Lately I’ve been turning over a bit of a new leaf.  I’ve always been up for adventure but just like with drugs (so I’ve been told) and many other things, the same old same old just hasn’t been cutting it.  Lately my adventures have been more and more extreme and dangerous.  Whereas a few years ago going body surfing was the height of my exploits, these days mountaineering and rock climbing have been the dominating my life.

The same goes with watches.  Forget beautiful leather-strapped watches and automatic diver’s.  In a situation where error is a luxury you can afford, they may be fine, but with the adventures I have lined up the just won’t do.

Lately I have been looking for something a little more serious.

And that led me to Suunto.  When it comes to serious tool watches (rather than watches that make you look like a tool), Suunto is the first place extreme adventurers go, and with my love of mountains and climbing, the choice was obvious… The Suunto Core!

Sunnto Core All Black Mens Watch CORE ALLBLK

This watch not 0nly tells you how high you are (no not in that way ) But it also tells you the air pressure, has a compass, and what else is that it also tells the… what was the called?  Oh yeah, the time!

What I love about this watch is that it also tells you how much daylight you have per any given region in the world.  A feature I never thought to be useful, but on a rock climbing trip last week would have been useful and prevented my friends and I from hiking several miles with only the glow of our cellphone back lights illuminating our path.

These watches are so hardcore that Suunto calls their watches Wrist-top Computers!  Huh?!?

I’m going through a phase in my life where I just can’t be bothered with watches…

Yes that’s right, I just can’t be bothered with watches anymore.

Why is that you may be asking?

Yes I like a nice watch but watches have been getting to ridiculous these days.  A little too “innovative” for its own good so much so that it seems to be losing focus.  The art of just telling time and to do so reliably has gone.  These days it seems to be more about bigger and flashier watches that just don’t really speak to me.

Meh…

There are number of small watchmakers out there hoping to get taken seriously in the watch industry, and many of them have a number of interesting takes on the wristwatch, but in trying to be interesting they ended up being pretty much the same.  They follow trends rather than invent them, and after a while it all gets a little boring…

Well if you remember, about a year or so ago a small Swiss watch company called Romain Jerome came out with the unusual wristwatch that DOESN”T tell the time, and that was a huge hit, completely out of left field, and if you were reading you would remember that I have praised this watch as a move of marketing genius.  A watch that misses the primary mark entirely.

Well I’m delighted to say that they have done it again!

Yes Omega has a watch WORN on the moon, but this watch actually has parts of the moon on it.

Ye s this is Romain Jerome’s “Moon” watch, and unlike any other watch bathed in gold and platinum, this watch has pieces of the moon on it, and here it is:

I have to say that on a marketing and branding level, it’s just brilliant, it’s like a car company that makes a car that doesn’t go anywhere.  It’s so fresh and so unexpected, and what’s more is that you can claim to have part of a celestial body on your wrist.

I love the angle this company is taking, and I hear that they’ll even have a watch with steel from the RMS Titanic.  That will be a very special watch indeed.

A few years ago this Rolex was the hot item of the year:

Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date GMT-Master II Mens Watch 116710-BKSO

And to me it’s not hard to see why.  This model introduced a lot of innovations that were long overdue.  First being a clasp that actually felt as though it were not made of tin foil, polished center links, and most importantly, a ceramic bezel.  Ceramic being much harder than stainless steel, its ability to resist scratches was much better than steel and thus the watch looked new even over time.

Now I love Omega, but the truth is that Omega is usually considered as a cheaper alternative to a Rolex, a Hamburger in a land of steaks.

I, however, think that is a reputation that is undeserved, I tend to consider Omega somewhat similarly to a Japanese car company, they take ideas and improve them in a more practical and more affordable package.  Their co-axial movement increased the service intervals of a mechanical watch, their dept ratings are higher, and they have helium escape valves on almost all of their diving watches (even though they may never be needed.)

I, to this day, consider my old Omega Seamaster the most comfortable watch I’ve ever owned.

And now, they’ve come up with something even better than the Rolex offered, and here it is:

Being a limited edition of the fairly new Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean, the bezel takes the idea of the ceramic bezel in the Rolex to a new level.  Using a combination of what they call “Liquidmetal” and ceramic they made this new diving bezel that is supposed to be three times as hard and corrosion resistant as steel.

Yes it is another limited edition to commerate something silly, such as a staff member’s birthday, but I think this idea is ingenious, although its influence may be a little bit too obvious.

I remember that I had loved watches ever since I was a kid.  Getting ridiculously shiny and spangly things with pistons and stuff on it.  Nothing has changed much except for the fact that my tastes at one point were toward ridiculously expensive watches then mellowing toward watches that are just sort of middle of the road.  Now I tend to own largely practical watches that are inexpensive and easy to maintain without a whole bunch of unnecessary stuff.

There is one watch, however, that has eluded me for years…

You see it was in high school when I really started to fall in love with watches.  When I saw the Rolex my eye doctor wore I think it was almost instant.  There was, however, one watch I felt just as passionate about then.

