HQ Rolex wallpaper

Was playing around with the camera and took this shot. Thought I'll share it here. I think it makes a nice wallpaper. Notice anything unusual ? ;)

Click on the pic for the full resolution (1600x900)

Incoming 1 - Laco Flieger 42 Typ A Automatik

So this the first of the two watches that I spoke about in my last post. I should be ecstatic, but things didn't go exactly as I had planned. The customs department really put me in a foul mood in the morning. FedEx sent me an invoice for the total duties and taxes I was required to pay. Its honestly quite a pretty penny and over that, I was required to pay octroi. All in all, its about half of what I paid for the watch. To make it worse, the customs totally disregarded the price of the watch mentioned in the invoice (and honestly that what I paid for it). They instead thought they knew more about watches than the company itself and valued the watch at 75% more than the original price!! So not only was I pissed that I am having to pay more as customs duty, I am more appalled at how they chose their own price for it.
However, I really wanted this watch for a long time and the original price + shipping (without the discount I was offered) is quite close to what I eventually paid for it, so i thought I'll take it anyway. Moreover this was supposed to be an early birthday for myself and I couldn't see it go away.

Having cleared that of my mind, I preset to you this truly gorgeous timepiece with a history dating back to WW II - the Laco Flieger 42 Type A Automatik - "Bremen"

Specs: ETA 2824-2, Stainless steel case with "FL23883" engraving Ø: 42 mm, height 12 mm, domed and anti-reflective Sapphire crystal, solid case back with engraving, 5 ATM

I'll let the pics do the talking as I will be doing a review on it soon enough. One thing I have to say, although it has a 42mm diameter, it appears larger than that. Its good for people who want to go for the 45mm, but are in two minds if it will look too big on the wrist. This one looks just right! :)
Apologies for the quality of the pics, I had o rush home and take some quick shots during my lunch break. Some of the pics have been shot on my camera phone. As always, click on the pic to enlarge it.








I forgot to take the blue plastic off the rivets, so took another wrist shot -

An attempt to capture the lume on my camera phone -

That feeling is back!!

Its been almost two years since my last purchase (Rolex Sub) and this dry spell was really depressing for me. Finally I have not one, but two watches incoming as I type, all thanks to my (and Bio's) birthday thats around the corner :)

Will be taking lots of pics and perhaps a review too. So excited!!

Spotted in the wild - Rolex

Well, not really :P , but was on the way to work when Bio noticed the guy in front of us on the bike had a jacket on with 'Rolex' written on it. Thought it'll be fun to share it here :)

Omega serial number and year list

I had been looking for this for sometime now. I was curious to know which year my Seamaster was assembled in (2006). I had e-mailed Omega a couple of years back but they replied saying that they couldn't provide info on it for "security reasons". Click on the link below to access the page:

Game on!

It was another day at work, nothing eventful really, until I got a call from my brother-in-law. He managed to get four passes for the IPL semi-final match between Mumbai Indian (MI) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). Though I am not too much into cricket, I really like watching these 20 overs a side matches and since neither Bio or I have seen an IPL match live in a stadium, we agreed instantly. Also there seats were one the best ones in the stadium and it was pretty close to where the players were sitting, so that was even better. So it was my brother-in-law, my dad, Bio and myself. Both, my brother-in-law and my dad are huge cricket fans, so I guess they were much more excited about it than us.

Since this is a watch related blog rather than a sports website, I'll keep it short and simple. We arrived at the stadium about 45 minutes early and after going through a number of security checks ( I think there were 5 of them), made out way to our seats. The players of both teams were still doing their warm-up exercises at this point and It was fun to spot your favourite players in person.

Thought I'd snap a quick wrist shot at the entrance

Players doing their warm-up exercises

Soon enough the cheerleaders were out entertaining the crowd and we happened to have seats right behind them :)


The stadium was almost full and the atmosphere was electrifying as this is a country of cricket lovers. Also, since the match was being played in Mumbai, there was a LOT of cheering for the home team. A guy in front of us tried to get the attention of any player on the field that was closest to us, but couldn't. There was also a Mexican wave from time to time which got a lil too much in the end and most of the people didn't bother about it by that time. I think we even got to be on TV when the ball was smashed in the area right where we were seated. You have to really watch out for hits like these. A kid sitting close to us narrowly avoided being hit by the ball that came our way. He was lucky that it only grazed his left arm.

My fav batsmen - Sachin Tendulkar on strike :)

Time for another quick wrist shot!

All in all, the experience was better than what I had expected. It turned out to be a great match which went on till the very last over and we (MI) won by 4 wickets :)

Blast from the past

The other day, my parents were busy doing some spring cleaning while I was coping with a mild hangover from a company party the previous night. I didn't really expect to have a productive day, until my dad found this (apologies for the quality of the pics as they have been taken from my phone's camera)-

I couldn't believe it, my old Swatch! This watch had been given to me by my brother in law about 7 years ago. Bio got one too, but he lost his. It was a huge deal for me even at that time as it was my first Swiss watch. Even though I wasn't into watches at the time, I knew Swiss watches were something to be desired. This one had certainly taken a beating over the years it went missing. The strap was literally in pieces and the crystal full of scratches. I was happy to find that the battery hadn't leaked and as far as I could tell, a simple battery change would put the watch back in action.

One thing that bothered me was that the lugs had these extruding parts (sorry, just cant think of a better word) in between them which meant that I couldn't fix a regular strap on it. I know, I know, I should have waited and ordered an original Swatch strap for it, but I was just to excited and wanted to put a NATO on it, so I decided to get rid of them. Arming myself with a pair of pliers and a Swiss knife, I managed to do a decent job in removing them without any damage to the watch.

Unfortunately the NATO I had lying around was not only a size or two too large, but I realized that there just isn't enough space between the body and the spring bar to put one through it. The strap was just too thick for it :(
So finally I had to make do with a thin leather strap, which looks OK, but hey, at least I can wear it on my wrist again :)

Finally a trip to my watch guy and about Rs.200 ($4-5) later, it sprung back to life - everything working perfectly! To think, just a few days ago, I was wishing I had Swatch in my collection, then this one came back to me :)