Dress Codes

 I admit, I'm an artsy type, so I know much of this only second-hand, but my impression is:

In the 1990's, many offices started the practice of Casual Friday, when things such as chinos and polo shirts were accepted in the office on Fridays, in places where everyone had previously had to wear suits. 

Different places had different policies concerning socks. Massive honkin' triceps were optional.

Whether it was acceptable not to tuck the polo shirt into the chinos before casual wear was okay any day of the week, or the other way around, I don't know, but I do know that things have become more and more casual in many offices, to the point where in many cases there are no longer any dress codes, and it would seem strange to waste any time enforcing dress codes or objecting to what someone chose to wear to work.

In many offices, none of the above-described changes have happened yet. Some workplaces have progressed only to the point of Casual Friday with the Lacoste tucked in and the belt matching the shoes and by God you better wear socks, and some have no Casual Fridays.

And, of course, this is all a white-collar phenomenon. It doesn't apply to blue-collar work. 

A completely different essay describing the time when white-collar workers actually wore white collars and blue-collar workers actually wore blue collars, could be very interesting.

Is the line between white-collar and blue-collar actually beginning to blur? Are there now jobs which are neither 100% the one or the other? I don't know.  If there are such jobs, that would sound like progress to me. It would sound as if some parts of the world were finally beginning to be allowed to see what some other parts were up to.

I was about to write that many places do not have official dress codes, but that conformity is fairly rigidly enforced by peer pressure alone, and I was about to mention the US Congress as an example. But I googled it first. Turns out they do have a dress code, and that Senator John Fetterman, wearing a hoodie and shorts these days, votes from a cloakroom adjacent to the Senate floor, not from the floor of the Senate. Also, you remember all that nonsensical outrage about Michelle Obama going sleeveless? The Congressional dress code calls for sleeves.

What is Congress actually able to do if someone violates the dress code? Is the more important question not what they can do about, but what they are likely to do about it? I mean, Fox News and the New York Post are certainly doing their upmost to stir up outrage about Senator Fetterman's hoodie and shorts, but I'd be surprised if the Senate actually took even symbolic official action against him. The guy's just out of the hospital fachrissakes.

At this point, at the very latest, some extremely progressive, but simultaneously traditionally-minded fashion-focused readers are going into tirades about the beauties of traditional business attire.

And they're right. They're right exactly as far as they own wardrobes, and no further. See, the thing is, about Casual Friday, and about abandoning dress codes altogether and officially giving your blessing to anyone dressing however they Damn well please, is, that you can still wear immaculately fabulous business suits every day, even on Fridays, because that is the whole point: you don't tell anyone that they're not dressed correctly, and they return that courtesy. You can try to keep those beautiful habits of dress alive, but you're going to have to do it on the strength of the actual beauty of the clothes. You can persuade with beauty, when dress codes are no longer there. You can no longer coerce. 

I don't hang out much in places on social media -- or for that matter, in the meat world -- where people love suits, and suits are the main topic of discussion. But they still come up every now and then. For example, when people debate whether or not it is "correct" to wear a G-Shock in the office. I myself am so far from being table to take that question seriously, that I can't even write it without quote around the word "correct."

But there are people, they still do exist, who take such things very seriously. People who are actually horrified when some wears a G-Shock with a suit. In my opinion, anyone who is horrified by that is INCAPABLE of serious thought. Well. People disagree about such things. Hopefully we can still discuss them, with respect and goodwill for all

In my opinion, there are only bad reasons for insisting that everyone in the office wear a suit (or for example, insisting that every student in the school wear a uniform). If you can get them all to dress alike, more than a century before Thorstein Veblen first pointed out how conformity of dress helps to enforce conformity in other things, it will be much easier to keep them from objecting if the firm lies, or steals, or dumps poison into the air or water, or promotes a culture of predation or hatred against its female employees or its employees of color, etc.

Rangeman Meets Some Very Tough Guys

Rangeman went around, doing what he did, mostly telling people to be nice and rescuing cats from trees.

Turned out that a lot of cats got stuck up high in trees in NYC. Soon Rangeman was getting very busy with the cats. He was becoming more well-known. He was getting some respect from the NYFD, the normal go-to guys for cats stuck in trees. 

At first the firemen regarded him as a nuisance, a crazy person would just get in the way, possibly injure himself or the cat or one of them. But soon he won them over, above all with his absolute dedication to get the job done, his nothing-is-impossible attitude, and his rapidly-increasing climbing skills. Do anything strenuous all day long every day, and work out when you're not doing it, and chances are you might get very good at it. 

Now the firemen would see him from down the block as they rolled in, and they'd yell, "Rangeman, my man!" Sometimes now they'd just watch, confident he'd get the job done. If he was up very high they would stretch out those stretchy round bouncy things that fireman stretch out, just in case he or the cat fell. But he didn't fall, the cats didn't fall. He was getting very good at this. He hadn't been in bad physical shape before he became Rangeman, but he was definitely more cut now. 

One beautiful crisp afternoon he was just walking around, guarding his city, when someone called, "Hey, Rangeman!" He turned around to see half a dozen very bad-looking guys walking up on him, with lots of denim and shiny black leather and sneering faces, and three of them had handguns leveled at him.

The first group of thugs Rangeman had dealt with, the ones who were there during his transformation, playing keep-away with a lady purse -- those guys might have been intimidated by a hypothetical second group of bad guys who were clearly tougher and meaner. And the second group might have been afraid of a third group of bad man. But that hypothetical third group would still have nightmares about these guys who were pulling guns on Rangeman. Murder and intimidation just oozed from the pores of this fourth, non-hypothetical group.

Even before he spoke, it was clear that one of the three with the guns was the leader of the whole bunch. Rangeman wagged a finger at this one and said, "Hey now ! Be nice!"

The leader and a couple of the others laughed. Rangeman saw that one of them who wasn't pointing a gun at him had a gun in a holster at his waist, clearly visible over his knit shirt and under his black leather jacket.

"I'm not a nice guy," the leader told Rangeman, and some of his gang laughed some more. 

"And how's that working out for you?" Rangeman asked.

"We're doing okay."

"It looks like you all spend a lot on clothes."

"Oh, we got plenty to spend on clothes. We see something we want to wear, we buy it, we don't need to ask the price first."

"Uh-huh. But you don't look happy. You're laughing at me, but it sounds like hollow laughter." 

