Grant: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever time of day or night it is that you're joining us, I wish you the best of it. I'm Grant Lamontang from multitool.org and this This is EDC TV. With us tonight is well, it's actually our good old buddy Inky is back again tonight. how you doing there, Inky? Good to see you again.
Pimpness: well, how are you?
Grant: I'm doing okay. And we have new fan favorite with us, John Kirkwood. How are you doing tonight, Kirky?
John Kirkwood: Yeah, so far so very good. Nice to be back.
Grant: Well, it's it's great to have you. Unfortunately, once again, Abe has been a little too busy this week to to join us, so Kirky was once again nice enough to sit in for him, and we greatly appreciate that. Thank you very much for showing up. Tonight's episode is going to be about abnormal EDC. I mean, when you talk about EDC, I mean the topic always goes to flashlights and pocket knives and multi-tools and Swiss Army knives and wallets and watches and, you know, the usual stuff. So we're going to talk about EDC items that are a little bit outside of the the norm tonight. But first, since we've got a full house again, we're gonna go back to our our original format where we look to see what everybody's got new and exciting this week. And maybe this week we'll start with you, Kirky, John, whatever you prefer.
John Kirkwood: but bad choice there, Grant. I have got nothing new this week. there is a chance in the inner future I might be getting my hands on a SOG power pint. but that's that's not confirmed at this stage. but yeah, be it if it comes through it'll be interesting. Compound leverage and well, I'll wait to see what the tools are like because I've you know went back into the forum over at multitool.org and read the reviews on it and some people absolutely love it and some people really hate it. So I'm interested to see how it's gonna go.
Grant: It not at the risk of influencing you a little bit one way or the other. It is a really good design, but it's from the newer generation of SOGs that are all made overseas. It is one of the new generation of SOGs that is made overseas and the quality is a little bit, shall we say, creative on it. it's it's an interesting design. towards the end of the the original what I refer to as the the Spencer Fraser era. they went to these sort of like cyberpunk neotechnical sort of designs where everything looked like it was made out of like circuit boards and and steampunky and kind of thing. And It it was a really neat design aesthetic that I really liked. and a lot of them were and I've often said that SOG is, you know, about 90% designs. You know, the designs are about 90% of where they need to get to,
John Kirkwood: Yep.
Grant: and they just sort of, you know, rather than take feedback, I feel like Spencer Fraser said, here's my new product. What does everybody think? And everyone around the table, you know, wanting to keep their jobs is like, good one.
John Kirkwood: Yeah.
Grant: And it never got that
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: last. you know, a little bit of refinement that it needed to really put it over the top. And then they moved all their manufacturing overseas and and they suffered. But they do have some some good designs. As you mentioned, the compound leverages it's always great. so yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on on the power was it the power leader or the power pint? 'Cause it's two different models. Power Pint, yeah.
John Kirkwood: PowerPoint.
Grant: No, I I really enjoyed the model. I guess the best advice I can give you on that one is to manage your expectations with it. It is a good tool, but it does have some flaws.
John Kirkwood: That's right. Well I suppose the advantage now being the gentleman of leisure that I am is not gonna be under work conditions. So the expectation or the needs of strength for it aren't what it would have been a few years ago.
Grant: I I wish you all the best with that, and
John Kirkwood: Hm, thank you.
Grant: like I said, I'm I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it both back on here at some point and also on our forum at forum.multitool.org, as you mentioned. So Inky. What about you? What what new and exciting things have you gotten in the past little while? Since well, I guess since the last time we saw you, which was gotta be about a month ago. A new marker.
Pimpness: This I got this brand new marker. Brand new.
Grant: Excellent.
Pimpness: I got this knockoff. Microtech, but it's it's cool. It's well it's alright, you know, but the best part is the box. I don't know the model number.
Grant: I like the blade shape on that one.
Pimpness: Yeah, it's pretty large too. I don't know the model number. It's okay, you could tell it's not real ish. Pretty much because of the lock and you know when you open it
Grant: Well that blade shape is reminiscent of some of the old Gil Hibbon designs and I I really
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: like that.
Pimpness: Nice little recurve. When you open it easy, it locks it. When you open it hard, it doesn't. Which is weird. Anyway, forget about that. They are
Grant: Well, especially for an axis lock, yeah.
Pimpness: they are nice enough to give you a box.
Grant: fantastic.
Pimpness: And it says nine only nine, they welcome you to the Microtech family, even though they are not the Microtech family. It's really nice of them. And they also, for more entertainment, they spell knives without a K, which is really nice. It's a very entertaining box. But they give you all the great things you need to know about Microtech inside. But pamphlets, everything. They even avatar other knives, huh? That's great, man. It's pretty funny.
John Kirkwood: Well, there you go, another ninety percent product.
Pimpness: Yeah, it's actually for
Grant: Yeah, ninety percent of that product is in the box, I think.
Pimpness: What I paid for it, it's r it's really I I got it really super cheap. I only buy these like very, very cheap. I don't pay the regular. I wait and when I see something happen, I happen to catch something. I'll buy it just for to amuse myself with it. I don't pay more than ten, fifteen bucks for anything like this. So but the box is very amusing. They
John Kirkwood: So just when you just
Grant: I was gonna say that.
John Kirkwood: when you're talking about the boxing, I I ask a question, maybe throw a little grenade into the room. You know, knife multi-tool products. I'm I'm thinking specifically the last couple of booker knives I bought. I mean still going back a couple of years. They came in very, very nice boxes, almost presentation boxes. And I'm kind of going
Pimpness: Yeah, like that black.
John Kirkwood: Yeah, I'm kind of going, why I am I paying an extra £20 for a fancy box here? Or am I paying for a knife? You know is it am I being strange in
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: this one or is it really a thing that we're now paying for the presentation more than the product?
Pimpness: Yeah. Yeah, very fancy boxes lately. Like magnetic kind of clamshells, right?
John Kirkwood: That's yep, that's the thing, yep.
Pimpness: Yeah. And SOG, the boxes are this big and the knife is this big. Did we get those? Big box like this. You can't
John Kirkwood: Well I've I've not but I'd I'm
Pimpness: get it open. What? You destroyed it when you got it open. And the knife is this
John Kirkwood: What's it?
Pimpness: big.
Grant: I've been finding the the packaging for a lot of them
Pimpness: I I don't know why they're doing it.
Grant: is is just top notch. The for example, the Inky, you have this same knife there, the petrified fish one.
Pimpness: Yeah, yeah.
Grant: The packaging in that was just absolutely stunning. Yeah, and the the the packaging
Pimpness: Yeah, that that's average compared to nowadays. You're right.
Grant: that I got with these these CANSEP knives, and and the tenable knife. I mean just top quality boxes and and these knives are For what we're used to paying for a top quality knife, I mean, these boxes are exceptional. And I mean, from some of the other American companies, that's what you'd pay just for packaging like that. I mean, it's it's
Pimpness: Yeah, it's weird, right?
Grant: it's not an iPhone for God's sake. It's, you know, it's it's a hundred dollar knife, not even a hundred dollar knife, and and I'm getting iPhone level packaging with it, which is both cool and also a little upsetting as I might be a little bit of an environmentalist, but
Pimpness: I wonder how much they are tacking on to do all that nice packing. Especially for even Rough Rider.
Grant: You know, I I wondered that myself, and I d I can't talk about Boker Rough Rider, but I mean this was a twenty five dollar knife and it was, you know, at least a fifteen dollar box, so
Pimpness: Yeah, w
John Kirkwood: What?
Pimpness: It was sizable though. Like the boxes he's talking about, like they might be this big for an
Grant: Yeah.
Pimpness: average three and a half inch plate knife. Like something
Grant: Well
Pimpness: like this would be in a box like this, clamshell and magnets and a sleeve over the top.
Grant: Well, for s for some of the big companies like SOG, the idea is is that you know, it's on the store store shelf and a bigger package is harder to get into and more difficult to steal. So really in
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: that case the giant box, you're not really paying for it. You're paying less than you would for the amount of theft they would have if, you know, it was a normal size box, I guess. I I don't know. Just a thought. Next time we have Chris on the show, we'll we'll ask him.
Pimpness: Alrighty.
Grant: Anyways, got anything else new you want to share with us there, Inky?
Pimpness: No, not really.
Grant: No? Okay. John, you good with going on to the next segment?
John Kirkwood: Yep, absolutely, yep.
Grant: Okay, well I'm gonna talk about something new that I got, and that is gonna lead us into the next segment. How's that for continuity? So I got something new recently that actually fits with our topic. so I'm I'm gonna use this as our segue. because why not? That's not something we do, that is also abnormal. and in this case it is this
Pimpness: Okay.
Grant: little DeWalt measurement doodad. But this is one of those little laser measures. You turn it on and it fires a laser beam. I don't know if you can see the beam. There
John Kirkwood: Yeah.
Grant: it is. And you know it it measures things. Right now you can see that my ceiling is what is that three point seven, three point eight feet above where I'm holding it. So it's it's a really neat thing. I've had one of these before from Dremel. This one I find a little annoying because as you can see, I'm trying to turn it off by holding this button. And there we go. It's finally turned off.
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: But it's one button for all the features, including changing the measurement you know, from Imperial to metric and so on. And so that's annoying, but overall, this is about half the size of the Dremel one that I have, and I really like it. you know, obviously don't point it in your eyes, but it is really, really great for amusing your pets as well. but I think and and I picked this one up on sale at at the giant orange box store. and I'm not sure that I think the reason why it was on sale is because this I believe it's an older model because as you can see it's either got the mini or the micro USB, not the USB C charging port. So if you don't mind you know having the wrong Charging cable. this is actually a a handy little doodad. I I I I use it quite a lot. I do use my Dremel one. Quite frequently as well. There's the Dremel one and there's you know the the DeWalt one. So you can see there's there's quite a bit a big difference in size. So just handy little things to have. So that is actually something that I do carry with me every day. It's it they both live in my Maxwedition tactical operator bag, which I've talked about on the show before, and I think I've forgotten to show you, so Bearing in mind everything is kind of a bit of a mess right now because I just got home, but there you go. There's the Max Medition Tactical Operator. You
John Kirkwood: Hmm.
Grant: can see that it still is in great shape despite almost twenty I've been using this thing almost twenty years. It's been to many different countries and back. What's that?
Pimpness: I I thought that thing was bigger than error. I always thought
John Kirkwood: Well that that pretty much answers
Pimpness: that was bigger than it.
John Kirkwood: what my next question would have been. Because one of the things with Maxpedition,
Pimpness: Wow.
John Kirkwood: the you know the UK prices on them, they're they're not cheap. and the only thing I've ever had
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: sort of been little little organizer pouches. a voice I looked at and went, are they really worth the money? But if you've been given that thing a kick, yep, that's the boy. But if you've been using that big bag for twenty years and it's still going strong, okay, that's that answers the question.
