Episode 6: The Nato Strap Episode

Published on Thu, 06 Dec 2018 00:16:00 -0800

Synopsis

This is a transcript of a podcast episode where the hosts discuss various topics including watches, NATO watch straps, conservation, and other interests. They talk in detail about different qualities and brands of NATO straps, comparing inexpensive ones to premium options. They also discuss an article about declining insect populations and the importance of conservation efforts. Overall, it is a casual conversation covering their hobbies and perspectives.

Links

• episode page
• episode MP3
• episode webpage snapshot
• episode MP3 - local mirror

Transcript

Speaker
Everett	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. Thanks for joining us. Everett, how are you? I'm really good, man. It's been a long day. It has been, but dude, talk about a perfect Saturday. I woke up this morning late, not late because it's the weekend. We slept in, all of us, dogs, baby, wife, me.
Andrew	Slept in. You've got children. So what's the sleeping in look like? Eight.
Everett	I got out of bed at eight o'clock this morning. Damn, son. I typically get out of bed at 530. So this was like sleeping in, right? Like, what am I wasting the day? I know, right? We got up. We had a fresh pot of coffee because we have the programmable. When do you brew your coffee pot? It was ready for you. Oh, it was ready to go. It had been ready for a while because he doesn't sleep in. Apparently he was tired this morning. So we got up, we had breakfast, we went to a Christmas tree lot. What'd you have for breakfast? Uh, so he had oatmeal with blueberries.
Andrew	Your son did?
Everett	Yeah. He wanted pancakes, but we were out of syrup. Nothing's not happening. I was like, dude, I get that you want pancakes. Cause he calls them pancakes. Pancakes. I get that you want that, but there's no syrup. So you need to pick something different. And he said he wanted oatmeal with blueberries.
Andrew	You know, my kids both call the iPad an iPad. I call it a my pad. iPad. Which sounds to me like some sort of online, uh, annual exam. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Keep going.
Everett	That does it. And that for some reason, that's where my head went to also. IPAP. And it must be because of the PAP version of it. I don't know why they call it that, but yeah. Cause they're kids. They're kids. Kids are dumb. Anyway, we went to the Christmas tree lot and picked out a Christmas tree.
Andrew	Grand Noble.
Everett	I don't know. Green tree. Christmas variety. Cause it was raining. So we didn't want to cut down a tree. so and protect the earth the tree's been cut down yeah which i guess is fair it's like i i might as well go get one since or like from a tree that lot that's already been cut down rather than go cut down an additional tree yeah so there's that one got a christmas tree came home went and did an escape room which was super cool i've never done one before my wife's birthday is in september um and every couple of years it falls in the last week of elk hunting season for Oregon's bow season. And that's the best time to hunt in Oregon. And that's when me and my hunting partners like to hunt. So we take that week off. We leave on Friday night, sometimes Thursday night, go hunt for the week. Unfortunately, this year fell on a Monday, no, on a Sunday when they, so they'd already been up there for a couple of days. So we now on those years, we'll celebrate my wife's birthday a little bit later. You've got a very patient wife. Yeah, she's terrific. And she will listen I'm for sure listen to this episode at least past this point I can't say for the whole thing, but she will listen this point babe. I love you. You're terrific Happy birthday in December though your birthdays in September.
Andrew	Well, it's it's better though because then you come home with They you know the meat that you have for the year, right?
Everett	Nope A lot of really great memories But the benefit of hunting that last week is you're getting like really heavily into the rut when and And the the type of hunting that we do is is we we call for elk Where you go in and you mimic? Another adult male elk and what you're trying to do is provoke this other Thousand there's not other thousand pound animal because I'm not a thousand pound animal you're trying to provoke this thousand pound animal with 200 or more inches of antler Like hanging off his head to come and fight you. So it's exciting. It's fun.
Andrew	You know you're challenging borderline suicidal because you're not armed with With a firearm. No, you're armed with a with a bow and arrow I mean, could you shoot something like five feet away from you? What if what if he was coming in hot?
Everett	He's coming in hot.
Andrew	Would you just die?
Everett	Well, it depends if he's coming in straight at me. I'm probably in a little bit of trouble. I But yeah, I mean, there, there's plenty of dudes. So this year, one of my hunting partners was all of three feet away from a, probably a one and a half year old elk. He just kind of worked his way. He came in a direction we didn't plan on him coming and he was nose to nose with this young elk. And we can't do anything about it because there's no angle to shoot. And when you're bow hunting, you got to be really, really deliberate about your shot placement and opportunities so uh he got a cool experience out of the deal and i had a couple cool experiences elk that were very close but they just didn't offer me an opportunity to eat them right right right um so anyway we did the escape room which was super cool i've never done one before we in fact escaped the transitions on this show are phenomenal oh we're raw and that's okay so we did the escape room it was cool we got out uh it was this For those of you who haven't done one before, I'm sure there's one in your area. They're absolutely worth it. It's a fun hour long puzzle where you have to collaborate with the people that we went in a group, obviously it wasn't a bunch of strangers. So there was six of us in this group who all know each other. And we, I didn't get an invite. No, he did not next time. Just you and me. I'll go. They have one that they said like 10% of people who do it in a pair accomplish it. I think we're both smart enough. We could get out anyway.
Andrew	We went in this group of six. I did a New York Times crossword once.
Everett	In pen? Nope. The Sunday edition? Sure didn't. I didn't actually do it. I've never been able to finish one, but either way. So we did this. We did the escape room. It was a lot of fun. I highly recommend them. It's just a fun way to spend an hour. Yeah. And then I went to a work party where I learned to play craps because there was this mobile Like casino team, they're like this entertainment group in the area who do mobile casinos. Like for parties or whatever? Yeah, for parties. So they showed up, they brought some craps tables, some roulette tables, some blackjack, Texas Hold'em. I mean, you're run-of-the-mill casino games, so I learned to play craps. So now I think I can play craps. So you want to go to the casino tomorrow?
Andrew	Let's go to Vegas tonight.
Everett	Flights can't be more than $150, $200.
Andrew	It's like a nine-hour drive. Reno. We could get to Reno in like seven hours.
Everett	Easy.
Andrew	Let's do it.
Everett	Yeah.
Andrew	OK. Wife doesn't expect me home tonight. So thank you for tuning in for this next episode of 40 in 20. We'll see you next week.
Everett	Check out our giveaway. Anyway, so I went to the work party, and now I'm here. And we're drinking good beer.
Andrew	So wait, did you win money?
Everett	No, no, no, no. So they give you funny money. That's what they call it. It's just, I don't even know who was on the face of the bill. But it looked like a Vladimir Putin. It looked like American currency, but with a face I'd never recognize. And it was in thousand dollar increments. So you put the money in and the dollars in their increments were valued at so many raffle tickets. So 500 money was a raffle ticket and we put our raffle tickets in. And since I don't win things out of luck, typically I won nothing. I was on number off from winning a 65 inch television, which would have been cool though. I don't need it, but how big is your TV at home?
