Everyday Carry



Wallet

Chrysler ‘78 billfold from Couch. I love a good 70s brown-and-orange combo, and the slimness is great. I used to live that George Costanza Fat Wallet life, but I’ve learned to slim down, and my pocket thanks me for it. I'm using the snrapless verion, if you're curious. The snap looks like it would add unneeded bulk and knowing me it would just get caught constantly on my pants pocket.


Music

Two refurbished iPod Classics (5th and 6th generation). I don’t put music on my phone. This practice started 15 years ago when phones were 8GB and I wanted to save storage for photos and apps, but I never shook it even as phones advanced. Instead, I carry one of two iPod Classics I’ve restored. The blue and yellow one is a 6th gen that I bought from ebay and replaced the hard drive and shell. The clear one is a 5th gen I got on Ebay for $40 and built from the ground up. I replaced the cracked screen and dead battery, swapped the hard drive for an SD card, and replaced the standard white faceplate and clickwheel for transparent ones, and finally got a big fat backplate. The only parts that stayed the same were the motherboard and the little metal frame that holds everything together.

It’s probably silly to have two iPods, but I love them both. I love the look of the 5th gen one, but I like the 6th gen OS more than the 5th gen. They both have the same music libraries on them, it’s just a matter of do I want to walk around with a blue iPod today or a clear one. And I know if I ever came across a busted iPod at a garage sale or thrift store I’d probably buy it, spruce it up, and then have THREE iPods. It’s a sickness.


Phone

ASUS Zenphone 8. I am not a phone person. I do not care about phones. If you talk to me about how my particular brand of phone is bad or inferior to yours I will immediately turn around and walk away. The only thing I care about re: phones is does it have a headphone jack. This one does, so I got it.

“But beeks,” you say
“if you don’t listen to music on phones, why are you so ride or die when it comes to a headphone jack?”

Well, I listen to a LOT of podcasts and audiobooks. Unlike music, those do live on my phone (I cannot explain my madness). And I like the ability to listen to podcasts and audiobooks while also being able to charge my phone. Thus, the Zenphone 8. Other than that, it’s a phone. It does all the things you would want a phone to do. It receives calls that you will not answer, and texts that you might. It allows you to check social media and then get annoyed at yourself, because why did you think that was a good idea? You can take pictures of your cat or the weird old doll you saw at the thrift store. Normal phone stuff.


Headphones

KZ ES4 IEMs. My partner got these for me years ago via a recommendation from DankPods, and I gotta say, they’re nice lil guys! I can’t wear big honkin’ cans or anything completely noise-cancelling at the office, and I’m still not sold on bluetooth headphones (call me when I can recharge bluetooth headphones every week instead of every day). That being said, I know the world of budget IEMs has completely exploded since getting these and very recently I've been kind of interested in seeing what else is out there. I'm mulling over getting a few ~$20 pairs and doing a compare/contrast thing. We'll see how it goes.


Watch

Casio F-91W. You know what this is, because you probably had one when you were eight. It’s a great watch, even after all these years! I got a watch a few years ago because like everyone, my phone became my watch. But I realized constantly whipping my phone out to check the time would just lead to me idly opening up Twitter or something like that, and I wanted to reduce the time I spent on my phone. Ergo, a 34 year old watch. Well, this EXACT watch isn’t 34 years old. The model is. I just think it’s neat as hell that you can go into a Wal-Mart and buy the same model of watch from 1989.




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