doc savage

Check out this comparison of the Chery Amulet (fake Lexus IS) versus the gen.

I can't believe no one has stated the obvious yet: One look at this and everything else looks reserved.

This was the coolest one I ever had:

To be fair, the Alley is a small part of a huge booming fashion district. I have no doubt that there are a ton of great fashion deals to be found there, for someone who knows where to look. The shops are ridiculously small and the upper levels are a maze of elevators and corridors with tiny shops everywhere you look. I don't think there is another place in the U.S. quite like it.

So to day I had some time to kill after dropping off my girl to visit her sisters; I figured it was a perfect time to check out Santee Alley. I love to fondle things before I buy them, so I thought I could pick up a few of the cheaper watches on my shopping list and just order the nice "Ultimate" ones from our trusty trusted dealers. I am pretty familiar with Canal Street in New York, so I expected to find something similar here on the other side of our fine country. WRONG. On Canal Street it is dead simple to find watches. I would say about one in four of the small shops have a display case with about 3 dozen reps, surrounded by cheap watches that I assume they use for camouflage when there is a raid. This adds up to thousands of reps on the street, and healthy competition as well. Of course there is a lot of useless junk, but you can find most of what you would see on Silix's basic site for around $40 if you haggle. Santee Alley, on the other hand, is a ridiculous sprawling flea market of useless crap. Get used to seeing the same absurdly fake bags, ugly jeans, cheap toys, and stupid blankets every ten feet for. Also enjoy tripping over pirated DVD's being sold underfoot while dodging stroller pushing families of twenty who for unknown reasons think this place is great for a weekend outing. I DID see some cute womens clothes, but that was like two shops out of thousands of crappy ones. Most of the clothes are not fake, but brands no one ever heard of that look somewhat like the expensive ones. I checked out a couple shops that sold men's brands that I wear; they were only slightly less expensive than the boutique shops (maybe 20-25% discount). By the way, to the gross looking women fighting over the worst knock-off bags I have ever seen, NO ONE ON EARTH is going to see you with that bag and picture you buying it at South Coast Plaza. You do see a few trendy L.A. chicks trying to score a fake Gucci and sneak out without bumping into any of their friends, but 99.9% of the "ladies" there are HELL OF NASTY. <end rant> OK, it took me two hours before I saw any reps, but eventually I found FIVE shops selling them. It wasn't like they were trying to hide them, it just doesn't seem to be much of a business anymore. Not a single Rolex to be found, by the way. The most common watches were: #1: AP ROO, either quartz or with phony chronos. For some reason they were mostly the Shaq edition. #2: Breitling for Bentley (for all the flea market playas) I saw a Flying B which in hindsight wasn't so terrible #3: Hilariously bad Panerais galore #4: Hublot Big Bang, these were almost as bad looking as the Panerais. They also seemed really small, are the cheap reps smaller than the good ones for some reason? So in the end I didn't get anything, since they were so bad I sort of lost my appetite for watches. I thought I could at least find a Bell&Ross, but the only one I liked had paint missinf from the logo on the dial, and the dealer still wanted $70 for it. I also found the quartz T3 that I kind of like, but it was WAY too small. The verdict is do not waste your time--unless you really want a quartz Shaq watch.

I run into this a LOT with my car (Porsche Speedster replica). Now, if someone asks what year it is, I say "it's a '58" which is a crock, but they don't care. If they have to ask then they don't know much about old Porsches anyway, they are just being nice and like the car. The other kind of person asks "Is that a kit?" and of course I say yes and then we chat about replicas. The OTHER kind of person is one you can tell straight away has some kind of problem with the fact that your car looks nice, most of the time their girl said "ooh, pretty car!" and they feel slighted somehow, it's best to just brush them off and not play 20 questions with this guy (ALWAYS a guy) because it's a waste of time.

These are knock-offs, the low price is their main reason for existing.

That's why I love being a pirate. Anyone else think I Am Legend ripped off Old Yeller?

This brought back memories: ELECTRONIC PULSES OF LIGHT!

About half the plain straps on Hublot's website have logos; do you think it might be reversible?

I was thinking; I bet you could zap a normal flat screwdriver with the cutting wheel on a Dremel tool and have a homemade H screwdriver, if you didn't order one along with your watch. I would be afraid to wear one of these without checking the screws.

The flat straps are growing on me, especially on the more "subtle" Ice and Black Magic versions...how is the quality of the rep flat strap compared to gen?

I was wearing my first and only rep in Hollywood; it was a Canal Street gift from a friend who moved to NYC and we were meeting her in a trendy bar. We wound up at one of her Hollywood friend's place nearby to sip vodka and chat all night. He turned out to be a cool guy, and asked me if my watch was a Panerai--here's my watch: It turned out he just wanted to pass over his obviously gen Daylight Chrono, needless to say I didn't take mine off! We ended up chatting about watches for a while, I fessed up about my awful Porsche rep and he showed me a case full of Rolexes that he doesn't wear since he got the PAM...too small! So yeah, I would have to say in my experience gen owners aren't prowling around comparing everyone's dial fonts and cannon pins, they are too busy showing off their own baby!

O RLY?

Bet you didn't know there was a Casio rep! Frogman

No; that isn't going to work! If you have the brushed finish PVD bezel with the serrated teeth on the outer edge, it is pretty darn close in appearance to the ceramic one: comparison If you really want the glossy ceramic look, you can always buy a real ceramic bezel. They aren't cheap though, at around $300.

What Nanuq said, except the Mongoose (Along with Schwinn and GT, Mongoose was bought by Pacific Cycles, and they are now Kmart quality). That Kona is great and that's a good price on the Bad Boy.

Bring on the Chinese multi-axis Tourbillion!

I've noticed that in NYC; decent quality single speeds wrapped with duct tape, with the seat removed and a FAT bike chain. My GT was stolen (from my porch in the burbs) right after I got it tricked out perfect. Cheap bikes are no fun to ride, I suggest a hardtail in the $500 range, with disc brakes and the aforementioned FAT chain.

VERY sharp...especially like the "rear view"...almost as good as this one:

This is the only Chronofighter I've seen lately: Chronofighter

Is that Beat Takeshi??!? How the mighty have fallen...

That is sharp; might have to go on my list?

Here it is: Narikaa But I guess it is supposed to have the ratcheting bezel after all? Looks better with the H screws.

Interesting... is it really 48mm? I think Narikaa has one of those. Here's one for a laugh: Big Bang King