Thursday, April 17, 2014

"Simple" is a relative term.

Recently my everyday watch broke.  More specifically the band broke, which in my mind justified buying a new watch.  Honestly, it was a "want" more than a "need".  So I went online and found good reviews and a good price on a Casio G Shock.  


I ordered one that was inexpensive, simple, analog, without an altimeter, barometer, heart rate/cholesterol/bone density monitor, and without the ever-popular transmission diagnostic repair capability.  Simple.  Like me.

What got rave reviews was the fact that it was solar powered....no more battery replacement....and "atomic accurate" (?).  It seems there's some facility in Colorado that regularly broadcasts the exact time to the nanosecond, and this watch can pick up that signal and correct itself as needed.  

It will automatically adjust for Daylight Savings Time, short months, etc.  All I have to do is strap it on and wear it till I die.  No maintenance, ever!  Yep, that's the watch for me.

Not so fast, Goober.  First you have to choose the time zone you're in.  "Push button A, little window B will blink, then you scroll through until you find your zone.  Push C, and you're set."

Umm....little problem.  Another tiny window shows the digital time (hour, minute, day, date) for my selected zone, BUT THE HANDS SHOW THE TIME FOR A ZONE FARTHER EAST.  Lemme check that book again:

  
DOH!

The instruction "manual" is about the size of a book of stamps, but 200 pages thick.  (OK, 100 of them are in Spanish.)  And the print requires one of those little magnifiers jewelers strap to their glasses so they can see the tiny little letters.

This thing is written in a language only a super-geek could think up.  I was hopelessly lost right after it said, "Thank you for buying a Casio G Shock".  I solicited K, my in-house techie, to try and make some sense of it.  Nope....in about 2 minutes she was cursing like the sailor she once was.

Time to turn to the World Wide Web.  All I got was an explanation by the same guy (I think) that wrote the #$^& manual to begin with.  "SUP, dude?"

I set the hands to show Dallas time.  Screw it!  I'm just gonna have to accept the discrepancy between what the hands say and what the digital thingy says.  

But if you ever see me walking around the streets of Halifax, Nova Scotia and want to know what time it is, I have this little window on my watch that can tell you within a nanosecond.  Just ask.  :)

S


8 comments:

  1. Dang, that 's true of so many gadgets today. I was baby sitting for my son and it took me 20 minutes to get his TV to work. I could not figure out the correct input. Finally got it to work and turned on Kelly and Michael and the set demanded i put in a child lockout code. For Kelly and Michael?

    I never use a watch any more, trust my phone. When I have any issue with the phone, I drive to the local AT+T and just ask a phone geek (geek is now longer a derogatory name) to fix it.

    Good post, it is gonna hit a lot of homes.

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  2. I have a travel clock that's supposed to connect to that Colorado place but for some reason it stopped doing that years ago. I have no idea why.

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  3. Good luck with your new watch. I'll keep you in mind the next time I visit Halifax.

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  4. I seldom wear a watch. I do have a Mickey Mouse pocket watch, sans chain, that I carry sometimes.

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  5. Good luck with the G Shock gizmo, I bet old Low and Slow with a worn band will save you bacon some day.

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  6. Station WWV, Fort Collins, Colorado is the National Bureau of Standards time tone and broadcasts on several short wave frequencies (multiples of 5 or 10 somethings). I used to set my watch to it and from thence my clocks. Then I got a trimble GPS which had a digital clock (with running tenths of a second) which was precisely the same as WWV. I was very sad when it gave up the ghost, even though my lifestyle had long since evolved into one where I don't even need to know what DAY it is any more.

    fin

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  7. Watch? What is that? Is that what people wore before everyone had cellphones that display the time?

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  8. God bless you. I long ago stopped wearing a watch. I find I can always get the time somewhere public. The only concession I make is when I visit Las Vegas. There are NO clocks there, basically, so you have to wear one if you wish to know if you'll be late for an appointment or if you can stick around the tables for another hour. But, in a place such as Boston, I've never found a need for one.

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