The Grey NATO – 316 – The "One Watch" Tournament Championship!
Published on Thu, 30 Jan 2025 06:00:00 -0500
Synopsis
In episode 316 of The Graynado podcast, hosts Jason Heaton and James Stacey conclude their multi-episode "One Watch Tournament" where they each started with 16 watches and gradually narrowed down their selections to find their ideal single watch. After much deliberation, both hosts surprisingly end up selecting Tudor Pelagos models as their winners - James chooses the Pelagos 39 over a Longines Spirit Zulu Time, while Jason picks the Pelagos FXD over an Omega Seamaster 2254. The hosts discuss the criteria that led to their decisions, including factors like comfort, versatility, emotional attachment, and practical reliability.
The episode opens with an update on their firefighting charity t-shirt initiative, which has raised over $8,000 for the California Fire Foundation. After discussing recent activities including Jason's visit to a sauna village and upcoming travel plans, they dive into the final tournament selections. The hosts analyze the pros and cons of their finalist watches at length before making their somewhat unexpected dual Tudor choices. The episode concludes with final notes covering productivity apps, vampire films, and automotive YouTube content.
Links
Transcript
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| Jason Heaton | Hello and welcome to another episode of the Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 316 and it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support. And if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. My name is Jason Heaton, and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host, James Stacy. James, we're leaning heavy into the certainly watches part of things in the past few episodes, and today's a real culminating episode. |
| James Stacey | Oh yeah, this is a big one. You know, it's something almost biblical. I guess it makes sense that it's 316, as we quite literally pick between our children on this one. Dude, I don't even know where to start. I had so much trouble with that pick last week, and people rightfully torched me for that a little bit in Slack. I thought that was very fun. But man, I don't know where I'm going with this pick today. If you've been following along, we've been doing a huge tournament. Each of us picked 16 of our favorite watches that could be good one-watch options, and we've been narrowing it down over the last three episodes. So if you're jumping in at 316, I do highly recommend you back it up to 313. and give it a listen from the top. But today, we've got to pick the champions, the winners of the entire tournament. And man, I'm lost. |
| Jason Heaton | I am too. I mean, I'm going to make a game time call. I mean, it's coming down to the wire. I've thought about it off and on for the past week and with no resolution. It's a really, really tough call. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Yeah. I've been thinking about this a lot. I wouldn't go as far as to say it's keeping me up at night. Down to the watches that stay next to my bed, essentially. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I decided, I mean, we're coming down to it to the point where I need to, um, I, I was, I've been quickly cycling through other watches just to kind of get some time in before we're committed, um, to our final picks. But, uh, yeah, here we go. Well, before we jump into that, let's, uh, let's, uh, do a little housekeeping, a little bit of our usual top of the show. Chit chat. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, let's give a proper update on the firefighting shirt because the numbers are rad. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I agree. For those that maybe have missed the past couple of episodes, we have a t-shirt for sale in the TGN shop that came out of an idea by one of our listeners and subscribers, John Iwata, a Twin Cities area firefighter. who collaborated with Tony from the Illustrated Watch to put together a, what we're calling the TGN, the Illustrated Watch firefighting t-shirt. And as the name suggests, it's really in support of all those that have been fighting the fires out in California and those that have been affected by it. And all proceeds from this are being donated to the California Fire Foundation. And that was based on some input from another one of our subscribers and listeners, Asha Wagner, also a firefighter out in California. And we soft launched it a couple of weeks ago. Then we just talked about it on an episode and man, the response has been tremendous. We have sold a lot of shirts. I still see them going out every single day. We're up by my kind of rough calculations. We've raised over $8,000 for California fire foundation. |
| Unknown | Wow. |
| Jason Heaton | And we're just going to kind of let this run for, for a little while longer because you know, the need is still there and we're raising some good money and we're, we're just thrilled at the response. And, We also want to make it clear that you don't have to buy a shirt. You can donate money directly to the California Fire Foundation or, you know, any number of other great nonprofits that are out there doing good work in California. So thanks to everybody who's contributed to this. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, this is amazing. I think I said last week that Heaton and I were hoping for $2,500. And you know, we're at $8,000 now. And guys, come on, let's do $10,000. Let's do $10,000. I feel like that's actually a number that moves the needle. $10,000 out of nowhere from a silly podcast on the internet. But at this point, the pace is so much faster than I expected. Who knows where we'll land. but if you're feeling like a shirt and you want to be part of it and and at this point it's it's certainly a lot more than we expected so i think you know i'm looking forward to you know in the next few years going to hangouts and tgn meetups and that sort of thing and seeing these shirts as sort of part of the miasma of all the silly and fun things we've done with the logo over the years yeah and and i think this is a good one so i did want to give a big big shout out to everybody you helped put this together with tony and asha and john and And to everybody who supported it so far, eight grand is a huge amount of money for this, and I'm just super, super happy with it. Yeah, I agree. |
| Jason Heaton | I also wanted to do a little bit of explanation for those of you that do place orders with the TGN shop that involve maybe a t-shirt, maybe one of the mugs, and then also a strap. We've explained this before, but I ship the straps from my house here in Minneapolis. The t-shirts and some of the other things come from our fulfillment partner, Printful. And what that means is that you might get two separate shipping notifications. The items will arrive separately. But also I have encountered a few little, I guess I would call them bugs or snafus in the process whereby the kind of shipping interface that I use called Shippo will say that an order has been fulfilled outside of Shippo. And by that I assumed it would mean that somebody just ordered a t-shirt or just something from Printful. And on occasion someone has also had a strap in that order that I don't get notified about. So we're getting some occasional emails saying, I got the t-shirt a couple of weeks ago, I still haven't gotten the strap. And it's because I wasn't notified that there was a strap as part of that order. So then I go in and manually get those shipped. It hasn't happened a ton, but I just want to apologize in advance. If you have received a shirt and it seems like an extra long wait to get a strap, just drop us an email at thegraynadoatgmail.com and I will certainly get it sorted. And if you've got your order number, that would be even more helpful. Again, this isn't a huge problem. It's just something I've encountered on a few occasions and I wanted to make that known. And then one other bit of housekeeping is we've also gotten some emails from people confused about the billing for their subscription to TGN. I kind of manage our finance side through my personal LLC, my personal kind of small business, which is called Swim Proof. And so if you see a charge to a credit card for a renewal for your TGN subscription that lists SwimProof as the recipient, don't be alarmed. That is, it's still going to TGN. So no need to panic or to dispute the charge unless it's something legitimate or you want to cancel a subscription or something, then certainly that's your prerogative. And you can write us at thegreatnado.com. But just a couple of bits of clarification there at the top, just because we've gotten a few questions. |