Grant: Well, this particular bag is it retails for about twice what I what I got it for, like I said, probably seventeen, eighteen years ago at least. I'd have to check on the forum and see when I first talked about it. the only thing wrong with it. is this plastic here has sort of dried out a little bit.
John Kirkwood: Yep.
Grant: And it's actually not cracked as I thought it was, but it's you know there's a couple little splits in it. I don't know how well you s can see that, but
Pimpness: You put put oil on that. Put mineral oil on it and leave it there for a while.
Grant: Yeah, other than that, this thing has been beautiful. The there's no there's no fraying, there's no cuts, there's no I I could probably clean it up and pretend it's a year old and somebody would pay top dollar for it. Like I said, they're they're twice what they were going for when I got this one now. But as far as representing value, I mean I've had it almost twenty years. So It's currently what about two hundred and twenty dollars, I think, at Maxpedition's website. So that's what, ten dollars a year? That's not bad for a bag.
John Kirkwood: What no you you can work with that?
Grant: Yeah. So and I that has outlasted my two Jeeps now. you know. And it's been on board ships and it's gone on planes, it's gone on yeah, it's it's been everywhere. So anyways, before I get into some of more of my weird EDC guys, John, what what weird EDC items do you have that you'd like to talk about tonight?
John Kirkwood: my c you know my daily carry now is really minimal, which is basically down to a small multi-tool and a small knife. but I do have a couple of odds and sorts. And it does they're not tools. but they are sort of part of my
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: everyday life. start of yep.
Grant: Well, that's the thing. Everyday carry is just what you have with you. It doesn't have to fulfill a purpose. It's just something that you take.
John Kirkwood: Yep. one of the ones, I'm just gonna start on this one, it's a bit early in the year to be talking about this. But every year in the UK, I think you have in Canada as well, is you have the Poppy appeal. Yep.
Grant: Remember to stay. Yep.
John Kirkwood: eleventh hour, the eleventh day of the eleventh month. And Not so much I'm wearing it one knot every day. But my last job we had, you know, these usual lanyards for carrying your ID. And always made sure there was a poppy badge on it, not just during November, but the whole year. Just one of
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: those things, it's a point of remembrance and respect. You can get political about whether there should have been fault and all the rest of it. But in the end of the day, a bunch of very, very brave men and women done a bunch of whole very very brave things that in all honesty I don't have the bravery to do. So a little bit of respect is given.
Grant: Absolutely. a hundred and ten percent. So Inky, what what weird EDC item would you like to talk about?
Pimpness: I do carry a lot of weird stuff. I actually carry a scissor, a full size scissor.
Grant: Okay.
Pimpness: Just a cool one. I don't know why. It's not even that comfortable. I always carry a drawing pencil. like always, A. G. Russell tweezers. Okay, the scissor is scissors just they were cool looking, they were like anodized and Wendy picked up a few, so those I can't speak much of. I put it in a a little match edition bag, like John was
Grant: Well, that's cool.
Pimpness: talking about. This is all in one bag. my Viproteus for since two thousand and three I still carry a VersaPack. So twenty-three years. Do you remember when I bought it?
Grant: Yeah, yeah, I remember when you got that one. Yeah.
Pimpness: so the scissors like I carry A G Russell tweezers it's unbelievable what you do with those things. I used to work on my watches a lot when Like if a pin fell out or anything, you can do anything with splinters, it there's a piece of machine metal under tension, they click into this little thing, and you just carry it on your keychain.
Grant: That's pretty cool.
Pimpness: and then so the tweez are mostly on watches. I always have a drawing pencil. I don't always have my paper with me. I started trying to carry a sketchbook, but I I can't do that.
Grant: about it for a minute and we'll just piggyback back in or we'll
John Kirkwood: Well, okay, if you if you want to do weird, I I've got
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: one for you.
Grant: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: right. So this well technically it isn't. Well I use this as a dowsing pendulum.
Pimpness: As a lot.
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: dowsing pendulum. Alright. I
Pimpness: Okay.
John Kirkwood: don't know if you're familiar with dowsing or not. Right.
Grant: No, no, no.
Pimpness: Yeah, put it on this.
John Kirkwood: So it's how to explain this in a sensible way. There's a lot of I suppose new age talk about dowsing, but it's a very, very ancient art. It's something I grew up, you know, in the UK there's always programmes on the TV about the old ways of doing things. And one of the things is people finding underground water supplies. And they've done a technique called dowsing. And traditionally you see them either using two L-shaped rods, and you'd hold them in your hands.
Grant: Mm-hmm.
John Kirkwood: And as you walk along, if you come over a water source, the rods would cross over. And there's another variation of where you would use Almost like you know, we're talking earlier before the show about slingshots and catapults. And basically a piece of U wood in the safe in the shape of a catapult or slingshot frame. And you'd walk along with that, and when you reach water, it would pull down. and all these sort of sounds a very strange thing, except a lot of major petrochemical companies, a lot of major electrical companies actually employ dowsers for searching for things. So there there does seem to be some sort of a natural phenomenon. But again, when I was a kid, I spent quite a lot of time reading a European comic book series called The Adventures of Tintin. I think Grant's familiar with those ones. I I
Grant: I think everybody should be familiar with tin tin.
John Kirkwood: should hope so. I mean especially after Spielberg made a movie about it.
Grant: I was gonna say, wasn't it a big movie not too long ago?
John Kirkwood: It was. But one of the characters in a professor of calculus, and you know, this is a guy who built a moon rocket. done dowsing using a pendulum. one day I'm in a London bookshop, which was not an uncommon occurrence. there's a book on diesing. Let me pick that up. And it was rather interesting. And from that point onwards I've always carried a dowsing pendulum with me.
Grant: So how does it work?
John Kirkwood: No idea whatsoever.
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: Ha ha ha ha.
John Kirkwood: that
Pimpness: It's amazing.
John Kirkwood: that that's that's the honest answer to it. basically what'll happen, and I I'm not I've I've got the wrong camera angle here to try and do a demonstration of it. But basically what happens is you you hold the pendulum you know between your thumb and your finger. and theoretically it should just hang dead because it's a dead weight. If you think it's like a plum weight. So it should just hang
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: like so. But generally what'll happen as you see the movement just starts. And it will then
Grant: You must be over a water pipe for the unit downstairs.
John Kirkwood: Well, what basically happens on it, you hold it up and it'll c basically start spinning in a circular motion. and what will tend to happen is well if you move over the water pipe as as an example on that one, it'll either change the direction of swing or stop working altogether. you every person's
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: reaction seemed to be different on that. But yeah, it's been an interesting one. there's a part of I suppose British folklore. I'm gonna use the word loosely, where it talks about what we ha call ley lines. And again, you're supposed to be able to use pendulums to discover ley lines. But
Grant: Mm-hmm.
John Kirkwood: you did say weird e EDC items, so that that's my bit of real weirdness for this one.
Pimpness: It's funny my we we play with pendulums but it's like a yes or no thing. You know, you use the pointy ones?
John Kirkwood: Yes.
Pimpness: And it'll be like yes or no. Like either way. A
John Kirkwood: Yep. Yep.
Pimpness: lady tried to hypnotize me once and I held one and it it did that circle spin thing.
John Kirkwood: Yeah.
Pimpness: But you know, but you could put a little chart down. Yes, no, and whatever way it swings, it's swinging
John Kirkwood: Like Yep.
Pimpness: over the same answer, sideways, this way. But that I've never seen. That's pretty cool. You know, I
John Kirkwood: No, it's one of things I I've actually I think still got a thread about it over at AD I'm sorry at multitool.org. from when I took a trip out to Avebury in Wiltshire in England. this is one of the big Neolithic stone monuments. it's a very interesting place to take a dowsing pendulumer rod. You get some very interesting things happen there.
Pimpness: Yeah. I can imagine it going all over the place over there.
John Kirkwood: Yeah,
Grant: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: that I mean the funny thing I'll tell you on this one, again, it's just it really is inside. one of the things I like about visiting the Ape Bury above and beyond, it is such a cool place, is that there is actually a pub inside the Stone Circle. So you can actually sit down and have a pint
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: of rather good beer inside a Neolithic monument. But the interesting thing about that one is Your your mobile phone reception outside of the monument is fantastic. The minute you cross over into the monument, your mobile phone reception dies.
Grant: Interesting. Apparently
John Kirkwood: Yeah, I I've got no
Grant: we have a Neolithic monument around every worksite that I go to.
Pimpness: Yeah, that that's its own energy field right there, I think. Something to do with energy, you know.
John Kirkwood: But as I say, I've I've got no sensible, reasonable explanation. But yeah, there it is. Although in this instance I'm gonna
Pimpness: Yes.
John Kirkwood: ask Grant if he can confirm whether you visit the UK around round about the time I was at Avebury. Maybe it's him's the problem rather than the work sites.
Grant: Yes, I must have been doing a job
John Kirkwood: Okay.
Grant: there that time. my EDC, abnormal EDC is not exactly a weird idea. It you know, for a lot of people this is gonna be a pretty common thing. but I EDC a set of calipers.
John Kirkwood: Chris. Yeah.
Grant: And this is a plastic set. I buy these from a retailer up here in Canada called Lee Valley Tools, and this is it's an inexpensive set. You get about six of them. the idea is is you can Take them anywhere and if you lose them, break them, somebody else walks off with them, then you don't really care. So they're not super precise because they are plastic, so they're gonna change with you know, the temperature and humidity and and all that other stuff. But you know what? I don't do anything that is that precise. So they are more than good enough for me. I have a steel set and I have, you know, digital set and lots
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: of others as well. I've got a brass set. But the the plastic ones are ideal for EDC because like I said, you get them in a six pack. and and they're great. I mean, you've got your depth gauge on the bottom, you know, you've got, you know, your interior dimensions back here, your your exterior dimensions over here. and and they're just they're they're a handy thing to have. you know, my job is in construction. Before that I was in shipping and there was just a lot of measuring of things. So that's why my EDC items are Things like laser measures and calipers.
John Kirkwood: Actually I've got one to ask you on, or the both of you on this one. have either of you ever carried a sewing kit as part of your EDC?
Grant: It's interesting that you should ask because Abe is often talking about sewing kits and I have carried one in the past and I I should carry them. I do see the benefit of them.
John Kirkwood: it's just I just chose that one s as as a as an example.
Pimpness: I I had a bug out bag for a while, but I gave up on that. I figured I live in the woods anyway, it doesn't matter, so I used to have a sewing kit in there, a little sewing kit. And a little tin.
John Kirkwood: Right. No, as well it was I mean I'm I'm sure you guys do this as well, is you you have what you carry on your person, but you also then have I suppose an extended kit that goes in the backpack or stays in the locker at work or goes into the glove compartment of the
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: car. people laughed at me because I I quite a comprehensive one and I'd a sewing kit in it, I'd strips of over the counter paint colours like paracetamol and Babyprofen. I the cheapest super glue.
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: you know, people left, you know, who do you think you are? You think you're getting ready for the zombie apocalypse, whatever. invariably somebody would kind of go, John, I've split my trousers. Can I borrow your sewing kit? Yeah, sure, no problem.
