This Week in Awesome (7/30/11)

It's been a little more challenging lately to cull the good stuff from the internet, but I keep at it, because you guys deserve it.

Did I hear someone ask for more Community bloopers? (Well no, of course I didn't, you can't hear through the computer, silly. Must be the dog talking to me from the other room...) This is your lucky day, then. (Entertainment Weekly via Videogum)

A creative person has applied a kaleidoscopic effect to Google Maps satellite images. (The Daily What via Waxy)

Did you happen to see those bizarre Summer's Eve ads (since pulled by the company)? If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry: Stephen Colbert gets you up to speed on the whole thing. Seriously, just watch this.

And finally this week, to mark the 30th anniversary of the debut of MTV, TIME has compiled a list of the 30 greatest music videos, not in any particular order, but split more or less evenly between the three decades of MTV's existence. Some of them are no-brainers while others are debatable, but that's why such lists exist—to be debated. If nothing else, it's a nice nostalgia trip for those of us who spent a lot of time zoning out to MTV back in the '80s.

Retro Video Unit (7/29/11)

I seem to be posting these every other Friday, which seems like the proper frequency for them.

Seems like a Clash sort of day, and I wanted to post the "London Calling" video, but embedding is disabled on it, and it turns out the sound quality in this one is much better. So, all hail The Clash, "This Is Radio Clash."

This appears to have been shot in New York, which is cool (I would have expected London). What an aesthetic these guys had—the epitome of lo-fi years before the term was even coined.

Laced

Okay, I see from the comments that at least two people are following along. The first one came through around 7:30 this morning, so thanks for early-rising blog readers.

PB, to answer your questions: no, I was not wearing the shoes like this (a little credit?), and they were not aligned exactly—it was a very impromptu decision to take the photo. The lacing of the shoe on the right is what prompted it.

When I buy shoes, if they come with the laces already in them, they are almost invariably laced like the sneaker on the right, with the lace going across the bottom over the lace holes. I've always thought this looks wrong, so I've always switched the lacing so the lace goes under the bottom holes. This way, you get nice, even rows of lacing like the shoe on the left. (I was in the midst of changing the laces on these sneakers when I started thinking about it, and the "in-between" picture seemed like a good way into discussing it.)

As far as comfort and wear, I don't believe there is any difference between one way of lacing and the other. It just makes me wonder why, when "my" way seems to me to be obviously more visually appealing, I don't find more shoes laced this way out of the box. I've also never seen this topic come up anywhere else, leading me to think that my personal obsessions are not nearly as significant as I believe them to be...

Pop Quiz

Speaking of the red sneakers, have a look at this (unintentionally too dark) pic:

Notice anything? Think about it, and I'll be back to discuss it tomorrow.

Red Dilemma

I first became aware of "Nantucket Reds" when I read The Official Preppy Handbook 30 years ago. At the time I had lived a fairly sheltered life in middle-class suburbia, had not done much traveling, and definitely had not yet developed anything resembling a personal style. I never had occasion to encounter the sort of old-money folks who were the ones wearing Reds at the time. Even setting aside their class associations, I definitely could not see myself wearing them.

In fact, I've never owned any red pants; the closest I ever got was a pair of rust-colored Levi's cords that I wore in high school. [Hm... brain disagrees, has unearthed memory of buying vivid red wide-wale cords at Filene's Basement in college as "joke pants."] I enjoy wearing red, and have my share of red shirts, sweaters, and outerwear, but I've never been able to cross the line to wear red pants, shorts, or shoes—until this year.

I've been circling around the idea of getting red shorts for a couple of years, and I got drawn in by Lands' End, who for at least the past couple of years has offered chinos and shorts in "vintage brick." I still can't see myself wearing red pants, but at least with shorts there isn't as much surface area. And Lands' End has become a go-to for me for shorts because they offer an 11" inseam, which I prefer. So for $20 I had myself a pair of red(dish) shorts.

After I got them, I realized something I hadn't even considered: because of their color, they are a lot trickier to coordinate with than my other clothes. Most people would just choose a white or navy polo, or maybe a light blue oxford shirt, but I don't own any of those things. (I do have a blue end-on-end shirt, but it's long-sleeved.) Most of my summer shirts are plaids or seersucker stripes, or polos in bright solids, and none of it went with the red shorts. I did eventually figure out that my blue striped seersucker shirt or my cream-colored polo would work.

