Pugwash

Rule #5 - If it's your first time in Fight Club, you have to fight.

Or a redial.

As this is cross-posted, I'll poist my reply on RWI here as well: It's not our place to nanny the dealers too much. This is, essentially, their problem and they are working on a solution. The simplest solution is no paypal for noobs. Anything else is too much like pulling the ladder up after ourselves. "Sure, noobs are dangerous, but I'm not." The shady dealings are far too diverse to be an concerted effort and paranoia is going to give us a bigger stick with which to beat newbies for being new, and that's not a good thing. The dealers, the largest victims in this problem, are talking. They will work something out. And if they can't, they'll turn to us for help.

The PAW sees the sights. As much as I wanted a lie-in this morning, I was woken by the PAW bouncing up and down telling me to take him to town. Sheesh, some watches, eh? So, after much deliberation and the like, we set off. As I had to do a bit of shopping for a family member, I had to hit the Champs Elysees. PAW jumped out of my pocket and stared at the Arc de Triomphe in the distance. On the way down the Champs Elysees, we saw an Omega display. PAW went to have a look. It was very Bunyip of Berkley's Creek. PAW wanted a closer look at the Arc de Triomphe. I was happy to wait. As I tried to take a nice shot of a sign, PAW jumped into shot. He thought he saw a fellow RepHound. Mahler, is that you? PAW expressed a great interest in the Eiffel Tower. Can you see his impatience? He finally stopped running around and posed for a tourist photo. PAW on one of the four feet of the Eiffel Tower. He was very happy and did a bit of posing. PAW took this photo from the foot of the Eiffel Tower. Paw started to get tired and wanted a rest on a bridge over the Seine. This Herald Tribune statue was donated to the city of Paris. Some daft blonde bint got in a speeding car with a drunk and died just below here, and this landmark was hijacked as a memorial to The Princess Of Tunnel Supports ... I mean Hearts. They've fenced it off to stop people piling flowers, poems and pictures of a dead princess on it. PAW, however, liked Princess Di, so I finally caved into taking this pic. PAW and I rush to get the Metro home. And that's the first leg of PAW's visit to Paris. To keep this tidy, please reply to this thread here.

The rules are that you get the watch to match your car. Beyond that, if you can afford one, you set the rules.

Also, Directors Bitter isn't too bad. I mean I'm a northerner and therefore think beer should either be made from north of the Trent or in Ireland, but there are some perfectly acceptable southern bitters. Now, if you want the best, get a Theakston's Old Peculier. Yorkshire Bitter at the top of its game.

I should be on a frigging commission. (yes, amazing watch. )

No, it's better. It's not perfection, but it's very good. You will be pleased. Perfection is in Ireland. It'd be like me going to the US and expecting to get Canadian goods. I used to put myself forward for all the business trips to Ireland when I was in the UK. It got to the point that the delegation waiting for me had a pint ready. At one point they were stopped by security as they weren't allowed to have a tray with a pint of Guinness on it in the actual arrivals area.

Bangers and Mash, you'll find. Real Guinness, you won't. Real Guinness is made in Dublin, Ireland and isn't exported. It's a creamier and tastier pint than you'll get in London. To be honest though, what you'll get in London will be good, very good in fact, but it'll not be the perfection you can find in Ireland. May I recommend a Steak and Kidney Pie if you want to try the culinary delights? And, if you have the time, you absolutely, positively have to go to a Curry House. Chicken Madras or Chicken Vindaloo, with rice and a Nan. It'll educate you into what real spicy food is, even if you're used to Mexican.

She's looking for a raise then.