Pimpness: Yeah, exactly.
John Kirkwood: This is broken. Could I borrow your super glue? Yeah, no problem. The smoke break, I forgot
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: my lighter. Yeah, there you go, no problem.
Pimpness: Exactly. That's my friend, same thing. He has a bunch of motorcycle parts he carries with him on a road trip and everybody makes fun of them.
John Kirkwood: Yeah.
Grant: Mm-hmm.
Pimpness: Then when they break down, they're like, you know, they want his parts.
John Kirkwood: Yeah.
Pimpness: You know, like he carries the stuff that breaks down on the kind of bike he rides, you know.
John Kirkwood: Yeah.
Pimpness: You know, everybody's laughing at him until something happens. But yeah, you always I I used to carry a change of clothes. I gotta start carrying clothes again. You'd be surprised. Like the other day I spilled a whole glass of root beer on myself. So I could've just it would have
Grant: Yeah, I've done that.
Pimpness: been nice to change my clothes. But instead I stood in front of a dryer in my bloomers.
John Kirkwood: Mm-hmm.
Pimpness: Which I do like my bloomers a lot. Grant knows. But yeah, you know.
Grant: Yes, we're
John Kirkwood: Well up.
Pimpness: I liked I used to carry like a white t shirt and even a towel. You know, a pair of pants, socks, whatever. I gotta start doing that again.
John Kirkwood: s when we get into the weird items, I'll show you another one in a second. It tends to be more task or job specific rather than generalized items, would you say?
Grant: For me it does. I don't carry a lot of personal items. but I know some people who carry, you know, lucky charms or reminders of certain things. Something that has a personal meaning as opposed to a functional one. and there's definitely nothing wrong with that. I just carry too much of my own weight to to worry about adding to it for for other things.
John Kirkwood: I'm so sort of saying is this was another one of my work ones and I I liberated it when when I left my old job in London. I'm gonna hold it up now and cue the laughter track because yeah, it's a makeup brush. Okay.
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: And one of the things, working in retail and having display cabinets, you have large issues with dust. And
Grant: Yes, of course.
John Kirkwood: When you just also then displaying small, relatively delicate items, dusters are not your friend. And then anybody else in to try and dust
Grant: Yep, absolutely.
John Kirkwood: it is not your friend either. And it was one of the chaps I worked with, who sadly now passed away, had bought
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: this and said, try this. And it is actually a little inscription. And given he was quite a big fan of Lord of the Rings, part of it is actually an elvish, which tells you a lot about people I worked with.
Grant: Ha ha ha.
John Kirkwood: but obviously I kept it first of all in his honour and in his memory and second of all because it was the right tool for the job. And thirdly, it actually ended up always being in my cargo pants at work to stop any other bugger coming along and stealing it, as tends to be the case in retail. But yeah, that was genuinely unusual EDC item for me.
Grant: I would agree. And so what is the inscription in Elvish?
John Kirkwood: I have no idea. As as I said earlier in the show, I struggle
Grant: Ha ha ha ha.
John Kirkwood: with English.
Grant: I suppose and but
Pimpness: I struggle with
John Kirkwood: I'd be very disappointed to find out
Pimpness: Mm-hmm.
John Kirkwood: if it's Elvision and says blue switch shoes.
Grant: Ha ha ha.
Pimpness: Yes.
Grant: it reminds me of something I read once. The the scariest sign in Braille must be do not touch.
Pimpness: Yeah. That's great.
John Kirkwood: Well my last one.
Grant: So Inky, got any other weird EDC items?
Pimpness: one of the crystals I carry.
Grant: And and what is that, Crystal? besides broken.
Pimpness: Light No, that don't break. Rich light? No, don't know what it's called. It's very hard to hold on to. It's better in your pocket.
Grant: It's apparently very heavy.
Pimpness: It's hard to show. It's a little bit heavy for its eyes.
Grant: Okay, that's very sparkly.
Pimpness: It's shaped like a heart. When she finds one shaped like a heart, she usually gives it to me. They have properties, you know. They have sci scientifically they have properties in them, you know, like that help certain things. Like I don't know what this is for, but I I don't know. Some of them do help with certain things, believe it or not. It's not like a magical or mystical thing. There's actually a science behind what's in certain crystals. you know, as far as courts or topaz, whatever, I don't know. But yeah, I carry this sometimes or just play with it. You know.
Grant: I have definitely carried crystals in the past, usually gifts from other people, and yeah, I I can't honestly say I I ever noticed a difference, but you know, it's it's a gift from somebody that matters, so it's definitely worth
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: worth carrying. And
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: if it does something, so much the better. If it doesn't, well it's still a really nice key keepsake. So, John, what what else have you got to sh to share with us?
John Kirkwood: Well, this was part of my last well, okay, my last job, as a thing I might have mentioned before, I was working in a call center. before everybody starts hitting me, no, I wasn't one of those people that made cool calls. It was an inbound center. So you all phone me up to shout at me. Okay. So just to be clear on that one. Usually as well, yes.
Grant: And interrupted your dinner.
John Kirkwood: But one of the things the employer actually issued, and I thought this was brilliant, and it hung it was part of our ID lanyards, was actually just a little card with instructions for evacuation in the event of fire.
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: And just sort of you know, just remind you of where the fire escapes are, a map showing you where the rendezvous point was and all the rest of it. And I just sort of thought, you know, in all the places I've worked, it's the only one that ever issued something of that nature. And I thought that actually was really smart. Because everybody has got it on their neck. Or not on their neck, but around their neck. in the event of something having
Grant: Mm-hmm.
John Kirkwood: to evacuate for real, you've got all that information to hand, should you not sort of instinctively remember it. Small thing, but it was part of everybody's everyday carry at work. And I thought, yeah, that's quite a neat one.
Grant: I've seen little things like that, either cards or booklets that that I think are really handy. They're they're always, you know, pocket sized books. You know, you you've got, you know, the survival manuals and things like that. But I always felt that things like the you know, the first aid little booklets or cards that you can carry with you. I've always felt that those were a really good idea for much the same reason. Like, you know, I know and you know that it's a hundred and twenty beats per minute when you're doing CPR, but in the moment And if it's one thing that we've illustrated repeatedly in the past 42 episodes of this show is that you tend to get the details wrong in the moment. and while it's perfectly fine for you all to call us on it on the forum at forum.multitool.org, when you're dealing with somebody's life and well-being, you know, you want to have the details correct. And so maybe you don't remember that it's 120 beats per minute. And and truly it's better that somebody is helping than nobody at all, but to have those details at hand that you could quickly reach in your pocket and go, yeah, it's 120 beats per minute. For anybody who has trouble remembering that, it is coincidentally the and this is the way I always remember it. So I'm gonna share this with everybody just as a as a as a public service announcement. it is the same tempo as Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees.
John Kirkwood: Five. Yeah, bee cheese. Yeah.
Grant: So if you can remember the ha you know, the the lyrics to stayin' alive it No no more than staying alive, you should be able to help keep somebody from not staying alive.
Pimpness: So it's you gotta stop and go.
Grant: Well y the the key is
John Kirkwood: Well hopefully hopefully that's the guy that you're giving Ct C P R to who's doing that.
Grant: You y you can screech as much as you want, but yeah, you don't stop
Pimpness: Okay.
Grant: and that's that's sort of the point.
Pimpness: That's a lot. That's I don't think I could do that. I have to stop
Grant: Well.
Pimpness: for a slice of pizza. I get hungry after like ten bushes
John Kirkwood: Inky, I like your first
Grant: I mean
John Kirkwood: aid classes.
Pimpness: No matter what I'm
Grant: Ha ha.
Pimpness: I worked in a hospital for for twelve years and I never paid attention. No, I'm just kidding.
Grant: Ha ha ha.
Pimpness: I
John Kirkwood: As is one of the things here
Pimpness: Mm.
John Kirkwood: during the COVID issues, you know, the big thing here about making sure you're washing your hands properly. the government guidelines
Pimpness: Mm.
John Kirkwood: here like 120 seconds or whatever it was. there's two
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: things that came up that I liked as as memory aids. One was to do the opening speech from Star Trek. new space, the final frontier. And apparently that was the right length of time. And the second one, and
Pimpness: Okay.
John Kirkwood: this is where you're gonna see just how nerdy I am, was the Billy Jesuit bullitany against fear from Frank Herbert's dune.
Pimpness: I remember my remember Wendy telling kids wash the hands for roll, row, row your boat twice. Row, row, roll your boat, gently down the street. Mary, merry, merry, merry, and twice, you know, for the kids.
John Kirkwood: Yeah.
Pimpness: For pre COVID, you know. I think it might have it
Grant: That makes a lot more sense.
Pimpness: might have been three times, I don't remember.
Grant: Because what are the odds the kids are gonna remember the the Star Trek, you know? Plus, you know
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: Yeah, that's just the pro that's just how kids are being brought up these days.
Grant: Some some of them may have lives and you know, eventually do things like date, so we can't expect them to remember Star Trek quotes.
Pimpness: That's ridiculous.
Grant: boy. that having been said, I have another sort of weird EDC item. And I don't know if this qualifies as an EDC because I don't carry it every day. But as I mentioned, I do work on a lot of sites where I don't get a lot of signal. So I do tend to carry something like this. And this is a this is one of those weather radios with the the hand crank on the back, so And it also serves as a as a power bank. I can charge my my phone off it. because as you know, the phone batteries die much faster when they can't connect because they're constantly trying to connect. you know, it's got a little solar panel on it and you know, flashlight on the end. But all in all, it's it's just sort of a handy little all purpose solution to a number of different problems. it's not particularly good at any of them, but it's sort of good enough for all of them. And being out in the middle of nowhere, my truck doesn't always get you know good radio reception because you know you just happen to park it three feet away from where the signal is actually getting through. As I mentioned, we get a bit of a signal in in the quarry. So something like this, I can adjust it, you know, I can put up the aerial and and adjust it a little bit better to try to maximize that that signal that I can get. So it's it's a it's a silly thing. And of course, you know, these are available for next to nothing on excuse me, on on Amazon, you know, there's there's your charging ports. but you know, it's it's nice to know that if if you need extra power, and I usually carry multiple power banks, just because I do kill phone batteries very fast. you know, if nothing else, I can hand crank the crap out of this thing for minutes at a time. and try and get a couple of percent points back on my battery. So another extremely handy but sort of abnormal EDC item is is you know just one of those emergency radios.
John Kirkwood: Yeah. It's interesting.
Pimpness: I'd never seen one that
Grant: Definitely worth having.
Pimpness: I'd never seen one that could charge something else like that. That's pretty cool.
Grant: a lot of them do nowadays.
Pimpness: Yeah, I've never seen that. That's pretty cool.
John Kirkwood: It's interesting you started saying it it's was
Pimpness: It's not the worst thing that.