The head gangster stopped smiling and said, "You're giving me mental-health advice?! The guy who choked Tony Stark?!"

"I only choked Tony for a moment. Just to establish some boundaries. He was being a real dick, and I knew he knew better. I didn't choke him out, nothing like that. Any bad feelings about it were over with the same day."

"Uh-huh. TONY STARK DOESN'T EXIST," the lead bad guy yelled in Rangeman's face. "He's a fictional character, played by Robert Downey, Jr in movies, and drawn in comic-books."

"Yes, yes," Rangeman spluttered, "there are movies and comics about Tony and the other Avengers, but they're real. Stark Tower is right over there."

"Where?"

"Umm... You can't see it from here, the buildings on this block are blocking the view, and --"

"Wanna walk to where there's a view of it? It's imaginary! It's CGI in those movies! And your 'superpowers' amount to telling people to be nice, and saving cats, and getting your picture in the news every now and then, because --"

"The Rangeman has an altimeter in it! And a barometer! And an ambient-air thermometer! And solar panels that re-charge the batteries, and every 24 hours it synchs its time with an atomic clock in Colorado, and it's especially durable, even compared to other G-Shocks, and --"

"Wait a minute, an atomic clock in Colorado? What's up with that?"

"Yes, even if you turn off the synch, it's still spec'ed at plus-minus 15 seconds a month, so if the synch is on it's always within a split-second, AND it springs forward and falls back by itself!"

"Hey, now, that last thing," the main bad guy, "that I like. That's a real pain in the ass with watches." By now all of their guns were holstered. "Give me your Rangeman, Rangeman."

"No."

"No. huh? Just like that."

"You want it, you're going to have to take it."

All of the bad guys laughed at that, and now the laughter sounded more relaxed, less hollow.

"How much does one of those cost?" the boss of the bad guys asked.

A second bad guy spoke up: "That's a GW9400-1, right?" he asked, and Rangeman nodded. The second thug told the first, "Retail's $330. You can find them for less. Down to about $100 off of retail." The boss looked nauseous on hearing such a low price, but the second one went on, insisting, "it's not always all about the price. Maybe 99.9% of the time in life, but with G-Shocks..."

"So they're a couple hundred bucks, these things?"

"That particular model. There's thousands of models."

"THOUsands?"

"Thousands, boss. From $30 up to several thousand."

"Huh," the boss said, and turned back to Rangeman: "So you're risking your life over a couple hundred dollars."

"Like your guy just said -- not everything is even about money."

"Well, you're a brave guy."

"I don't know if am brave. But I have to act that way, because I'm a superhero. I have an important job to do."

"Superhero! There's no such thing as superheros! You're a great, big, huge, nice, somewhat charismatic crazy person!"

"Agree to disagree?"

The boss crook raised both his hands and was about to start shouting again. But then he lowered his hands again and said, "Sure." He turned to the second guy and asked, "You know where we can shop for G-Shocks?"

"Sure, Boss."

"For the fancy expensive ones?"

"Yeah, I know that too."

The boss turned back to Rangeman: "You want to come with us? We'll buy you a watch."

"Oh! Oh. Thank you very much," Rangeman said, "but --"

"But what?" 

"It's this time of day. I don't know why, maybe it's because the firehouse nearby is changing shifts, but this time of day I'm usually pretty busy."

"Okay. Some other time."

"Thanks, that would be nice."

"And, you know -- I like cats."

Hey, you know what?" Rangeman said.

"What?"

"YOU'RE BEING NICE!"

The other 5 crooks laughed at the boss. The boss looked confused for a moment. Then he smiled, shook Rangeman's hand and said, "You're okay." 

My Brother's New G-Shock

Ever since I became interested in G-Shocks last spring, I've talked and talked a lot to my brother about them, and he has listened very patiently. Even though he himself didn't wear a watch and had no plans to get one. He'd listen to me talking about G-Shocks and related topics. But he said, repeatedly, that he was not interested in watches, that watches were jewelry, and that jewelry is for girls. 

My brother is fifty-eight years old.

So naturally, for Christmas this year I got him a G-Shock. A DW5600E-1V. Amazon delivered it to him a couple of days ago.

I was going to get him a Casio F91W, a non-G-Shock, one of the cheapest Casio watches available as far as I know. But then I saw that Amazon was offering this DW5600 at about half retail price, so I pounced.

In appearance, the DW-5600 is very similar to the first G-Shock offered in 1983. These sorts of G-Shocks, although their display is rectangular and 8-sided, are referred to by us G-Shock guys as "squares." Squares can come with all of the fancy options: solar charging, atomic-clock synching, GPS, Bluetooth, altimeter, barometer, compass, ambient-air thermometer, etc, etc. They also can be had with cases and straps made of coated steel or titanium. 

Long story short, there are lots and lots of squares to choose from. There are lots and lots of people who are fanatical about squares. Lots of them own lots of squares each. Many of them no doubt would object to my list of options as being misleadingly short, and would be perfectly happy to talk to you all day and night about squares and why they are the most awesome thing ever. By the way, I'm not exaggerating at all.

The DW5600E-1V, the one I got for my brother, has none of the options. The case and strap are plastic. There's no Bluetooth, no GPS, no solar, no radio-controlled synching, not a lot of fancy stuff. Just yr basic tough-as-nails G-Shock as worn by many special forces personnel of many nations.

And amazingly, either my brother absolutely loves it, or he's trying very hard to convince me that he does. It doesn't seem like he's being sarcastic with his positive comments. 

It might be neither; maybe he doesn't like the watch, and also isn't being sarcastic, but is sincerely trying to hide his aggravation. Trying very hard not to shout in anger: "I told you I don't like watches! I told you I didn't have the slightest interest in having one! I said it clearly and repeatedly! What's wrong with you? What's WRONG with you?!"

You know how brothers can aggravate each other sometimes.

My brother is a bit of an enigma sometimes. But I believe he sincerely likes this Christmas present. He's full of questions and comments about it. I don't believe he's faking the interest.

I also don't believe he's going to quickly morph into a flat-out G-Shock fanatic the way I did. Although who knows.

Dream Log: Economic Mediocrity in Manhattan

I dreamed I was in a department store in Manhattan when my G-Shock alerted me that a package had been fired at the store like a bullet from far away, and was about to fly through an open window. Quickly I grabbed a drone from a shelf, took it out of its package, assembled it, and got it into the air where if deflected the package, knocking it to the ground and avoiding injury or collision with other goods.

