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Verge Favorites: Dan Seifert

Verge Favorites: Dan Seifert

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For the record, eggshell with Romalian type is the way to go

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The Verge staffers aren't just people who love technology. They're people who love stuff. We spend as much time talking and thinking about our favorite books, music, and movies as we do debating the best smartphone to buy or what point-and-shoot has the tightest macro. We thought it would make sense to share our latest obsessions with Verge readers, and we hope you're encouraged to share your favorites with us. Thus a long, healthy debate will ensue where we all end up with new things to read, listen to, or try on.

AeroPress

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It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of coffee and that it is a key part of my daily life. This unassuming plastic and rubber contraption can produce an astonishingly good cup of coffee without any of the bitter taste that can come from your everyday Mr. Coffee automatic drip maker. The downside is that it can take nearly as long to make a single cup of joe with the AeroPress as it takes my automatic maker to bang out 10 piping hot cups. But when a $26 gizmo can give five-figure coffee machines a run for their money when it comes to taste, there's little to complain about here. Pro tip: Google around for various methods of brewing with the Aeropress that others have perfected.

Wild Nothing — Nocturne

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This 11-song album by Wild Nothing is lush, dreamy, shoegaze-y, and wonderful all at the same time. Nocturne is the perfect album to listen to at the end of a long day when you want to just tune out the noises of the world around you, but I also find myself spinning it whenever I need to unwind a bit — even if that's at 10AM in the morning.

Bowers & Wilkins P5

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Of course when you want to tune out the rest of the world, the best way to do it is with a quality set of headphones. In-ear buds have never worked well for me — regardless of type, I always find them to be uncomfortable after a short amount of time, assuming they stay in my ears at all. My choice, therefore, is to use over-the-ear headphones, and the best over-the-ear headphones I have ever used are my Bowers & Wilkins P5s. The P5s have excellent tonal reproduction that doesn't unnecessarily color your music with too much bass or vanishing trebles. Though they do not have active noise canceling technology, the supple leather cups on the P5s do an excellent job of forming a seal around your ears to block out outside noise. At $299.95, they aren't cheap, but when you spend most of your day wearing headphones, they are certainly worth it. Just don't get the ivory-colored ones as I did, because they are terribly difficult to keep clean.

Hudson Single Malt Whiskey

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I've become a big fan of whiskey as I've gotten further and further away from my college-age years, and my current favorite is the Hudson Single Malt Whiskey from Tuthilltown Spirits in Gardiner, New York. You might recognize the name Tuthilltown — the distillery was the focus of Nilay's "Dubstep Whiskey" video report in March of last year. Tuthilltown Spirits is the first distillery in New York State since prohibition, and conveniently for me, it's a mere 40 minutes away from where I call home. The distillery produces a number of fine liquors, but the Single Malt is my choice for its incredibly smooth finish and warm flavor.

American Psycho

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This 2000 Hollywood adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' gory novel about a rich banking executive with a secret psychopathic nightlife set in the yuppie heyday of late 1980s Wall Street didn't reach critical acclaim when it was first released, but that didn't stop it from becoming a cult classic. It can be argued that it's not a very good movie — I actually don't think it is, personally — but the performance by Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman is top notch and the movie is chock full of choice one-liners and epic monologues. Even better than the film itself is the soundtrack that features original 1980's-era songs interspersed with interpretations of other classic songs by industrial groups from the 1990s. Oh, and for the record, eggshell with Romalian type is the way to go.

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