I ran into a similar situation with those red SeaVees sneakers. They are a much darker red, almost maroon, but they're definitely not what one would consider a neutral shade, as most shoes tend to be, and I was still somewhat self-conscious about what I was wearing with them. After a bit of trial and error, I decided that keeping the rest of my outfit as close to neutral as possible, and staying away from anything else with red in it, were the best guidelines I could follow. It is summer, after all, when there's a bit more room for creativity and boldness in dress.

Breaking Mad Men News

For anyone who hasn't already gotten on board, all four seasons of Mad Men will finally be available for streaming on Netflix starting tomorrow. I don't know if that means "at midnight," but you could stay up and find out.

Future seasons will become available on streaming shortly after they air. Again, I don't know if that means after each episode airs or after the season is over, but I would guess the latter.

Take It from Me

Pro tip: when you buy eye drops, it's probably a good idea to remove the plastic safety seal immediately. That way, when a little bit of airborne debris finds its way into your eye, and you reach for the new bottle of eye drops that you just bought, you will be able to actually use them instead of fumbling around half-blind trying to remove that safety seal.

Oh, and... related: there's a lovely mist of fine, gritty, airborne debris coming out of the air vents in our office.

This Week in Awesome (7/23/11)

Wait, what day is this? It's already Sunday? Yikes...

30 years of the space shuttle are beautifully encapsulated in this clip. (Gizmodo)

Here's an enlightening documentary about the watch manufacturing legacy in the town of Waltham. (boston.com)

There's a bizarre fascination to be found in watching government-mandated safety crash tests of vehicles. Consumer Reports has gathered a bunch of them. (Consumerist)

If you're a fan of the brilliant NBC sitcom Community (and if you aren't, why the hell not?), you'll want to check out this preview of the bloopers that are going to be included in the season two DVD set. (Entertainment Weekly via Videogum)

And finally this week, the funniest thing I have seen in some time: a superbly snarky blend of Pets Who Want to Kill Themselves and (the unfortunately dormant for nearly a year now) Look At This Fucking Hipster, I give you... Hipster Puppies. (The Trad)

Overheated

Today's post is post-poned (ha! see what I did there?) on account of it's too damn hot. My employer seems to be holding back on the AC on purpose, in order to conserve energy and put less of a burden on the grid. The entire office is hovering at around 80 degrees, which is downright unpleasant. It's like what they do in offices in Tokyo, or so I've read.

I'm in the process of finishing up my tasks for today, after which I'll be clearing out of here a bit early (I racked up several hours of comp time on that last project anyway) and finding somewhere to cool down. I hope all of you are able to do the same.

Grooming Garage: Shoe Defense

In the summer, I like to go sockless. It sure looks better with shorts, and it's just nice to be able to discard a shackle of male adulthood for a few months out of the year. Of course, if you have ever looked around at the men's style portion of the interwebs, you have doubtless noticed that there are plenty of guys who will wear any sort of shoe without socks, at any time of year, in any climate.

I am not one of those people. I have specific shoes that I wear without socks, and only without socks. I do have one pair of shoes that I have been wearing this summer that I also wore during the rest of the year, with socks: my L.L. Bean blucher mocs. For only $69, I could theoretically have two pairs of these, one to wear sockless in summer and one to wear the rest of the time.

Maybe that will happen at some point, but for now I have just the one pair, and I'm trying to take care of them. Of course, since it's summer my feet sweat along with the rest of me, and sweat tends to shorten the useful life of shoes, especially when you're wearing them without socks.

I'd been powdering my feet each morning with Gold Bond before putting on whatever shoes or sneakers I was wearing that day, but that's tedious and messy. A month or so ago I saw an article in the New York Times Style section about powders for men. It was mainly about keeping one's nether regions dry and comfy, which is certainly a good idea on days like today, but many of the products featured in the article work well on the feet too.

I ordered Dry Goods spray-on powder from drugstore.com and I've been using it for about two weeks now. The spray comes out of the nozzle angled a bit to the left of where I'm aiming it, but I've been able to correct for that and it's been working great. It feels cold when it goes on, which took a little getting used to. It keeps my feet from feeling clammy during the day, and is helping to protect my shoes.

