English Boots (Almost)

Last week I saw this post on Put This On, about these English-made Chelsea boots that were on sale at Brooks Brothers for half off the original price, with a code for another 15% off because they were in the clearance section. The final price was $224, around 60% off the original price.

The idea of a pair of made-in-England shoes at such an appealing price was very tempting. I added a pair to the shopping cart, pondered it for 30 minutes or so, then bought them, knowing that I could return them to the Brooks Brothers store if they didn't fit.

During the pondering period, I thought about the fact that they were only available in standard (medium) width, which, depending on the shoe, frequently doesn't work for me. I decided to compensate by going up a half-size, which sometimes works.

The shoes arrived on Tuesday, and they were quite beautiful. The leather was soft and lustrous; the heels had a couple dozen small copper nails in neat rows. English shoes tend to have tapered, somewhat pointy toes, and these did, which worried me. But I put them on and found that they felt roomier than they looked like they were going to be. The half-size up seemed to give me enough room up front, but I was concerned about their appearance.

They seemed too dressy to be casual, yet too casual to be dressy. I thought about the situations when I would be most likely to wear them, and the clothes I would be likely to wear in those situations. I wondered how much wear I would really get out of them. I looked down at my feet and thought that the boots looked bad with the dark jeans I was wearing that day.

Ultimately I decided that there was no need for me to spend $225 on shoes of questionable usefulness. If I could buy a pair of Alden plain-toe bluchers for that price, I'd have no hesitation about keeping them because I know I'd wear them all the time, and aesthetically I think I prefer the rounded, slightly blunt shape of that sort of American shoe anyway. The boots were returned to the store.

(By the way, if you're interested in this style of boot, I did find an American-made Chelsea boot for around the same price; the brand is Neil M and the style name is Portland. But I'm not going to buy them either.)

Business Attire

Because of my interest in clothing and style, I tend to notice what other people are wearing. There are seven other males who work in my office, and I realized that they all dress rather plainly. All of them are at least my age and most are older than me, so that may be a contributing factor, but it's unfortunate that more men don't take more of an interest in their clothing and appearance.

I realize that many people have more important things on their minds, and it's not that any of my coworkers dress poorly, it's just that there seems to be a lack of imagination. The thing that strikes me the most is the overwhelming dominance of solids and the general absence of color overall. I rarely see even a striped shirt among them, and there are other, less fortunate choices, like yellow dress shirts and half-zip sweaters.

Sure, I wear solid polo shirts in the summer, but I tend to prefer them in brighter colors, and equally as often I'm wearing a striped or plaid button-front shirt. I've always preferred patterned shirts, particularly stripes. I just find them more visually interesting, and I know the ladies in the office notice, because I've received compliments from them. That's not my goal, but who doesn't like being told "that's a really nice shirt"?

The Virtual Funnies Pages

Just over a year ago I gave up home delivery of the Boston Globe, due to the elimination of the super-cheap add-on rate I got as a New York Times subscriber. But at that point the only reason I was really getting the Globe was to read the comics, so I reasoned that I could do that online.

I do that now, but it's not quite as easy as you might think. Only a fraction of the comics that run daily in the Globe are available on boston.com's comics page, so I was left to seek out the ones I wanted to read elsewhere.

Most comic strips are distributed to newspapers through syndicating services, so those are the sites you want to visit. They are overloaded with ads and slow to load, but they get the job done.

I now read 15 comics daily, and to do so I need to visit three sites: GoComics, comics.com, and Comics Kingdom, which is sort of a portal template that papers can use to customize a comics page; somehow I ended up using the one that belongs to the Portland Oregonian, but you can also access it via the San Francisco Chronicle or the New Orleans Times-Picayune (quite possibly the greatest newspaper name ever).

The Next Pair

I finally made it to Costco over the weekend to visit the optical counter and see about getting lenses put in my new frames. I have a very strong prescription, so having it made into high-index lenses (which are noticeably thinner than traditional polycarbonate lenses) sometimes costs a little more (sometimes it costs a lot more, depending on where the glasses are being made).

The Costco price for the lenses is $110, which is extremely reasonable. They also charged $18 because I was bringing them a frame from elsewhere. I understand why they do this, and I don't find it excessive. The turnaround is 7 to 10 business days, because the frames need to be sent to their lab in Washington state, where Costco is headquartered.

I asked if the company has its own lab, and the person assisting me gave me the rundown: the lab makes glasses for all the Costco optical locations in the US, and only for them. She told me it's the size of a Costco warehouse building, but two stories, and they make 5,000 pairs of glasses a day. (I meant to ask how they get the lenses into plastic frames, since they don't screw together like metal frames do, but I guess I can do that when I go back to pick them up.)

