Episode 50 - G-Shock Watches

Published on Thu, 10 Oct 2019 06:50:00 -0700

Synopsis

This podcast episode discusses the history and evolution of Casio's iconic G-Shock watch line. The hosts trace the origins of the G-Shock concept born from an engineer accidentally breaking his pocket watch, which led to the development of the first "triple 10" shock-resistant watch in 1983. They recount how the G-Shock initially struggled in its home market of Japan but exploded in popularity in the U.S. after a famous commercial, eventually becoming a global phenomenon embraced by diverse cultural scenes. The discussion covers major G-Shock milestones and innovations over the decades, examines the brand's incredible price range from ultra-affordable to luxury pieces, and explores what has made the simple but nearly indestructible G-Shock an enduring watch icon.

The hosts also review several specific G-Shock models they have selected, sharing details about their features and value propositions. They express awe at the G-Shock's unparalleled toughness and versatility, deeming it suitable for any adventurous pursuit from diving to space exploration. Overall, the episode is a comprehensive celebration of the iconic G-Shock and its unique four-decade journey in watchmaking.

Links

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Transcript

Speaker
Andrew	Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. This is the 40 in 20 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	You know, I'm okay. Yeah. I'm feeling a little sheepish right now. A little sheepish because we just recorded. Well, we didn't record. We just did about 10 minutes of a show.
Andrew	Dry run. We had a quick dress rehearsal. You missed the first cans opening.
Everett	Oh yeah. That's too bad.
Andrew	That's okay. You'll get some more.
Everett	You'll get some more kids. Uh, yeah, no, I am. Okay. As I was just saying, I have been extremely busy, sick. We've had about two weeks since we recorded cause last week's episode was the good speed episode and we recorded that three weeks ago, several weeks ago. Yeah. So we've had a little bit of a, a little bit of a weird scheduling thing, but this week we're alone. It's just the two of us. You and I. Uh, and, and so that's nice because it's given me some time. These last couple of weeks have been insane with this just, you know, upper respiratory infection and work has been go, go, go, go, go. Um, yeah, so I'm good. I'm good, but I have less energy to talk about how I'm doing. the second time we record than I did the first time that we didn't record.
Andrew	That makes sense. I can get behind that because I'm already caught up. I don't need to be re caught up, but I will tell you. Uh, so right now I'm drinking a, uh, seek out real hard seltzer from two towns cider based out of Corvallis and it is cucumber and juniper. I saw that flavor in your fridge and I was like, Ooh, Ooh, I gotta try that. Cause Whenever I see a cucumber flavor thing, I always have pretty low expectations because cucumber is typically not very well executed in the form of a packaged beverage, barring a cucumber crush.
Everett	I was just going to say that's one of my very favorite beers of all time.
Andrew	But you don't get a lot of cucumber in there. You just get that really bright cucumber, like that brightness of it, but you're not getting cucumber flavor. This you're getting a great blast of cucumber flavor and just a little little underlying of juniper. Yeah. And I dig it. Uh, I'm glad you don't have gin, but I would like to try this with gin in the near future.
Everett	What's your, what's your, do you have a go-to gin?
Andrew	Uh, I'm usually at Tanqueray cause it's pretty affordable. Yeah. It's always good. Hendrix is really good. Crater Lake makes a really good gin.
Everett	Uh, I really like Monopolova's gin.
Andrew	I've never had that.
Everett	Yeah. It's a, Polish company, I think primarily known for their vodkas. But they make a gin that's actually pretty tasty.
Andrew	I had a gin from a distillery just north of here, I think Corvallis area. And I can't remember the name of it. So talking about it here is kind of silly. But they did two varieties. They did a like a mixing varietal that was kind of earthy and junipery. And then they made a varietal to be just like a sipping gin. And it was just really bright and floral. And it was So good. And then they also made like a really traditional one and dry kind of, kind of gin. But that, that sipping gin was, uh, a revelation.
Everett	And if you'd like to try it, good fucking luck. Cause Andrew can't remember what it's called.
Andrew	Yeah. I don't know. I was at the liquor store and they're like, Hey, sample all of our booze. And I'm like, okay.
Everett	Yes, I will.
Andrew	Yeah. I had like one of each and they had like 12 on the table and they're like, well, we can't give you that much. Yeah, you can. Yeah, you can. If you need me to walk away and come back, I'll do that. But why don't we just skip that and I'll just stand here.
Everett	That's good. Yeah. You know, gin has always been a little elusive. A, I don't love it. There's some drinks with gin that I really do like. You know, I love a gin and grapefruit juice. And is that that's not a Greyhound, right? Greyhound is vodka. But gin with grapefruit juice is is one of my one of my go to's. But by and large, I feel like gin is the drink that you drink when you've decided not to argue the alcoholism anymore. You're no longer in denial. You've passed denial. You're just an alcoholic, and you admit it, and you're going to continue to be that, and so you're drinking gin. I feel that way about gin.
Andrew	That's an interesting perspective on it. I would lean towards vodka in a plastic bottle being that settling for alcoholism, or 25-ounce cans of some Varietal of malt liquor.
Everett	Oh yeah. Well, yeah, that's different. I mean, there's a utility to a, there's a utility to a 22 of, of malt liquor camo, you know, because it's a buck 50 and it'll get you shit faced.
Andrew	I feel like that's exactly what you just described the gin drinker as. Perhaps.
Everett	I dig gins. Are you, are you old enough to have had experience with HRD vodka?
Unknown	Yeah.
Everett	Yeah. Okay.
Unknown	Yeah.
Everett	You know, there was a time when I was, I mean, really high school, it was high school, right? Where we'd get hogs, like HRD, which was, I think probably like 13 bucks, 12 bucks for the gallon for the half gallon. Yeah. And, uh, it's terrible. It was terrible.
Andrew	If it comes in a plastic bottle, you probably shouldn't be drinking it.
Everett	Yeah. I mean, with some exceptions, but right. That that's, that's generally what's the one exception. Oh gosh, I don't know. I mean, they make, they make various alcohols in like travel, you know, good alcohol that they sell them in travel pints or whatever. I guess that's what I was referring to.
Andrew	Most of those are still glass though. Right. If you put it in a plastic flask or in a bladder, or have you ever seen those binoculars that are, that's a flask disguised as binoculars? I have seen that. Something like that. That's a whole, that's a new vessel.
Everett	That's where you put your gin. Yeah.
Andrew	There you go. Watch. Let's see. I think that we'll see. Sorry, I have to check.
Everett	Uh-oh. Is everything okay?
Andrew	Eh, no.
Everett	I looked at your phone and said, uh-oh.
Andrew	Well, the Chiefs are down 13-9. Patrick Mahomes is not leading in comeback right now, which is what I really need. His performance tonight is kind of my make or break for a fantasy week, but it's whatever.
Everett	You know, I've got one team that's definitely going to lose, one team that's definitely going to win, so I haven't even been watching because it was just...
Andrew	I watched all day. That was kind of how my, my Saturdays and Sundays during football season, the whole family is kind of on board with the fact that that's about the only time I really watched TV. So Saturdays and Sundays during football season or for football during daytime, and then everyone's happy.
Everett	Our listeners who have heard you talk about Amazon shows on your other things, like 90% of every week are going to disagree with that last statement.
Andrew	But, uh, no, I mean like during daytime, I watched TV at night with either a wife or alone because she works late a couple nights a week. So that's when I get the majority of my TV consumption in is, uh, when everyone is either gone or asleep in my house and I can watch by myself.
