Friday 21/7/2017 - Busy Times, Old Friends, Cat Stand-offs & This Week's Wristwatches.

I've been busy in recent months since my job went full-time. As such, there have been weeks where I've gotten home from work on a Friday and haven't had the steam to write these weekly posts.
So, I'm not sure if I'll keep it up with writing one of these each week. I've also found that, because these posts are written in one hit, I'm never really satisfied with the finished product, which is essentially a first draft.
Anyway...

Picked up the new car a couple of weekends ago. By new I mean a 2006 model Mazda 3. Sure, it's now a ten year-old car, but I have to say that it drives pretty slick. 

Considering that my previous vehicle was a '93 Toyota, I freely admit that I've never kept abreast of new car technology over the years. My Toyota didn't have airbags or ABS brakes. I must have missed some of the main changes that have occurred in the intervening years. 

Therefore, this new car has required that I re-learn some driving techniques. The power steering is very sensitive and the gears and braking system are considerably more responsive than I'm used to. Still, I've stuck to being a cautious driver while I get the hang of this car over the coming weeks/months. 

It's also pretty tidy for its age. The previous owner really looked after it. Let's see if I can do the same.

                                                                                                 

I wore the Omega Seamaster 300  sometime in the last two weeks.

Don't let that pleasant yellow label fool you, kids. That Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey Liqueur packs a slight punch every sip you take.

I've noticed that I'm mainly wearing sports watches lately. Not sure why. Might try a vintage dress piece soon, for a bit of a change.
The weeks have begun to blur a little in recent months. Can't believe we're already in the third week of July. 


And why not throw in another shot of the SM300?

I caught up with an old friend of mine a couple of weeks ago. Having recently set up an Instagram account (again...and I'm not really sure why), I somehow popped up on her Instagram feed. How she figured out Teeritz was me I'll never know.

Must say I find it all a little nefarious the way internet algorithms work. I can only surmise that the world wide web (anybody still call it that?) somehow found a link from my email account, since she's listed in my address book on Hotmail, and linked it to her Instagram feed. Yes, that's right. I said Hotmail. Still use it, still like it. 

The cat situation remains tense. Madame still hisses whenever The Little Guy gets too close to her. She runs off. He thinks it's a game (I assume) and chases after her before she turns and hisses some more. I have to say she's showing this newcomer some absolutely dreadful manners. 

 

I wore the Omega Railmaster at some point;

 

Decided I was overdue for a little bit of Chandler. I'll Be Waiting is perhaps my favourite of his short stories. It concerns a hotel detective named Tony Reseck, who spends the quiet evenings in the lounge down in the hotel lobby listening to classical music on the radio. 

One night, he finds a lady in the lounge, curled up in an armchair listening to jazz on the radio. They get to talking. She's waiting for a guy. A guy who's only just gotten out of prison. She helped put him there. Reseck gets a message from his brother Al, a fella who moves in shady circles. Get the girl out of there. Her ex-boyfriend's coming for her, is the gist of what he says. 

There's a little more to the story, pal, but I ain't here to wreck it for ya. 

As I continue to get ticked off about Photobucket's recent dirty-pool behaviour, I spent a sizeable chunk of my spare time re-doing my watch review photos. I downloaded them off my Photobucket account and saved them to my hard drive. Then I deleted the Photobucket folder. I had already tackled the Omega Railmaster. The Tissot Visodate review was next. As I read through the review, for the first time in a long time, I decided that one or two new pictures were required. So, out came the camera and some props. It's not a perfect photo, but I was aiming to get the logo lit up on the dial, hence that circular reflection in the middle of the watch crystal. 

This review is located here on my blog and also on a wristwatch forum. However, I can't edit the forum review, so I figured I'd just tidy up my own one here. Shame, but that's just how it goes. 

Bit by bit, I'll save any worthwhile pictures, but I have to say that quite a few of my posts on this wristwatch forum are now littered with the Photobucket logo requesting me to upgrade my photo storage plan. Ain't gonna happen, folks. 

Of course, after spending an hour or so taking pictures of the Visodate, I decided to set the time and date on it and wear it for a few days.

I wore it until yesterday. Once I got home from work, I switched over to the Omega Seamaster 300M Professional. This is another watch that I haven't worn for some time. I purchased it in 1999 and only got it serviced for the first time earlier this year. While the overall design of this watch has dated over the years - it was first released in 1993- its strong Bond connection kept sales chugging along nicely over the last couple of decades. 

See that knitted tie? It's silk. Cost my wife a whopping 99 cents from a nearby Op Shop (thrift store). I got home from work one day last week to find it rolled up and sitting on my bedside table. I unrolled it and checked the label - Emporio Armani. Holy mackerel, some guys get rid of some nice stuff. This would have been quite pricey when it was new. And knitted ties never go out of fashion. 

Anyway, I've been hearing the older cat making some low rumbles every time the new kitten streaked past, so I think I'll call it a day here. 

 

Have yourselves a great weekend and thanks for reading!

Friday 7/7/2017 - Kittens of Mass Destruction, New Wheels, Photobucket Can Go To Hell & This Week's Wristwatches.

