To Date or Not To Date?

Like many of you, I have a full time job, which requires me to sign off tons of paper, because let’s face it, I’m a professional desk diver!  The deepest depth my LHD has ever reached in the water is in the super deep side of my swimming pool of 100CM, yup, used CM to so I can add two extra zeroes!

Which brings to the question, having a watch with a date complication is quite helpful when one is required to know the date of the month.  However, watch companies often treat the date display as an afterthought, many date windows are sadly, gruesome and some are, outright atrocious.  A date window executed well, brings symmetry to the watch and also provide aesthetics otherwise wouldn’t be noticed, combining functionality and beauty, icing on the cake!  When treated as an afterthought…the effects can mean a loss of sale or ridiculed on the internet forums and social media.

On the other side of the spectrum, as one’s collection expands, having to set the time and also date and/or day, can become a hassle, especially if you do not have a winder for watches.  To set the time in the morning before work can be a hindrance.  Let’s be honest here, that extra 60 seconds of sleep in the morning feels like 2 hours of extra sleep. So having to set the time and date can be annoying.  If one is a seasoned collector with a collection of vintage watches, which often doesn’t have a quick set date function, this can get old, FAST! In addition, even with the quick set date function of the modern watch, if you have quick fingers, you can move pass the current day  and now have to reset again, going 31 days, lucky if you are in month of February. In addition, unless you have an annual calendar or perpetual calendar, the annoying 30 vs. 31 days or the month of February can force one to pull hairs out, even if you have a winder as you have to reset all the dates on your watches with the display

And some of us, who have a narcissistic need to post our watch photos on social media, which I am very guilty of doing and also have an OCD problem of posting the right date on the day of the post, the need to set up the dates for shots can be quite bothersome.  Compared to a no date watch, such as a Speedmaster Pro, you can take the shot ahead of time, on a day off and post the picture at a later time and not worry about the date not matching the date of post!

For example, a beautiful Moser from my dear friend @watchestolove

And one I took with my Black Bay Red, the lack of date makes setting the watch easier and much better symmetry.

Now that I have given my arguments for both dates and no date watches, my vote is still for a no date watch, given my expanding collection.  However, I will purchase a watch with a date display as long as it is well executed and doesn’t violate any of the things I find offensive from points made earlier.  Unfortunately, some of the more well executed date windows on watches happens to be out of my price range.  And with that, it’s time for some pictorial illustration, but I’ll start with the violators first.

Longines had a few releases I found with beautiful dials but ruined by the cut off numeral and on top of that, it also makes the already sub seconds dial more cluttered.

Photo credit to Longines website.

I really dig the watch and the overall execution, especially the orange GMT hand.  However, this little circular date at 4:30 is just baffling to me, why did you put it there? If you want it to be so small that I have to look hard at it to see it, then why even have it?

Photo credits to Bell & Ross website.

An example of date wheel not matching the dial color, on a very beautiful watch I love!

Photo credit to IWC website.

Why is the date added at 9 on the Oris? Should’ve been left as no date but if one were to add a date, put it at 6 o’clock so it won’t destroy the symmetry.

Photo credit to Oris website.

But then Oris salvaged itself with this Baselworld 2018 release I snagged from Basel, the pointer date is flat out beautiful!

Some beautiful big dates on watches! Germans just does big dates well! Color matching date wheels and symmetrical.!

Photos credit to A Lange & Söhne website and Glashütte Original website.

And this last one from Hamilton shows when a watch is in perfect balance compared to cutting off a numeral to force a date on the watch dial.

Photo credits to Hamilton Watches website.

I hope you find this somewhat informative and entertaining as well!

Masculinity, watches and exercises

A few weeks ago, I was messaging a friend regarding my boss who owns a CrossFit gym, as a means to describe how much money he has.  He can afford to own a gym not as a business but more of a private gym with personal trainers.  The conversation got side tracked and we were amazed by how people are so enthused by CrossFit and are following the gyms with such fire, that they live and breathe CrossFit, as if they are in a cult!

It’s just an unscientific personal opinion I thought of, but modern society is built on brain power and as we move further away from manual labor and more into a society of services and desk slaves, we have this nostalgia for the old days where people lived and worked with their hands and did hard labor, and built things whereas we just buy, often without human interactions nowadays.  In this search for our identity, I think group exercises and more importantly CrossFit proliferate because it builds upon camaraderie with the people and the exercises are often functional exercises that makes one feel powerful.  These group exercises often involve military exercises as well.  From a personal experience, I feel like a total bad ass after doing some of these workouts myself.  The modern office/desk life and service economy life makes us crave for something greater than this life in front of computers or yes/no Sir.  Having this place, in this case CrossFit where we can relate our day-to-day problems and feel like a total bad ass is probably sounds way better than say, drinking our sorrows away or pay to see a shrink?

This leads to my other topic, watches.  The trend towards big watches aside as a side product of modern fashion, I think sports watches and more importantly, dive watches are popular not only because of its durability/versatility but also this notion of the time when mankind was discovering the ocean venturing to places never been before.  Example of Rolex Explorer where the famous Sir Edmund Hillary set foot on Everest or Thor Heyerdahl who traveled across the Pacific from Peru to French Polynesia in a hand-built raft made from wood, wearing an Eterna Kon Tiki.  Don’t worry guys, I won’t leave out the famous Omega Speedmaster going to the moon in 1969!  Back to my “theory” of the modern office life, these watches linking to adventures while we are stuck staring at a screen, provides a nostalgia, and hence sell well.  Although not so much with Eterna, but I think a lot of divers sell well as a result and in the case of Speedy, well, we still make movies of going to space and those movies are cool right?  With that, this office drone will say his goodbye and hopefully you find this entertaining and not a complete waste of time 🙂