Andrew	60. 60? Okay. I don't know how big mine is.
Everett	I think it's... I know nothing about my TV. No, I don't either. My wife bought it for me as a Christmas present while I was in Afghanistan, so she got to enjoy it for several months before I got home.
Andrew	Have I mentioned your wife is a smart woman? She's the best. And patient.
Everett	And patient. And the best. Yeah, she's pretty awesome. All right. And we're drinking really good beer.
Andrew	We're drinking good beer. From my favorite brewery in Eugene. I think my favorite brewery in Eugene. So this is, what is this?
Everett	The ill-tempered gnome winter ale. Is the G silent?
Andrew	Well, I mean, we don't have to say it silently. I think it probably is objectively, but.
Everett	I think it should be silent because the name on his little grumpy stand is Gnorm. Gnorm. And norm makes more sense.
Andrew	Norm. Norm, yeah. Norm the ill-tempered gnome. It's definitely a silent G. I mean, there's no question about that.
Everett	I'd like to do some more research into why Gs get silent when they're before an N.
Andrew	Yeah, I don't know. So, Ill-Tempered Norm. This is a winter ale.
Everett	Ill-Tempered Gnome.
Andrew	We got the Deuce Deuce. 6.8. So, we're a fair weight. We're already deep into these 22s. So, it could get weird tonight. Who knows? Could get weird. It may have already gotten weird and you guys just don't know. A lot of stuff happens before we start recording.
Everett	And after.
Andrew	And after. So, this is a beer out of Oakshire Brewing Company and we say this is our favorite brewing company. I don't know that it's our favorite brewing company necessarily because of the beers they make.
Everett	It's the venue, for sure.
Andrew	It's the venue.
Everett	The beer has the edge, I think, but the venue. They've got food trucks outside, so one of the models that the Eugene Breweries do is they have their tap house, and then they lease, I think they lease space. Must be, yeah. To food trucks, and Oakshire has a food truck called Buck Buck. B-U-C-K, B-U-C-K.
Andrew	And I think it's onomatopoeia. I think it's like, I think you're right. I think it is. Yeah. Buck, buck, buck. Although no one says it that way. I'm going to say it from here on out.
Everett	We'll be the only assholes in town calling it that. The first time I heard about it, I was like, what did you just say? I'm not going there.
Andrew	What is that? So buck, buck. We've talked about chicken a number of times. We're going to continue to talk about chicken. Because we're powered by fried chicken. Fried chicken is the fuel of 40 and 20. Right? A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I mean, and if we haven't had fried chicken, if you ever notice there's a bad episode, you're like, that one sucked, guys. It's probably because it's been too long since we've had wings or some other form of fried chicken. A week at least. Yeah. Oh man. I don't, I often times go more than a week, but it makes me feel, I go into deep bouts of depression.
Everett	I had the, I had the, uh, not Atlanta wet, um, the shit.
Andrew	It's that other town in the South called Nashville.
Everett	No, no, no. I had the lemon pepper chicken that I talked about last week. I had that last week also. Ooh.
Andrew	Someone hit us up about the binging with Babish chicken that you talked about. That's what I'm talking about.
Everett	Yeah. It's so good. If you guys have, if you've not done it yet and you regularly cook at home, do it.
Andrew	I haven't done it yet. In fact, I thought about it the other day, but I wanted to do it for dinner. And so it was like three o'clock.
Everett	Oh, yeah, you got it. That's the problem with it. You got a full day.
Andrew	You got to plan a day in advance because you have to give it that baking powder rub. But toss. Yeah. Fifteen to twenty four hours ahead. Right.
Everett	Yeah. I did it a full like probably 20 hours. And I can't say what 12 hours does. Maybe that maybe I'll do that. Maybe I'll try like a 12 hour anyway. So buck buck. Nashville hot chicken, baby.
Andrew	oh boy they have more than that but the Nashville hot chicken is why we go I think they've got a number of different fried chicken dishes but it is the Nashville when I think about buck buck I think about Nashville hot so if you haven't had it Nashville hot is a form of fried chicken and it's just fried chicken folks but it's not because it's it's a specific very specific finishing on it and I think the best way to do Nashville hot is a dry wet dry pre-cook you know where you use dry material a wet material the dry material back on top of that so you get this really thick sort of crunchy crunchy and and we andrew and i usually use panko i don't think you have to i think you can do it with just a flour dredge you fry it just like you'd fry fried chicken we we use uh uh at my house we use a dutch oven i think some people have a fry daddy i don't know what you use but i just use a deep um
Everett	Like straight edged saucepan.
Andrew	Yeah, I think that's a good way to do it too. So you fry it and then the key to Nashville hot fried chicken is what you do immediately afterwards. You take the fried chicken out, you let it cool for just a second and then you dredge it in a mixture of half lard, half butter that's been melted on low over a saucepan. That butter lard mixture gets into the really crispy breading. gets everything wet, it goes straight from that to a mix of peppers. Crushed, dried, powdered peppers. Cayenne, chili powder, the hottest shit you got in your cupboard. And so that dry, those dry hot peppers soak into that butter lard mixture and it becomes insanely melt your brain, melt your butt hot. Yeah, burn your butt hot. Burn your butt hot. Burn your butt hot.
Everett	Yeah, and that's a repercussion that I'm willing to accept, but I can tell you. Me too. First time we went to Buck Buck. We do it all the time. Yeah, regularly. First time we went to Buck Buck, the guy's like, well, it's pretty hot. I was like, well, what do I look like to you? Like, don't insult me. Give it to me. It's hot. It was hot. My hairline, though it's sneaking back, got a little sweaty. It didn't melt my face though. No. It was a little hot on the back end.
Andrew	It makes me sweat. It makes me sweat right on the top of my head. Uh, I don't know why. That's a weird thing. It's the only spicy. I eat a lot of spicy food. It's the one thing Nashville hot makes me sweat right on the top of my head.
Everett	Mine's just the hairline and then a little bit on the lip and you make sure you can't touch your eyes. Don't touch it. Um, so anyway, after they do that, after they dredge it, they give it a little honey drizzle. Oh yeah.
Andrew	They put it on the white bread, the cheapest white bread you can find. Oh, it's wonder bread. It's not even wonder bread. Wonder bread is way too nice. You're getting the like, the like Bond's brand, two day old. Oh, it's so good. Forty cents a loaf.
Everett	And that oil soaks into it, the honey drizzle soaks into it.
Andrew	If you have like a bakery outlet in your town, go there and get the cheapest white bread they have there.
Everett	It might be free. Yeah. Or a loaf, like five loaves for five cents. Get that, throw some dill pickles on it. Now, I'll tell you, I found some pickles and I forget who makes them, but the flavor is called Devil's Spit and holy shit. They are spicy and they are so damn good. I made pulled pork this week.
Andrew	Devil's spit peppers. Devil's spit pickles. Are they famous dates?
