In cleaning up today, I was playing one of my (several) unplayed CMJ CDs, and found myself entranced by Regina Spektor’s ‘Fidelity.’ You can hear it for free by watching the video on YouTube:
I am, of course, at least a year behind in discovering this lovely track, but there you are. Learn more on her wikipedia page and the wikipedia page for the single. Me like!
Update 3/3/08: This page has all of her videos on YouTube FYI.
Great expression on Anna as she awaits the spoon.
Once again, Chris remembered to hit Point Loma near solstice, the one or two weeks a year you can see it before five PM. Due to clouds, no actual sunset but some nice snaps anyway. Enjoy!
A lovely day for an afternoon walk, Anna enjoying the new used stroller from my sister. And her cousin’s old toy, come to think of it. Hand-me-downs rock.
As usual around here, perfect weather. We are very fortunate.
These days, Anna pics are mostly posted to Annalog, but I really like this one. Getting her ‘read’ on in the sun…
I was in San Francisco for AGU 2007, and walked by a Tourneau store on Market every day:
In the window, they had a Glashutte Original Sport Evolution Panorama Date:
Here’s a PR shot:
It’s quite nice, German made with in-house movement, gold rotor, lots of hand finishing, all the details of a luxury watch. List price is about $8800, typically discounted to 6500 or so, available used on TZ for around 4500.
I was curious to see what that much cash would get in a sport watch, and GO is widely admired for its main line of dress watches, so mid-week I venture in and ask to see it. I’m dressed reasonably well, in a pressed dress shirt, slacks and dressy boots, wearing my Marinemaster on its bracelet. Since the Marinemaster is a rare watch in the US, I didn’t expect the droid to recognize it and he surely didn’t. I’ve read of store clerks who did admire a Marinemaster, but the 20-something I got certainly didn’t.
So, he tells me that “I can’t possibly compare Japanese engineering to German” and generally treats me rather shabbily. The engineering comment is absurd on its face, and was compounded by the irony of him being of obvious Asian descent.
My thought/question is this: Was this just a rude clerk, or is it a viable sales strategy to put customers on the defensive? Perhaps “If we insult what they’re wearing, they’ll a) see us as experts and b) spend more to buy a watch we ‘respect’?”
(I was disappointed in the watch, GO doesn’t do sport very well. Nicely made, but 60-click bezel and uncoated sapphire crystal. If you have the dosh for this sort of toy, you shouldn’t have to accept that sort of thing.)
I’ve read of Saville Row tailors who do similar things, as in telling the customer “I think we can do better than that” with a sniff. I’ve loaned out my copy of Cialdini’s “Persuasion” but I seem to recall it discussed this. As with cars, I hope that its an artifact of asymmetric information to be vanquished by the Internet. It sucks to be treated shabbily, especially as an enthusiast.
Update 12/28/07: I hear from a comment and an email that this seems to be the MO for Tourneau and similar stores. Exceedingly weak if true. Consider Higuchi or KSeiya for Japanese, TimeZone for used, anything but this. It’s your money, and we all deserve better.
Richardson, of course.
178.
If you say All is well, I believe you. If I say All is
well, I’m abbreviating.
and maybe a smidgen of this one too:
475.
We have secrets from others. But our secrets
have secrets from us.
Yeah, bad stuff happening offline, so posting much reduced for a while. I’m in there swinging and doing ok, all things considered, but expect less posting while I learn to swim in the deep end.
Check this out:
Purty, eh? 60s-vintage Swiss mechanical handwind, Certina brand, from Ebay. Movement is nice, signed crown, screw-down caseback, chrome steel case, blued markers, nicely aged hands, lovely sunburst dial.
It’s surprisingly modern looking. 38mm, quite well sized, and a nice timeless style. This one keeps amazingly good time, a few seconds per day off and a lovely slow-beat movement.
Oh yeah, with shipping? Fourteen bucks! Certina is one of the better of the Swiss brands that went under in the quartz revolution, so you can find ‘em way cheap.
More info:
I find myself enjoying the hell out of this watch, all out of proportion to cost. It’s understated, classic, inexpensive and very well made. I probably got lucky in that it arrived looking better than the pictures implied, but no matter what I’m very pleased indeed.
Highly recommended.
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