plaifender

at no point do I try to insenuate that my opinion is "objective". As I mentioned VARIOUS times.. this is all relative. If I offended you personally Nanuq, I'm sorry. By your "internet tone", I felt like you really resented my statements and reasoning. taken from my post above: "My point is the following. "Working Hard" is relative to your circumstances. And studies prove, that the amount of physical labor or hours accumulated on the job is not ANY indicator of how much a person makes. Using hours worked IS indeed a good indicator of how Little money you make. "

let me gather myself

So woof, Freddy and Ubi are discredited.. You've just admitted that you're working hard.. and results aren't paying off. Don't distress Tee-Jay.. hard work doesn't mean success but it can be the difference between defeat and mere survival. I find it funny that we don't tell our kids... "work hard and you might survive" We tell them extremely wishful things like .."work hard and you can be or do anything" Don't jump the building though Tee-Jay. If you see the ground start to move from underneath your feet.. come to Spain. You can always teach some english here and recharge the batteries till something comes along

Cool, thanks for the info

This is a V3. Very NICE! I'd say go for it. The V2 has a "1" on the bezel with a serif that is clearly angled (imagine a "1" composed of 2 lines: middle and top). The V3 has a "1" composed of a single line and a triangle at the top of the, rather than another line. Not sure if that makes any sense. There might be one other tell.. but that's the biggest one. The V3s from what I've seen tend to also have better and more evenly applied lume dots. Plus they're a bit less expensive! Go for it! you won't be disappointed. Both the V2 and V3 are 98% close to the original in terms of dimensions, weight, feel, engravings..

So now, dealing crack is a lifestyle choice? You think blacks on the streets of Atlanta, D.C., Brooklyn, New Orleans deal drugs because it's easy? So dealing crack is an easy job? Dealer's dont' deal to see other in their community get high and smoke, they deal because they're broke and there's demand in what they do. For many it's the only way out they have. With no decent schools, with no decent libraries and with no access or education in new technologies, drug dealers are significantly disadvantaged. Sure people make it out and some do successfully, but if it were simply a question of "hard work", wouldn't everyone be making money and cleaning up bad neighborhoods? As I keep trying to stress, the problem is infinitely more comnplex than you are trying to make it out to be. If you are a white male,.. this factor automatically makes the probability of you ascending in social class and wages more probable statistically. I've worked hard in life, and i've done ok. I'm still young and still have a lot to do, but for the most part I can't complain. Just because, I feel I've worked hard, I also realize the circumstances I've been afforded and also realize that NOT everyone in the world can do what I do or aspire to what I've done. Not because they work less, but because our circumstances are different. Addendum: NORMS, both formal and informal are responsible for shapping the contexts in which we are raised, not hard work. Period. One could work hard at being a drug dealer.. and become successful or not successful. There are several cases of drug dealers becoming successful at what they do, and living quite well. There are even more cases of unsuccesful drug dealers. (sounds alot like corporate america and the private sector right?) Who do drug dealers deal drugs to? That depends on the drug, but with most recreational drugs with the exception of heroin and crack-coacaine are consumed primarily by middle-class and upper-class citizen.. yet who provides those drugs? People that work hard to get the middle-class their drugs.. yet most will never ascend to the socio-economic level of their customer base... food for thought.. this is a complex world with complex answers. This idea that "i do what i need to do to for my family" is not unique to socio-economically successful classes but universal feelings. What you are ABLE to do is determined circumstances which aren't always controlled by you. (which is what you seem to suggest). Life is a lot like a card game. But instead of 2 or 3 or 6 decks of cards, think of MILLIONS or billions of decks. Sure it depends on your skill, but it also depends equally on the cards you're dealt. If you're continually dealt bad cards, how can you expect to win, regardless of your card-counting ability.