A store manager saw this, assumed that I was already an employee, and set me to work deflecting more packages which flew in through the store's one open window.

I quit this job and got a delivery job, delivering bags of candy from a storefront. However, I felt sure that the commissions for these deliveries must be very low, so when I saw a bunch of people going onto an office to start a day's work on another delivery job, and they said they were always hiring, I tagged along. 

In this job, every single package delivered by anybody contained one Three Musketeers candy bar. We were each given a bag of packages and a list of addresses and sent out. 

I found myself walking in Upper Manhattan looking for 176th St. Other delivery people from the same company, each with a bag of Three Musketeers, were walking along beside me. The streets were filled with a mixture of sea salt left by evaporation from the nearby Atlantic, and toxic waste. There were no sidewalks in this region of warehouses. We dodged speeding semi trucks. The salty poison piled high in the streets was beginning to melt the rubber in the soles of our sneakers. We were afraid it would burn right through our shoes and burn our feet. 

We managed to get out of that area uninjured. But I still hadn't found a single address. I was beginning to wonder what kind of commission I could possibly expect from such a job. I had neglected to ask how much I was going to be paid. 

The boss of my previous job, where I had been delivering bags of candy, and where I had also not asked about the pay, spotted me walking along and yelled at me angrily for disappearing. However, he also made it clear that I was not fired. He was a big burly guy with black handlebar moustaches.

Then things became much more abstract. For example, I was holding a tennis ball inside a steel protective case. Then, I was inside a beauty shop, and a women held my head between her hands as she murmured incantations which I didn't understand. Then, I was in Wisconsin for just a moment. I don't know how I knew it was Wisconsin. It was a rural area, autumn, and the trees were full of firy-bright red and orange and yellow leaves. Very few leaves had fallen yet from the trees. Then I was back in the department store were the dream began, and the store manager was yelling at me for pretending to be an employee. Then I was sitting on the ground in African grasslands among some lions, and I wasn't afraid of them and they weren't afraid of me. Then I was back in NYC, on the sidewalk, with some people I've only met on Facebook. Then I was playing basketball in what appeared to a comfortably-old NYC YMCA or school gym. Then I was testifying before a legislative body in favor of massive expansion of public funding for rooftop-solar, and also in favor of 100% net metering. Then I woke up.

RANGEMAN!

This is how an ordinary guy became the superhero Rangeman.

The ordinary guy lived in an apartment in NYC. There were three idiots who hung out on the front steps of his apartment building and harrassed people. The ordinary guy didn't have any reason to be intimidated by these  idiots, because he was a huge ordinary guy and strong as an ox. But he was very timid. He tended to go around with his head down and his shoulders hunched. 

One day he left his apartment and walked past the idiots, who were harrassing a young woman. They had taken her purse and were tossing it around, playing a game of keep-away. The ordinary guy hurried past, ashamed that he was afraid to do anything. 

Suddenly he was face to face with a gnarled figure in a hood who blocked his path on the sidewalk and glared at him. Lightning lit up the edges of his silhouette and thunder boomed as he looked at the ordinary guy and held up a Casio G-Shock Rangeman GW94001,

and said, "You really need this. I'll spare you the unboxing. Here," he said, and fastened it on the wrist of the ordinary guy, who suddenly became Rangeman. Thunder boomed again as lightning ominously lit the edges of things. 

Rangeman unhunched his shoulders and held his head up high. He turned around and returned to the entrance of his apartment building. "Give the lady her purse back and stop bothering her," he said. And because he was about as big as all three of the idiots put together -- and not fat. He was cut -- they did as he said and mumbled apologies and slunk away. The young lady gave Rangeman a big smile.

"Hey," the gnarled figure shouted, "I didn't just give you that watch. Hundred bucks. That's a good price. It's almost new."

Rangeman paid him and they parted with a friendly handshake.

A little while later, Rangeman was in Stark Tower, giving the Avengers a hand. Tony Stark pointed out a work station which had been set aside for him, with a desktop computer plugged into the big Stark/Avengers computer with its large screens looming over everything.

"Thanks," Rangeman said, as he took a few Casio gadgets from his backpack and arranged them in his station. "You all probably know that I'm autistic. That shouldn't be much of a problem, I hope. But I have a few quirks which I'd like you to respect. For instance, if you could just not touch anything in my station. I know it's silly, but it'll help me to concentrate and do a better job for you, and..."

And right on cue, Tony Stark, because he is a dick, because he had a traumatic childhood, had picked up a G-Shock which Rangeman had laid down in his station. "What's this -- Casio?" Tony asked, sneering at the inexpensiveness of the brand.

"Well, um," Rangeman said, "I've made a few modifications, but yes, it's a G-Shock..." and then Rangeman's voice trailed off, and he sighed and decided to just cut to the chase: he reached out, grabbed Tony by the larynx, and began to choke him just a little bit. "What's that, Tony?" he asked. "I can't make out what you're trying to say. Are you annoyed with me, because of the choking? Does it make you feel like I'm disrespecting your boundaries? Yeah, I can see how it might feel that way. Hey, imagine if you had specifically asked us all not to choke you, five seconds before I grabbed your larynx. That would've made it even worse, wouldn't it have? Are you getting my sarcasm, or have I already cut off too much blood flow to your brain?"

Tony let go of the G-Shock he had taken. Rangeman caught it in mid-air, set it back where it had been, and let go of Tony's throat. Tony gasped and bent over double as his face gradually returned to its normal color. Rangeman asked him, "Do you have a better sense of my boundaries now?' Tony coughed and nodded, nodded and coughed, and Rangeman shouted, "I HOPE SO!"

Once he had recovered his voice, Tony turned to the others and asked, "Were you going to step in at some point?"

"Why?" Captain America asked. "New Guy looked like he had the situation well in hand."

"Needed to be done." "I've been this close to choking you for months, Tony," others chimed in. Thor, Falcon and others. "Well done, New Guy!" "Wow, check out these guns! Oops, I'm sorry I didn't ask first."

"It's fine," Rangeman said, smiling, and even starting to laugh as the level of backslapping, muscle-squeezing, hair-tousling and general friendly rough-housing among big guys intensified. "It's obvious that you care and don't want to intentionally annoy me. And that alone makes a big difference."

