I already told you the story of my father's Rolex. It's a 1965 Rolex Oyster Perpetual that he received from his father as a high school graduation present. Apparently a new Rolex cost all of $125 back then, which is about $750 today. Anyway, now it's time to tell the story of my mom's Rolex.

First of all, lest you think I come from a wealthy family where all the children wear little Rolexes and are raised by European nannies, I'll start off by saying that my mom's Rolex was actually free. I'll further qualify that statement by saying that it was also not stolen.

We moved a lot as I was growing up. Probably every two years, on average. My parents were in banking, real estate, and building, and my dad eventually got his real estate license for the sake convenience, and to avoid having to pay agents commission. A friend of the family needed to buy a couple of office condos for a new business he was starting, so as a favor, he did so through my dad. Turns out the builder was giving away a Rolex to any agent who could sell two units within a certain amount of time. My dad came home ecstatic one day with the news that he was getting a second Rolex, though he was swiftly corrected by my mom. The result was a very nice ladies' two-tone Rolex Oyster Datejust.

I drive a black Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, and I'm obviously a watch fanatic, so a collection of Jeep watches certainly seems like a good idea to me. It looks like there are about 14 different styles with a nice variety of functionality ranging from rotating bezels to digital or analog chronographs to compasses built into the straps. It appears they all have dates, and colors are primarily "earthy" with some yellows thrown in (yellow is a very popular color for Wranglers). Straps are either rubber, or a leather and nylon combination. Jeep watches are water-resistant to 50 meters or 165 feet, and seem to go for between $100 and $200, give or take.

I'm not usually one to go for car-related accessories or apparel. I once saw a man get out of a red Testarossa wearing a black Ferrari jacket, and the whole ensemble just seemed to scream "midlife crisis". I don't mind Porsche Design watches so much, although I think the PTC 911 box set with miniature 911 models (aka toys) is pushing it a bit. That said, I don't think the Jeep watches are bad. Keeping in mind they are inexpensive quartz watches (you almost always get what you pay for in the world of watches), if you simply must have something other than your vehicle that says "Jeep" on it, and a key chain just won't cut it, the Jeep watch might not be a bad way to go.

The folks over at Wrist Dreams have picked up on the new vibrating Casio G-Shock GW-400CJ-1JF marine sports watch. I was just commenting the other day on how Casio is really pushing the limits of digital watches, and as if to prove my point, they announce one of the most interesting and feature-rich digital watches I've ever seen. The most unique feature of the GW-400CJ is that the countdown timer, alarm, and time signal can use a vibrating alarm rather than an audible one so that it can be effectively used in high winds, while in the water, or in other situations where it's difficult to hear faint high-pitched beeps. The other thing that really caught my attention about this watch is the sheer number of features they packed into it:

• Waveceptor. That means this watch is automatically calibrated through radio waves transmitted by atomic clocks. Works in both Japan and the US.
• Tough Solar. Solar cells around the face keep the watch's battery charged, and a sophisticated power-saving function will keep the watch powered for up to 19 months with no light.
• Water-resistant to 200 meters, or over 600 feet, which makes it suitable for diving.
• Thermometer which measures both air and water temperatures between about 14 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Tide graph.
• Moon phase indicator.
• Vibrating alarm.
• World time supporting 32 cities in 30 time zones.
• Stopwatch with a resolution of 1/100th of a second and a max time of 100 hours.
• Four alarms.
• Countdown timer. Goes up to 60 minutes and has an auto-repeat function.
• Automatic calendar.
• Electroluminescent backlight.

A truly amazing watch. Read the press release in English, thanks to Google's translation tool. The Casio GW-400CJ should go for around $225, not counting shipping from Japan, and a generous tip for your Japanese connection.

easyGroup is a "business incubator" with a portfolio of companies from easyJet to easyPizza. It is essentially a brand, like Virgin, which is used to explore new and eclectic business opportunities. Their newest venture: the easyWatch.

According to this Reuters article, the idea behind easyWatch is to fill the void left by Swatch as the inexpensive Swiss brand has moved up-market over the years. easyGroup chairman, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, says the watches will be priced from $20 to $50, and should be considered "disposable". In other words, if you sell a watch for between $20 and $50, you'd better sell a heck of a lot of them. Maybe an easyWatch subscription service is in the cards.

easyWatches will only be sold online, which will help keep costs down, and possibly on future easyJet flights. There's not much information available on the watches themselves yet, except that they will be manufactured by Zeon, Ltd., and they will launch with about 16 different models. I will reserve judgment, but I'm guessing easyWatches will hold up and perform exactly as a disposable watch should.

