jkerouac

Zodiac

Didn't Neil post recently about some problems down at this local post office? If I recall, there are periodic crackdowns on foreigners such as Neil who post large volumes of small parcels to points around the world. This is standard operating procedures so that local officials can show that they are doing something about the counterfeit trade. For dealers such as Neil, it just means they have to wait a week or so until the situation returns to normal. You might want to look through Neil's posts over the past few weeks to see whether my memory is correct. In any case, I wouldn't worry. Every dealer has instances where delivery super prompt and other instances where delivery is delayed. Unless the watch happens to be for a special occasion, just sit back and relax, knowing that the watch will get to you when it gets to you.

Doxa

I don't consider tubes necessary, but I prefer to use them. The tubes hold the strap in place more firmly., so it wobbles less, which I suppose is what people mean when they refer to protecting the strap -- although wear and tear on a reasonable quality strap should not be that great. Having said that, I lost one of my tubes. Until I get a replacement, I cut one leg of a paper clip to about the same width as the strap, and placed it in the watch sleeve before screwing the strap onto the watch. This eliminated the wobble on the strap. You could try connecting a strap with and withou this method to decide whether the strap wobble even matters to you.

Only go to video review of penalties if it can be implemented better than in American football. Otherwise you end up with several 5-minute "review" delays per game. And American football suffers from too many time-outs as it is. The efficient flow of the game is one of soccer's great pluses.

Ken, you are a well-rounded individual. You have diverse interests. The ultimate "chick magnet."

How is the plating on these rose gold pams?

Web sites about watches (including gens) seem to be more of a guy thing. Women may be into jewelry, but this brand/movement/authenticity thing is more typically masculine. On the other hand, my ex-girlfriend joined my wife and me for dinner last night. She was in town for a poetry conference, and she and my wife spent much fo the evening talking about their creative writing projects. She noted that the conference was almost all women. The point of this story: if you want to meet women, attend events such as poetry conferences. What about you, Miss Understood, do you write poetry? (Racy limericks don't count.)

In my opinion, you were too polite. But I give you credit for that.

The drive into the box -- and the dive -- were calculated moves. You can also call it smart soccer. In order of italian preference, the order is: 1) if you are very lucky, you get a goal. 2) if you don't score but can create "an incident," you get a penalty kick. 3) If you don't score and don't get a penalty kick, then you go into overtime. Or, the one bad outcome, 4) You take a dive and get called for bad acting. In this case #2 happened. It was a desperation move, because the Italians were not able to score otherwise on a feisty Australian unit. Even if you say it was a legitimate call, it was certain that if the Italian could not score, he was going to go down. Acting has a role in many sports, whether in basketball, where talented players can draw fouls, or American football where pass interference or holding often rely on interpretation -- and the skill of the player who is the "victim" of the foul. One final point. The Aussies did not score, and therefore had no chance to win outright. As in many, many situations, if you don't win outright, the outcome will be up to chance. In this instance chance came down on the Italian side.

Un-bleeping believable ending! That Italian deserves an academy award for acting. One of the greatest dives I've ever seen! Sorry, my Aussie friends, to see your team go down like that. Unfortunately for the Italians, they do not look like one of top teams in the tournament.

In addition to missing Deco and Costinha, Portugal has a number of other players with yellow cards who will have to be very careful about avoiding follow-up yellows, or they will be playing short-handed once again. It's a shame, because Portugal has been playing better as a team than England. After all, where would England be without penalty kicks? England needs to bring back Crouch.

If you watched Portugal v Netherlands you might have felt right at home, Ken. At times it looked more like a rugby match than soccer.

I just finished watching the first half....and decided to catch the second half "highlights" from my DVR recording. If I had done this for the first half, I could have saved myself something in the range of 42 minutes in front of the tube on a lovely Sunday morning. Don't get me wrong, I'm cheering for England. But I won't be for long if they keep playing the way they did in the first half. I'm hoping Portugal - Netherlands is better.

Cute. You are a lucky guy. But she may have to wear one on each wrist to balance the weight of a Pan.

He probably got caught because he was too open or accommodating in his business practices -- otherwise a lot of luxury car dealers would find themselves in a similar spot. His new business resolution: Let the dealers' attorneys or business agents do the laundering. They probably get paid a lot more for the potential risks they take.