"It DOES, doesn't ?!" "Did you catch that, Tony? Intentionally annoy other people less, get choked less!" "See how that works?" "I think New Guy's gonna be Employee of the Month!"

110's and 2100's

 My interest in G-Shocks was awoken earlier this year by pictures of the GM110RB:

I learned that the GM110 (M for their metal cases) series of G-Shocks had been released in 2020 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the similar GA110 series (with plastic cases), which as of a while ago were the all-time best-selling series of G-Shocks, and may still be.

I had at first assumed that the above-pictured GM110RB was a departure in the 110 series as far as its intensely colorful nature is concerned. My assumption was incorrect. Just do a google image search for ga110 colorful and you will find pictures of all sorts of very boldly colorful GA110's, such as this one:

If anything, compared to the boldest GA110's, the GM110RB may be toning it down a little.

And to me, this is all good news because I like bright colorful stuff.

For a while I worried that maybe either the GA110 line, the plastic ones made since the year 2010, or the GM110's, the metal ones which came out in the year 2020, might soon be discontinued. But it seems that both GA110's and GM110's will still be around, at least for a while. The GM110RB, unfortunately, is a limited edition, and several other GM110's have been limited editions, but the gold GM110 Eminem wore in the "Higher" video, and the original silver GM110 both seem to be in production. As are a bunch of GA110's. 

As to whether or not the GA110 is still the most popular G-Shock series, as I said above, I think it's possible. But I doubt it. All signs I can see indicate that the 2100 series is now the most popular sort of G-Shock. The 2100. The Casioak. I hate the Casioak. That's all I have to say about the Casioak right now. If you want to learn more about it, just google casioak, and you find many people who are more than willing to go on and on about it, with no end of pictures of the watch they love and I hate.

I'm worried that the Casiok, the 2100 series, might be so popular that it will completely replace the 110's, that the 110's will stop being made, but that's probably a fairly irrational worry. However, the worry that fewer new 110 models will be made, to give Casio more time and resources to feed the public's hunger for Casioaks in ever more variations and colors -- that seems to me to be a perfectly rational worry. It's already happening.

Casios and Coolness

There's this YouTube channel called The Mad Watch Collector, which I recommend very highly. A nice and very talented British bloke hosts it. He knows a lot about watches, and he throws in a lot of wacky humor. Top-notch.

Which doesn't mean that I always agree with him. Take the Casio A100WE,

a recent release which The Mad Watch Collector just reviewed. Because he knows his stuff and because his reviews are very thorough, he explained to me in his latest video that this is a $10 watch which Casio is selling for $40 and up, depending on the trim, because it looks very much like the F100, the watch Sigourney Weaver wore in Alien, which Casio discontinued long ago, and which, according to The Mad Watch Collector, is now worth several hundred British pounds to collectors.

The Mad Watch Collector is not the only one who loves Casios from the 70's and 80's -- obviously, or the original Ripley watch (Sigourney Weaver's character in Alien was named Ripley), the F100, would not be selling for hundreds of dollars or pounds if you can find one, and the different Casio she wore in Aliens would not be hugely popular, but it is. 

Okay, I understand, the wrist wants what it wants.  But I really don't understand. There's another $10 Casio watch, the F91W, which Casio released in 1989 and which they're still making, and which, unlike the A100WE, actually sells for around $10, does about as much as the A100WE, and has the buttons on the sides, because they work better there, which is why Casio have sold tons of F91W's. Not only is The Mad Watch collector perfectly happy to pay $40 and up for what he knows is a $10 watch, because it has the buttons in front just like the one Sigourney wore in Alien -- not only that, he actually calls the A100WE "The best Casio Release of 2021." That's the name of the You Tube video where he reviews it. 

The best Casio release of 2021? I mean, I ask rhetorically, has he ever actually seen a G-Shock? I ask rhetorically, because he probably knows more about G-Shocks than I do. G-Shocks can actually do all sorts of things, not to mention being almost literally as tough as nails, and besides all of that, some of therm are also very, very sparkly and pretty in a completely up-to-date way. 

Ah, but then, I'm pretty sure that the most popular type of G-Shock these days are the 2100 line, first released in 2019 and better known as Casioaks, because their 8-sides cases mimic the look of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, a Swiss watch introduced in the early 1970's which is still very popular, and which retails for around $20,000 and up -- WAY up. Many of the Casioaks can be had for under $100. And although they are G-Shocks, I have still not begun to understand their appeal. 

No, that's not stating it nearly strongly enough; I find the popularity of the 2100's to be downright bizarre. Why? Because a G-Shock, like a genuine Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, is a classic, a watch which has no need to copy any other watch, and which, in my humble opinion, ought to concentrate on being itself and letting others copy it, if they don't happen to have come up with their own stone classic. Casio should take the attitude that, if a movie star wants to wear one of their watches in a movie, it makes the movie cooler. The watch already had it. The watch never need any help in the cool department.

Well, I have to remind myself that I'm still just a little bit new to watches and watch culture.  But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong.

The G-Shock Perfect Bible

 I recently got a copy of the G-Shock 35th Anniversary Perfect Bible,

and I'm about as pleased with it as I can be. It's written in Japanese, which limits the amount of information I can extract from it. But this in turn gives me an incentive to learn, at last, to read Japanese.

The very thought of acquiring the ability to read Japanese makes me tired. But, to be honest, I'm 60 years old, and I'm tired a lot of the time, whether I'm thinking about language acquisition or not. So we'll see whether I pick up any of the lingo or not.

Speaking of lingo: naming a catalog of a company's watches "Perfect Bible" may be a bit shocking to some native English speakers. But I doubt that there was any intention to offend. This is a Japanese publication intended for Japanese readers, and "Perfect Bible" may well just be an example of tossing in some foreign-language phrases to sound cool. 

There are some lavishly-illustrated pages relating the history of G-Shock from 1983, when the first G-Shock was released, to late 2017, when this catalog was published. And there are some cool full-pages ads of models which were new, or upcoming, when this catalog was new. But the main attraction of this volume are thumbnail photos of every G-Shock ever released from 1983 to mid-2017, [PS, March 2022: No, I was wrong, this catalog does not show them all. It shows 2500, which is certainly a lot, but not all of them.]  with some information about each one which I can't read because it's in Japanese, and the module number and price in yen, which I can read. 

Something I haven't been able to decipher yet is whether the catalog indicates if a particular model has been discontinued. I know that many of them have and many haven't. I suspect that this catalog may be able to tell me which ones were still on sale in in 2017, but only if my reading proficiency in Japanese improves.

