Friday 30/10/2015 - Typecast; Rolex Woes, Photo Stealin' Joes, Volunteer Goes & This Week's Wristwatches.

- Friday Afternoon -

Sitting here waiting for the plumber to arrive. Might as well get this week's post underway. 

Back to the Seamaster 300 on NATO strap, which I might wear when I go see SPECTRE in a couple of weeks. Can't wait. I'm avoiding spoilers like crazy;

And here it is, sitting on the SM3 with a little copyright tag next to it;

So anyway, thrillseekers, that's another week done and dusted. Oh, that's right, one more thing, as mentioned in the title of this post.

I saw a sign at a local Op Shop asking for volunteers. My wife had said to me on a few occasions that it would probably do me good to get out of the house and do something while I look for work. I'll be honest, I'm not too crazy about working for no pay, but I think it would do me good in other ways to do some volunteer work. It would get me back into a work routine, for one thing. And it would look good on my resume too. Also, I'd be doing something worthwhile that benefits those less fortunate, and I feel that I could actually be of help to this store too, given my retail background.

So, I spoke to the manager of the place and got an application form. We'll see what happens.

Nothing else to report. I trust you'll all have a good weekend. And for you Halloweeners, don't eat all the candy. 

It's for the kids, you know.  

3:10pm. The plumber's running late.

Thanks for reading!

Friday 23/10/2015 - This is a Short One, Folks. Quick Typecast with This Week's Wristwatches.

Ah, what the hell. While I'm here.  Wore the Submariner early in the week;

Switched over briefly to the Sinn 103 St Sa;

And put on the Omega SM300 earlier today;

Have a good one!

Friday 9/10/2015 - Bathroom Shelves, Wedding Anniversaries, Welcome Back, Mr. Bond & This Week's Wristwatches

Plenty to be done around here. There are fewer boxes scattered around the house this week as we continue to sort through them. I can see that I'll be writing quite a few eBay listings soon. 

Last weekend

                       When we moved into this house three weeks ago, there was a bare tree in the side yard that I had decided would have to go. It looked barren and creepy. My wife told me to leave it be. It's a cherry blossom tree, she said. Well, it started to blossom about a  week ago. I was wearing the Omega Speedmaster. And the blossoms are a wonderful shade of pink.

Monday

             Anyway, I had a shelf to build. Our en-suite needed some storage space. I grabbed the timber and a bunch of tools and got to work. It took me a few hours, I had to re-cut a few pieces of wood, but I got there in the end. Barely. 

Actually, I shouldn't call it 'wood'. A builder once told me; "Wood is what you burn. Timber is what you build with."

I positioned the shelf against the wall in the en- suite to find that both ends of it didn't sit flush, dammit. This was solved when I cut a piece of aluminium and fashioned it into a bracket which I fastened to the wall and the top of the shelf. A couple of strips of rubber tucked in behind the shelf and it was now sitting flush against the wall. 

I realised later that the blade on the jigsaw that I used had a slight bow in it. This caused a slight unevenness in every cut.  I'll have to buy a new blade.

Okay, that's one done. The shelves are narrow enough to hold the various bathroom products and the top shelf is wide enough to hold two folded towels. This shelf will have to come out one more time so that I can give it a couple of coats of paint. I'm thinking a gloss white, to contrast against the green wall. A glossy paint should react better against steam too, I'm thinking. This was the easy one. As I continue to unpack boxes, I'm unearthing our books, which will need to end up on shelves. That we don't have. Yet. 

Tuesday

             However, I couldn't worry about bookshelves. Not today. Today was our nineteenth Wedding Anniversary. My wife had told me not to get her anything. "You bought me a house", she added.

"That was last month", I replied. 

"You built me a shelf."

"I built us a shelf."

Anyway, she went off to work and I headed out to the nearby shopping centre and bought her a few exotic soaps. I wore the Hamilton Khaki Mechanical. All 44mm of it. 

Later, I had to go hand in the keys to our old house. That chapter of our lives is over. I switched back to the Speedmaster. The Rentals Agent at the real estate office asked me if I'd gotten the carpets steam cleaned. Nope. I had not. The carpets were laid about two years ago and we have kept them spotless ever since.

