Posts made by Graeme

I'm planning on signing up with a pair of the Papa Nui X The Rite Stuff Sailor Moku Pants. However, they won't arrive until October, so I'll be a late entrant.

Papa Nui and The Rite Stuff have collaborated on the Sailor Moku Pants, which are currently available for pre-order with delivery in October.

They're based on The Rite Stuff's Daybreak pants, with tweaks to the pockets based on military designs. They're made from a 10.5 oz denim that mimics a slubby vintage Levi's weave, and they're manufactured John Lofgren.

At the time of writing, The Rite Stuff has sizes S (32"), M (34"), and XXL (40") in stock, whilst the Papa all sizes bar XXL, including L (36") and XL (38"), along with the matching cap.

I've signed up for a pair, and I'm looking forward to seeing how they turn out.

I watched the AMC Interview with the Vampire series over the last week or two and enjoyed it.

The show is a cover version or remix of the original novel: Louis is a Creole pimp at the turn of the twentieth century, rather than being a white plantation owner a hundred or more years earlier; Claudia is older and black; and Daniel Molloy, the interviewer, is aged up and gives off definite Anthony Bourdain vibes, whereas the original could be replaced by "an Anderson Cooper cardboard cutout" according to one website I saw.

I think that it's cleverer than the books. There's a line in "The Vampire Lestat" where Lestat accuses Louis of twisting the story to suit an agenda, but the series takes this idea of unreliable narrators and runs with it as a more central theme.

I went so see a fascinating talk by Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid, Death Stranding) and George Miller (Mad Max, Happy Feet) at the Sydney Film Festival a couple of months ago. If you want to catch the re-run, it's now on YouTube.

There are some other photos on the Carryology Facebook page that show the Fujin as being less shiny. Apparently it picked up reflections from the studio lights, and it's more matte in real life.

I'm not sure if this is damage control, but the shiny aesthetic didn't appeal to a lot of people.

The weight is also 3.44 lbs or 1.56 kg, so slightly heavier than the base Archeon 30.

@mclaincausey it's also a thirty-litre pack, whereas most of the collaborations are around twenty to twenty-five, which makes it more useful for travel.

I'm curious to see what it ends up weighing. The base Archeon 30 is 3 lbs, and the Fujin is made of a lightweight fabric, but the Carryology designers have added features, so...

I agree that the black is very shiny.

I probably won't get one.

@Steve I forgot to reply to this a few days ago, but the collar looks great.

I would suggest that @Lynne looks into Martingale collars too, but they're more complicated (there are patterns on the web), and I'm not sure if they'd work with the heavier denim that IH uses.

There's an area of native bush or woodland in the park near where I live, and there's some wildlife that frequents it.

Yesterday I saw a couple of older gentlemen on the bridge across a creek that runs through it. It turns out that they were watching a Platypus. It climbed out onto a log, and I got a rather poor photograph with my phone's camera.

The sighting came about half-an-hour after I'd been verbally abused by a woman for having my dog off-leash in an off-leash area...

I saw an Echidna back in December. They're a spiked marsupial that resembles a Hedgehog or Porcupine.

I've seen a couple of Kangaroos, and several snakes. I don't have any pictures of them, because I'm normally trying to stop my dog from sniffing them or following them into the undergrowth.

If anyone is curious, the Matador X Carryology collaboration sold out pretty quickly. There was stock left about twenty minutes after it went live, but I didn't feel the need to drop $600 on the bundle...

@Anesthetist I have two rucksacks, my old Verbockel and a Loyal Stricklin, and I consider that too many!

I'm tempted by the Matador collaboration too, but I'm not sure if I'll get one.

@Anesthetist the write-up on Carryology said that the new version has a mesh back. This was present on the first version but absent from the second. I don't know how breathable it will be.

@mclaincausey Taylor Welden posted prices and specs for the new Matador X Carryology collaboration to Facebook.

EDX ULTRA Backpack

Volume: 22 liters
Weight: 18oz (520g)
Dimensions: 7.8 x 10.8 x 17.9in (20 x 27 x 45cm)
$260

EDX ULTRA Messenger

Volume: 10 liters
Weight: 16oz (450g)
Dimensions: 5.5 x 11 x 16.9in (14 x 28 x 43cm)
$210

EDX ULTRA Sling

Volume: 2 liters
Weight: 8oz (230g)
Dimensions: 3.3 x 5.6 x 10.9in (8 x 14 x 28cm)
$150

@Anesthetist your Alpine Luddites pack looks lovely.

@mclaincausey they used their entire quota of words for the year, and they were forced to recycle their old prose.

I've heard good things about Ultra.

I'm tempted by the range as it might be good for weight-constrained carry-on. Some of the airlines have a 7 kg (15 lbs) or 10 kg (22 lbs) weight limit for cabin baggage, and a sub half kilo (or pound) bag eats less of that allowance.

@mclaincausey I liked the last iteration of the Matador and Carryology collaboration, but I didn't end up buying anything. This one seems to be using a more technical fabric, and it'll probably be more expensive as a result.

One thing that feels like a regressive step is that the previous generation positioned the side handles so that they could be used as a luggage pass-though. The new one has a separate piece of webbing down the back.

The MAG-HOOK was used in the first version of the collection. In fact, the paragraph has been copied and pasted between the two articles!

@Alex the new collar and leashes look good!

Last time I was in SF, I think that it was nearly three years ago, I remember a pet shop having an option to tip on the till. I also recall accidentally tipping for buying a couple of bags of coffee beans!

@AdamJ the beds themselves look fairly plain, particularly in the wood finishes. I don't think that they're going to win any design awards.

The engineering inside them is quite solid, but whether you need something that strong is a different question.

@mclaincausey if I'm travelling, I prefer to keep my pack below about 10 to 12 kg, or 25 lbs. Ideally, I'd like to get below 7 kg or 15 lbs, which is the carry-on limit for some of the stricter airlines. At that sort of weight, I don't think you need a hip belt, and they inevitably get in the way.

I took a Mini Cooper EV out for a test drive today. It was the John Cooper Works version, which is essentially an electric hot hatch. It's got similar performance to the i20N that @Brian recently picked up, and I suspect a similar character.

Most reviews have complained about the ride quality, and it is firm, but I liked it. The Mini felt a lot more connected than the Hyundai Inster I drove a few weeks ago. It'd probably be less comfortable on a longer motorway or freeway run, though.

The other criticism has been about the thick steering wheel. I've got enormous hands, so I thought it was comfortable.

The design of the displays felt a bit overwrought. The graphics and styling were aiming for a cartoon Britishness, which verged on the Austin Powers. Stepping it back a little bit would have helped.

Going long distance would be fine, I'd get nearly two hours driving at highway speeds (110 km/h or 70 mph) from 70% of the battery, which would mean three stops between here and Sydney, which is about 675 km or 430 miles. That's roughly what I did when I last time I went.

The problem is more those runs that are off the charging network. I made a 320 km or 200 miles roundtrip last week, and there weren't any chargers along the route. The Mini probably doesn't have the range to do that, whereas something like a Kia EV3 would.

Sleeping Duck is an Australian company that builds an over-engineered bed. I figured it might appeal to regular readers, given Iron Heart's reputation.

I believe that they're available in the US, but not in the UK. I don't know about the rest of the world.