Still, the very first glance at these pages of thumbnails told me a lot, just by the colors of the individual models, of which, as the front page informs you, this catalog shows over 2500.

And at this point, at the very latest, I should explain what I mean by "model."

I could use different terms, but I'm choosing to say "model" to describe each of the thousands of watches in those little thumbnail photos. There is a different photo, and a different model designation, every time there is any sort of change in function, or material, or in the buttons you push to operate a G-Shock, or even the slightest variation in color. 

I could have used the term "model" to indicate all the watches which are greatly similar, and "variation" to indicate the more minor changes, but people generally say "model" to indicate any of these small changes, so I'll follow convention. For a group of models which are similar except for color, band type etc, I will say "series." 

To put it another way: I will say "series" to indicate a group of watches which Casio has given the same start of a designation, such as GA-110. And I will say "model" to distinguish, for example, the bright orange GA-110A-4JF, which, in 2010, was one of the first of the GA-110 series to be released, from the GA-110B-3JF, released around the same time, which is lime green.

This is not the only valid way of describing these differences, but it's the one which I have decided to use.

On the subject of color: for a long time I thought that G-Shocks were mainly black, and mainly worn by military personnel, police, and people who had seen Keanu Reeves Jason Statham wearing one in a movie. 

And, concerning the color of the watches at the very least, there was a time when I would have been right. This can been very easily seen by looking at page 52 of this catalog: every G-Shock offered from 1983 through 1990 was black. Then, from 1991 through 1994, and almost to the bottom of page, the great majority of models are still black, but there are a few available in other dark, inconspicuous colors, some in very bright yellow, and a couple more very colorful models. And after that, as you turn the pages, things get very, very colorful indeed. Black remains more prevalent than any other single color, but there are entire pages, with up to 35 thumbnails on a page, with no black models at all. And I've learned that a lot of G-Shocks, colorful ones, are sold to the "youth culture."

The GA-110, which I mentioned above, generally comes in bright, bright colors. In 2020, Casio announced that the GA-110 had sold more than any other G-Shock series. 

So, are there more black G-Shocks in the world now, of the far more than 100 million units which have been sold, or colorful G-Shocks? What's doing more business, black military style or bright, colorful youth culture style? I don't know, and I don't know whether this catalog could tell me, no matter how well I could read Japanese. The number of models does not necessarily indicate the number of units. For example, say that a company offered one black model of watch and ten colorful models, and they sold 100 of the black model, mostly to military buyers, and and average of 3 of each of the colorful ones. That would come to 100 black watches and 30 colorful ones. 

The GA-110 was the leading model in sales in 2020, but that doesn't mean that black, military style G-shock weren't close behind at #2 through 10.

And black G-Shocks are definitely not going away. One striking example is on the cover of the 35th Anniversary Perfect Bible. Take a look at the photo up at the beginning of this post: the watch which is higher in the photo is a DW-5000C-1A, the very first G-Shock released in 1983. The one on the bottom is the GW-M5610-1JF, which was probably not yet for sale when this photograph was taken. They look very much the same, although the newer watch can do all sorts of things which no watch could do in 1983, such as synchronize its time via radio waves with an atomic clock thousands of miles away.

Nostalgia vs the New

I'm very skeptical of nostalgia, but I'm not completely unsusceptible to it. I imagine myself riding motorcycles that kick-start only, no push-button starting, with drum brakes and spoke wheels. I think about telephones hard-wired to land lines, libraries with no computers, only card catalogs, where due dates were stamped in ink with devices which first were pressed into inkpads. I don't remember nails coming to hardware stores in little wooden kegs, but I remember people who didn't realize that nails no longer shipped that way, and I really wish I'd seen some of those nail kegs.

But I don't want to be deprived of all of the improvements in technology which have been made over the past several decades, and I think that people who believe they are whole-heartedly nostalgic are not thinking it through, because they also do not want to give up those advances either.

Take mechanical watches: most of them are designed to look very similar to watches made between 1940 and 1970. But the new watches require maintenance much less frequently, run much longer on a single winding, are far less likely to be damaged when dropped, and these and other improvements are the result of recent technology. There's even a very popular recent innovation which completely changes its appearance when you take it off and turn it around: the  glass exhibition caseback which allows you to see the mechanical movement which reminds you of earlier times, but which engineers and craftspeople at the watch companies have been relentlessly modernizing and improving. Buyers of mechanical watches exhibit strong nostalgia tendencies, but only in very rare cases are they actually interested in buying old watches.

And then there are quartz watches. Many of them are also designed to resemble watches made half a century ago. And then there are ones like this:

Not only do they resemble few if any watches made before 1980 -- there were few if any objects of any kind which looked anything like that back then. Maybe in Vivienne Westwood's workshop. This is the opposite of nostalgic, this is wholeheartedly new. 

Like I said, I feel nostalgia sometimes, and I can appreciate objects which remind me of the mid-20th century, especially if they come with up-to-the-minute quality and durability and other virtues which didn't exist back when. 

But I think I like wholeheartedly new stuff better. Things which are not only up-to-the-minute in terms of how they work, but also in how they look. If it makes people think I'm having a mid-life crisis, I don't care. Do they realize I'm looking at them too and thinking this and that? Don't worry, I'm not thinking mean things.

A Couple of New G-Shocks

Originally, these were offered for sale only in China, and each watch came with one or more of these bears.

Casio refers to these watches as the Shanghai Night series. They are limited editions. The upper one in the picture with the more rectangular, digital-only display, is the GM5600SN-1, and the lower one in the picture, with analog hour and minute hands in addition to digital screens, is the GM110SN-2A. 

I have not yet been able to find out what Shanghai Night refers to. For all I know it could simply refer to the city of Shanghai, at night. Or perhaps "Shanghai Night" is a Chinese or Japanese or Chinese-Japanese animated TV series starring bears who look like the metallic doll in the picture. Or maybe something else. I'm just guessing. 

I'm writing this blog post today because, somehow, I didn't realize until yesterday, that the GM5600SN-1 has that rainbow IP coating on its case, the kind which I've thus far only seen on a handful of G-shocks, and now also these little metallic bears, and which really triggers me in a very positive way, and not just me, apparently. Yesterday I noticed that Casio had put the GM5600SN-1 on sale in the US. The watch only, sold in the US without a bear. Suggested retail price $260. Still available from authorized dealers at retail, it seems. I saw a commercial for it on YouTube. A young man was wearing one in a nighttime urban landscape which, I assume, was Shanghai. Wait -- it's a woman, not a man. Wait... I don't know whether it's a woman or a man. It's a very androgynous young person wearing a very handsome watch coated with rainbow IP.