Last weekend, I wore the Omega Speedmaster Professional.

Geez, this watch looks huge on my wrist these days. Gotta eat a little more protein and get back to the gym. True, you can't fatten your wrists, but I do recall them being a little larger that they are now.

Question: What weighs less than two kilos, moves at the speed of light, and is really breaking my nuts at the moment?

Answer? 

This;

Monday morning, approx. 7:45am

                                                      He hopped up on the kitchen bench-top and knocked over the full jar of ground coffee...before I'd had my first cup of the day. My wife walked in to the kitchen to find coffee and broken glass all over the floor. 

Tuesday night, approx 6:00pm

                                                  My wife made a roast for dinner. Bowie ('cos that's what we've called him) managed to get his greasy paws on to the netting that was used to wrap around the roast and had a large wad of it in his mouth by the time he was discovered. Trying to get the netting out from between his claws was a slightly Herculean task, I'm told. 

Wednesday afternoon

                                   My wife and kids heard a slight clanging sound coming from the kitchen. Upon investigation, they found him with the little steel milk jug over his head, like a knight's helmet. He was stumbling around the kitchen and it was banging against the door. This is a small jug that we use to froth milk for coffees with. The jug was in the sink and had some residue in it and he had knocked it off the bench-top and then licked away at the inside of it. 

Thursday, dinnertime

                                  My wife turned her head away from her dinner plate for a split-second to glance over at the heater. My daughter and I yelled out; "Whoa!" and "Mum!!!"

My wife turned back to look at her plate as Mister leapt up onto the table and began sniffing at the steamed broccoli on her plate. My wife was slightly startled to find him so close to her food. She quickly grabbed him and lifted him up. He dug a claw into the linen place-mat under her plate. As she lifted him further away from the table, the place-mat and plate edged further towards the edge of the table in front of her lap. She stopped lifting him, he held on to the place-mat, while I, my daughter and my wife paused to figure out a way around this pickle without him eating her food or the food ending up in my wife's lap. 

Meanwhile, our other cat is still hissing at him if he goes near her. We've been careful to keep the two of them apart, but it's becoming a logistical headache, making sure one is in another room when the other appears. I will say, though, that Madame is hissing and groaning less and less than she did a week ago, so she just might be getting used to the fact that this new little guy is here to stay.

Or she's leading us on and plans to murder us all in our sleep one night. 

I prefer the first theory.

Wore the Speedmaster to start the week...

And switched over to the Hamilton Khaki Officer's Mechanical midweek. 
This is one piece that doesn't get much time on the wrist.Might have something to do with its 44mm diameter. If I'm thinking that the Speedmaster looks big on my wrist, then this thing is absolutely huge. However, I love it's cartoony look on my wrist. 
The photos I took of this watch when I wrote a review of it here a few years ago are being held hostage at the moment. See below. 
Looks like I'll be taking some new photos and updating that review sometime soon.

If you have a Photobucket account, you may have see this in some of your hosted photo locations on the web;

This blog of mine is now riddled with this graphic. I have about 360 blog posts here, many of them with photos hosted by Photobucket. In order for Photobucket to continue hosting my photos, I would have to upgrade to their P500 package which would cost me just shy of $400 USD a year. 

Not a chance in hell. Yes, I understand that they couldn't supply this free service forever, but I wasn't expecting that they'd hold me to ransom either. 

I don't respond well to blackmail. 

So, it will be a slow process, but I plan on replacing a tonne (or possibly all) of the missing photos on this blog, starting with my wristwatch review pictures first. Meanwhile, I'll remove my pictures from Photobucket and then ask them to close my account. Thanks for the nice service over the years, PB, but you really turned into a jerk towards the end.

It's now 9:00pm Friday night.  I'll be going to get a cheque from the bank tomorrow morning before heading to the Mazda dealership to pick up a 2006 hatchback that I took for a spin earlier this week. It was a sedate little test drive. Tomorrow, I plan to get this car into fifth gear.

Anyway, now it's 10:20pm and I need a cup of tea. Gotta say this computer of mine is really running slow these days. That last Window 10 update, coupled with our new NBN (National Broadband Network) setup has done nothing but slow this thing down. We switched to NBN about two months ago. We've experienced three outages to our internet (and more importantly) our landline phone. So far, this faster internet hasn't set my world on fire. Especially since I have noticed not one lick of difference in our internet speed around here. 

'Night all.
Oh, I wore the Oris Diver SixtyFive to work today;

Thanks for reading!

Sunday 2/7/2017 - Cheese, Keys & This Week's Wristwatches.

Too many late nights begin to catch up on me after a while. Winter is well and truly underway, work is busy and this new cat of ours is keeping us all on our toes.
I had started this post on Friday night, but I ran out of steam early on.
Saturday was busy as I headed out to check out some cars. When I got home and tried to continue this post, the photos wouldn't load up properly. I decided to leave it all alone for the rest of the day.
Anyway, Sunday afternoon rolled around and I got back to it. So here it is.

We had pasta for dinner on Monday night. My wife and I later went for a quick walk while the kids cleared the table. Any unused cutlery was put away, as were the place-mats and a small bowl of grated parmesan cheese was put away in the fridge. 

