By JR Raphael
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

I often write about cool gadgets we’d all like to own. Well, my friends, today I am turning the tables and focusing on a pricey little gadget you should be embarrassed to own. This is the $300,000 watch…that doesn’t tell time.

Have you heard of this thing? It’s the hottest new “luxury” item to hit the jewelry market in years, and quite possibly the stupidest. Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome came up with the concept, called the Day&Night, and already has it selling like hotcakes. In fact, the watch sold out completely without two days of its launch and is now on backorder.

“With no display for the hours, minutes or seconds, the Day&Night offers a new way of measuring time, splitting the universe of time into two fundamentally opposing sections: day versus night,” Jerome explains on his web site.

The watch has two tourbillons — fancy lil’ wheels that can balance the effects of gravity to keep your watch accurate. Very important, clearly, since this watch doesn’t actually tell you the time. It instead, as the name suggests, only shows you whether it’s day or night. But it evidently does so within a millisecond of accuracy.

Now, the designer’s whole selling point is that it’s the “ultimate luxury” to not have to worry about time. And I get that. When I’m not on a specific schedule, I’ll leave my watch at home. It makes me feel as unconfined as a freshly escaped farm sheep roaming the countryside. The difference, of course, is that I’m not paying $300,000 for that readily available luxury.

Jerome calls the Day&Night a “new interpretation of time.” I call it a “new waste of time” — and money. Sorry, high society, but this one is taking the idea of silly spending just a bit too far.