Everett	Oh, maybe. I don't remember the brand. Oh my gosh, they're so good. Especially on pulled pork because pulled pork needs some pickles to them. Oh man, they're good. I cannot imagine how good they'd be on a Nashville hot. Another time we've had that Nashville hot there, you can tell where they are in their spice mixture for the day. Like how late in the afternoon they are. Yeah, like how settled that heat is because damn, we had it one time that I couldn't finish it. It was so hot. Yeah. I, I immediately had sting ring immediately. Like I went home and, and begun the sting ring journey.
Andrew	Where's that from? Sting ring is a thing, is a term we use here too, but I don't know what that's from.
Everett	I don't know, but you can imagine what it means for the, I'm not going to explain it. If you don't get it, you ought not to get it. And for those of you who are enjoying the new definition to the experience that you've had, you're welcome. Sting ring. Yeah.
Andrew	So Nashville hot. So to bring us back to the beer we're drinking, that is the reason we like Oakshire Brewing Company.
Everett	I think, I think for me, I'll go there over any brewery in Eugene. Yeah. Because of Buck Buck.
Andrew	You know, their beer's really good too. I mean, they make their, uh, I think they have their Otis. No, that's Minkowski. Or not Otis. They've got their, uh, Overcast. Overcast. Overcast Espresso Stout, which is super duper good.
Everett	They partner with Wandering Goat for that, don't they? Oh, maybe. Yeah, I was wondering.
Andrew	I could be wrong. So there's a local coffee roaster. They do sort of single origin sourced beans from, you know, look guys, we live in Oregon. We live in Eugene, Oregon. Right. So, I mean, shit gets real here. Lots of hipsters, lots of dreadlocks, lots of organic coffee, single origin from Peru.
Everett	They've got one. Madagascar. Gosh, I wish I could remember the name of the coffee farm, but it's an all woman owned. Either way, my wife buys it every once in a while, and it's all Peruvian, woman-owned, coffee farm, women employees, and man, it's super light, it's super earthy. It almost reminds me of the mushroom coffee that you can get from like, so like Trader Joe's has single pack, single serve dried instant coffee that has mushrooms also ground and dried into it. Is it coffee or mushrooms? It's both. So it's coffee with ground, like dried ground mushrooms in it. and that earthy flavor. You wouldn't identify it as mushrooms, but it is so good. It just tastes dirty and earthy. I dig that flavor. I love mushrooms. I love liver, those really minerally, really earthy flavors. They do it for me.
Andrew	Yeah, not me. Liver doesn't do it for me. I've had liver and onions before that were really good, but I'm not a big liver fan. Uh, my coffee, I really like a super bright, acidic coffee. I really like Ethiopian coffees. Uh, there's a, uh, Ethiopian coffee called Sadamo, which is a type of bean. It's by, I mean, it's my favorite. If I ever see Sadamo, I'm getting it. It's got this really sort of rich, acidic, you know, bright flavor. I dig that. So I dig more sort of acidic flavors. Sounds like you dig a little earthy, dark.
Everett	leather tobacco dirt give it to me so what do we talk about on 40 and 20 coffee chicken life and other things we like we can exclude watches today you know what we're not talking about watches today at all no not at all we're not gonna do it guys you heard it here first hot take what are we gonna talk about i think today we're gonna talk about watch straps watch straps and not any watch straps nato's specifically we might touch on some leather we might touch on some some other varieties because that's But the pass-through style strap. Today, we could even exclude the jangly SKX Jubilee.
Andrew	I don't know if it's episode of 40 in 20 if we don't talk about the jangly SKX Jubilee.
Everett	But now we've done it, so we can move on. Moving on. And we can talk about canvas, seatbelt, NATO, a little bit of leather. First, why don't we talk about... We'll move up in price. Why don't we start at our run-of-the-mill, five pack for 12 bucks or maybe just a strap for 12 bucks cheap natos that we've got sitting in front of us and we've both done this we've both done the five pack for the four pack or five pack for a handful of dollars we have and i talked about last week how we wanted to how my goal was to just buy all those bitches up just buy a bunch of those twelve dollar fourteen dollar fifteen dollar straps try them all so i could say hey y'all If you gotta buy one strap and it's gotta be 12 bucks, this is the one. And you've made a decision. I've changed. I am converted after having worn this Toxic for exclusively for the last two weeks. I don't think I haven't worn any other watches for the last two weeks. Just my Mako on this Toxic NATO. And I will tell you, if all you can afford is a $12 watch strap, keep saving, bro. Keep saving, sweetie. Save those cans. Turn in the cans. If you're in Oregon, you get a 10 cent deposit. If you're in Hawaii, you get a 10 cent deposit. Most places it's five. Save the cans, save the bottles. We'll crack another beer here in a minute. If you need us to send them to you, we will. No, we won't. Save your cans, save your bottles, save the extra 12 bucks. Get into NATO's at this $28, $32, $30 price point from any of the NATO strap companies we're going to talk about. even though they're not officially NATO straps because that is a registered trademark of International Watchmen and they have to include that at the bottom of their webpage. What is that? What is that thing? I don't know the entire story but the bottom line is this fella owns NATO and he owns NATO G10 as a registered trademark globally so any company selling a NATO branded as a NATO or a NATO G10 which comes from the It was the form number that the British military had to fill out to request these straps. Their NSN number or whatever. Yeah, their stock number for it. It was the G10 98, 94, something like that. Shortened to the G10, took on the name for it. Anyway, this fellow registered the trademark, which makes me want to now register trademarks for all kinds of things. It starts suing people, buying all kinds of domain names to get them bought. I have a business idea that I know people are ahead of me for. But I'm going to get into it. I'm going to start buying all kinds of politicians, so-and-so for president, domain names. Warehousing them.
Andrew	Oh, man. Domains aren't expensive. Nope. Nope. I mean, I think they can be a little bit expensive, but you're not hosting or anything. You're just buying the words.
Everett	Just buying the domain. And then when they run for president, I can get... I wonder what I could get for it.
Andrew	I've got MileyCyrus.com already. I don't. That's probably worth a lot of money, MileyCyrus.com. Yeah, it's a hannahmontana.com. Ooh, I think I think that's probably 20 20 32 hannah montana For president.
Everett	Yeah roseanne bar for president I bet you know what? I I bet you I bet if we were to go on oprah winfrey for president is already purchased Oh, no, it is for sure a hundred percent.
Andrew	We haven't even checked.
Everett	I guarantee it is Yeah, so we need to find the next person arnold for president. He might amend get the constitution amended You think?
Andrew	Nah, I don't think so. Nah. Yeah, I don't think so.
Everett	Anyway, save up your money. We're going to talk about some of these watch straps. And there's some, you know, honestly, you're going to get some of these inexpensive NATOs that are, that are good quality, but frankly, you're getting what you pay for. And, and if you go into that, that $10 more, you're getting so much higher quality, so much more comfortable, so much more thoughtful product that I, I have changed my tune about
Andrew	How about the hunt for a $12 NATO? Well, so we've both done these sort of bulk packs. I started with a cheapest NATO strap. They do a five pack, a starter pack, and I got the five. I don't remember the colors. It was like black, green, red, white, and blue. I think there was a blue and red, and I think there was a bond NATO too. So black, olive drab, red, white, and blue, blue and red, red, white, and blue five.
