look good to my eye. but whatever you're gonna put whatever you're gonna put some whatever strap you want i think this is a terrific release it is that's a gorgeous movement the seconds hand or the um chronograph seconds hand on this thing is like just a big wedge and i love it yeah and i love it and i think they did well on this paul newman font on the sub dials too and i think something i i don't
Andrew I don't remember not seeing, but that I immediately really appreciated on looking at these up close photos of these sub dials is these concentric circles. The. Fill. Of the ink into those is flawless. At least in this particular. Watch, I can't speak to the other 14 like super clean lines, even over that space?
Everett You know, we don't talk about pad printing a lot because I think most folks are doing pad printing pretty well. Everybody's at like 90% on pad printing, which is really good. Um, there's not too many watches you see that aren't pad printed well, but when you see a really good pad printing in person, it's like, Oh God, it's like that Doxa Army, man. One of the first time I saw that it's got the best pad printing I have ever seen in my life. And it was like, I might need to get a Doxa Army because I've never seen anything like this. It's way better than the pad printing on the 300. It's crazy. Yeah.
Andrew Why can't they do it across the line though?
Everett Yeah. I don't know. It must just be expensive. Maybe it's a different type of ink. Maybe it's a different application. I don't know. I don't know enough about the processes, but when you see a really good pad printing and especially in person, it's like, holy cow, that's cool.
Andrew It's like seeing enamel for the first time in person.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett So that's it. This is cool. I don't have a lot more to say about it. It's not really a new release. It's, it's a, it's just a cool release and that's good enough. Yeah.
Andrew All right. I have one. Uh, it's actually two, a brand called Arconaut.
Everett Yeah. We talked about Arconaut on the show with the Fordite. Yeah.
Andrew So they've got two new releases and I saw a picture of this. I opened it up and I was like, well. I don't really know how I feel about this. Because I started looking at the pictures because the lines are fascinating. It is a. Weird, weird watch. It's the name of the brand we talked about last week, the E.C. A.C. E.C. Andrews. Yeah. E.C. Andrews. Anderson. Yeah. E.C. Anderson. E.C. Anderson. Uh, just a weird watch. Looks very, like, concept design-y. So they've released two watches. And now, as I start reading about it, because I'm curious, I'm like, why is this getting people interested? Here's why. They're doing some crazy material experimentation in these two watches. So the first one that they're releasing, they're released, is the Bonehead. The Bonehead is using, and this is a brand out of Denmark, is using a, I got to find it cause it was like really unusual materials that they're using. Let's find it. Come on.
Everett Aerospace grade aluminum foam. Yes.
Andrew Aerospace aluminum foam, uh, discs of loom. This is so bizarre and it's, it doesn't look like a watch.
Everett It looks like, and that's for the dial, right? That's yeah.
Andrew But it's it's crazy. And what it creates with that mixing of of materials is almost looks like a cross section of styrofoam, a cross section of fully loomed styrofoam. And in the photos where you can see the full loom open, it's this really cool kind of plasma looking blue and is super cool. The tiger shark. is, oh boy.
Everett This is the Mokume Gane titanium, right?
Andrew Yeah. Zirconium titanium composite, which creates a like almost Damascus steel wavy, uh, appearance through it. They describe it as less visually chaotic, uh, which is, I think I objectively disagree with their assessment of it being less visually chaotic. It looks very much like Damascus steel, uh, but it's titanium and is just neat on the backs they have. So the, the bone head bears its name because of the loom pads on the case back of a skull burping lightning bolts and the, uh, Tiger or not the tiger shark. Yeah, the tiger shark. Yeah, the tiger shark bearing a tiger shark on its case back. So as I'm reading about this, I'm like, man, these are going to be crazy expensive. $47.50. For that much kind of experimental design, I would have expected it to be much more just because of how odd it is.
Everett Yeah, and I think maybe you mentioned this, but I think it bears sort of emphasizing, this is not a new case. These cases are the ARC-II case that they used for their release of the Fordyte dials that we talked about last year. Fordyte being, I think it's actually paint. I think it's multiple layers of paint that are like It's the in theory taken from like painting places that have built up layers.