It was this:

I know that the picture is blurry, and I know you can’t hardly tell anything about it at all, but this is a Piaget Legende Emperador, and I think it is just absolutely beautiful.

I remember I used to lust after this watch as a teenager, but the reason that the image is blurry is that after HOURS scouring the internet, I could not find any image of the watch except this one, and it was part of a much broader image of some dude taking a picture of his watch collection.

There are loads of watches that Piaget has labeled “Emperador,” and “Legende,” but only this watch captures my heart.  Since my high school days so long ago I had never seen this watch for sale, and who knows if I’ll ever get a chance to own one.

If I should encounter it, or if any of you readers has one and want to sell it to me.  I’ll buy it from you most likely!

This is the Raymond Weil RW Sport Quartz Chronograph:

NEW RAYMOND WEIL RW SPORT MENS WATCH 8520-STR-05207

…and while that name does sound like a mouthful, I’m sorry to say that the watch is known by no other name, perhaps a model number, but what would you prefer to say?

If you don’t care about watches, and like the way this watch looks than get it, I’m not going to stop you, but my personal opinion is that if you want a watch that is truly special, this is as far from that as you can possibly get.

Someone once said that a rose by any other name isn’t something or other… I forget the expression, but my point is that for a truly great watch to be great it has to have a special name, like “Speedmaster,” “Submariner,” or, “Daytona,” to simply name a watch based on what characteristics it has is like naming my dog, “White-haired poop Machine Which Sometimes Has the Ability to Lick Its Own Butt “  It just shows that the watchmakers weren’t really caring, but that’s largely due to the fact the watch company isn’t anything really special.

You see while many watch companies, even the lesser known ones, have been around for more than 100 years, Raymond Weil has been around only since 1972, which means that even stains in my apartment are older than that.  What’s more is that this company bombards us with commercials and advertising, but it’s watches are really as mediocre as a 6 inches on a ruler. Raymond Weil watches are primarily mid-market graduation presents for students who did poorly in school.

Take this watch for example, just look at it, it’s a conflicting and ridiculous mess.  I’ll start with the bezel, it looks like it comes from an Omega Speedmaster and the bracelet looks like it comes from one of those wacky Zeniths.  It has sporty features like a good water resistance and a screw down crown, yet it has features you’d find on a jewelry watches such as a butterfly clasp and the big date.  The big date, furthermore, which are two number wheels showing the date, is split in half by the chronograph hand.  Whether or not it was done intentionally or not I’m not sure of, but it looks ugly, it looks stupid.

What’s more is that the numbers o nthe dial make no sense at all, it’s like the watchmaker ate some alphabet soup and sneezed.

So to sum up, I’d pass on this watch, get something else!

A. Lange & Sohne is a watch company, but unlike most of watch companies who moved into the Swiss mountains to make “hand built” wristwatches steeped in years and years of Swiss watchmaking heritage, A. Lange & Sohne is actually German.  What’s more is that they are considered by most enthusiasts to be the second best watchmaker in the world, after Patek Philippe of course.

The most notable of the all of A. Lange & Sohne’s timepieces?

The Lange 1 of course:

A. Lange & Sohne – Lange 1 – 101.035 Gents Watch

Now my boss, who happens to be a man of more than adequate means, loves this watch, and he says that as soon as he can comforfortably afford it, he will get it, and kudos to him for doing so.  I, however, never really got this watch.  I’m not going to bore you with the history of the company, mostly because I don’t know what that history may be, but I’m just going to say, I don’t get it!

I don’t get why they cost so much, I don’t get why they are regarded so highly, and I think they are overpriced, overrated, and unnecessarily complicated.

For example, just look at the dial, you have the time on one subdial, the seconds on another, and a big date occupying the top-right of the dial.  Why?

Why are they in three separate areas, why can’t they be in ONE area?

The power reserve thingy, furthermore, looks like it is just lost in space.  I think it’s silly and watch design gone terribly wrong.  It’s function following form and that’s no good in a watch, at least not in my book.  It reminds me of those silly Japanese watches that tells time by having you count a bunch of silly dots.

You see a typical day a Patek Philippe would be a watchmaker looking out at the sky and saying, “hmm… I wonder what it would be like to make a watch that tracked how the sky looks like over Geneva at any given point,” and then he would go out and do it!  That is what makes Patek Philippe such an excellent watchmaker.  They think of the most ridiculous watchmaking challenges in the world and then go out and make them.

Has A. Lange &Sohne done such a thing?  Not that i can see…

I’m being somewhat unfair, you see watches in this category are about passion.  You don’t buy them with your head, you buy them with your heart, and if you love this German pig than why not go out and buy it?  I don’t like it, but if it floats our boat, than go out and buy the watch of your dreams.  Remember, you only live once!