| James Stacey | And I would encourage anybody who's unsure, whether you're unsure about an order that you made, you're unsure about a credit card charge, just send us an email. We'll sort it out. Look, with a little bit of the housekeeping stuff out of the way, and certainly the great success of the firefighting t-shirt, what else is new? I'm living a little bit through your reports as I'm not up to that much. I'm working. trying to put in a lot of long days here to try and get ready for Watches and Wonders, already booking meetings and that kind of stuff. So it's the absolute busy season for me. I went outside yesterday to get the mail. We have like a community mailbox. I went outside to get the mail and I was like, oh, this is, it's quite lovely out. It was like, you know, negative two or three, like fairly warm compared to how it's been and sunny. And I was like, hey, I should probably go outside a little bit more than I have been. |
| Jason Heaton | There's that popular meme of like a very bedraggled looking bear coming out of hibernation. That I see on social media every now and then. I picture you just kind of coming out of the house kind of dazed and confused. Squinting into the sun. What day is it? |
| James Stacey | Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what have you been up to? You sent me one thing, which was you visit... Do I have the phrase right? It's a sauna village you went to? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So there's a, um, you know, quirky sort of Minnesotan way to celebrate winter or long winters here. And it's called the great Northern festival that has been put on for, I don't know, the past five years or maybe more, um, at various places around the twin cities. And the launch event for this festival was last Thursday. And I went to this, um, launch event, which largely amounted to a few vendors and things. It was at a food hall, one of these places where there's multiple, So they had about 15 to 20 different saunas set up and running, um, from different vendors, uh, saunas, you know, I'm, I'm guessing also in Toronto and many other places in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, Saunas have become really popular. It's just something to do. There's pop-up saunas around the lakes around here and people are putting them in their yards. And so the sauna village was a great kind of opportunity for different sauna manufacturers to show off their wares. And so they set up all of these saunas. And it was a great opportunity to show off their saunas. I spent some time kind of going from sauna to sauna, um, kind of trying out these, these, these different, you know, some very elaborate, some are very simple. And, uh, it was really great. It was, it was like a 90 minute sauna session where, you know, you intersperse, you're in one for 10 or 15 minutes, then you step out and move to the next one. And there's places to splash off with water. And it was a lot of fun. But the one that kind of struck me, because I've been kind of keen on maybe putting a sauna in the back yard here for winter use, was one by a company called Firefly. And it's actually a tent sauna, which I was a little skeptical about, like in terms of its ability to hold the heat. But it has a little wood-burning stove, not unlike our friends at Snow Trekker, the tent company that loaned a tent last winter for camping. It's a similar kind of stove with a pipe that goes out of the top of the tent. But the tent itself is kind of a geodesic dome-style large tent with a bench inside and this little stove. And the tent itself is actually insulated. So most of the panels are quilted, sort of insulated nylon. And it stayed quite warm in there. It was probably 180 degrees, 175 degrees inside, very comfortable sitting on a bench. And I was looking at their website and I think they're like $1,500, $1,600 all in with the stove and a bench and the, and the tent itself. And it's kind of tempting when you compare that to the price of, of kind of big, more bigger, more permanent saunas. Um, we'll see if I pull the trigger. I'm not sure because there's plenty of other places to do saunas around here, but it'd be kind of neat to have one that you could take down in the summer and put away and then set up in the winter. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I also wonder, because I was thinking about this since you had texted me about it a few days back. I was also wondering if you get the heater, the stove, or whatever term they would use for it. I'm wondering, would you be able to repurpose any of the kit that comes with it? I'm thinking specifically of the stove, I suppose, into another sauna, or is it all sort of integrated and that's the unit? |
| Jason Heaton | No, in fact, I think you could just buy it piecemeal if you wanted. If you had your own stove, you could just buy the tent or vice versa. But yeah, I think this stove could actually be used. I mean, you could set it up if you built, yeah, like a little shed in your backyard, you know, a little for lack of a better word, man cave, she shed, whatever you want to call it, and put it in there if you wanted. It's just kind of a generic camping wood stove that I think could be moved into something else if you were to build something later. |
| James Stacey | I would definitely consider getting one just because I think the health benefits are huge and you don't do anything. |
| Unknown | Yeah, right. |
| James Stacey | Like most things in life, if the health benefits are huge, require you to do something, climb a mountain, run for hours a week or whatever it is, lift something heavy and put it down many, many times. you just sit there. That sounds all right. So it's like sleeping. One of my other favorite things that has great health benefits. I guess I see the wisdom in the tent ones in areas like where we live, where the summer's quite warm. So you probably wouldn't be doing a lot of sauna. So then the tent one ends up making a ton of sense because you're not spending for a 365 day a year solution especially if you thought you could use it a bunch, start to amortize. You know, this is that like cost per use scenario that we sometimes like to talk about. But yeah, I like it. That's a cool idea. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And then speaking of hot and steamy, I'm going to be gone next week. I've got a trip, kind of first dive trip since last fall. This one again with Blancpain, I was invited to join them in the Philippines for a pretty cool event and there will be some diving and snorkeling and general tropical carousing and meet with some old chums there and should be fun. It should be good fun. I've actually never been to the Philippines and it's certainly a long trip, but I will be gone from Monday through Sunday. So we're going to actually pre-record next week's episode later this week. So you won't miss an episode next week. So yeah, that'll be fun. I certainly will. We can do a download episode, kind of a recap when I'm back. I'm actually not even sure how it's all going to play out. I've gotten kind of general kind of ideas about what's going to happen on the trip. But beyond that, it's going to be a bit of a surprise for me. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I'm excited. I remember, I believe there's an episode of Descending that was in the Philippines. And I think I could be, I might, it's been too long. To be fair, I might be conflating Indonesia, but they find a cuttlefish of some sort, like a flamboyant cuttlefish, I think, in the sand. That would be a top experience for me diving to see something like that. I'll put it in the show notes if you don't know what the flamboyant cuttlefish is. Little tiny fella, really cool. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, and I know that where we're going, it's a, it's, it's this area that is a, um, it was actually a, an Island that was bought by, um, a wealthy Frenchman who had this kind of grand vision of making a, making a Marine protected area on his own. Not unlike what Doug Tompkins and Chris Tompkins did down in South America with their money from the North Face and Esprit, where they just bought huge tracts of land to set aside. This is kind of what's been done around this private island in the Philippines. And I believe that's where we're going. And it's also the area, if you recall a few years ago, Laurent Ballesta, who we've had on the show a few times, a Blancpain ambassador, an incredible diver and photographer, He has won the wildlife photographer of the year award, very prestigious award. Um, he's won it twice, which I don't believe anybody else has ever done. What a guy, but one of the years that he, he won, it was for a photo that he took of a horseshoe crab. Um, and it was a really dramatic photo. So just, just Google Laurent ballesta horseshoe crab, and you can find this photo, um, that he took that won the award, but we're going to be diving in the area where he took that photo. |
