#19 Getting on stage with the Stage Tomato.

Last week we had performances of our school's theater play. Our school has a reputation at the theater (the theater manager even "demanded" we should do a new show in 2 years). With 171 volunteers, you could say it was a big production.
I was a bit afraid I could not do a 50 Gs article, but a few hours before Thursday's show, I tried to make some photo's backstage an on stage.
Of course some members of my decor group interfered several times, as they were curious and of course pulling some jokes (one resulted in a surprisingly "Ghost of the Theater" photo).
Of course I had a model in mind, the DW-003TL-4VT, in Germany better known as the "Stage Tomato". The watch is also released in Japan under model number DW-003H-4T as part of the "Clubber Version" series （クラブバージョン）.
I always found the name very funny. Like the orange "Red and Bad" (GLX-100-4) you might think the person who makes up those names has color-blindness. I'm love tomatoes, but all tomato species I know are red.
I got my first "Stage Tomato" early in my collection. You could buy it pretty easy around 2001 - 2003. This model must have been sold in large numbers in Germany and probably also worldwide. You could find these models for nice prices everywhere for a long time.
On of the most famous owners of this model is the charismatic Scottish singer Shirley Manson from Garbage. Talking about Shirley Manson, why do they call people with orange hair red heads? Maybe I have some kind of color deviation.
Since the DW-003TL is an overseas model, I have to guess a release date. I think it was in Europe part of the fall/winter collection 1997. In Japan this model was released in July 1997.
The DW-003TL did come in five color schemes, blue, yellow/dark-blue, black/gray, white/gray and orange/black. From the last three variations there was both a normal and an inversed display model.
The DW-003TL is part of the "Tough Label" series. Japan would not be Japan if this series had a different name there, so you might find Tough Label models there under the name G'Mix series, but this model was in Japan released also in the Tough Label range.
Tough Label is the G-Shock sub-series dedicated to music. Often these models are dedicated to hip hop or reggae music. The DW-003TL was designed for the clubbing generation.
The watchband is a pretty thick double Velcro type. The under part is elastic for more comfort on the wrist. The nylon upper part of the strap closes with a click buckle which secures the Velcro under part. On the upper part there is a patch with the series name. The background defracts light into all kind of colors. Probably an engraved grid gives this effect, like with a grid monochromator or the bottom side of a Compact Disk.Inside this watch you'll find the 1661 (inversed display) or a 1662 (normal display) module. The reversed display models have digits that turn from beautiful deep green to amber yellow digits when exposed to light under different angles. The normal display models have a two-tone display.
While you won't see a reference to music at first glimpse, these modules have a hidden feature. If you press and hold the top right button (split-reset) for about 2 seconds, the top display, which normally shows the day turns into an animated graphic spectrum analyzer. It's of course not a real spectrum analyzer, but a graphic animation of the seconds. It's maybe a very useless function, but it's really great to watch!
When scrolling through the functions, you'll notice this is a very complete watch. It has an alarm function with one alarm and a hourly chime.There is a Telememo function for 30 sets of names and telephone numbers. Note that mobile phones were not everywhere used as now. I love it that my iPhone can store all kinds of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and much more attached to one name...
The Dual Time is a pretty odd type. Instead you can set Dual Time with increments of 30 minutes from the main time, the secondary time complete independent from the main time. They only share the seconds.
Normally you'll find on an older G-Sock model with Telememo and Dual Time no other features, but this watch also feature a Stopwatch and a 24 hour Countdown Timer. You might say for it's time, it was a very complete watch.