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Episode 12 - Atomic Watches

Published on Wed, 16 Jan 2019 11:59:00 -0800

Synopsis

This podcast episode discusses atomic watches and the technology behind them. The hosts provide an overview of atomic clocks and how watches can sync with them using radio signals or GPS to maintain extremely accurate timekeeping. They highlight various atomic watch models from brands like Casio, Citizen, and Seiko, analyzing their features, design, and functionalities. The hosts express their admiration for this underutilized technology and wish more companies would incorporate it into their watches. They also touch on topics like being a good customer, using a sous vide for cooking, and an interesting article about the experiences of a former cable technician.

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. I'm busy with life. As it were, I've got a sore throat. I've had a sore throat for about three days. It hasn't affected my voice. I mean, my voice is- You sound good.
Andrew You didn't do the whisper week like I did, so that's a win.
Everett This is Everett. yeah uh yeah you know i i think i have a little bit of uh well maybe it's so maybe i'm just self-conscious i think i have a little bit of a kermit voice you know you and i have talked about this we had a mutual first sergeant who called me kermit it's just a mean thing right he called people mean things he called me kermit and it got into my head so he called everyone dog booty power bottom yeah that was his favorite you know i i bumped into people who uh who were assigned under him
Andrew years later uh and i i was like Todd Galindo shout out to Todd Galindo because i love that guy and i don't mind calling him out i was like so what do you so what do you guys think about him and they like they just went white i was like yep yeah just what i thought dog booty yeah he's great it was like what kind of names does he call you he goes and these two it's these two these two soldiers and they're like uh power bottom is one i was like yep yes which is a reference to it's always sunny in philadelphia which we will take credit for introducing him to, we showed him the power bottom scene and he was so tickled by it that that became his, I think, a term of endearment.
Everett Yeah, it was a term of endearment, for sure.
Andrew He just referred to everyone as power bottoms.
Everett Have we ever talked about Sergeant Major Galindo on the show? No. So this guy, he's, I don't know ethnicity, I think probably Japanese with some Native American if I had to guess, but he's about 6'5". built like the rock literally well like maybe late 90s early 2000s the rock yeah before the rock got like four wide right right uh so huge tattooed you know face scars i mean just like could be the bad guy or the good guy in a war movie um he's he's certainly the guy that if you bumped to bumped into on a crowded daylight street you would still be a little bit concerned right Unless you're a woman and then you, well, you know, a woman who likes that sort of thing. And then you might swoon as my wife was like, who's that? And I was like, we're leaving. Don't look at him. And so, sorry, Kim. Um, uh, so we, we introduced that guy to the game of racquetball. So we, at the time, Tommy, our good friend, Tommy, who you guys know, uh, we were all playing, uh, knockout or suicide. What do you call that? The, the three-way chaos. Chaos. I can't remember what you call it right now. I'm blanking. There's a name. I like chaos. But three-man racquetball. We were playing that at the time, but every day after we would have RPT with first sergeant at the time, Galindo, he would say, you know, where are you guys going? What are you doing? Oh, we play racquetball. And he didn't make fun of us for racquetball without really even knowing what it was.
Unknown He had no idea.
Everett One day he says, I want to play. Yeah, come on. So we get him a racquet and we get him some goggles and he says, I'm not going to wear those. And of course you're not. We start playing racquetball and this guy with zero skill dominated us.
Andrew I think it's because of all the torque he could generate with his six foot long arms. And just physical presence.
Everett I mean, he'd hit the ball right at you as hard as he could.
Andrew It was also full contact. I mean, I was knocked to the floor multiple times. So many times. He dominated us, right? And I'm not a big guy. I'm five foot nine and a little bit of change. Just a little bit.
Everett So shout out, Todd, if you're listening. We love you, man.
Andrew We do. Dog booty. Yeah, so all 69 inches of me, and at the time I probably weighed 165, 170 pounds. When he bumped me, it was noticeable, but when he deliberately ran through me, it would lift me from the earth.
Everett Scary dude. So in any event, I've got a little bit of a raspy throat, but I always have a raspy throat. So Kermit, I get it. You don't sound like Kermit, man.
Andrew I don't know how many times we have to talk about it.
Everett Thank you for saying so. Thank you for saying so. So yeah, other than that, I'm good. How are you? I don't feel like I asked that. You never ask it because you don't care. I do. I want to know. Today, tell me, how are you?
Andrew I'm well. My book reading is going well. So you're at least a book or two in. I'm halfway through my first book. I didn't get a chance to read this week. It was a crazy busy week, but I'm halfway. I mean, I'm 150 pages into my first book. Not all of them are going to be dense biographies that have a lot of 1800s letters, excerpts in them. Those are hard to read. Those, like, require maybe two or three readings to glean anything from them. Because who talks like that?
Everett My good sir. Like, come on. Paul's letters of the Ephesians, like, this is a letter?
Andrew Yeah, exactly. This is 36 pages. So, going well, obviously staying really busy, feeling good, and Mexico is is is almost in reach we have like we have basically one of those like you know the way kids make it school like the little ringlet chains to count down to christmas we have one of those for when we kick our son out of a moving vehicle into my dad's front yard and drive to the airport and go to mexico for a week drop and roll kid it's a car seat they're impact tested he will be fine he'll be fine yep he'll be fine you just got to undo those hooks before you get there otherwise it's a pain in the ass same from crawl back okay there's enough room in the truck that she can I think she can almost stand up in the cab of that thing. Yeah.
Everett I'm excited about your reading progress. You probably need to read a little bit more if you're going to make 60. I do. Okay.
Andrew But they're not all going to be long. And I'm getting some really great recommendations from you all.
Everett You guys are great.
Andrew Thank you for all the recommendations. A handful of them I've read already, but a good chunk of them I haven't.
Everett Not just books, but they're recommending like, here's what I use to sort of pick my books.
Unknown Yeah, yeah.
Andrew some of that and i've i really appreciate it it's been helpful because i've never embarked on an endeavor like this before and i think this is going to be an annual thing for me i think i'm going to maybe not 60 every year but i'm going to set a number goal at the beginning of the year and set out in a substantial amount of books multiple a month to reduce my tv intake when you know i think you can read a nancy drew book in like an afternoon too so if you get behind yeah hit the nancy drews hit the bobs Whip out the Captain Underpants.
Everett Good, good, good, good, good. All right. What are you wearing today?
Andrew The Orient Mako. I bring it up because... Mexico related, and there's been a minor change. I put it back on the bracelet. You're vacation testing. Yes, I'm vacation testing. I'm trying to decide. I've got, I think, the watches that I'm going to take to Mexico lined out. And I'm trying to decide if I want to take the Mako on the bracelet or on a NATO. I've had a couple of arm hair pulls, which leads me to think that I'm going to take it on a NATO, but still bring the bracelet. Because worst case scenario, how much, how much room is a bracelet really going to take up in my luggage?
Everett None. I mean, you can slide it into that, into your new watch roll.
Unknown Yeah.
