Tag: Things of beauty

Art, music, whatever

Repeat Performance?

Good Stuff

Reader JD asks:  “Are you going to do your Favorite Things post every year from now on?  There was some really cool stuff there.”

Hell, no.

What I might do is post links to Favorites #1 and #2, and create addenda to said lists — just not as many, because I don’t see that much stuff that I like anyway, nowadays.  (The aforementioned lists were created from untold links collected, and also a few purchases made, over many years of Intarwebz drooling.)

Unsurprisingly, my tastes don’t change that much, so few if any of the things will fall out of favor or be replaced by some new flavor-of-the-month item.  (This may not apply to cars, because I fall in live with different models at different times as often as I fall in love with different redheads and/or old rifles.)  On most things, I’m fairly set in my ways;  yeah, I know, you’re all shocked — shocked! at that.

Another Reader asked why single malt Scotches were conspicuous by their absence from the lists.  I dunno;  maybe it’s because I’ve settled on an “everyday” single (Glen Morangie) and see little incentive to change that — unless someone in a bar / barman suggests something else to try, in which case, sure.  I might give some of the new Japanese whiskies a shot (or two), just as soon as I can afford them.

Sorry, I appear to have wandered off topic and into the wilderness here, but that’s often how it goes, these days.

My Favorite Things (Part 2)

Good Stuff

Here’s the second part of the above topic (Part 1 here), this time of 50 excellent things costing less than $750.  Some of these might be decent / affordable Christmas presents…

51. LG CM4590 XBOOM Audio Set – $250

52. Zassenhaus Manual Bread Slicer — $220

53. L.L.Bean Snow Sneaker Boots — $140

I’ve been wearing these since 1987, and I’m only on my third pair (purchased last month).  They are comfortable, last almost forever, are waterproof and astoundingly warm.  Best of all, they are much lighter than regular winter boots like Sorel.  If you live in a cold climate or are traveling to a cold country, I cannot recommend them highly enough.  (Pro tip:  use cheap Dr. Scholls inserts to make them even more comfortable and easier to pull on.)

54. Mont Blanc Meisterstück Classique Fountain Pen — $725

55. Saddleback Doctor’s Leather Duffle Bag — $600

56. Naked Armor Straight Razor — $120

57. Ruger Single-Six Convertible Revolver (.22LR/.22WMR) — $700

58. Marks & Spencer Linen Shirt — $50
 
Every time I go Over There, I buy half a dozen of these, and they last until the next time I cross The Pond.  Best casual shirts in the world.

59. Steiner MM1050 Military-Marine 10×50 Binoculars — $500

I’ve tried almost all of them — and these represent the best cost / performance / ruggedness option.  I never travel anywhere without mine.

60. Barton Leather 3-Watch Case — $110

…which may not be sufficient for serious watch collectors (like Reader Weetabix), so there’s this one:

61. TAWBURY 24-Watch Case — $220

62. Standard of London Antique Brass Desk Compass — $70

63. Stainless Steel Water Pitcher with Ice Guard — $35

64. Wheeler Space Saver Screwdriver Set — $15

65. Scandal — $20

The Christine Keeler story, and very close to the actual history.

66. Armored Steamer Trunk — $250

Mine has wheels, but whatever.

67. The Last Detective Complete Collection — $150

68. Caldwell DeadShot Front and Rear Bag Set — $20

69. Jack Pyke Fleece Gilet — $45

70. Braun Series 9 Pro 9465cc Electric Razor — $300

71. Russell Hobbs TR9250WTR Retro Style Toaster — $120

72. Thursday Boot Co. Captain Model — $200

73. Chopin Nocturnes — Valentina Lisitsa — $90

74. AeroPress Original Coffee Press – $45

75. Foyle’s War: The Complete Saga — $50

76. Springfield 1911 Mil-Spec — $750

77. Barbour® Bede Wellington Boot — $150

78. The Second World War (Hardcover) — $120

79. Roland CUBE 120XL Bass Amp — $600

No link because Roland stopped making it, the idiots [2,000-word rant deleted].  But it’s unquestionably the amp I would have carried around and used back in the 1970s, if they’d made it then.

80. Husky 18″ Wide Mouth Tool Bag — $65

I actually use one of these as my range bag;  stronger, more accessible and doesn’t advertise that it’s a gun bag.  Also much cheaper than most of same from one of the “operator” brands like 5.11.

