John Spahr

Hi, everyone. This summer, I have primarily been focusing on two of my hobbies: experimenting with Pebble watches and collecting vinyl records. The latter came about after I upgraded from my extremely mediocre Victrola turntable, now known as “The Troll,” and was also encouraged to by a friend. So, with that in mind, I decided to finally share my modest audio setup on this blog. So, let’s begin! Speakers/Micro System: Philips BTM630 At the heart of my setup is a Philips BTM630 micro hi-fi system. It features some pretty decent speakers, a CD reader, an iPod dock, AUX input, and USB and SD card ports. It’s over a decade old, but it’s still an excellent system that’s quite compact. Given its aforementioned good sound quality and wide variety of features, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it is one my favorite parts of my setup. MP3 Player: iPod 5th Gen Moving on, I recently got another 5th generation iPod for free, and it’s become my primary portable music player for my setup. It stil...

Hey, everyone. I had been interested in getting an Orient Bambino dress watch for quite a while, so I recently acquired one for my collection. I opted for the confusingly-named “2nd Generation Version III,” as it had a lot in common with my vintage Benrus alarm watch. I really liked the look of that older watch, but its requisite servicing proved to be prohibitively expensive. So, this Orient seemed like a good option until I could afford to repair the Benrus someday, and I decided to pick one up. Upon receiving the Bambino, I fully appreciated just how similar it is to the Benrus. They both have that 60s look, featuring heavily domed crystals, sunburst dials, rectangular hands, and straight lugs. Granted, the Bambino does have some very noticeable differences, such as its 40.5mm case diameter, dial markers, and color, but I think that Orient did an excellent job of replicating that vintage watch aesthetic. Bambino Benrus Aesthetics aside, the Bambino is still a very solid dress watch ...

In a recent post, I wrote about the first film camera that I ever used: the  Kodak Cameo Motor EX . I had mentioned that I was getting a roll of film that I shot on one of these cameras developed, and I’m pleased to say that I finally have the photos back in the form of both prints and scans! So, here are some of the results from this roll of Kodak UltraMax (400 ISO) film: Overall, I’m pretty happy with how these photos turned out. Admittedly, some of these shots could have been framed better, and a few could also probably benefit from some edits. However, depending on who you ask, that’s either the fun or infuriating part of film! You never quite know what you’ll get until you develop it. Anyway, I hope this gives you an idea of what this camera can produce, and thanks for reading.

About a year ago, I reviewed the 2014 Mac mini on this blog. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that it was still an excellent machine for productivity tasks, but it could also handle some more intense things you threw at it. Thus, it became my daily driver up until I upgraded to a 2017 MacBook Air a few months ago. That being said, I’ve still been using it some, so I thought I’d briefly share how it’s holding up these days. Here are my thoughts on this miniature Macintosh one year later! Performance  Over the last year, I’ve been impressed by how much this Mac can handle. It’s rocking a 2.6 GHz dual-core Core i5 with 8 GB of RAM and a Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB SATA SSD. What all that jargon essentially means is that it’s a moderately powerful little computer, although it certainly isn’t going to put newer Macs to shame. Regardless, I’ve been able to do lots of coding, video editing, and schoolwork on this computer, and it has generally worked pretty well. Granted, it can take a while...

Hey, everyone. As you may recall, I’ve been taking a break from software development lately, and this has given me more time to spend on my other hobbies. To achieve this, there’s one tool I’ve been using a great deal: my 2017 MacBook Air. I’ve had this compact computer for nearly a month now, and I seem to have come to a realization. If you want a thin, light, reasonably powerful, and relatively affordable Mac laptop, this might just be one of your best options. How come? Read on to find out! Design and Build This laptop’s design is one of the main reasons why you might want to consider buying one of these MacBook Airs. It’s fairly thin and super light, but it still keeps our beloved USB-A ports, MagSafe, and SD card reader. Furthermore, it has an excellent non-Butterfly keyboard, a nice trackpad, a sturdy aluminum chassis, and a fairly large 13-inch display. Said display isn’t the sharpest or most color accurate, but the worst thing about it has to be its atrocious viewing angles. Re...

In the world of budget watches, few are as well-loved as Seiko’s SNK series. For under $100, you get an automatic movement, an attractive design, day and date complications, and a surprising amount of fun extras. There are plenty of reviews of this watch already, so I figured I would just quickly share my experience and first impressions with this watch. So, let’s begin! First Impressions: Upon opening this watch’s perfectly adequate box, at least for the price, I was immediately impressed. This is a watch with a lot of character, featuring unique hands, plenty of luminescence, and the signature Seiko 5 shield emblem. The dial feels much less flat than a lot of the competition, and the whole piece feels like it’s worth much more than the $90 it retails for. It’s not too large or thick, and it feels quite substantial. In short, this watch looks and feels excellent for the price. Pros: This watch has a unique and attractive design, although it has been debated whether or not this is cons...

Hi, everyone. As you may know, laptops really started to gain popularity in the early 90s, and at the forefront of this new clamshell computer craze was none other than Apple. Indeed, their innovative line of PowerBook laptops pioneered many of the things we take for granted on laptop computers today. So, when I brought home a free PowerBook 520, I was thrilled to try it out. Here’s my experience with this classic notebook over the last few days! Hardware To begin, I want to make it clear that this is a very chunky laptop. It's incredibly heavy, and it’s obviously not as portable as we’re used to these days. Regardless, some things do feel very familiar, like the built-in stereo speakers and trackpad technology these 500 series laptops first introduced. However, some features of this laptop are long gone now, such as its dual battery bays, array of ancient ports hidden behind a folding panel, and 3.5 inch floppy drive. It definitely looks its age, but there’s no denying that this P...