Andrew Cause I'm, I, I'm prototyping watch rolls. I got a yard of, I got vinyl-y faux leather. and a yard of felt. V2 is done. There's still some changes I want to make and also just some, some lack of skill to work on. Just knock some of the rust off. I haven't used a sewing machine in a very long time. Yeah. So sewing perfectly straight lines and I got, so it's a brown leather and red felt and I'm using red thread. So when it's not straight, it's noticeable. Sure. It's, it's a little bit, yeah, it's a little rough, but I'm getting there. So we're through V2. And I think when I exhaust that full yard, I probably have like seven more iterations before the whole, like both yards are exhausted and then I'll just buy one. Um, but it was something I wanted to take on because how hard is it to make a watch roll?
Everett Harder than I thought. Yeah. But, but functionally you're not doing a lot of complicated stitches. No.
Andrew And functionally they're, they're just fine. They're just not quite what I want. And really the, the tricky part is, is finishing the edges the way that I want, making sure that the, That I'm getting clean, uncut edges exposed that are rolled over, that are nicely, uh, nicely fixed to the felt, good clean seams. And it's just, it's, it's a learning process because I've never made one of these before. I probably could have found a pattern, but maybe not.
Everett It's better to make your own, I think.
Andrew Yeah. So I'm experimenting with that.
Everett So main topic, shall we? I think so. I mean, we could talk about other things.
Andrew Yeah. And we're ready for it.
Everett We're ready.
Andrew I'm ready for it. Well, no, hang on. So. In the midst of my vacation testing my watch, I'm still having trouble deciding. I do know that I'm going to bring the SSB031 on a bracelet, so maybe I don't need it, but I'm also going to bring the Bambino just in case like we go to dinner and I want to wear something that isn't a diver or a chrono, just in case. It might not even come out, but I want a good watch that I can spend the entire day in the swim up bar wearing and not worry about it, which is why I was kind of wavering away from the NATO. just because it's going to stay a little bit wet and damp on my wrist and that's not going to be especially comfortable.
Everett But you could just bring a second NATO.
Andrew I could do that. Maybe, maybe I'll do that. Maybe a pool NATO and a not pool NATO and then they'll switch. NATO takes no time at all to dry out. No, not, not, not much. They wear dry pretty quickly. So anyway, it's back on the bracelet. I do like this bracelet, but it's a, it, it's got some arm hair.
Everett Yeah. It's an issue.
Andrew It's taken some casual, like taking some, some, Not hostages, because they're certainly not giving them back. Release the arm hairs. Yeah, no, it's... It's whatever, though. And I like it on the bracelet. It looks good.
Everett I'm strongly considering just bringing my Emperor diaper. That's a bold move. Solo watching it.
Andrew Have you worn it every day since I last saw you?
Everett No. No, I mean, I've got too much new shit to wear right now. I've got the Dan Henry that I keep going back to. I've got, you know... The SNK for whatever reason has been calling my name.
Andrew And the Saab on that toxic shiznit.
Everett I've been wearing the Saab a lot. I've been wearing the Saab on the bracelet and the toxic shiznit. You know, the Saab, I don't know. It's in a really precarious position for me in my collection because it looks amazing on the Oyster. And I think it's meant to be on the Oyster. It's a sport watch. It lives on the Oyster and it's supposed to be there. But then I take it off the Oyster and I put it on anything else and I'm like, oh yeah. What's up girl? Oh yeah, it's such a strap monster and for having such a great natural fit on a bracelet to also be a strap monster and I want to wear it on everything I have. You know what you could do? Talk to me.
Andrew You've got a couple options here and I'll lay them out for you. Number one, you can buy a couple more. Yeah. Number two, to just completely alleviate the issue, you just give it to me.
Everett No, I'll have to take that under consideration, for sure. Both options.
Andrew And they're viable. They're completely reasonable. Both will solve the problem that you clearly face. One of them will bring me a lot more joy than it'll bring you.
Everett But both will bring you joy. You know, I do want to buy an 033 before they get outraged. They might already be at sort of peak cost right now. I think they're $500 or so right now. I would love to have an 033. I'm not sure there's room in my collection for an 033, but there's just so few other options that fit that bill.
Andrew It would be really hard for me to justify the same watch in different colorways.
Everett Well, I'll tell you that there's almost nothing like the Saab in terms of how well it wears, because in the olden days, it was cheap, right? $350, $300 to $350, so it was cheap. And you know, the level of quality and the overall feel that you get does, you can't get anything else like this for that price. It's more expensive now. And so I think that's a little less compelling. Um, and certainly there's an Ori, there's the Orient star classic, which does really similar things. There are a few options from Tiso, I think, uh, make some similar stuff. So I know that if I want to branch out, there's other things, but I don't, I don't like any of those watches as much as I like the SAR,
Andrew Yeah, that's, yeah, I think I have to amend my statement, my good sir, just briefly. Okay. And say that I could justify having the F91 in every colorway.
Everett Oh, well, yeah. Did I send you that picture? Yep. There was some different color F91s.
Andrew Yeah, the green, the black and the silver.
Everett Had you ever seen those? Yeah.
Andrew I've never seen them. The green, I was like, what? I love the green. I got the silver because I, I, I just, I wanted the silver at the time. And now I want the green and the black and I want them all. I just, I want to go to Walmart and I will put my arm out on the shelf and I just want to scoop them all into the cart and go and check out with 50 watches for like $36.
Everett Like a, like a cheat code on Pokemon. Yeah. I get it. I get it. We can't have them all. No. We can't. I mean, you actually could have them all. For $20. You could easily have them all. All right. Well, did you get it out?
Andrew Yeah, it's out. Are we ready? I'm free and I'm ready to go. We're ready to give them what they're here for.
Everett They've been waiting. They don't know what it is. How could they? They certainly haven't seen it anywhere. We need to tell them what it is. They've definitely not seen it anywhere.
Andrew It's the anticipation. Let it build. Yeah. Build. Build. Crescendo. Atomic watches today. We're talking atomic watches. I've suggested this topic because I was just recently re-exposed to the idea of atomic watches and got really excited about it. And then almost immediately really disappointed about it because almost no one makes this super cool technology. There's Casio does them. Casio does a lot. A lot. Citizen does a couple. I mean, they do a couple, a few maybe.
Everett Yeah, no, Citizen does a lot.
Andrew Yeah. Yeah. Seiko's got a couple. Junghaus, Junghans, Junghans. Junghans, I think. Yeah, it's German. Yeah. A couple iterations, but really just one line. a couple others, but for the most part, they're not out there. And I don't get why, because it's such a cool technology. I want more of them.
Everett Yeah, well, I mean, it's funny because the technology is such that it makes quite literally the most accurate watch in the world. But meanwhile, we're in a hobby that prizes anachronistic, inaccurate technology. So I think that It's a weird spot, right? You know, I think there's a market for high accuracy quartz movements. Those really sort of very, very accurate quartz movements that are very minimal movement in X amount of time. There's a market for high accuracy automatic or mechanical type movements. Certainly the spring drive is incredible technology and people want that. I don't know that I see that there's a market here.
Andrew Why wouldn't you want something that daily syncs to the most accurate clock on the planet Earth.