| James Stacey | Oh yeah, I remember this photo. I'll put it in the show notes. |
| Jason Heaton | And I would love to see a horseshoe crab. I've never seen one other than a shell that I believe my parents had when I was a kid. You could probably buy the shell of one or something back then. Anyway, it should be fun. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, that's great, man. I'm super happy for you. you go away and then the day that you get back, I go away. |
| Unknown | Yeah, right. |
| James Stacey | So I'm not going diving in the Philippines. I'm going to sit in boardrooms in Geneva for a few days of meetings and to see some watches and that sort of stuff. So I am looking forward to it. I haven't been doing a ton of travel uh yet this year so uh a nice little trip i've got a few days out in geneva should see our pal cole oh cool um if i can convince him to jump on a microphone you know i will but uh we can also do that remotely pretty easily we should definitely he's on it definitely on our list for the first half of uh of 2025 for yet yet more guest uh stuff but man we've got a couple cool episodes in the plan you and i just went over the next month yeah and there's some stuff i'm actually pretty excited about we're gonna have the slack crew and a will come back for 2025 how many how many questions do we have in that thread on from slack like 70 plus last i checked it was like up to 71 so yeah yeah we got to close that down soon and then we'll we'll be ready to kind of start chipping away at them that's it's great to have a huge number Yeah, exactly. By the time this episode comes out, we will have killed that thread simply because it's like, you know, last year, I think we did maybe 55, 56 entries and it lasted us through five or six episodes. So this will give us another year of Q&A questions, which is great. February can kind of be a slow month or a slow part of the year as everybody's kind of waiting for watches and wonders in terms of stuff to talk about and that sort of thing. And it's not our most adventurous time of the year. yeah uh so yeah i i'm definitely looking forward to that thanks to everybody in advance uh who put questions in and certainly if you want to be part of the slack you can visit thegranator.com for more details you can get in there for as little as five dollars a month and that also includes our monthly q a episode which uh if you're listening to this episode on thursday there'll already be a q a episode waiting for you from december to close out for the end of the month but Yeah, should be good and looking forward to all of that. But yeah, with some travel coming up, it probably should make for some interesting episodes and lots to report. But how about we jump into some wrist check and then get into a very difficult end of our One Watch tournament. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I feel like we're putting it off, putting off the difficult part of the show. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I'm vamping for sure. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, well, this is, um, so it is a bit difficult because, you know, just, just before I get into the risk check, you know, this episode where we were going to pick our watch that we're going to wear for a month is tricky because, you know, we've, we've left the bit of a caveat that if we have some other brand related or other reason to wear a different watch during that month, we will. And I certainly have a Blancpain week long trip in which I'll be wearing that watch, which was eliminated already. from this tournament not long ago. But beyond that, I'm furiously going through my collection trying to wear other stuff before I have to be committed to a single one, and today it happens to be a Vertex, a bronze Vertex. I've been wearing... Lo and behold, last week Don Cochran, our buddy who owns Vertex, the great-great-grandson, I believe, of the founder of Vertex, um sent me uh one of their latest and it's the bronze 36 it's called so this is you know the m36 is the sensational 36 millimeter steel version of their classic field watch kind of the dirty dozen homage yeah quite possibly my next one yeah and they did a bronze version very limited edition bronze version to commemorate the 80th anniversary of d-day and it was released last year and don sent sent over one And it's just a little gem. I mean, this thing is... I have the 40mm bronze Vertex, the M100, and I thought that's great. But you put it next to the 36 and something about just that slightly smaller form factor, everything just pops a little bit more. And the bronze is slightly more... warm and red than the one in the 40 millimeter and it just it almost just glows I mean it's just a beautiful beautiful little watch comes with some really great straps with bronze hardware which is really cool it's an automatic with a screw-in crown which I wasn't aware of I thought it was the hand wound like the 40 millimeter but regardless just a just a gorgeous piece so that's what I'm wearing today. |
| James Stacey | Nice. Yeah, that's great. Great pick. I'm a big fan. I would say, you know, I think we've talked about this before. I've never really connected with the bronze, but you know, I think I've had the standard M36 in a tab on my browser for a couple of months. I am trying to be responsible. In terms of buying watches, I spent and bought quite a few last year, and I do want to kind of reassess things that should stay and things that should go. But definitely on the incoming plan, it's very, very high on the list. I think the price is quite fair for the quality I've experienced from them before. I had, you know, Don was kind enough to loan me a Aqualion, a standard steel Aqualion for some time. a couple years back, and I really liked it and wrote up a story for Hodinkee. And, you know, the brand's been on my radar. They kind of give me the same buzz I got from early Bremont in terms of, you know, they have this very core identity. The style's great. They have sort of a gentlemanly, toolish sort of vibe that I really like quite a bit. And then to do the dirty dozen thing, but with a modern watch with incredible loom, it just, it checks a lot of boxes for me. |
| Jason Heaton | I think that that three-dimensional loom that they use, those big blocks that they use for the numerals. It transcends just an homage watch. I mean, it looks at first glance, it's like that is a watch from 1944, but then like they tweak it just enough. And of course the loom is incredible as well. It's not just cool looking, but that addition of those, those 3d blocks of super bright loom just, just really kick it up. I mean, it's just, it makes it for such a great watch. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I agree. Good pick for sure. And certainly a great watch to have as part of our one watch tournament. Pretty solid watch all around. Could definitely be in the running if we ever do this again. For me this week, I really have been kind of stressing over having to pick between these two that I've got. And as such, I am wearing a titanium watch. I mentioned this earlier. I'm wearing a titanium watch, but neither of the two finalists for today. I'm wearing an Apple Watch Ultra. I just find that, especially on days, you know, Tuesdays with recording TGN and that sort of thing can be quite a busy day in terms of scheduling. And I find the Apple Watch is just really handy at keeping on top of whatever the flow of the day is without having to constantly just have my phone in my hand. Because I am the type, you know, my attention span is such that, you know i'll get a notice from google calendar or whatever that what you know whatever meeting is in 10 minutes i go oh that's very important and go back to work and totally forget like 10 minutes is plenty of time for me to forget what was coming yeah And then so you just enter every meeting three minutes late. It's probably not ideal. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | I do have a something of a solution for this, but I'm going to keep it for final notes. So I have one kind of bigger final notes and one that's just an app that I really like that I found recently. So I'll circle back on this, but I'm wearing my Apple Watch Ultra. I like this as very much as a smart watch. Like that's how I use the Ultra. And I could probably just be using a standard Apple watch. I do find that if I was going for a really long hike or doing more outdoor running, that sort of thing, I don't know why necessarily, but I probably prefer the Garmin. I like the battery life. They're a little lighter. They seem a little bit more tuned towards the activity, like a tool for, the next six hours of your life or whatever. Whereas the Apple Watch just feels like something you just kind of pick up, put on, and it just kind of quietly kind of helps your day. I don't get the same buzz out of this as I would either of the watches we're about to talk about, but I do really like it. It's quite handy. It's a nice, it's a different take on a tool watch, but it's tool-ish in its own way, if that makes sense. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And yeah, it could not be more different than what we're about to do. No, not so much. All right. Well, we can't put it off any longer. |
| James Stacey | We have to make a choice Yeah, you want me bring people bring people up to speed and then we'll get into the public vote from last week. Yeah, good idea All right So I'll keep this light because I do assume most people listening listened since 313 at least when we started the one watch tournament But we each started with 16 watches each week. We've whittled it down 16 8 8 2 4 4 2 2 and today we'll go from 2 to 1 and Jason will be deciding between his Tudor Pelagos FXD Black and his Omega Seamaster Diver 2254. Tough pick. And I'm going to be picking between my Tudor Pelagos 39 and my Longines Spirit Zulu Houdinki Limited Edition. Also a tough pick. Two watches I absolutely adore. But we now have essentially two tournaments going on. Because when we kicked this off, we decided to offer a public vote. of the open bracket, so when the episode goes live, where we go from, say, 16 to 8, the audience, all of you listening, also had the option of going into the show notes, clicking into the bracket. There's one for Jason, one for me, and you can vote, and thousands and thousands of you have voted in each round. It's been great, but... we didn't adjust the picks based on what Jason and I actually picked. So we have kind of two votes. We have the populist vote, which is very cool, and it's gone a different direction. And we have what Jason and I are kind of voting on or kind of selecting in between. So if we look at the voting from last week, Jason for yours on the public side again. This is the public side. So it's it's slightly different watches Yeah, so in the public side your Seamaster didn't win and didn't write it into the semi-finals. Yeah in the public side It was the Tudor Pelagos fxd against your Tudor Submariner snowflake and the Rolex Submariner 14060 M against the Blancpain 50 fathoms and so in for the public vote that actually went close-ish on both. The Pelagos FXD only won by 3.2% at 53.2 over the sub Snowflake. And then your 14-06 OM, which isn't even in the running on our tournament, on the host tournament, we'll call it. But it won at 63.1%. So I would say the Blancpain did a pretty good fight against its major rival in many ways. Two different eras and generations of the watch, that sort of thing. From the public side, they'll be voting this week on your FXD Black versus the 14-06 OM, which I actually think is a pretty interesting vote, especially because we'll have the outcome of yours here, which is, you know, might be the same watch, but might also not be. yeah yeah and then in a similar format my vote is was uh based on the doxa sub 350th anniversary in the tutor peggles 39 this is the public side again pelagos won at 76 strong win and then we had the rolex date just 1601 linendale versus my explorer 216 570 neither of which are in my tournament but in the public tournament, the Explorer 2 went at 88%, so a very strong win, leading to a Tudor Pelagos 39 versus 16570 Explorer 2 for the finalist in the public vote. I do feel like we've made it both confusing but also more fun, and I'm okay with that outcome. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, and look at the public vote, the final categories for each of us. They're very similar. Rolex is from the same era. And titanium tutors. And then two Pelagoses. I mean, it's close. I'll be very curious to see where they come down. I have a feeling, well, I'm not even going to say what my feeling is because that'll potentially bias the final vote. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, yeah, don't. But yeah, so that's the public side, and if you're listening to this and would like to vote on the final round, the winner of the public vote, you can vote along on Common Ninja. There are two sites, one for me, one for Jason. I don't bit.ly or hide these links. They're open links, so they're easier to find, easier to understand. It's CommonNinja.site slash TGN Jason and CommonNinja.site slash TGN James. You can go in and vote. By the time you're listening to this, voting will be open for the absolute final round, for the championship round. So feel free to vote on that. And that brings us to our task, which is voting on our picks for the two. So again, I mentioned this at the top, but for me today, I'm picking my finalist, the champion between the Tutor Pelagos 39 and the Longines Spirit Zulu Hodinkee Limited Edition. Boy, that's a wild, that's a wild pairing. |
| Jason Heaton | That is a crazy pairing. Um, anyway, you think so? Well, I mean, looking where the, the, the path that they, that they took, especially on the launching side, the launching feels like a, to me, a bit of a gross underdog, but then again, it certainly was last week too. And look how far it's come. So I'll be curious to hear your kind of tortured, um, rationale behind, uh, behind, uh, your, your ultimate winner here. And then on my side, it's an interesting pair up as well, because I've got the Omega Seamaster Diver 300 meter reference 2254, which would beat out some good contenders along the way, including my Rolex Sub, going up against the Tudor Pelagos FXD Black. um which is a watch that has been a one watch um for me you know for you know a month at a time at least in some cases so uh it's gonna be it's gonna be a tough battle and you know again i'm still deciding as we're as we're talking through this i'm sort of hedging around and and sort of trying to fill space here so i can give my brain a little more time to think this through |
| James Stacey | Don't have an outcome picked yet either. Yeah, it's not it's not like with some goal of making the show more interesting I just like it's I'm not I feel like I have said this on the past several episodes. I'm not a one-watch guy Yeah, yeah, I'm more than happy look whatever. I pick today. I'm more than happy to wear it for a month We can decide even when that month is if it kicks off today, okay? I guess if it you know if it's something we're like I I could go all summer with one of these watches. Like, I love both of these watches, but actually picking one means you're not picking the other. You know what I mean? Yeah, right. You know, I like all 16 I started with. Those are watches I wear. Yeah, that's true. With some, like every month probably, right? |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | But in a given month, in the 30 days of a given month, probably 15 of them go to either the Pelagos 39 or the Longines. So this makes sense for my pick. Yeah. These are the watches I wear a lot. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And I like the idea of choosing a month or a 30 day period. It doesn't have to be starting today, because as I mentioned, I've got this trip coming up. You've got a trip maybe where you don't want to wear your winter or something. But we'll decide that later. But I think before we even make our choices, it might be interesting to kind of revisit or talk through our criteria for what will make the one watch. And maybe we can even help each other sort of convince each other what, what we think are the pros and cons of each. So why don't you start? Why don't you do not even just for a month, but like, you know, you're the classic, you know, cliche scenario, your house is burning down and these two watches are sitting there. Um, and you're just going to wear one of them going forward. What, what, what's your thought process? |
