Category: Guy Stuff

Things that make men go “Oooooh!”

Plan Vs. Reality

Corporate Fuckery, Tools

Via Insty, I saw this little snippet over the past weekend:

BMW Patent Reveals Branded Screw Design That Limits Access to Vehicle Repairs

BMW has filed a patent for a new fastener design that underscores the automaker’s long-standing willingness to chart its own path, even when that path complicates ownership. The newly revealed screw head is shaped like BMW’s roundel, creating a proprietary design that standard tools cannot engage.

Unlike familiar Torx or hex fasteners, the patented screw uses a circular head divided into four quadrants. Two of those quadrants are recessed to accept a matching driver, while the remaining sections remain flush. The BMW logo is embossed around the perimeter, leaving little doubt about the fastener’s origin or intended exclusivity.

Uh-huh. While I like Glenn’s thought (everyone needs a damaged-screw extractor), that’s not how this will play out.

Here’s a preview of the timeline, as I see it:

  • BMW gets patent for new screw design approved
  • 24 hours later, you’ll be able to buy the following BMW screw-design screwdrivers at Amazon.com, all made in China:

Regular handle ($4.99)

T-handle ($7.99)

Cordless ($24.99, with charger included)

As usual, the marketing- and engineering assholes at BMW (a.k.a. the Control Freak Division) will be handed their asses by the market.

You saw it here first.

Something Different

Toys

Even though I’ve pretty much decided that the Tissot Classic is my watch for life (background here), that doesn’t stop me looking around at other watches.  And if I’m doing the Lottery Dream stuff, I look even more.

Here’s my problem (stop me if you’ve heard this before):  my criteria are firm, and immutable.  They are:

  • manual wind only
  • as plain as possible (no silly moon phases, tourbouillons, etc.)
  • no “diver” watches
  • no steel straps
  • no gold case:  rose, yellow, white, whatever;  steel only
  • no “trendy” brands (which would include Rolex, Omega, Tudor etc.)
  • cost:  no higher than $6,000 (in the Lottery Dream category)

Then in my wanderings, I discovered Schaumburg watches, and I got excited.  From the blurb:

Schaumburg watches have been produced since 1998 in a small factory in the idyllic town of Rinteln, in the Schaumburg region of Germany. This exceptional watch brand specializes in producing mechanical watches of high quality and attractive design. Every Schaumburg watch is handmade, which is why the company’s watches are true works of art. Schaumburg watches are exceptional in every detail.

So, to recap:

  • New company (!)
  • German
  • hand-made
  • reasonably priced (for a hand-made watch)
  • high quality
  • interesting designs — different, even eccentric, but not self-consciously so)
  • hand-wound (also automatics, but no interest in those, of course).

Try these two.  First, the Unique 30:

…and the Unique 33:

I like that Industrial Revolution look, very much.  Had they been around back then, I feel that Isambard Brunel would have worn one, without question.  (They make IWC’s Engineer line look quite fussy, even effeminate.)

And each Unique is under the magic $6,000 mark.

Now… where did I put that lottery ticket?

Back Story & The Brand

Toys

After I talked about my favorite watch of all time — Tissot Heritage — a couple of people wrote to me to ask about the brand.  (I’m astonished that people had never heard of the amazing company, which sells more watches than any other Swiss brand, period.)

Here’s Teddy Baldassarre’s take on the whole thing, and like his other discourses, it’s excellent.  For those with a limited budget but are interested in a super-accurate chronometer, by the way, it’s worth noting that Tissot makes the cheapest such in the whole market, and its performance equals many of the (very) spendy models like Rolex.


(They typically cost between $800 to $2,000 depending on the model — but the chronometer’s action is automatic, and therefore of no interest to me, a self-winder devotee.)

Yer welcome.

Not Interested

Guy Stuff, Toys

Never having had the financial wherewithal to buy any upper-end watches, I’ve never let that stop me from looking at the market — just as not ever having had the money to buy a Ferrari hasn’t stopped me from looking at expensive sports cars and that market.

Yet even if I had the funds, I’d never buy a Rolex watch.

I know, Rolexes are (generally speaking) well-made timepieces and may be worth the moolah necessary for their acquisition.  All the cool kids wear them — which is actually a negative for me, of course — but besides that, if you want to get a watch that will essentially last your entire life, the Rolex is a good bet.  And of course, if your hobbies take you underwater, then Rolex reigns supreme.  (If like me you’re unwilling to venture into an unfamiliar medium filled with things with teeth and murderous intent, then obviously this would not be a factor.)

But the reason that I’d never buy a Rolex is that they’re big, chunky and bulky, and while that may be the current fashion (another reason for my unwillingness), I’m more of the dress watch persuasion.

And of course, because I prefer a manual-wind over automatic- and quartz (battery-powered) watches is yet another reason.  (Of digital watches we shall not speak:  in other words, if you want to extol all the virtues of your $25 Casio-type watch, please restrain yourself because that just irritates me.)