Everett And to caveat my comment that there's no market, of course there's a market, right? There is certainly a market. I just don't know that it's a very big market. I'm not sure why.
Andrew I feel like it should be a big market. I feel like people should get so excited about this technology because I listen to this dude much smarter than I talking about atomic watches. I listen to a lot of guys talking about atomic watches when I was researching or atomic clocks.
Everett Well, so yeah, let's clarify the technology. An atomic watch is not in and of itself atomic, except for that one Kickstarter atomic watch that you actually, the whole thing fits on your wrist. It's like a 56 millimeter bar. Did you look at that?
Andrew You wear it on your thigh, I think. Is that right? I mean, I don't know where else I can store 56 millimeters of watch.
Everett I mean, it's just like a bar that you wear on your wrist. Anyway, I don't know. It was a Kickstarter. I don't know if it ever, if those ever got released. I think it's been several years now at this point, but by and large, these watches aren't Atomic in and of themselves.
Andrew No, and they probably shouldn't be for safety's sake But they are they are radio-controlled or Satellite in some instances sometimes satellite. Yeah, and they're sinking back to the atomic clocks that are either sending information to the satellites that are GPS powered or using low-frequency low-wave low-frequency radio waves to send data to these watches. And these radio waves are being emitted by these atomic clocks that are losing about a second every 138 million years.
Everett So you know, you've researched a little bit about these atomic clocks. So tell, I haven't, and I wonder if maybe some of our listeners haven't. Tell me what an atomic clock is.
Andrew I'm going to explain it the best I can, because I'm not an especially smart man.
Everett You're smart, you're not a scientist.
Andrew Okay, fair, fair point. I'm not a scientist. If what I say is wrong, and it probably won't be 100% right, I recommend just watching one of the three to five minute YouTube videos on how these things work. Basically the gist of it is it's a quartz timekeeping watch, right? So quartz gets its electrical impulse and it vibrates right it creates that frequency vibrates the crystal yeah so it it vibrates the crystal this electronic pulse travels through the quartz creates the frequency vibration travels through the circuit uh has cesium 133 atoms applied to it and then somehow this is where it gets tough for me to understand it splits the energy into like high energy and low energy dots on the screen that i watched so the red dots go down they get thrown away and the yellow dots keep going this uh towards like another towards another magnet through a magnet and that magnet gets a charge when the when the uh system senses that the quartz frequency uh the quartz resonation is starting to slow and then those uh those yellow balls pass through the magnet generate an electrical charge that then zaps the quartz again to maintain its frequency. Self-regulate. So it's a self-adjusting closed feedback loop. It is absolutely fascinating. I mean, and it's a necessity. I mean, the way satellites work, the way GPS works, that close to timekeeping is an absolute necessity, but it's such a simple solution to an extraordinarily complex problem.
Everett So how accurate are we talking about? Plus or minus a second a day?
Andrew Plus or minus a second for every 138 million years. It's crazy. Over 100 million years.
Everett And you can get that in a $30 wave scepter. Not the yellow dots or the red dots, but you can get that time sent to you over publicly available radio waves. Air.
Andrew Just the air you breathe. The air. We're breathing atomic clock energy, probably currently. I don't know what time it is.
Everett So, caveat to Andrew's explanation. Again, he's no scientist. I don't think we're breathing atomic radio waves, but we may be. I hope we're not for your and my sake.
Andrew We probably are actually. How could we not be? I'm feeling sick. That's your sore throat as we were focusing on atomic watches this week.
Everett Now I get it. So that's the technology, right? We've given a full summary and everybody should know exactly how it works.
Andrew Exactly. Now we're all experts. We can go make one in our backyard.
Everett So 1990, young hands. The German company comes out with the first atomic watch, the Mega One. Mega One, which A, is a very cool name for a watch.
Andrew And B, it's a really good looking watch. It's a, it's a cool looking watch. Like very, even if it were released today, like a very modern feel to it.
Everett Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of these like Girogaro, Seiko type watches.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett With a little bit of a Texas Instruments feel too.
Andrew It's sort of like the digital cousin to the Ridley watch. Yeah.
Everett Made by Texas Instruments. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's just that logo at the bottom looks like a Texas Instruments logo. It does.
Andrew It looks like a, yeah, but it's cool.
Everett You know, really simple digital readout, no frills, but yeah, it's not a typical watch shape. I like it. I want to get one. Even though, now this watch, so the interesting thing about this, this is a single band atomic watch, which means that it was designed to sync with the atomic clock in Germany. I think Frankfurt at the time, and maybe there's still an atomic clock. I don't know. I'm not super clear about Germany's atomic clock system. I think it's a different clock than the current German. I think it's a different clock than is currently in use in Germany. I might be wrong about that, but I think it might be. But it only synced with that one clock. So now it just keeps quartz time. Yeah, maybe. And certainly if you had it in the United States, it would just be a quartz watch, a cool quartz watch. A cool piece of history for sure. That's right, but it's not going to be practical to use. If you got on eBay and picked one of these up and brought it to the United States, it's not going to sync. An original Young Hands Mega One is not going to sync to the Fort Collins clock in Colorado.
Andrew I'm intrigued about the technology that's used to decrypt the atomic watch or the atomic clock frequencies that are sent out that make something single or multi-band.
Everett You know, I think it's got to do with the type of signal, the type of radio signal that's in use. And so, you know, if unless you could get all the all the countries to agree, this is the frequency we're going to use. I think that you would have some limitations there.
Andrew We've agreed on far more complicated and more impactful things.
Everett Yeah. Well, that's right. That is right. I don't know. I mean, that's my understanding, though. But it doesn't matter anyway. No, because now everybody is using multiband. Yeah. Good segue.
Andrew Or GPS.
Everett Or GPS, that's right. So good segue, 1993, Citizen releases the first multiband atomic watch. And it didn't sync to the United States clock, but it synced, I think, China, Japan, and Germany, or three different clocks, but not the United States. So they released their multiband watch. And I know we've both at this point looked at this watch. It is a really incredible looking watch because And they were struggling, what I understand is they were struggling with getting feedback, getting the signal through the metal watch case. And so they just put the antenna, right, smack dab down the center bisecting the dial.
Andrew Yeah, it's a really unique way. It almost looks like a compass that's closed, right? Like it's got like that one single, like the lensatic piece of wire through the center, but it's, it looks, I mean, it's a copper coil. It's a radio antenna in there and then it kind of, Like it kind of has that feel almost of like the Accutrons that had no dial on it, where you're getting to see the technology that's powering your watch.
Everett And I think that's super cool. And pragmatic here versus the Bulova is just, hey, look at what we did. This is a pragmatic reason. I don't know that I love it, you know, but certainly it's interesting and certainly it's a gadget folks love to show off.
Andrew And another stepping stone in the story of Atomic Sync radio-controlled, whatever you want to call them, watches that draw their time from a centralized timing device.