The PAW sees the sights. As much as I wanted a lie-in this morning, I was woken by the PAW bouncing up and down telling me to take him to town. Sheesh, some watches, eh? So, after much deliberation and the like, we set off. As I had to do a bit of shopping for a family member, I had to hit the Champs Elysees. PAW jumped out of my pocket and stared at the Arc de Triomphe in the distance. On the way down the Champs Elysees, we saw an Omega display. PAW went to have a look. It was very Bunyip of Berkley's Creek. PAW wanted a closer look at the Arc de Triomphe. I was happy to wait. As I tried to take a nice shot of a sign, PAW jumped into shot. He thought he saw a fellow RepHound. Mahler, is that you? PAW expressed a great interest in the Eiffel Tower. Can you see his impatience? He finally stopped running around and posed for a tourist photo. PAW on one of the four feet of the Eiffel Tower. He was very happy and did a bit of posing. PAW took this photo from the foot of the Eiffel Tower. Paw started to get tired and wanted a rest on a bridge over the Seine. This Herald Tribune statue was donated to the city of Paris. Some daft blonde bint got in a speeding car with a drunk and died just below here, and this landmark was hijacked as a memorial to The Princess Of Tunnel Supports ... I mean Hearts. They've fenced it off to stop people piling flowers, poems and pictures of a dead princess on it. PAW, however, liked Princess Di, so I finally caved into taking this pic. PAW and I rush to get the Metro home. And that's the first leg of PAW's visit to Paris.

Out and about today. All will soon be revealed!

First glance says those are photos of genuine watches.

It's an aftermarket dial.

There sure are a lot of Edam-Eaters here! Welcome to the forum. I hope you find it an entertaining distraction.

Sorry, sir. I'll do better next time. I really didn't mean it and ... wait, what does this have to do with you? Not to be funny, but if the problem had been described clearly, we'd have answered with help immediately. When you ask for help, the people helping you (for free, don't forget) have to eliminate the simple responses first. If the OP didn't say that he knew the GMT hand swept a 24-hour sweep, we're going to have to assume it's yet another person that doesn't get it, and offer that advice first. This isn't a paid support line, this is a forum: We're all about the dialogue. The OP was happy about the advice he got, and to me that's as much as we can hope for. Is this long, clear and descriptive enough for you not to write off as an "unnecessary snipe" or should I prettify it up some more for you?

Replies and questions, as usual, to the thread, not by PM.

Wear the one that's a prize in your rubber band prize draw, and one of the rubber bands. Best. Advert. Ever. "As seen in Shakira's PAMasonic ad ..."

Ex-graphic designer/games writer, now I'm a UNIX sysadmin.

This article was inspired by some excellent shots my friend By-Tor did of his beloved Planet Ocean. It should show you how to, in a very short space of time, clean up dials and crystals in your watch photos. It's not the only thing you should do, but it's part of a large suite. I prefer to do hardly any photoshop or a hell of a lot, and I want the results to look similar. If you can tell what's been photoshopped, my mission has failed. On to the lesson. I apologise for the cramped screen shots, but I have to assume you don't all have 1920x1200 HD-TV 24" LCD monitors and therefore I switched to 1024x768 and reduced to 800x600 so as the menus are still readable but that it takes as little space as possible. Firstly, we get the photo we want: Then we change the selection tool to Ellipse, this being essentially, the 'trick' in this lesson. Select an area around about the size of the area you want to select, which is the crystal. We're just covering up what lighting causes problems with. We're not adding anything that's not there. Click on Transform Selection: Nearly right ... needs rotating some more ... ... and there we are. Mathematically, it's important to remember that a circle viewed from any angle will always be an ellipse. Geometry really, really saves our bacon here. There is always an ellipse that fits your round watches. Feather the selection, just so we don't create any knife-edge harsh visible changes. 4 pixels does for my photos at 5mp. You may need 8 or more at higher resolution. Go to Levels. If you don't know the keyboard shortcut to the Levels palette, learn it NOW. It's one of the most important features in basic photoshop. Adjust to what looks good to you. Don't try to make it unusually dark or over-clean and crisp as all you want to do is show what the watch really looks like. If you have the watch next to you while you're doing this, use it as reference. That's all folks. Once you've done this a few times, it gets very, very quick. You don't need layers, you don't even need to save the selection as you get better at creating the perfect ellipse. The next step after this would be to invert the selection and do the levels for the rest of the photo, but that's another tip ...

Most watches are set to 10:10 for studio shots. Less observant people set them to 10:10PM instead of 10:10AM.

I hate it. It's ugly and wrong, yet ... it really, really works. If I had a PVD watch, I'd need this strap. Congrats, it's a head-turner.

I see a consensus building ... the day V and I agree in public on anything is an auspicious day that pretty much means we win. J12 is the right answer.

Much like the MoonWatch. You can't argue with a watch that's been to the moon ...

Will he put it on POLE!!! Ok, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.