John Kirkwood: it was it a good price. I'd look at those again sort of going back to the beginning of COVID. You know, over the years I've had hand crank torches. you know, I wouldn't call the strange certainly if I'm going on holiday somewhere, I would supplement my usual pen light, you know, triple A or double A torch with a hand crank, just to be on the safe side. But Here the the combination with the radios on it were very, very expensive. Yeah.
Grant: Really? I think this one was less than twenty dollars Canadian on Amazon. I
John Kirkwood: When I was looking at I think it was starting somewhere at sixty to seventy pounds sterling. Yeah.
Grant: Holy crap. Well, for that I will ship you this one.
Pimpness: Every time I no, I gotta build a big EDC bag now for the truck. I started building one again.
Grant: Yeah.
Pimpness: Yeah, I got the my proteus going, but I wound up filling up a big pocket organizer and shoving it in the front pocket of the proteus, and that's all I have in there. A big stuffed pocket organizer. So now I got the whole bag for more, you know.
Grant: So that's about all the weird EDC stuff I've got. have you either of you got anything else you'd like to show?
John Kirkwood: Well well c can I pitch a question to you then? You know, we talked about
Grant: Sure.
John Kirkwood: stuff. can we talk about consumables?
Grant: Absolutely we can.
John Kirkwood: Right. Because it's one of the things I've yeah, I got a bottle here of I don't mind actually showing this particular brand name, Lucas8. I don't know if you get that on your side of the Atlantic.
Grant: No I don't see that one here, no.
John Kirkwood: Okay. Right. Basically this this used to be sold in the UK for people recovering from illness. And it's basically sugar, water, and possibly flavoring.
Grant: Possibly.
John Kirkwood: Certainly if you if you tasted the original
Pimpness: Maybe. Yeah.
John Kirkwood: version of it, you you would go with that.
Grant: Ha ha.
John Kirkwood: I I have for a number of long number of years now, always kept a bottle of liquid in my effectively my EDC bag, you know, my work backpack or whatever it is. Because when you hit those points and you run out of energy. And it's just it's a quick hit to get you through to the next meal or whatever. So my question to you guys then is. what consumables you would you carry with you for that kind of thing, you know, be it solid foods or liquids.
Grant: Excellent question, Inky. You wanna you wanna jump in on that one?
Pimpness: Yeah, I don't have much. I always always have a bottle of water. That's you know if I'm sick I have cough drops sometimes. I don't carry food or anything or any other drinks. I always water. You know, it's
John Kirkwood: Okay. N never anything like jerk beef?
Pimpness: and No. No I drink o only thing I can really carry is water. Like Yeah, I don't carry any other consumables, honestly.
John Kirkwood: Okay.
Pimpness: Maybe a piece of candy or a cough drop, you know.
Grant: I've usually got
Pimpness: I'm very minimal with everything lately. Everything. I've it's so so hot.
Grant: There's nothing wrong with minimalism. Absolutely.
Pimpness: It's so hot where I live, you don't want anything. You really don't. You just want as little as possible. My wallet was too heavy the other day. I took it out of my pocket and you put my use my max edition wallet 'cause I don't just don't want to carry the weight of the wallet anymore. It's just you're just so like
Grant: I I wish I had that problem.
Pimpness: you're so like, no, there's a heavy Just a heavy wallet. It's like a miniature trucker type wallet. And I went back
John Kirkwood: Yeah. With with my wall is always very light, it's just full of moths flying around.
Grant: Yeah. Yeah. Their little flapping wings make it even lighter, right?
Pimpness: Yes, it's like my
John Kirkwood: Thanks. Yeah.
Pimpness: shirt's all holes in there.
Grant: I always keep usually mints in my car. and and I don't, you know, just you know, I'm going in for an important interview or a first date or something and I want a fresh breath. no, I just eat I eat them like they're candy. So I generally get the it was a variety I I I usually get, but the one that's most common is wintergreen lifesabers that I almost always have in the car.
Pimpness: I have some of those in my bag. They're still
Grant: Yeah, they're the best, aren't they?
Pimpness: old, they have no taste on at all.
Grant: yeah, that's a little disturbing. because they're usually quite flavorful.
Pimpness: Yeah. And there
Grant: but lately I've been working on developing my own trail mix. and I've been I started off by dehydrating some pineapple of all things,
Pimpness: Mm-hmm.
Grant: in my oven and I I'm not doing that anymore because it ties up my oven for twelve to fourteen hours. but I really enjoyed it because when you dehydrate pineapple it it it's I mean it becomes candy at the end.
Pimpness: Mm-hmm.
Grant: It's just so sweet and when you get rid of all the moisture it's it's very convenient. But I mix in some smoked almonds really set off the pineapple. And I've got some cashews, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, peanuts, and I tell you th it's it's actually a really, really nice combination. I I enjoy it a lot. in this latest iteration I got rid of the pineapple and I've been doing Walnuts and I gotta say I really miss the pineapple. So
Pimpness: Yeah, walnuts and no replacement buying out. How about apricot?
Grant: I I'm trying to find some good non commercially available non perishables that I can carry around as as a consumable for EDC just because, you know, it's a little bit healthier. I'm getting a little older now, so I gotta kinda pay attention to my health, gonna bounce back as much as I used to. but also I'm kinda sick of candy, you know. And I've never been one of those guys that wants to go out and buy a cliff bar or or eat granola bars or or anything like not that I don't like granola bars or anything, but to me, granola bar was just what was it? Somebody described it. eating chocolate chips but with obstacles.
John Kirkwood: It's a good description.
Pimpness: yeah. It's
Grant: So
Pimpness: not bad.
Grant: I would always get the the you know the granola bars with the little chocolate chips in them and then you know I was like, okay, well I gotta eat all this crap to get to that chocolate chip. And so yeah, that's that's what I've been sticking with lately for EDC consumables is I've been making
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: my own trail mixes.
Pimpness: Well, I go to Wal you go to Walmart there, right?
Grant: I've heard that we do, yes.
Pimpness: You get a bag like this bag of trail mix for like seven dollars. It's awesome. It even has
Grant: We
Pimpness: healthy stuff like and M's in it. You know.
Grant: well see now if they're not peanut MMs, then they're not healthy.
Pimpness: No, no, no, they're right there. This one. It's not bad. I had it when I had my stomach was upset and I ordered some stuff from Walmart and I got that. It it didn't help, but it didn't hurt. You know what I mean? The flavor
Grant: Yeah. Yeah.
Pimpness: was good though. I ordered the healthier one. It was good.
Grant: Well, for me it's been sort of an alternative to, you know, getting bags of chips. One of the things I do is, you know, especially
Pimpness: Yeah. Cool.
Grant: at work, I sit around a lot and you know, you just sort of start snacking. And so having better snacks, you know, popcorn
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: or trail mix is a lot better than, you know, polishing off yet another bag of Doritos. Unless Doritos wants to sponsor us here at EDC TV, in which case You can get us at edctv at multitool.org and we will be happy to completely sell our souls for the right price.
John Kirkwood: Swiss cheese Victorinox flavoured Doritos.
Pimpness: I think they I feel like you're gonna be getting the cool.
John Kirkwood: right, so one of the things I sort of find w you know you've mentioned a little bit about power banks. I kinda went the opposite way around with it. especially last year again. unfortunately having spent a fair bit of time in hospital. Battery life on the phone was at a premium. So I got back into the habit of carrying a hard copy book.
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: And for you know, for years you would not have seen me go anywhere without a book. you know, well work back in London there would been a novel, a magazine, and probably two or three comic books. So yeah. just just
Grant: Yeah. I was the same.
John Kirkwood: yeah, this one tends to be my f fallback. Which for those of you
Pimpness: Richard Bach, huh?
Grant: Excellent choice.
John Kirkwood: Yeah, Richard Bach's Illusions. I don't know how many times I've read it. This is my original copy, which I bought secondhand back in South Africa. and it literally I've read the point where this one falls apart. But you know, for a small amount of weight, if you're carrying sort of a backpack or a man bag, yeah. Book can't go wrong with it.
Pimpness: Yeah, it's not I used to read like crazy. I don't know if Grant remembers. I used to stay up all night and read. I couldn't stop reading, man.
Grant: The only issue I had with gosh, and I I had subscriptions to magazines. and I used I was always a voracious reader, even as a kid. I would eat my breakfast and, you know, memorize the cereal box. so the extreme cost of reading paperbacks and magazines and and things like that. I've you know, I've got a few subscriptions on my my tablet or my iPad there. Just because I still continue to read constantly. but I would say that I spent probably enough in magazines and or books in any given year that I probably could have bought two new iPads every year. And those are not cheap. So it gives you an idea of just and then where do you keep them all? I I w one of the last times I moved, I donated up. box of probably 200 pounds of magazines to the local hospital. You know, everything from well, one that you'd be familiar with, John Findskill Modeler up to
John Kirkwood: excellent.
Grant: you know, Peterson's Off Road to Jeep magazine to some of the the the popular ones in the early two thousands like FHM and Maxim. probably shouldn't mention those. Sport truck, mini truck. now I'm I thought I had one handy, but now the only magazine, physical magazine that I've subscribed to is a Canadian outdoors magazine called Explore. And if you are interested in that kind of thing, you should I I don't mind giving them a shout out. Let me see if I can pull up their their website. Because It's an excellent magazine run by a bunch of excellent people. And it is at explore-mag dot com. But yeah, you should definitely check that out, even if you don't have the benefit of being Canadian.
Pimpness: it okay?
Grant: Well on that note, gentlemen, thank you very much for being a part of the show again. it has been fantastic to have you both. Inky, great to have you back. And John, thank you again for filling in. But before we
Pimpness: Thanks for you.
Grant: shut this down yet again, John, do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share with anybody before we we close this one up?
John Kirkwood: Yeah, just it's been an interesting subject, sorry range of subjects we talked about tonight. Weird EDC. If you if anybody watching this one, you got weird things, drop it into the comments. Better still, come and join us on the forum. Tell us about it there.
Grant: Yeah, definitely come visit us at forum dot multitool.org and and share your and it doesn't have to be weird E D C. I I I kinda debated that title for a while 'cause, you know, like somebody's gonna be like, you know, what are they carrying around their hamster's left leg or something? Like no, it doesn't have to be weird, weird, just, you know, out of the ordinary things. So definitely, come visit us at forum dot multitool.org and definitely share with us some of the you know the less mainstream I guess EDC things that you have. And what about you, Inky? If you got any final thoughts you wanna share with everybody before we sew this one up?
Pimpness: Well I have to listen to you, I gotta say. Don't carry around your hands this left leg. That is weird. And this
Grant: Just just the right leg.
Pimpness: is not weird. Okay. that's it, that's all I got. Yeah, that's it.
Grant: Okay then. Well, thank you all out there for joining us again this week. it's been great to be back. We missed a week and it was well it was a little bit stressful for some of us. So as you can see, I got a few more gray hairs this week. hopefully we we won't leave you hanging in the future. thanks for joining us. Take care everybody and we'll catch you next week. Take care, everybody.