Everett And so after that, after Citizen in 1993 releases this multiband, the first multiband, the technology almost becomes pedestrian, right? Citizen gets really good at it. Casio, obviously, as we've discussed, gets really good at it. Younghens continues to develop, which is kind of a weird company to have this. Right. It doesn't seem like it fits. You know, you've got Casio, Citizen, Seiko are all developing. Which all make sense. It makes sense in the way they develop watches and then Younghans. We've got the Max Bill and then we've got one of the most simple watches. We have the Mega One. And then we've got the Mega One. And obviously we're being reductive here. Younghans makes a lot of really cool watches, but it just doesn't fit immediately to me. So yeah, these companies are all developing the technology. Seiko, in 2012, makes the next, I think, maybe the final, huge leap in atomic watches.
Andrew Maybe not the final, the most recent huge leap.
Everett Yeah, maybe, that's right, that's right. When they released their Astron, which had GPS technology incorporated. So prior to 2012, by and large, these atomic watches, when you're wearing them, you would have to tell it that you're in a different place. So by manually changing your time zone or whatever, because it just picks up the signal no matter where you're at. And if you say, I'm in central time zone or I'm in mountain time zone, it's going to tell you what time it is there. But if you cross the border across the time zone border, it's not going to automatically change. Seiko changes that with their Astron that also has a GPS sync. So it says, here I am, and here's what time it is based on the four columns or, or the, wherever you are in the world.
Andrew That's right. That's right. It's so cool and it again is as a watch that is you would never look at it and say oh You're that's that's getting powered or it's getting its timekeeping from satellites It just looks like a cool Seiko and now Seiko the first Seiko is not the first one that That started communicating with satellites right there with watches before that I think I don't know actually because right there's two different we brushed across this earlier, but
Everett You know, really, there are two main ways these watches are communicating with the atomic clock, and one of those is via radio, one of those is via satellite. It was unclear to me in my research when satellite communications became a thing, but some of them still just use the radio signals.
Andrew Which is still perfectly effective, you just have to change the time.
Everett You know, the other thing I remember hearing about about this at some point was that at some point they're going to stop broadcasting the atomic clock time.
Andrew Have you heard that? No, why would they stop that?
Everett Then we're going to lose this technology. Yeah, well, I mean, I'm not sure. And I don't know if that was rumor or if that's substantiated. And I looked into it for just a second. I was like, I don't really care. So I stopped. But that's something maybe to think about, too. And I don't know if that's... I don't know.
Andrew I mean, I guess they could, right? Because they can do whatever they want. They own the technology. But there are so many companies that make alarm clocks or desk clocks or non wristwatches that
Everett get the updates from the atomic clocks well i i think we picked some watches for these folks as we do as that's our tradition you know the the goal of this is not to be comprehensive the goal of this is to sort of give you guys some ideas you know we're going to miss some stuff that you guys are going to love and we're not going to pick an astron i don't think we're going to pick an edifice watch um you know this so there's going to be some watches we're definitely not going to pick a young hand so There's going to be some watches that you guys are like, you need to check this out. We love that feedback, but don't, if we didn't pick your favorite, don't feel offended. We're, we're, we're sort of limited in time and space here.
Andrew So, and we've picked watches that we'd like to own.
Everett Well, I picked, I picked watches that I'd like to own. Me too. So my first, I'm going to go first because once again, I've, I've cheated, you know, sort of our role. Big shock there. Casio G-Shock 5610-1 Tough Solar. Now this is the 5600 that everybody knows and loves, but this is the upgraded version, I'd call it, with the Tough Solar. And you probably have seen this before. It's got a red inner ring on the dial face and sort of a purple solar panel just inside of that, in between that red and the LED. This is, for all intents and purposes, a 5600 with better technology. It's more expensive, right? So this comes in closer to 90, 92 68 right here, but between 90 and a hundred is where I see this thing sit. So you're paying twice, maybe a little bit more than twice for what you'd pay for a run of the mill 5,600, but tough solar. So it's totally solar powered and Casio's multiband six and the six stands for the six different atomic clocks that this thing will sink. And there's two in Japan. One in China, one in England, one in Germany, and then the one in Fort Collins. Is that six? That's six. Yeah. Look at you. So all of Africa is going to be off the atomic sink. All of South America is going to be off the atomic sink. Several islands are going to be, you know, the Pacific islands. I'm not, I don't think that they're going to get hit by Japan, but maybe some of them will. So yeah, some have to. So there's some gaps in this technology, and I don't know if that's because there's no atomic clock in South America or Africa, or it's just they're not prominent enough to have been featured in Casio's design plan here. But it seems to me like those are the six that sort of get the nod.
Andrew I think- Those are where the major population densities are. That makes sense.
Everett I think there are also chunks of Eastern Europe that might be hit or miss. I think hit or miss was the term you used earlier. Yeah. So yeah, so, but with that said, if it doesn't sync, you're not fucked because you still just have a quartz module that's going to be very, very, very accurate.
Andrew And you're still rocking the G-Shock.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, if it's not, gosh, I got to say, I was a little frustrated in reading some of these watch you see forums or, or, or, you know, forums, People talking about frustrations with sync, you know, oh, my watch hasn't synced in two days. Well, dummy, it's a quartz module and you're fine. You could go two years and not sync and not be more than a second or two off, you know, or maybe a little bit more than that. I don't know. But, uh, you know, people are so weird. Watch people are weird. Why do we take this thing so seriously? For funsies? For funsies. People take it so seriously.
Andrew If we were taking it that seriously, we'd all be getting atomic.
Everett I recommend you put it on your windowsill at night, face out. I don't know. I don't mean to make fun, but geez, come on.
Andrew It's going to sink. It's eventually going to sink. Don't worry about it. And if it does, what have you, have you lost six seconds?
Everett So we don't need to say anything more about the 5600 because everything that has ever been, anything that's ever needed to be said about the 5600 has been said over and over. It's beautiful. It's lovely. It's simple. It's awesome. I do think I'm going to buy one of these if I can find it in white. That's my stipulation.
Andrew I hope you can find it in white. It probably wouldn't be that hard to drop it into a white 5600 case though.
Everett Like do the mod myself? Yeah. So buy this and buy a white 5600 case and just swap it back and forth? Yeah. I'll need to look into that because I don't know if it'll work. But that would be, for me, that would be, I think, the way I'd want to go here. I've always wanted a white 5600, you know, the... Yeah, because they look cool. They look cool. And the godfather of...
Andrew of g-shock where's a white 5600 and i want to be like him who does it right right so that's my first watch i don't we need we don't need to beat into the ground i don't need to give you specs or anything else then we'll move on moving on we're going under the casio wave scepter uh w v 59 da-1 av coming in at uh 60 dollars on amazon yeah very world timer feel to it but just a little bit updated Super 90s. Not square, more rectangular, very classic digital watch. And I think one of the things that turns a lot of people off from digital watches is that the... I think the general perception of a digital watch is the G-Shock or the Iron Man or these utilitarian, tech-cool bricks that live on your wrist that when you strap it on, you just go... And you put in... a dip on both sides of your mouth everything you wear has velcro on it and that's not that dip on both sides who hasn't yeah man it's one of my favorites who hasn't but this is not that watch what i what i wish they would have done a better job is i wish they would have added a little bit more water resistance it's only got 50 meters on this but this is a very simple very legible utility digital watch that still has that that world timer feel but doesn't carry with it the the geardo tactical feel that a lot of people get from digital watches you know a couple things i like about this watch one i like the extraneous satellite led in the lower right it's one of the only ones that you get a true reminder of the fact that this bitch is getting powered by an atomic clock why why why the picture is led i mean
Everett I'm sure, maybe there's a function to it. I don't know. Is it like, I have synced or I am syncing?
