u/gaudiocomplex

Hi y'all. The wheels are in motion with the firefly watch I posted here a few weeks ago.

We settled lume. You guys provided a ton of helpful feedback.

As we get into the thick of it, it looks like the moonphase is out... so we're shifting to a standard seconds hand...

Now, that of course could be a bummer BUT I had this final idea before my own hands are officially off the wheel and the artist gets started... a little firefly on the second hand buzzing around the scene...

This is obviously an AI render, but I gave it to the watchmaker and she said it can be done, she was just "apprehensive that it might take away from the dial." Also it costs a bit more than I expected (she'll need to make a special mould).

So what do you all think? $300 for something like this? It'll likely be a little less chunky so it doesn't stress the movement but the vibe will be this.

This will be my final update on the project until I get the watch back in September 🪰💡

My sister in law got my brother this watch for his birthday and I'm taking the piss with him:

Me: "huh... does that look like cum to you?"

Him: "I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter now that question has been asked."

so wcj: what'd you do with a watch that looks like a small pool of jizzum

I'm 40 years old and currently eating a bowl of organic cereal my wife likes, and I like too, once I put enough extra sugar in it.. She's at work late tonight and I just got the kids (5, 6, and 8) to sleep.

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A few minutes ago I finally figured out what to get my dad for Father's Day.

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He's a former carpenter who became a foreman. But he's also a weird mix. Former Harley guy, also loves good. Dips but also bakes a very good cheesecake. Drinks beer when he probably shouldn't now. Calls every couple weeks. Texts maybe four times a month.

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This year, I think it's particularly important for me because I finally put two things together that should've been obvious a long time ago.

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My parents had me at 17, then 10 months later my sister. About three months after that...

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His own dad died.

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Somehow I never really put together what that must have been like until I had kids of my own. I am I guess quite thick in the head sometimes.

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I couldn't imagine a world without my dad. But that would be a gesture I was doing for me, if I said that directly to him. He hates sentimentality.

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So anyway, after considering knives, whiskey, golf stuff, and various other Classic Dad (TM) Artifacts that various shitty chatbots suggested, I bought him the following:

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a smart bird feeder,

a bird guide for his state,

and a 5 lb bag of bird seed.

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Included this note:

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"Happy Father's Day.

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Turns out this parenting thing is harder than you made it look.

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Here's something else to take care of..

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Love, (my name)"

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Maybe he'll love it.

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Maybe he'll think it's weird.

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(I was right about the bidet in the end, and he thought that was weird at first too. Then I overheard him saying "It actually is cleaner in my ass" to my mom during Thanksgiving.)

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It's kind of the perfect gift for a dude who just retired, used to hunt but his knees gave out, who also refuses to just like fuckin chill (you know the dads who are checking the tires of their car during the graduation party kinda dudes, need to be contributing). That's my dad. This is gonna be awesome, I think.

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Especially it all arrives at different times.

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(The cereal is pretty good, too.)

Hey y'all... been working on a new feature for the microbrand atlas: concierge. It's a little guy in the bottom right corner where you can ask it for specific recommendations that goes down to the dial color, hand type, case material, and more... basically every "Do you know of a microbrand that does this" question that we get here now can be answered at least partially by that (vibes obviously are kinda impossible to teach a robot, so I didn't try that) (not yet anyway).

I had to manually tag a lot of watches for this to work (way more than is sane... so I'm not going to disclose how many), but I'm at my maximum in terms of testing.

Anybody interested in going to the site and trying it out?

Would love to see how it breaks or if I missed anything important.

(Reminder: it's free, not monetizing it, not putting ads on it, not selling data, etc.)

Thanks y'all.

Cheers.

Been working on designing my own one-off watch for a major milestone and I've arrived at this.

I'm thinking a dot of yellow lume with a slightly refractory enamel to create a blush for the fireflies in the cage exclusively, though a watch designer friend says with something this "haute" I shouldn't use any lume at all.

My question: would lume end up making this tacky?

I know they're originally from California but man do these things look like they belong in Texas

edit: an* old Weiss, Lord help me

Happy Friday y'all.

Couple months back I posted here when I had a few dozen brands on the map and got some great support. Just blew past 500 this past weekend, figured you guys might be interested.

Still just me, still just building after the kids go to bed. No ads or any of that shit.

Added the ability to save models as you browse. Also added a little bot in the righthand corner that you can ask questions. It's page-aware.

Now the main question is... what am I missing? The backlog is starting to get thin.

Cheers! Hope you guys like it.

Microbrandatlas.com

At least I think it was an owl.

Could've been The Mothman.

Do owls like... attack little dogs around here?

I'm still majorly skeezed out 😵‍💫

note*: The original linked version of this post didn't make it past the filters so I had to drop them, otherwise the links to all watches were there, and I'll include them in a comment below. 😎

******

Two months ago I posted here with 14 brands. Y'all were absurdly generous (well, just absurd sometimes) and gave me suggestions, pointed me to a few real founders so they could add themselves, gave me some advice, even made a few uh... gentle corrections (Traska is in Jacksonville, not St. Louis. I surely will never live that down).