Andrew Yes. From auto shops that have, it's all of the shit that accumulates on the ground. They scrape it up, cut it up, polish it up.
Everett And that becomes their theoretically at least, uh, whether that's, I believe their story wholeheartedly.
Andrew Do you not believe grand Seiko stories? You know, he drew, he drew inspiration from staring deeply into the heart of that maple tree and watching it drip its sap and inspire to the design.
Everett I think it also bears mentioning that the way they've decided to market these and actually sell them is interesting. So what I understand is that you can, for 10% of the purchase price, buy essentially one of these watches today or buy an option on one of these watches today. and get sort of direct feedback regarding the development process. So the, there are no photographs of these, there's no prototypes from what I can tell of these watches yet. They're purely concept renderings. And, and so by paying 10% of this purchase price to Arconaut, you're going to be able to be sort of front row seat for the development process, which I think is pretty fun.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett I think that's pretty fun.
Andrew You get to have a, Yeah, front row seat I think is the right way to put that. Because you probably won't be involved but for funding it.
Everett That's right. Yeah, that's right. No, I think it's actually a terrific company and I think that's a really fun watch. Yeah, I think these are really cool. Andrew, I'm going to talk about a watch from a company that we talk about pretty frequently, Boulder. With good reason. Boulder did a thing. Uh, they did a thing that would have been easy to miss. They released a Boulder Odyssey this last week and it's a Boulder Odyssey that they, it's a collaboration Boulder Odyssey with a nonprofit that's seeking to preserve ocean biodiversity, uh, called MGP, uh, which is, I want to say MGP is like a, uh, Oh, Marine Genome Project is what the acronym stands for. Uh, and they're, you know, you look at the dial and I actually think the dial on this is stupid. It's got like bubbles and it's got like a double helix, a double helix, a DNA double helix. Like, okay, we get it. We get a boulder. But then I, but then, then you realize this is, this is a titanium Odyssey. Yeah. This is a titanium Odyssey, which means it's, if you know what the Odyssey looks like, it's a big, looking watch it's not particularly big they're 40 millimeters uh but it's a just a big looking watch it's the angles uh 130 grams on this guy so 40 millimeters with a 48 millimeter lug to lug i'm pretty sure these have 20 millimeter lugs i don't think that matters in this context it's 12 and a half millimeters thick which is about right for a 300 meter watch like this it's got a miyota 9015 And it weighs 130 grams for a big, giant, chunky dive watch. Okay. Which is rad. 700 bucks. And it's 700 bucks. Yeah. So I kind of don't like the dial. I wish this didn't have a stupid dial. I think it's got a stupid dial. I'm not wild about the bezel. I'm not wild about the crown. The bezels. But those are all subjective things, right? Like if you're cool with the dial, if you're cool with the bezel, if you like the looks of this watch, 130 gram, 40 millimeter dive watch for 700 bucks.
Andrew Come on. It looks like the only loom on the bezel with a dive timer is the 12 o'clock triangle, and the one, two, and three markers.
Everett It looks like the rest of those are voids. I think that that's right, Andrew. I think that the only loom is 12 o'clock, one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock.
Andrew Because it doesn't even look, ah. Which is interesting. Maybe it's in the timer, but.
Everett It's an interesting concept, because if you think about it, in that context, it might be easier to see that in dark because you, you don't have to orient. You always know where that 15 minute gap is going to be. I think it's an interesting concept and maybe that's been proven out in other watches. I don't know if they're the first ones to do this, but I think that's an interesting concept.
Andrew Frank told us he didn't care about loom. Yeah, well, and I don't spend any time underwater, so I,
Everett Someone messaged me after that episode and said, Frank just ruined watches. I think it was Joe. And I was like, yeah, that's true.
Andrew No, I want extra loom, extra water resistance, 74 clicks of micro adjusts in my clasp.
Everett You know, Boulder's a sleeper, man.