Everett	a blue and red three and then a bond you know that that gray not not the true bond but the gray and black bond which was only recently discovered to not be the true bond which means that the the bond that everyone imagines is the real bond the one with the green and red who cares that's not the real bond i think it is the real it's not though i i think i think you might be wrong on that we're back in the discussion of language evolution and even though phenomena and phenomenon mean the reverse in current language as to what they actually mean. That's what they are now. And my wife and I fought about this. Fought.
Andrew	Fought. Here we go. You heard it here first. Fought.
Everett	It's happened. We fought about this before. Frankly, she's right. Even though I'm technically right, she's the right one. Yeah. Well, have we mentioned that she's infinitely patient and wonderful?
Andrew	Yeah, no, I think, I think that's very, that's well established at this point. Okay. Back to watch straps. Watch straps. So we've actually got a cheapest NATO strap in front of us. We've got a couple of these, these cheaper sort of lower end NATO straps. And I'll say for my part, I pulled out this black, pure black, cheapest NATO strap. This is their, you know, whatever their run of the mill basic NATO is. And I wear this thing a lot and I'm going to continue to wear it. Part of the reason I wear it is because it's black and I found a black NATO on most watches is a really good look. Most watches that you might wear a NATO on, they just look good on it. They look sharp on it. But I think that's the color more than anything. And I tend to think that just about anything is gonna look good on this, but it doesn't make it a good strap. And this is objectively not a particularly good strap.
Everett	Nor is it particularly poor. I mean, it's a... reasonably well made, durable strap. I mean, I don't know how long you've had that, but you've had it a number of years. Two years. And it's not showing significant signs of wear. It's got pretty minimal imprinting from the spring bars. It's got pretty minimal, um, like flesh deposits on the inside. It doesn't smell bad.
Andrew	I sniffed it earlier. Oh, a white haze, a suspicious white haze.
Everett	I sniffed it earlier. You made a weird face. It doesn't smell bad, which means it's not holding in the odors. It's not frayed, and I know you said you've taken a torch to it a couple times, but you're going to do that with nylon.
Andrew	Yeah, nothing serious. I mean, just normal sort of fiber.
Everett	The holes, they don't look excessively worn, so to have been worn for, I mean, frankly, for $12, to have worn it for more than 30 days, I mean, it's holding up.
Andrew	Yeah, no, I mean, it's good.
Everett	It's not a bad purchase. You're getting what you paid for, though, in the way of hardware quality, in the way of comfort, and in the way of material quality.
Andrew	And the hardware sucks. The hardware's thin, sort of stamped sheet metal. The nylon in and of itself is thin and papery and I think probably overly flexible in a bad way. You know, some of these straps are flexible in a good way. And maybe I'm not, I'm not, uh, able to put this in words, but you know, if you've handled NATO straps, you probably have an idea of what I'm talking about. That, you know, some of these higher end straps, the Haviston or the Shiznit are flexible in a way that's really appealing and nice. This is flexible in a way that's, that's just kind of, it's thin and inexpensive material. Yeah, that's right.
Everett	Yeah. And it works. And I've got a Civo, Civo, C I V O brand, uh, that hasn't been worn.
Andrew	Some sort of no name.
Everett	I mean, just an inexpensive strap, and it's the same thing. It's inexpensive nylon. It's not coarse or rough, but it's not especially comfortable. The edges are a little bit rough finished, like a little bit sharp. The hardware is cheap and flimsy, and you can tell when you touch it that it's not going to hold up to any kind of abuse, but I don't put my watches through much abuse. And if all you have, if it's your bottom $12, and you're choosing to spend it on watch straps. I mean, reconsider your life choices first, but secondly, spend the money. If that's what you need for your bottom 12 is watch straps. I can't advise against it. It's, it's not going to be the best purchase you've ever made, but it's, you're also not going to be disappointed as long as you have in your mind that you're going to get what you pay for. When all you have to do is wait another, you're spending your bottom $12 on watch straps. It might be a little bit, a little bit of time, but if you can find the extra 10 bucks, It's absolutely worth to go into that 20 to 30 to $40 range to be buying one single strap that is going to look good. It's going to feel good. It's higher quality.
Andrew	For someone who's, who's wearing watches in the way that we are, which is, um, you know, with, with some sort of thoughtfulness or, or eagerness about the quality of the products that we wear. Um, I think the space for these straps is, with regards to aesthetics. If you want a purely aesthetic function for your NATO strap, I think the cheapest NATO straps are SIVO, I don't know if you can find these on... On the Amazon. Yeah, probably, right. And that's where you got this. Yeah. If you want that one sort of green and yellow Dux Game Day strap or whatever, and you know you don't care about how nice the strap is, you just want that strap for that I think that this is a really good option. It's the right choice. These are functional. They're going to do everything you want it to do for those two or three days a year you're going to wear it. But outside of that, I don't think it's a particularly pleasant way to wear a watch strap.
Everett	No, I completely agree. And after having worn the Toxic Shiznit exclusively for the last two weeks, like I said, I'm completely converted. I'm no longer on the hunt for the most comfortable $12 strap. I'm telling everyone stop, I mean, buy them if you must, but there's for not much more money, you're getting a so much higher quality, so much more comfortable product. And I think the only one that stands out against that philosophy is that olive drab, heavy duty, uh, clockwork synergy.
Andrew	Yeah. Well, so moving up the, moving up the line, we have actually three straps from that company. We have one of their, basic natos. We have one of their leather natos and then one of their, I think they call them heavy natos or heavy duty natos.
Everett	And I think it's great for what it is.
Andrew	Now Clockwork Synergy is a brand, I think you can find these guys on Amazon.
Everett	Definitely on Amazon. That's where I got my leather strap for 12 bucks and it's not bad. No. Nor is it great. I got what I paid for.
Andrew	These guys are a step up, you know, a step up from cheapest nato from Cevo, if that's even a brand that's a real thing, you know, These guys are a little bit of a step up. They're a little bit more thoughtful. The products are all a little bit better manufactured. But I'll say this, their standard NATO, I've got a gray NATO. I actually wear this quite frequently because it's my one 22 millimeter Admiralty gray NATO, which is just such a perfect classic color. It's a great color. So I wear this all the time, but it sucks. I will say this versus that cheapest NATO strap. The two straps are remarkably similar. They're the same sort of basic hardware functionality. The hardware looks the same. One of these is brushed, one of them is polished. But this is probably twice as much as the cheapest NATO strap. And you can feel the difference in the nylon. The nylon is incrementally better. Not so much better, though, that I think it's worth the extra money. I don't know how much this cost. I think that this was probably a $16 NATO versus cheapest NATO straps, which is a, you know, 12, 7, 8, 9, 10, you know, I, I would not recommend buying that. And the reason is it is a little bit better. You can see, you can look at the ends. The ends are a little bit better. Um, the holes are a little bit better. The hardware is not really any better as far as I can tell. I think it might even be the same hardware. Yeah, it might be. But between those two straps, I don't find the Clockwork Synergy to be enough better to justify the price. It does feel a little nicer. Just slightly. Ever so slightly.