I believe Joshua has a ladies version of the VC Overseas: http://www.rwg.cc/members/index.php?showtopic=5770 Another nice choice would be the Omega Constellation. There are versions in SS, two tone, or gold. Here is one: http://perfect-clones.com/product_info.php...products_id=648 But definitely don't get your mother a rep unless she is aware of what it is and she is OK with the notion.

This is a section of streets in the tourist district of Florence populated by semi-permanent vendors selling leather goods, scarves, and the usual tourist trinkets. There are also young African street vendors who carry portable tables and set up shop on sidewalks throughout Florence (outside the Uffizi Gallery, for example) to sell cheap umbrellas, sunglasses, lighters, etc., as well as watches. If you show interest to one guy's wares, but he doesn't have what you are looking for, it's likely that someone 10 ft. away does. I'm sure they are well organized and probably work for the same "wholesalers." My last visit to Florence was a few years ago, and I saw the carbinieri either walk right by these displays or, if they are interfering with traffic or regular merchants, they would usher them to set up shop some place else. (The only thing we bought from them was a couple of $5 umbrellas just as it was starting to rain. Mediocre quality, but they saved us from a downpour, and I think we still have one.) My point is that the benign tolerance of these vendors sends a message that it is OK to do business with them. If the police really wanted to stop tourists from buying reps, they would crack down on the vendors. The same could probably be said for places such as Canal Street in NY.

If the goal is to stamp out reps, you would go after the street vendors. If the goal is to impose stiff fines, but do nothing about the underlying market, go after the tourists. Arrest and/or kick teh vendors out of the country and you eliminate potentially 50 or more rep sales a day per vendor. Focus on the tourists and you only interdict at best five of those daily sales. Hypocrites. And busting a 12-year-old kid just underscores the hypocrisy.

Awesome picture of the movement of the chrono second hand. I salute the photographer.

from msnbc.com Sex toys that show your team spirit Scoring takes on new meaning with the latest World Cup merchandise By Brian Alexander MSNBC contributor Updated: 12:46 a.m. PT June 22, 2006 Of course, the world’s corporations wanted a piece of the most popular sporting event on the planet, the World Cup of soccer, now being contested in Germany. Big name sponsors like Philips, MasterCard and Budweiser are there and you can buy all kinds of licensed products like colorful hats and scarves — the Euro-version of our big foam “Number 1” hand. One endorsement deal that wasn't, however, made news a few weeks ago. It seems the German sex shop chain, Beate Uhse came out with Ollie K and Michael B vibrators and a David B dildo. To anyone who knows soccer, it appeared as if stars Oliver Khan, Michael Ballack and David Beckham had lent their names to a line of sex toys. They hadn’t. After a minor blitz of publicity and a threat of a lawsuit, Beate Uhse dropped the names. But fear not! The World Cup has still generated a new phenomenon in sports — one we’ll probably see linked to every major international event from now on — the sex product tie-in. And why not? If Viagra can sponsor a NASCAR team, why can’t, say, Manchester United sign off on love balls? The love balls, used for vaginal stimulation, are out there, shaped like little soccer balls and available from a variety of European and Latin American sex shops. You can buy them for 60 reals in Brazil, and about 5 euros in Italy, Holland, the UK and Germany. Never want to be too far away from soccer strategy, no matter what else you may be doing? How about the Dolly Dolphin Football edition vibrator selling from at least one German sex shop for 49.80 euros. The Xs and Os and lines of player movements are inscribed along the shaft so you can really, um, internalize the game. Dream teams Looking for great sports movies like “Knute Rockne, All American,” or “Pride of the Yankees?” That’s covered, too, with World Cup porn DVDs like “Shoot for the Goal” available from a French shop (with a promise of Un match hyper hard dans un monde sportif corrompu et perverti!), and “Dream Team Holland!” Judging from the cover box — always the most reliable way to know what’s inside — there are women, and there are soccer balls, and there are soccer jerseys that aren’t worn much. Bound to be a classic. By the way, in case you’re not a fan of the Dutch, you can also choose from Dream Team Italia, Dream Team Deutschland and Dream Team Espana. Isn’t it great how sports brings people together? Of course, it can also drive people apart, especially husbands and wives and boyfriends and girlfriends. Actually, I know a few female soccer fans who are more rabid than most guys, but men do get carried away sometimes and neglect the women in their lives, especially during the World Cup, which has already run for two weeks and will run for a little over two weeks more. So British sex shop Love Honey is offering the Women’s Football Survival Kit for L8.99. It contains red and yellow cards labeled with male sins, a whistle and a TV remote control jammer, which, if it actually works, may well be grounds for divorce. Better, I think, to relieve your frustrations with Love Honey’s World Cup Victory Vibe, a small bullet vibrator decorated with the red English Cross of St. George. It’s L9.99. The store also sells Durex England Supporter World Cup Condoms which are, well, just a variety of condoms, but hey, labeling is everything. Apparently European sex shops anticipated a big market for vibrators during the cup. One French online shop, Sexy Avenue, opens its site with a single large photo of a golden vibrator shaking back and forth under the slogan “vibrating during the world cup is not just reserved for men.” A woman’s diamond engagement ring sits on the table. Hmmm. A statement of “Who needs men?” Candy, costumes Many shops online are selling wearable candy bikini tops, panties and male pouches in a variety of national colors. Presumably, this is ideal for half-time snacking, but I prefer the Brazilian World Cup tanga bikini bottoms offered by at least one Brazilian online shop. My preference is not just because the blonde modeling it has lost her top, perhaps to premature snacking, but because tangas are a true national uniform in Brazil. Besides, at 16.40 reals, it’s a steal. As you might expect, clothing is a big part of displaying your fan cred. Those latex and PVC fetishists out there don’t want to be left out, so German fetish supplier Marquis is offering cheerleader uniforms in styles you won’t see at my alma mater, for 55 euros. One of my favorites, because I can’t imagine many guys would use it in a soccer stadium, is the Trillerpfeife in penisform, or penis-shaped whistle available for 2.95 euros from a large German shop, which, like Beate Uhse, has its own special section of World Cup-related fussball merchandise. If you are tired of the World Cup hoopla, for example, the store offers a way to display your disgust. Eight euros buys you a T-shirt instructing viewers to F**ken statt kicken. The first and last words rhyme. Kicken, as you might expect, means kicking and statt means “instead of.” In fact, the shop sells an entire “instead of football” kit that includes condoms, plush handcuffs, open-crotch underwear, the afore-mentioned love balls and an energy drink to keep him going, all for 16.95 euros. All this stuff is fun, but seriously, it may be a good idea to take the rabid fan’s mind off the games for a little while. Over the past few days I have heard at least four times the famous quote by an English coach who said something like “football is not a matter of life and death, it’s much more important than that.” For some guys, that’s no joke. During the 1986 World Cup, an English doctor reported in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine that one of his patients developed a rash on his arms, legs and trunk after watching England lose a match to Portugal. Four days later the rash came back — this time after England's poor performance against Morocco. The diagnosis: "rash apparently caused by the frustration of watching England play football." Now there's a guy who might have benefited from a little action off the field.