Everett	I dig it. Yeah, I dig it. Well, we're alone this week. We are, which is weird, which is weird. It's been such a fun, a few weeks. And I am hoping, I actually don't think we have anybody lined up right now. So if you're listening to this on Thursday, and you think you might be interesting to come on the show, you just holler at me. We've got some interviews that are sort of tentatively lined up, but there's some dependency on press pieces and whatnot. So it's a little tricky to get everything lined up, especially because this right now is the busiest time of year for micro brands in terms of shows. There's tons of European shows happening right now. And then we run into wind up happening. I mean, there's just in terms of micro brands ability to connect with consumers and connect with industry people right now is the busiest time. So press pieces are a little bit tough to come by right now. And we don't like to do interviews with people without having a press piece in hand, or at least having had it in hand very recently. So Uh, that's kind of been our sticking point. You know, there's been a few people come, come through and say, we'd love to be on the show. I can't get you a piece though. And I think, you know, why don't we wait until you can, um, I'd love to have you on the show too. I think your watches are awesome, but I don't own one and the odds that I'm going to buy one for this show are low. So we'll just wait. So we, we don't really have a ton of stuff lined up right now, but there's a bunch of stuff that I expect to come through at the end of. And so we're gonna be, we're feast and famine.
Andrew	That's okay. You guys will just have to deal with listening to us again for a while.
Everett	Yeah. Just the two of us. We can make it if we try.
Andrew	Yeah.
Everett	You and I. But we're talking about watches anyway. Yeah.
Andrew	We're talking about watches. Can't stop us. Can't keep us down.
Everett	And this is a, this is a topic that we've sort of had penciled in for the better part of a year, I think.
Andrew	It was on our original sheet of things we ought to talk about.
Everett	Is that right?
Andrew	Yeah.
Everett	I love that.
Andrew	Yeah. It exists somewhere. It's not in this bag, but I have an archive of all of our, all of my show notes and all of our various, uh, bar napkin conversations.
Everett	And this is one of the first.
Unknown	Yeah. It's among them.
Everett	So we're talking about, uh, I don't know, maybe the most, uh, the most accessible and inaccessible and inaccessible legitimate watch line On the face of the earth right now. I think we're talking about Casio G-Shock watches today. Gravitational shock. Gravitational shock. And this is a show that is going to be probably light on the things that you don't know if you have spent any time reading or thinking about G-Shocks. It'll be a refresher course for some of you. For others of you that don't know anything about G-Shocks, hopefully you get some background. Uh, hopefully you'll learn a little something. I know I felt a little sad in researching for this show, but it kind of knew all this stuff.
Andrew	Yeah. I felt like I kind of knew all of it too, but to codify it and to get it all in one place and realize the simplicity of this brand, like there's a lot of special aspects of G Shock. There's a lot of, a lot of special bits and a lot of really fun anecdotal or anecdotes of this brand, but it's still so young.
Unknown	Yeah, that's right.
Andrew	And they came into the marketplace, and then they blew up, and they've just kind of continued to blow up.
Everett	G-Shock is the same age as me.
Andrew	They peaked and plateaued and hung in there.
Everett	Just like me.
Andrew	Yeah. Well, you... I hope you haven't peaked. Because you're still getting better, man.
Everett	Oh, thank you. Thank you. I hope you... I really hope you haven't peaked. Because in 1981, two things happened. Exactly, two things happened in 1981. The only things that matter. One, Everett Meadows was born. And two, Kiko Ibe drops his dad's pocket watch walking down the street. Fuck that shit up. Broke into a billion pieces. Was it a billion pieces?
Andrew	Maybe. I like to imagine that it was like, it just exploded.
Everett	I need a sound effect.
Andrew	He didn't even say it was broken. It just hit the ground and there were so many pieces of it, he just assumed it wouldn't work.
Everett	He's like, fuck it. That's gone. Dust to dust. So for those of you who have read an article about G-Shock in the last 15 years, will know that Kikuo Ibe is the godfather, the grandfather, the... The OG. The OG, the genesis of the G-Shock watch. Andrew said it right. The, the lore of this thing is so absent on detail that you're sure it's, it's an anecdote. And this is the Genesis story, but like all Genesis stories, we realized there's some mythology in this. Um, and, and I don't know, that's not to say I don't believe the story, but you know, I've read this story about the pocket watch being dropped. 50 different times in 50 different iterations and heard interviews with Kiko Uebe talking about it in Japanese translated to English a number of times. And never, never, I don't think have I ever heard him say what type of pocket watch it was.
Unknown	I never have either.
Everett	So, so there's that in and of itself is probably not important to the story, but it gives you an idea. This is a, This is a mythology.
Andrew	But maybe, maybe it was just some piece of junk that like was maybe already broken. And when it hit the ground, the crystal cracked. Sure. Or maybe it was some, a family treasure, an heirloom. That's kind of a detail. Like maybe we should email him.
Everett	Yeah. Hey, hey Kikuo.
Andrew	What kind of pocket watch was it?
Everett	Mr. eBay. I actually think he goes by eBay.
Andrew	I, I don't know.
Unknown	Hey eBay.
Andrew	Hey, hombre.
Everett	So he drops his dad's pocket watch. And it's sad, sad face, sad emoji.
Andrew	It's interesting, too, he was carrying a pocket watch in the 80s.
Everett	Yeah, right. Because that also is like, what? Why weren't you wearing a watch? You were a fucking engineer for Casio. Yeah. Why weren't you wearing a watch? Yeah. So he drops his dad's pocket watch. And sure enough, sad eBay says, you know what I need? You know what I need? I need a watch that I can drop off my wrist and not have it fucking break.
Andrew	I need a watch that will survive falls that I won't fall, that I won't survive.
Everett	Yeah. Yeah. So he, he grabbed some guys, he grabbed some guys, three guys.
Andrew	You know what they call them?
Everett	Team.
Andrew	Team Tough.
Everett	Team Tough. Project Team Tough. Yeah.
Andrew	It has to like, that's the best they could come up with. Well, it wasn't like Research Group 234. That would even be more exciting than Project Team Tough.
Everett	Team Tough. I think this thing kind of starts.
Andrew	Is it just bad translation, do you think? Do you think it's maybe carries a little bit more meaning in Japanese?
Everett	But maybe, yeah, maybe it was. Yeah, I don't know. Team Tough. You know, it's one of those things that's that's axiomatic now for for what it is. But yeah, it's not the most. It's a letdown. Not the most clever marketing there. So yeah, grabs these three engineers and says, Hey, we're, we're going to, we're going to make this triple 10 watch, quote unquote, triple 10 resistance. And, and triple 10 D I mean, do you have them?
Andrew	Yeah. So triple 10, it's a 10 years battery life, which is interesting that that was one of the criteria they were trying to reach. And I wonder if it was because batteries were, I wonder what the expected, the life expectancy of batteries was that 10 years was this landmark that they had to hit. So 10 year battery life. 10 bar water resistance, 10 meter shock resistance.
Everett	As in I can drop this watch from 10 meters high. Yeah. And it won't die.
Andrew	Yeah. Which is crazy to think of, of now, like that, that seems like a pretty low threshold for what G-Shock has achieved.
Everett	I don't know. 10, 10 meters is 30 feet, three stories.
Andrew	I've watched a video of this guy standing two feet from a wall and, and Randy Johnson, this thing into it. Picks it up, puts it back on his wrist. America. It's fine. He probably doesn't say America. He probably says Japan or Casio or something.
Unknown	Japan! Yeah.
Andrew	Yeah. It sounds weirder when you yell that.