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: Right.
Pimpness: well, how are you?
Grant: I'm doing okay. And we have new fan favorite with us, John Kirkwood. How are you doing tonight, Kirky?
John Kirkwood: Yeah, so far so very good. Nice to be back.
Grant: Well, it's it's great to have you. Unfortunately, once again, Abe has been a little too busy this week to to join us, so Kirky was once again nice enough to sit in for him, and we greatly appreciate that. Thank you very much for showing up. Tonight's episode is going to be about abnormal EDC. I mean, when you talk about EDC, I mean the topic always goes to flashlights and pocket knives and multi-tools and Swiss Army knives and wallets and watches and, you know, the usual stuff. So we're going to talk about EDC items that are a little bit outside of the the norm tonight. But first, since we've got a full house again, we're gonna go back to our our original format where we look to see what everybody's got new and exciting this week. And maybe this week we'll start with you, Kirky, John, whatever you prefer.
John Kirkwood: but bad choice there, Grant. I have got nothing new this week. there is a chance in the inner future I might be getting my hands on a SOG power pint. but that's that's not confirmed at this stage. but yeah, be it if it comes through it'll be interesting. Compound leverage and well, I'll wait to see what the tools are like because I've you know went back into the forum over at multitool.org and read the reviews on it and some people absolutely love it and some people really hate it. So I'm interested to see how it's gonna go.
Grant: It not at the risk of influencing you a little bit one way or the other. It is a really good design, but it's from the newer generation of SOGs that are all made overseas. It is one of the new generation of SOGs that is made overseas and the quality is a little bit, shall we say, creative on it. it's it's an interesting design. towards the end of the the original what I refer to as the the Spencer Fraser era. they went to these sort of like cyberpunk neotechnical sort of designs where everything looked like it was made out of like circuit boards and and steampunky and kind of thing. And It it was a really neat design aesthetic that I really liked. and a lot of them were and I've often said that SOG is, you know, about 90% designs. You know, the designs are about 90% of where they need to get to,
John Kirkwood: Yep.
Grant: and they just sort of, you know, rather than take feedback, I feel like Spencer Fraser said, here's my new product. What does everybody think? And everyone around the table, you know, wanting to keep their jobs is like, good one.
John Kirkwood: Yeah.
Grant: And it never got that
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: last. you know, a little bit of refinement that it needed to really put it over the top. And then they moved all their manufacturing overseas and and they suffered. But they do have some some good designs. As you mentioned, the compound leverages it's always great. so yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on on the power was it the power leader or the power pint? 'Cause it's two different models. Power Pint, yeah.
John Kirkwood: PowerPoint.
Grant: No, I I really enjoyed the model. I guess the best advice I can give you on that one is to manage your expectations with it. It is a good tool, but it does have some flaws.
John Kirkwood: That's right. Well I suppose the advantage now being the gentleman of leisure that I am is not gonna be under work conditions. So the expectation or the needs of strength for it aren't what it would have been a few years ago.
Grant: I I wish you all the best with that, and
John Kirkwood: Hm, thank you.
Grant: like I said, I'm I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it both back on here at some point and also on our forum at forum.multitool.org, as you mentioned. So Inky. What about you? What what new and exciting things have you gotten in the past little while? Since well, I guess since the last time we saw you, which was gotta be about a month ago. A new marker.
Pimpness: This I got this brand new marker. Brand new.
Grant: Excellent.
Pimpness: I got this knockoff. Microtech, but it's it's cool. It's well it's alright, you know, but the best part is the box. I don't know the model number.
Grant: I like the blade shape on that one.
Pimpness: Yeah, it's pretty large too. I don't know the model number. It's okay, you could tell it's not real ish. Pretty much because of the lock and you know when you open it
Grant: Well that blade shape is reminiscent of some of the old Gil Hibbon designs and I I really
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: like that.
Pimpness: Nice little recurve. When you open it easy, it locks it. When you open it hard, it doesn't. Which is weird. Anyway, forget about that. They are
Grant: Well, especially for an axis lock, yeah.
Pimpness: they are nice enough to give you a box.
Grant: fantastic.
Pimpness: And it says nine only nine, they welcome you to the Microtech family, even though they are not the Microtech family. It's really nice of them. And they also, for more entertainment, they spell knives without a K, which is really nice. It's a very entertaining box. But they give you all the great things you need to know about Microtech inside. But pamphlets, everything. They even avatar other knives, huh? That's great, man. It's pretty funny.
John Kirkwood: Well, there you go, another ninety percent product.
Pimpness: Yeah, it's actually for
Grant: Yeah, ninety percent of that product is in the box, I think.
Pimpness: What I paid for it, it's r it's really I I got it really super cheap. I only buy these like very, very cheap. I don't pay the regular. I wait and when I see something happen, I happen to catch something. I'll buy it just for to amuse myself with it. I don't pay more than ten, fifteen bucks for anything like this. So but the box is very amusing. They
John Kirkwood: So just when you just
Grant: I was gonna say that.
John Kirkwood: when you're talking about the boxing, I I ask a question, maybe throw a little grenade into the room. You know, knife multi-tool products. I'm I'm thinking specifically the last couple of booker knives I bought. I mean still going back a couple of years. They came in very, very nice boxes, almost presentation boxes. And I'm kind of going
Pimpness: Yeah, like that black.
John Kirkwood: Yeah, I'm kind of going, why I am I paying an extra £20 for a fancy box here? Or am I paying for a knife? You know is it am I being strange in
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: this one or is it really a thing that we're now paying for the presentation more than the product?
Pimpness: Yeah. Yeah, very fancy boxes lately. Like magnetic kind of clamshells, right?
John Kirkwood: That's yep, that's the thing, yep.
Pimpness: Yeah. And SOG, the boxes are this big and the knife is this big. Did we get those? Big box like this. You can't
John Kirkwood: Well I've I've not but I'd I'm
Pimpness: get it open. What? You destroyed it when you got it open. And the knife is this
John Kirkwood: What's it?
Pimpness: big.
Grant: I've been finding the the packaging for a lot of them
Pimpness: I I don't know why they're doing it.
Grant: is is just top notch. The for example, the Inky, you have this same knife there, the petrified fish one.
Pimpness: Yeah, yeah.
Grant: The packaging in that was just absolutely stunning. Yeah, and the the the packaging
Pimpness: Yeah, that that's average compared to nowadays. You're right.
Grant: that I got with these these CANSEP knives, and and the tenable knife. I mean just top quality boxes and and these knives are For what we're used to paying for a top quality knife, I mean, these boxes are exceptional. And I mean, from some of the other American companies, that's what you'd pay just for packaging like that. I mean, it's it's
Pimpness: Yeah, it's weird, right?
Grant: it's not an iPhone for God's sake. It's, you know, it's it's a hundred dollar knife, not even a hundred dollar knife, and and I'm getting iPhone level packaging with it, which is both cool and also a little upsetting as I might be a little bit of an environmentalist, but
Pimpness: I wonder how much they are tacking on to do all that nice packing. Especially for even Rough Rider.
Grant: You know, I I wondered that myself, and I d I can't talk about Boker Rough Rider, but I mean this was a twenty five dollar knife and it was, you know, at least a fifteen dollar box, so
Pimpness: Yeah, w
John Kirkwood: What?
Pimpness: It was sizable though. Like the boxes he's talking about, like they might be this big for an
Grant: Yeah.
Pimpness: average three and a half inch plate knife. Like something
Grant: Well
Pimpness: like this would be in a box like this, clamshell and magnets and a sleeve over the top.
Grant: Well, for s for some of the big companies like SOG, the idea is is that you know, it's on the store store shelf and a bigger package is harder to get into and more difficult to steal. So really in
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: that case the giant box, you're not really paying for it. You're paying less than you would for the amount of theft they would have if, you know, it was a normal size box, I guess. I I don't know. Just a thought. Next time we have Chris on the show, we'll we'll ask him.
Pimpness: Alrighty.
Grant: Anyways, got anything else new you want to share with us there, Inky?
Pimpness: No, not really.
Grant: No? Okay. John, you good with going on to the next segment?
John Kirkwood: Yep, absolutely, yep.
Grant: Okay, well I'm gonna talk about something new that I got, and that is gonna lead us into the next segment. How's that for continuity? So I got something new recently that actually fits with our topic. so I'm I'm gonna use this as our segue. because why not? That's not something we do, that is also abnormal. and in this case it is this
Pimpness: Okay.
Grant: little DeWalt measurement doodad. But this is one of those little laser measures. You turn it on and it fires a laser beam. I don't know if you can see the beam. There
John Kirkwood: Yeah.
Grant: it is. And you know it it measures things. Right now you can see that my ceiling is what is that three point seven, three point eight feet above where I'm holding it. So it's it's a really neat thing. I've had one of these before from Dremel. This one I find a little annoying because as you can see, I'm trying to turn it off by holding this button. And there we go. It's finally turned off.
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: But it's one button for all the features, including changing the measurement you know, from Imperial to metric and so on. And so that's annoying, but overall, this is about half the size of the Dremel one that I have, and I really like it. you know, obviously don't point it in your eyes, but it is really, really great for amusing your pets as well. but I think and and I picked this one up on sale at at the giant orange box store. and I'm not sure that I think the reason why it was on sale is because this I believe it's an older model because as you can see it's either got the mini or the micro USB, not the USB C charging port. So if you don't mind you know having the wrong Charging cable. this is actually a a handy little doodad. I I I I use it quite a lot. I do use my Dremel one. Quite frequently as well. There's the Dremel one and there's you know the the DeWalt one. So you can see there's there's quite a bit a big difference in size. So just handy little things to have. So that is actually something that I do carry with me every day. It's it they both live in my Maxwedition tactical operator bag, which I've talked about on the show before, and I think I've forgotten to show you, so Bearing in mind everything is kind of a bit of a mess right now because I just got home, but there you go. There's the Max Medition Tactical Operator. You
John Kirkwood: Hmm.
Grant: can see that it still is in great shape despite almost twenty I've been using this thing almost twenty years. It's been to many different countries and back. What's that?
Pimpness: I I thought that thing was bigger than error. I always thought
John Kirkwood: Well that that pretty much answers
Pimpness: that was bigger than it.
John Kirkwood: what my next question would have been. Because one of the things with Maxpedition,
Pimpness: Wow.
John Kirkwood: the you know the UK prices on them, they're they're not cheap. and the only thing I've ever had
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: sort of been little little organizer pouches. a voice I looked at and went, are they really worth the money? But if you've been given that thing a kick, yep, that's the boy. But if you've been using that big bag for twenty years and it's still going strong, okay, that's that answers the question.
Grant: Well, this particular bag is it retails for about twice what I what I got it for, like I said, probably seventeen, eighteen years ago at least. I'd have to check on the forum and see when I first talked about it. the only thing wrong with it. is this plastic here has sort of dried out a little bit.
John Kirkwood: Yep.