Oh my god, that channel is just what I do not need....more reasons to avoid working, and more reasons to fantasize about watches.

Admin, Forget the lawyer. I think your solution is to engage Neil as your representative on this matter, so he can bring all of his persuasive and .... ahem ... diplomatic charms to bear on the situation.

OUch doesn't even begin to cover my reaction to your story, Admin. That is fxxcking obscene!! You pay x amount for a watch, which you said is brand new. I'd be curious to know exactly how new. But at those prices anything under two years should be fully warranted. Granted you dropped the watch, so there might be some liability on your part, but this is absurd. I think you are being fleeced and you should make a stink on the genuine boards (or threaten to make a stink on the genuine boards) to get some consideration for the way they are trying to take advantage of you. Perhaps I am naive, but if a premium watch has been relatively well cared for, there should be a set price for service, regardless what needs to be replaced. To me this smacks of gouging. Tell the AD that if they do not go to bat for you to bring this service price down, you will never buy from them again.

Regarding inclusion of newcomers to the Cup, I can understand your sentiments. How can there be a World Cup without other noteworthy past contenders like Hungary, Scotland, Irleand, Denmark, Columbia, etc. And you won't find me skipping work to watch scintillating matchups like Korea-Togo, Tunisia-Saudi Arabia, or Japan-Australia (sorry Ken). On the other hand, Europe has its championship, as does South America, and Africa for that matter. So I do think the World Cup should go out of its way to be inclusive. Adn the quality of play (or lack of quality) shown so far suggests that a Trinidad can go head to head with a Sweden, Angola can play decently against Portugal, etc. In fact, I'm looking forward to a few matches where the underdogs catch some traditional soccer powers napping. Face it, the level of play by these "secondary" countries is improving, and international play, including inclusion in the World Cup, plays a big part in this. In my opinion, soccer and soccer fans are the ultimate winners from the diversity of the draw.