I'd be rather remiss if I didn't write something about my latest flavor of the week. For about a month now, I've been obsessed with wrist watches.

It all started a few lazy weekends ago when I found myself up at Mission Valley, checking out a Pottery Barn ottoman in person. (Speaking of which, if that thing were $200 cheaper, I'd get it in a flash, but I cannot in my right mind pay $900 for a friggin' ottoman).

I wandered into a Tourneau's watch store, and immediately felt this sense of watch inferiority. You see, up until then, I had lived in perfect blissful ignorance about watches.

My Swiss Army watch (quartz) had happily served me for so many years:

Well I'll tell you, those watch salespeople are trained well - I left thinking, "My goodness, how could I be wearing a quartz watch? I need to get some real automatic Swiss watches!" I was smart enough to not fall for their "authorized dealer" story - I'd just get it cheaper on the Internet (and I'll tell you, the difference is huge. Frankly after a lot of research, there isn't much upside to buying from an authorized dealer versus a reputable gray market dealer like Amazon)

Of course, even the medium brand watches (Tag, Longines, Oris, Tissot, Omega, Baume & Mercier) are pretty much mass produced, so that "Swiss craftsmanship" story is bunk (and most of the watch is manufactured in China).

I did some research, and decided to get my first automatic watch:

I love the simplicity of the watch. Plus it's versatile - good for dressy and non-dressy occasions.

Being a total newb about watches, I was pretty enthralled by the casing on the back, which exposes the movement:

Since then, I've been reading up on watches like crazy. It's amazing what researching in your spare time for a month does for your knowledge.

I've amassed a huge bookmark of watches I like (they tend to all be quite simple in nature - I'm not big on the super flashy styles) which I'll probably start sharing - I do enjoy eye candy.

And of course if this is like any other of my most random hobbies (I don't think I ever shared about my coin collection), I'll most likely burn out of it after a few weeks.

But hey - accumulating random knowledge is fun!

(P.S. I am really hurting for a decent macro lens)