Andrew It probably lets you know that you have sufficient signal to be syncing.
Everett In my mind, it's just there to say, I connect, I talk to satellites. I may not be talking to a satellite right now, but I do, theoretically.
Andrew What's the difference than that in an exhibition case back?
Everett Or a skeleton? Well, there's a lot of difference, but... No.
Andrew It's just showing off its power.
Everett Yeah, I guess so. I mean, it doesn't let you see the module. That's the difference. It's just a picture to remind you of what it's doing. It's like a pictogram on a men's room door. I love this watch. I'm not giving it true criticism. It's an affectionate criticism.
Andrew My silence wasn't hurt. My silence was trying to imagine a dial of a watch that was made to look like a movement. Right, just to remind you that it's a mechanical movement. Yeah, that was made to look like a movement, not a, not a, not a skeleton. Like the silhouette of a rotor at six o'clock.
Everett My crows were talking to you. Yeah, I was imagining that. Chris Vale, NTH, if you're listening, next watch should have the silhouette of a rotor at six o'clock.
Andrew Yeah, or just, or just design a dial that looks like a movement and people will look at it and be like, it's telling time, but that, it's not moving. Same on the case back, etched glass of a movement.
Everett Just a picture. You know what you could do is you could get like an SNK or something like that and just like Mod Podge a picture of a movement on top of it. I'm doing it. That's my next mod. So this is cool. How big is this? Relatively small. You know, I picked probably the worst website possible. You really did. I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Billy Bob.
Andrew Shut your mouth if you're talking to me, Hillbilly.
Everett Oh, there we go. I should have just gone to the Amazon website at the beginning. So 38.3 millimeters, but but it's square slash rectangular. Okay, so it's gonna wear bigger than that 38 would indicate, I think. And the lug to lug 39. I cannot be true. It's a rectangle. One of those dimensions is off.
Andrew Yeah. I don't know. But that's still Even, I mean, the World Timer doesn't wear all that big. This is a pretty similar feel to the World Timer. I dig it on that bracelet.
Everett You know, I think the size is going to be wearable for anybody. That's my guess. I don't think size is a problem here. No, no, I don't think so.
Andrew And I think this would fit in a lot of environments that you're going into.
Everett You know, we were talking about this.
Andrew I see medical professionals wearing the shit out of this watch. Oh, interesting. Why? I don't know. Just in my head, when I see that watch, I imagine seeing a doctor or a nurse looking at it when they're examining me.
Everett Maybe like an adventure doctor. Like someone treating people in austere conditions or something.
Andrew Maybe. Or maybe just someone who's going to leave the hospital and go home and be tired.
Everett I don't know. And now this says multiband I don't I didn't look into yet, which which one they don't include I think it's no China because I think that the The frequency or there's something about the China signal that's different.
Unknown Hmm.
Everett Yeah, so I think the multi-band fives are usually the Europe US Japan Stations, well, it'll work here. That's what I was concerned about and I like will not work in the Hainan province Province of China or maybe anywhere else in China.
Andrew I'm cool with that. I probably won't go there And it won't have anything to do with my watch.
Everett So we were talking about this earlier, but if you did pick this up, because you're thinking about it, right?
Andrew Yeah, this is a potential purchase.
Everett Do you still need the world time if you get this?
Andrew Yeah, I think everyone needs a world time. I don't think this fills that void. And I think the reason it doesn't is because it obviously doesn't have the same feel as the world timer. It feels 10, 15 years newer than the world timer. But it's also adding a new technology. I could have, if the SNK came in a quartz model, I could justify to myself having the S8K in quartz and the S8K mechanical movement.
Everett I think if these are both, and so this is a world time watch. I don't know if we've said that. I think if these are both thousand dollar watches, you definitely only get one.
Andrew Yeah, but they're not thousand dollar watches.
Everett That's right. How much is the world time? Forty-ish? 28 I think I paid for it. So for a hundred bucks, you can get both of these. So maybe that's the justification. Like why not have both of them?
Andrew Yeah. Or maybe you get one in black and one in silver. Sure. Um, and I really do dig the bracelet on, on this one. I like the, the world timer bracelet. It's pretty okay. Yeah. Uh, once you destroy the links you're removing, uh, that thing is not ever going to get resized bigger than it is now. Uh, this is kind of a flat, I, I, I'd be interested to see how the links removed from it. This, yeah, this might get picked up.
Everett You know, when you, when you first got that world time, uh, I don't think you, I don't think you loved the bracelet. And we met with, we met with Xander, our sort of local, one of our local, uh, friends of the show here, I guess. And we were both like, dude, that watch, that bracelet's killer. I still, it's, it's okay.
Andrew It just fits, it fits the watch so well. It does. And it fits it because of the way the, the case is shaped. a NATO doesn't quite feel right. It's almost an integrated bracelet that makes anything else other than the natural bracelet feel too narrow.
Everett We'll move on from this watch because I don't want to say anything else about it. But I'm looking at this picture on Amazon, which I think is a little bit more detailed picture than that other one we're looking at. I'm almost positive that that satellite dish is applied and not actually an LED. I don't think it tells you a damn thing. I think it's just an application.
Andrew I mean the other world timers have 10 year battery on it so this has got a satellite on it.
Everett Moving on! So I think this is the first of two citizens, a little foreshadowing. Yeah. But I've picked my net for my second watch, my second of cheating three, I've picked the Citizen Skyhawk. This is the Skyhawk AT. And I understand that you came across this one in your research.
Andrew I saw it and didn't pick it because I had a tingling sensation inside of me that suggests, the same way you didn't pick the Waveceptor, I had a tingling sensation that you would be picking this watch.
Everett And I did. And I did. So I really like this watch. I'll say just right off the get, it's kind of expensive.
Andrew It's also kind of big.
Everett It's also kind of big. So 48 millimeters, 650 bucks. However, bring it back. Bring it back. I'll reel you guys back in. because I hear 48 millimeters, 650 bucks, and I'm going to walk away. So stick with me. It's an anodigy. Cool. It's a slide rule.
Andrew So your soft-boiled eggs are going to be perfect every time for 138 million years.
Everett Once you figure out how to use the slide rule, it's going to be perfect every time. It's got a great bracelet. It looks like a watch to me. Some of these don't look like watches. And I mean that in, in, the sense of, you know, I, I look at watch, when I look at watches, I have a certain image in my head. The Wave Scepter, Wave Scepter, and even the G-Shock to me really don't fit into that mold. It's probably part of the reason I've never gotten a G-Shock is because I was like, eh, that's something specific. And I don't want that. That's not a watch to me. This looks like a watch minus being enormous, a planetoid. Yeah. Uh, but it, but it, it really, it, it, it ticks off every other sort of, I'm a watch, uh, box, you know, very very very crowded dial.