Everett	So yeah, they, you know, over the course of the next, uh, what, three years, two, two and a half, three years, they come up with 200 prototypes and they all fucking suck.
Andrew	Anecdotally. all these prototypes, he's, he's sneaking to this bathroom that has available windows and he's dropping off the first floor and they're breaking. And then finally he gets one that survives and they start working off that and they go to the second floor and drops it and breaks it. And then eventually the third floor and finally one survives and drops it and it sort of survives, but some things are damaged. But that's kind of the, the iterations we're going through in the, in the mythology of, of this, this story where you're imagining this, this, uh, this engineer with his idea, who's having to sneak to bathrooms and clandestinely drop things out windows to test his prototypes, even though we are in a state of the art laboratory. You don't need that.
Everett	You can almost picture him doing it. He's this, uh, very slight, just prototypical engineer, you know, always, I've never seen him in anything but a button down, uh, energy shock, energy shock. He's this prototypical engineer and you can picture this young eBay sneaking to the bathroom to drop his, G-Shock out the window, his prototype out the window.
Andrew	Why wasn't that a tool set available in the lab? Why was he having to drop it out windows?
Everett	You know, I think that he was not, uh, when he started doing this, he was not necessarily working on company time or dollar. I think that this, that this research was sort of own, own time, own dollar type of deal. And eventually it got picked up by Casio and we don't know when in the process that was. Certainly it wasn't right at first. And I think when he started, Uh, his ideation for this, it was, you know, wrap the watch in, in rubber bands and drop it. And, you know, so at some point they, they, they were finding, and I think he got a budget, but at first I think it's just him sort of after hours, just MacGyver in it, just thinking through shit and trying to come up with an idea. So that leads to 1983 and the introduction of the DW 5,000. See, I have one more.
Andrew	Oh, their, their research breakthrough was one of those light bulb aha moments. And again, to add to the mythology, the team is at like, just happens upon a park where children are playing and he sees, not creepy other engineers.
Everett	So not creepy.
Andrew	Yeah, no, they're probably, who knows? They see a child's rubber ball. And that rubber ball is what gave him his breakthrough idea. into floating the module inside the watch. Because though the outside of the ball would sustain impact, the rest of the ball was unfazed. But again, why would looking at a rubber ball prompt that?
Everett	Yeah, I don't know.
Andrew	And I'm not an engineer. I don't look at things and go, oh yeah, I understand how that works. So I'm Maybe it's just that I'm not smart enough to understand how that translates.
Everett	It's one of these aha moments that you read about and you think, I just don't get it.
Andrew	You're an engineer, bro. You should have understood that before you saw a rubber ball for the 10,000th time in your life.
Everett	Yeah, it's, I don't get it. And so maybe there's, you know, maybe there's this sort of Monday, Monday morning quarterbacking going on in my head, but I'm, but I'm with you. I'm like, what, what are we talking about here?
Andrew	Yeah. I love the mythology of this, but then it gets, the mythology is only going to get better here.
Everett	Yeah, that's right. And you know, the other thing that sort of not irks me about that story, but kind of, uh, puts me back on my heels a little bit is because the first prototype was taking a watch and wrapping it in a bunch of rubber.
Andrew	So the issue was that the, the module was still sustaining the impact. It wasn't floated inside the case, like what the, what became resin and then steel and then resin and all kinds of other layering of materials to protect that and float that movement. And then the buttons attached by cables as opposed to directly interfacing with the buttons. I want to say movement.
Unknown	Okay.
Andrew	But that's not, yeah, there's, I, I just use the word, but it's stupid. Yeah. Yeah. That's all it comes down to.
Everett	So that's what they get to. They see the rubber ball. They think, well, we need to float this movement. And so that's what they do. They float the movement of the hollow case, quote unquote, hollow case with a urethane, um, with a urethane sort of sleeve envelope inside of it that houses the movement and these flexible connections from the buttons to the, to the connectors. Um, and that is what becomes the DW 5000 C in April of 1983. which is the original G-Shock. That is the original.
Andrew	And it still looks so good.
Everett	And it looks great. I mean, it is a case shape that we know and love today by way of the 5600D or the GWM5610. Uh, it's this classic looking. It is the G-Shock. Square G. That's right.
Andrew	And I mean, for watching, I guess a lot of people, when they imagine a G-Shock, see the, the round indentation, bezel. Oh yeah, sure. The three eye. Yeah. The modern iterations.
Everett	The 6900s. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I'm the opposite. I think 5600 is the classic. But yeah, so I think interesting. I think this next bit is interesting because although there was a need and the market was there, sales lagged in Japan for this watch. They did not take off the way we might think that they did in Japan in particular.
Andrew	Cause 1980s style wasn't surrounding this active lifestyle watch. They were all surrounding nice slim dress watches and we're in the midst of the quartz revolution and people are transitioning to quartz watches anyway. So why would I get a digital? Because there's this cool quartz movement that's out and available and it's cheap, it's affordable and they look great. And why would I need to be able to throw my watch against a wall?
Everett	Well, yeah. And, and, you know, there's a cultural change that's going to happen. Um, but it's not going to happen in Japan.
Andrew	Nope.
Everett	It's going to happen in the United States.
Andrew	And it all surrounds a commercial.
Everett	That's right.
Andrew	So this commercial that Casio, so because of the, uh, struggling G-Shock line in Japan, uh, Casio started reaching internationally to try to market this watch. And there was a commercial. I, I actually didn't get a chance to look it up and I will watch it today. If it's, I'm sure it's still available. That has a hockey player using this G-Shock as a puck. Slapshots it. Watch is just fine. And people go nuts. People start calling Casio, phones are ringing off the hook. They're writing them letters because they have to write letters to complain in this day and age. But it's happening saying, this is false advertising. This isn't happening. There's no way. It's just impossible. What you're claiming cannot be true. And an early iteration of Mythbusters, air quotes, a news agency picks it up and is like, yeah, that's bullshit. We're going to call it. And they get a G-Shock. They get a hockey stick.
Everett	That same model, the 5200C.
Andrew	They test it all out and sure as shit, that watch works and people lose their minds. G-Shock takes off in America, soon followed by Japan and countries around the world.
Everett	Well, and I think that that's the part of the story that's kind of ironic that so, uh, The G-Shock sales almost immediately pick up with sort of, I don't know, probably today what we call urban culture. So, um, on the East coast, the, the hip hop community sort of picks it up on the West coast, the surf community, the surf slash skater community picks it up, um, because of utility, um, the hip hop community picks it up because of style. And so all of a sudden we've got this watch that's entrenched heavily into the very hip. sectors of the United States in the early 80s. And so it becomes this cultural position piece, and that position in urban American culture is what eventually drives its sales in Japan. Yep. Because these young Japanese kids are Yankophiles. They're wearing Levi's, they're buying They're buying Harley Davidson's and at the, you know, these, these intrinsically American things. And so G-Shock takes off with the American crowd. And that idea is what drives sales in Japan, which is fantastic to think about.
Andrew	So terrific. And what's impressive is that G-Shock was able to be so nimble during the trajectory of its growth as to be able to keep up with the culture that was its primary demographic. They was releasing watches in colorways and in styles and marketing campaigns that fit right in with the culture that had accepted it. They weren't trying to reestablish themselves. They were just following the trajectory of the cultures that were already embracing it. And I love that they weren't trying to innovate. They were just saying, Hey, we're here with you here. Here we are. What do you want? We're ready to give it to you.
Everett	We got watches. Yeah. What you got?