The GM110SN-2A, the rounder one with the hour and minute hands, although it has an extremely colorful dial, does not, as far as I can see, have any rainbow IP. The case is has a bright blue IP, but it's not rainbow, with one color bleeding into the next. And it's still only offered in China. Which is to say, it's only offered by authorized dealers in China. I've seen one on sale on ebay for around $1000. In terms of functionality, it's the same GM110 that Producer Michael bought last autumn, the one which made him and me, and many others who saw his video, interested in G-Shocks.

I don't understand anything about the technical challenges involved in applying the rainbow IP to a metal surface. It could be that it's extremely difficult to do, and maybe that's why I've only seen it on limited edition G-Shocks, apart from a very small amount of rainbow IP applied to one part of the dial of the GM110-B, which, although not officially a limited edition, seems to have been sold out for a while now. I would love to see Casio put rainbow IP on mass-produced G-Shocks, millions of them, but, whether for technical reasons or marketing reasons or some other reasons, it doesn't appear that that will happen soon.

To those already familiar with the G-Shock brand, the interest of both of these new models is a matter of styling. In terms of function, they are both ordinary mid-level G-Shocks.

To those unfamiliar with the G-Shock brand, it may be surprising to learn that ordinary mid-level G-shocks, in addition to being extremely accurate, dependable and tough, also include world time, stopwatch, countdown timer, alarm, chiming and backlight functions, all with a very great deal of customization available to those willing to study the thick G-Shock owner's manuals.

It's a Great Big G-Shock World

Someone who reviews various brands of watches including Casio mentioned, in a recent review of a G-Shock, a change which had been made in the watch. He said that he had urged this change in an earlier review. And he concluded that Casio were paying attention to his reviews and that this change in the watch was because of him. 

 

This is one of many people who review G-Shocks as a full- or part-time job, part-time in his case. How many people? I have no idea, but it seems the number must be pretty huge. There are those like this fellow, who write blogs or present vlogs about watches, including G-Shocks and others. Some review G-Shocks and other electronic devices. Some are runners and review the G-Shocks made for runners. Some are divers and review the G-Shocks made for divers. Some are hikers, some are hunters, some write columns for men's magazines, etc, etc. 

But even if we exclude all of the above and concentrate only on those who concentrate entirely on G-Shocks, and only those who do it full-time and have much larger audiences than this guy, there are so many blogs and vlogs that I couldn't begin to even skim all of the new posts from all of them. 

And that's counting only the reviews in English. And without having gone the slightest bit out of my way to find non-English blog and vlog posts about G-Shocks, in just 3 months' time, the Great Algorithm has shown me posts in Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Thai and Spanish. 

And looking at things from Casio's point of view, I see no reason to assume that the English-speaking market is the most important one to them.  It might be number 3, after Japanese and Chinese. And besides the significant languages of Casio's exports already named, let us not forget Hindi, Arabic, Russian and Portugese in markets which must be pretty huge. Before we get to who knows how many smaller markets. (Not me, is who. I tried hard to find out. This time I failed. Sorry. But surely a lot.)

And the fascination of G-Shocks, which would lead quite naturally to the impulse to blog or vlog about them, does seem to be quite universal. 

My points? That it seems to me that the reviewer mentioned above has no way of knowing that he was the only one who thought of this particular improvement; that, given that probably more than 10 million G-Shocks are sold per year and given the high degree of involvement on the part of G-Shock owners, it seems unlikely that no-one would've independently had the same idea; and that Casio could've gotten the idea from all sorts of sources other than this reviewer. 

In fact, Casio might not have gotten the idea from ANY blogger or vlogger. They do have employees working on things such as improvements to existing products. Presumably as least some of those employees do things other than reading blogs and watching vlogs, hoping to come across good suggestions.

In short, I think this guy is being silly. If I happened to know him personally, and he said in my presence that Casio were reading his blog and taking design suggestions from him, I would quickly excuse myself and run away as fast as I could, hoping to be out of earshot before bursting into laughter. Because I don't want to be mean. 

If I did want to be mean, I would still run away, and not come back until I had calmed down, and then gesture for the guy to step aside with me, and mutter into his ear, "What you're doing here, coming up with improvements which Casio puts into place on G-Shocks? That's a job description. You're a design consultant. Do you have any idea how much money Casio makes with G-Shocks? And they're using you as an unpaid design consultant? It's not right, buddy. They should be paying you a salary. It's only right, what with you being a significant cog in the machine now. What I would do is, I would contact Casio -- no. I would hire an attorney and have him get in touch with Casio, and demand that you get a fair slice. It's only right."

It's a good thing I'm not mean. 

Rainbow IP G-Shocks

I've written many posts on this blog about watches, and up until now I've always insisted that watches have not served any practical purpose for several decades now, because other devices take care of all of the things we used to need watches for. Watches have become art, according to Oscar Wilde's definition:

"All art is quite useless."

But then, back in March, I started to learn about G-Shocks, the very popular line of quartz watches made by the Japanese corporation Casio. G-Shocks can do so many things that I've started to wonder whether they can realistically be regarded as mere beautiful and useless works of art. 

Ironically, what first aroused my interest in G-shocks was seeing photos and video of a limited edition watch, the GM-110RB-2A, also known as the "Rainbow,"

which is definitely intended to be understood as a thing of exceptional beauty, among other things. 

But besides being beautiful, it is also a GM-110 G-Shock, which means that it has a wide range of functions including world time, several alarms, several timers, several stopwatches and a push-button background light. 

"Rainbow" refers to the way that the IP, the ion plating, on the cover and bezel of the watch blends from one color into another. There are two other limited edition G-Shocks which, like the GM-110RB-1A, were released in 2020, feature rainbow IP very prominently, and which I consider to be especially beautiful: the GWF-A1000BRT-1A, also known as the "Borneo Rainbow Toad,"

and the MTG-B1000VL-4A,

 

also known as the "Volcanic Lightning."