Ok woof.. so using your argument, we could say, Bill Gates made more good decisions than you or me in life if we count all the decisions he made and categorize them into "good" and "bad". Correct? using your same argument, I guess anyone can assume that Bill Gates has worked harder than the rest of the world since he has about 7million times more money than the average human being on the planet (fairly accurate figure). Since working "hard" is difficult to measure.. the only measure we can accurately use to asses this characteristic is by hours worked. So that also means that Bill Gates must have worked MUCH more than you, or me, or your father, or my father.. or anyone else. My point is the following. "Working Hard" is relative to your circumstances. And studies proove, that the amount of physical labor or hours accumulated on the job is not ANY indicator of how much a person makes. Using hours worked IS indeed a good indicator of how Little money you make. The problem is this. Success in america is often measured by how much you make or where you end up. Not by how hard you work. We simply assume that if we make money, than other people can. Americans, time after time and poll after poll continue to express the opinion that people in the private sector work harder than anyone in the country, and that those who make the most, are the ones that have worked the hardest. While this may be something to aspire to and something to tell your children if say, you raise them in a middle class environment with proper access to good medium to excellent education, but this message is detrimental because it assumes that "Any average joe" can make as much money as he wants with "hard work". I rest my argusment on the fact that this is all contextual. You can say what you want about working hard, but as an economist and student of international relations and immigration,the truth is, the only real indicator is that hours and type of work do not have positive parallels to the amount of money made in ANY country. Whether it's the U.S., the western world, or the third world. I don't mean to take away from the merits of your father or your father's father, or even of your children. But the facts remain that the best indicator of how well your children do is how well you do. Class ascension is next to impossible now unless you make ABOVE the average salary. If you make a below average salary, the chances of you making above average salary in your lifetime is next to zero percent.

awesome watch! Does the button between 10 and 11 turn the inner bezel as per gen? or is it just for looks?

WOAH!! nevermind!! FORGET THE PRICE I TOLD YOU! haha.. I just checked my emails with hont.. and the awesome deal I got was $280 with shipping included!! for back in the day, the price was excellent and at least 50 bucks cheaper than everyone else! Sorry about the confusion!

Yes the Genuine is a limited edition of 2000 pieces. The official name is called the Avenger Skyland Blacksteel edition. It's a DLC coated (diamond like carbon) Skyland avenger. The rep has the same specs as gen and is utterly scratch resistant. Cool coating and very bold look. It's one of my fav watches. When I bought mine 2 years ago it was on sale through hont for $180. I got a REAL steal. but i'm not sure the blacksteel V2's can be found for that now. From what I understand they're a bit difficult to find. The V3 blacksteel is great and can be found through any dealer. the V2 might be a little harder

Hence the anomaly. It's not that other can't do the same. But no one ever talks about the circumstance they were given and the oppurtunities that presented themselves in their own personal lives.... As if because the one thing you have in common with people is that you used to be poor.. is a determining factor in whether or not others can achieve what you achieve. questions like.. did you go to school.. did you make money, were your friends poor, did you have children as a teen? did you study a degree? did you deal crack rock? These are all circumstances that effect outcomes.... It's not simply will power If that were the case.. bill gates could look at you and say.. Look at me. I came from a simple background and am now a billionaire. If I can do it.. anyone can do it. If you admit that bill gates had certain circumstances in his life that made him unique, then you are self-admitting that NOT everyone can do what you do. Why? Because they're not you

shop around. I got my V2 brand new on a special deal from hont for $180. (granted I have a blacksteel (look in my avatar). I think several dealers sell them for around 200.... at least I THOUGHT..

bump for a badass post

haha.. except chuck norris doesn't need a postal service. He personally roundhouse kicks every package across the world to its exact destination, and then kicks you in the temple when you open the door to see what just landed on your doorstep.

Looks good. It appears to be a V2. There are 3 versions of these watches.. the V2 is arguably the slightly more accurate.. but the differences are MINISCULE. The biggest tell is the "1" numerals on the bezel. But other than that, theyre virtually unnoticeable. (at least to me anyways). It looks like a V2.. if you have any doubts, just contact the dealer and ask him directly if this is a V2 or V3 skyland.

Welcome back! you should be in for quite a surpise! A LOT of great stuff has come out in the past 3 or 4 years!

So.. prison is the answer? Harsher sentences are a deterent? America has the harshest sentences of ANY western nation.. and it's called the death penalty.. Take a look at our crime rates and violent crime rates in comparison to any other western country and you'll see that prison is NOT a deterent and NEVER will be a deterent for most criminal minds.