Andrew There's a lot happening and I don't know that this has the same amount of functionality in the dial as say the the Nighthawk that has a busy but also really functional dial.
Everett I think this is more function less legibility.
Andrew Yeah there's a there's so much happening on that that it just kind of looks like they threw functionality on the dial and said here we got it.
Everett Right it's like the entire gauge cluster of a of a jet airplane. Smashed into 48 millimeters. Smashed into a 48 millimeter disc. Beautiful, and I'd love to have one. I'm not sure I'd cop for one at $650. It's certainly in the realm of possibility for me. I'm giving it a good close look. Those white hands, I think, make the time legible, again, and a digit. So you're going to have a physical analog readout of the time always available to you. And there is good contrast there. Yeah. Even with that busy, busy dial.
Andrew I think it would be a less busy dial if it wasn't a slide rule because so much space gets eaten by that slide rule.
Everett Well, and it's just so, it's like overwhelming.
Andrew You look at it, you're just, oh, there's numbers everywhere. And I can do anything with you. And even in the midst of how busy it is, they still found a way to get a nice Citizen EcoDrive branding.
Everett Why? Why did they do that?
Andrew They maybe couldn't have thought up anything else to go on this dial.
Everett Yeah. And maybe there's a symmetry thing happening there, but very cool. Kind of quirky, right? Kind of quirky. I do think there's something to be said for this technology, though. I mean, if you really want a watch that's going to do it all, I imagine, and I say imagine because I don't really know that the learning curve on these is huge, but feature wise and your ability to do things. This is not the most capable watch I've picked today, but but it's pretty capable and it's probably has a little bit extra from the Nighthawk.
Andrew Not as cool a watch, not as wearable a watch. No, definitely not as wearable. This is to me having a 2,000 meter dive watch with a helium release valve and all the other bells and whistles with it. These are so far beyond my ever needing. It has passed from cool onto, yeah, I don't need that. Okay. Here's what I do need though. Tell me. The Citizen World Perpetual AT world time in specifically the blue dial because look at the metallic pin striping on that dial yeah it's a it's a killer watch and this is the one watch we've picked today that that is passable as just a watch you would never know that it's world time or that it's uh not world time uh radio controlled or or atomic watch or atomic clock powered and it's only because it doesn't scream at It doesn't. It kind of feels like the cocktail hour. Cocktail time? Yeah, the cocktail. Well, it feels like cocktail hour because we're drinking beer, but it kind of feels like the cocktail time. Just that, like, very simple.
Everett You mean just in terms of the dial?
Andrew Yeah, the dial. I mean, and just an elegant watch. And the little detail of the date disc being the same color as the dial. Yeah, blue date disc. The only change is that you're looking at the white numbers. The, uh, the, is that airport markings? I've never, I haven't, I think it's airport.
Everett So yeah, it's got this left cutout, which I'm not sure what that is.
Andrew No, around the, around the bezel on the, on the inside of it.
Everett Oh yeah. So these are cities. It's for the world timer.
Andrew Yeah. So that's, it's, it's got the, the really simple, almost, I don't, a lot of watches have it. I think this is really well executed for it. It's super subtle, but when you're looking at the watch, you're, you're definitely not going to miss it. Really simple, elegant markers. This fits to me as a, as a dress watch. I'm with what, a hundred meters of water resistance. This is also the kind of watch that you could wear this every single day. And at $269, $239. And that's on Jomashop. This is, this is a killer watch with that, with the H-Link integrated bracelet.
Everett Yeah, certainly not a, certainly not a dress watch, not a purpose dress watch, but it's got that. It's got a good size, 42 millimeters, 10 millimeters thick. I mean, it's so thin. That's right. I mean, you're going to be able to wear this. Uh, you're going to be able to wear this. It's a, it's versatile. That's the right, right word for it.
Andrew Do you think that's the, a force sink button that depression on the side below it below the crown? Do you think that's a, that's the force of sink?
Everett No, I think it's for whatever this, um, there's an on off and I'm not sure if that's an alarm. There's, there's some feature here. This is your watch. You're supposed to tell me. I don't know. It says five MT.
Andrew Um, I want, I want to get an analog, uh, atomic powered or atomic synced watch and change the time and just sit and watch it until the hands cycle back to the proper time. I, I would, I'd spend hours staring at my watch. I'd miss, I'd miss set it every day and just, just watch it sink back.
Everett You know, I think that would be fine. I'm just not sure, you know, when it's going to sink or whatever. So, Uh, yeah, no, I think that that pusher is for whatever that on off function is, which I think some, one of us should know, but neither one of us does. And so we're just not, but, but feel free to Google and tell us.
Andrew Or I'll Google and learn about it. Cause this also, this might've just made my short list of 2019 acquisitions.
Everett The price is good. And you know, I do love that integrated bracelet. Folks are kind of hard on integrated bracelets cause it, it, it does limit the versatility. Uh, you know, this, you're not going to be able to really You're not going to be able to put a pastor strap on here for sure.
Andrew Um, no. And with an integrated bracelet, any strap, that's not purposefully designed for that watch. It just, it looks weird.
Everett Yeah. Well, yeah. And that's, and that's the point I think. So, but I will say it's, it's calling out a little bit of, uh, Royal Oak APRO, uh, in, in my mind that the way that angles down into the bracelet and that H link, I really like it.
Andrew Yeah, that that angle is, is super, super well executed.
Everett Super. This is a, this is a track to watch and I've never seen it before. It definitely flies under the radar. Yeah.
Andrew But I'm, I dig it. I might get it this year.
Everett Eco drive, world time. So, you know, solar powered. Yeah. No, I mean, it's going to, it's, it's, it's really cool. GMT obviously. Yeah. Very, very neat. Anything else you want to say about it? If you have one, you want to send it to me for freeze. Do it. We do actually have some folks that are going to send us watches just to sort of play with, play with, talk about. You guys are awesome. I mean, seriously, super duper awesome. Uh, we're going to be super excited to get these watches. We're going to be, I think probably both of us a little bit on edge.
Andrew Oh, so careful. I'm going to walk around with my right hand, like, like in a sling.
Everett I think I might get some gaffer tape or something to put over the buckle. Just, I just don't want to be adding. Yeah. You know this I've been wearing this emperor diver now for a couple weeks and the buckles already Thrashed yeah, so I might get some some gaffer tape or something just to throw over that just so I'm not Contributing you know I know I'm gonna scratch that so I'm feeling I feel a little anxiety people have trusted us and now we need to be respectful But so so the good news is there's gonna be some watches coming through and we're gonna talk about them and some from people and some from some watch companies that you'll have heard of and it's
Andrew This is the other side of the coin where I just, I love the passion to share the passion with each other and I appreciate it and we'll come to appreciate it more. So my third watch.