Yes so if you are ordinary man with a little cash to burn and have an yearing to purchase a “pure” wristwatch, that is, an automatic wristwatch, than you may be enamored over this concept called “jewels”

Yes, as is more often than not, watch salesmen and others will weigh the pros and cons of one watch over the other by explaining water resistance to depths of which you’ll never go.  They’ll tell you about useless certifications and pretty much anything under the Sun God Ra to sell you that watch.

Well one thing that they might tell you is about how many “jewels” a movement has.

Sound familiar?

Well let me let you in on a little watch education.  You see every automatic watch is essentially powered by a tightly coiled spring that slowly unfurls and rewinds itself when you move around.  The “jewels” in a watch movement are really bearings and they essentially serve the same purpose as ball bearings.  They reduce friction within the moving parts of the watch and makes the friction a lot more predictable, thus improving the accuracy of the watch.

Too many times I encounter idiots at the water cooler who claim that because a watch has 27 jewels as opposed to 21 jewels, than it must be better because it is more valuable, and better because it is simply “more! more! more!”  They claim that in the end more jewels means a better watch.

Well let me say first of all you, you nut, that the “jewels” in a watch movement are not King Tut’s jewels and you can’t take them out and sell them if you’re in a pinch.  They are small synthetic sapphires, and the last time I checked, I believe they cost around 2/10 of one cent.

Secondly, it’s not about how many jewels you have in a movement, it’s how each jewel is being used.  You can a jillion jewel movement, but if they aren’t doing anything than what’s the point.  Too often I hear people base their high-end watch purchases in part because of the jewel count, and that’s totally wrong.

I agree to a point that it’s better to have more jewels than less.  Your basic movement, for example, has 17 jewels, but I think that pretty much any movement with 21 jewels or more is perfectly fine for an uncomplicated movement.  So in conclusion, just like with drinking, you’re good if you’re over 21.

Now lately I’ve been receiving a number criticisms about the watches that I feature on this site and about the site in general.  I’ve been told that the watches on the site are generally too expensive, and that I should feature more affordable watches on this site.

So here’s one:

Zodiac Zo2244 Sea Dragon Ladies Watch

Yup it’s the, um…, it’s the Zodiac Sea Dragon.  It’s $150.00 give or take, and as a looker I think it looks alright.  The fact that its midsized means that a girl or boy can wear it, it’s a quartz and it’s got a date and a bezel, and what’s more is that this series of watches I’m told is literally INFUSED with a light vanilla scent.  So if the smell of rubber of leather makes you vomit, it’s nice to know you have a healthy alternative.

So if you are a woman and don’t care about the brand, the pathetic water resistance, and the fact that all Zodiac watch wearers are serial killers, than by all means buy it!

I, however, find this watch to be passionless junk, the Toyota Yaris of the watch world.  Kinda funky, but primarily designed to just get the job done.

That’s why I bought one of these:

Tissot PRC200 T-Sport Mens Watch T17.1.586.42

You see life is about living, and time is to precious to be measured on a basic watch.  Forget the Zodiacs, the Timex, and the Casio, get one of these!

If you are in the market for an expensive, plain-looking watch that will capture no one’s attention and of which will probably cost a lot to service, the most obvious choice has always been a Patek Philippe.

Patek Philippe watches, as i had mentioned earlier, are for the truly rich, because if a normally rich person spent over
ten thousand dollars on a watch, they would want the world to know it and they wouldn’t want it to look like it was picked out of a plastic watch case at the local drug store.

Can you imagine if you spent almost 15 THOUSAND dollars for a watch that looked like this:

Patek Philippe Calatrava – 5196J Gents Watch

I’m not joking, that is what it actually costs!

Now I happen to consider myself not to be of the flashy type, but if I spent several thousands of dollars I would want it to be so beautiful that everyone who saw it would it would vomit at the sight of their own watches.  I would want it to be so unutterably gorgeous that you would just want to wear it day in and day out, forever!

Now I must say that my picking on Blancpain didn’t just come at random, because for the first time ever, I actually saw someone wearing one and the most immediate thought, after what he had been smoking when he bought that, was which Blanc PLAIN, I mean… err… Blancpain it was.

Turns out it was this:

Blancpain 2850-1127-53 Leman Pearl White Dial Leather Alligator Men’s Automatic Watch

So where with Patek Philippe you got blandness that has never costed more, with Blancpain you have blandness at a fairly reasonable price.  Think about it, this is an automatic wristwatch from a reputable, albeit lesser-known watchmaker, for around $5,000.00.

And would you look at it, it’s a shade better looking than the Patek as well with its skeleton hands and big date as well.

And what more would you expect from a company known for some of the worlds smallest and thinnest movements.  I get the impression that with Blancpain, minimalism is on the menu and that’s fine.  I respect how Blancpain is a “pure” watchmaker.  They are the only major Swiss manufacturer to have never have made a quartz watch, they make watches with “complications,” and they make watches for divers such as Jacques Costeau.  I really do respect that, but I wouldn’t want to own one…