| James Stacey | Yeah. I mean, look, between my two watches or really between any watches, this is a tough one for me because you're picking between divers, right? Both divers, both great watches. I'm picking between kind of the two sides of my watch personality. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | In otherwise very similar watches, 39 millimeters, titanium, bracelet. you know good good loom modern timekeeping on one side. We have a dive watch that I absolutely adore. It's a simply fantastic everyday modern watch and on the other side. We have a travel watch which I adore and it's simply a great everyday watch. You know, I think I think it's it's it's a thing where like you come down to like do I want to decide based on like do I travel or dive more will I travel more But there's nothing that says a dive watch doesn't make a great travel watch. It just doesn't have a second time zone. You know what I mean? And look, I love GMT watches. I love the fascination of being able to meter out multiple time zones from one mechanical object on your wrist, but I don't need it. I do lead a life where I need water resistance. It doesn't need to be a dive watch. Both of these watches are the sorts of watches I grab when I go to the cottage. And then they're just on a NATO or on a bracelet, and I don't think about them. I jump off docks, I go swing an axe in the woods, I go work on the Jeep, I go to the dump, like whatever you get up to. A nice modern watch, proper sports watch. Between the two, I probably prefer the way the Pelagos looks, but not by a wide margin, just it's a preference. I love that Pelagos a lot. And then on the other side I have I have something of a bias towards the long jeans because it's from Houdini Yeah, yeah, because my wife works on the limited editions team, and I think it's one of the better watches They've that came out of that program certainly in the in this price zone in on quite some time Mm-hmm, and you can you can say that you know Maybe maybe it was derivative or this or that but like you also don't see them that there's it to be fair There is one on the slack right now if someone listed it this morning Oh, I saw that. So if you've been waiting for what is a fairly limited watch, there's one on the slack if it hasn't sold already. But you don't see these come up for sale that often. So it's just like these are cool watches that I think apply to a wide range of people and perhaps are a little bit less sort of serious in many ways than... I mean, it's still a pretty serious watch, but like the Pelagos has this sort of very serious intent, toolish, military derived, even more so for the FXD. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | It's, uh, it's tough. I think, I think you can tell that I don't have a decision made. |
| Jason Heaton | So just looking, trying to step back and be objective, um, in terms of a few criteria, like comfort wise, do they, do they wear similarly? Is there one that's more comfortable physically? Like let's say both on the bracelet. |
| James Stacey | Do they both wear similarly? Between the two, I would say the Pelagos is more comfortable, a little bit easier to wear. The T-Fit does make a difference. It's my main complaint about the Longines would be that they should... It's not that we didn't have it because, I mean, Hodinkee designed this watch. I'm sure we asked. I'm sure there was some reason why there wasn't micro-adjust in the clasp, but when they get around to it, that'll be a good addition. It's kind of the only thing I feel the watch is missing. And then the only thing I would say the Pelagos is missing is the loom on the hands is slightly less bright than the loom elsewhere. This is something that I think people who maybe don't have the watch seem to pick at online, and that's fair because it is kind of the one dig. The hands on mine, I have an early example, and for all I know, the more modern, more current, like if you bought one today, I'm not sure if it's different. But I would say the hands on mine are not as bright as the markers or the bezel treatment. It doesn't bother me or stop me from being able to tell the time in the dark. Yeah, but it is kind of noticeable specifically for things like You know a loom shot or something for Instagram and what about the launching? How's the loom on that? How do they compare in terms of loom? The launching is very standard for a watch. I think you know, it's a modern watch. The loom is good. It doesn't last forever. Mm-hmm You know, it's it's nice and bright. It works just fine. I wouldn't you know, it's neither them or Seiko monsters Yeah but also neither of them are my, you know, 16570, which glows for about three minutes, maybe. Accuracy-wise, both keeping good, fair time. Both are chronometers, both keep great time. Yeah. I think the other thing that's interesting in this, if we zoom out a little bit, is we've got both our Tudor versus Swatch properties. Right. Yeah, true. Yours older than the Longines, but, you know, similar concepts in that family. Yeah. Omega and Longines. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | And how about one last question, like in terms of swapping straps around, do you prefer, like the Pelagos seems a little more, well I shouldn't say this, I don't know, like how do they both look on different straps, like a NATO, or you don't do a lot of leather on these watches, but... |
| James Stacey | yeah i like them both on nato's uh the the thing is they're both 21 millimeter lugs oh okay whatever strap i buy for one i use on both so like my post style strap which i had custom made by that by that i'll put him in the in the show notes if you don't know him but it's this beautiful canvas strap handmade yeah How about you between the two? Like how are you? Because yours are actually different eras, right? Your 2254, I assume, is from 2006. I think even earlier than that. I think it's and then you have an FXD, which is a modern watch with. I would look. I have nothing against an 1120, which is the ETA derived caliber in the 2254. They can keep great time. They're super thin. I actually think Omega should look back at that movement as a indication of what they should do moving forward because their movements are quite thick now. But that's not the case with the FXD movement. Really reliable, nicely sized, suits the watch really well, great power reserve, good timekeeping. I mean, it's a slightly different proposition for you between the two watches because they're not really both modern, right? Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | And that is something that has been weighing on my mind as I'm observing even the timekeeping between the two. The Pelagos just keeps such tremendously good time. Obviously a more recently made and regulated movement. I don't know the service history of the Seamaster, but being a 20 year old watch, it's It's going to be, you know, less magnetic resistant and probably shock resistant, you know, kind of everything that a new movement from a company like Tudor provides, the Seamaster is going to fall short in that regard. I think, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's That is the only reason why I would say age affects the Seamaster. I don't think in any other respect it really matters. I think it, you know, still looks great. The lume is very good on the 2254. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, they are great. And they're water-resistant. Like that, to an extent, like a modern watch. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | For me, that's really the delineating factor between an older watch and a newer watch is like, could I just take it to the cottage and jump off the dock? Yeah, right. And not have to stress on it at all. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And, and in my case, you know, you've got two titanium watches going head to head. I've got a steel watch and the Seamaster going against the titanium FXD. And you'd think that a titanium Pelagos would be more comfortable because it's lighter and, you know, it lives on lightweight straps, you know, I mean, you can only wear it on a pull through strap. So it does have a pull through rubber, but, but typically like a nylon NATO or the Velcro that came with it. But the Seamaster is arguably one of the most comfortable watches I own. And I've been wearing it almost exclusively lately on kind of the, what people are calling the planet ocean style rubber strap that was actually designed for it. Hugs the case beautifully. It fits, you know, fits the case beautifully. It's a bit of a stiffer rubber, but the curve of that case, the thinness of that case, the way the strap kind of wraps around my wrist is just, it's so comfortable. And then you throw it on. The bracelet, which people also have quibbled about over the years because it doesn't taper, you know, it's a wide bracelet, but it's, I think, I don't know, did they call this the Speedmaster style bracelet? It's not that kind of more decorative, I guess, if you will, or shiny bracelet that came on the Bond. Yeah, I mean, there's the two formats. It really is a strap monster. I think that the Seamaster looks great on rubber, looks great on the bracelet. It looks really good on NATO because you throw it on a NATO and suddenly it's like an upscale CWC. I mean, it's that same format. It comes from the old Ministry of Defense spec for Royal Navy diving watches with the addition of this beautiful curved case, which from a kind of an aesthetic standpoint, we couldn't have two more different looking watches. The Pelagos FXD is just a modern, angular, I hesitate to use the word brutal. I don't mean that in a negative sense, a pejorative sense. |
| James Stacey | Almost brutalist though. |
| Jason Heaton | Brutalist. Yeah. It's just, it's all matte finish. It's all monolithic. Yeah, you know, slab side, not much in the way of, you know, decoration or polishing. Yep. But that's part of its appeal. And with the fixed strap bars, it even takes that to another level because, you know, it was kind of just designed to do one thing. The Seamaster is a weird mix. It's this MOD style diving watch that has this beautiful case. And I think that is what's always been appealing to me about every, well, almost every Seamaster dating back to the early sixties is that that case combined with this very functional dial, just lend it this aesthetic. And those sword hands. And the sword hands. It's just gorgeous. Right. The other thing that Seamaster has going for it, and a lot of us love to crow about how great no-date watches are, and I love a no-date watch, but sometimes a date's handy, and if you're picking one watch, having a date might be kind of a nice thing, and the Pelagos does not have that. |
| James Stacey | It is, yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | The other thing the Pelagos does not have going for it, is the limitations of straps. The Seamaster, I can throw a bracelet on if I want. I think even a leather strap would look good. I haven't tried it on leather, but I think it would look fine. So going forward, if I were to pick one watch that I wanted some variety and I wanted to keep swapping straps around, the Seamaster would definitely win that argument. So we're talking kind of accuracy, ruggedness, modernity, and just, you know, pure functionality. I think the Pelagos definitely comes out on top in spades, but I think stepping back and looking at kind of versatility and aesthetic interest and just beauty, I think, and comfort, the Seamaster has the edge in that respect. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I mean, for me, looking at your watches, I agree, the Pelagos, they're very different watches. and the Omega has this incredible history connecting back to the original 300, the MOD origins, the sword hands. I genuinely believe this is something we harp on a lot on the show, but this is a watch that Omega should still be making. yeah uh the sword hands shouldn't have gone away i understand the downstream of the bond effect meant that the skeletonized hands were around to stay but just i'm not saying you need to make 40 50 references like you might have for the standard sea master with the skeleton hands yeah but like give us one or two yeah yeah right with the with the sword hands give us a stand like give us the the down the middle not super shiny yeah i just i think this is a watch they should continue making i don't know that there's a planet ocean without this model yeah true because it feels like that's where they like the sea master went all full bond at one point with the with the skeleton hands and all that and got very shiny and then just before that they took some of the kind of toolish mod derived dna of this watch and kind of turned it into a whole line with the with the planet ocean but of course with that you have the sort of arrow tip hands Which is an entirely different look, but yeah, I mean my love of the 2254. I've owned one for a long time I've talked about I wish I hadn't sold it someday. I'll get another one. I checked the prices recently. I'm not getting them at that price They've definitely gone up in time and that's good. That's a good watch and that makes sense to me but I do think that so much of my appreciation for this comes downstream of one of my favorite watches and certainly from Omega, maybe my favorite Omega, which is like, you know, the original 300 diver. I just, it's such a beautiful watch. I've said this before, but you know, it's like the Eames chair of dive watches. It's just this perfect mid-century design. And I think it kind of reached something of a peak for me with the 2254. Yeah, I mean, look, between your two, I could definitely make a decision. But and I think that's the point that we're at is, would you like to go first or would you like to go second? I am, to be clear, I am willing to go first. You go first for a lot of stuff. |
| Jason Heaton | Before we do that, I would I would almost throw this out there that if we were to pick each other's winner, we might end up with the two watches that we're probably going to end up picking. I don't I'm just I'm just saying that I'm not sure. But of your two, I would choose the Pelagos 39 every day. That would be my pick. If you were to pick mine, my winner, what would you pick? I don't get the feeling you're a big FXD person. |
| James Stacey | The FXD is comfortable on my wrist, but it wears like an oversized watch. It wears like a big watch, and that's why I like the 39, is it wears like a watch. It wears like an older sub, it wears like a 9401, it wears like, it's just, for me, and it is, this is hyper subjective, because I think if you have a slightly different shaped wrist, or if you don't, or if you prefer, like you, Jason, have an even stronger, I like a big watch, especially in the summer, but you have like a specific preference towards larger watches, and I would say that the FXD is a small version of a larger watch, if that makes sense. Yeah, whereas the pelagos thirty nine is a small version of a dive of a of a Rolex tutor dive watch. |
| Unknown | Yeah. Yeah. |
| James Stacey | And yeah, between your two, I would go with the I would go with the Seamaster interest simply because you could put whatever straps you want on it. I have a real softness, which I just talked about for minutes and minutes for the sword hands and the wave dial in the sort of that that era of Omega design does really speak to me. But the the biggest ding against the FXD is that it's not a thirty nine. Oh sure for me like if this was 39 versus 2 2 5 4 we have a very tough. Yeah math for me, right? Yeah, I don't see the long jeans being an especially you sort of watch correct. It seems like something you might own Yeah for a year wear around and then move on. Yeah. Yeah, whereas I think fxd and 2 2 5 4 feel like watches that I think will just Exist in your collection. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah a long time really definitely and |
| James Stacey | Alright, well, it's time. You go first. What's your winner? Yeah, last week I deliberated at length. I cut a fair amount of that deliberation out of the episode, so if it was still too long, I apologize. I'm not going to do that as we've already done 15 minutes of balancing these two out. Between these two, it's not an easy decision, but it's not as close as it was between the Longines and the Rolex. Last week, I'm going with the Pelagos 39. Bravo. I kind of had a feeling that's the way you were going, but then again, I was surprised last week. The truth is, no matter how we divided up the 16 at the start, it was probably going to be the Pelagos. I just adore it. It feels pretty close to a watch that was made for me. And don't get me wrong, it definitely wasn't, of course, for that one watch. If you're the type who gets into watches, their collection balloons like mine has, and then you start really thinking about like, what if it was just one? You're gonna pick the watch that feels the most like it's yours. And for me, that's the Pelagos. All right, it's my turn. Oh, geez. Yeah, I'll give you some 20 more seconds of rest. |