This is another myth of the "american dream"... it's shown that the biggest gauge of success is your social class. People that come from mid to upper social classes tend to ascend or outperform their parents. Thus perpetuating the accumulation of wealth. If you come from a low socio-economic background you have statistics working against you. It's hard to escape the ghetto... even putting violence and crime rates aside. Take a straight shot joe from the ghetto that goes to work everyday and never gets in trouble.. he's STILL less likely to double his anual income in his lifetime than someone from the suburbs. Working hard, has nothing to do with earning more. IN fact.. the people that make the least money in western societies.. categorically ALWAYS work more hours than people that earn more than them. This idea that working hard is what gets you places is a myth. Yes, there are anamolies, but the anomolies are the stories we all hear about, while the reality is what we don't.

Read Anabel Thorn, Rebecca Eilers and the ASHA (American Speech and Hearing Association). If you want spanish sources I can give you those too, but those three places are a start. It's been studied and suggested by MANY academically sound sources, that Bilingual and Multilingual children might have a higher capacity for short-term memory. As it turns out language and memory seem to be very closely related. They also show signs of cognitive and memory capacity that monlingual speakers don't have. Bilingual and multilingual speakers are consistently able to memorize more words faster than monolingual speakers, find solutions to problems faster and are often able to relate to different cultures easier than monolingual speakers. This is evermore important in a globalized and multicultural society where the probability of encountering someone that speaks another language in your normal day to day life is 200% higher than 100 years ago. The importance is not in the research. The importance of my argument lies in the historical change that has taken place and that you and Freddy are referring to. 100 years ago it was inconceivable by psychologist that children were even capable of learning 2 languages equally well. Most psychologist until recently thought that bilingual children were confused more easily by two target languages. My dad for example is half japanese. At the time, his mother was placed in an internment camp during the 1940s and afterwards met my grandfather. My Japanese grandmother NEVER spoke japanese to my father since she felt that it would be detrimental to his learning abilities.(In addition to the social stigma and embarassment of speaking japanese in public). Thus my dad never learned japanese, and resents my grandma for never having spoken to him. This happened on a VERY large scale, and many italian, german, dutch and asian american immigrant from before my generation (including the 19th and 20th centuries) refused to speak their native language to their children for either of the 2 reasons i just stated. Behavioral Scientists and psychologists now know that this children benefit not only mentally, but often socially by being able to speak 2 or more languages interchangeably. (Granted, this benefit doesn't necessarily translate into academic advantage, we know that socio-economic status has a lot more to do with performance than language ability, but both are relavant to the subject). Maybe you and Freddy are missing my point. It's not that I disagree that there possibly might be a difference between the immigrants of "old" and the immigrants of "new". What I'm definitely not in agreeance with, is that the old was "better" than the new or vice-versa. Each immigrant was a product of their own historical contexts. This idea of "americanism" is not something that has been "lost" because now immigrants don't value it. It's something that is completely relative tothe times and events that the immigrant populations have had to face. You can look at old "americanism" as being better, but in a lot of ways, maybe it's not. Think about how unfortunate it is that so many european americans call themselves (greek-american, italian-american, german-american etc.) and go back to their "mother" countries only to find out that they have much more in common with another european american from another subgroup, than they do with "true" germans or "true" italians. It's not bad or good, it's just something that has happened as a result of historical contexts. Immigrants not wanting to "be american" is not the fault of immigrants. It's the fault of a series of contextual circumstances that make immigrants choose to be the way they are. Globalism, mutliculturalism, the technological revolution, cultural appreciation, social capital, aging populations and ever increasing poverty gaps, are all factors that are RADICALLY different from the environment in which immigrants previously immigrated to America. As such, comparing generations to what immigrants "used to be" does NO GOOD, if you don't look at the context in which the immigrants have come from. It's like assuming Salmon now cause more health problems than Salmon from the past due to higher mercury levels found in the fish. It's not really the salmon that have changed.. it's the ENVIRONMENT that has changed them. If you want to blame a mexican for claiming mexico as his homeland, blame globalization, blame the american corn industry, blame the internet, blame multiculturalism, blame better access to judicial systems now, blame fairer treatment of immigrants than in the past, blame the fact that mexicans don't have to worry about being lynched or shot.. or any number of the cruelties that MANY immigrants and minorities had to face in the past, that they no longer face(or equally problems that immigrants face now, that they didn't face in the past). The problems and adversity faced by immigrants has changed, but the problems haven't gone away, and there's no less of these problems now than there were then. The problems have simply shifted. Sorry for such a long post Tee-jay haha