I'd also like to mention that the person who helped me was polite, friendly, and knowledgeable. In fact, I've never encountered anyone working at Costco who wasn't all those things.

This Week in Awesome (3/5/11)

Quite a decent weekend we're having, feels like winter is over (or at least close to over). The melting has progressed to the point that yesterday was the first day I could walk from our house to the bus stop without having to walk at least some part of the way in the street. Meanwhile, back on the internet...

I was reluctant to bring attention to anything related to Charlie Sheen, but this meme of New Yorker cartoons captioned with quotes from his interviews felt suitably removed from the fray. (BuzzFeed via The Hairpin)

This video serves as a cautionary tale, but the more significant question remains unanswered: how did the truck get there in the first place? Given the outcome, maybe it's best we don't find out. (StreetFire via Autoblog)

There's a good chance those of you on facebook have already seen this, so I offer it as a public service for the rest of us. (The Daily What; actual origin point unknown)

And finally this week, a clip from Jimmy Kimmel Live that affirms Tom Hanks's status as one of the greatest people ever, regardless of what you think of his acting. (TV Guide)

The Switch

My mother pointed out to me that Daylight Savings Time begins a week from tomorrow. I understand why the government changed the yearly start and end points several years back, but I don't like it.

I miss the gradual lengthening of the days we used to experience during March, before the hour jumped ahead in early April. Now it's getting dark just before six, and CLICK! it's shoved ahead an hour.

It also means it will go back to being dark when I get up for a few more weeks, which bothers me more than darkness when I leave work (which seems to bother more people). And the first week, when I'm adjusting to the change, usually frazzles my brain pretty badly.

And this all makes me wonder why we don't just switch to permanent DST. At this point we're already on it for two-thirds of the year. I'm sure there's DST info out on the web, but I haven't had a chance to look.

(TWiA will arrive later today.)

The Show Is Free

On both my morning and evening subway rides today, the other riders and I were treated to some bonus entertainment:

As I was getting on the Green Line at North Station, a commotion erupted behind me. Two women got into an argument about being pushed; it seemed like each was accusing the other of pushing her. It had happened just as I'd turned my back to sit down, so I didn't know who was right or wrong. Interestingly, they both went toward the front of the car, where they continued their argument. (I would have expected them to go in opposite directions so as to avoid one another.) I could not see them, but I heard another voice intervene and get them to stop shouting at each other, and that was that.

On the way home, I got on the Orange Line at North Station and came face to face with what I first took to be two drunk locals. After a few moments it became clear that it was one drunk local and his friend, who was in another category altogether. It was more like he was bipolar and in the midst of a manic episode. He was talking continuously, and though not all of it made sense, some of it gave me the impression that he was fairly bright.

Since the train was crowded I had no choice but to stand near them, so I turned to face the other way. They were silent, but after a few moments, I felt a finger touch the back of my hat. I turned around to look at them, and the drunk one pointed at the manic one, who grinned and shrugged. I gave him a glare, removed my hat, and turned back around. They had a laugh at my expense, and the manic guy went back to his babbling.

But this was the best part: drunk guy happened to use the word "asshole." Manic guy said, "Hey, watch your language: there are kids on this train." (I'm not sure if that was true, but it's likely there was at least one.) And then he added, "I manage to say all my crazy stuff without swearing." Well said, dude. But seriously, don't be touching me like that. Not cool.

Made in America

You all know I feel strongly about buying American-made stuff when it's realistically feasible. ABC News is doing a series all week on this subject, and it's worth watching.

The Tuck Rule Revisited

Gentlemen of greater Boston: I'm seeing way too many of you walking around with your pants tucked into your boots. DO NOT DO THIS, regardless of what you may have seen on fashion-show runways or in GQ.

Because—think about it, and I really shouldn't have to point this out—you are not on a runway, you're on the subway. Okay? You look like you're five and your mom has just dressed you and sent you out to play in the snow.

You want to roll up your pants so we can all see how stylish your boots are? I'm not personally down with that look, but it's definitely the lesser of these two evils.

Reframed

I've been on a bit of an eyeglass kick the past few years. I got a new pair of glasses in early 2008, then another pair a little over a year ago. That was when I changed from metal to plastic frames for the first time in something like 20 years. I'm not one of those people who wears a different pair of glasses each day of the week; I was at least partly influenced in that decision by prevailing style trends, and a little by Mad Men as well.