Everett	Could have even been just a different batch of nylon ever so slightly.
Andrew	It's thicker. It's got a little bit better feel. It actually, I'll tell you, wearing watches on it, it suspends the watch head a little bit better. Does it? But outside of that, it's no different. And for the extra four bucks, right? Which is a huge difference.
Everett	And when you're talking about the quality that you're getting? Not worth it.
Andrew	Not worth it. If you want a cheap strap, go cheap with Snetto straps. But really, and I think this is the point, spend a little bit more. Because you're getting so much more. And so Clockwork Synergy also makes this Leathernado you have this is a you know, I think you like this and and it's pretty okay. I Hate it. I think the leather sucks.
Everett	It does but it's pretty okay You could have made me a better strap. I'm sure I could have produced a better strap, but it's pretty okay for 12 bucks It's a little bit stiff. It's a little bit crummy leather.
Andrew	It's plasticky.
Everett	It's not especially comfortable.
Andrew	It does look good I mean hold it up hold it up. It's five foot strap for sure.
Everett	Yeah
Andrew	Absolutely is from five feet away. That looks fantastic. Mm-hmm, but any closer than that and certainly when you feel it the the feel of the the rough side Sandpapery, it's not great. Yeah, but it's pretty okay pretty okay It looks good. It's a beautiful strap from five feet away Yeah, no clockwork synergy does do we've got this this third clockwork synergy strap we have is there They're heavy nato. And this is, uh, I think how you described that material is how I'd describe it is a Zulu material. So it's, they're heavier duty kind of stiff, thick nylon. This is the round keepers, you know, the oval keepers that are, that are, uh, typical of, of what I, what I think of when I think of a, a Zulu strap, although this is a double pastor, I'm not sure why. This strap is sick. I dig it. I don't remember how much it was, maybe 22, 23, 24 bucks.
Everett	Worth every penny. Yeah, it's good. It's heavy. It's showing a little bit of wear, but I know it gets a lot of wear. It's showing a little bit of wear in the holes.
Andrew	Well, I think we've both worn this. I think both of us have worn this exact strap in the field for weeks at a time.
Everett	Both of us. This strap. Not just an iteration of that strap. This very strap we've worn out in the wilderness in demanding and inclement environments.
Andrew	And it actually, it wears the wear well. The strap itself does.
Everett	Yeah, the wear looks good on it. I mean, if it were metal, the patina, but the wear, the aging to it. It's only going to continue to look better. It's fading a little bit. It's just a little bit worn. It's, it's a great, I, I, in, in this line, I don't know of a, of a company that makes a heavy duty field use strap comparable to this.
Andrew	I think there are a few others, but it's, it's, I think as good as any I've seen.
Everett	I mean, if you were to put this on a field watch. I mean, any field watch, you know, one of the titanium, something that, you know, you're not going to bang up and you, you could wear that doing absolutely anything. I mean, my go-to when I'm in an environment where I know I'm going to be really mean to my watch is my, uh, my Timex Ironman. And if I had a titanium field watch and that strap, the Ironman would get the boot.
Andrew	Well, I tell you, you know, I don't know if you'd have to modify it, but I think that strap actually would look sick on an Iron Man if you could figure out a way to modify the Iron Man to take that strap. Uh, you know, I'll say I had the same strap in orange with black hardware. It's a pass. It doesn't work on anything, but I, I've worn this one sort of khaki, uh, British khaki. I think it's closer to it, but, um, I've worn this thing. I've got it on the SKX right now and it looks, it looks Really cool. I've worn this on my Bertucci that titanium b2 bt2 Whatever the they're sort of square boxy It looks good it does not look good on the Mako and we know this because we plugged it into it earlier and I think it's just because of how much more polished the Mako is than the then the skx the skx has the has the slightly matte bezel that
Everett	Just not quite as polished a look. The SKX looks a little bit more rugged than the Mako does. Yeah. And I think we've talked about that. The Mako fitting some people's definition as a dress diver, which I don't agree with. I think it's just a much more polished diver, but it doesn't look good on it.
Andrew	No, it looks like poop on it. So moving down the line, what else? What's next? I think that's really... So we don't have a ton of experience with sort of mid-range NATO straps. And I say mid-range, I think mid-range is what I'd think of as what most people just would call NATOs, right, for a long time. But the industry has progressed or the market has progressed into, you know, this seat belt or premium NATO.
Everett	It seems like you have the $12 NATO, then you have the like $20 to $40, maybe $50 NATO. And then you've got everything else, ranging from 80 bucks to north of 100 to just obscene pricing for natives.
Andrew	150 or so for these omegas, right?
Everett	And never having put my hands on them, I don't know, maybe they're worth it, but I can tell you after having handled a Blue Shark, a Haviston, a Toxic, I mean, that's high. Just like we were talking about with the Jubilees last week, that's a high freaking bar. to reach against how comfortable these straps are, how well made these straps are, the fact that they survive abuse well.
Andrew	You're going to get diminishing returns at some point.
Everett	Yeah, exactly. You're buying a name. You can only get such high quality nylon, right? You can only get so much quality out of your hardware before you've reached the peak.
Andrew	Well, so moving up the line then, we've got a handful of what I'd call premium, you know, for us, at least premium NATOs. We've got, you know, at this point, a handful in our possession, a handful of Haviston. Soon to not be a handful. Yeah. Our collection will go down. You know, did we talk about the giveaway?
Everett	Let's talk about it again. We'll talk about it three, four, five more times.
Andrew	So, you know, we talked about it last week. The giveaway is live. If you're listening to this on Thursday, which you should and if you're not, shame on you. But if you're listening to this on Thursday, you have about 24 hours to get in on the on the giveaway. It'll end at eight o'clock Pacific Standard Time on Friday, the day after this podcast comes out. All you got to do is follow us on Instagram. You probably already are there. Comment on which of the two you like best. We've got two. We've got their sector strap in the A2 layout. We've also got the brand new as of two days ago now, uh, the brand new 1936 B, which is there a variation on their 1936 colorway for the giveaway. Follow us on Instagram. Give us a, give us a like, tell us which, which of the two you like better. We'll enter you into the giveaway. Uh, next Friday we'll pick somebody to get, we'll pick two people to get one of each of these. And again, not me or Everett or Tommy.
Everett	Or Tommy. Cause fuck that guy.