Checking in with Ralph

Last Friday I had a quick errand to do after work that brought me over to Newbury Street. I don't have occasion to shop in the city that much anymore, so I decided to walk around for a bit.

One store I enjoy stopping into every now and then just for the atmosphere is Ralph Lauren's plush, overstuffed townhouse. (Trivia: way back in 1988 I had a job in the building next door, but there was no Ralph store there at the time; I have no recollection of what was, and it may not have even been used for retail space.) Turns out Ralph was having a pretty good sale, with selected items an extra 25% off the already-reduced prices.

I don't buy or wear a lot of Polo clothing, mainly because of the gaudy logos, and truthfully, for the past year or so I have paid very little attention to what they were selling. (I think this is also partly due to the fact that I hardly ever go to Macy's or Lord & Taylor anymore.) But I do like some of the stuff Ralph does, and it never hurts to look.

As it turned out, I found a nice shirt, blue with a white and red check pattern, that had a button-flap pocket with no logo. The flap-pocket thing has been having a moment of sorts (not just workshirts with two pockets, but also casual sport shirts with just one), and I kind of like how it looks. It was already marked down to almost half of its original $125 price (really, who pays full price for this stuff?) and the extra 25% brought it down to nearly 60% of the original price. That's how I like to shop.

(FYI: if you're looking to take advantage of the extra discount and happen to be looking for something in particular, some of what's on the Ralph web site isn't in the stores, and vice versa, so check both if you can.)

Ralph also used to have a smaller store in Copley Place that I used to check out when I was in that vicinity (typically passing through on my way home from work). One particular thing I liked about that store was that they carried a small selection of clothes from Ralph's RRL line, which has kind of a rugged vibe that I like. RRL is pretty difficult to come by—department stores don't generally carry it, and it's not available on the Ralph web site. That store closed last year, and I was surprised to find that there's no RRL representation in the Newbury Street store. I mentioned it to a staffer, who said the Barneys in Copley Place carries a very small amount of RRL, but he and I agreed that it's negligible.

There are a couple of free-standing RRL stores in New York, on Bleecker Street in the West Village and on Prince Street in Soho. Both stores are fairly tiny spaces, but the line isn't that big anyway. I stopped into the Prince St. store on my visit a couple of weeks ago and generally liked what I saw, except for the prices. It's kind of a drag that there's nowhere in this area to see RRL gear in person, but according to a post about chinos on Put This On last week, word is that RRL will be going online soon. I guess the desire to sell product has won out over the perceived exclusivity of limiting its availability.

Eating in Public

At this very moment I'm looking at someone eating an ear of corn on the cob.

On the Green Line.

What.

The.

FUCK.

A Lunch-Inspired Gripe

For lunch, I usually go to the cafeteria in the hospital next to my office and make a salad at the salad bar. The salad bar can be accessed on two sides, but a lot of people don't seem to realize that. I prefer going on the "back" side because it's less used, and I like to take my time so I'm less likely to be holding up the next person. I try to be considerate in that way, but not many others do.

But if I go too late, the back side gets blocked off so the staff can replenish the tasty veggies, and I have to use the front side, where I am inevitably hindered by the slow, clueless people making salads ahead of me. I just stood behind a woman who spent two solid minutes picking through the lettuce and carefully choosing pieces for her salad. It's iceberg lettuce—how much variation did she really think there was? (Besides which, iceberg has basically no nutritional value whatsoever, but that's another topic.)

If I ever lose it and start attacking people, I hope some editor has the presence of mind to call me the Salad Shooter...

Time Demands

This job thing can be tricky sometimes. I had two projects due more or less at the same time (one's my normal monthly deadline), made worse by the fact that I took some time off. (When I made plans to take the days off, I didn't know the second project was coming.)

So I spent a decent portion of the weekend working on one, and several hours at home this evening finishing the other. Everything will have evened out in another day or two, but it makes me wonder if it was even worth it to go away.

This Week in Awesome (7/16/11)

Last week was just a bit on the crazed side, with some extra stuff going on at work before I left, and the general scrambling to get ready for the trip, so there just wasn't any time to get a TWiA ready before we went away. But now you can all relax. What's that British slogan from World War II? Keep calm and carry on...

