What time is it?

by Posted on Posted fromExcelsior SF

…it’s time for a new watch.

I don’t mind pay­ing a lot for things. In fact, I rather enjoy spend­ing a lot of mon­ey to get what I want. In a sit­u­a­tion where one gets what one pays for, one should not pinch pen­nies. Yes, many times you pay more and get the same crap, or a prod­uct that is worse crap, and at those times I don’t rec­om­mend throw­ing away mon­ey. But when it comes to get­ting qual­i­ty at a high­er price, I’m a firm believer.

Well, I spent some rea­son­able sum of mon­ey on my watch. Noth­ing extrav­a­gant, but not cheap either. I prob­a­bly dropped $120 on it or some­thing like that. It’s a hand­some square-faced ana­log in sil­ver with just bare­ly enough of a warm tint that it can be worn with sil­ver or gold. I bought it prob­a­bly in the win­ter of 1999, so I’ve got­ten a few years’ ser­vice out of it.

The only com­plaint I have had with it over the years is that after a cou­ple months of wear, the band starts to smell. And I mean, it’s actu­al­ly rather foul. I don’t know what they treat that leather with, but yuck.

Well, the band has been show­ing signs of wear and it’s time to get the band replaced. Plus the watch stopped last week. So I looked on the back of the watch to see what kind of bat­tery it takes, and I went to Wal­greens to pick up a battery.

Then I dis­cov­ered that I could­n’t get the back off the watch. I’ve scratched the hell out of the back of the watch and I think deformed the cas­ing in the process, and the back just won’t come off. Annoy­ing. So I went on in to the Ken­neth Cole store here in the San Fran­cis­co mall, where I got no end of dis­gust­ed looks and has­sle as I tried to get them to order me a new strap. In the end, they refused, but they did give me a book­let about my watch which con­tains an 800 num­ber that sup­pos­ed­ly I can use to order a replace­ment band. Thank you, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Ken­neth Cole. Fuckers.

Beat­en down as I was, I did ask if they had some spe­cial tool for remov­ing the back of the watch so that the bat­tery could be replaced. They did not find that amus­ing. Of course, refer­ring to me Ken­neth Cole Watch man­u­al, I see that if my bat­tery runs down that I should go to an autho­rized Ken­neth Cole Deal­er to have it replaced.

Hel­lo? If the Ken­neth Cole store isn’t an autho­rized Ken­neth Cole deal­er, than who is? They sug­gest­ed I take it to a watch shop.

Which I will do. There’s a watch shop in my neigh­bor­hood that will be hap­py to replace the bat­tery for $5 or so. At least that’s what we used to charge peo­ple to replace bat­ter­ies back when I worked for Timex.

That’s right. It was about 10 years ago that I used to be a pro­fes­sion­al watch bat­tery chang­er. Hence my appre­hen­sion: if I can’t get the back off this watch, it was designed not to come off.

I’m not get­ting a new band unless I can get the watch run­ning again.

Any­way, this just leads me to believe that Ken­neth Cole is just the lat­est in the line of bull­shit expen­sive fash­ion­ista design­ers. Make some­thing expen­sive not because it’s built to last, but because it looks good and by virtue of look­ing good it is dis­pos­able. Why, no one wants to be seen wear­ing last sea­son’s watch any­way, right?

Well, it’s enough has­sle doing some­thing that should be sim­ple, like replac­ing the bat­tery, that I might just get a new watch. But sign me up for a thumb­tacks-and-salt­wa­ter ene­ma before I’ll buy some­thing else from Ken­neth Cole.

Published by splicer

22 Replies to “What time is it?”

  1. I guess I’m not very
    I guess I’m not very fash­ion­ista when it comes to watch­es. I have a white gold Guy Laroche that I’ve been using for some three years now. Day in and day out. Before this I had a white gold Guc­ci which was a gift (because I would nev­er buy some­thing that expen­sive), but I lost it some­place. I like watch­es I can take to the beach AND to some fan­cy dinner.

    1. That makes sense, because
      That makes sense, because after din­ner is a walk on the beach, and then we might be on the beach until sun­rise, right?

      Actu­al­ly, I don’t wear a watch if I’m going to the beach.

  2. I was already to tell

    I was already to tell fash­ion to bite me and stick to my run­ning watch, a cheap plas­tic Timex a la Wal-Mart. Then, my birth­day came up and my wife gave me a HRM watch, and my moth­er-in-law bought me a Fos­sil dress watch out of the blue… There goes that idea.

    Quartz watch­es are like any­thing else nowa­days; they’re made to be dis­pos­able, which bums me out. I’ve nev­er had a cheap watch work the same after open­ing the case and chang­ing the bat­tery; either it craps out soon after­wards, or some­thing else goes wrong. I hate throw­ing some­thing out that should be fixable.

    I bought a Seiko chrono­graph back in 1993 that’s still going strong; it’s on bat­tery num­ber 3, I think. The next time I buy a bat­tery I’m going to send it off to Seiko to get resealed. It’s the only watch I’ve got­ten that’s kept going. Mine’s got a link band instead of the leather band in the link; hmmm.. I kind of like it with the leather band, and mine is start­ing to show its age. Maybe a new band will spiff it up?

    When it dies, I’d like to find a mechan­i­cal wind watch. They’re get­ting hard to find; you either need to spend *lots* of mon­ey for one, or get a Russ­ian Poljot watch for around $220. I don’t know how well they’re made, but they seem pret­ty sol­id, and if it’s going to last 10 – 15 years it would be worth it.

    Poljots have gone up — the last time I looked, the one I want­ed was $160, now it’s $209!