Andrew	Fuck that guy. So, uh, you know, but we've got a handful of these Haviston passthroughs now. Uh, we've got your toxic shiznit. Which I love. Also, if you haven't listened to that song, the shiznit from the fantastic album, Doggy Style. Probably should. Go do it. That's one of the greatest songs of all time. Uh, the shiznit, we've also got a blue star, uh, blue shark, one of their standard NATOs. Natodes. Natodes? One of their standard natodes. Not a seatbelt material. These three, you know, there's a number of really high-level premium natodes. We've got at least these three in our possession, and the amount better these are versus anything else on the table is... I mean, really, it's subjective, but incredible.
Everett	It's so much more than $10.
Andrew	Well, yeah, yeah. Certainly it's worth the $10 that you spend to get them. Yeah. Trying to, we've struggled with this a little bit, trying to discuss or even think about why these are better than a cheapest NATO or whatever. Certainly the hardware is objectively better.
Everett	Oh yeah, without question.
Andrew	You know, it's substantial. It's obviously been forged or machined versus just stamped. But that's a really sort of a minor part of wearing a watch. But I think the structure of them, the way they look, the whole package just wears a lot nicer. And for me as a consumer, a pretty frugal consumer, it's certainly worth it.
Everett	Absolutely. And they are orders of magnitude better. I wore my Shiznit exclusively for the last two weeks. And it has held up like we talked about earlier. You don't see any indentations, any memory in the nylon from the spring bars being in there. I took a gnarly beer bath this week when I was trying to seat a tavern head, the little coupling anchor into a keg to run the beer. I took a gnarly, probably two pints or better beer bath to the face and body. There's no stickiness. I, all I did was rinse it off, dried it off with paper towels and then wore it dry. You smelled it. I smelled it. There's no stanky beer left in it.
Andrew	It's just a higher... I was not excited about smelling it.
Everett	No, because there was... You made me do it. I did, obviously, because I also smelled your cheapest NATO. I didn't make you do that, though. No, I did it on my own accord, and then it obligated you.
Andrew	You picked the cloudy spot on the back with all the skin fibers and... Breathe deep.
Everett	And I did, but there's no residual odor to it. It is... It's softer. The edges are more refined. They're better finished. And obviously, eventually, I'm going to have to take a torch to this and clean up some of the frame, but that's the nature of nylon.
Andrew	Totally. Totally. I mean, nylon is going to fray, no matter what.
Everett	Only thing worth noting with the Toxic versus either the Haviston or the Blue Shark is the shape of the buckle. And the shape of the buckle, you can't really see it in the pictures. It flares out. a little bit more than you'd expect.
Andrew	Not as much as like a Panerai buckle.
Everett	Not quite, but still flares out a little bit. It's a noticeable buckle when you look at it, but after having worn it exclusively for the last two weeks, you don't notice it. No, I don't think it's objectionable either. It doesn't poke, doesn't jab, you don't get any wrist bite. It's not sharp, as we heard on one of Terry's interviews talk about returning it because of how sharp.
Andrew	the the buckle was um that's not a thing and terry's been on two broke watch knobs twice and as we were getting ready for for this episode i think you you were like oh we should listen to that and we did uh you know really interesting to hear him talk about his product he's he's been really thoughtful i mean he he this this fellow terry i don't know him at all i've never i've never met him but he he seems like this sort of purposefully rude or irreverent guy. I think that's probably part of who his personality is. But when he when he starts talking about his product, you can tell he's really thoughtful about it and super passionate.
Everett	And this is a pure passion project for him where he saw a need in the marketplace and felt like he could answer it and does answer it and does.
Andrew	Yeah, I think that's right. And he you know, he's got his Blue Falcon line that he sells on the website for Six money. Six bucks. Is that right? I looked today. I almost bought one. You know, which is a strap that he designed, a strap that he worked with a manufacturer to make. And then when he got them, realized these are not up to snuff. This is not the product I want to be selling. But I've also got a wife who wants me to not have a bunch of unsold product. And so I'm going to sell them. I'm going to call them this sort of rude name and and just let people know, hey, this isn't this isn't a product that I'm comfortable selling. at my prices, so I'm going to sell it below cost to hopefully recover some of my money, but I'm also not going to tell you this is the level of product I want to sell.
Everett	And contextually, the blue falcon, Terry's a veteran, a blue falcon is something mean that you call somebody who's a douchebag.
Andrew	A buddy fucker. It's someone who screws everybody else over.
Everett	Yeah, who goes out of their way to, maybe he doesn't go out of their way, maybe he's just so ignorant or just such an asshole. That they do nothing but ruin everybody else's day, weekend, night. They just ruin other people's lives.
Andrew	I'm thinking of Blue Falcons right now. Like, you guys, we both know.
Everett	I got a couple dozen names that I could just give you right off the top of my head. We know a lot of them. And clearly Terry does too, being a veteran himself. I think it was appropriately named. It was something that just didn't live up to his expectations of his product. And I think really speaks volumes to the Toxic Nato brand that he is not, that he's going to sell product that he brings in, that he's going to sell his wares at a deeply discounted price because they don't meet his level of quality control. And I can tell you that the Shiznit is great. It's terrific. It's comfortable. It's that seatbelt material, which he, he himself expressed some concerns about, about not being as reliable as the nylon that's on a NATO. Um, up to this point, not having had it very long, maybe my opinion will change in a few months. I don't expect it to just because of that upfront quality that I'm seeing and that I felt that I've experienced that I, that I've really put through the ringer this week. I had a shitty week, man. I got, I got wet a lot. I banged up a lot. I got tangled up in a lot of things. It's, I put it through the, I put it through the gauntlet this week and it's, it's held up.
Andrew	You know, we felt both of us, I know having, having had experience with these Haviston straps felt the same way. You know, these things just, um, the, the level of construction on these is superior. I'll say the, the toxic NATO, the shiznit in particular is a very typical NATO strap construction. I think. you know, as between the two of the, you know, these two premium straps we have in front of us, the Haviston versus the Toxic. I lean towards the Haviston, and it's not because of the feel of the material. I probably slightly prefer the feel of the material of the Shiznit. I agree, but that single pass-through. This A2 layout that Haviston is doing for their, for their pass-throughs is superior to anything else I've ever tried in a pass-through, in a pass-through strap. It's a couple things. One, the actual material under the watch head is just a single piece of fabric.
Everett	We need to try out some of the slim versions of Toxic and Blue Shark to get a full opinion of it, but that single pass-through is phenomenal. I love it. It's a break from the traditional NATO, which was meant as a redundancy to not lose your watch on a canvas strap or on a nylon strap.
Andrew	I'm not sure. I'm not sure that I see that there's actually any benefit to that versus versus the Haviston. And there's a couple of things that this Haviston layout has going for it. And the first is just the single piece of fabric under the watch head, which keeps the watch head lower to the wrist. The second is the buckle winds up being a little bit further away from the watch head. You know, looking at these two, the shiznit, the buckle's probably... That's a full inch. two inches and the Haviston, it winds up being a full extra inch further away. The keeper on the Haviston, that second, that upper keeper travels. It's a sliding keeper. Uh, and I don't think they're the only ones that do this, but I think they might be the only ones that do it in this way. And what, what it winds up meaning, you know, having that buckle a little further away, the watch heads closer to centered in the middle of the strap. When you fold the buckle through, you don't have to roll it over. You don't have that. that
Everett	These are meant for some sturdy-wristed dudes. The fold is a full inch of material. I was a little concerned about how bulky it was going to be, but this material is so flexible and so thin.