Andrew Boulder always has been. And I think it's because partly because of the watches they do are so Boring's not the right word. No, cause they're not boring. They're not doing crazy, innovative, super exciting, flashy stuff. They're doing really good utilitarian wearable banger watches and they're doing it at a really good price. They're not like cutting edge in technology. They're, they're just doing a thing and they're doing it consistently. And I really like that. I don't super like this. double helix, Mr. DNA over here. And I'm going to give one to Mike, writing for the Times. I don't like the date window. I know his big bitch is always date windows, and I'm going to agree with him on this one. Though I don't know his opinion on this watch, my assumption is that he hates the
Everett You know, Boulder, uh, I think, I think the thing with Boulder is cause they're not boring, right? You, you had suggested and then Rick handed.
Andrew I said, I'm not going to say boring because boring is not right.
Everett I think the thing is, is they're kind of ugly, but that's subjective, right? I think a lot of people really like these designs. And in fact, they're always like slightly compelling to me with that said, I think that they're doing really cool watches. Like at this price range of the sub thousand dollar price range, you can find a lot of neat stuff. I feel like Boulder is like hit a certain degree of like, Hey, we're doing our thing. It's our thing. You know, their dials kind of reminiscent for me of, of a Helsin, at least like the old Helsin, which I never really liked. Um, You know, they've got the angles and the like, but I have a really hard time criticizing Boulder.
Andrew They besides for besides subjective stuff, they kind of remind me of what circular is doing.
Everett Circular is way cooler, I think. But no, that's not true. They're not cooler. I just like them.
Andrew I think they're very much in the same vein of doing just good, consistent utility watches.
Everett You know, I never made that, that comparison, Andrew, but I think that's a really, actually, that's a really interesting comparison. I think it's really accurate.
Andrew Thank you. Have you ever delivered a compliment to me on air? I'm sure.
Everett Oh, you tell us. Have I ever complimented Andrew on the air?
Andrew I don't know. I don't, I don't know. Probably not.
Everett No, you tell us at home.
Andrew Oh no. I just told Yeah, it's an interesting release. I think they're doing cool stuff. I wish they did one of these with a standard dial.
Everett Also. Yeah, maybe they will. You think there's got to be some R&D involved in doing this in titanium.
Andrew They're doing so much in titanium already, though. Yeah, that's true. Most of what they're doing is in titanium.
Everett So just, just for the record, I think you've only ever been able to buy a three 16 L before. Now you've only ever been able to buy a three 16 L Odyssey.
Andrew So cool. The day has changed. Maybe you could swap out your dial by him both.
Everett And yeah, I don't know, man, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna try to open up a boulder. I don't think. No, I don't think so either. Andrew, what's next?
Andrew Uh, last up for me is a, closeout of 2023 with Chrono24's best-selling mechanical chronograph, the Speedmaster. Could it have been anything else? This watch has been around virtually unchanged on the outside for 60 plus years. I fucking love that. Think of how many mechanical chronographs exist in the world at higher price points. that are more of them out there and this is still out there killing it because it is the Speedmaster. And I like that. I wonder how much the, um, the moon swatch arrival drove Speedmaster purchases.
Everett I don't know. I, I don't think, I don't think it, could possibly move the needle. I mean, one of the things I recognized very early in my watch journey was that the Speedmaster was the coolest watch on the face of the earth. And then I put my money where my mouth was and I still wear a Speedmaster about once a week. I'll never sell it. I still, to this day, think it's the coolest watch. I just you know, maybe a Nautilus, maybe, I mean, there's some other watches that for whatever reason, it's like, okay, that's more, that's more this, or that's more of that. But I think the Speedmaster is the coolest watch. And it's hard for me to imagine that this Moonswatch could take the coolest watch and make it cooler.
Andrew The Moonswatch was the third highest selling watch on Chrono24 this year.
Everett That's funny. Yeah. What was two?
Andrew Two was, I don't know. The top three were the Datejust. That was the number one sale. Two is the Seamaster 300. And then number three is the Moon Swatch. So Speedmaster doesn't break into the top three, but it's analog does. Speedmaster had to be, had to settle for the highest selling mechanical chronograph.
Everett That's right. That's right.
Andrew Just a 2023 closeout on a secondary watch purchasing.
