This week: some minutiae from a serious iPad user’s view of iPadOS; and Discord really fucked their app.
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My new favorite workout watch, and silent alarm watch.
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.

It’s time for the Best List of 2023.
The [2023 Best List](https://brooksreview.net/the-best/) is out! There’s a lot of changes within it for this year. Both the length (shorter), but also the overall picks are different. I hope you enjoy it.
I have been thinking about the changes on this list a lot this year. Thinking about: why do I write this yearly, *and* why are there so many changes this year?
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One heck of a tough little knife, and one of the best Benchmades out there.
I’m a noted Benchmade fan, as they are one of the few companies that make most of their designs fully ambidextrous. It has been a while since a new Benchmade caught my eye, especially with the upward movement in their pricing. But the Full Immunity, from day one, was an exciting knife, so I took a chance on it.
It’s probably the best Benchmade on the market and a sleeper hit.

Easily the best keyboard I have ever used.
I’ve been a huge fan of the Morgrie RK68B for some time now, and the two I owned were all I was using for typing for a good long while. The Happy Hacking Keyboard was simply the last on my list to try out, and when I started to get a little annoyed with the loud clicking of the Morgrie, I decided to snag this Type-S Snow Edition.
Holy shit, yeah, this is the best keyboard on the market.

Please learn from my watch strap buying mistakes, so that you may spend your money better.
I buy a lot of watch straps, and certainly I have this year especially. Because of this, I have developed an affinity for some brands over others, so I thought it would be good to talk about my experience with each brand generally in hopes you might agree with me on my choice for the best watch straps.

We really need to start caring about our appearance.
Matt Ruby, writing for his newsletter:
We’re still coming to terms with all the different ways pandemic broke us. Perhaps the most unsightly: It normalized employed men dressing like trash.
His comments on SBF, basketball/football coaches. Attire in the airports. Attire in tech. It’s all so very true, and very sad. When you dress well, you feel great. Sometimes you should dress well out of respect for something: the recently deceased; the institution; or the date you want to like you. Other times you should dress well out of respect for yourself.
And dressing well doesn’t mean being uncomfortable. I know you remember it being that way, but that’s likely because the clothing didn’t fit well, or was of low quality. Dressing well also doesn’t mean spending loads of money. But, other people can help you sort that out.

The real winner of that OpenAI shit, and then I end up pivoting all the way over to my gear tracking log.
This week: OpenAI; odd sale season; pens and notebooks; and gear tracking.

A really good and easy to use stand, without the whole case thing.
When I snagged my iPad Mini, I realized that I wanted a more integrated case for travel. The Smart Cover from Apple, while nice, doesn’t seem to suit this smaller iPad well. A sleeve felt like it would be too cumbersome, and thus I went looking.
The first case was a snap on style with a kickstand. It worked well and protected the iPad in addition to stand duties. Then I decided to go another direction instead of case with stand, focus on an easy to use stand. I tried a bunch before grabbing this MOFT Snap stand.
It’s not perfect, but it is quite good.
(more…)
Wear better clothing, Everyday Wear is here to help.
I don’t want to over promise here, but Steve and I are ramping back up our writing over on Everyday Wear. A lot of smaller things going on, so if you forgot this site existed, hop on over.
I recently wrote up: Proper Cloth’s Reda Merino fabric; Relwen’s Flyweight Flex Blazer; White’s Perry Boots; and did another undershirt round up. Steve also wrote up Filson’s Draftsman chinos, which I am a big fan of as well.
We’ve got a bunch more to come. So stay tuned.
Of course, Steve and I don’t focus on fashion and style, so to cover that edge of the spectrum, I recommend A Well Worn Dispatch.

If this bag is big enough for you, then you’ll have found an exceptionally good bag for the office.
I reviewed an earlier version of this bag quite some time ago, and while I was very happy with it back then, I eventually moved on from it. But the idea of it has never left my head, as conceptually it is so simple and ideal.
When I saw one for a good price show up on eBay, I snagged a modern version of the Flat Pack. This is the larger of the two sizes, even though you’ll look at the images and think it is the smaller one.
The short version: if you carry only a few things to and from work, then there might not be a better bag out there. But if you like to carry stuff, this is going to be a very hard bag for you to use.

Some solid deals to be had.
In case you missed these ones:
BLACKFRIDAYMR30 see the packs here.Lots more sales than normal going on, great time to snag a few things.

How to keep from incinerating your personal money, while watching Silicon Valley absolutely vaporize money.

How a staunch believer in backpacks, has adopted a briefcase for the office.
Let’s have a chat about office bags. My stance for a long while has been: wear a backpack, no one cares, they are more comfortable, and better for your back. Something like that, right? My stance is now: I care how I look more than I used to, and backpacks don’t look that good on me when I stare at the mirrored elevator doors, so carry a briefcase.
Back at my house, I was once again swimming in a sea of bags stuffed in my closet. Bags I didn’t want to sell, and yet not a single one of those bags felt like the bag I wanted to use for the office. Then I started longing after Hardgraft’s Long Haul Briefcase. It looked like the beacon, the next bag which would rid me of this feeling of not having the correct bag.

When you have a pretty great idea, solid hardware skills, but no concept of taste.

This might be one of the best watch buys out there when it comes to a field watch, or simply a watch you never want to have to worry about, and you’ll love wearing.
When I first stumbled across Weiss Watch Company, I knew I would eventually have one to call my own, but I had no idea which model, and while I loved the concept, no single model was calling to me. This past summer, that changed, as Weiss Watch Company released two limited edition models of their Standard Issue Field Watch, both in 38mm Titanium cases. The Blue Ocean and Pink Sand models are limited to 30 pieces per dial (that model is sold out, here’s their current offerings).
I picked up a Blue Ocean model, which arrived at the end of August — it’s a tremendously good watch.

Why AIM was better than Teams, and faster too. And then I stir the iPad as a computer pot, as well as the WFH stuffs.

This can, is, and for sure should, be the only watch people need.
I received this watch in November of 2016, a couple of months after my grandfather passed. It was his watch, and watch he had had for just shy of a decade, but had worn everyday of that time — it was a watch which commemorated a business success for him. This is also the watch which caused me to kick my Apple Watch to the curb, and entrenched my wrist and my wallet back into the watch world.
And, this is also the watch model (generally not this specific variant) I will almost always recommend to someone who wants a one watch collection. I thought it would be good to sit down, and write about this watch after having it now for seven years myself.

Today I will teach how to pack like a fucking boss, in ten simple tips. After which, we can chat about X and that mess.