Andrew	It's not obtrusive at all.
Everett	It's not obtrusive, but it's noteworthy that this is a long-ass strap.
Andrew	The material is so smooth and so slick that it slides through and it's not a problem, but with the Habson, you don't have a bun at all. That sliding keeper, you can scoot it up. It keeps the end of that tag. And I will say my concern with the sliding keeper was that it was going to move when I was wearing it. And so the, the, the tag end was going to fall out of it, or the keeper was going to move either up or down. So you'd have something weird hanging. I haven't experienced that at all. And I've worn this, I've worn this, uh, 1936 A2 quite a bit. I haven't had that happen a single time.
Everett	The way they developed it, the, the tension of that strap being pulled tight against your wrist is what's holding that keeper in place. So if you're wearing like an 80s banker loose strap, like obviously your keeper's going to fall around. Sure. But when it's pulled tight against your wrist, it's your, it's your, the tension that you've naturally created by pulling that watch strap tight, that's holding it in place. And I think that's brilliant.
Andrew	So if you hate the NATO bun, um, the man bun, try one of these Haviston A2s because you don't have that. I mean, it's a really, it's a really simple thing that winds up being, solving a lot of the problems. You know as between and and we haven't talked a lot about it, but but the Haviston Or not the Haviston the blue shark NATO. We don't have a one of their premium lines. We have one of their standard NATO's here Nothing at all special about this about this strap except that it's special, right?
Everett	It is it's it's leaps and bounds ahead of its $12 counterparts and coming in at what 28 bucks 32 bucks maybe
Andrew	Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't even think it was that much. I think I got this thing retail MSRP at $22 or $24, and that's been a number of months ago now. But yes, it's a superior product.
Everett	One thing noteworthy in the Blue Shark is the square holes that complement the buckle. What's that piece of the buckle called? The tang? The tang of the buckle? Is that right? Makes sense. relative to what other tangs in the world are.
Andrew	Did you ever drink that as a kid?
Everett	Tang? Of course I drank tang as a kid. And as an adult, I drank tang mixed in with vodka.
Andrew	Tang screwdriver.
Everett	Yeah.
Andrew	I've never had that.
Everett	You get what you pay for. But those square holes are going to mitigate some of the wear that you see in round holes with a square edge tang. And I think that's a really smart design feature. Then I'm something that I really like and it changes the look a little bit and you're only you. It's it's the same way with glass case backs with exhibition case backs. You're the only person who's going to notice, but he gives a shit. It's you. You're wearing a watch for you.
Andrew	Yeah. You know the one we haven't talked about and we've talked about this in the past, but the the Haviston canvas. Oh, you still have that. I thought Tommy took that. You know, I didn't let him out. He tried to, but he's he's little. He's got skinny wrists. He's those little.
Everett	just birds on the tee wrist i thought i had skinny wrists and then he he ran that skx jubilee up to the up to almost his elbow he's you know he's not a small guy he's taller than me yeah he weighs less than me but he can't weigh but 160 pounds he's a little guy just a little buddy cute sexy double mustache it's good weird
Andrew	Uh, this Haviston canvas, you know, same exact layout as their nylon straps, that A2 layout. Um, I've been really, I've been really charmed by the canvas on this thing. Uh, having worn a number of canvas sort of two-piece straps over the years. I, not a single one that I, that I liked. Uh, this thing, you know, canvas has got a more matte finish than nylon. And so it just looks different. It looks different on the wrist. Uh, I tell you, I've got this thing on a watch that I wouldn't think suited it. No. I've got this still on the Saab O35 and the contrast, I think, between that really sort of polished, not in the sense of shininess, but just sort of really refined look of the Saab head on this matte, really utilitarian canvas. I do have polished hardware on this thing, which was a choice. I talked to Alex about, you know, what was more popular, the polished or the brushed, and he said, you know, by far, brushed is more popular. The polished hardware on this canvas, on this SARB head, the whole thing is, it looks like it was meant to be this way. It really does. Super surprising to me. You know, it's not a really, it's not a really intuitive combination.
Everett	Which is the beauty of straps, of NATO straps specifically, of pass-through straps. You can completely change the character, the personality, the feel of a watch.
Andrew	In about 12 seconds.
Everett	At best. If it takes you 12 seconds to change a watch strap, you suck.
Andrew	Maybe you've been drinking beer all night.
Everett	Yeah. We should do a competition. Get hammered and see who can get the most NATOs through. I'm in. Is that all we got for NATOs? I think so. How about the other things that we like?
Andrew	Well, so first, I've got a couple of corrections before we get into other things. One, from last week, we talked about a good friend of the show, A.J. Barsay, and his new magazine, Analog Explorer. I mispronounced his name. It's particularly embarrassing because I've heard him say his name on his own podcast, The Bellingham Podcast. I've heard him say his name a number of times at this point. So, A.J. Barsay. A.J., I'm sorry. We're sorry. I made the mistake. We'll get it right from here on out.
Everett	I'm also sorry even though I didn't do it. Well, you probably said it.
Andrew	No?
Everett	I'll have to listen again, but I don't think I did. I'd like it if we could share the blame. I mean, I'm taking 50% of the blame here. 30% of the blame because Tommy was here too.
Andrew	Yeah, 33. I did get his magazine. Analog Explorer came out this week. It's signed. It's beautiful. Andrew and I both took a look at it this afternoon. Really, it just showed up this afternoon. And it's beautiful. We've never met AJ in person. We've talked to him online, but looking through his magazine, he's got a young, he's got a toddler. He talks about his toddler. He's into Seiko modding. He shoots with these analog cameras. He's just our kind of people.
Everett	And he's from the upper left.
Andrew	He's our kind of people, man. I think at some point we're going to have to make a trip up to Bellingham. Tragedy. Uh, we did get Analog Explorer and we did mispronounce his name. Uh, but so shout out to AJ. Sorry for screwing it up, dude. And your magazine's terrific. Terrific. Correction number two, we mistakenly referred to the cream dial SNK watch as the SNK 805. The cream dial is the SNK 803. The 805 is the green dial. Uh, we don't own a green dial SNK. We can blame this on Tommy, right? I think so. Yeah, that's definitely Thomas Fong. He's an asshole. Yeah, so right. There's a number of these SNK iterations. We have an SNK-809, which is a black one. I have a black one. Andrew's got the SNK-803, which is the off-white cream dial. SNK-805, which we mistakenly shouted out on this show, is the green dial. We don't have one.