And now I've gone and done it again. I found a site called Optometrist Attic that carries vintage, old stock, and newly made frames in traditional styles, and they had the exact style I had in mind, rounded frames in a tortoise color. As it happened, the same frames showed up on eBay a couple of weeks ago, in the size I needed, so I bought them there instead.

These frames are made in England by a company called Anglo American Optical. This style is available in about a dozen different colors and in several different frame sizes. It's truly a classic style, and it's very similar to what I wore 25 years ago, during my time in college and shortly after. It's funny that I would find my way back to it, but not so surprising.

I'm not wearing these frames yet because I need to get lenses made. I'm going to talk to the optical shop at Costco to see what they charge for my prescription, but from what I've heard their pricing is pretty competitive. Further reports will be forthcoming.

This Week in Awesome (2/26/11)

We're a bit light this week; things were a bit busier at work this week than I expected, plus we're off to RI for my mother's birthday so these will just have to do...

Justin Bieber (I know, you never expected to see those words on this blog, but keep reading and it will all become clear) made his second and (presumably) final appearance on CSI last week as a (spoiler alert) troubled teen. Here's how it ended, in slightly extended form. (GorillaMask via Videogum)

I love this, but I hate that it has to exist: How To Go Through A Door. Maybe they'll do an advanced one for revolving doors. (IsA's Wonderful World via Consumerist)

Many of us, myself included, have worked in retail at some point, and anyone who has worked in any kind of job with public contact will enjoy this site. (Consumerist)

Won't You Be My (T) Neighbor?

At North Station this morning, I got off the Orange Line and was crossing the platform to wait for an E train when I heard the PA from the train behind me: "Please move all the way into the cars. Don't be afraid to get close to your neighbors."

Spurned by Spooks

Well, this isn't good: You may recall me mentioning the BBC spy show Spooks (aka MI-5) that's been running on the Boston PBS station. The last episode of season 8 airs tomorrow night, so I went to the WGBH web site to read whatever one-sentence blurb they might have about the first episode of season 9.

I was quite surprised to see that next week's scheduled episode is... the first episode of season 1. So they're going back to the beginning? Season 9 aired in the UK this past fall, but I guess WGBH's agreement to air the show didn't include season 9, or maybe the BBC doesn't want it airing here just yet; I don't pretend to understand the intricacies of international licensing rights for TV shows.

Okay, not to worry, I've watched a good chunk of this show via Netflix, so I just slid over there and... no season 9. According to the show's Wikipedia page, DVDs for each season are released in the US each January, so the season 9 DVD will come out... next January? That can't be right. It also says that season 8 just came out on DVD last month, and I'm quite sure Netflix had it available to rent before that.

However you look at it, this is bad news for fans of the show. If I got any of you interested, I apologize. Hopefully season 9 will become available some time before next January; maybe Netflix will make it available for streaming as they've done with most of the other seasons. Let's just hope season 8 doesn't end with a cliffhanger—some seasons have, others haven't.

Watch Wednesday (2/23/11)

What's this? Watch Wednesday? Well yeah, I bought a watch, so... WW has been on hold for several months, because I was trying to exercise some restraint, but I knew I'd end up buying another watch eventually.

Seiko makes good-quality, moderately priced watches, many of which are not "officially" sold in the US. But the internet makes many things easier to find and obtain. I bought this one from an eBay seller; it came with the boxes and warranty coverage, which is not always the case, so do your homework if you're looking into such a purchase. Sites like Creation Watches and BlueDial carry a lot of these watches too, as does Amazon. (I have never personally purchased a watch from any of these sellers, but I'd certainly consider doing so.)

As I mentioned the other day, I posted some watches on Style Forum, one because I'd decided it wasn't quite big enough for my wrist. That one sold right away, and I see this one as its replacement—it's quite a bit larger, about 43 mm across. Automatic movement, display back, nice beefy case, cool orange accents on the dial and hands. You can't really tell in this crappy pic, but the second hand is black and the tip is orange (the white circle is on the other end), and that little orange triangle between 4 and 5 is pointing at the date window.

As usual, this watch came with a lousy strap (if you look at this picture you can see it) that I had to replace. It's leather with a plastic top surface stitched to it that's supposed to look like those "kevlar" straps, but it looked cheesy and made squeaky noises every time I moved my wrist. Gone. In its place is this thick leather strap by Hadley-Roma, from Global Watch Band in Florida. This thing is about 1/4" thick at the ends that meet the watch (check out the step-up from the stitching to the padded center section).