Have you ever quit a job and wanted to let your boss know how you really felt? This one's for you. (Consumerist via WIVB-TV Buffalo)

Gag reels are often as funny as the movies they are associated with. As it happens, I have seen all ten of the movies on this list. (Unreality via Videogum)

Hey, check it out, I think NPR kinda likes you. Yeah, it made you a summer playlist. (NPR Music)

You know how there's a new Muppets movie coming out at Thanksgiving? Well, Disney commissioned an album of covers of Muppet-related songs. (Stereogum) Be warned, though: the trailer contains the worst song of all time.

And finally this week, nicely wrapping up the sort-of music theme, do you remember back in the 80s when MTV used to run those "Rock Against Drugs" PSAs? Got some right here. Ah, nostalgia. (FlavorWire via The Awl)

Retro Video Unit (7/15/11)

Oh yeah, this one's perfect for a summer Friday afternoon. Plus, it's the original music video that was made for the song. Since it's roughly 30 years old, the video is quite fuzzy, but the audio quality is pretty good. (And to think I once had a 12" single of this which included a German version, and I didn't keep it...)

So sit back and relax, and take a ride down memory lane with Peter Schilling's "Major Tom (Coming Home)."

Downtown Accommodations

I've been to New York City more than two dozen times in my middle-aged life. We used to stay with a friend of the Mrs. who lived in Brooklyn, but eventually she got married and moved to a smaller apartment (and now they have a toddler and live in New Jersey), so we started staying in hotels.

I've stayed in a dozen different hotels in Manhattan. Some were very nice; others were merely places with a bed and a bathroom. On a couple of occasions I was alone and only there for one night, so where I stayed didn't matter so much. Nowadays, though, I tend to make hotel choices pretty carefully. I like comfort and privacy.

This is preamble to me telling you about the hotel where we just stayed, which we both felt was the best overall hotel experience we have had in Manhattan. It's called Andaz; it's a stupid name, but a great place. Andaz belongs to Hyatt Hotels, and is meant to be their equivalent to boutique hotels like Starwood's W brand. We stayed at the W on Lexington Avenue several years ago, and found the room small and mediocre, plus there was a definite cooler-than-you vibe among both guests and staff.

The Andaz Wall Street is nothing like that. It's warm and welcoming from the moment you come through the revolving door. In fact, there's usually a hotel staffer there to turn the door for you, which is especially helpful when you are maneuvering luggage. There isn't a front desk per se; there is a counter in the middle of the lobby, but staff may be found on either side of it, or roaming around.

We arrived earlier than expected, but checking in early was no problem. We were checked in while sitting on a sofa off to one side of the lobby by a staff person with a small netbook computer. (I asked about iPads; he said they are getting them soon.) Then we got a brief introduction to some of the amenities Andaz offers at each of its hotels (at the moment there are only five locations; one of those is in London, the others are in Hollywood, San Diego, and in Midtown across from the New York Public Library).

There are free newspapers, and a little "pantry" area at one end of the lobby with some complimentary snacks (cookies, apples, candied walnuts), sparkling water, orange juice, and a barista station. Yes, there is a person there whose job is to make coffee for you. So instead of a gunky in-room Mr. Coffee or a vat of industrial-solvent coffee that's been sitting for who knows how long, you get a freshly made cup of coffee, espresso, tea—whatever you feel like. There's also free wifi throughout the hotel (as I'm sure you know, one of the most obnoxious gouges of the hospitality industry is that, typically, the higher-end the hotel, the more likely it is that you will have to pay an outrageous daily charge for wifi).

The clerk went to the desk to make our keys, then escorted us up to the room and showed us around, because there was more good stuff to come. The word "minibar" can send even the most seasoned business traveler into a cold sweat. Some hotels leave a bottle of sparkling water on the desk as a "welcome gift," but if you drink it they charge you $8. Some hotels have sensors in their minibars that record a purchase if an item is merely moved, when maybe you just had some leftovers you wanted to store in the little fridge. At Andaz the in-room snacks and drinks are free, except for alcohol. So you can relax and drink a bottle of water, eat a chocolate bar, nibble on some Terra chips.

There are a couple of cool tech bits: there is a control panel next to the bed for the lighting, with settings that adjust the various lights in the room accordingly: work, relax, night light, etc. There are also buttons to lower or raise the window covers, which is really cool and fun to watch.