The GWF-A1000BRT-1A was made in recognition of the Borneo rainbow toad, a species which had been believed to have gone extinct a century ago, until it was recently found to be still alive. The colors and patterns imitate the colors and bumps found on the toad. The "Volcanic Lighning" is meant to convey some of the intensity of thinderstorms caused by volcanos. The distinctive translucent red strap imitates the appearance of molten lava. 

The "Rainbow" actually belongs to one of the simpler and lower-priced versions of the G-Shock. The "Borneo Rainbow Toad" and the "Volcanic Lightning" are high-end models, and in addition to all of the functions mentioned above which the "Rainbow" can perform, each also feature solar charging, atomic time, Bluetooth, and a long list of other functions which I won't pretend I understand yet. The "Rainbow" was released with an MSRP of $280, and the "Borneo Rainbow Toad" and the "Volcanic Lightning" each had an MSRP of $1,100, which put them among the very highest-priced G-Shocks. 

Today, those MSRP's are primarily of historical interest, as all three watches are on sale at much higher prices. The "Rainbow" doesn't seem to be available from well-known, reputable dealers at all anymore. I wonder whether this might be because the well-known dealers have waiting lists of close friends and good customers who have already agreed on a purchase price if and when the dealer acquires a "Rainbow." That would explain why we in the general public never see it on sale from those dealers. 

So: what got me interested in G-Shocks was beauty. I love the way these limited editions look, with the rainbow IP and the other bold colors. 

But once I got interested in G-Shocks, I began to learn about all of the practical things they can do: in addition to everything listed above, various models can also measure how many steps you take, your heart rate and blood pressure, the atmospheric temperature and barometric pressure and altitude, your depth underwater, the tides, and many, many other things. 

And the more I study G-Shocks, the more I appreciate that not only special limited editions like these ones are beautiful. It's clear that Casio concentrates very hard on aesthetics right alongside function. 

So my previous notions about the uselessness of watches are being challenged, at least in the case of a few very highly-functional watches like these, and their somewhat less-colorful siblings, the non-limited-edition G-Shocks. 

The $2,000 dollars which you might have to pay today for a "Borneo Rainbow Toad" or a "Volcanic Lightning" is less than the cost of ANY new watch from many of the luxury brands. $2,000 seems like a lot compared to the $50 and less you'd pay for some other G-Shocks. But it's less than the cost of any new Rolex or Omega. Something to think about. Some G-Shock fans regard a 4-figure MSRP as just shocking and wrong, let alone paying above MSRP for a limited edition. 

Another thing which is discussed is whether special edition G-Shocks like these should be worn in everyday life and exposed to being scratched and smudged and the other things which everyday life does. I feel very strongly about this: I think it is very sad when beautiful things like this are locked away and never enjoyed, for fear of scratches and dust and so forth. Others seem to feel just as strongly that it's a shame when a collector's item is scratched because its owner didn't treat it like a museum piece. 

I'm open to discussion. My mind changes sometimes. Look at me right now, writing about quartz watches. That represents a huge change in my mind. Three months ago I didn't really know about G-Shocks and didn't care.

CNBC and Fossil Watches

A recent CNBC piece looked at the recent struggles of the watch brand Fossil. They skyrocketed to success in the 1980's with cheap disposable watches disguised as quality products, and in the last few years their revenues and stock prices have been plummeting.

Fossil watches (and the other watch brands Fossil manufactures such as MVMT and Michael Kors) are crap -- disposable crap made for a couple of dollars per piece and sold for $50 and up. That MIGHT be relevant to their recent struggles. 

 

Maybe Timex, championed in this ridiculous CNBC segment as a return of affordable quality, can be considered something other than garbage, but only when compared to something like Fossil, or like the mechanical watches Timex made up until 1981. In the whole piece, there was no mention of:

-- Seiko mechanical watches. CNBC mentioned that Seiko introduced quartz watches in the 1960's, but not that they are known, from before the 1960's to the present day, for offering good value for mechanical watches.

-- The many small independent brands who are competing for the low-priced end of Seiko's market share ($50 to $200 or so), as Seiko prices go a bit upscale.

 

 

-- G-Shock, quartz watches made by the Japanese corporation Casio. Most G-Shocks cost under $100, a few really fancy ones cost low four figures. 

 

The CNBC piece attributed much of Fossil's trouble to the Apple watch. There have been over 100 million Apple watches sold. There have also been over 100 million G-Shocks sold. True, G-Shock has had longer to do it, they started in 1983, but they're a force in this market.

What Seiko, many smaller brands looking to take over for Seiko in the market for inexpensive ($50-$200) mechanicals, and G-Shock all have in common is that they offer QUALITY products, and good VALUE for the money.

But you know what? I don't watch a lot of CNBC. I'm criticizing them for running a story about the watch industry without knowing much about watches, but maybe I'm the one who's being naive here, when I insinuate that things like quality products and reasonable prices are relevant in the financial news.

gshock highfashion on YouTube

There are many channels devoted to wristwatches on YouTube. A popular form of video on these channels is the unboxing video. That's where the host of the channel, with a POV camera on his head or pointed over his shoulder, takes a package which has arrived in the mail, and removes a watch from it. 

Sounds dull? Oh man, you have no idea. I'm fascinated by watches, obsessed with them, and even I started to find this sort of thing unbearably dull after 2 or 3 times. I know what a USPS or UPS or Amazon package looks like. I know what the box that holds the watch inside the mailing package looks like. I actually tuned in to get a look at the watch, maybe even hear a description of it. But in an unboxing video, it might take the guy 5 minutes or so to get to the watch.How could it possibly take 5 minutes? you're wondering. The answer is: some people aren't just very dull, they're also very slow. 

But the host of gshock highfashion is so interesting, he can even make an unboxing interesting. Partly because he intercuts the unboxing with video of  watches and other things. Partly because his excitement is audible and contagious -- this guy is really, really into G-Shocks -- but also because he's very knowledgeable. Now, obviously, a lot of guys -- mostly guys -- are fascinated by the boxes that watches come in, or these unboxing videos wouldn't be a thing. But not everyone is good at communicating the excitement they feel. As far as knowledge goes: in one video he points to the logo on the G-Shock box, names the man who designed the logo and has interesting things to say about that man's life.  On this channel, believe it or not, I watched a dozen unboxing videos before I started to find them dull. And luckily, this channel is not ALL unboxing videos.

