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Charleston, South Carolina Summer of 2022. I told my wife “let’s stop into the Rolex AD, I’ll buy a GMT Rolex if they have it, otherwise we should be pretty safe.” I walked out with a Grand Seiko, the SBGM221 — a watch we both spent the rest of the trip admiring. In the coming year I was lucky enough to add two more Grand Seiko’s to my collection, the SBGE285 ‘Mistflake’, and the SBGX261. I still have all three, and they are my favorite watches I own.

A lot of watch reviews focus on what it has been like to wear a watch for a month, maybe two at the most. Many reviewers are anxious to get the content out there, or to review the watch before it looks worn, such that they can maximize the resale value and get their next watch to review. The watches I buy are ones that I intend on keeping for life at the time I buy them. Though it may not work out that way in the long run, that’s the mindset I take when buying a watch.

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Note: this light was sent to me at no cost for the purpose of review. This review was not sent to Prometheus before publishing.

I’ve had a Beta QRv2 around my house for — well it’s been through four moves with me, so it’s been a fair bit. It’s always been a very solid, to really good light, and it was one of the first I got with a significantly better LED than you find in non-enthusiast lights. I was pretty excited when the QRv3 was announced and came out — it seemed likely something I would instantly buy. But the images didn’t look quite right to me and I held off, so when they asked if I would like a review sample, I jumped at the chance.

And while I still think the images make the light look visually out of scale, I can tell you that this is better in every way than the QRv2, and it’s been getting a tremendous amount of pocket time.

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I choose to believe that I am not the only one who finds buying pouches a very addictive distraction. They are small, and usually not very much money, so why not? That’s how I ended up with the Handy Pouch from Ateliers Penelope. I was so impressed with the build and character, I picked up a laptop sleeve as well to try out in a bag which was sorely lacking in the laptop sleeving abilities.

Both are fantastic, rather than full reviews, a couple of notes on what makes both pouches much better than you might think they are.

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I have no way of knowing how widespread this is throughout the world, but I do see this often enough in person that I need to provide some help and guidance. It’s that moment when someone comes to explain something to you on a menu, and they bust out a flashlight to help read the menu in the dimly lit restaurant — to your horror the ice blue light reflects back at you causing you to squint in terror while still not being able to read the menu any better. There’s shadows everywhere, and the ambiance was destroyed almost as quickly as our idea of freedom was when you became an adult. Your pupils shrink, and so does your appetite.

In other words, that perfectly balanced ambiance that a professional spent hours designing was instantly destroyed by a $20 Amazon purchase which no one took the time to think about.

This is easily fixed, and not even that expensive. So dear restaurants, please allow me to help.

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Sometimes, when you find a new brand, you don’t end up buying the first item which drew you to the brand. That was the case with Observer Collection gear for me, as my first pickup was the Whisky wallet. The actual item which drew me to the brand was this Papa notebook/passport wallet.

It looks so good, and it is in fact so good. This is also one of those items that is most certainly not going to be for everyone. It’s quirky and imperfect, and yet it goes most places with me now. I love it.

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I snagged this knife on a whim from Huckberry. I’ve long been curious about this tiny little knife and figured the holidays would be a good time of the year to give it a go. It’s prime pocket knife season.

The ACE Nibbler is a really nice knife, but you have got to want something stocky to like it — for me it’s not quite the right balance in hand.

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I switched over to the iPad Pro as my full time, or primary, computer back in December of 2015. I kept a personal Mac around until August of 2016, though I rarely used it. While there are Macs in our home, none are mine or used by me (other than to help troubleshoot them, which I am losing my skills for). It wasn’t until 2019 I would have regular access to another Mac, when I was issued one for work.

Even now, eight years on, I use a Mac only a handful of times each month — mostly to get around shortcomings in Microsoft’s Office suite of applications. So, given how long it has been, and how infrequently I blog about this topic these days, many have been asking me to touch base on this.

What better way to do this than a very blogger-esque listing of eight thoughts on eight years of iPad only use.

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I set out to find a new wallet which could handle more cash better, not for everyday use, but for travel when I tend to bring more cash with me day to day. A friend recommended I look at Allett, and I ended up snagging thier Sport Wallet in Merlot leather. The idea with this brand is that they create a classic looking wallet with modern techniques, and they do it in very slim formats to keep the bulk at bay.

It all sounds good, and it leads to a really good, but shy of great, wallet.

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When this knife was released, it was a runaway success. A tiny automatic knife, legal in most places, with superior steel — what’s not to love? The price retails under $200 as well — these knives are not hard to get, but often out of stock at the same time. I picked this one up second-hand to see what the hype was all about.

It’s a very good knife, but somewhat impractical, less than ideal, and the type of knife you get when you don’t use a knife as much as you photograph/video/reel/snap/tok your knives. Yeah, it’s a social media star — but it’s a solid knife, so it’s hard to hate on that too much.

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I ran into a little issue with my workout watch, the Casio GBD200, causing the watch to restart/crash randomly and lose all my settings. A hard wipe/restore seemed to fix it, but my trust was broken, and frustration was high, so I set out to find something new.

My criteria remained simple: good tracking and long battery life. And there are very few options on that market that don’t require a near-daily recharge, except for the offerings from Coros. I’ve long been interested in their products, so I picked up the Apex 2, and I’ve been wearing and using it ever since.

It is very simple, straightforward to use, and works very well. It’s an excellent product for those who want a good watch to track workouts and put on a proper watch afterward.

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