And the room? The standard room is about 350* square feet, larger than some hotels' upgrade rooms. (Where we stayed back in November was a nice enough hotel, but there was barely enough space in the room to get around the furniture.) The added space makes a big difference. There was a nice comfy chair between the bed and the window, with a reading lamp next to it. The bed was extremely comfortable. There were cushions on the windowsill so you could sit and look out. The bathroom was huge by hotel standards, with a four-by-six-foot (yeah, I measured it) walk-in shower with one of those rainfall heads.

The location is only a brief drunken stumble from South Street Seaport, and there's a new (only partly open, at the moment) waterfront park along the East River in the same general area. A few short blocks to the south is Battery Park. The subway lines are to the west relative to the hotel, but the closest one is only two or three minutes away, and you can walk over to the others in less than ten minutes. (Wall Street is pretty short.) And the financial district is a lot less crowded on weekends than, say, Soho or Midtown. The hotel even hosts a farmer's market on Saturdays.

As more people are choosing to live in lower Manhattan, more amenities are appearing. The city's ubiquitous Duane Reade drugstores have been getting a serious makeover, with better designs and product selections, and things like fresh produce. There's one directly across the street from the hotel, but they also just opened a ridiculous, kind of awesome 22,000-square-foot store a couple of blocks up Wall Street, where you can get a shampoo or a manicure, plus there's a smoothie counter, a prepared food section, and a sushi bar. This stuff is geared toward the thousands of folks who work in the financial district, but visitors can certainly benefit from it too.

I got an excellent deal on this stay through Jetsetter, which is the travel arm of the flash-sale site Gilt (if you're interested, you can sign up here). I paid about half the standard rate, but you can frequently find decent rates on the travel site Oyster, along with lots of real photos, not ones taken by hotel-hired pros or PR people.

(*I got this number from the hotel's web site.)

Summer in the City

You may wonder why we would head to New York City at the height of summer, and you'd definitely be justified in wondering that. As it happened, a very good deal on a hotel presented itself, and with the Mrs. getting ready to embark on grad school in September, we weren't sure if/when we would be able to take another such trip, so we just decided to go ahead and do it. After a few short hours in the city, though, I found myself thinking that I probably want to avoid going back there during the hot months unless there's a good reason.

At home, my approach to dealing with the hot-and-humid is to be outside as little as possible, which, thanks to the advent of things like GPS bus tracking, works pretty well when commuting and working in a nicely chilled office. But in Manhattan, you tend to do a lot of walking, and even when it is possible to avoid the heat, you inevitably find yourself heading down into a subway station at some point, which is a lot like being parboiled in asphalt.

We spent a fair amount of time ducking into stores to cool off for a few minutes, but I was somewhat surprised to find that many places have rather feeble air conditioning. Nonetheless we persevered, going back to the hotel to take showers before heading back out to get sweaty again.

I thought about my previous visit, the day trip I took in March with the Proper Bostonian. It was just below 40 degrees that day, and walking down Fifth Avenue toward Washington Square we were pummeled by a stiff wind. I know this makes me somewhat odd, but I prefer the bluster and cold to July's slow-roasting.

Brain Fail

Middle-age forgetfulness is creeping up on me in earnest. Today I discovered that I left my phone charger at the hotel. It's inductive, which means you don't have to actually plug it into the phone; the phone's back rests against the face of the charger and is held in place by little magnets. That's cool and all, but it also makes it easier to forget about. I picked up the phone off the desk in the room and ignored the charger.

I called the hotel, but they didn't have it. Housekeeping probably just thought, "another stupid tourist forgot their charger" and threw it away. Fortunately, my phone has been discontinued, and a quick look at the Verizon web site showed that I could get a replacement for only $10, which is interesting because direct from HP (Palm) it's $70. Guess which one I chose?

Bonus embarrassment: when we left my mom's last night after picking up the dog, I left my phone on the kitchen counter, but realized that after we'd been on 95 for only a few minutes.

Did You Miss Me?

We're back from our trip, so you can expect regular (whatever that means) programming to resume shortly. I had access to a computer at the hotel, but I guess I was more concerned with things like where we were going to eat.

Overheard: Musical Taste Police Edition

Have you noticed that when a car is blasting loud music, that music is generally not what would be considered good music?