Freddy, you reminisce as if you grew up in the early 1900's. You are partly right in your assumption that the willingness of immigrants to LATCH on to the "Americanness" of their life was of greater importance in the early 20th century and late 19th. But this is VERY contextual and specific to the times. You have to realize, that despite the "great american" continent that you think of right now, it was by all measures of policy, the absolute, most racist [developed] country in the modern world. Anything that was against the protestant white males norms of society was considered inferior, and there were usually laws to enforce the inferiority. If laws weren't in place rampant violence was used to create fear among minority and immigrant populations. The overwhelming population of Irish immigrants were received with boos and rotten vegetables thrown at them. The italians received the same type of welcome on a large scale. Violence against asians was common place starting from the beginning of their arrival in the mid 19th century. Immigrants were almost ALWAYS denied proper legal means in the courts of justice. It goes without saying that blacks and immigrants from spanish and french carribean countries were treated as second class citizens. The common history learned by most high school history books is extremely sugar-coated. If you've ever studied contextual history, you'd realize how bad the time really were. I'm not saying this to take on an extreme view, but without this context it's impossible to understand the mentality of the immigrants in which you mention. As the underpriveledged and minority society in America, assimilation was their only defense. Having your home country's pride could mean life or death in certain situations, violence or peace in others, or hunger or starvation in others. The immigrant life was often one of ambiguity for those that could pass in society as "native" americans. Of course they proudly called themselves americans. The climate was so stigmatizing by default, that immigrants lost many aspects of their own culture. Languages were often the first things to go. Immigrants had children and refused to speak anything but english to them. Nowadays, it's the opposite, it's considered a great disadvantage to your child if you don't speak to him in your mother tongue. We live in a much more pluralistic society now, where it's acceptable to embrace your "non-american" traits. They're what make us different. All in all, I somewhat agree with you freddy, but without taking into account the historical contexts, we can't accurately assess the state of current affairs in immigrant communities. If you'd like any citations on my infomation, i'd be more than happy to give them to you. Like I said, I'm writing my thesis on immigrant immigration and it's a very complex and multi-faceted subject that is easy to mis-identify and incorrectly assess. Principally because of politicians, and secondly because of horrible and often-times incorrect high school history books.

first off, welcome to the forum. A place to grow AND learn. Take a look around and start reading. Where did you get your watch? If it's from one of the dealers here, have you contacted the dealer? You might want to consider getting your watch serviced. Most watches from china don't come serviced (cleaned and properly oiled) and are prone to gumming up very soon. A good service can go a long way, and it' something that should regularly (every 3-5 years) be done on a mechanical watch. Lastly, as Andy asked, Where are you located? There are various watchsmiths/repairers around the world who are members of this forum that you can send your watch to and have fixed and serviced. Good luck

Before the UPO i think there was a V2 model that had incorrect HE valve and case shape. So the UPO was NOT a new model.. just another step in a long line of changes. The only thing I'm trying to say is that sometimes it takes just that long for incremental changes (like the correction of "happy feet" logo)

I'd say more like 6 or 7 years. the clown feet UPO came out in 2006, that wasn't even corrected until a few months ago.

Interesting.. Just looking at Omega's website and you're right that there's a new version with He valve aligned at 10. Not sure if this is the mainstream version or not, as they still also have the classic stainless steel version with white dial writing and black bezel insert. The new version looks a lot like the Liquid metal version just in 45.5mm size.

PPN, despite your misinformation, this watch did not come out at the latest Basel.. It came out at Basel 2010 and was already being produced in 2009. My local boutique here IN madrid, spain got these watches within a month of Omega releasing them. And YES, it is repped. Been repped for over a year. It's not a very good version though: The most important aspect of this watch is the "liquid metal" that is seamlessly integrated into the ceramic bezel. Doubt that a rep factory could rep this effect accurately. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZcsWVqLC5I