Grant: And it's actually not cracked as I thought it was, but it's you know there's a couple little splits in it. I don't know how well you s can see that, but
Pimpness: You put put oil on that. Put mineral oil on it and leave it there for a while.
Grant: Yeah, other than that, this thing has been beautiful. The there's no there's no fraying, there's no cuts, there's no I I could probably clean it up and pretend it's a year old and somebody would pay top dollar for it. Like I said, they're they're twice what they were going for when I got this one now. But as far as representing value, I mean I've had it almost twenty years. So It's currently what about two hundred and twenty dollars, I think, at Maxpedition's website. So that's what, ten dollars a year? That's not bad for a bag.
John Kirkwood: What no you you can work with that?
Grant: Yeah. So and I that has outlasted my two Jeeps now. you know. And it's been on board ships and it's gone on planes, it's gone on yeah, it's it's been everywhere. So anyways, before I get into some of more of my weird EDC guys, John, what what weird EDC items do you have that you'd like to talk about tonight?
John Kirkwood: my c you know my daily carry now is really minimal, which is basically down to a small multi-tool and a small knife. but I do have a couple of odds and sorts. And it does they're not tools. but they are sort of part of my
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: everyday life. start of yep.
Grant: Well, that's the thing. Everyday carry is just what you have with you. It doesn't have to fulfill a purpose. It's just something that you take.
John Kirkwood: Yep. one of the ones, I'm just gonna start on this one, it's a bit early in the year to be talking about this. But every year in the UK, I think you have in Canada as well, is you have the Poppy appeal. Yep.
Grant: Remember to stay. Yep.
John Kirkwood: eleventh hour, the eleventh day of the eleventh month. And Not so much I'm wearing it one knot every day. But my last job we had, you know, these usual lanyards for carrying your ID. And always made sure there was a poppy badge on it, not just during November, but the whole year. Just one of
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: those things, it's a point of remembrance and respect. You can get political about whether there should have been fault and all the rest of it. But in the end of the day, a bunch of very, very brave men and women done a bunch of whole very very brave things that in all honesty I don't have the bravery to do. So a little bit of respect is given.
Grant: Absolutely. a hundred and ten percent. So Inky, what what weird EDC item would you like to talk about?
Pimpness: I do carry a lot of weird stuff. I actually carry a scissor, a full size scissor.
Grant: Okay.
Pimpness: Just a cool one. I don't know why. It's not even that comfortable. I always carry a drawing pencil. like always, A. G. Russell tweezers. Okay, the scissor is scissors just they were cool looking, they were like anodized and Wendy picked up a few, so those I can't speak much of. I put it in a a little match edition bag, like John was
Grant: Well, that's cool.
Pimpness: talking about. This is all in one bag. my Viproteus for since two thousand and three I still carry a VersaPack. So twenty-three years. Do you remember when I bought it?
Grant: Yeah, yeah, I remember when you got that one. Yeah.
Pimpness: so the scissors like I carry A G Russell tweezers it's unbelievable what you do with those things. I used to work on my watches a lot when Like if a pin fell out or anything, you can do anything with splinters, it there's a piece of machine metal under tension, they click into this little thing, and you just carry it on your keychain.
Grant: That's pretty cool.
Pimpness: and then so the tweez are mostly on watches. I always have a drawing pencil. I don't always have my paper with me. I started trying to carry a sketchbook, but I I can't do that.
Grant: about it for a minute and we'll just piggyback back in or we'll
John Kirkwood: Well, okay, if you if you want to do weird, I I've got
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: one for you.
Grant: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: right. So this well technically it isn't. Well I use this as a dowsing pendulum.
Pimpness: As a lot.
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: dowsing pendulum. Alright. I
Pimpness: Okay.
John Kirkwood: don't know if you're familiar with dowsing or not. Right.
Grant: No, no, no.
Pimpness: Yeah, put it on this.
John Kirkwood: So it's how to explain this in a sensible way. There's a lot of I suppose new age talk about dowsing, but it's a very, very ancient art. It's something I grew up, you know, in the UK there's always programmes on the TV about the old ways of doing things. And one of the things is people finding underground water supplies. And they've done a technique called dowsing. And traditionally you see them either using two L-shaped rods, and you'd hold them in your hands.
Grant: Mm-hmm.
John Kirkwood: And as you walk along, if you come over a water source, the rods would cross over. And there's another variation of where you would use Almost like you know, we're talking earlier before the show about slingshots and catapults. And basically a piece of U wood in the safe in the shape of a catapult or slingshot frame. And you'd walk along with that, and when you reach water, it would pull down. and all these sort of sounds a very strange thing, except a lot of major petrochemical companies, a lot of major electrical companies actually employ dowsers for searching for things. So there there does seem to be some sort of a natural phenomenon. But again, when I was a kid, I spent quite a lot of time reading a European comic book series called The Adventures of Tintin. I think Grant's familiar with those ones. I I
Grant: I think everybody should be familiar with tin tin.
John Kirkwood: should hope so. I mean especially after Spielberg made a movie about it.
Grant: I was gonna say, wasn't it a big movie not too long ago?
John Kirkwood: It was. But one of the characters in a professor of calculus, and you know, this is a guy who built a moon rocket. done dowsing using a pendulum. one day I'm in a London bookshop, which was not an uncommon occurrence. there's a book on diesing. Let me pick that up. And it was rather interesting. And from that point onwards I've always carried a dowsing pendulum with me.
Grant: So how does it work?
John Kirkwood: No idea whatsoever.
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: Ha ha ha ha.
John Kirkwood: that
Pimpness: It's amazing.
John Kirkwood: that that's that's the honest answer to it. basically what'll happen, and I I'm not I've I've got the wrong camera angle here to try and do a demonstration of it. But basically what happens is you you hold the pendulum you know between your thumb and your finger. and theoretically it should just hang dead because it's a dead weight. If you think it's like a plum weight. So it should just hang
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: like so. But generally what'll happen as you see the movement just starts. And it will then
Grant: You must be over a water pipe for the unit downstairs.
John Kirkwood: Well, what basically happens on it, you hold it up and it'll c basically start spinning in a circular motion. and what will tend to happen is well if you move over the water pipe as as an example on that one, it'll either change the direction of swing or stop working altogether. you every person's
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: reaction seemed to be different on that. But yeah, it's been an interesting one. there's a part of I suppose British folklore. I'm gonna use the word loosely, where it talks about what we ha call ley lines. And again, you're supposed to be able to use pendulums to discover ley lines. But
Grant: Mm-hmm.
John Kirkwood: you did say weird e EDC items, so that that's my bit of real weirdness for this one.
Pimpness: It's funny my we we play with pendulums but it's like a yes or no thing. You know, you use the pointy ones?
John Kirkwood: Yes.
Pimpness: And it'll be like yes or no. Like either way. A
John Kirkwood: Yep. Yep.
Pimpness: lady tried to hypnotize me once and I held one and it it did that circle spin thing.
John Kirkwood: Yeah.
Pimpness: But you know, but you could put a little chart down. Yes, no, and whatever way it swings, it's swinging
John Kirkwood: Like Yep.
Pimpness: over the same answer, sideways, this way. But that I've never seen. That's pretty cool. You know, I
John Kirkwood: No, it's one of things I I've actually I think still got a thread about it over at AD I'm sorry at multitool.org. from when I took a trip out to Avebury in Wiltshire in England. this is one of the big Neolithic stone monuments. it's a very interesting place to take a dowsing pendulumer rod. You get some very interesting things happen there.
Pimpness: Yeah. I can imagine it going all over the place over there.
John Kirkwood: Yeah,
Grant: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: that I mean the funny thing I'll tell you on this one, again, it's just it really is inside. one of the things I like about visiting the Ape Bury above and beyond, it is such a cool place, is that there is actually a pub inside the Stone Circle. So you can actually sit down and have a pint
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: of rather good beer inside a Neolithic monument. But the interesting thing about that one is Your your mobile phone reception outside of the monument is fantastic. The minute you cross over into the monument, your mobile phone reception dies.
Grant: Interesting. Apparently
John Kirkwood: Yeah, I I've got no
Grant: we have a Neolithic monument around every worksite that I go to.
Pimpness: Yeah, that that's its own energy field right there, I think. Something to do with energy, you know.
John Kirkwood: But as I say, I've I've got no sensible, reasonable explanation. But yeah, there it is. Although in this instance I'm gonna
Pimpness: Yes.
John Kirkwood: ask Grant if he can confirm whether you visit the UK around round about the time I was at Avebury. Maybe it's him's the problem rather than the work sites.
Grant: Yes, I must have been doing a job
John Kirkwood: Okay.
Grant: there that time. my EDC, abnormal EDC is not exactly a weird idea. It you know, for a lot of people this is gonna be a pretty common thing. but I EDC a set of calipers.
John Kirkwood: Chris. Yeah.
Grant: And this is a plastic set. I buy these from a retailer up here in Canada called Lee Valley Tools, and this is it's an inexpensive set. You get about six of them. the idea is is you can Take them anywhere and if you lose them, break them, somebody else walks off with them, then you don't really care. So they're not super precise because they are plastic, so they're gonna change with you know, the temperature and humidity and and all that other stuff. But you know what? I don't do anything that is that precise. So they are more than good enough for me. I have a steel set and I have, you know, digital set and lots
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: of others as well. I've got a brass set. But the the plastic ones are ideal for EDC because like I said, you get them in a six pack. and and they're great. I mean, you've got your depth gauge on the bottom, you know, you've got, you know, your interior dimensions back here, your your exterior dimensions over here. and and they're just they're they're a handy thing to have. you know, my job is in construction. Before that I was in shipping and there was just a lot of measuring of things. So that's why my EDC items are Things like laser measures and calipers.
John Kirkwood: Actually I've got one to ask you on, or the both of you on this one. have either of you ever carried a sewing kit as part of your EDC?
Grant: It's interesting that you should ask because Abe is often talking about sewing kits and I have carried one in the past and I I should carry them. I do see the benefit of them.
John Kirkwood: it's just I just chose that one s as as a as an example.
Pimpness: I I had a bug out bag for a while, but I gave up on that. I figured I live in the woods anyway, it doesn't matter, so I used to have a sewing kit in there, a little sewing kit. And a little tin.
John Kirkwood: Right. No, as well it was I mean I'm I'm sure you guys do this as well, is you you have what you carry on your person, but you also then have I suppose an extended kit that goes in the backpack or stays in the locker at work or goes into the glove compartment of the
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: car. people laughed at me because I I quite a comprehensive one and I'd a sewing kit in it, I'd strips of over the counter paint colours like paracetamol and Babyprofen. I the cheapest super glue.
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: you know, people left, you know, who do you think you are? You think you're getting ready for the zombie apocalypse, whatever. invariably somebody would kind of go, John, I've split my trousers. Can I borrow your sewing kit? Yeah, sure, no problem.
Pimpness: Yeah, exactly.