Andrew	Yeah. And I love that. I love marketing campaigns that are organic. I don't know if that's the right word, but they're not trying to, they're not reinventing a wheel. We're not seeing, you know, the Bud Light Platinum Knight who's upgraded Bud Light Knight for the night. Like that's, that's trying to insert yourself in the culture as opposed to already being a part of the culture and saying, Hey, this is what you want. This is what you're going to get.
Everett	Yeah.
Andrew	Yeah.
Everett	Yeah. You know, and it's, it's interesting too, because, I think a lot of the Japanese watch culture is so uniquely Japanese. You know, the Japanese dive watch is something that's been developed wholly by these Japanese watch trends. And, you know, when you look at Seiko and what they've done and, you know, watches like the Seiko Sus and, you know, so many things in Japan are so uniquely Japanese to see this watch that is a Japanese and be totally American in terms of its in terms of its iconology, you know, develop this way. I think it's a really neat story. And that is the one part of this story that we're telling today that I didn't know before we started was this.
Andrew	I didn't quite realize the gravity of it.
Everett	Yeah. I mean, I, even the idea, the idea in and of itself, if you'd have asked me how, how G-Shock's developed, I'd have said, well, they developed in Japan. And then we picked them up cause we thought Japanese stuff is cool, you know, cause we're Japanophiles over here to a certain degree. Uh, don't, don't, I was just trying to think that has to be right, but it can't be it. No, I'm sure it's, I just made it up.
Andrew	It sounded right to me.
Everett	It was that or Japophile.
Andrew	Don't say that.
Everett	Maybe we cut that. So, yeah. So, yeah. All of a sudden, G-Shock's cool in America, and so it's cool in Japan, and there's a little bit of a snake eating its tail, and this thing just takes off and goes freaking crazy.
Unknown	Globally.
Everett	Globally.
Andrew	It's the only watch I can say with confidence that I've seen legitimate iterations of it everywhere I've been in the world. I've seen plenty of fake Rolexes. I've seen a lot of Invictas, and I don't think people fake Invicta. But people definitely don't fake G-Shock, right? Do they?
Everett	You know, I bet some of the G-Shocks do get faked. It's probably less prevalent than faked Omegas or faked Rolexes, but I do think that that happens.
Andrew	I've seen a fake Rolex with an Omega logo on it.
Everett	I love that. Yeah. You know, I think that, I think that the iterations of fake G-Shock are, are usually using actual G-Shock parts and customizing them to be some of these higher end or, or harder to get, uh, collaborations or, or, um.
Andrew	One of a kind limited edition, 40 and 20.
Everett	Limited editions. That's right. That's right.
Andrew	So there, Here we have it. We're at the explosion of G-Shock and it's taking the globe and they have not stopped innovating. And one of the questions I have about Casio and their sub brands is I understand that G-Shock and Protrek kind of fill different places in the market, but not entirely different places in the market. And I wonder how Casio justifies keeping both of those lineages alive?
Everett	I suspect it's purely marketing. I suspect, because I've had the same thought, you know, we, I think we talked about it on this before we talked about it in our, uh, digitals, maybe digital watches. Did we do a, did we do a triple sensor episode? What'd we do anyway? Yes. We we've talked about, we've talked about this before, but, but I do think it's purely marketing because right. These triple sensor Protrex are a very obvious offshoot of the things that make G-Shock great. And G-Shock has triple sensor, you know, Casio has got a very, very good, one of the best in the world triple, triple sensor module, and they use it in both Protrex and G-Shock. So I think that it's purely marketing why they would continue to maintain both these lines because Protrex has it. has its base. And I don't think it's the same base as G-Shock.
Andrew	I don't think it is, but I think that was that was kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Everett	I suspect that there's a more distinct group in Japan that is inclined to buy, you know, that Protrek marketing. I know we talked about this, but that Protrek logo, even today. Oh, yeah. Unchanged. Is basically unchanged. You know, they've got that green writing. It looks like The brand, it looks like a 1980s Seattle outdoor wear branding. Looks like Jansport. Jansport, that's right. Or the one that pops into my head is Traeger. Traeger is a, not the grill company, but the bag company. And it feels to me very similar to the branding of Traeger or Outdoor Research or something like that. So I suspect that they've got a niche of people that like that brand. Um, and so they maintain it. And, and I, I would guess that in Japan, that's more distinct than it is here.
Andrew	Maybe. When I was, uh, one of the things I want to look for was all the places G-Shock specifically has been, which is kind of hard to find. You would think that on the, like that G-Shock would be funding and in part sponsoring a lot of these major expeditions or record-breaking, uh, adventures just because their watches are so versatile and durable, and they can go anywhere, do anything. What I could find though, it has been a space. We've talked about that. Yep. G-Shock's been a space. Not to the moon. No, but to space. To space, yeah. Space. A lot. Yeah. Maybe more than any other brand.
Everett	You know, I think that that's right. I think that now, since about 2014, the official space watch is the X-33, but But it seemed like there was a period of time between 2014 and maybe the 80s, sometime in the 80s, where G-Shocks were 90% of all the watches that the astronauts were wearing. I suspect most of those were personally owned POVs, as it were. POWs? POWs. Maybe something different. But yeah, I suspect those were, you know, I own this because I bought this and I'm going to wear it to space. It does seem like there was a period of time where more G-Shocks were in space than any other watch.
Andrew	If I ever got to go to space, I would wear all my watches. Just on your arm at the same time. And I would, when I got back, I would write every one of those companies and say, hey, I took your watch to space. Pay me for it.
Everett	Right. There's a lot of that, actually. There's a lot of that that goes on in space travel.
Andrew	Yeah. No, I would 100% do that. I would exploit space travel. I'd be the guys who took stamps and envelopes and signed them and then brought them back to Earth and was like, hey, these have been in space. I'd get in trouble. I wouldn't get in trouble for it, though, because I'd just be a regular citizen going to space.
Everett	Just a regular dude.
Andrew	Yeah.
Everett	Just a regular dude. Well, so I think that, you know, the next sort of major step that happens with G-Shock is 1987. And this isn't a major step for G-Shock so much as it is a major step looking back. So 1987, G-Shock releases the DW-5600C. DW-5600C is the same watch that you can get for 60 bucks on Amazon today in the DW-5600E. And there's obviously some minor differences, some minor tweaks, but this watch is the same for all intents and purposes as the basic G-Shock that you buy today. When you, when you say, I want to buy my first G-Shock on WatchuSeek, I have about 80 bucks to spend. you're going to get about 15 recommendations for the 5600E. You're also going to get some recommendations for the 6900. Those are wrong.
Andrew	Objectively.
Everett	Objectively wrong. But this is the same watch that you can buy today. So 1987. So that's, I'm doing the math. I think something like 30 years. that the same watch has been the coolest, one of the coolest watches that you can buy as an entry-level collector or whatever, right? I mean, this is similar to the Speedmaster.
Andrew	Or somebody who just beats the shit out of watches.
Everett	Yeah, that's right. That's right. Or just a guy. Just a guy. Yeah. I think the cool thing about G-Shock is how transcendent it is. You know, the price point does a lot for this, but it's so much more transcendent than just I mean, just about anything else, right? You know, the Speedmaster, I just made that Speedmaster comparison, because I think it's interesting. The Speedmaster is virtually unchanged, different bracelets and upgrades and movements. But the Speedmaster today is the same as the Speedmaster of 1960. It's the same watch. The G-Shock's not quite as old. But essentially, the G-Shock 5600E that you buy today is the same as that 5,000 seed that you could buy when it first came out in 1983. It's the same.
Andrew	And, and just as accessible.
Everett	Way, way, way more accessible.
Andrew	Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's fair, but way more accessible.