The folks over at SpotStop picked up on a new article on howstuffworks.com which does a pretty good job describing how SPOT watches work. It's a good and thorough orientation because it starts out describing SPOT (Smart Personal Object Technology) at a high level, and ends by actually dissembling an Abacus SPOT watch and labeling all the components. Here's a taste:

SPOT works using FM broadcasting, like the kind picked up by a radio, to deliver Web-based data to Smart objects. Smart Watches receive more than 200 channels of information that are broadcast on a radio spectrum leased by Microsoft.

I'm a pretty big SPOT watch fan myself, and I wear one often (usually the Swatch Paparazzi). I have extremely eclectic tastes in watches, and I might start the day wearing a Rolex or an automatic Seiko, and finish the evening wearing a Casio G-Shock or some sort of SPOT watch. It all depends on what I'm doing. The SPOT watch actually suits my lifestyle well as I live in San Francisco, and I'm constantly on the move. SPOT watches give me access to vital information like weather, stock quotes, and soon traffic conditions at a quick glance (as opposed to having to pull out my cell phone and navigate through several menus and screens) -- something I tried to accomplish years ago with my Timex Internet Messenger, but never quite got right. SPOT watches are actually very feature-rich digital watches, as well, even without the data service, incorporating alarms, a countdown timer, chronograph, and other digital watch essentials into a good, intuitive interface.

The other reason I really like SPOT watches is that, with the exception of Casio, I think the SPOT watch manufacturers (Fossil, Tissot, Swatch, and Suunto) are really the only folks out there pushing the boundaries of digital watches right now. Mechanical and automatic analog watches are endlessly fascinating with their complications, features, and designs. We need things like atomic, solar, and SPOT to keep digital watches interesting, as well.

I didn't even know that the HighGear Summit watch existed until I discovered this review over on WetDawg. If you're in the market for an outdoor sports watch with an altimeter, barometer, thermometer, and compass, this looks like it might be a viable and affordable option. The HighGear Summit sells for about $149, and appears to be available at most stores specializing in outdoor and hiking equipment. The author makes the following observations about his new toy:

• The Summit is a big sucker. As sure as if you’re walking a five legged dog, someone is going to remark on it. Seven out of ten people you meet will point out the big watch on your wrist. The conversation value is high.
• The Summit is the largest faced of HighGear’s models, but I like the way it feels on my wrist (and I have a small wrist). In fact it’s the most comfortable watch I’ve ever worn.
• Another feature tied in with the barometer is the weather predictor. In both the time and barometric modes it shows a little icon of sun, cloud or rain, suggesting what you might expect in the half dozen hours ahead.
• The thermometer was used little, but worked fine when you took it off. Or left it on and subtracted ten degrees.
• The chronometer [he means chronograph] is fine and I use it when training. The alarm is handy, of course. I would have liked a count down alarm as well.

Check out the full article for more details. The review caught my eye because I am a big fan of the Tissot T-Touch which offers a great deal of the same functionality (check out my Tissot T-Touch review for details), but in a much smaller and more attractive package, and with a scratch-proof sapphire crystal. I wore a T-Touch when I first moved to San Francisco about two months ago to help me get my bearing when walking the city, but that's about as outdoorsy as I get these days. I also recently received a similar new stainless steel and titanium Casio Protrek which I will be reviewing shortly. I still need to put it through its paces, but at first glance, it appears to be a nice combination of functionality, affordably, and visual appeal (compared to the old Protreks and Pathfinders). Stay tuned.

If your digital watch automatically adjusts for daylight-savings, congress may be about to make it obsolete. According to this CNN story, lawmakers recently approved legislation that will extend daylight-savings by a total of two months:

Lawmakers crafting energy legislation approved an amendment Wednesday to extend daylight-saving time by two months, having it start on the first Sunday in March and end on the last Sunday in November.

The amendment was approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee that is putting together major parts of energy legislation likely to come up for a vote in the full House in the coming weeks.

Yes, more daylight might save us 10,000 barrels of oil a day, but what about all the watches that will no longer adjust themselves properly? Who is lobbying for them?

Watches that will be affected are quartz watches which automatically reset themselves twice a year to compensate for daylight-savings. Fortunately, most if not all of these watches have a way to manually turn DST on and off, but it would be a bummer to have to remember to do that. Watches that won't be affected are obviously your automatic and mechanical watches, your digital watches without an automatic daylight-savings function, and digital watches which are set remotely like atomic watches or MSN Direct watches.

