Today the football team of the Netherlands will have their first match against Denmark. Normally I am not much into football. I always enjoyed individual sports above team sports. My girlfriend works irregular shifts, so making appointments is pretty difficult. When there is time I get my bike and ride around the islands.
If I watch team sports, I like watching volleyball. When there is national importance I like to watch the orange football and the orange hockey teams. Football is probably by far the most popular sport in the Netherlands. Every Sunday evening many families eat with their dinner on the couch watching national and international football.
The team of the Netherlands plays in orange (in Dutch: oranje) shirts and is called “Oranje”. When Oranje plays, a lot of people wear orange clothing. A few weeks ago people began to decorate their houses orange.
The first match of Orange is already big news in The Netherlands. Since the match begins at 13:30 half the country is trying to get a day off or try to watch the game at work. Doctors and dentists have mailed their patients to ask if they are sure coming to their appointments or reschedule their appointment if they forgot about the game. Although I think it’s all a little exaggerated, it is also interesting to see our nation show their chauvinism, while under normal circumstances chauvinism is not done.
A few days I wore an orange T-Shirt of “The Big Orange Nation”. I got a lot of attention from people, saying it was a great shirt. “So you are supporting Oranje too?”. “No, I got this shirt from a friend, The Big Orange Nation is an American Football team from Tennessee!”. I just wanted a nice shirt to match my orange Gulfman.
I think I am going to wear my nice orange T-Shirt with the text “Belgium” printed on it. Just to poke the orange crowd a bit. A good watch to accompany me is this orange DW-003H-4T.
This model of the Tough Label series is a Clubber Version of July 1997. The style is inspired by the American Club Scene. The Tough Label series are models inspired by and aimed at the music and club scene. This model actually has a hidden function, which is cool for clubbing. If you press the top right button, the upper display, that shows the day converts into a spectrum analyzer. Well, actually it isn’t really a spectrum analyzer, but it shows a spectrum cycle of one second. It looks pretty cool though.
This model was released worldwide. In Germany it was named “Stage Tomato”, I think it is somehow a good name, but on the other hand, aren’t tomatoes not red? I have actually 4 or 5 of these Stage Tomatoes. They were pretty easy to find 7 to 8 years ago and they went cheap from owner to owner. I think I paid about €50 for a new model in box and maybe €25.- for a used one.
The display of this model can show the digits in two colors. If the light falls in from an angle, the digits are green, while the digits are amber when the light falls straight on the display.
The label on the strap is even more special. Under a normal angle the display seems black, but when light strikes over the label under different angles all colors of the rainbow are shown. It looks very much like a hologram.
The strap is an Velcro-elastic cloth type. These elastic cloth are pretty thick. Although these straps look thick and make the watch looks heavy and bulky, this strap wears very comfortable actually and is not heavy at all.
The watch is packed with functions. It has a Telememo function, Dual Time, a 24 hour Stopwatch, a 24 hour Countdown timer and a Alarm Function with Hourly Chime on board. Don’t expect too much from the Dual Time function. Only the seconds are synced with the internal time, you have to program the hours, minutes, date and year in Dual Time mode. A bit strange I think. So you could have the current time on June 15 2010, while you can have Dual Time on 24 December 1998.
This DW-003H has a negative display. The display on this model is not always good readable. Under angles and in dim light situations, this display is harder to read than a regular display. If you like the look of a negative display on a new G-Shock model, you should not worry. Casio has improved the negative displays very much over the years and the readability of current negative displays are almost as good as the normal displays.
If you can’t read the display properly, you can always use the EL backlight. On this model the EL backlight is blue. If you have turned on the Flash function (standard it’s on, a kind of star like icon appears on the display), the EL will also light up when an alarm sound is produced. Although an icon for Auto-Illumination is present in the display, I can't find the procedure to turn it on in the manual and on the watch. I think the disigners first wanted to implement this feature in the watch, but then left it out.
Well, I think I have written enough, so I am going down to the school cantina. Let’s see how our students and colleagues look with their orange entourage while watching the game on a big screen. Go! Orange, Go!
Another challenge for the 50-Gs blog team: During the World Cup Football 2010 in South Africa we will try to write articles about G-Shocks that have a relation with Football. Today in the real tournament the Kick-Off is at 16:00 (GMT+2). At the same time we Kick-Off with this referee Timer. Pick up your vuvuzela and enjoy the show! The props in the background in this article were provided by my school.