Everett	And there's a lot of people that have spent exactly 45 seconds thinking about watches for the purposes of getting something on their watch to allow them to tell the time that have ended up with some version of the 5600 on their wrist. Not because they're thoughtful, they might be minimally thoughtful, but not because they're being thoughtful about the watch, just because it's such an obvious decision. It's so obvious. It's the most obvious watch on the face of the earth right now.
Andrew	They recently stamped 100 million in serial numbers.
Everett	100 million watches. That's 2017, right?
Andrew	Yeah. Recently, like two years. Recently.
Everett	And Eminem rapped about it.
Andrew	Yeah, maybe.
Everett	No, he did. He did, huh? They had a big party in New York.
Andrew	I didn't know that. I did not realize that Marshall was there to party with them.
Everett	So I think that that's, you know, this 1987, I'm going to sort of mark that down as a big year. In fact, it's the one thing I have in a box on my notes because that's big time. That's a big time. You know, we'll come back to it. a number of times today, but the 5600 is the G-Shock. Yeah. And that's when it came out.
Unknown	Yeah.
Everett	So where to from here? I've got a bunch of notes, but I don't know where you go from here.
Andrew	My next impressive place that a G-Shock resides currently is in the Antarctic Ocean on a Japanese underwater rover that is exploring the ocean. It is using the compass and a thermometer on board the watch into the rover to guide it and also take measurements for the rover itself.
Everett	What watch is this?
Andrew	One of the Frogmen. They have a special edition associated with it. It's got a cool red band like Antarctic something or other. It's cool as shit. And also it's living there. It's fucking living in the ocean. Cold ocean. Right. On a rover. giving it guidance. That's awesome. What other watch does that? None. The Apple Watch commercials? This watch tells time. It also has an EKG machine. Does it guide a rover? The answer is no. No, it does not.
Unknown	And it couldn't.
Andrew	No, I don't think it would survive.
Everett	It couldn't.
Andrew	Apple Watches don't survive falling off your wrist onto the floor.
Everett	They're not triple 10.
Andrew	No. They're not triple 10. eBay Randy Johnson's isn't on the wall.
Everett	You know, I've just got some, uh, I've just got some landmarks. Maybe I'll just run through these. So 1989, the AW500, that's the first analog G-Shock. 1992, DW6100, that's the first sensor-based G-Shock, and it had a thermometer. 1993, we've got... What year was that?
Andrew	92. How cool. Can you imagine being 1992, looking at your watch and being like, 64 degrees in here?
Everett	What up? 93, the DW6300. That's the very first ISO certified G-Shock. That's the Frogman, the OG Frogman, 200 meters of water resistance, ISO certification. 1994, they introduced the Baby G line for folks with smaller wrists.
Andrew	Well, for ladies, that's where it started.
Everett	Yeah. No, I think that's right. And I, but I, I bristle a little bit at that, at that connotation, but I know that that's accurate. 96, Kiko Ibe and his group decide we're going to start making metal watches. Oh shit. And so they introduced the metal MR-G series. 98 DW 9300. That is the Rays man. That is the predecessor to our solar watches. It's the very first solar G-Shock. 2000 the GW 100. That's the first radio controlled. and it's controlled by one radio in Japan. 2002, the GW300, that's controlled by both radio and solar, the predecessor to the Tough Solar. 2014, so I'm going to skip a little bit. 2014, the GPW1000. This is cool because what this does is it does both GPS time sync and multiband 6 time sync.
Andrew	I wonder if those ever are in confliction with each other. You know, I don't know.
Everett	Conflict? Conflict? I think that's probably more appropriate. Maybe.
Andrew	I wonder if they ever are. What does it do? I wonder what it defaults to if they are out of sync.
Everett	I'm not sure. We would hope they would be in sync. Because if they're not, we're fucked. Everything crashes. 2017, the GPW-2000. This is GPS, multiband 6, plus it connects to your cell phone and syncs by way of your cell signal to atomic or solar clocks that are updating the cell carriers. So full, all the levels of connectivity, you're on it. So if you have cell service, it'll sync there. If you just have GPS service, it'll sync there. If you have multi-band radio signal, it'll sync there. It's going to sync constantly and be updated.
Andrew	And it still has a 10 year battery life, right?
Everett	Yeah, I would assume so. That's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. I noted those as sort of the major milestones. Um, there may be others.
Andrew	What year did they transition away from a single boob, single boob, single boob, a single bulb illumination to, uh, the backlight illumination sort of Indiglo style.
Everett	I don't know that. I don't know that. I'm sorry. It was early nineties. Yeah, that sounds right.
Andrew	Yeah. And one of the, uh, one of the selling points they had on them was the, uh, were these films that were put on the inside of the crystal. that were invisible until you turn that light on and you get a cool image on the inside of the crystal when you'd illuminate that backlight, like whether it be fire or skull or something crazy like that.
Everett	Love it.
Andrew	So cool.
Everett	You know, we mentioned it briefly also, G-Shocks are space watches. You know, that's the last sort of very cool thing I'd like to say about G-Shocks. Since 2014, the X-33, the Omega, I don't think it's the Speedmaster X-33 anymore, but the Omega X-33 has been sort of the official watch, and so everybody on the ISS and in the space programs is wearing these X-33s, and I suspect that there's some financial reason for that. I assume that Omega's sponsoring that, but if you look at- I hope so. Yeah. Shit. Right. If you look at pictures of astronauts from the 2000s and the 90s, they're all wearing G-Shocks. And there's a number of G-Shocks that have been space certified. The DW-5600C, the 5600E, the 5900, the 6900, and the G9000, which is a Mudmaster, I believe, to name a few, are all or have been space certified at some point by NASA. So it should go without saying that a watch that can go to the bottom of the ocean or that can be dropped from 10 meters up Um, it is going to be as good for space as say smacked by a hockey stick. That's right. That's right. So, so they are basically made for the type of things that's going to happen in space. I know at some point NASA shot a, a watch up on one of these, um, weather balloons and it went super, super, super high, uh, you know, way the fuck up there. I don't know. And comes down. So I think it was like 12 hours at negative 56. Celsius, which is cold. That's really cold, which is cold. Um, and you know, 56 kilometers an hour coming back down, um, hits the ground on a, on a parachute, obviously, but totally survived this thing. You, you know, these things are purpose built for the hardest, hardest points of life or, or, or beyond that, beyond life doesn't survive that. And, And so it should come as no surprise that these G-Shocks are perfect space watches.
Andrew	I'm going to get some G-Shocks to be family heirlooms.
Everett	Yeah, well, you know, I think that's interesting, right? Because are they heirlooms?
Andrew	They could be.
Everett	They could be.
Andrew	The G-Shock price range is from $7,400 money to $90 money. Yeah. That could be one of the most diverse brands that we've ever talked about.
Everett	And really even less than that. I mean, $60 bucks on Amazon for a 5600E.
Andrew	Well, from the G-Shock website, 7,400 money down to 89 money. That's awesome. I can't think of another brand that has that much variation from ultra accessible to luxury prices.
Everett	That's right. Yeah. Well, I mean, maybe Seiko.
Unknown	Yeah.
Everett	I mean, just a name.
Andrew	Yeah, but in all just one digital, just a digital watch.
Everett	Yeah. No, that's right. That's right. It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. Well, we, as usual, have picked out some watches.
Andrew	Is it as usual anymore? And we haven't done something like this in a while.
Everett	That's true. That's true. But when we talk about a brand, one of the things we like to do is talk about some watches. So what do you got up first?
Andrew	First up, the murdered out DW5600BB-1GD. And goddamn.