John Kirkwood: This is broken. Could I borrow your super glue? Yeah, no problem. The smoke break, I forgot
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: my lighter. Yeah, there you go, no problem.
Pimpness: Exactly. That's my friend, same thing. He has a bunch of motorcycle parts he carries with him on a road trip and everybody makes fun of them.
John Kirkwood: Yeah.
Grant: Mm-hmm.
Pimpness: Then when they break down, they're like, you know, they want his parts.
John Kirkwood: Yeah.
Pimpness: You know, like he carries the stuff that breaks down on the kind of bike he rides, you know.
John Kirkwood: Yeah.
Pimpness: You know, everybody's laughing at him until something happens. But yeah, you always I I used to carry a change of clothes. I gotta start carrying clothes again. You'd be surprised. Like the other day I spilled a whole glass of root beer on myself. So I could've just it would have
Grant: Yeah, I've done that.
Pimpness: been nice to change my clothes. But instead I stood in front of a dryer in my bloomers.
John Kirkwood: Mm-hmm.
Pimpness: Which I do like my bloomers a lot. Grant knows. But yeah, you know.
Grant: Yes, we're
John Kirkwood: Well up.
Pimpness: I liked I used to carry like a white t shirt and even a towel. You know, a pair of pants, socks, whatever. I gotta start doing that again.
John Kirkwood: s when we get into the weird items, I'll show you another one in a second. It tends to be more task or job specific rather than generalized items, would you say?
Grant: For me it does. I don't carry a lot of personal items. but I know some people who carry, you know, lucky charms or reminders of certain things. Something that has a personal meaning as opposed to a functional one. and there's definitely nothing wrong with that. I just carry too much of my own weight to to worry about adding to it for for other things.
John Kirkwood: I'm so sort of saying is this was another one of my work ones and I I liberated it when when I left my old job in London. I'm gonna hold it up now and cue the laughter track because yeah, it's a makeup brush. Okay.
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: And one of the things, working in retail and having display cabinets, you have large issues with dust. And
Grant: Yes, of course.
John Kirkwood: When you just also then displaying small, relatively delicate items, dusters are not your friend. And then anybody else in to try and dust
Grant: Yep, absolutely.
John Kirkwood: it is not your friend either. And it was one of the chaps I worked with, who sadly now passed away, had bought
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: this and said, try this. And it is actually a little inscription. And given he was quite a big fan of Lord of the Rings, part of it is actually an elvish, which tells you a lot about people I worked with.
Grant: Ha ha ha.
John Kirkwood: but obviously I kept it first of all in his honour and in his memory and second of all because it was the right tool for the job. And thirdly, it actually ended up always being in my cargo pants at work to stop any other bugger coming along and stealing it, as tends to be the case in retail. But yeah, that was genuinely unusual EDC item for me.
Grant: I would agree. And so what is the inscription in Elvish?
John Kirkwood: I have no idea. As as I said earlier in the show, I struggle
Grant: Ha ha ha ha.
John Kirkwood: with English.
Grant: I suppose and but
Pimpness: I struggle with
John Kirkwood: I'd be very disappointed to find out
Pimpness: Mm-hmm.
John Kirkwood: if it's Elvision and says blue switch shoes.
Grant: Ha ha ha.
Pimpness: Yes.
Grant: it reminds me of something I read once. The the scariest sign in Braille must be do not touch.
Pimpness: Yeah. That's great.
John Kirkwood: Well my last one.
Grant: So Inky, got any other weird EDC items?
Pimpness: one of the crystals I carry.
Grant: And and what is that, Crystal? besides broken.
Pimpness: Light No, that don't break. Rich light? No, don't know what it's called. It's very hard to hold on to. It's better in your pocket.
Grant: It's apparently very heavy.
Pimpness: It's hard to show. It's a little bit heavy for its eyes.
Grant: Okay, that's very sparkly.
Pimpness: It's shaped like a heart. When she finds one shaped like a heart, she usually gives it to me. They have properties, you know. They have sci scientifically they have properties in them, you know, like that help certain things. Like I don't know what this is for, but I I don't know. Some of them do help with certain things, believe it or not. It's not like a magical or mystical thing. There's actually a science behind what's in certain crystals. you know, as far as courts or topaz, whatever, I don't know. But yeah, I carry this sometimes or just play with it. You know.
Grant: I have definitely carried crystals in the past, usually gifts from other people, and yeah, I I can't honestly say I I ever noticed a difference, but you know, it's it's a gift from somebody that matters, so it's definitely worth
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: worth carrying. And
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: if it does something, so much the better. If it doesn't, well it's still a really nice key keepsake. So, John, what what else have you got to sh to share with us?
John Kirkwood: Well, this was part of my last well, okay, my last job, as a thing I might have mentioned before, I was working in a call center. before everybody starts hitting me, no, I wasn't one of those people that made cool calls. It was an inbound center. So you all phone me up to shout at me. Okay. So just to be clear on that one. Usually as well, yes.
Grant: And interrupted your dinner.
John Kirkwood: But one of the things the employer actually issued, and I thought this was brilliant, and it hung it was part of our ID lanyards, was actually just a little card with instructions for evacuation in the event of fire.
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: And just sort of you know, just remind you of where the fire escapes are, a map showing you where the rendezvous point was and all the rest of it. And I just sort of thought, you know, in all the places I've worked, it's the only one that ever issued something of that nature. And I thought that actually was really smart. Because everybody has got it on their neck. Or not on their neck, but around their neck. in the event of something having
Grant: Mm-hmm.
John Kirkwood: to evacuate for real, you've got all that information to hand, should you not sort of instinctively remember it. Small thing, but it was part of everybody's everyday carry at work. And I thought, yeah, that's quite a neat one.
Grant: I've seen little things like that, either cards or booklets that that I think are really handy. They're they're always, you know, pocket sized books. You know, you you've got, you know, the survival manuals and things like that. But I always felt that things like the you know, the first aid little booklets or cards that you can carry with you. I've always felt that those were a really good idea for much the same reason. Like, you know, I know and you know that it's a hundred and twenty beats per minute when you're doing CPR, but in the moment And if it's one thing that we've illustrated repeatedly in the past 42 episodes of this show is that you tend to get the details wrong in the moment. and while it's perfectly fine for you all to call us on it on the forum at forum.multitool.org, when you're dealing with somebody's life and well-being, you know, you want to have the details correct. And so maybe you don't remember that it's 120 beats per minute. And and truly it's better that somebody is helping than nobody at all, but to have those details at hand that you could quickly reach in your pocket and go, yeah, it's 120 beats per minute. For anybody who has trouble remembering that, it is coincidentally the and this is the way I always remember it. So I'm gonna share this with everybody just as a as a as a public service announcement. it is the same tempo as Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees.
John Kirkwood: Five. Yeah, bee cheese. Yeah.
Grant: So if you can remember the ha you know, the the lyrics to stayin' alive it No no more than staying alive, you should be able to help keep somebody from not staying alive.
Pimpness: So it's you gotta stop and go.
Grant: Well y the the key is
John Kirkwood: Well hopefully hopefully that's the guy that you're giving Ct C P R to who's doing that.
Grant: You y you can screech as much as you want, but yeah, you don't stop
Pimpness: Okay.
Grant: and that's that's sort of the point.
Pimpness: That's a lot. That's I don't think I could do that. I have to stop
Grant: Well.
Pimpness: for a slice of pizza. I get hungry after like ten bushes
John Kirkwood: Inky, I like your first
Grant: I mean
John Kirkwood: aid classes.
Pimpness: No matter what I'm
Grant: Ha ha.
Pimpness: I worked in a hospital for for twelve years and I never paid attention. No, I'm just kidding.
Grant: Ha ha ha.
Pimpness: I
John Kirkwood: As is one of the things here
Pimpness: Mm.
John Kirkwood: during the COVID issues, you know, the big thing here about making sure you're washing your hands properly. the government guidelines
Pimpness: Mm.
John Kirkwood: here like 120 seconds or whatever it was. there's two
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: things that came up that I liked as as memory aids. One was to do the opening speech from Star Trek. new space, the final frontier. And apparently that was the right length of time. And the second one, and
Pimpness: Okay.
John Kirkwood: this is where you're gonna see just how nerdy I am, was the Billy Jesuit bullitany against fear from Frank Herbert's dune.
Pimpness: I remember my remember Wendy telling kids wash the hands for roll, row, row your boat twice. Row, row, roll your boat, gently down the street. Mary, merry, merry, merry, and twice, you know, for the kids.
John Kirkwood: Yeah.
Pimpness: For pre COVID, you know. I think it might have it
Grant: That makes a lot more sense.
Pimpness: might have been three times, I don't remember.
Grant: Because what are the odds the kids are gonna remember the the Star Trek, you know? Plus, you know
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: Yeah, that's just the pro that's just how kids are being brought up these days.
Grant: Some some of them may have lives and you know, eventually do things like date, so we can't expect them to remember Star Trek quotes.
Pimpness: That's ridiculous.
Grant: boy. that having been said, I have another sort of weird EDC item. And I don't know if this qualifies as an EDC because I don't carry it every day. But as I mentioned, I do work on a lot of sites where I don't get a lot of signal. So I do tend to carry something like this. And this is a this is one of those weather radios with the the hand crank on the back, so And it also serves as a as a power bank. I can charge my my phone off it. because as you know, the phone batteries die much faster when they can't connect because they're constantly trying to connect. you know, it's got a little solar panel on it and you know, flashlight on the end. But all in all, it's it's just sort of a handy little all purpose solution to a number of different problems. it's not particularly good at any of them, but it's sort of good enough for all of them. And being out in the middle of nowhere, my truck doesn't always get you know good radio reception because you know you just happen to park it three feet away from where the signal is actually getting through. As I mentioned, we get a bit of a signal in in the quarry. So something like this, I can adjust it, you know, I can put up the aerial and and adjust it a little bit better to try to maximize that that signal that I can get. So it's it's a it's a silly thing. And of course, you know, these are available for next to nothing on excuse me, on on Amazon, you know, there's there's your charging ports. but you know, it's it's nice to know that if if you need extra power, and I usually carry multiple power banks, just because I do kill phone batteries very fast. you know, if nothing else, I can hand crank the crap out of this thing for minutes at a time. and try and get a couple of percent points back on my battery. So another extremely handy but sort of abnormal EDC item is is you know just one of those emergency radios.
John Kirkwood: Yeah. It's interesting.
Pimpness: I'd never seen one that
Grant: Definitely worth having.
Pimpness: I'd never seen one that could charge something else like that. That's pretty cool.
Grant: a lot of them do nowadays.
Pimpness: Yeah, I've never seen that. That's pretty cool.
John Kirkwood: It's interesting you started saying it it's was
Pimpness: It's not the worst thing that.
John Kirkwood: it was it a good price. I'd look at those again sort of going back to the beginning of COVID. You know, over the years I've had hand crank torches. you know, I wouldn't call the strange certainly if I'm going on holiday somewhere, I would supplement my usual pen light, you know, triple A or double A torch with a hand crank, just to be on the safe side. But Here the the combination with the radios on it were very, very expensive. Yeah.