One of the biggest sports events of the world has just started, the FIFA World Cup Football 2010. The teams of 32 counties will compete for the title. In 1994, 1998 and 2006 Casio was one of the sponsors of this event. Unfortunately Casio is not a sponsor in 2010. Of course special G-Shock editions were released for these tournaments. For the World Cup of 2006 Casio developed a special G-Shock model, the DW-56RT Referee Timer.
As the name already says, the watch has special functions to help the referee keeping time. The G-Shock Referee Timer has the shape of the classic 5600’s, but that’s where any comparisons stop. The display is very different from other G-Shock’s. While normal 5600 type watches can display two lines of information on the display, the display on the DW-56RT seems longer than usual and it displays three rows of timing information. A mirrored S-curved line divides the display in two parts.
In the middle row, the left part belongs to the upper line, while the right part belong to the lower part.
While the first two versions had only the S-curved line, this DW-56RT-1V version has also a colored beam in the middle.
The first DW-56RT model was released in February 2006. Only 6 models were released. The last model was released October 2006.
I think the DW-56RT was not a very popular model. Personally I think that two rows of information on the classic 5600 shape works best, but the digits are actually pretty big and clear on this model (module 2991).
The DW-56RT-1V was the basic Referee Timer model. In Japan the model number is DW-56RT-1JF. The only difference on the Japanese model is the text WATER 20 BAR RESIST instead of WATER 200M RESIST.
According some reference I found (by my old friend Leon Eckell!) the bezel on the DW-56RT is not interchangeable with the DW-5600E, but it is with the G-5600. The resin straps have a little different design than the standard 5600 straps. The middle part of the strap has a kind of miniature tear-plate pattern mold in them. I find any difference from the basic flat strap interesting and this structure looks pretty nice.
For a basic model it has quite an unique color scheme. The white lettering on the bezel is pretty normal, but the big yellow ring around the LCD display is pretty different of what we normally see on a basic version of a certain model. The word REFEREE TIMER is printed big below the display, so you can’t miss the name and also the start/stop button is marked with red letters, in case you miss it.
Referees probably don’t use stopwatches to time matches. The stopwatch found on this watch are probably the worst I have ever seen. When you start the stopwatch, the upper and lower display show the same time, while the hundreds of a seconds are displayed in the middle. So far no strange things. If you push the start/stop button again the upper display stops (in whole seconds), while the lower display and the hundreds of a second cheerfully keep counting. You can restart the stopwatch from where it stopped. Below shows the total elapsed time including stop, above the measured time. The only way to stop the entire stopwatch is stopping the measuring (upper display stops counting) and press reset for 2 seconds. I have totally no idea why the hundreds of a second are shown. Until you reset the watch it doesn’t stop keep counting.
This isn’t the watch you want to use to record the next 100m sprint. If seconds and minutes are fine, it works like a stopwatch, but it is limited to 60 minutes, the timing of the total measured event (lower display) is limited to 99 minutes. For some reason you can program the event time for the lower display in minutes. If you set for instance the total time to 45 minutes, an alarm sound will be produced as the timer in the lower display reaches 45 minutes. The recording of the event time is not stopped after the set time has passed.
While the stopwatch function is crap, the timer functions (there are 2!) are extensive and, if you get good acquainted with the watch, indeed very useful for referees during matches and probably also for other occasions.
The first timer is the Preset Timer. A normal football match is played in 2 half of 45 minutes with a 15 minute break. The preset timer can be set to 45 minutes and the number of cycles can be also programmed. It is possible to pause the timing. This can be useful to calculate the extra time. At the end of a football match some extra time can be added to replace time that has been lost due to injuries, etc. By stopping the timer when the game is stopped and start when the game is started again, you can play the total 45 minutes.
The second timer is the Countdown Timer. You can use it as a simple Countdown Timer, as we know from most other G-Shock models, but this Countdown Timer is very extensive. You are able to program up to 9 intervals, for example for interval training. The intervals can be set from 0’05” to 59’55”. If you program an interval to 0’00” the interval isn’t taken up to the chain.
