So last week, I went to Tourneau (a watch store) with Mrs. Fly because TWO of her watches broke and needed to be fixed.  The estimate for the Rolex was like $750 and the estimate for the Cartier was like $450.  Umm... WTF?!?  Anyway, it's whatever.  So while I was waiting, I walked around the store to see if there was anything that looked "interesting" to me - it was *my* birthday month, after all.  I was kind of shocked at how MASSIVE and gawdy the trend in watches seem to have gone.  Like many of the watch faces were almost as big as my entire wrist.  And I'm not a small guy.  And can the metal be any shinier?  Is this really what people want to wear around nowadays?!?  Whatever happened to simple understated elegance?  Must we all look like Flavor Flav on a night on the town?

I'm not a big fan of expensive watches.  Mostly because they lack a little something I like to have in a timepiece... LIKE THE ABILITY TO ACCURATELY TELL TIME!  What kind of person wears a "mug me" advertisement (you don't carry a brick of hundos chained to your neck, do you?!?) on their wrist that's super HEAVY (working on getting that Rafael Nadal left arm 2x bigger than the right syndrome) and CAN'T TELL TIME!!!  I wouldn't mind any of the other things if an expensive watch could actually tell time.  But it can't tell time as well as a watch you get for "free" with your kid's Happy Meal.  Hmm... good use of $5+K?

For a Swiss watch to be certified as a chonometer, it has to be 4 seconds slow or 6 seconds fast a day.  Sounds reasonable... except at the end of the month, that means the watch can be off by 2-3 minutes a month!!!  And only 3% of Swiss watches meet this "exacting" standard.  LOL?  So in one year, the watch will be off by 24-36 minutes.  Um... That's what I call "sun dial" accuracy.  And that assumes you wear it every friggin' day...  Forget to wear it or wind it and you have to sit there like a monkey readjusting the date and time.  It's like that needy ex-girlfriend who never left you alone.

When I used to trade, many people on the desk made seven to eight figures a year.  Yet, none of them wore a fancy watch to work.  Because the Employment Report came out the first Friday of every month at 8:30 sharp.  It was usually the biggest market mover of the month.  No one wants to be the idiot that sauntered back to his desk at 8:32 because his friggin FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR watch couldn't tell time.  In fact the only people wearing nice watches were the junior guys who went and got coffee for everyone.  Now I'm not saying a fancy watch is completely useless...  like if you have to get dressed up to go somewhere (wedding, etc), you should accessorize properly.  Every society has its norms.  But just like I don't wear a tuxedo (or even a suit) every place I go, I'm more about function than form.  Call me the Anti Flav.

/ cheap bastard old man rant