The bad news is that your watch might become obsolete. The good news is that it's a great excuse to buy a new one.

Getting caught up on my gadget news this morning, I noticed that my pals over at Gizmodo got the scoop on a new E-paper watch that Seiko exhibited at Baselworld 2005. It actually looks more like a bracelet than a watch, but since it tells the time, I guess that makes it a watch. The concept is very interesting. It contains a curved sheet of high-contrast e-paper (electronic paper) which displays both the time and a constantly changing mosaic pattern. Here's what Seiko has to say about their creation:

"We aimed to develop a new type of watch that has never existed before. Then electronic paper caught our eye. Through the utilization of its curvable property, innovative designs have become available. As this is the first watch ever that uses e-paper in the industry, we believe that the industry will be strongly interested in it."

I believe they are right, at least in Japan. The coolest Japanese watches never seem to make it to our shores, except through super secret Japanese contacts we Japanese watch fanatics maintain. Anyway, the Seiko e-paper watch may be available in Japan as early as this year.

Additional Resources

• Gizmodo's post about the Seiko e-paper watch.
• English article on TechOn.

View the Suunto n6HR photo gallery.

If you're interested in this watch, I can make the decision really easy for you. As always, I'll go into all kinds of detail below, but for the majority of you, this first paragraph will be all you need. Here it goes: If you're an athlete who wants to optimize his or her workouts by monitoring your heart rate, and you're a geek who wants to be constantly connected via MSN Direct, then buy this watch. Don't hesitate. There are no other watches out there with this combination of functionality, so don't even bother looking. However if this does not describe you, then don't buy this watch. If you're an athlete without the geek part, check out the Suunto t6 or the Nike Triax. If you're a geek without the athlete part, then check out the Suunto n3i, Swatch Paparazzi, or the Tissot High-T. That's really all you need know. But if you came here determined to find more information on the Suunto n6HR, then read on.

Rolex and crime seem to go together like Red Bull and vodka. This evening, via the Courier Mail, we learn of two Australians teenage boys who inadvertently aroused suspicion by casually counting out 6,000 $5 bills at a Denver jewelry store to pay for a $30,000 Rolex. Sensing that something might be amiss, the sales assistant asked the boys to leave, and told them she was calling the police. After later confessing to robbing a nearby bank with air pistols and photographing themselves in a McDonald's with the $170,000 they stole, the boys explained that they were attempting to convert the cash into jewelry in order to avoid suspicion. They probably would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for that meddling sales assistant.

Tune in next week while we continue to examine the twisted and complex minds of the criminally inane.

While getting caught up on email this weekend, I came across a note from TAG Heuer about the Calibre 360 concept watch that was introduced at Basel this year. First, TAG Heuer introduced the Microtimer, the first wristwatch accurate to 1/1000th of a second. Now they are making watch history again by introducing the first mechanical wristwatch capable of measuring and displaying 1/100th of a second. It doesn't look half bad, either, in my opinion. From TAG's Basel 2005 news page:

TAG Heuer ... is presenting at Baselworld 2005 the most accurate mechanical timepiece ever crafted, the “Calibre 360” Concept Chronograph. The “Calibre 360” Concept Chronograph is the first mechanical wrist chronograph to measure and display time to 1/100th of a second, thanks to the exceptionally high frequency of its balance wheel, which oscillates at 360,000 beats per hour, 10 times faster than any other chronograph—a rate that until now was considered impossible.

In the slide show accompanying the article, I believe I spied a sapphire caseback, too. It's a silly thing, but for some reason, I'm a sucker for those exhibition backs. Well done, TAG.

Bell & Ross has announced their new 01 Instrument Collection at Baselworld 2005. There's very little information available other than pictures at this point, though I've been promised some early information, so I'll post more once it arrives. In the meantime, the Bell & Ross website lists four models:

• BR 01-92 Automatic
• BR 01-94 Chronograph
• BR 01-96 Big Date
• BR 01-97 Power Reserve

I love the unique square case of the Instrument Collection, and I really like the carbon finish on the chronograph (pictured at right). As I said, I don't have a lot of information available, but a sapphire crystal, reasonable water resistance, and luminescent hands are going to be a given. Hopefully they are available with stainless steel bracelets, as well. A black carbon bracelet on that black chronograph would make one mean looking watch.