81. Marks & Spencer 10pk Pure Cotton Cool & Fresh™ Trunks — $68
 
I buy these every five years, two packs at a time, and I wear them exclusively.  I’ve tried other “premium” brand undies from time to time, and they’re lousy, all of them.  Life is too short to be uncomfortable.  And yeah, only in black.  Because life is also too short to waste time deciding on the color of an undergarment.

82. The Colony Hotel, Miami Beach — $120/night

Art Deco decadence, found in the right place for it.

83. Straw Fedora Beach Hat — $35

I’m on my third or fourth one of these, since about 2004.

84. Estwing E15S Leather-Gripped Hammer — $60

85. Pelikan Classic 200 Fountain Pen — $200

86. S&W 686-6 PLUS .357 MAG — $750

87. LP-099 Multi-Region PAL/NTSC HD CD/DVD Player — $30

…backup for when you-know-who starts “offlining” your online streaming purchases.

88. Panasonic Lumix ZS100 / TZ100 — $600

This is the camera I’ll get when my Olympus and Nikon finally bite the dust — or maybe even before then.  (It’s called the ZS in Murka, and TZ in furrin countries.)

89.  J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variationen — $20

Okay, if not Barenboim is not to your taste, then Klára Würtz is wonderful, as always.)

90. Waterman Expert Ballpoint Pen — $80

91. Stag Arms AR-15 Left Hand Upper Receiver — $600

…for the kack-handers amongst  us.

92. Wire in the Blood: The Complete Series — $40

Scariest and most intellectual detective series I’ve ever watched, and Robson Green is excellent beyond words.

93. DOVO 5/8 Bergischer Lowe Buffalo Horn Razor Set — $500

94. Ariat Heritage Round Toe Boot — $200

95. Fender Acoustic 100 Amp — $450

96. Minnetonka Moosehide Classic Moccasins — $100

Most comfortable shoes I’ve ever worn;  been wearing them nonstop since 1996, and replace them every other year or so.  If I could only wear one kind of shoe for the rest of my life, it would be these.  (In winter, #53 Snow Sneakers as above.)

97. Buffalo Jackson Roosevelt Leather Pilot Bag — $350

98. Barbour Classic Beaufort Jacket — $450

As with so many things on this list:  buy it once, buy it for life.

99. GALC No.2 Shave Kit — $350

Last, but most certainly not least:

100. Citizen Steely Dan (box set) — $60

Nothing like ’em, before or since.

That was fun.  And Oprah?  Eat my nuts.

Change Of Season, Change Of Mood

House & Home

We’ve had our first cool days here in north Texas — not the cold snap of a week ago, but that gentle cool of autumn.  So I had to change the wallpaper on Ye Olde Laptoppe, from this:

…to this:

Unlike the earlier pic, I know where this one is (because I took the pic myself;  open in new tab or window to embiggen, feel free to copy).

It’s just outside Belfast, Maine, looking out over the Passagassawakeag River (yeah, I know;  stupid Indian name, they could have just called it the “Belfast River”, but noooo).

I wish we had mist here in the Dallas area… or decent rivers, for that matter.

My Favorite Things (Part 1)

Celebrities, Good Stuff, Guy Stuff

Well hell, if Oprah Winfrey can do it, then by golly so can I.  Okay, a little background:

Every year, the media mogul, 69, shares an expansive gift guide filled with a range of products like kitchen appliances and cooking supplies, furniture and home goods, clothes and accessories, and skin, hair, and makeup items.

And 2023’s is no different. With 109 items in total, this year’s list has ideas for fashion lovers, at-home chefs, food connoisseurs, beauty gurus, and workout fanatics. 

As expected, her list is full of useless shit like face creams and bubble baths:  not the kind of thing on a Real Man’s list unless he’s buying stuff for his wife / mistress / both.

So without further ado, here is Kim’s Favorite Things List (Part 1 — Part 2 next Saturday) with something for everyone.  Oprah did 109 items;  I will only do 100 because unlike Oprah (who had staff to do all the work), I had to do it all by myself.

Aside:  I’m also 69, so there we have it:  battling lists from two Olde Pharttes.

Oh, and one last thing:  all the items below give me a warm & fuzzy feeling when I look at them:  it’s a “favorite things” list and no more.  (Unless you’re very wealthy, it’s not much good as a Christmas list either — unless of course you’re wealthy and want to indulge yourself.)

Buckle down:  this may take a while, but hey, it’s Saturday:  what else are you gonna do?  Let’s kick off with the spendy stuff (all prices are approximate), and there is no order of preference or cost.  It’s all good.