Everett Ready? I think this is maybe the mother of all watches. I, I think you're right. So Casio Protrek, this is a multiband six radio controlled tough solar Protrek watch. The reference is PRW-7000-3. There are, It's the PRW7000 range. I think this is about, if not the most advanced or complicated Protrek that you can get now. There may be some others that are in that range. I also think that there are G-Shocks that have very similar capabilities. So it's a little bit of hyperbole to say it's the mother of all watches.
Andrew But in contrast to the G-Shock, when you wear this watch, you're clearly not wearing a G-Shock.
Everett That's right.
Andrew Yeah, it's not. You obviously can't wear this in any environment. but
Everett Well, in the style of this one, I mean, there's lots of Protrex that all sort of do very similar things. The reason I picked this one is because it looks the most like a watch, right? It's got a very sort of, not sterile bezel, but a very simple bezel. Some of these Protrex have these funky transformer bezels. This is the opposite of that. Very simple, smooth, round bezel. Simple face. It's also an anti-digi. And it's got some interesting stuff going on inside, but everything here is just watch.
Andrew And I'll tell you. The learning curve on that thing must be insane. I think it is. You got to click through 25 different functionalities.
Everett Let me read through some of the highlights. So it's a resin stainless steel case, carbon fiber insert, resin strap, whatever the fuck that means. Tough solar, sapphire, anodigy, display, neobright, you tell me. Smart access, that is actually where you can use the crown to change functions. Double LED light afterglow. Who knows what some of this shit means. Low temperature down to minus 10 Celsius. Time calibration signals. Digital, it's an ABC watch so it's got a altimeter, barometer, compass, thermometer, world time.
Andrew motherfucking fishing mode i don't know what it means i don't care what it means what i hope i want to watch with fishing mode what i hope it means is that it sends out frequencies to attract fish to your boat right i think that's probably what it does i think that's what it is actually what i think it does is it gives you sort of like what garmin does like best times of day for light and because it has all these other functionalities like it knows the weather it can probably give you pretty precise that's right that's right i bet if you dipped your your wrist in the water with that can tell you the water temperature. Probably. And it would affect the fishing times.
Everett Moon data, tide graph, stopwatch. And this is a feature, regular timekeeping.
Andrew That's the last feature.
Everett Not only do we do all that, but we'll also let you know that you're five minutes late to pick up your kid from school. Love it. I don't, you know, it's 400 bucks. They're not, they're not expensive. $450 here on Creation Watches. Also Creation Watches, You're a huge website. This looks like it was shot with a, like a, a, a Nokia, the, the razor. I know. Yeah. This is the worst picture.
Andrew I don't know. Whatever. Their job's not taking good pictures. Their job is getting us to buy it. Yeah. Yeah. That list of amenities. I'm interested.
Everett So I think, I mean, we're, we're getting sort of long in the tooth here. Um, anything you need to say about any of these watches?
Andrew No, it's just a cool technology that I think is really underused, underrepresented. I don't understand why. I wish more companies would do them. Fortunately, Casio has hundreds of options for under $50 that all use this technology.
Everett That's right. I mean, you can find a watch that you'll like, probably, probably. You're not going to like all of them. And some of these are a little funny.
Andrew They're a little funky. Most of them are Casio. There's a handful of companies that do it, but it's not permeated through the watch industry. For some reason, people take more pride in making really exceptional mechanical movements rather than talking to satellites.
Everett We got one correction from our Pilots Watch episode that came in this week. We do. The famous Brad Holmes. So some of you guys will know Brad Holmes or Brad Watch on Instagram. He's a really prolific watch writer, as far as I can tell, just a super decent dude. He commented on our Watch You Seek thread. If you're on Watch You Seek, we maintain a thread in the F71 forum for, I say we, I don't think Andrew's ever commented.
Unknown I read it sometimes, yeah.
Everett I don't know if I even have a login. Just sort of a place to, you know, have an extra conversation with folks. Brad says in there, bullseye? It's a roundel. So he is referring to our description of the Aviate Hawker Hunter. It's gutty. what we referred to on the show as a bullseye on the dial. And I think that's fair if you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Andrew and I both at least should know what we're talking about. It's called a roundel. It's not called a bullseye.
Andrew We're stupid. Part of it was making a description for to visualize it.
Everett Sure. I mean, I didn't know what a roundel was.
Andrew And I should. I knew the term. I wouldn't have put it to that.
Everett But that is actually what the term is.
Andrew And we should do a better job being I don't think we need to do a better job. Terminologically accurate in our descriptions of things. Whatever. I made up a word.
Everett Super helpful comment, and you know Brad is tongue in cheek when he makes this correction.
Andrew But we super appreciate the engagement. We do. We absolutely do. Write us, tell us what you want us to talk about, tell us what you don't like. More than that though, tell us what you do like about us. Mostly just tell us what you do like about us and then maybe slip in some backhanded compliments.
Everett We're fragile, you guys. We're delicate. We are delicate. We're delicate. We're not. No. No. I mean, I am. For the rest of my life, I'll be worried that I sound like Kermit. Whatever. So, other things. Do we have other things this week?
Andrew I do. For Christmas, I got a sous vide and I have been using it so much. I thought it was sous-vide. Oh yeah, sous-vide.
Everett That's right. That's right. My bad. Someone asked us on YGC, like, do you mispronounce stuff on purpose or do you? But the answer is both. Sometimes we just don't know.
Andrew Sometimes. But we cover up the not knowing with deliberate mispronunciation. So you'll never know. Never know. But I got the sous-vide for Christmas and love it. You had kernied us out of it. Carnitas maybe weren't the best first option out of it. I think they would have been just as good out of the slow cooker, but they turned out great. I've been using it a ton and one of our listeners actually mentioned that we should try sous vide cooking and it's something that I've wanted for a long time and I just never pulled the trigger on it. So fortunately I got one for Christmas and it is so great. Basically what it is, for those of you who aren't familiar, it is a cylindrical tool that you place into a vat of water and it has a heating element inside of it, uh, like a propeller that circulates the water. You set your temperature, you put a, you put whatever you want to cook in a vacuum seal bag, and then you drop it in the water. And what this does is it holds that temperature that you've set it at consistently. So it's not like you're pan frying something and your window of an undercooked to overcooked steak is approximately six microseconds. This, you have a good chunk of time. to be able to pull out perfectly cooked meat, throw it in the broiler, hit it with a blowtorch to give it that nice sear. And I'm telling you, it is, it is a great tool to have added to my kitchen.
Everett Have you done a ribeye or anything under it yet?
Andrew Not yet. Cause my wife and kid don't really like steaks. Holy cow, man. I know it's weird. If, if I weren't living in the house, like if I wasn't a part of that family unit, they would be vegetarians.
Everett So my seven year old, will ask for steak pretty regularly and she loves a medium rare ribeye she loves it because it's amazing it is amazing but it's such a weird thing i think for a kid to love both kids i'll go by they want it dad bring home steak and they don't want and they don't want crappy steak either because we brought home crappy steak and they're like this isn't good what are you doing i want ribeye like and you know ribeye is not cheap no it's like 20 bucks a pound here to get a decent sort of local ribeye. You can get it cheaper at Costco, I think probably a little bit, not a lot. No, Costco's got expensive meat. 16, 17 bucks, I think, for their stuff. But, you know, Knee Deep is a local, Knee Deep Farms? Yeah, I think it's farms. Is a local cattle farm around here and they make most of the local beef. It was like 21, 22 bucks, you know. And I'm going to put a pound of steak down. Oh yeah. I mean, we buy usually two steaks, so it will wind up being a $40 dinner. You know, geez, man, you can't do that all that often.
