Discussion thread for the "Polls only" thread (Part 2)

When i played with smart watches, i made sure to leave the one i returned to on a windowsill, and not in a drawer, so its battery wouldn’t die

I’ve never liked wearing a watch, or any other kind of jewelry for that matter.

For school in the 80s, one of the requirements was to have a watch with a second hand. For that reason, I bought a cheap one. It died, never to recover, on the very last day of school.

mmm

I have a Fitbit that links with my phone. It’s useful if my phone is on the table in another room and I get a call. I can answer, but not talk (I don’t think.), but I know whether it’s worth rushing to answer.

Except for one I only used for surfing, I didn’t wear a watch since time keeping was available on a cell phone. I got an Apple Watch about two years ago and love it mostly for exercise (it keeps track of swim laps) and podcast controls. The one thing I hate about wearing a watch now is that I look at the time for no reason at all. When I had to dig out the phone to tell the time it was because I actually needed to know what time it was.

Whereas i tried to just use my phone for a few weeks, and i HATED running to catch the train and having to fish into my pocket to see if i actually had to run or could walk.

There’s a reason wrist watches replaced pocket watches when watches became small enough that wrist watches were practical.

I’ve worn a watch every day for as long as I can remember. There’s a picture of me at my 8th-grade graduation wearing a watch. Old-school from the early 80s until 2014, when I bought a Pebble. I went through a few iterations of their smartwatches, but after the company was sold (to Fitbit) I tried a couple other smartwatches without ever finding quite the right combo of form/function. I greatly prefer an analog face anyway, and switched back to “dumb” watches maybe 9 years ago.

I used to be all Timex (I’d buy a new one vs replacing a battery), but in 2017 I bought a couple of Citizen eco-drive watches and they remain my staples. If I ever have $44,000 to burn on a Rolex I’ll get one, but until then I’m good with my Citizens. :slight_smile:

That’s my watch! Analog face, printed numbers, date of month, solar powered, water proof (I’ve swum in pools, lakes, and oceans in it). Quite reliable, low maintenance.

These are mine:

As you can tell, they aren’t synchronized. :slight_smile:

The one on the left is very similar to mine.

I assume since the restaurant poll mentioned eating “at a restaurant” I took it to mean actually eating at the restaurant. I only do that a few times a year. But I get take out from a restaurant (which I eat at home) about once a week.

Prior to COVID, my wife and I probably ate dinner at a restaurant at least once a week, sometimes twice a week – typically nothing fancy, but still a sit-down dinner at a mom-and-pop place with table service.

In the intervening five years, my wife has become less mobile, and just doesn’t like to go to restaurants anymore. I eat dinner at a restaurant – usually by myself – every couple of weeks, when I’m traveling, or en route to a role-playing game session at a friend’s house.

It occurred to me after listing a bunch of uses for my smart watch, I didn’t include “telling the time.”

So yes, FWIW, I also use it to tell time. I probably use it less often to tell time than to remember things, though.

When I need to get dressed up I switch to an analogue watch. I think it’s Fossil that makes relatively affordable fancy-looking stainless steel watches. I’m allergic to most metals so it has to be stainless steel. I have a gold one and a silver one. The sole purpose for me is to discretely cover the tattoo on my wrist at fancy events. The watch batteries have long died. It’s just that when I got the tattoo I intentionally put it in a place I could easily cover with a watch. It works!

Does anybody ever notice that your watch has very much the wrong time?

Not to my knowledge. What does happen frequently though, is that I look it at repeatedly trying to tell the time, before remembering it’s not working.

Guess I’d better change the battery.

I have and regularly wear a Smartwatch. I got it for a number of reasons, but it was very nice in my prior two “dumb” cars where I could have it read (yes, this model had both speakers and a mic) messages off to me while driving, and take a response. Now that my car is smarter than I am, with native pairing to my phone, I don’t really need that feature.

So mostly these days I use it to, you know, to tell time, though it is very useful if I’m playing music from my phone to BT headphones - I can skip and backtrack in my chosen music and adjust the volume without knocking the things out of my ears or getting my phone out of my pocket. And as I mentioned in another thread, I use it for heart rate, oxygen, and fitness app interaction during my morning exercise (it already has my age, height, sex, and weight programmed in).


Turkey, I voted both Yes. and Meh, because it depends a LOT on the quality of the turkey and the skill of the cook. A good turkey rates a Yes, but no exclamation or caps. Many of the turkeys I get are Meh, with some going much farther down.


Eating out, unless someone else is planning an event or something else, is roughly once a month. I don’t do takeout or delivery either. Just with restaurant prices being what they are, and having decent cooking skills of my own, it’s just cheaper/easier to make stuff at home. I’m not going to pay Saltgrass (using a chain as an example) $35 + taxes + drinks + tip for a single person even for a special occasion. But I’ll splurge occasionally on my favorite Thai place, favorite dumpling place, or a meal with a movie at a dine-in movie theater.

My most hated Christmas song is that one with dogs barking.

Public poll, so my “other” song is Silent Night. Just depressed-sounding glurge.

I voted other - all of the above.
(I’ve decided that the only christmas song I like is Christmas Wrapping
by the Waitresses, mainly due to the gorgeous Tracy Wormworth’s
amazing bass line.)

I voted for (against!)

  • Last Christmas: this is not a Christmas song; it’s a “f*** you” song to the person who broke the singer’s heart
  • Wonderful Christmastime: trite, and utterly played to death
  • All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth: the “whistling” sound of the kid trying to talk with missing teeth makes my eyes water

I truly hate “Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree.” I would also add the fourth through infinitieth jazzed-up cover of any traditional hymn, carol, or well-known Christmas song. Leave them alone!