So there are now 500 brands.

Across 50+ countries. 2,600+ models. And in the two months since launch, the atlas has driven 12,000+ outbound clicks to brand websites, which feels like the right signal that the thing is doing what it's supposed to do. Y'all are finding cool shit. And the verified profiles — who only get verification through sourcing transparency — are getting 2.2x the traffic unverified are. Sweet.

Now please humor me briefly with this brief yet mawkish story.

Last October I went looking for a Halloween watch.

I'm a Halloween dad through and through. (I decorate the house each year with three distinct tableaus: A haunted field, a dark forest, and a pumpkin patch... each area is loaded with different styles of pumpkins, so we are the pumpkin house) And every year for the past few years I've worn my solar orange and purple Jack Mason from the moment those decorations go up until my kids are twitching in their beds from the insulin shock.

But if you look at that thing up in the link, it's not quite right for Halloween. It's too... tubular. Too... vaporwave. It's always felt just a hair off.

So I get to hunting. Hours across the forums, here, IG, YouTube. Nada. Nothing. Zip.

I considered a Seiko 5 Pumpkin, but it didn't really fit my personal vibe. I passed on some of the skull shit (as I am not that much of a badass to pull that off), dipped out on the goth shit (doesn't suit my coloring 💅), nearly SO VERY NEARLY bought Mr. Jones' Silent Thief... and ended up with a Spinnaker seconde/seconde 50 Phantoms white-on-white that came just a few days before All Hallow's Eve... I was/am still very pleased with it. It did the trick... AND treat. (Sorry had to.)

I've largely moved on, thinking that the Spinnaker would now be my go-to for such things.

Then a few weeks ago, while adding brands, I came across Celeste Watch Co (Springfield, Oregon, USA) and their Laughing Jack. Hand-painted abalone dial. Spooky as hell, and I could swap straps to match whichever tableau I was standing in front of.

Exactly the kind of weird/fun/spooky damn thing I'd been hunting for back in the fall. I can assure you that it never came up in my search. Not once. I know because that watch would have ended it immediately. (It was even in budget. 😅)

(Aside: She has no idea about me, about this, and I am not a secret Celeste Watch spy. I also think a watch brand named Celeste is... bad?... reminds me of those shitty microwavable pizzas from childhood but I digress!)

The lesson I guess, on top of the fact that transparency should be rewarded: I've seen 2,600 models of watches over 2 months y'all.

There are a lot of insanely talented folks who are invisible to the people who'd love them. Presumably you.

I also hope it gets more people into microbrands. Most people have no idea of the variance that exists out there.

Some other things since March.

• Founders can claim and edit their own pages. Founders: do that. If you're not and want on, and want on, hit me up.
• The map is fast now
• I've put secret pins on the map a fews. There are none right now. Or are there? No, seriously, none. But there will be over the summer. Keep an eye out for weirdly colored pins.
• I'm paying for all this and myself and I'm far from rich. So... brands for now are limited to 6 models and 5 colorways of each of those models... some brands have literally hundreds of models and dozens of colorways (If you verify that number goes up to 20, btw)

Otherwise, still solo, though there are a lot of folks here who are dropping it into convos when it fits. Thank you for that. Still doing this at night (as you can see now) after the kids go to bed.

Now... for the asks (only if you have the gumption):

• What am I missing? (Asia outside Japan/Singapore is a known gap and I'm working on that one. Lots of Chinese brands, I know.)
• What's wrong? What am I totally fucking up? Y'all caught me last time. I'm up until sometimes 2 AM doing this. Sometimes things slip and Utah is listed as a country (true story) or (briefly) Anicorn watches cost $2.50 😅
• Anything you wish was there that isn't? Anything that's there that shouldn't be?

I remain at your faithful service.

Stunningly yours,
Nick

A sexy 99 ford escort ZX2.

What are you doing? Going big and getting one $2000 guy like a Monta? Splitting it up two ~$1,000 like Isotope and a Traska? Going smaller and going max quantity with a bunch of quartz/mechaquartz?

Personally I already own a good bit of the watches talked about here (Halios, Henry Archer, Trafford, Dufrane, etc) ... so to spare you the repetition, here are some "deeper (read: out-of-sub) cuts"...

If you put a gun to my head with these 8... DeTrash is too hilarious of a name and I need a shiny-ass salmon watch in my life, Kuruvakka has some wild shine + textures plus this fletching that's on the seconds is straight up fire, and the Straton Watch Company one there in orange because I'm a pervert for those numbers and the retro bezel (plus it's also full lume and I don't think I have one of those...)

Now you.

Here's $2,000 fake internet dollars.

Go out into the internet and come back with something nice.