| Unknown | Sure. Yeah. Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Where the Longines might have the Longines Rolex might have been a 5149 thing. This is like 5545. I feel pretty pretty confident that I love both of these watches, but I love the Pelagos just a little bit more. It could be a sentimental thing as well. It's engraved. It's mine. I bought it from the factory. I'm not willing to say that I can't be critical about Tudor. I think I have been. If you want to read the one that caused me some issue, go back and read my review of the gold Black Bay 58. But when Tudor does it right, it really feels like a watch I would have made or would have attempted to be part of the team that made it. |
| Jason Heaton | Okay. I'm ready. Um, look, if I were, I'm ready. |
| James Stacey | Um, look, uh, uh, well, if it's something we all go gold bloom and we got to pick one one. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Um, I will just make this my final statement about, about criteria. If, if this were a choice between, you know, the Pelagos FXD and a current edition Seamaster diver, If they were making the 2254 and this was a new watch or of the exact same totally different era, it would be different math. But I think you can see where I'm leading with this. Boy, this hurts to say because I have loved wearing this Seamaster Diver almost nonstop for the past few weeks. I'm giving it to the Pelagos, the FXD. |
| James Stacey | Whoa, really? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I am. I didn't expect that. |
| James Stacey | You know why I picked my tutor? I thought it was because you said you were safely going. Well, we went double tutor. |
| Jason Heaton | I was... I've been thinking the past... I didn't see it coming. The past few hours, I've been agonizing about this, and I've been thinking the Seamaster, the time drifts a little bit. It's going to need a service. And okay, maybe, you know, look, after a service, maybe it'd be a different scenario. Have it regulated, get some new seals put in it, then FXD will need a service someday. Yeah, that's true. But if right now, house is burning, grab a watch that you're going to wear, zombie apocalypse, jump in the Defender and head north or south or wherever, the FXD is going to be the one. It doesn't have a date, there's no helium valve to Malfunction or fall off or whatever. There's no bezels grippier. It the loom is a little bit better. It's titanium. It's got fixed bars Which could be a downside, but we're talking one watch and if we are picking the month, you know if going forward It's not gonna be like as of today I have to wear this only like this this could be the perfect summer watch as well for like a month in the summer to just wear the fxd non-stop and I yeah kind of have done that for sure and The other thing going forward too is I do have a sentimental attachment to it. Like with your Pelagos, my case back is engraved by Tudor with the GPS coordinates of that dive we did for the launch of this watch down in Florida two years ago. Fantastic. I did the photography for that, the underwater photography, and they It paid me with a watch basically, which I was thrilled for. So there is that bit of a connection to it. And like you, I mean, this is like a 51-49% vote and the Seamaster's not going anywhere. It'll get plenty of wear. I'll probably put it on right after we're done with this episode and just wear it for the next couple of days until I'm off to the Philippines with Blancpain. Yeah, Pelagos and Pelagos, those are our winners, amazing. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, there you go. I didn't necessarily see that coming at all. I didn't see your pick coming at all. And then weirdly, my decision was made when you brought up the house burning scenario. And it wasn't so much that I would lose one, it's if the house burned down and I lost all of it, which one would I buy back first? And the answer was the Pelagos. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, interesting, yeah, yeah. |
| James Stacey | It would take me a long time to find one of these Longines. and and decide if i wanted to spend the money to get another one yeah whereas i'd like if i like if the if my pelagos 39 was stolen today lost whatever happened something terrible happened and it's gone i would send i would start sending messages immediately to get another one yeah yeah and that i feel like that's my clarity and that that's where it came from yeah uh yeah tough man i didn't see this coming out i did not think we'd both land on on two dollars pretty sure you were going omega i was i was too right up until before we started recording yeah this will definitely be different outcomes than we see on the public vote simply because it's different watches which i think is you know fairly interesting but i will say that for each of us the watches that we picked the pelagos 39 and the pelagos fxd they are both in the populous vote. So we'll see how it goes in that tournament. But look, this is the, at least from the host side of the tournament, this is the end of the one watch tournament. And we have, you know, two watches that I feel like we spent the last year saying are among the best everyday watches in existence right now. |
| Unknown | Those won. What do you know? |
| James Stacey | I would say that anything from the original 32, certainly anything from the 16 of the second round, eight for each of us, would make great everyday watches. and also that I'm totally fine to do a month with my Pelagos 39, but one thing that this whole experience has underlined, I don't really want to live in a world where I have to have just one. I definitely don't need anywhere near as many as I have now, but a number bigger than five and lesser than 10 is probably just right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm with you there. Wow. |
| Jason Heaton | I don't know why I don't feel better after this episode, but I don't. |
| James Stacey | No, I don't feel better at all. No, I might feel worse. Yeah. Looking back at the last one like the the four watch option that we had last week. That's probably just right That's like a Mount Rushmore of TGN watches or to Mount Rushmore. I would say so. Yeah. Yeah, please do vote But as we have, you know crossed our way into an hour here Why don't we jump into some final notes and put a bow on? Man, the end of the one watch tournament. Yeah, it was fun. Well, you have two final notes. Why don't you go first? |
| Unknown | Oh, I do. Yeah. Yeah, you can sandwich mine |
| James Stacey | Yeah, so my first one is a quick one. It's the app that I alluded to earlier on. It has helped me not be late for every Zoom meeting that I'm booked into. And it's simply called Meeting Bar. It's for Mac. That's what I use. I don't know if there's a version for Windows, but it wouldn't surprise me if there's something similar. But Meeting Bar is simply an app that looks at your calendar and then up in your taskbar, up by the clock in the right, it tells you when your next meeting is. So like right now, it tells me I have 30 minutes left on the space I made for this recording. Sure, and if you click on it, it lists all your meetings, but the cool thing is is you can tell it to remind you On a certain interval, so I'll be working and you get a little ding and you go Oh interesting this this meeting ends in three minutes this meeting starts in three minutes or whatever yeah, and then you get the one at one where I actually click the link and load zoom and start going but It's made a difference for me. And if you have sort of my attention span or my inability to shift focus very quickly or remember something that's eight minutes away, maybe consider Meeting Bar. I've liked it quite a bit. I've been going through trying to retool the entire sort of like layout of my digital world for productivity. And this has been a very helpful little addition. I think it was free. It might've been three bucks, six bucks. |
| Jason Heaton | it was free yeah i don't remember but i'll put the link in the show notes you can check it out i'm sure it's something you can trial and then there might be a small fee i don't remember yeah that sounds great anything to help with productivity especially early on in the year when people are still getting their feet under them that's uh that's a good thing absolutely well well i have been on a bit this is a very different very shift in uh in mood and topic here i've been on a bit of a vampire jag lately um you recall from Don't don't read too much into it. |