1. 2002 BMW Z8 (4.9-liter V8) — $212,000

Anyone can have a silly Ferrari, Aston Martin or whatever that breaks all the time, for even stupider money.  But there are only a couple thousand of these Beemers left in the world. (And yes, the hard top is removable.)

2. Mauser M98 Standard Diplomat (in your favorite caliber; mine would be 9.3x62mm) —  $14,700


…with manly iron sights, of course.  The optional companion piece:

3. Kahles K 3.5-18x50mm scope — $3,300
…or, if you’re going to be using your M98 for close-up dangerous game: 


4. Kahles K16i 1-6×24 3GR Reticle — $2,200

5. Annual Range Membership (your choice) — $600-$25,000
(This is Texas Defensive Shooting Academy — TDSA — but whichever is closest to you.  Dallas Gun Club, FYI, costs $25,000 per annum last time I looked, and there’s a two-year waiting list.)

6. African Hunting Safari (flight, luxury lodge accommodation only;  add $10,000 for several small-game license fees, up to $35,000 for lion, buffalo etc.) — $15,000 per person

7. Handmade shoes from Ludwig Reiter (Vienna) — $660-$1,200
 
Buy once, wear for life.

8. Matched pair of shotguns (links in pics) — $40,000-$$tupid
 
…for those of the “Over and Under” persuasion.  But for the more civilized amongst us:

9.  Classic watch (e.g. this Omega Genève from the 1970s) — ~$2,000-$5,000

  You may have to search around, but the search is part of the fun.

10.  Sickafus Montana  Shearling Coat — $1,700

Unless you live in the tropics.

11. Martin D-35 Standard Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar — $3,500

Possibly the best-sounding off-the-shelf acoustic ever made.

12. Saddleback Hardside Suitcase — $1,000

13. Zeiss Victory RF 10×54 Rangefinding Binoculars — $4,000

14. Browning Buck Mark Medallion Rosewood .22 LR Pistol — $600

Add the Vortex red-dot scope, for $300

15. Mini-Moke Classic Electric — $30,000
Yeah I know, it’s a damn Duracell car;  but I’d make an exception for this one.

16. Rhino Ironworks Gun Safe — $6,000

Ugly as hell;  but how cool is it…?

17. Chiappa Firearms Kodiak (.45-70 Govt) — $1,750

18. Leathercraft Conner Recliner — $5,000

19. Winnebago Solis Pocket Camper — $150,000


Don’t need much more than that, really.  We are not rock stars.

20. Canon EOS R6 Mark II — $2,500

21. London’s Lights (Leonid Afremov, 60″x40″) — $900

22. Longines Avigation — $2,700

23. DW Collector’s Series Purpleheart Drum Kit — $9,000

…add over a grand when you add the cymbals, stands, bass drum pedal and stool.  All worth it.

24. Hacker-Craft Destroyer — $375,000

I’m not even a Boat Person, and I love the look of this thing.

25. Karl Hauptmann Double Rifle (.375 H&H Mag) — $40,000

26. Angora Executive Desk — $25,000

 27. 1972 BMW 1602 (1600 cc 4-Cyl. 4-Spd manual) — $20,000

Before Beemers got really fuuuugly.

28. Nord Stage 3 88-Key Keyboard — $5,500

29. Beretta Mod 74 Target (.22 LR) — $850

30. Orient-Express: Paris to Istanbul — $20,000 (per person)

That’s the cost of the Grand Suite;  smaller cabins are (not much) less.

31. 1997 Land Rover Defender 110 — $66,000

32. Mesa/Boogie Fillmore 50-watt Tube Combo Amp — $2,700

33. Seychelles Vacation (Four Seasons Mahé) — $15,000/week

Excludes flights.

34. Five-Rifle Set — $1,200

Every so often, J&G puts one of these deals together and at the price, they’re an utter bargain.

35. Breitling Transocean Day & Date — $3,500
…or you can drop an extra $5,000 and get it in gold.

36. Mont Blanc Meisterstück Around the World in 80 Days LeGrand Fountain Pen — $1,000

37. CZ 457 Varmint MTR .22 LR — $850

Same hole, all day long.  And for its glass:

38. Trijicon Huron 2.5-10×40 30mm BDC — $700

39. Fazioli F308 Concert Grand Piano — $290,000

To my ears, the best-sounding grand piano of them all.

40. Viking River Cruise:  Amsterdam – Vienna — $7,500 (per person)

41. Fender Precision Fretless Bass — $2,500

My #2 choice for a bass guitar.

42. Wiesmann MF4 Roadster / GT — $150,000

…if you can find one, that is.