Lady Teeritz and I got back from our walk a little later and I went to the kitchen to flick the kettle on. I looked down and saw a small shape on the floor under the table. It was about the size of a matchbox. Next to this were some scattered crumbs. I crouched down and saw that it was what was left of the soap-cake sized block of parmesan cheese that had been grated into the bowl before dinner. 

Our new friend had gotten his tiny fangs into it. Ate about two-thirds of it. After we all spent a few minutes of "Oh my God, that little..." and "This little furry creep eats anything!"  and "Where the hell is he?", we went looking for the little so-and-so, and found him huddled under a stool in the study.

My wife brought him into the lounge and parked him next to herself on the couch. Soon, he started shivering a little. 

I called the nearby animal hospital, not really looking forward to having to take him there unless absolutely necessary.

The nurse that I spoke to told me to keep an eye on him over the next few hours and if he got worse overnight, it might be wise to bring him to our vet the next morning. 

He stayed put on the couch and we later gave him some water. Shortly afterwards, we brought him to our daughter's room where he's been living since he got here. Then we opened the front door to let our older cat in. She still hasn't accepted this little guy. 

Early days.

I wore the Oris Diver SixtyFive. Regarding Batman - The Dark Knight Returns, I read this classic graphic novel (I still call 'em comics) back in 1989, prior to seeing the Tim Burton Batman film starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. 

This comic is much closer in feel and mood to the Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale vision of Batman. 

In this story, we find Bruce Wayne in his early '50s, having hung up his cowl and cape years ago and now seemingly courting some kind of death wish as he engages in risky pursuits befitting a younger man. The Joker has just been released from Arkham Asylum, rehabilitated, and Superman works for the government. The streets of Gotham City are populated by gangs of vigilantes, neo-Nazi punks and mutant thugs and a thirteen year-old girl swings acrobatically across roof-tops at night in an effort to emulate Batman's off-sider Robin, who died years ago.

Written by Frank Miller, artwork by Miller, Klaus Janson and Lynn Varley, this was a seminal work when it was first released in 1986 and it almost single-handedly helped usher in a new breed of comic artists and writers who were intent on proving that comics could be more than just vertical rectangles, and could say more than "POW!" and "Kerrchannggg!!!"

If you ever only read one graphic novel in your lifetime, read this one. 

Tuesday morning, I had another dental appointment to have a new crown done. One more appointment in a month to get it fitted and that will, hopefully, do for the time being. 

I headed off to a late start at work and managed to lock my keys in the car. This was a hassle I didn't need. I was wearing the Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean;

I walked in to the office and asked the accountant for his car keys, since he drives an old Mercedes-Benz and it has a similar double-sided key to my car. Took me a few goes, but I got there in the end. 

Basically, the boot (trunk) key of a 1983 Merc will open the driver's door of my 1993 Toyota Corolla hatchback. 

I got a theory that every kind of key has been cut by now, so sooner or later, you're gonna run into a key that's a double of one that you already have. 

Today was a busy one. I had a tonne of stuff to get done. Stayed back late writing an e-mail. Got home and had dinner and a glass of red. I was wearing the Omega Speedmaster Professional. Wore a tie in my never-ending battle against casual Fridays, but by the time I got home, it was time to take it off.

That glass of Cab Sav hit the spot. I was thinking of putting this watch on a leather strap and leaving it on for a couple of years until it falls apart. I have enough watch straps at the moment and I should start using them up.
Although, it's got such an iconic look on its bracelet that I sometimes think I should just leave it be.

Meanwhile, somebody sticks close to us all whenever we walk into the kitchen, and he's gotten very good at recognising the sound of a plastic lid being taken off a container.
Which is when he starts with an incessant and impatient meowing.
It's also pretty difficult to get a sharp photo of him because he rarely sits still.
Remember when we all had that much energy?

For his English Literature studies, my son has just reading Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and he's seen Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. We sat down last night to watch Coppola's 2001 re-cut version of this 1979 epic. Titled Apocalypse Now - Redux, this print adds 49 minutes to the original release.

Set in the Vietnam War, the story concerns Captain Willard's (Martin Sheen)  mission to travel deep upriver into the jungles of Cambodia to find and 'terminate with extreme prejudice' rogue Special Forces Colonel Walter Kurtz, who has reportedly gone mad. A small gunboat crew is assigned to take him on his journey and there is an increasing uneasiness among them as they are kept in the dark about Willard's true mission.
I haven't seen this film since the late 1980s, so I was curious to see what this extra footage would contain. There is a long scene where Willard and his crew meet a French family who have owned a rubber plantation in Vietnam for generations and, while it is an interesting scene which touches on colonialism and France's place in historic conflicts, I did feel that it was a very long scene that didn't really move the story forward. Still, it's Coppola's film and this is the version that he originally wanted to release back in '79.
The film holds up extremely well after all the years of hype and myth. It's often a good idea to watch a film years later, after all of the hullaballoo that surrounded its original release has died down. You develop a new appreciation for the film. Usually, anyway. It didn't work when I last sat through Tim Burton's Batman.  
That film hasn't aged well at all. 

Thanks for reading!