Everett	Well, and when you say murdered out, this, I mean, it's, it's, Like next level murder.
Andrew	It is. The only thing on it that's not black is the numbers. Well, the buckle. Yeah. Is, is damn it.
Andrew	I was going to say the display because everything on it, it's just, it's, it's white display on that black background. Yeah. And was that what you got a swap out with your, no, no, no.
Everett	Uh, no, you finish this. I'm going to talk about my, my Frankenstein next step.
Andrew	We've got the G W M. 5610-1, which one we've already talked about.
Everett	Yeah. No, that's the sort of classic GWM 5600 square G. That's the, that's the red border, you know, 50, it's the 5,000 C style display. Tough solar.
Andrew	And that's the difference. It's what you're thinking of when you think of the OG G-Shock, but it's the solar. And last up the G9300-1. Frogman. Yeah. And I, I dig this one. Mudman. Yeah. Yeah. Mudman. Sorry. The Mudman. You chose a Frogman. Had me confused, but a Mudman. And it is so simple. It's, it's a round G-Shock. It has compass built into it. I mean, it's, it's got everything. It's, it is one of those watches that if you have to buy one watch, you are in a outdoor pursuits type life and you need some ABC functionality. and need a watch that you can throw into a rock face.
Everett	This could be it. So what are the prices on these? So, oh yeah, sorry.
Andrew	So 5,600, 5,600, you're coming, you're, you're going to get 9,395 on the Amazon. Okay. Uh, the 5,610, 84 on the Amazon and the Mudman 131 on Amazon. And that's, that's coming in about 131, 192 money. That's what you're going to pay that for a Suunto. You're going to pay that for a Protrek. It's right in that competitive line with these other tactical watches, but it looks so classic 80s. Yeah. You're not getting that real high-tech looking Suunto or even the high-tech looking Protrek. You're just getting this clunky 80s G-Shock.
Everett	I love that. So I've also picked three watches.
Unknown	Oh,
Everett	I'm going to start with the one that you can actually buy. Because you can't buy the others that I'm going to talk about.
Unknown	Oh yeah.
Everett	Yeah. Yeah. So, so the first one, this is the GF8235D Frogman. This is a blue Frogman. Frogman watches are known for their asymmetrical cases. So if you've seen this G-Shock that's sort of got a pronounced left side Uh oh. I know I'm a little bit anti-Black G-Shock, which is... I think it's from my time in the Army watching Joe wear... They don't wear... Black G-Shocks.
Andrew	They wear like FDE and OD and camouflage and coyote.
Everett	Yeah, that too, but it's just so pedestrian. The Black 6900s, even the Black 5600s, I find them pedestrian and it turns me off a little bit.
Andrew	I'm sorry, I hear that.
Everett	So I've got a Navy blue frogman. The second watch I have now you can, you can find these, you can find these, but they're a little tricky and there's one really good reason why they're tricky. So this is a 1996 MRG JDM titanium case. It's the MR-G 210T. Uh, now this is a square case, titanium JDM G-Shock. Uh, and it's semi-square. It's not square square. It's semi-square, a little curvy square. Uh, these things are the shiznit and I have looked for one of these, no shit, for about three years, for about three years. And they are very, very tricky to find.
Andrew	No, they're not.
Everett	They're always available on eBay. There's always about one or two on eBay, and they stay on eBay for a very long time. And the reason is Japanese people have skinny wrists, little tiny wrists.
Andrew	You can't ever find a bracelet greater than six inches.
Everett	That's right. So I think probably what I need to do is buy two of them. And you and I have talked about this before, and maybe we've even talked about this on the show before, have we?
Andrew	I don't know if we've talked about it on air,
Everett	I think what I need to do is buy two of them. Take the best parts from both and combine the bracelets. But you cannot find these with a bracelet over about six inches and three quarters.
Andrew	Yeah, that's that's because I sometimes lurk on eBay and OfferUp and places like that. So I can buy one and have it and then you can't have it.
Everett	I would be so fucking mad at you.
Andrew	But so I routinely lurk for... This is my grow watch.
Everett	This watch, the MRG210T, is my grow watch.
Andrew	Grail?
Everett	Grail. Okay.
Andrew	I thought you were saying grow watch.
Everett	It's my grow watch.
Andrew	I was like, why do you need a grow watch? I'm a grower. But yeah, no, I've looked for them. Not a shower. The bracelets, no, well, the bracelets are always just tiny. And is it that When these watches were produced, people were like, ah, whatever. It cost me 60 bucks. I'm just going to throw away these links.
Everett	Well, they were 60 bucks. They were expensive because they're titanium.
Andrew	Or it's like these damn Casio bracelets that just break apart when you try to adjust them. Like that world time, that's the size it is forever. It is never adding or removing any links ever again because it got fucked up.
Everett	No, these things have replaceable links. I mean, they're meant, it's just very, very difficult. I think two things. One, I think people recognize them as collector's pieces. And so people kind of hang on to them. And two, they're JDM. People in Japan have little wrists.
Andrew	These guys in their JDM watches, man.
Everett	Motherfuckers. So that is, if I have a grow watch, it's that one. And I have had an alert set up on eBay for the better part of the last two years. And I promise when one comes up with a bracelet long enough, I'll buy it. But I'm guessing I just have to buy two.
Andrew	You might be bidding more.
Everett	It's not going to happen.
Andrew	I won't. I won't pin on it.
Everett	And you know, that's my girl watch. It's the it is the only watch that I've ever truly coveted.
Andrew	I feel that way about the LCD NavTimer.
Everett	Yeah, but I mean, that's that's a an expensive watch, right? I mean, there's expensive watches, right? But it's like even if that pops up, I'm not going to buy it.
Andrew	And the ones that do pop up, like I've seen a couple that were in really good shape, but they're still too grandish.
Everett	So there's one more G-Shock. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's one more G-Shock that I have to talk about, and then we can get into other things. This is a watch that I'm wearing on my wrist right now.
Unknown	Mm-hmm.
Everett	It's the one G-Shock I own. You have a baby G. Oh, that's true. Yeah. That's true. Well, I mean... There's a baby G in this house. There's a baby G in this house. This is my personal... Franken-watch. My personal perfect G-Shock. It's my perfect G-Shock. And that is a white cased GWM 5610. But you cannot buy the one I'm wearing. And that is because it is got a module from the GWM 5610, the sort of vanilla, everyday black strapped GWM 5610, which is the red ring, that sort of purple solar panel. with a positive display.
Andrew	A positive display. And that came with a negative display, right?
Everett	This came with a black-on-black negative display. This white case did. Because G-Shock, in their infinite wisdom... Who makes a watch for everyone on the planet... Does not sell a white GWM with a positive display right now. So, to make this watch, I had to buy two watches. I had to buy the GWM 5610MD, which is a white braceleted, white bezeled, positive, or excuse me, negative display. And I had to buy a GWM 5610-1, the sort of OG GWM, and I had to just swap them out. Now the mod took about 15 minutes from both watches because you unscrew the bracelet, you sort of unscrew these little bezel clips, pull the bezel off, you, you know, drop one into the other and screw it all back up. I mean, 15 minutes for this mod, but I ended up, I mean, it's the most rewarding mod ever because I ended up with something that's totally OEM that then totally not. That's right. That's right. It's totally OEM. It looks like it's an off the shelf G-Shock. It doesn't have any, you know, a lot of these Seiko mods. It's like, that's cool, but it doesn't look OEM. It looks like a mod. This does not look like a mod. It's just, and it's exactly what I wanted. It's so satisfying to put a watch on that's exactly what I wanted when what I wanted didn't exist. That's, there's something so satisfying about that. This is my weekend watch. I wear this. You wear it a lot. A lot. It's probably top three, top four in my collection in terms of wear time. And I never wear it during the week.