Everett	Nope. Looks cool, though. Looks cool? It'd be really great on that Haviston campus. yeah no i i think that i think it would fit right in on that so other stuff i sent you an article early in the week did you read it yes i read it and it was and my hesitation was that when i think of reading an article i think of just sitting down quick reading it but this was a this was a you've called it long form and it was it was no joke of an article it's a 15 minute read um talking about the The insect apocalypse I think what's the title the insect apocalypse is here insect apocalypse is here.
Andrew	It's a New York Times article I think it came out about a week ago now And and it's it certainly is what what I'd refer to as long-form It'll take you a couple minutes. This is probably a to poop article.
Everett	Yeah, two trips. Yeah, or just one long trip Certainly not a Nashville hot trip.
Andrew	No, right so You know, I actually was drawn into this article because of the cover art, which is beautiful. It really is. It's this sort of like mid-century style drawing of insects. But the article itself is fascinating. It's sort of an examination on the global reduction in insect levels. And it reaches quite a bit further than that, I think, in its context. It starts off with a dad who's noticing as he's riding on a, I'm imagining a bike path, but maybe it's a mountain path, I'm not sure, with his child and realizing he's getting less bug activity in his face than he did at some time in the past and is curious about, you know, where did the bugs that I used to get in my eyes or teeth or whatever go? And that sort of sets it up. The gist of it is, you know, we as a culture have not done a very good job about being aware of insects. Our scientists haven't tracked insects. One of the cool, one of the best lines of the article is insects are lesion. I'm paraphrasing. Insects are lesion and inconspicuous. You know, there's a ton of them and we don't really think about them. And it turns out that our scientific community hasn't thought about them. The way we track animals has not included insects, and we maybe should have because it turns out we might have a big problem.
Everett	Yeah, and as a self-proclaimed conservationist, as somebody who really cares about biomass and specifically large mammals, more specifically in North America, I am very aware of As somebody who I really like to listen to, I like to read his work, a fellow named Steve Rinella, I don't know if he coined the term or phrase, but it's charismatic megafauna. These large mammals that everyone recognizes and everyone has an opinion on. Everyone cares about wolves, everyone cares about grizzly bears, everyone cares about elk, deer, coyotes, whatever you have, these really recognizable large mammals in North America that we're really in tune with. We're really in tune with and we care a lot about them. And there's a lot of dollars being put to it, whether it be through conservation dollars federally or through through through state dollars, whether it be through Pittman Robertson or Dingell Johnson. I know that those two guys, they should not have been the dudes to pair up on it. You said Dingell Johnson. I know. And there it's it's a terrific initiative. where it's self-imposed excise taxes on sportsmen, outdoorsmen, self-imposed taxation through firearms ammunition, and this is not meant to be a political podcast.
Andrew	No, and this is as political as we're ever going to get, right? I mean, hopefully, this is as political as we're ever going to get, but we are both, Andrew and I, are both very, very motivated conservationists. Absolutely. And you know, I think that in and of itself is a progressive stance to take. But I think that no matter which side of the fence you're on, you know, if you like this administration, the last administration, it doesn't matter. Conservation, earth conservation is important. And if that is not okay, I guess that's a right. Bye, we don't want you. But You know, in terms of being political, this is about it for us. But this is important to us.
Everett	It is. And because we are both people who routinely exercise and take advantage of our opportunity to recreate on public lands, which is almost entirely funded by people who already do that. By Dingell Johnson. By Dingell Johnson or by Pittman Robertson and they're absolutely things, if you're not familiar with them, look them up because they will likely change your opinion on outdoor recreating, sportsmen, whether it be hunting or fishing or recreational shooting or the purchasing and acquisition of firearms, ammunition, they're self-imposed excise taxes that go right back into the federal bank that get distributed to states. And if they don't get used by the states, they go into, uh, migratory waterfowl wetland type preservation projects. And they are absolutely critical to our, to our ecosystems in the United States. And I read an article a couple months ago. I wish I, I wish I had pulled it up today. I didn't know we were going to talk about this. But basically the whole premise of the article was examining the biomass ratios on the planet and basically post-industrial revolution human biomass and livestock biomass are increasing while all other biomasses are decreasing even though human biomass and... So there's more people, more cows, more pigs, more chickens and less of Everything and even though we're just a drop in the bucket in terms of biomass We are the only biomasses that are thriving And if thriving is even the right word, and I think that that's what I mean really this article is Well, it's a couple things one. I think it's probably a little Alarmist but sometimes alarmist is is what it takes to get people's attention.
Andrew	You know, the title is the insect apocalypse is here What is it? Is that right? Yes, the insect apocalypse is here That is just an alarmist title, and they didn't bury the lead, obviously. But with that, really the article is about, hey, we've got less insects, which also means we have less of everything else. And alarmist or not, there's some of the stuff that has been hidden, right? Why weren't we able to see that there was fewer insects? The reason we weren't able to see there was fewer insects is because nobody wants to see insects. Uh, you know, if you, all I know is there's a trail of ants in my kitchen and I'm not pumped about it. And that's the thing that's important to me. Well, it turns out there's, you know, maybe 60 times fewer ants in my backyard. Uh, they're just all in my kitchen. And, and so these things, you know, uh, I, I thought the, the, The most interesting part of the article was, you know, looking back, they realized we didn't know this was happening because nobody's looked at insects. We haven't looked, our scientific community hasn't looked at insects and even just sort of the greater community in general hasn't, hasn't noticed insects. It took a amateur group of entomologists and to caveat that the article is sort of sensitive to these quote unquote amateurs. because really these are sort of our international experts. But it took this amateur group of entomologists in, I think, a town called Krefeld in Germany, which I'm probably pronouncing wrong, whatever. Bruschetta. Bruschetta. This group of folks who care. They care. Not only do they care, but they're experts. They are the experts. And it took this group of folks that have been cataloging insects over the course of a hundred plus years. And maybe they were one of the only groups in the world, not the only group, but one of the only groups who was cataloging them that way to say, Hey, we've got a problem here to get the scientific community involved. And I think that the article alludes to maybe some scientific problems with the way they did their work because they're amateurs. But it sounds to me like the scientific community in general has bought into what they're doing people are looking at them and corroborating the results that they got. It's a fascinating article. It's a great read. If you've got 15 minutes, 20 minutes, I think check it out.
Everett	Absolutely.
Andrew	Yeah.
Everett	Um, and the bottom line is that conservation is, is apolitical. It's apolitical. It should be right. Especially if you're listening in the United States where we're all public landowners and own millions of acres and in every single state in these United States, uh, shoot for crying out loud buy a duck stamp it goes towards uh migratory bird wetland conservation it's it's an inexpensive investment and if if you want to tout being a conservationist or being an animal rights activist put money into doing it save the earth motherfuckers exactly so that we can all hunt and fish and hike yeah yeah you got anything else no yeah i don't i mean we could do
Andrew	Just drink some more beer. It's about conservationists.
Everett	Why not? We could do a whole episode dedicated to it.
Andrew	Thank you for joining us for this episode of 40 in 20. Don't forget to tune back in next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Bye bye. Our music today is Bummin' on Tremolo by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com, licensed under creative commons by attribution 3.01.