| James Stacey | It's also this is to be clear, everybody, this is not Jason telling you to go see Nosferatu. He's actually picking a movie I like even more. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, if you'll recall from a past film club episode, from probably a couple years ago. One of my picks, maybe even one of the first ones, I picked Let the Right One In, that Swedish vampire movie, which is just spectacular. I watched that a week or two ago and then just a few nights ago followed up with a movie called Only Lovers Left Alive from 2013. This is a film by Jim Jarmusch. And Jim Jarmusch had a bit of a following, kind of a bit of a, if you call him a sort of a hipster darling filmmaker from, you know, kind of the David Lynch era, you know, 90s, early 2000s, etc. I hadn't really seen any of his movies, I don't think, unless I'm not remembering correctly. But this is a strangely understated, subtle vampire movie with Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton. Again, from 2013, kind of hops between, of all places, Detroit and Tangier in North Africa. Two interesting venues and places. John Hurt is in this movie. Jeffrey Wright is in this movie. Sure is. Kind of pops up in this odd little role. I was going to hold this till a future film club and I might just put it in a film club anyway, but I just, it made an impact on me. I just, just saw it. It's sitting in my brain and I really enjoyed it. Hiddleston and Swinton are perfect for these roles. They just have the right look. Um, the acting is great. It's, it's just a fun kind of slow burn movie that is very atypical for what you'd consider a normal vampire movie. So only lovers left alive. Great, great movie. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, so I'm a huge fan of this film. I like Jaramush a bunch. Ghost Dog is great. If you haven't seen it, it's his film from 1999 with Forrest Whitaker, which he also directed. But I like Only Lovers Left Alive for a lot of reasons. It's a very patient movie. yeah you're given a chance to kind of step into an era of two beings that are immortal and and will be alive for a very long time and it's about the malaise that's tied up with that yeah there's not enough information there's not enough activities, there's not enough drugs, there's not enough violence, there's not enough to appease forever, right? And it's this really beautiful film about longing and about permanence and impermanence. It's absolutely fantastic. It's his best movie for me. And the two, Swinton and Hiddleston, are absolutely fantastic. And then it's a Jarmusch film, so it's beautiful and it takes you places you haven't been before. And you'll see characters in this movie that have roles that you aren't ready for. Like the Jeffrey Wright character has nothing to do with Felix from Bond or his character in The Agency or something like that. It's this whole different thing. And then the two of them are so magnetic. This is a great movie. definitely needs to be on the in the next film club for sure all right you have a fun uh fun video for your last final note here i do yeah so uh obviously we have this incredible pairing of tom hiddleston and tilda swinton and i'm i'm bringing you another of my most favorite pairings from the internet and that's our good buddy thomas holland and james engelman of throttle house and they recently i i considered putting this into a final notes when they did the part one but now they've done part two so it's done you can watch both i'll put both in but they did uh kind of an epic thousand mile road trip in v12 sedans that they bought for not much money So an E38 BMW and an S600 Mercedes and they bought these and I remember Thomas telling me that he bought them with the plan of driving from Toronto to Montreal to drive them on the F1 track and this kind of grand adventure. you know it's very much in the mindset of like the the big top gear yeah trip in this one they each have a v12 they drive around toronto they have some little challenges there's some you know food breaks and that sort of thing and then they make the trip to montreal it's really really good it's very funny I really, really enjoyed it. Sadly, both episodes involve some crime that happened to them, not that they perpetrated, to be clear. So that's not great. And as somebody who has worked on film shoots, automotive-based film shoots that also end up in robberies, it's not fun. I highly recommend avoiding it, if at all possible. You should absolutely take a moment to watch James and Thomas drive their V12s around Toronto and Montreal. Both episodes are just great. And I hope to have Thomas on in the next little while to talk about making the episodes. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, this was, this was good. I didn't, I didn't watch it full on. You know, it's a, it's a fairly long, um, for sure episode as, as YouTube videos go. Um, but cause I wanted to kind of get a bit of background on this before we talked about it, but it's, it's great. And I love those two cars that just, they represent a certain era. Oh, incredible vehicles that I love. And, and there's just V twelves are just a, you know, they're becoming dinosaurs. I mean, you just, there's something, majestic about any car with a v12 whether it's a ferrari or you know jag xjs speaking of jag xjs that's in only lovers left alive that's the movie that hiddleston's character drives is a v12 xjs jaguar which made yep just was like added this great feature to the movie but i'm going off on a tangent v12s are great |
| James Stacey | i got more xjs tangent if you want because chris harris just bought one to do a full build for his channel oh gosh don't get me started on that uh so he's got he's got a bunch of plans the video i honestly don't know that i could link it's a little bit adult at times yeah it's full of jokes it's a bit yeah i don't actually know fully because i don't know chris harris so it's not like i can text him or whatever i've been a fan for a decade I don't know what he's up to currently. The last few videos have been really weird. Oh, really? Like in a charming way, but I don't know if it's a bit or if he's losing his mind. I just don't know. The editing is totally unhinged. It's very strange, but they announced this Project XJS thing just in the last couple of days. I'll include that in the show notes. The video is something else, so fair warning. Amazing. Yeah, cool. All right. Well, that's a good one. That's a but man e 38 7 series. Yeah, I know it. I don't look. I love Thomas huge fan big good buddy of mine and big fan of James and really what their whole team puts together. But if you're going to do an e 38 long wheelbase v 12 video, I'm probably going to watch. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, they just look incredible. They make modern cars, let alone modern BMWs, they make modern cars look so dumb. Yeah, yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, and then it's kind of slanty, you know, and it's like, yeah, it's, you know, it sounds good. They put the straight pipes and oh my gosh, yeah, it's so good. Good stuff, man. Good stuff. |
| James Stacey | All right. so that's it an app for your computer that so you don't miss zoom meetings a fantastic movie about people who can't die and at times may want to and then finally uh v12 yeah uh sedans uh with with throttle house so a fun sort of final notes there to to put an end on a pretty fun little kickoff for the year, the last few episodes. I'm pretty happy with how it went and I would just want to offer a big thank you to everyone who voted and everybody who's been talking about it and commenting and, you know, teasing me about my picks on Slack. It's been really fun to try and do something like this and, you know, kind of expand the scope a little bit. Yeah, definitely. |
| Jason Heaton | Alright, well, as always, thank you so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to The Show Notes, get into the comments for each episode, especially this one, or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even grab a new TGN signed NATO, please visit thegraynado.com. Music throughout is Siesta by JazzArr via the Free Music Archive. |
| James Stacey | And we leave you with this quote from John F. Kennedy who said, victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. |