As if the 9 programmable intervals are not enough, you can also use the Auto-Repeat function, so that after the last programmed interval the timing starts with the first programmed interval. If you want to program a football match, you program the first interval to 45’00”, the second to 15’00” and the third to 45’00”. I think this function is actually very good for runners or other sporters that use interval training. Normally I prefer a 24h timer, but in this case I actually see the benefit of programmable intervals with a maximum of 60 minutes (minus 5 seconds) per interval.
For the international active referees active on the World Cup, it is useful to have a World Time function on board, to see what time it is in the hosting country or, when you are at the World Cup, to see the time in your home time zone.
The Referee Timer is a nice gadget watch. For people who like the classic DW-5600 design might love this model too, but the division of the display in three parts makes this watch actually look different from the classic shape. I think this is a model you like or you don’t like it. I think this watch was not very popular, which also explains why there were only released 6 version of this model over a 8 month span. While the official retail price in Japan was ¥12000 and $99.- in the US, this watch could be picked up for almost dump prices in the US. I think the retail price of this model was around €99.- in Europe. The yellow ring around the display looks nice, but the fact the hundreds of a seconds keep counting, while the stopwatch is stopped, I see as a major design flaw. Frankly I have hardly worn this watch. It is not quite my favorite. Still I think the timer functions on this watch are very extended and can be very useful for sporters.
For me a G-Shock can’t be bright enough. I usually browse eBay from time to time if I can see something I like, but from time to time I lurk at Yahoo Auctions Japan too. If you are a bit handy with searching, you can find the most interesting models, where you outside Japan only can dream about. Lately I saw both versions of the Gaussman Enduro Touret and a lot of analog Mudman models. All models that are high on my (too long) wanted list.
Quite some years ago I stumbled upon this pink DW-6900.It was long before Casio was even thinking about releasing the crazy colors and also before the DW-6900FS-4JF (December 2005) was released. The DW-6900FS-4JF was also known as the Masami Nagasawa model, because this actress wore one.
Masami Nagasawa in a magazine wearing the pink DW-6900FS-4JF.
I have always looked out from time to time for this model. Just a few weeks ago a well known seller from Hong Kong had this model for sale on eBay. Hardly worn in box! I have bought several other G-Shocks from this seller (like the Rail Star Hikari model featured here recently), so I asked him if it was possible to to hold the watch as I was going to pay later. He would hold the watch for me for week or so.
As soon as I had money the watch was sent off. Luckily the ash cloud of an Icelandic volcano had moved above our county, so I hoped that this watch would reach me fast. Unfortunately the watch was taken to the customs and had to wait quite a long time. Finally it reached my home, with a €25.70 bill for the customs (luckily the worth of the watch was declared $35.- and marked as a gift). This way is of course not legal, but asking €17.- fees for €8.- tax (and I have even experience worse cases) sounds like legally stealing too.
Searching for information on this PostPet model wasn’t easy, until I found a reminder from my friend DragonJade that PostPet can be writtenポストペットtoo. Also there is no space between the two words. It’s easier for Dutch and German people to understand, because in our languages we always chain words together (in Dutch it would have been a postpet instead of a post pet).
PostPet is an e-mail client program from So-Net Entertainment Corporation (ソネットエンタテインメント), an Internet connections service, established by three Sony divisions in 1997. So-Net stands for Sony Communication Network Corporation. The e-mail software did go further than just receiving and delivering mail. The e-mails were presented by virtual pets. The mail program evolved into a social messaging service, like a lot other mail services did (yahoo messenger, MSN, etc).
The main character post pets are Momo, a tropical pink teddy bear and Komomo (also written Comomo), a peach (light shade of pink) teddybear. Also many other pets appear around them. These virtual postmen did stayed not only in the mail program. Recently a game for the Nintendo DS was developed.
There also a animated television series PostPet Momobin, which are also available on several DVDs. Also all kinds of plush toys are available.
Mediacom released a special 10th Anniversary Momo and Komomo Be@rbrick set in 2007. The Mediacom x PostPet collaboration looks very logical. The bright colored teddy bears already look very much like Be@rbricks.
I am not sure what the target group of PostPet is. The bright colors used in the logo’s, pets, images, animations and games suggest So-Net is aiming for young female users. Social messaging networks like Yahoo Messenger and MSN, etc are very popular among youth. In the Netherlands Hyves (a sort of Facebook or MySpace) is like a magic word. Personally I am not much active in these services. Some students here can’t live without their e-Buddy on-line, like they can’t think for themselves, but let the group think of them (kind of a Borg collective). Although these networks are very popular, I never have seen so much commercial material around one as with PostPet.
