Category: Lifestyle (Page 143 of 274)

Product Review: Barrington Single Watch Winder

The Black Barrington Watch Winder Was As Smooth As It Is Functional

When you’re young, you want a great timepiece. But what you don’t realize is that in having a great watch, you also have to invest time maintaining it. Though they are never referenced in rap videos or on red carpets, a quality watch winder is key to extending the life of your watch and ensuring optimum performance.

Adult sensibilities aren’t sexy, but damn it, they win out if you’re doing it right. Once you drop some coin on a watch, keeping it wound is essential. A watch winder is used to keep automatic or self-winding watches running when not worn.

So, how does a watch winder from Barrington work?

Automatic watches operate by winding themselves using a moving weight inside the watch. The weight moves around while the watch is worn and turns the winding mechanism inside the watch.

The winder from Barrington operates on a basis of gentle rotation to wind watches.

Older generation watch winders were programmed to be always on (i.e. rotating without a pause) in an effort to wind the watch as quickly as possible. This can lead to over-winding of a watch and potential damage to the main spring. Gentle rotation ensures a consistent movement over a longer period of time that won’t over-wind your watch.

When initially turned on, the Barrington rotor turns for 1 minute before pausing. The length of the pause is determined by the Turns Per Day setting (a lower TPD setting will mean a longer pause and vice versa) and once it is completed the rotor turns again for just one minute. This cycle continues silently for 12 hours, then rests for 12 hours, before beginning again and so on until the winder is turned off.

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Pushing It to the Limit: Fitness Class Injury Prevention Tips

hand holding dumbell in gym

It’s good to push your boundaries. But exercise pushed too far or done in the wrong way can lead to injury, and if you’re laid up, then all your good work is wasted. If you go to an exercise class, the trainer should be aware of injury risks and safe practice, but you have a responsibility to look out for yourself as well.

Some common injuries

For all vigorous exercise, it’s important to warm up and start your routine slowly, but particular types of exercise need specific precautions.

Sprains to the wrist are quite common with boxing work-outs. You should support your wrists and hands by binding them securely. Also, punch with your palm facing down and try to make contact squarely, using all four fingers of the fist. That way, the impact will be spread better between the wrist and the fist.

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Drink of the Week: The Round Robin

The Round Robin.Are you into absinthe? I’m definitely not averse to it as a little-goes-a-very-long-way ingredient in a numerous drinks, but I can’t say that I’m a fan of it in it’s classic mode of preparation. It’s not just it’s strength and bitterness, it’s the fact that I’m not even a fan of licorice candy, let alone industrial-strength anise and fennel.

On the other hand, if there’s one ingredient I’ve found in my alcoholic wanderings that can transform a potentially repulsive drink into a taste treat, it’s a raw egg white, properly emulsified. This week’s drink, which comes I know not from where, puts that theory to the test in a big, big way. Let’s get this wormword and poultry-product party started.

The Round Robin

1 ounce brandy
1 ounce absinthe
1 egg white
1 teaspoon superfine sugar

Combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker. To emulsify the egg white, shake vigorously without ice. Then, add ice, shake vigorously again, and strain into a wine glass. Toast the legalization of absinthe back in the mid-2000s when people started to figure out that the stuff is no more (or less) dangerous than other types of booze. Prohibition never works.

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Well, I guess this is another vote from me for the miraculous properties of raw eggs  in cocktails as, on balance, I really like this drink. In fact, I like this drink so much that, even though I’d have a hard time finding a difference between good absinthe and bad absinthe, I’d almost spend the $70 or more it takes to buy some of the putative good stuff just to try it in a Round Robin.

Why? Well, just as an Old Fashioned humanizes even a very strong bourbon or rye, the Round Robin actually makes the bitter licorice on steroids flavor of absinthe not only tolerable but fascinating.

While I only have one brand of absinthe on hand and it’s not supposed to be that good — I gather than aficionados of the wormwood liquor find Absinthe Ordinaire to be appropriately named at a mere 92 proof — I did try different brandies out. Killing my bottle of St. Remy worked just fine but a Ile de Ré Fine Island Cognac worked even better.

However, the one big change I made from my usual habit was was using a pasteurized brand of egg white I picked up at my local Trader Joe’s (3 tablespoons of the stuff is said to approximate one egg white). While the the seemingly low viscosity of the stuff looked suspect, the fact of the matter is that it worked just as well as the stuff you get directly from the chicken…and I know my friend from the local health department would agree that salmonella is about the last thing I need right now. I’m usually not one to worry about such stuff, but if you’d been through as many perfect storms I’ve been through over the last six months, you might be a bit extra cautious yourself.

Coming up next: An adventure with pasteurized whole eggs and a coffee drink with zero caffeine and no decaffeinated coffee, either.

As It Stands: 3 Great 4K Ultra HD TVs To Choose In 2014

Samsung 55 curved TV

A lot of audacious televisions have surfaced in the past few years, with gargantuan screens and high-end features that most homeowners haven’t foreseen. Most of the headlines have been grabbed by Ultra HD 4K televisions – the four times greater high-definition technology. The standard resolution is 4096 x 2160 pixels, but it has been scaled down to 3840 x 2160 for a 16:9 picture format that’s on TV, but it’s still four times greater than the pixels on HD 1080 screen. Most TVs advertised as featuring ‘4K’ technology are actually UHD.

Though a lot of 4K Ultra HD TV offerings have surfaced in 2014, the following three take the lead courtesy of their features, design and affordability.

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No More Mr. Potato Head: Get Off the Couch and Back to Life

jogging on the beach

You’re a champion at lifting potato chips to your mouth and watching sitcom marathons on your big television, but you’re belly is failing to fit into your jeans. It’s time to stop being a couch potato and start doing things to get healthier.

Here’s how to get off the couch and back in life.

Exercise Daily

The bad news is that it’s best to exercise regularly. The good news is that you shouldn’t do it for longer than about an hour at a time. Engage in a modest to high intensity activity for one hour, adjusting to your immediate fitness level. Check with a doctor if you’re overweight or have health issues before engaging in high intensity exercises.

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