Everett The Moon's Watch is the greatest watch on the face of the earth.
Andrew I'm a little surprised the Datejust is the number one.
Everett Yeah. You know, that might just be by way of more Datejusts being available than any other watch.
Andrew Yeah. Oh, there you have it. That's the top three and the top one in a secondary category.
Everett Andrew, are you, uh, anything else you want to talk about today? I don't think so. Um, well then why don't you tell me about your other thing?
Andrew I have another thing. I watched a new movie last week, maybe the week before. It doesn't matter. It's been recent. A movie called Rebel Moon. I saw this. It's an American space opera. Directed by Zack Snyder. I saw it. I saw the tile for it. I was like, Oh, this looks interesting enough. I watched it and I thoroughly enjoyed myself throughout. It felt very Snyder the whole time. But the whole time there was just like kind of this like weird nagging to me. I have since done some reading about how people feel about Rebel Moon. I just, I don't think I fully agree with the, some of the negative commentary that I've seen that it's a rip off of this, that, or the other thing. It sort of is, it sort of isn't, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable Star Wars adjacent universe.
Everett So I will say, I watched this movie. You, you said, Actually, my wife.
Andrew I said, worth a watch.
Everett My wife said to me, I'd like to watch that movie, Rebel Moon. And I was like, what? Uh, okay. Yes. Yes. If you want to watch that movie, we should watch that together. And then you sent a text message that same day and said, I watched Rebel Moon. It's worth a watch. And then I watched it with my wife and I will just to start say, I totally agree with you. I enjoyed myself while I watched it. Uh, no spoilers except that. you end with a big cliffhanger, right?
Andrew Well, but you end with a big cliffhanger because the sequel comes out in like April, April. So that to say that to say, and the, it's the title is suggestive of a multi-part series.
Everett That's right. It's Rebel Moon part one or whatever. Um, that to say, as I was watching this movie, I was struck at several times. I think I said at several times to Kim, that that's stupid. And then at other times, I was struck by how closely this movie aped other movies.
Andrew Lots of other movies, not just Star Wars.
Everett Yeah, not just Star Wars. But there are some really, really, like, I wouldn't say obscene, but some really, what's the right word? Like, obvious Star Wars. It's like, well, okay, guys. One of the antagonists who you don't really get to know, um, in the movie is like the makeup is, what was it? There was a movie with an alien cop a few years ago. I, there was just like, there were just a few things where I was like, I feel like some corners were cut.
Andrew There was a scene that I swear to God was from star Wars.
Everett It's possible. And then there's the scene where the guy tames the, horse. Yeah. And I was like, this is stupid.
Andrew So, and then it remains stupid, but you're like kind of okay with it. Cause it's still enjoyable. It still has that kind of graphic novel choreography. The cinematography was really lovely. Decent. I mean, I, the way they integrated like almost animation into some of their distance shots was, I, at times I was like, is my TV going out? And then it would come back into full focus. And I, I, I really enjoyed it. It had, it has some problems, but I also really enjoyed myself and I will watch the sequel. Um, and then whichever ones come out after that.
Everett Yeah. I'm looking forward to the sequel. I'm looking forward to part two. So, uh, yeah, kind of a weird movie.
Andrew It's called part one, a child of fire.
Everett Andrew, have you seen Oppenheimer? I haven't. This isn't my other thing, but you should watch Oppenheimer and we should talk about it. Cause I watched it with Kim this last week and I was like, at first I kind of hated it. And then yeah, anyway. Is it one of those slow burns? It's a slow burn. And by the end I was like, Oh my God, that was really cool. So you should watch that and we should talk about it. Um, we'll, we'll give you a spoiler alert when we, when we talk about that on the show. Uh, but, My other thing is, all right, we'll just say, Hey, we're going to talk about this. If you haven't watched it, stop. But, um, you should watch it.
Andrew Don't learn a book between now and then though, because the story's been told.