Andrew No. So I'm going to try some steaks here soon, but done some pork in it, done some chicken in it. It's great.
Everett Everything's come out well.
Andrew Everything's come out great.
Everett You just sticking under the broiler when you're done?
Andrew I got my torch to work inverted. Okay. I think it just hadn't run for a while when I tried it with the carnitas, but yeah, it's a great tool. For those of you who have been interested in them, or who maybe don't know anything about them, take a look. They don't quite fill the same functionality in your kitchen as a crock pot, so you can justify the additional tool, but a really similar functionality. Yeah.
Everett You know, we've been using the Instant Pot quite a bit for chicken, and we'll throw it in the Instant Pot, cook it real quick, and then throw it under the broiler. It does a sort of a similar type of thing. I want to get an air fryer. I don't even know what that is.
Andrew I'm going to get an air fryer. We can talk about it after. We're running long.
Everett So I've got one other thing. And I read an article this week and it was just a really cool article. So I've got, this is an article by Lauren Hough or Hough, H-O-U-G-H. I think it's probably Hough. And it was on Hough Post. Say what you will about Hough Post, but that's where I found this article. It's called, I was a cable guy and I saw the worst of America, or I was a cable guy period i saw the worst of america this is what i call a long form article i don't know andrew loves that term probably about 75 8 000 words so gonna take you a minute the difference between 75 words and 8 000 words is significant so 7 500 8 000 words right so it's probably a 15 20 minute read for you but if you if you if you have a big poop or something it's probably Perfect.
Andrew If I printed it out in like pages, I wonder if I could call it a book.
Everett You maybe could. That could be a December book. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty fascinating. So Lauren is a, she describes herself as a tall lesbian who got a job working as cable tech. You know, a cable guy is what she calls it, but a cable installation or a repair technician. And she, the stories she tells, it's anecdotal. You know, the article is written as a sort of exploration of her various visits to homes, some of them very interesting. She wound up doing cable work for Dick Cheney. But really what it's about is sort of sexism in the workplace and just sort of these things that happen in the world. It was fascinating and good and lighthearted and pleasant to read. I really enjoyed it. If you have 20 minutes and you want to check it out, Very interesting. She also sells, or she sells, she also talks about winding up going into a Russian mobster house. Cool. Where she's forced to do a bump of cocaine in order to get access to the splitter she needs to repair. So she did it quick. Right, right. Probably. Yeah, that's probably right. She's probably her most efficient repair.
Andrew That's not the direction I thought I was going to go. I was expecting that they were basically going to play my customer service calls to my cable companies as An article form.
Everett Well, that is, there's some of that in here too. So, I recommend you read it. I recommend you read it. Send it to me. And I recommend you read it too. So, we'll put a link to the article in the show notes as usual. Check it out. Pretty interesting read. Really, really fun actually.
Andrew I think the worst person I've ever been is when I'm talking to cable customer service.
Everett And maybe you'll do this differently. I'll tell you, I was in the restaurant industry for a number of years. Andrew was in the restaurant industry for a number of years. Both of us did customer service in different worlds. Still do. Yep. That's right. You still do. I still do.
Unknown Yeah.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew We all do. Everyone is.
Everett And I'll tell you, there's some people that are bad customers. Oh yeah. There are some people that are bad customers. And I'd wager that of the vast majority of those people either don't know it or aren't mindful of the impact that has. As a waiter or as a bartender, having a customer that's just mean, I think that's the best word, can really ruin your day. And so I love reading customer service articles, right? And some of them are not good, right? I read some of these BuzzFeed, you know, 10 things every bartender hates or whatever. It's like, fuck you. This is your job and just do it.
Andrew But order a complex cocktail if that's what you want. That's their job.
Everett That stems from this customer that just sucks. They're mean. They don't care about you as a human being. You don't have to care about me as a human being, but don't treat me less than a human being. That's right. That's right. You know what? I was, uh, my first year as a, as an attorney, I was, I'd started my own firm and I was, we were struggling for money. We had a new baby. And so I was waiting tables and bartending at night. Uh, so I'd go to work at eight 39 o'clock or whatever, you know, whenever my first appointment was. I'd work until 4.35 o'clock in my office, change clothes, throw my apron in my back pocket and drive to the bar and work till 11.30. And I loved it. I'm not complaining about it, but there were times where people, you know, I could just feel like the difference in respect from my day job to my night job. And it was like, I'm just the same exact guy. Everybody that you buy a beer from is just a guy or a gal who's trying to make money to feed their daughter.
Andrew I worked in a restaurant that a couple, like a handful of the bartenders were doing it just because they liked the social interaction because they were professors at the university. A couple of them were like local theater actors, like a really eclectic group of people. And I, one of the, like a memory that I'll always have about working there is on Sundays, this woman and her husband would always come in and she was the most difficult customer I have ever encountered. Every week her food allergies changed. Every week her tastes changed. You could bring her exactly the same thing as the week before.
Unknown Nope.
Andrew I don't like it. It's not right. And there was, we would basically roll a dice for who got the section because she had her table. She had to sit at her table, even though it wasn't a reservation. She came in every Sunday for brunch and it had to be right there. And we would roll a dice for who had that section.
Everett Well, and you know, maybe there's some spectrum.
Andrew Disorders have going on there, you know, and she also tipped poorly and she was an asshole do the whole time like she it sucks Yeah, it sucks.
Everett So I Got on down that rabbit hole just cuz this is a good customer service article you you I'm intrigued reading it You'll learn how to be a better customer and I'll tell you better customers that get better service. Yeah, the the the customers I like got free shit and I was nice to him and I mean I was nice to everybody I think or you know, mostly everybody Is your bartender or waiter can give you so much free stuff, right? Be nice to your bartender or waiter and don't be creepy nice Just be nice nice make dad jokes and shit, you know And and make them feel good because that's the way to get the best. That's the way to get the best service So are we done dude? Yeah should be done. We should be done. We're over time. We're sorry Hey, thanks for joining us once again, because you guys don't have to be here. We really appreciate you sticking around We always want to keep this at an hour. We've never done it. Never. I've never been under an hour.
Andrew And sometimes we're like, oh, we're going to get it. And then we're at an hour and 15. Here we are again.
Everett So again, we'd love to hear your feedback. Keep writing in. You got comments about what we messed up about solar watches or solar watches, atomic watches. If we screwed this up, please let us know. Also, if you say you really missed the ball by missing this very cool, affordable watch, let us know and we'll holler you out. Is that all? That's it. Thank you for joining us for this episode of 40 in 20. Don't forget to tune back in next Thursday for another hour. Watch as food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Buh-bye. Our music today is Bummin' on Tremolo by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com, licensed under creative commons by attribution 3.0 license.