I began to get the feeling that this could get slightly ugly. She told me that she would make a final inspection of the property the next day. If that was satisfactory, we could then fill in the paperwork to get our Bond deposit back. My wife and I are really hoping that we don't get a call saying that we have to pay for the carpets to get cleaned. That will really tick me off, and I will be forced to hand the agent the receipt for the oven element that I paid for three days after we became tenants of the property. So, if she wants to charge me a hundred bucks for carpet cleaning, I will ask her for $250 for the oven repair. Considering just how much this real estate agency has screwed out of us already, I aim to get back every dollar that's owing to me.  
Yessiree, tings could get ugly indeed, ahh yeah.

Wednesday

                  I was wearing the Rolex Submariner as I finished the new Bond novel Trigger Mortis. Anthony Horowitz has written an outstanding OO7 book. One that shows a reverence and understanding of Bond and his world. This is what happens when you get an author who knows how to write AND who gets what Bond is all about. Nothing against Sebastian Faulks, Jeffrey Deaver and William Boyd. These three authors were responsible for the last three Bond continuation books and they are acclaimed and well-respected writers in the genres they normally write in.
However, I can't help but think that they thought writing a Bond book would be a walk in the park. It's not. It's often all too easy to fall into pastiche and produce something whereby you have a villain with some weird physical deformity and an improbably named Bond girl. Granted, Horowitz gives Bond a love interest named Jepoardy Lane, but he has fashioned a story which is solid and puts Bond through the ringer whilst presenting it with the air of a Fleming book. That is the hardest part. Given that James Bond has existed in popular culture now since 1953, and that the films have been around for over fifty years, it can be all too easy to write a Bond book that reads like the script to a Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan Bond film, filled with improbable stunts, over-the-top villains and sleazy double entendres. 
Anthony Horowitz managed to do something quite difficult with his book. Thank God. Bit of luck, Ian Fleming Publications will ask him to write another one in a couple of years.

Thursday
               Switched over to the Tissot Visodate briefly. Haven't worn this watch much in the last couple of years. Lately, I've been thinking that it's a tad too large, but this opinion faded once I put the watch on my wrist. Tissot batted one out of the park when they made this watch. The review that I wrote on this watch back on October 10th, 2010 has garnered almost 440,000 pageviews. If I only had a dollar for every time somebody...

Later that morning, I put on the modded the Seiko 7002 before heading to the gym for a quick workout. This watch has gotten a lot of wear in recent weeks, since it's my go-to watch for handyman duties around the house. Performs like a trouper.

And later that night, I decided to grab the Omega Speedmaster. As we head towards the warmer months, I can see myself wearing this watch less and less. It has a water-resistance rating of 50 metres. Some diehards will swear that this is good enough for swimming with, but I have seen too many 50m w/r watches experience water-entry issues, so I'll always play it a little safe where this particular watch is concerned.

I unpacked a few more boxes of books. Still a few more boxes to go. No hurry. I ain't got shelves for them anyway, just yet.

It's now Friday afternoon. I'm still wearing the Speedmaster, but I think I'll be putting on the Seiko soon. I've just had lunch (a peanut butter sandwich, if you must know) and I think I'll make my wife and I a quick coffee before getting stuck into some more repair work around here. There's a small 1960s coffee table that needs some sanding. My wife has a much-deserved four days off work and I keep telling her to take things easy, but her work ethic has other ideas.

Thanks for reading, all, and have a great weekend!

Friday 2/10/2015 - Curtains Call, Catching Up With Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and The Thin White Duke & This Week's Wristwatches.

- Friday 8:20pm AEST -

This week has been another blurry one. Much has been done as we slowly settle in to our new house. There are still plastic tubs of stuff scattered throughout every room as we unpack them and decide whether to keep or get rid of stuff that we've accumulated over the last ten or fifteen years. 

Anyway, there were (and still are) about a million tiny handyman-related jobs to do around here. 

Last weekend

                       So I got started on a few of them. I wore the modified Seiko 7002 and by the time I was done, Mr. Budweiser was waiting for me;

I have to say I like this watch. I only wear it when there's a risk of damaging a more expensive wristwatch in my collection, but I reckon I'll be devastated if I ever damage this piece badly. 