Andrew	Why would you? It would be weird to wear at work. I know you have worn it to work, but it's a little bit weird.
Everett	So that I think is the coolest G-Shock you can get today.
Andrew	That's a good pair or it's a good watch to wear with Parrot Romeos. We have to go into the field as it were. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that I'd wear it into the field, but not army field and if like field working.
Everett	Yeah, maybe. I mean, you mean like working field?
Andrew	Yeah. Like a site visit or something?
Everett	Yeah, site visit. Yeah.
Andrew	I certainly wouldn't wear it to court.
Everett	I wear a dive watch on site visits.
Andrew	That's suitable. Yeah. The Bok Tok.
Everett	Bok Tok or the AMW 320. There it is. Yeah. Another Casio. Another great vintage Casio. So, anything else you have to say about G-Shock?
Andrew	I don't. I love this brand. I loved it before. I loved it about the same after. Got a couple of cool factoids about it. Got to peruse a whole lot more G-Shocks than I'd seen before. I can't believe how many watches they have. That's the most shocking thing to me, is that they're still viable with almost 200 active lines.
Everett	Between 220 and 150 new SKUs every year. So between 150 and 220 new SKUs each year. So when they do that, we're talking new SKUs and they discontinue some? Yeah, I assume so. I assume so.
Andrew	So what I glean from that is you got to buy them all. Every year you got to buy them all because they're gone. You won't be able to get them again. Like Pokemon. Yeah. Catch them all.
Unknown	Get them all.
Andrew	And for the most part, they're super affordable until you start getting into, you know, the, the Mr, the Mr. G, right?
Everett	The MRGs. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And, uh, and some of the Master G, you know, the, the master, uh, or the man lines, the mud man, the frog man, the, the $7,400 ones, that makes them pretty,
Andrew	Dope, like transparent looking cases.
Everett	Yeah. Oh yeah. The jelly cases I think are some of my favorites. I'd like to get a clear jelly case 5600.
Andrew	There's just so many cool ones. There's really one to five for everyone.
Everett	That Baby G. That Baby G. I've got a pink Baby G that I really bought for my wife, but I wear it all the time. It's got a jelly case and I love it. I love it. It's super pink. Yeah, it's super pink. And so, uh, you know, sometimes people are like, what, what are you wearing?
Andrew	My pink baby G, what do you want?
Everett	My pink jelly case baby G. Rose all day. And I'm drinking White Claw. Yeah. Biatch.
Andrew	Well, basic.
Everett	Well, good. You know, I think if we could wrap up G-Shock, I think that, uh, you know, it, it, it's impressive. Uh, it's impressive that G-Shock has, managed to do what they've done. But I also think that there's a lot, not, not a small amount of underrated-ness that, that happens with G-Shock. I mean, this is literally the toughest watch on earth.
Andrew	And in space.
Everett	You know, when we, when people talk about, Oh, I need a watch for, for doing this or that. The answer is always G-Shock. The answer always could be G-Shock at least, you know, I need a watch that's going to be attractive with work clothes. That's a stretch, maybe, but $5,600. I need a watch that's going to be inexpensive and good for kicking around on the weekend that also has street cred. $5,600. $5,600. I need a watch that's going to be able to be on my watch 100% of the time in the pool, in the shower, out in the rain, doing yard work. $5,600. I mean, it's, it's literally a watch capable of doing anything. I want to go diving. I want to go to space. I want to, I don't know, be able to survive a zombie apocalypse. Uh, it is the only watch I can think of that does not have a limitation.
Andrew	I might get a 5600 and see how many consecutive days I can wear it regardless of what I'm doing.
Everett	without ever having to take it off. You can put it on your right wrist.
Andrew	Obviously.
Everett	Yeah.
Andrew	That's what I put it.
Everett	Well, I don't know. I mean, I was thinking maybe put it on your left wrist so you can still wear watches.
Andrew	No, I might just, I might just go solo 5600 for a while.
Everett	That's dumb. Is it? Yeah. Sell the rest of your fucking watches because you're never going to have to take it off.
Andrew	I don't know.
Everett	We'll see. Why would you ever have to take it off?
Andrew	I can't. That's what I'm saying. This is a dumb project. See how long I wear it before I have to take it off.
Everett	I'm going to tell you no.
Andrew	I'm going to I'm going to tell you six years later, there's a crusted like I have to have my right hand amputated.
Everett	I never needed to take it off. You're not allowed to do this project. Geez.
Andrew	No, because it's a shock endurance project.
Everett	That's the deal. At some point, the bracelet would break, I think. But until that happened, you'd never I mean, unless you were taking it off, the bracelet's not going to fatigue. You would just wear that fucking thing until you died. We'd bury you in that thing.
Andrew	I would hope so.
Everett	Yeah.
Andrew	I wear it for the next 10 years.
Everett	All right. Other things, Andrew, my man, I know you have more than one, so go.
Andrew	A couple quick ones. First one, we've talked about Big Mouth on the show before. Again, it's not a family friendly show. And when I say it's not family friendly, I mean, I don't mean the kids. I mean, don't watch it with your wife. It's true. I told the story before she came in and I was watching it. And she was like, oh, you don't have to change it. I'm like, oh no, I do. Like, I know you, I know me. I know what you're gonna think of me. I need to change it. But you can watch three minutes. Be quiet. Three minutes roll by. I pause it. Yeah, we're gonna watch something else. I told you, I told you. Season three just dropped. I am ecstatic for some of my alone television watching time. Because I love this show. It is horrifying. Like I said, it's one of the It's the only show I've ever watched. And I was like, Ooh, I'm uncomfortable. Yeah. It makes me uncomfortable sometimes too. You've done it, Nick Kroll. You've done it. Uh, and next up the IAAF championships have been going on for the last week. And I want, I got the chance to watch, I watched some highlights.
Everett	No, now, now stop because these people are not from Eugene.
Andrew	It's the world championships.
Everett	That's right.
Andrew	It's the world track and field championships held every two years.
Everett	What's IAAF? Is that the new watch show?
Andrew	World Track Championships were just going on in Doha, Qatar. Doha. And I was actually really, I was curious to see that it was in Doha. And I, as I was watching today, I was seeing, for those of you who have not watched elite level track and field, women run in little more than a bikini. And I was interested, like I actually, I commented, I commented, I'm surprised that this is happening in Qatar.
Everett	Oh yeah.
Andrew	Uh, that was my, that was my first thought was they're in Qatar. I'm obviously, I know they're not going to be running in, uh, like full body covering, but I was also a little surprised that they were running and not like at least onesies.
Everett	You know, I think professional sports get a pass.
Andrew	Evidently.
Everett	Yeah. Especially in a place like Qatar. I mean, Qatar is a capitalist.
Andrew	But it's still in that region of the world. It's a whole lot more conservative. Sure. I mean, they make a lot of concessions for Westerners to keep Western money pouring in and Western tourism money specifically. But I was just surprised that they weren't in like singlets or some shit.
Everett	Well, there's so much money. I mean, there's so much money involved in that.
Andrew	Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that's that's why people bid.
Everett	Those facilities are beautiful.
Andrew	And I can't wait to see them. So those of you unfamiliar with world track and field championships. Eugene is hosting the 2021 world championships. And I'm pretty excited just to be in the city while it's occurring.
