“Watches, Stories, and Gear” is a roundup of our favorite content, watch or otherwise, from around the internet. Here, we support other creators, explore interesting content that inspires us, and put a spotlight on causes we believe in. Oh, and any gear we happen to be digging on this week. We love gear.
The Pitt Season 3 Trailer
As many of you may know, I live in the Pittsburgh area, and while I wouldn’t say I have any hometown pride – I’ve been trying to leave this place for the better part of a decade – it’s always funny to see the Steel City onscreen. Sure, we have Flashdance, The Deer Hunter, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but Pittsburgh also remains a reliable stand-in for Middle America
and salt-of-the-earth people. And no show on TV right now exemplifies that more than The Pitt which has become, somewhat inexplicably to me, one of HBO’s breakout dramas.
While I don’t really like medical shows (I’m squeamish) it is fun to hear the local references scattered throughout the series, with even more likely now that the season 3 trailer has just dropped. The new season picks up a few months later, with Noah Wyle’s Dr. Robby returning to the emergency department after some time away. We’re also likely to see more of the hospital’s ongoing fallout from the previous season, including the staff’s changing dynamics, emergency psychiatry, and the policy changes affecting day-to-day care.
The new season of The Pitt is set to premiere on HBO Max in January 2027.
Mr Jones Watches Open Call
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one of those websites where you can have a kid’s drawing turned into a stuffed animal, but I’ve always found them so charming. Imagine one of your silly little doodles coming to life as something you could actually hold. I’d cherish that thing forever, and undoubtedly brag about it to anyone who would have listened.
Sadly, the charm of stuffed animals wears off somewhere in the prepubescent era, and we can’t all stay young forever, folks. A watch, though? That may just be the adult version. If you were one of those kids who always wanted to turn a drawing into something tangible, you might want to enter Mr Jones Watches’ Young Designers Open Call.
The brand is inviting creatives ages 18 to 25 to design a watch that tells time in an interesting way (you can see some of Mr Jones’ own watches here to get the ol’ brainstorm going). The winner will receive a £3,000 prize and 300 watches will be produced as a limited run. Submissions are open until September 25 and you can find out more information here.
And please, for the love of God, don’t use AI here, people!
Robot Olympics
Doesn’t anyone remember that episode with the robot dogs in Black Mirror? Or, I mean, the entire Terminator franchise? I’m not sure about you, but I’ve always taken science fiction to be a warning, in a way. And now, with the World Humanoid Robot Games held in Beijing, I think we’re getting a lot closer to The Matrix than I feel comfortable with.
At the “Robot Olympics”, a Chinese humanoid robot named Tiangong Ultra ran the 100 meters in 8.64 seconds, while the event itself brought together more than 2,000 robots from 666 teams across 51 disciplines, including sports, factory work, restaurant tasks, office settings, and emergency simulations. Sure, some of these robots may still look like rough drafts of C-3PO, but I can’t help but worry that this rapid, almost frictionless adoption of robots that can run, like, a two-minute mile is a bit terrifying, don’t you think?
Samsung Ordered to Pay Swatch
How much would you say a watch face is worth? Well, I’d hope a bit more than $300, which is apparently what Samsung argued Swatch was owed after copycat watch faces appeared on the Galaxy app store.
A London High Court judge has ordered Samsung to pay Swatch Group $11.6 million over third-party smartwatch apps that mimicked designs from brands including Omega, Longines, Tissot, Breguet, and Blancpain. Swatch had sought roughly $170 million, while Samsung argued the apps were made by outside developers and that the actual damages were closer to a few hundred dollars. The court ultimately ruled in favor of Swatch, finding that Samsung was liable for watch faces it allowed to appear in its app store.
Rest in Peace, Dolly Parton and Tim Curry
This week, we lost two of probably the most universally loved celebrities in the modern era: Dolly Parton and Tim Curry. Both passed away at the age of 80, and both deaths came as a surprise to their millions of fans. Each seemed, in a way, to be eternal, having punctuated the lives of people who first found their work at very different moments – their work didn’t belong to just one generation.
Depending on your age, you may have met Dolly through “Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You,” 9 to 5, Dollywood, the Imagination Library, or even as a guest star on Hannah Montana. The same goes for Curry, whose career stretched from Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show to Clue, It, Muppet Treasure Island, and The Wild Thornberrys.
While celebrity deaths have never really affected me, I will say that Dolly’s did. Being a gay child in rural America, Parton’s persona offered a gentler, more loving version of acceptance than the one I often saw around me. And when I first saw Rocky Horror, Curry made self-acceptance feel like a power, not a struggle.
You can read more about Dolly Parton’s incredible life here, and Tim Curry’s here.
The post Watches, Stories, & Gear: The Pitt Season 3, Mr Jones Watch Contest, and Remembering Dolly Parton & Tim Curry appeared first on Worn & Wound.
