Intermezzo 78: Deep in the Nut Bush.

Nope, not about Tina Turner. I stumbled upon a video for a song by Faberyayo and Tom Trago which I pretty much like to share with you. "Who?" I can hear you think. Faberyayo forms with Piet Parra and Rimer London the project "Le Le, which in French precisely pronounces as "Lulle" in Dutch, which is street language for just talking. Faberyayo is quite a gifted writer (I pretty much like his lyrics and style). This video is from an EP with Tom Trago and was made by Saša Ostoja & Jan Jesse Bakker. Although the animals are typical for the work of Saša Ostoja, you might also recognize the typical color scheme's of Piet Parra. It's a pity most of my readers can't understand the text, which is full of lyrical magic, immediately loosing it's magic when translated. If you can't understand, just enjoy the ride through the deepest parts of the Nut Bush. The whole Mix Tape can be downloaded here.

Intermezzo #74: Prelude for 2015.

It's been a year ago I posted my last G-Shock article. I had the idea for a sabbatical year for a long time. For moments in 2013 it was pretty hard to make new 50 Gs articles. Simply because I was running out of Gs. I might have collected over 600 (now nearly 700) G-Shocks in the past 14 years, there are quite some doubles, specially from special models.

Also, writing a good article takes research and time. An average article takes me about 10 hours of writing, editing, taking photos, editing photo's, etc, etc. and that while I have a full 40 hours job, that changed from a pretty relaxing job 10 years ago (on a school with 700 students) to somewhat hectic and very busy now (now nearly 1500 students).

I pretty much enjoyed my Sabbatical year. I didn't had to buy G-Shock models just for my 50 Gs weblog. I only bought about 20 Gs this year. That's about half I usually do. On the other hand, it's getting harder to get nice Gs for a fair price. There are many collectors with deep pockets, who buy up whole stock and sell them for double the price or more. I tried to stay away from this practice as far as I could, but this year I even had to buy watches for inflated prices. Lately I had to buy a "Giveaway" G-Shock, where 1000(!) of them were given away during an event, for $300,-. This watch would be worth $150 max 5 years ago and frankly, I think for such a model, it should be the market price. Living in Europe makes it nowadays near impossible to get the great models. I was pretty sad I couldn't get the hot looking Bape x Coca-Cola model, as it has 2 of my favorite themes on it: Bape and red.

With more free time I enjoyed other things. In February I met a guy at a LEGO exposition who designed a BR 103 TEE locomotive. As a child I always loved the TEE trains and specially the BR 103 series locs and wagons. I bought his building instructions and in about two months I collected all the parts over whole Europe. The best part of the design is that the loc is 8 studs wide, instead of 6, which LEGO usually uses. This gives the train a more natural look. The guy told me it would cost me about €125 - €150 to get all LEGO parts. I can assure you, you may double that. Specially on shipping costs on rare bricks. After I finished the locomotive, I started designing wagons myself. My idea was that a good looking train would have at least 4 wagons. A usual TEE train with a BR 103 loc has probably st leadt 10 wagons. Also here I stumbled upon high costs. By buying from many different sellers, the shipping costs just kept adding up. Until now, 9 months later, I only finished 2 plain wagons. I'm still intended to make a different passenger wagon and a restaurant wagon. Theses wagons look pretty plain, bit there are at least €100 in bricks. With only two finished wagons and two to go, this will be a slow, ongoing project beside my Gs.

With more free time, I had also more time to ride my bicycle. And I took that time. While in the past years I had to be happy to ride 600 to 700 kilometers, I rode about double this year and enjoyed it to the max. We bought another car, and I bought a bicycle carrier. This gave me more freedom to ride everywhere I like. Still I enjoy exploring the islands here around and I find new roads and tracks almost every ride.

I have planned a little ahead. Before 2015 started I have finished roughly writing 8 articles yet and 3 or 4 are ready to publish. I also get help from my good friend Christofono, who will try to write 12 articles. A bit of a relief, only 38 articles on my shoulder. As I plan to visit Japan, this time with my son Bram, again end 2016, I also try to limit my G-Shock buying as much as possible. This also means 2016 will be an obligatory sabbatical. Traveling to Japan for two will be very expensive. Though I look forward to meet my Japanese watch collector friends in Tokyo and Kyoto again.

Well, this was about what I wanted to write in this prologue for the next series of 50 Gs, but maybe you like the expansion of our LEGO Winter Village collection. I made several building movies, so here they are for your amusement. Check them out below:

Cheers to a new year of 50 Gs G-Shock articles. I hope you look as much forward to it as I do. Let's hope we will finish December 2015 again with a set of beautiful articles. I have heard a bit about what's coming up this year and I look forward to some great released. I hereby want to wish my readers a good G-Shocking New Year with lots of joy, new G-Shocks and a good health. Happy New Year!

Intermezzo #70: Winter Gold. Anyone know what day it is today???

The dark cold days of December between Saint Nicolas and Christmas have begun. It's very stormy here in The Netherlands and relative cold. The sun sets early. It starts already getting dark around 16:30 and I'm pretty happy I don't live in Scandinavia, where the days are even much shorter now. 

I see something shining on a pile of wood at the back of our house. It was very dark so even my camera was having difficulties to see what it was…

I know what this is. It's Winter Gold. Pure Winter Gold. When my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw the faint yellow resin. 

It kept following me, when I was walking through our garden…

"Hey, haven't I seen your face before?"

Featuring: G-001CB-9DR of the "Winter Gold" series and Jason's ice hockey mask. 

Intermezzo #61: Happy new Year!

First of all, to all the readers of 50 Gs, a Happy New Year. I have done an inventarisation in my collection and, including a few incoming Gs and a little luck I still have about 40 - 50 G-Shocks left to do an article.