Everett Um, I watched, uh, or excuse me, I started playing video game Andrew. Uh, and this was one of those things that surprised me because I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I have. Uh, a few years ago, I bought Zelda Breath of the Wild for the Switch that we have for the family, and I played Zelda Breath of the Wild, and I really, really, really enjoyed it. I want to say two years ago, Nintendo started leaking stuff about the follow-up to Breath of the Wild called Tears of the Kingdom, the sequel, I guess, to Breath of the Wild. you know, the closer we got to the release of that game, the more I was kind of like, meh, you know, that like, meh. And the reason I felt that way, so when you look at the trailers for Tears of the Kingdom, when you look at any sort of video of the gameplay or whatever, the graphics are identical, the map appears to be identical, the monsters, are identical. Uh, I was like, this is just breath of the wild. It's just breath of the wild. And they changed some shit. Like this is cheap. And my, my patients for spending another 70 bucks, did they trick you on DLC? I was like, I just don't have any patients. So I'm about eight months late on this review. This came out, I think back in March or April, something like that. And reviews were really good. And I was still just like, meh. Well, I finally picked it up for Christmas and started playing it and I could not.
Andrew Did you do the baller move and buy it for your kids for Christmas?
Everett Uh, no, I bought it for me. I bought it for me for Christmas. Um, I couldn't have been more wrong, Andrew. So the things that I noted are true. The, Graphics are the same. The engine is the same. I assume the world is the same, literally the same world. Except that now we've got more layers and they did a thing. So anybody who's played Zelda knows that Zelda, your toys are what makes the game. So you get a set of tools and those tools are what make the game, you start off and it's just your little guy and a little sword. And, uh, and then over time you get more hearts and you get more tools and those tools help you solve puzzles. The whole game is a puzzle, right? You're killing monsters, but it's not really a monster killing game. It's a puzzle solving game. And so your tools help you navigate the puzzles. And as you progress through the game, the puzzles get increasingly more complex and you need the tools and how you apply those tools. They did a thing with Tears of the Kingdom. So with Breath of the Wild, the first one, I would not have said this before I started playing Tears of the Kingdom, but with Breath of the Wild, the ideas were immature. The ideas and the implementation of the tools was immature. It was almost like a prototype or a beta. And with Tears of the Kingdom, they have improved on every single aspect of the game. It's one of those things where because of the way they've implemented physics and because of the way they've implemented how you're able to interact with the things in this incredibly rich world, there are almost no rules. There are almost no rules. Everything's challenging. The challenges are real, but you know how, like you're playing a video game and sometimes you can't figure the thing out and then you realize, Oh, I was supposed to have done this really specific thing. And now that I've done that very specific thing, I can progress to the next part of the game. There have been times in this game, multiple times as I'm playing through. where I've gotten to a thing and I was like, I don't know what to do here. And then I just stop and I look at the things around me. I look at the tools I have and I figure out a plan and I accomplish the goal. And then after I accomplished the goal, I realized that I've not done it the way the game designers wanted me to do it.
Andrew Oh, so it doesn't count.
Everett It does count. Oh, that's the best part. It does count. So they say, oh, okay, here's how we've designed this problem. Here's our intended solution. But there are other solutions because it's just physics. It is just tools and ingenuity and creativity. And if you're, if you have enough of ingenuity and you have enough of creativity, you can find a solution, even if it's not the solution they intended. That's interesting. That is the game. It is incredible. And I'm having so much fun with it. Even though I expected to be like, meh, this is like maybe the greatest game ever made. It's maybe the greatest video game ever made. It's a big claim. Like Breath of the Wild was the greatest video game ever made before it. It's like for them to have improved this much on Breath of the Wild, which at the time it came out was the greatest video game ever made. For them to improve this much on it blows my mind. Nintendo, you've got my heart for forever and ever. Amen. They gotcha. They got me. All right. So good. Play Tears of the Kingdom.
Andrew I'll have to come over and play it.
Everett In what is likely the shortest episode of 40 and 20 in the last three or four years, Andrew, do you have anything you'd like to add? I'm I'm all out of things, ma'am. I think that's a good time for us to just call it then. So I want to thank you at home for joining us for this very, very short episode of 40 and 20 in this brand new year.
Andrew Mm hmm. Happy New Year.
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