Here’s a typical Rolex (I say “typical” because like members of certain ethnic groups, they all look the same to me):

Oh, and did I mention that I can’t wear metal bracelet straps because I have hairy arms, and the stupid things catch on and tug at the hairs until I rip the thing off and throw it across the room?  (I know, the Rolex might survive such an action, but whatever.)  It’s pretty much leather for me, in other words, and Rolex doesn’t like their watches to be thus equipped, so screw ’em.

Finally, like the aforementioned Ferrari, Rolex also plays reindeer games with potential customers, restricting access to certain models, thereby driving up the price and thus making them all the more “exclusive” (i.e. only available to the gullible and status-hungry). I’m not going to play that game, ever, in any market.

And for those who want something of quality like a Rolex but of sane pricing, here are some alternatives across all five popular Rolex models:  Submariner, Datejust, GMT, Explorer and Daytona.  I’m not in the market for any of the alternatives, of course, because they’re all still chunky and use metal bracelets straps.  For the watch geeks on the same topic, there’s always Teddy Baldassarre.

My biggest fear is that my beloved Tissot Heritage model may one day break irretrievably, and I won’t be able to find a replacement.  #Discontinued #OldSpiceFreshRedux


(yeah, that’s my hairy wrist)

5 Fings Wot I Done

Guy Stuff, Housekeeping

In keeping with the Musk Activity Report, allow me to list the five things I did last week — almost all of which, I’ll agree, I do every week.  Bearing in mind that I’m actually retired and not therefore required to do anything, here they are:

1) Prepared and posted about 30-odd articles for this here blog.  Some require little preparation — such as the Caption Competitions, Sunday’s Classic Beauty and Random Totty categories, of which I typically do a month’s worth in advance.  Others such as the Comment Of The Day also require little preparation other than formatting, but I typically do those as I stumble on them.  The heavy hitters (e.g.  Gratuitous Gun Pics, political analysis and social commentary) take a lot longer because in many cases they concern subjects with which I’m not familiar and require that I delve into the topic at some depth.  Reports on daily news take very little time, but commentary thereon does involve at least a little contemplation if not ancillary research, as does the weekly News Roundup.  As I’m committed to publishing at least four posts per weekday and one each for Saturday and Sunday, you can see how this all adds up, timewise.  And I count this as only one thing I did last week, and pretty much every week.  No doubt some Gummint bureaucrat would spin those out into at least a dozen things — such is the nature of make-work Gummint activity — but for me, it’s one.

2) Reading and answering mail.  I get upwards of two dozen emails a day from Readers.  Some require a response, some are FYI.  Whatever, thank you for all of them — regular correspondents know who you are —  and I value every single email.  (I don’t get much if any hate mail, but that’s fine.  If I wanted that kind of thing, I’d get a Twitter/X account.)

3) Grocery shopping.  Because New Wife works a day job (more on this below), it falls on me to keep the household running, and typically this involves about three separate trips per week (because I prefer to eat fresh foods rather than canned or frozen).  Once again, this I count as one thing not three.

4) Meal preparation.  There are two such activities.  Firstly, each night I prepare a “brown-bag” lunch for New Wife’s consumption the following day.  It involves a fresh garden salad, some kind of meat and a dessert (pitted cherries and full-milk yogurt).  Secondly, because she works five days a week, I see no reason why she should come home exhausted and then have to prepare us a meal;  so at least three nights a week, I prepare dinner for us both.  Friday nights we’ll either share a frozen pizza or whatever.  We don’t do takeout unless we’re desperate.  Weekend meals are an ad hoc  kind of thing — cheese or chicken toasties — unless we decide to treat ourselves to a roast, beef or lamb) which I typically do while she does household stuff like laundry.  (In passing, I keep the apartment tidy, bed made and the kitchen spotless because I loathe the alternative with a passion).

5) Range trip.  I view this as part of my civic duty.  Choice of guns depends on my mood or “rotation” (“damn, I haven’t shot Gun X for a while, it’s time”).  5a)  Maintenance.  I also clean and oil my guns once a week — not just those I fired at the range, but also one or two others on a rotation basis.  (I’m not compulsive about this because I don’t have to be.  While I have the cleaning kit out, in other words…)

Those are the five things I do every week, which I consider cumulatively as my “job”.  I didn’t include the voluminous reading  (paper and Internet), because that’s recreation.  Ditto the many WhatsApp messages to friends and family.

6) Ad hoc jobs.  Last week, I also fixed the headliner on the Tiguan — after only 135,000 miles, the glue weakened and the liner started flopping down, don’t get me started on quality control nowadays.  I also re-glued the gearstick shroud in New Wife’s Sputum (which had worked loose after only 26,000 miles because Fiat), and took it in for an oil change.

In government-worker terms, that list would probably exhaust most of them and require some time off.

On the other hand, I can’t get fired.