So what's the name of this interesting, knowledgeable YouTube host? I don't know, he doesn't say. I don't know what his face looks like either, he never shows it. His forearms are thin and wiry. There's always a G-Shock on his left wrist. Sometimes he wears G-Shocks on both wrists. That's about as well as I can visually ID him.

One of the few things he says about himself is that he repairs and services watches for a living. That's very easy to believe, because in many of his videos he's taking G-Shocks apart and putting them back together, looking and talking like a guy who knows what he's doing. I also get the impression that he is originally from Japan and now lives outside of Japan.

Now, as far as why the channel is called gshock highfashion, I'm not sure. The G-Shock part is easy enough: almost every video is entirely about G-Shocks. The few exceptions have to do with other Casio products: other watches by Casio, and a Casio alarm clock and a Casio Wall clock. But for the most part, this guy is all about the G-Shocks. 

 

Now, about the high fashion part. Maybe high fashion has different connotations in Japan than in other parts of the world. To me, high fashion, haute couture, suggests very exclusive products, very expensive, often with only one of each type ever made. G-Shocks are made in huge quantities, and they're very affordable. The most expensive G-Shock costs less than the least expensive Rolex, and the average G-Shock costs about 1/100th as much as the average Rolex. A G-Shock will run you somewhere between $40 and $3,000. As far as availability is concerned, even the "exclusive" limited edition G-Shock models are made in quantities of hundreds or thousands each. And the host of gshock highfashion will complain if he thinks that Casio has priced an item too high. Even if we're talking about an MSRP of $100 which he thinks should have been more like $80 or so. 

The fashion part of the channel's name makes sense. In addition to being able to fix G-Shocks, this guy knows a lot about their appearance, and the technical aspects of how the appearance is achieved, and he talks very intelligently about aesthetics and fashion and design, as for example in the discussion of a logo on a box described above.

Maybe the name of the channel is meant ironically, because the host likes G-Shocks, among other reasons, because they are NOT exclusive or expensive.

The channel has gotten better over time. In particular, the host's delivery, in videos released in 2020 and 2021, is much more relaxed, and therefore much more relaxing. Did he consult a vocal coach? Whatever caused the change, it came suddenly and made a huge difference.

And as if all of this wasn't already wonderful enough, the host also has a cute little kitty who sometimes wanders into the frame and does cute kitty stuff. The biggest disagreement I have with the host is that he prefers an all-black color scheme on watches more than than I do. I like the colorful, sparkly G-Shocks more than he seems to. But that's just a matter of a couple of numbers or letters in a watch's model designation.

So. Watch this channel, even if you don't care about watches, because this guy appears to be a good guy and a genius who should be famous and powerful so that he can have a greater positive influence on the world. You'll probably find it interesting, even if you don't care about watches.

G-Shock

I was annoyed yesterday when I noticed that my G-Shock was running almost a minute fast -- until I remembered that it hadn't been set since early May 2020. 1 minute fast over 10 1/2 months comes out to less than 6 seconds fast per month. Not too shabby. The official specification is within plus to minus 15 seconds a month.

My G-Shock DW9052-1ccg looks like this:

I think the -1ccg suffix refers to it being all-butch black. But I'm not completely sure about that. There are a huge number of G-Shock models, and I'm still new at this. In any case, a DW9052 is a G-Shock which has that same basic configuration, and DW9052's come in a lot of different colors, as well as black with many different colors of accents, besides all-butch black. 

Casio, as far as I know, does not refer to this color scheme as "all-butch black." I made that phrase up to make fun of myself and a lot of other people. 

Besides keeping track of hours, minutes and seconds (in your choice of 12-hour AM/PM or the all-butch 24-hour format which I naturally prefer), day of the week, month and day and year (on a separate screen because there's only so much room and you probably know what year it is), my DW9052 features

-- an alarm, and a chime which sounds every hour on the hour, which I finally figured out how to to turn off yesterday. There are watch aficionados who prize alarms and hourly, or even minutely chimes very highly, and pay huge amounts for mechanical watches which sound them. The charm is so far lost on me. But, mind open must be amen.

-- Countdown timer; input range: 1 minute to 24 hours; measuring unit: 1 second; auto-repeat function,
1/100 second stopwatch; measuring capacity: 23:59'59.99"; measuring unit: 1/100 second (for the first 60 minutes). No, I do not understand what all of that is. I do know that it's a pretty fancy timer and stopwatch.

-- Everything on the dial lights up into nice bright lume when you push the big button marked "G."

Casio has sold over 100 million G-Shocks since 1983. They say that its designer, when a small boy, was given a watch by his father, which he cherished until one day he dropped it, it shattered into many pieces, and he vowed to devote his life to designing a watch which was indestructible. This story strikes me as being very -- Japanese. Perhaps it is also perfectly true, how would I know. 

I still don't know for sure what sort of battery my G-Shock will eventually need. I could screw off the back and look and see, but I'm not going to do that. Not today.

The thing which makes G-Shocks G-Shocks is toughness. They have been hit with hockey sticks like hockey pucks, thrown off of the tops of tall building onto concrete sidewalks, intentionally run over by huge trucks, and come out undamaged. There may be tougher watches than G-Shocks, but I sort of doubt it. In any case, their toughness is legendary.

From the basic all-butch black plastic-and-rubber battery-powered models with their digital readouts, G-Shocks have expanded into a variety of colors and functions, many with analog displays instead of or in addition to digital, some powered by light or radio waves instead of or in addition to batteries. Some are now smartwatches. Some are covered by metal instead of plastic and rubber -- sacrificing some durability, I would imagine. They run from around $40 to four figures, maybe higher in some rare cases.

I  honestly never wanted any of them besides my all-butch black DW9052-1ccg until the day before yesterday. I was set. I was perfectly content in the G-Shock department. 

And then I saw the GM-110RB-2A (Also known as The Rainbow) in a video:

-- O sweet Richard Mille! 

But apparently 500 people felt similarly before I did and it was a limited edition of 500 and it sold out very quickly, months before I knew it existed. I'm trying to make myself want it less by telling myself the truth: that those gold-colored parts on the sides are metal, not shock-resisting rubber, as I had assumed when first seeing it in the video. That's helping a little bit. Transluscent gold rubber would've been even better. And more durable, as one braved the deepest techno raves of California. Tell me I'm wrong. 

Look how beautiful. MSRP $280. All gone. And now I'll be searching the newest G-Shock releases and reading the G-Shock news. Waiting for them to do it again.