The PostPet G-Shock was released on November 20th 2000 as DW-6900BMO-9JR. If you know a bit about how Casio model numbers work, you may ask why -9JR, as the 9 stands for the color yellow. Frankly I have no idea. Maybe someone at Casio made a mistake at the drawing table. As far as I know I have never seen a suffix with a totally wrong number.
Original G-Shock and Baby-G set. Photo taken from a Yahoo Japan Auction.
At the same date Casio also released a matching pink Baby-G. This model got the model number BGT-110DMO-4ATJR. This suffix matches with the watch as 4 stands for red, pink or orange.
There were in total 2500 of this PostPet G-Shock made. The suggested retail price was ¥16000 (a basic DW-6900 model was ¥11000 at that time) I assume that the number of baby-G models is the same. The suggested retail price for the Postpet Baby-G was ¥14500 It seems these model is pretty popular. It is almost impossible to find one cheap.
The PostPet G-Shock is packed in a white cardboard box. On the sides is “Thanks!” written, probably for purchasing this watch. In white there is the Postpet Logo and the word “Products”. There are many PostPet items for sale, so this might appear on everything you purchase via their shop.
On the top and front of the box there is the Postpet logo and the G-Shock logo (in pink this time) . Under it there is a kind of model number. It says PPP-128. I do not know what it means, it might be PostPet Product 128. PPP-128 also returns on the face-plate of the watch, just above the light button.
Inside the box is a clear plastic display container with a G-Shock logo on it and of course the pink Postpet logo. There is a very nice bear printed in both sides with the company’s URL. This type of containers were used often for G-Shocks around 1998 – 2000. Not only special Japanese models were sold in these containers, but also some “basic” G-Lide models in the US. In Europe G-Shocks were sold in black hexagonal containers. On the back of the plastic container is a sticker that says that the model number is indeed DW-6900BMO-9JR.
Artwork for DVD by TR853-1 a.k.a. TraseUno.I still owe him one :-)
The watch itself has the same color as the DW-6900FS. It is a lighter shade of pink than the DW-6900CC-4 Crazy Colors . A new watch comes with a PostPet price tag. Mine doesn’t have the price tag. A bit a pity, but if the customs got it, I would have been charged tax for the full ¥16000 (currently €142 - $177).
The watch is almost completely in two color scheme. White lettering is used on the bezel. The face plate is white with pink lettering. Only the CASIO name is printed in black. On the straps there is the PostPet logo again and on the long strap there is the So-Net URL for Postpet. A nice detail is the white light button with a pink G. Later Casio uses the same button on the DW-6900FS-4.
When the backlight is used the pink Momo bear lights up in the display. This bear is not disturbing you when reading the display. It´s more in the background.
What can we say over the functions of the watch. 50 Gs has in the past 2½ years written many times of different DW-6900 variants. When it was released it was a pretty complete basic model and I think it still is. A 24 hour Countdown Timer and a 24 hour Stopwatch are still sufficient for nowadays daily use. An advanced programmable alarm, hourly Chime and a Flash function makes this watch complete.
When the Flash function is activated, the EL backlight lights up when an alarm sounds. Not really recommended when you use a lot of alarms, like often use of Countdown Timers’.
Somehow I think this model is better for women, so I asked a student that normally wears a lot of pink (though not today). She didn't want to be recognized on the photo, so I blurred the face. I first tried a black bar over her eyes, but Bram was watching over my shoulder and asked: Has she stolen something?"
If you look for this specific model, be prepared to draw your wallet. I paid a very nice price for this one, but I think you have at least 2 new pink Crazy Colors models for the price. If you like the color scheme, you might better look out for a DW-6900FS-4 from 2005. I admit that also these 6900FS models are not as easy to find as the white variant. I stumbled upon an advert of a complete PostPet G-Shock and Baby-G set for ¥45000 (about €400 - $500).
Since I fell in love with this model several years ago and have been hunting for one since, I think it was worth it. I think it’s pretty personal and if someone is looking for a pink G-Shock, I won’t recommend this model, simply because it is not easy to find and the prices are quite high if you find them.