Everett	Not to mention the, the, um, Olympic trials are going to be, that's going to be the debut event for our new Hayward field.
Andrew	And it's looking good. I drove by it the other day just to check on it. It's looking good.
Everett	Space age stuff.
Andrew	Yeah. Uh, yeah, I, I drive by occasionally just to, just to check up on progress and,
Everett	What races have you been watching? Cause I've been following. I've watched some highlights. If you go to NBC, NBC sports, they've been updating, you know, every day, you know, you can basically watch basically all the big races. So I've been watching as I, as we go, but.
Andrew	So I watched women's hundred meter hurdles today. I watched all the qualifying rounds and then I watched the men's 1500. Uh, and it, I'm just so shocked by these elite athletes. Oh yeah. And, and just in qualifying, uh, like four or five, of the qualifiers set their personal bests.
Everett	I think it's a fast track.
Andrew	Just in their qualifying. The U.S. brought home 29 medals, 14 of the golds, 11 silvers, and only four bronzes.
Everett	The U.S. had a great championship. A great showing. Track and field, I think for us and Eugene, is probably something a little bit different than it is for most of the people in the country, but it's my very favorite. I love football. I love basketball. But besides those two, track and field is my third love.
Andrew	Track and field electrifies the city unlike any other sport.
Everett	Yeah. And football.
Andrew	But not in the same way. Yeah. Not in the same way. It gets electric.
Unknown	That's right.
Andrew	But not the same way that the Olympic trials coming to town does. and I cannot even begin to imagine or even fuck the marathon. When the Eugene marathon runs, it is bigger than the civil war when Oregon state comes down the street to play. So I was in, it's the biggest sporting event that Eugene holds regularly.
Everett	I was in law school for the 2008 Olympic trials and uh, at the time I was running not, not competitively with the capital C, but competitively and uh, you know, go into those trials. Kim and I were trying to find tickets. We finally got tickets, too, but you get, you know, passes basically for the whole day. And it's this whole entire mall, and it's right across the street from the law school. Hayward Field is literally, when you're on the front porch of the law school, it is in front of you.
Andrew	And so this is old Hayward Field, which has been... Yeah, it used to be you could watch events from the second floor.
Everett	We got passes, we go out and there's, there's some fun events happening that day, but in particular, the day's going to end with the 800 meter final. And Oregon gets basically three guys. Through the final. And it was just the most exciting, you know, Nick Simmons was racing extremely well. Um, and it was just this event that we didn't know was going to happen, which happens sometimes in track and field. You don't know. Which races are going to blow up and that 800 meter final was like nothing I've ever seen in my life. I mean, the whole place and 800, it's not a long race. It's about two minutes. It's the worst race ever. And you're, and you're watching not a sprint, but it's not a distance. It's painful. It's painful to do, but you're, you're watching these guys go and. you know, it's dynamic. There's, there's position changes and they come through that last 150 meters starting about middle of the curve and you start to see the fields thin out and then you see the kicks and oh my God, it was the most dynamic electric thing I've ever seen in person. And it was a buzz. It was a buzz. You look to your left, you look to your right and everybody is buzzing. It was incredible. One of the coolest events of my life. Yeah. I'm excited for track and field. If you don't watch it, you should watch it. It's fucking cool, man. Yeah. I'm really surprised that we're not so diamond league is, is starting to pick up and become cool. Uh, but it's slower than I'm, I'm, I'm a little surprised that track and field hasn't gotten more of a following. I think the YouTube, the YouTube angle, the YouTube pivot is going to be, is going to be big for track and field.
Andrew	I think it'll help. I think part of the, uh, It's chaotic in that it's totally chaotic. You don't know what events are going on at what times. There's 40 different events associated with track and field and it doesn't have the same. It's hard to get behind a team the same way it is, but any other sport like you can, I don't, well, I don't understand cricket at all. No, me either, but I kind of like watching it. That's, that was the first sport that came to mind that I didn't know any of the rules.
Everett	I think it's the most popular sport in the world.
Andrew	I think soccer is.
Everett	Oh yeah. I think you're right. But, but second only to soccer.
Andrew	Yeah. I, and I, I could buy that, but I don't, I don't understand the rules.
Everett	Per person because it's popular in India.
Andrew	Yeah. Yeah. I don't understand the rules. I don't know how it works, but I kind of like watching it and you can get behind a team. You can, you can see a team kind of coming together and an individual sports, unless people are like beating the shit out of each other, It's kind of hard to enjoy an individual sport. Sure. Maybe that's part of that.
Everett	I know. I mean, I love tennis. Love it. OK, I've got another thing. Do it. I don't think I've ever talked about this on the show, but I'm always blown away by how cool this thing is. So Anchor is a company I know we've talked about. A N K E R. They're available on Amazon and I think increasingly other places. But Anchor is a Chinese company. They are priced like a Chinese company. So if you want anything electronic. If you want Bluetooth headphones, if you want a Bluetooth speaker, if you want a car, a car USB, you know, a cigarette lighter, they make the best. Power banks. They make the best. That's what we've talked about on the show before is the power bank. But I've got a Bluetooth speaker. Mine is the Anker Soundcore 2. And this thing, it's kind of got a grippy rubber texture on it. It's solid. It's small. It's about the same size as the Jabra version. And it costs $35. I think that the Jabra version is like $150-ish. That sounds right. And people love it. It's Bluetooth connection. My Anker Soundcore 2 was $35. I've had it for three years. I use it almost every day. And here's where I use it. I put it on the top of my shower door. Oh, yeah, there's like an aluminum frame on my shower. And I set it up there. And so it gets steam and splash and wet. And it has never hiccuped.
Andrew	I charge it every couple of days because I'm only using it for, you know, 45 to 60 minutes a day when you shower less than that.
Everett	Right. Yeah. So, you know, a half hour ish, you know, I'll put on Scottish watches or whatever or Bellingham podcast or whatever is, you know, next up in my queue. and get in the shower. It's been through it, man. I mean, short of using it poolside, I don't think you could use this thing a lot harder than I've used it. We have used it poolside. And we have used it poolside, literally in Mexico. I mean, it is insanely good. It's insanely good. The quality of the sound is fantastic. It's everything I would expect. I've had other Bluetooth speakers that I did not love as much in terms of sound. It's fantastic, and I don't think we've ever talked about it on the show, and I just thought if you're looking for a Bluetooth speaker, something to connect to your phone to give you a little bit better than phone audio.
Andrew	Much better than phone audio.
Everett	It is what you should buy. And I don't say that lightly. It is the one you should buy. Just buy it. Just buy it. Even if you don't think you need a Bluetooth speaker, actually just buy this.
Andrew	You'll soon find out that you need
Everett	You know, there's and so we're not sponsored. Obviously, I'm not getting paid to say this. There's a there's I think it's called the Cove. There's a Bluetooth speaker that all these YouTubers pimp because Cove is they give out sponsorships. I've never used it. I don't know what it is. I know it's more expensive than the anchor, and I know that the anchor is better. Boom. I know it's better. Has to be better. Anchor Soundcore. The one I have is the two. I think they may have a newer version by the newest version you can. It's fantastic.
Andrew	America.
Everett	Do you have anything else?
Andrew	I don't.
Everett	I don't think I have anything else either. So I guess we should wrap. It's time. All right. Well, thank you for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20. Check us out on Instagram at 40 and 20. My apologies. We haven't updated very much lately. That's all me.
Andrew	It's been a hard couple of weeks.
Everett	Also, if you'd like to support what we do here, please check us out at Patreon.com slash 40 and 20. Don't forget to tune back in next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like.
Unknown	Bye bye.