Unfortunately I have an odd issue with the Dutch taxes. Although I should get (monthly) refund, I somehow don’t get it anymore. We have a new government, who assured the Dutch people the low and lower middle incomes would not be affected or get a little improvement, but to me a net loss of €2000 on year base, I don’t really can call that an improvement. With all costs of insurance going higher, etc, I miss about half the budget that I usually spend on new G-Shocks. For me a big bummer, as I planned to get the Be@rbrick and DGK model, but I’m afraid I already have pass these. I'm pretty lucky to have some friends and retail shops (look in the menu, where I often buy my G-Shocks) that offer me G-Shocks for sharp prices. Thanks guy, you know who you are!

Well, enough rant, I’ll guess. I’m not sure what to do next year. I am pretty sure I can’t write 50 articles featuring models that haven’t been on on 50 Gs. Also I would love a sabbatical year too. Maybe I’ll ask my readers at the end of the year to post me their favorite top 3 articles on 50 Gs, and I will do one year of “50 Gs Classics”. There must be a top 50 to make out of about 250 - 300 articles. It's just an idea, let me know what you think.

Intermezzo #52: Tees and Trains

I was visiting an event of historic trains called "Sporen naar het Verleden" ("Tracks to the Past") a week ago. As long as I can remember I love trains and riding in them. Above you can see me posing before the "Red Devil". Actually my friend and huge G-Shock collector Yamazaru-san from Kyoto is also a train lover. I had made a movie of this event and showed it my friend DougFNJ (expect a new article from him here soon) he told me I should post it here on 50 Gs. Well, not sure why. You probably only see Bram his blue metallic DW-6900. Well, if you like trains, here some footage of the event. Sorry about the predictable music...

If you are mad about (historic) trains too, check out my posts on my Japanese weblog (with English translation): 

Tracks to the past 2012: prt 1

Tracks to the past 2012: prt 2

Tracks to the past 2012: prt 3

Tracks to the past 2012: prt 4

My friends at Kiks TYO and Sneaker Freaker are releasing a collaboration Tee. Kiks TYO uses a full print on the back for the first time. It's a must have for the real Sneaker Freaks. Did you ever read the Sneaker Freaker interview with me?

Also returned are the Summer Lucky Packs. You can choose between a ¥5000 and a ¥10000 Lucky Pack. I am a big fan of those lucky packs, simply because you never know what you get. I have bought several Lucky Packs in the past and was always pretty satisfied of the content.

Did you check your soles? Kiks Tyo now has a Tee inspired by the sole (soul?) of the AJX Jordan. I have no idea which sneaker this is, but the result is cool! Between the lines you find timeline facts of Michael Jordan. Pretty cool detail.

Well, back to the keyboard. Need to write the next G-Shock article for Sunday.

Intermezzo #32: "Whazzup!

Another intermezzo?

- Yes.

Why?

-Writers block, I think. I have been staring at computer screens for hours the past few days.

Ah, you only have to write another 48 articles for this year.

-well, I hope a little less. I found a volunteer guest writer who can help me out every now and then.

So, What's keeping you busy these days?

-I found a great CD about a month ago. I forgot it for a while, but the last days I have been playing this on my iPod at the laboratory. Everybody seems to like it. It's 4x4=12 by Deadmau5. Check out "Animal Rights"! (don't forget to pump up your speakers).

Ah, nice tune! Anything else?

-Yep, I got a great "Lucky Package" from KIKS TYO earlier this week. It's the ¥10000 package and it was filled with a lot of goodies. Have a look:

-A cool Batman Hoody.

-A very nice and warm pair of elephant padding jogging trousers.

-And 4 cool shirts!

-I had seen these Sneaker Pimps tour shirts, but they were unavailable for me, as I could not visit one of these shows. I am very happy I could get one this way.

-A T-Shirt of the Graphkiks Collection, featuring Yuu Tejima

-Old School Hip Hop

-Great Flavor Flav shirt in hot pink. Yeah Boy! Cool for summer.

Wow, That's a nice bunch of clothes!

-Thank you, KIKS TYO has some great offers at the moment. I think the Lucky Packs are still available and today they even added a special  Lucky Pack Tee for only ¥5000. Check out this link, a lot of new stuff is added lately! My recent trip to japan and the purchase of a new DSLR camera has put my budget for the moment to the ground, but I have asked to hold a black "KIKS TYO x KINETICS "YEAR OF THE BUNNY" T-Shirt for me.

As a returning customer, that was no problem. Did I even tell you I met Hobby:Tech?

Wow, That's pretty cool.

-He was a very nice down to earth guy. Very busy and I am very glad he made time for me.

So, do you have any plans for the weekend?

-Yep, I just reserved tickets for the cinema tomorrow.

What movie?

-I noticed last summer that Daft Punk was signing for "Tron Legacy". I very much like the old "Tron" movie. I've got it on DVD and my son Bram has played this movie quite a lot. Since I have the new Daft Punk soundtrack, he plays the CD over and over again in the CD player. He never calls them Daft Punk. He always says "The Robots". I think Thomas Bangalter and Guy manuel de Homem Christo has delivered a very solid soundtrack for the movie. Tomorrow Bram and I will see how it works in the movie. I think you can hardly imagine how much Bram is looking forward to this. While I was in Japanthe single "Derezzed" could be heard everywhere in shops, restaurants and public buildings.

Well, that's a great track from Daft Punk. Didn't I hear this track on the "Shock The World Taipei" party of 2011?

-Oh yeah? I should search for STW Taipei video's. But first I need to think out a subject for a new 50 Gs article and start writing....

Good luck writing and enjoy the movie tomorrow!
-Thanks!