43. FN 49 Luxembourg Contract (.30-06) — $2,100

Shoots smoother than a Garand.  Still regret losing mine in the Brazos.

44. Stetson El Amo Premium 500x — $1,100

45. Driven Pheasant Shoot (UK) — $1,200/day
Assumes a 20-bird tally per shooter. Ammo, food, booze etc. not included.

46. Colt Single Action Army 3rd Gen. (.45 Colt) — $5,000

47. Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus Stereo Amp — $1,250

… unchanged since the 1970s, it’s one of the longest-lasting and most popular guitar amps ever, and deservedly so.  As is the next one:

48. Fender ’68 Custom Twin Reverb Amp — $1,800

One of the cleanest-sounding guitar amps of all time.  Except when you don’t want it to be, and then it gets dirtier than Miley Cyrus on a Saturday night pub crawl.

49. Longshore Tides Dolores Bar Cabinet — $4,500

50. 1975 Rickenbacker 4001S — priceless

Why is it priceless?  Because that’s mine, is why.

Next week, the “budget” 50 favorite things.

No Longer

Guy Stuff, Toys

I think I’ve outgrown this kind of thing:

Men who like watches are split into categories. There are those who delight in intricate movements, what writer and watch obsessive Gary Shteyngart once described as ‘a small city of silver and gold gears and wheels, a miniature three-dimensional universe in which everyone is running to catch the next bus’. These men turn their noses up at overly commonplace brands like Rolex, which makes in the region of one million watches per year. Their preferred marques are rare and meticulously hand-crafted by the boutique manufactures of Breguet, Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin. A highly collectible Patek Philippe model, the limited-edition Calibre 89 (the world’s most complicated watch, with 33 functions and 1,278 parts) sold at auction in 2004 for more than $5 million.

…and that’s possibly because as I’ve got older and the chances are getting increasingly smaller of winning a lottery that could fund such an obsession, the prospect of being a horologista (what?) as explained in the above article.  (I also detest this linguistic tic of turning words into ur-Spanish derivations, but that’s a topic for another time.)

Also, I have begun to prefer simple things —  a stick shift over a Formula 1-style steering-wheel button gear-shifter, for example — and as far as watches are concerned, this has coincided with finally finding the watch I’m wearing at this very moment, a Tissot Heritage Petite Second manual:

…which happens to satisfy all my needs in that it’s simple, inexpensive, not showy or a “snob” brand, and made in Switzerland rather than in some Asian sweatshop.

A funny thing happened when I first strapped this watch on:  in an instant, I lost almost all desire to own another watch — in fact, since that day I’ve not worn any of my other watches, and even in that lottery dream, the desire to own that Vacheron Constantin or Patek Philippe has almost disappeared.

My distant-#2 favorite watch is also a Tissot:

…but it’s driven by a battery (ugh) and the only reason I like it at all is that it has Roman numerals — that classical background is very difficult to shake off, let me tell you.  I wear it pretty much only when I’m going to do something that may cause damage to what I’m wearing on my wrist, and at about $200 retail (under half the cost of the Heritage), I’m not going to slit my wrists if the thing gets busted.

All that said, I understand the fascination that watches hold for men — it’s almost exclusively male, this watch fetish — just as I understand (only too well) what makes men lust after certain cars, guns, cameras or any of the countless number of gadgets that take our fancy.

And as with all such obsessions, price is seldom a factor unless it’s stupid — stupidity as defined by the individual himself and not the uncomprehending others.

I recently showed a Dino Ferrari with a half-million dollar price tag — which is, as I said at the time, stupid money for a Dino.  On the other hand, I see that Iain Tyrrell is restoring a Dino of similar vintage, and I estimate that the depth of said restoration will cost the Dino’s owner about a hundred thousand dollars — and for him, it’ll be worth every penny.

It wouldn’t be, for me;  but I sure as hell understand why it would be, for him — just as I understand why someone would drop a still-greater amount on a Vacheron Constantin Overseas model, like this one:

Lovely, innit?  If you’re into that kind of thing.

Finally, Autumn

Beauty

Our temperatures here in north Texas will finally (!) be seasonally adjusted this week from Broil to Simmer and finally, Acceptable:


(I left the silly Celsius things there for the benefit of my Furrin Readers)

My laptop’s wallpaper reflects that mood, although fall in Texas is never that pretty:


(right-click to embiggen and save)

I don’t know where that is;  my instincts say New Hampshire because of the granitic boulders, but I’ll be persuaded otherwise.