subbiesrock

@Maximov I Zelenov, If Bana grew up 8 km from me, then Chopper was doing his dirty business about 12-15 kms from me Melbourne is a magnificent city, but with a really gritty undertone that people never hear about. In the 2000s, we had a huge mafia turf war and for several months, people from both sides were being shot at once a week. I'll PM you guys, I've got a present for the both of you

I'm not a religious man, but Amen to that, brother

TeeJay, I would tend to agree with you on everything, EXCEPT when it comes to replica watches. I was sent some QC pics on a roman numeralled watch, turned out the digits were completely crooked in the stock photo. I asked for QC photos of the actual item, they were shocking. I was offered to have them repaired by the dealer's watch smith, to which I replied, 'if the problem is so bad from the factory, how will a watch smith do a better job?' and promptly had my money refunded. Dealers need to do just enough to satisfy us, so that we don't complain, and I completely understand it. Margins are tight, it's completely normal. But QC pics are a very important and integral part of the process, especially with the 'close enough is good enough' mentality of the dealers. I don't think pictures are too much to ask for. If it was an AD, I would absolutely not need to ask for QC pics. I know it'll be perfect. It has never not been, and I have easy recourse. From a rep deal, too much backwards and forwards, not worth the hassle. Better to make sure before sending, IMHO.

Edit: just caught the last comment from Zelenovski Zelenkovich meant Chopper. It's the story of Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read, one of Australia's most notorious criminals. He chopped off his own ears, Van Gogh style, to get moved from a high-security prison because people were trying to kill him. ...now he has a really hot wife and write's children's books... A rehabilitated man, as they say. Definitely check out Chopper. Incidentally, Bana also played the Evil Guy in the latest Star Trek, A leading role in Troy, he was The Hulk, and it all began from a little suburb about 8kms from where I'm from very humble guy, and a great actor.

Love the beast? That's with our own Aussie/Croatian Dad/German mum friend Eric Banovich great, great little movie, that one. I've always thought that cars are one of few inanimate objects in life that we attach a lot of meaning to. I got a combi when I was 18, and I hated the idea, all I wanted was a fast Japanese turbo car but then I organized to go on a holiday with a pretty young thing, and we didn't have money for a hotel room, so we folded down the rear seats and made a bed in the back. I can tell you, it had all the important attributes of a bed since then, I've helped a few friends move house, I've been pulled over for driving too fast, gotten laid, and put close to 100,000 km on the clock. Now I have the opportunity to sell it and get that japanese pocket rocket, but I don't want to. Every dint, every scrape, they're mine, and I love that car it's big, ugly and beautiful Now, if it were a '62 Chevy Impala SS (one of my dream cars), oooooooooooof! There was a similar story on that show, where they steal a person's car and take it to the car designer BOOSH, GOOSE, BHOSE (something like that) and fix it all up. On this car, they went mental. When he saw it he nearly fell over. So a car is definitely much more than metal and rubber, it has an ineffable quality, it carries some of our best and worst memories. It's like a memory album

Great response, it's excellent to know some easy tells

Excellent post mate, cheers!

Forgive my ignorance, but I figure this relates to the Sears chain in the US? Very humble and fortuitous beginnings As for ignorance in salespeople, I went to a watch store with mum to work out what her style was. I asked her, 'what do you have in mechanical movements?'. Bear in mind, this was a seasoned jewelry store vet... She said... (and I wish I was joking). "You mean the ones where you need to shake yor wrist, love?" Oooooooh... Having this woman recognize my 312 suddenly became less of a concern... No one even batted an eyelid. Although she did comment that she liked the strap (a $15 Maratac Zulu 5-ring) So yes, customer service, product knowledge and the like are quickly being flushed down the toilet. It's not immediately clear to me why this might be happening, but I think cost-cutting through training is the big killer.