    1. For the same rea­son, I’m

      For the same rea­son, I’m seri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing a Cit­i­zen watch with «Eco-Dri­ve» which appar­ent­ly means solar power.

        1. It says it’s got a 5‑year
          It says it’s got a 5‑year bat­tery, but recharges with sun­light or elec­tric light. So the­o­ret­i­cal­ly you can leave it in a draw­er for a cou­ple of years and it’ll still be running.

          It also looks like it has pow­er-sav­ing fea­tures, like it keeps track of the time by quartz pulse but if there’s not enough pow­er it stops mov­ing the hands. So even if it runs out of pow­er to run the hands around, it still knows what time it is, and pre­sum­ably will reset itself when it gets recharged.

          Adver­tis­ing hype and real­i­ty may not be joined at the hip tho…

          1. Way too fuckin’ com­pli­cat­ed
            Way too fuckin’ com­pli­cat­ed for me.

            Do as I do. Have your Palm, Cell and home clocks all set wrong so you are ear­ly and you have to ask hot guys (chycs in your case) what time it is so they can’t check out your rack (cock in your case.)

            Sor­ry I just said that in your jour­nal. Its been a few days since I’ve been laid…like real­ly fucked and I’m climb­ing the walls. 

            *ahhh, much better*

            Go for that watch by the way. Sounds coolio.

          2. I don’t under­stand. Don’t I
            I don’t under­stand. Don’t I want them check­ing me out?

            I mean, if I don’t want them check­ing out the pack­age, I’m tak­ing that armadil­lo out of my trousers.

            BTW, the sym­pa­thy play is SO not work­ing. I mean, a few days? Sheesh. I’ve had sex once in 2003.

            Now if you’re enlist­ing help, you might get some­where. I belive in liv­ing in the solu­tion, not the problem. =^)

          3. Yeah yeah yeah, you WANT
            Yeah yeah yeah, you WANT them check­ing out your package. 

            And once in 2003.…I bet you fucked her like a champ then…lucky lucky girl. 

            Yeah yeah, liv­ing the solution..does that solu­tion con­tain KY?

          4. It depends entire­ly on the
            It depends entire­ly on the prob­lem. Isn’t there bet­ter-tast­ing stuff to use, anyway?

          5. yeah, tons of cool lube out
            yeah, tons of cool lube out there. But hon­est­ly I rarely need KY. I’m naturally…

            …fuck this is in your jour­nal. I for­get that some­times since I respond in my email. 

            Yeah, I’m a horny girl, wel­come to my world. What were we talkin about? Your watch and me not get­ting laid in 4 days? 

            I’m almost over my cold / flu, ick­i­ness. How bout you? 

            *opens eyes wide*

            Time for some cel­e­bra­tion fuck­ing if you ask me.

          6. I was won­der­ing when you
            I was won­der­ing when you were going to come out of your solip­sis­tic trance and real­ize that every­one else is watch­ing. Not only is it in my jour­nal, it’s not even friends-only.

            I’m pret­ty much all over my flu. It had me down for over a week. I’m doing LOTS bet­ter. I’m still try­ing to get plen­ty of sleep and everything.

            “Cel­e­bra­tion fuck­ing” … is there any oth­er kind?

          7. Stu­pid me. I go on rants at
            Stu­pid me. I go on rants at times and for­get who hears me … or reads me. It’s my so many of my jour­nal entries are of the “pri­vate col­lec­tion” variety.

            And you just sit back and laugh, watch­ing me make a fool of myself. NICE. With friends like that.…

            My snif­fles are still hang­ing around, but a lil drugs kill that off. Sleep is good, haven’t been get­ting enough of it myself. 

            And there is all­l­ll kinds of FUCKING..are you kid­ding me? Dare I cre­ate my list? Make-up fuck­ing, quick-fuck­ing, long-slow-Madon­na-Erot­i­ca-fuck­ing, walk-in-the-door-drop-your-bags-up-against-the-wall-fuck­ing, sub­tle-start­ing-out-like-an-inno­cent-mas­sage-end-up-in-hot-sex-fuck­ing, don’t for­get car sex, bath­room sex, Macy’s Men’s dress­ing room sex, church sex,…ok, now I’m being struck down by lightening.

            And that is all what you can cram into a weekend. 🙂

          9. God­dam you. Why do you
            God­dam you. Why do you always make sense. Ok, what about pity-sex? Or when they just fuck you to shut you up? Whose cel­e­brat­ing there mister?

          10. Nev­er hap­pened to me. I get
            Nev­er hap­pened to me. I get the pity, but not the sex. Don’t know why.

            Fuck­ing me just to shut me up? I don’t know. I’m work­ing on that now. Does it work over LJ?

            Either way, I think *I* get to celebrate. =^)

          11. Oh, I’m sure I’ve had pity
            Oh, I’m sure I’ve had pity sex or “shut-her-up-sex” more than once. 

            And no fuck­ing does­n’t work over LJ…duh. The lube gets all over the monitor.

          12. Yeah, but the keep­ing on
            Yeah, but the keep­ing on talk­ing to get you to want to shut me up part, that part works on LJ, right?

  3. mine always stink after a
    mine always stink after a few years too and they were plas­tic watch bands. I guess that’s why they sell replacements.

    I broke a watch try­ing to open it a cou­ple of years ago — smashed the crys­tal just try­ing to force the back open. I haven’t had the best luck with watches. 

    I take the same approach to them now that I do with sun­glass­es. I buy a cou­ple fair­ly cheap watch­es ($25) that get the job done, and then when I break them or lose them or what­ev­er, I’ve got the oth­er as back­up. Of course I’m not very stylish.

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