This leads, sort of, to an anecdote. (Those of you on the facebook thingy may have already seen/heard this; I'm relating it primarily for the rest of us.) Our friend Dave (he of the Rationales) was driving around on a recent night, listening to The Smiths. While stopped at a traffic light a car pulled up next to him, and someone inside yelled, "Hey! No Morrissey in East Boston!"

I guess the good music will go unappreciated by the philistines anyway.

About Time

Hey, guess what? Watches are cool again, now that the New York Times Style section says so. What a relief to be told that my interest in them wasn't a waste of time...

Rays

As someone who is very pale, I'm no fan of the sun. A very deeply tanned woman (wearing a white dress to show it off, of course) sat next to me this morning on the T, and it creeped me out a little. But it reminded me of something else.

Back in the first half of the 1980s, before there was a significant public-health effort to educate people about the dangers of sun exposure, I spent my summers between college years working at city hall, in the tax collector's office. One of the full-time employees was a sun worshiper. She was probably in her mid-40s at the time, though she did her best to give the impression that she was younger than that.

Each day at lunch, weather permitting, she would go out to her car, take a folding lounge chair out of the trunk, set it up, and lie in the sun for 30 or 40 minutes. It was obvious that she'd been doing this for some time, and also obvious that she spent her weekends at the beach. Her skin already looked leathery, so who knows what became of her down the road.

As for me, I try to limit my time outdoors when the sun is high and bright, and I'm more conscientious about wearing a hat than I used to be. I'll be packing one with me for our trip.

Days Off

Reflecting on the holiday weekend, we were pretty busy and had fun, but it wasn't particularly relaxing. Saturday we got haircuts and then drove down to RI to my mother's for some grillin' and potato salad and such. Sunday evening we were invited to dinner at the home of friends, Monday we were invited to lunch at the home of some other friends. We had some down time earlier on Sunday and got to sleep in all three days, but that's about it.

Oh, and we saw Bad Teacher last night, which I enjoyed. Bridesmaids was more overtly funny, but this movie was certainly not a disappointment. It's worth it for the car wash scene alone, and Lucy Punch, the British actress who played the adversary to Cameron Diaz's character, was really good too. BTW, bonus points to the producers (or whoever makes such decisions) for using the classic Rockpile song "Teacher, Teacher" during the opening credits.

Normally I would have taken off the Friday before a long holiday weekend, just to make it a longer holiday weekend, but New York beckons yet again—we're heading down Friday morning, and since I'd already planned to take three days off I didn't bother with the Friday. But Labor Day weekend will definitely be stretched to four days.

Festive Attire

I was watching the fireworks show on TV, and noticed that many people were wearing festive, red-white-and-blue outfits. I don't begrudge anyone who enjoys dressing up like this, but my only sartorial acknowledgement of the holiday was a red polo shirt.

Also, you would think there would have been one person in the staff of the production who would have noticed that a guy with the build of Michael Chiklis should not be wearing a black three-button suit (I thought those had faded away, but I guess not), and definitely should have told him not to button all three buttons, and ESPECIALLY not the bottom one. It's all Alec Baldwin's fault.

This Week in Awesome (7/2/11)

I hope you're enjoying the long holiday weekend. (I also hope you get a long weekend to enjoy.) I was thinking I'd line up an extra-large batch of goodies to keep you entertained, but it didn't quite work out that way.

An article in the style section of the New York Times about powders for men led me to this funny, spoofy commercial.

Update, 7/5: I had bookmarked this site at work and forgotten about it: a blog that digs into the history of shopping centers and malls from decades past.

And now we're just going to move right into the thematically-appropriate entertainment portion of this week's feature: first, cameras mounted on fireworks (BuzzFeed via Gizmodo), followed by fireworks explosions captured with a high-speed camera (Gizmodo via PopSci). Happy 4th, stay safe out there.

Retro Video Unit (7/1/11)

While banging around in YouTube's dusty basements and attics, looking for clips to post for this, I've discovered that many of the late-'70s new wave artists that I liked never made music videos for their singles, or if they did, they either didn't survive or haven't been dug up and posted.

Such is the case with today's featured band, The Records, so this performance clip, which seems to be from a UK TV show, will have to suffice. It's certainly better than those clips that have nothing more than an image of the sleeve from the original 45, or of the 45 itself. Enjoy the music...