Monday

              More odd jobs to be done around the house. The sun was out so I continued. We bought some new curtains for the bedrooms and I spent the better part of the day putting them up. By the time I was done, it was Gin & Tonic o'clock. I checked the drinks cupboard and Oh-My-God, no gin! 

Luckily, I had a small sample bottle of Gordon's Gin that I bought back in the late NINETEEN EIGHTIES(!), which has sat on various bookshelves of mine over the years. Well, it was gonna come in very handy right about now. I'd already used up the Jack Daniel (that's right, it was for that post about Mad Men or something, from a couple of years ago. I haven't the heart to throw away the empty bottle since it's made of glass and I think they only sell these now in plastic), but the Johnnie Walker is still there on standby. I think I'm pretty well stocked up with scotch at the moment, though. 

A few minutes later, I switched over to the Rolex Submariner 5513 and parked myself outside. That straw hat that you see in the photo belonged to my brother. When he was about thirteen. I had a similar one, but it fell apart decades ago. We used to wear them back in the early 1970s when our Dad would take us to the nearby (as in a one-hour walk) public pool. There used to be a bowling alley next door, but I think it's long gone now. 

Tuesday

              The Omega Railmaster adorned my wrist today. I rigged up an improvised studio shot using a stool resting on the kitchen sink. The newly-installed curtain provided a nice pearlescent background. And because it had been a while since I had some, a shot of Glenmorangie Single Highland Malt. Gotta work on my photographic skills.

Thursday

               My wife got home from a short shift at work and then we all headed into town to see the David Bowie Is Exhibition at ACMI, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. 

              

The first rock concert I went to was part of Bowie's Serious Moonlight Tour back in 1983. When I heard that he was touring, I felt that his was the first concert I should go to. I had purchased his newest album Let's Dance and I liked it, and I was aware of some of his earlier songs like Heroes, Young Americans and Jean Genie, but not much else. 

Needless to say, I became a fan of his after this concert and when he toured again in 1987 with The Glass Spider Tour, I was there. Three times.

This exhibition was extraordinary. Aside from the various costumes and outfits that he's worn throughout his 45+ year career, there was a plethora of other items that showed just how extensive his output has been and how influential he was in the world of music. 

Upon entry, we were given a set of headphones. As we progressed through the exhibition, we would hear excerpts from interviews, comments about Bowie by other artists, as well as songs from his vast catalogue. 

I stopped at one glass cabinet to read his handwritten lyrics to Starman. The song began to play on my headphones and I got a little bit teary. I felt like I was close to the man's greatness and that here I was looking at an artifact that David Bowie had created with his own hands. It felt a lot more immediate and intimate than handling one of his CDs or reading an interview with him in Rolling Stone. 

I'll admit that I haven't kept up with his musical output since the early 1990s, but I consider him to be one of the most important cultural icons of our time. He and his music were always ahead of their time and whether you like his music or not, there has never been an artist quite like him. 

Today

          Continued with the odd jobs. I switched back to the Seiko.There are two or three tubs filled with DVDs, but I don't have the shelf space to put them on display just yet. I snagged a paperback copy of Trigger Mortis, even though I have already read 165 pages of it on my Kindle app. I still prefer the feel and look of a paper book. Call me old fashioned. 

Put up the final curtain. That's that. Onto the next job, a set of shelves for the en suite. I'll have to get a little more timber, methinks. 

My daughter got a bottle of mojito flavoured iced tea from the supermarket. That gave me an idea. After I took a quick shower, I filled a tumbler with some of this tea and grabbed a lemon and the Bacardi Rum. And some Angostura Bitters for colour. Oh, and I switched back to the Submariner in order to bring a little closure to the handyman stuff for the day.

The rum didn't kick in until I was almost finished, but it wasn't half bad. Anyway, back to the tools tomorrow. It's the Grand Final here in Melbourne. It's our SuperBowl. I don't follow the game, but I'm sure this town will get pretty festive and slightly out of control tonight and tomorrow. 

'Carn the Hawks!

Thanks for reading, have a great weekend!