Aaron has a history of taking up to several months to fulfil orders, but always comes through. I would suggest that if you are not prepared for that, that you should seek an alternative strap maker in future. This is in now way a reflection on you, or on him, but it takes what it takes. You should have done your homework before complaining here mate.

Honestly? Fook... That... Sheet... i was doing canyoning in Croatia a few years ago and jumped next to a waterfall about 20 metres high, I completely shat myself I would rather do that a hundred more times than jump in that Zimbabwean waterfall, no way, nuh uh...

I have the same problem and assumed it was because I use my iPhone for most viewing, but it seems it's on the PC/Mac versions on the web as well, not just the mobile sites... Very annoying actually.

Knowing a little about very high tolerance machining, I can tell you that it does not cost anywhere more than a few hundred dollars (parts, operator time and tooling) to make those ceramic cases... The tungsten carbide machining tooling is very expensive, but each can make hundreds of cases, and tooling doesn't break that often. PANERAI is seriously taking the [censored] charging 29K for that watch... 3-5k is about 2k too much, IMHO. "is it all it's cracked up to be" - very nice little pun there

+1

Great job, thx for sharing!

Max, the problem is they have your number and can do really nasty things like call you at all hours, that's why I'm always reasonably courteous and polite. Having said that, this guy was genuinely hurt that I wasted his time, so I figured the poor bastard gets paid on commission. He only got called 'douchebag', it's my new thing...

I took the afternoon off work and came home to do some other work on my laptop, sure enough I got a call from one of these guys offering me holiday vouchers, 10 nights for $200 or something like that. He went on and on, however with the laptop in front of me, I was able to Google the company name as he was talking, and found some negative reviews. As he spoke, I would randomly intersperse all these questions about specific conditions, knowing others had had negative experiences, and the guy kept stuttering and not sure how to reply. Finally,after about 10 minutes, I told him I wasn't interested. This is what he said, "if you weren't interested, why did you make me waste 10 minutes of my time explaining it to you?", to which I replied, "as I recall, it was you who called me...douchebag". I must have been the first person in living history that had a telemarketer hang up on them...

AP named their "Orchard Road" after the main strip in Singapore, so definitely right on that. I almost never see PAMs out in the wild in Aus, but hit the Casino last night and saw a few quartz Breitlings with the small subdials, I think they are the Bentley models. And funnily enough, they were all on the dealers on the real cheap tables Last night was actually interesting watch-spotting, I hit a few hands of blackjack and got some approving eyes and nods on the PAM 328 from the guys next to me who were sporting some very nice Rolexes

Great strap, could you put up some details on the strap maker?

Cheers on a very informative, comprehensive description of the new AR, w0lf.

Did he offer to kiss you first? I usually like someone to give me a kiss before they enter my back door... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYl9nNIoz8o

My first MP strap, just arrived from a fellow appreciater of voluptuous, nubile virgins, our own PeteM (cheers to PeteM for the strap and for his humour, he really is one of a kind) "Mounted" on my daily wearer, the PAM 328. Much mounting took place over this strap, I must say... I realized that really well tanned PAM straps need no wearing-in period. This one fits like a glove And a view of the rear...

Lol! A three year thread resurrection and it instigates all this debate. I love it

Having read through the comments, the 'half-fullers' see it as a 'unique' item, like a special error banknote. However, the more cynical 'half-emptyers' are f u c k i n g p I s s e d IMHO, to stake the company's reputation on such a silly, near-sighted movement switch is really stupid. It doesn't take much to sour the image they've spent so much money to build up. Plus, it's so ironic that it happened on the 'Brooklyn Bridge' model

OK, so if you hold the right button for one second, the helicopters come, but if you hold it for five seconds, it sends a friendly reminder that all is OK? That's really confusing, and will probably need a read of the instruction manual, much as I don't believe in such things

The last 5% (to go from a 95% rep to indistinguishable) is sometimes almost as much a gen costs, so it might be better (and MUCH cheaper) to learn to be content with 95% Having said that, we all feel your pain mate