TimeZone Wrap-Up – 2/22/99

As you have unwittingly grown to expect and, undoubtedly look forward to my
weekly recap of Timezone activities, I invite you below to once again relive the
exciting highlights of the past five days (in no particular order):

This was certainly a week of polls! We had a JLC service poll, a TZ daily
visit poll, a license plate poll, a 2-timezone watch poll, Omega Seamaster poll,
a watch for the Navy poll, and of course our weekly “Hey, is Markus Tschopp
going to rip me off?” poll. As always the results were varied and
entertaining.

In the JLC poll someone wanted to know about quality problems with JLC, and
the consensus concluded that the biggest problem is that most of us don’t have
enough of these watches. The other conclusion was that JLC really needs to
improve their turnaround time. I think these were the conclusions as I did not
actually read any of the posts. I had a paperclip caught in my mouse and was
unable to open them up. If this wasn’t the actual topic, then it should have
been.

In the “How many times a day do you visit Timezone?” poll, most
respondents probably lied. I say this only because most of the numbers were so
low. Richard or Ed could probably give us the real numbers but they are too much
the gentlemen to embarrass us. Either the numbers were too low or signing on at
7:00am and off at midnight was counted as only one visit. Come to think of
it…Does anyone actually work?

The license plate poll was interesting. Perhaps we should get together with
the Cigar Aficionado crowd and compare plates. They too are creative. And while
I am sure they would reel at the prices we pay for watches, many of you would be
equally amazed to know that they pay upwards of $100.00 for a smoke. Perhaps
next week we can have a poll on how many of us smoke cigars!

I particularly enjoyed the 2-timezone poll as I am currently in the market
for one. There were no clear winners here as there are numerous options for
telling time in two different places. It was pretty clear that most men want one
of these so they can call their wives at just the right time so they can then go
out and party. If you need one of these watches please see the results of the
“Hey, is Markus Tschopp going to rip me off?” poll. The consensus is
100% “great guy to do business with!”

Also this week we learned which stars wore which watches. All I remember is
that there was no information on Barney and my 3 yr old son was disappointed.
From the videos it appears he wears a Silberstein but I cant be certain. If you
know, perhaps you can share this with all of us.

During the week I finally received an e-mail from Ol’ Crewdog. Now, I only
mention this because it was sent over 6 weeks ago. He’s the only Zoner I know
whose ISP is the U.S. Postal Service – Internet Division. While it may have
taken awhile, the guy they sent over to type his message into my computer was
very polite and surprisingly, knew a lot about stamps and stuff. Wasn’t wearing
a watch though.

There was a nice discussion about wearing an Omega in the rainforest that almost
ended in a brawl. It was one of those strings that takes on a strange visual
appearance that looks like it will eventually disappear off the right hand side
of your screen. Strings like this frighten some people. They invariably involve
anger as indicated also by the Omega Survey poll. One might be better served in
the rainforest by a compass anyway. Knowing the time never seemed helpful on
those occasions when I found myself lost.

There was a good session on GMT/ UTC explaining the differences between the
two. Something about all of this has always bothered me and I never knew why. I
still don’t. But I now know what a Cesium atom is and that is exceedingly
helpful.

There was a contest for a polo shirt. IWC as I recall. The answers were so
bad that Richard begged off and put them up for a vote. I don’t know who finally
won and they are probably glad I don’t.

It was confirmed that Watch School 2 would start around April 1. I think it
was a dirty trick for Walt to wait until I was on vacation to call for
registration. When I returned, enrollment was closed. For a year I have been
telling this man how forward I looked to taking this course! “Don’t forget
me”, I would say. He must have gotten hold of my college transcripts!

Oh yeah. Guns in watch magazines. That issue burned bright for a while. I
think the underlying issue here was that guys with expensive watches kinda hope
they don’t ever get shot.

I really liked the “Give me a good reason to buy a Rolex” string. I
don’t know. To me this is a little like asking “Give me a good reason to
have sex”. You either want to or you don’t. Public opinion doesn’t much
work here.

Walt A. engaged us in a pretty interesting discussion about winders for hand
wind watches. I never gave this much thought before but I guess it makes sense.
I cant help but think that the next logical step will be a portable vision
system to actually read our watches for us. Perhaps we will be able to access it
by cell phone when we need to know what time it is.

A.Crewe shared with us his vision of watch hell. Actually I found this watch
to be quite appropriate for those nostalgic “Polyester Parties” that
cropped up a few years back. I might even wear it to one of those Fondue dinners
where you sit for hours, damn near starving to death. I would not want to be
wearing it in K-Mart during cardiac arrest though. Come to think of it, my
biggest fear is dying in a K-Mart store – in front of the watch counter.

We welcomed our newest watch forum this week: JLC. I think we are all pleased
with the selection of MJ as the moderator, and equally pleased that this forum
started at all, after last week’s JLC storm. I just hope MJ can come up with
some REAL prizes for his contests. A white gold Duo would be a suggestion, as
would one of those nice platinum Geograhics. Good luck MJ!

Aran announced a TZ gathering in the D.C. area and also advised that a couple
of heavy hitters from IWC Virginia will attend. This should make for good copy
at a future date. He didn’t say whether or not anyone from Congress would be
there but Marion Barry may try to stop buy.

There was also a spurt this week about the Happy99 virus. Seems some
Timezoners may be infecting each other. For years all we had to worry about was
intimate physical contact, but now even distance doesn’t insure a healthy
lifestyle. Please be careful out there!

We had our brief Vincent string one day and that was pretty weird. Seems he
was looking for pictures of Irene removing a watch from her panties. I guess it
would just depend on how Irene looked before I could know for sure if I had any
interest in this.

All in all, it was a week!