Grant: Really? I think this one was less than twenty dollars Canadian on Amazon. I
John Kirkwood: When I was looking at I think it was starting somewhere at sixty to seventy pounds sterling. Yeah.
Grant: Holy crap. Well, for that I will ship you this one.
Pimpness: Every time I no, I gotta build a big EDC bag now for the truck. I started building one again.
Grant: Yeah.
Pimpness: Yeah, I got the my proteus going, but I wound up filling up a big pocket organizer and shoving it in the front pocket of the proteus, and that's all I have in there. A big stuffed pocket organizer. So now I got the whole bag for more, you know.
Grant: So that's about all the weird EDC stuff I've got. have you either of you got anything else you'd like to show?
John Kirkwood: Well well c can I pitch a question to you then? You know, we talked about
Grant: Sure.
John Kirkwood: stuff. can we talk about consumables?
Grant: Absolutely we can.
John Kirkwood: Right. Because it's one of the things I've yeah, I got a bottle here of I don't mind actually showing this particular brand name, Lucas8. I don't know if you get that on your side of the Atlantic.
Grant: No I don't see that one here, no.
John Kirkwood: Okay. Right. Basically this this used to be sold in the UK for people recovering from illness. And it's basically sugar, water, and possibly flavoring.
Grant: Possibly.
John Kirkwood: Certainly if you if you tasted the original
Pimpness: Maybe. Yeah.
John Kirkwood: version of it, you you would go with that.
Grant: Ha ha.
John Kirkwood: I I have for a number of long number of years now, always kept a bottle of liquid in my effectively my EDC bag, you know, my work backpack or whatever it is. Because when you hit those points and you run out of energy. And it's just it's a quick hit to get you through to the next meal or whatever. So my question to you guys then is. what consumables you would you carry with you for that kind of thing, you know, be it solid foods or liquids.
Grant: Excellent question, Inky. You wanna you wanna jump in on that one?
Pimpness: Yeah, I don't have much. I always always have a bottle of water. That's you know if I'm sick I have cough drops sometimes. I don't carry food or anything or any other drinks. I always water. You know, it's
John Kirkwood: Okay. N never anything like jerk beef?
Pimpness: and No. No I drink o only thing I can really carry is water. Like Yeah, I don't carry any other consumables, honestly.
John Kirkwood: Okay.
Pimpness: Maybe a piece of candy or a cough drop, you know.
Grant: I've usually got
Pimpness: I'm very minimal with everything lately. Everything. I've it's so so hot.
Grant: There's nothing wrong with minimalism. Absolutely.
Pimpness: It's so hot where I live, you don't want anything. You really don't. You just want as little as possible. My wallet was too heavy the other day. I took it out of my pocket and you put my use my max edition wallet 'cause I don't just don't want to carry the weight of the wallet anymore. It's just you're just so like
Grant: I I wish I had that problem.
Pimpness: you're so like, no, there's a heavy Just a heavy wallet. It's like a miniature trucker type wallet. And I went back
John Kirkwood: Yeah. With with my wall is always very light, it's just full of moths flying around.
Grant: Yeah. Yeah. Their little flapping wings make it even lighter, right?
Pimpness: Yes, it's like my
John Kirkwood: Thanks. Yeah.
Pimpness: shirt's all holes in there.
Grant: I always keep usually mints in my car. and and I don't, you know, just you know, I'm going in for an important interview or a first date or something and I want a fresh breath. no, I just eat I eat them like they're candy. So I generally get the it was a variety I I I usually get, but the one that's most common is wintergreen lifesabers that I almost always have in the car.
Pimpness: I have some of those in my bag. They're still
Grant: Yeah, they're the best, aren't they?
Pimpness: old, they have no taste on at all.
Grant: yeah, that's a little disturbing. because they're usually quite flavorful.
Pimpness: Yeah. And there
Grant: but lately I've been working on developing my own trail mix. and I've been I started off by dehydrating some pineapple of all things,
Pimpness: Mm-hmm.
Grant: in my oven and I I'm not doing that anymore because it ties up my oven for twelve to fourteen hours. but I really enjoyed it because when you dehydrate pineapple it it it's I mean it becomes candy at the end.
Pimpness: Mm-hmm.
Grant: It's just so sweet and when you get rid of all the moisture it's it's very convenient. But I mix in some smoked almonds really set off the pineapple. And I've got some cashews, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, peanuts, and I tell you th it's it's actually a really, really nice combination. I I enjoy it a lot. in this latest iteration I got rid of the pineapple and I've been doing Walnuts and I gotta say I really miss the pineapple. So
Pimpness: Yeah, walnuts and no replacement buying out. How about apricot?
Grant: I I'm trying to find some good non commercially available non perishables that I can carry around as as a consumable for EDC just because, you know, it's a little bit healthier. I'm getting a little older now, so I gotta kinda pay attention to my health, gonna bounce back as much as I used to. but also I'm kinda sick of candy, you know. And I've never been one of those guys that wants to go out and buy a cliff bar or or eat granola bars or or anything like not that I don't like granola bars or anything, but to me, granola bar was just what was it? Somebody described it. eating chocolate chips but with obstacles.
John Kirkwood: It's a good description.
Pimpness: yeah. It's
Grant: So
Pimpness: not bad.
Grant: I would always get the the you know the granola bars with the little chocolate chips in them and then you know I was like, okay, well I gotta eat all this crap to get to that chocolate chip. And so yeah, that's that's what I've been sticking with lately for EDC consumables is I've been making
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: my own trail mixes.
Pimpness: Well, I go to Wal you go to Walmart there, right?
Grant: I've heard that we do, yes.
Pimpness: You get a bag like this bag of trail mix for like seven dollars. It's awesome. It even has
Grant: We
Pimpness: healthy stuff like and M's in it. You know.
Grant: well see now if they're not peanut MMs, then they're not healthy.
Pimpness: No, no, no, they're right there. This one. It's not bad. I had it when I had my stomach was upset and I ordered some stuff from Walmart and I got that. It it didn't help, but it didn't hurt. You know what I mean? The flavor
Grant: Yeah. Yeah.
Pimpness: was good though. I ordered the healthier one. It was good.
Grant: Well, for me it's been sort of an alternative to, you know, getting bags of chips. One of the things I do is, you know, especially
Pimpness: Yeah. Cool.
Grant: at work, I sit around a lot and you know, you just sort of start snacking. And so having better snacks, you know, popcorn
Pimpness: Yeah.
Grant: or trail mix is a lot better than, you know, polishing off yet another bag of Doritos. Unless Doritos wants to sponsor us here at EDC TV, in which case You can get us at edctv at multitool.org and we will be happy to completely sell our souls for the right price.
John Kirkwood: Swiss cheese Victorinox flavoured Doritos.
Pimpness: I think they I feel like you're gonna be getting the cool.
John Kirkwood: right, so one of the things I sort of find w you know you've mentioned a little bit about power banks. I kinda went the opposite way around with it. especially last year again. unfortunately having spent a fair bit of time in hospital. Battery life on the phone was at a premium. So I got back into the habit of carrying a hard copy book.
Grant: Okay.
John Kirkwood: And for you know, for years you would not have seen me go anywhere without a book. you know, well work back in London there would been a novel, a magazine, and probably two or three comic books. So yeah. just just
Grant: Yeah. I was the same.
John Kirkwood: yeah, this one tends to be my f fallback. Which for those of you
Pimpness: Richard Bach, huh?
Grant: Excellent choice.
John Kirkwood: Yeah, Richard Bach's Illusions. I don't know how many times I've read it. This is my original copy, which I bought secondhand back in South Africa. and it literally I've read the point where this one falls apart. But you know, for a small amount of weight, if you're carrying sort of a backpack or a man bag, yeah. Book can't go wrong with it.
Pimpness: Yeah, it's not I used to read like crazy. I don't know if Grant remembers. I used to stay up all night and read. I couldn't stop reading, man.
Grant: The only issue I had with gosh, and I I had subscriptions to magazines. and I used I was always a voracious reader, even as a kid. I would eat my breakfast and, you know, memorize the cereal box. so the extreme cost of reading paperbacks and magazines and and things like that. I've you know, I've got a few subscriptions on my my tablet or my iPad there. Just because I still continue to read constantly. but I would say that I spent probably enough in magazines and or books in any given year that I probably could have bought two new iPads every year. And those are not cheap. So it gives you an idea of just and then where do you keep them all? I I w one of the last times I moved, I donated up. box of probably 200 pounds of magazines to the local hospital. You know, everything from well, one that you'd be familiar with, John Findskill Modeler up to
John Kirkwood: excellent.
Grant: you know, Peterson's Off Road to Jeep magazine to some of the the the popular ones in the early two thousands like FHM and Maxim. probably shouldn't mention those. Sport truck, mini truck. now I'm I thought I had one handy, but now the only magazine, physical magazine that I've subscribed to is a Canadian outdoors magazine called Explore. And if you are interested in that kind of thing, you should I I don't mind giving them a shout out. Let me see if I can pull up their their website. Because It's an excellent magazine run by a bunch of excellent people. And it is at explore-mag dot com. But yeah, you should definitely check that out, even if you don't have the benefit of being Canadian.
Pimpness: it okay?
Grant: Well on that note, gentlemen, thank you very much for being a part of the show again. it has been fantastic to have you both. Inky, great to have you back. And John, thank you again for filling in. But before we
Pimpness: Thanks for you.
Grant: shut this down yet again, John, do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share with anybody before we we close this one up?
John Kirkwood: Yeah, just it's been an interesting subject, sorry range of subjects we talked about tonight. Weird EDC. If you if anybody watching this one, you got weird things, drop it into the comments. Better still, come and join us on the forum. Tell us about it there.
Grant: Yeah, definitely come visit us at forum dot multitool.org and and share your and it doesn't have to be weird E D C. I I I kinda debated that title for a while 'cause, you know, like somebody's gonna be like, you know, what are they carrying around their hamster's left leg or something? Like no, it doesn't have to be weird, weird, just, you know, out of the ordinary things. So definitely, come visit us at forum dot multitool.org and definitely share with us some of the you know the less mainstream I guess EDC things that you have. And what about you, Inky? If you got any final thoughts you wanna share with everybody before we sew this one up?
Pimpness: Well I have to listen to you, I gotta say. Don't carry around your hands this left leg. That is weird. And this
Grant: Just just the right leg.
Pimpness: is not weird. Okay. that's it, that's all I got. Yeah, that's it.
Grant: Okay then. Well, thank you all out there for joining us again this week. it's been great to be back. We missed a week and it was well it was a little bit stressful for some of us. So as you can see, I got a few more gray hairs this week. hopefully we we won't leave you hanging in the future. thanks for joining us. Take care everybody and we'll catch you next week. Take care, everybody.
Pimpness: Yeah.
John Kirkwood: Right.