The leather was so stiff I was worried I wouldn't be able to get it to shape to my wrist properly, which is important when you're breaking in a new strap so it sits on your wrist the right way. I figured out which hole I needed to wear it in (the last one) and put it on the little plastic stand in the pic for a few hours to help with the shaping, and then I was able to strap it onto my wrist with no trouble.

The last watch featured on WW back in October also got a new strap, and it's also a huge improvement. This one is made by an Italian company called Morellato, and I bought it from The Watch Prince. It's a very interesting leather that's been treated to be water-resistant and feels like some sort of synthetic, but the best thing about the Morellato straps is that they're made in Italy, but priced like straps made in China.

Tool Time

Regardless of your level of handiness, you reach a point where you need some certain basic tools for everyday household tasks. And given my somewhat compulsive nature, I like to have the correct tool for the job when possible. The Mrs. made fun of me when I bought a rubber mallet to use to assemble a piece of furniture (she probably would have just used her shoe), but it was only $5 and I have had numerous occasions to use it since.

Likewise, I purchased a small hand saw many years ago (I can't even remember why I needed it then) and the first year we were living here, one of the upstairs neighbors knocked on the door one December afternoon and asked, with some skepticism, "Do you by any chance happen to have a saw?" because they had just brought home a Christmas tree and it was a bit too tall. I was only too happy to be able to say that I did in fact have a saw.

Power tools cost more, so the purchase of them has to be justified more. I've had a Black & Decker cordless screwdriver for almost a decade, and it's one of those things that makes sense for almost anyone to have. But I'd noticed that mine was losing its ability to hold a charge, until it no longer worked at all. So now you have another screwdriver that's just like all your other screwdrivers, except it's much bigger, heavier, and more awkward to use.

I was thinking about what to get for a replacement when one of those one-day sale sites, Yugster I think, offered a palm-size model from Skil. I went back a couple of hours later to take a closer look and it was already sold out, and this was before noon, so I figured it must be a decent gadget. I looked around online and found it on the Skil web site. There are actually a few different models, but they're all basically the same. They have lithium-ion batteries that hold their charge for a very long time, and some models come with an LED light below the bit to help you see what you're doing.

Some models come with accessory kits and charging stands, but I think the biggest benefit of this is the small size: not only is it easy to hold, but you can add a bit extender and get into tight spaces with it. I finally made it to a Lowe's over the weekend and picked one up; it was $30 there.

Wanna Buy A Watch?

I've posted three of my watches for sale over at Style Forum. I already have offers on the Seiko 5, but the other two are still wide open. (SF requires membership to send private messages, but if you are interested and are not a member, contact me through the blog and we can discuss it.)

This Week in Awesome (2/19/11)

So winter's reminding us that it isn't quite over, but at least the drifts have receded enough during those couple of warm days that the Mrs. can see oncoming traffic while she backs the car out of the driveway. Meanwhile the web is full of seasonless gifts...

One of those folks with an insane admirable amount of free time has been using it to recreate the famous car chase from the movie Bullitt (which you may recall I mentioned recently) using 1/32 scale cars and stop-motion filming. Check out the preview. (Jalopnik)

Misery Bear is a web series from BBC Comedy about a little tan stuffed fellow whose life is full of travail. (BBC via The Awl)

Tired of the usual, boring drawer pulls? Here's a suggested alternative. (Apartment Therapy via The Hairpin)

Interesting piece about the outsize impact certain books can have on us when we're young and impressionable. I've only read one of them, ever, so not sure what that says about me. (Flavorwire via Hairpin)

And finally this week, the latest Darwin Awards hopeful submits his application. (Videogum)

Bargain Alert: Red Wings

I imagine at least a few of you share my interest in clothes and shoes, so I want to alert you to a particularly good deal available at Orvis online. Orvis has a group of products they call the "Made-in-America Collection" which is pretty self-explanatory. What makes this somewhat interesting is that, like J. Crew, Orvis carries products from other American companies.

In the shoe section they carry items from Alden, Allen Edmonds, the Wolverine boots I bought in New York last fall, and Red Wing Iron Ranger boots. Strangely, they're calling them the "Cannon Valley" boots, but if you look at the picture it's clearly the Iron Ranger in the color Red Wing calls "amber."

These typically sell for close to $300 a pair, but Orvis currently has them on sale for $180, plus they're offering an extra 20% off all sale merchandise through Monday, bringing the price for these down to $144 (plus tax and shipping, if applicable), which qualifies as a steal. That's probably less than you'd pay for a lightly used pair on Style Forum, assuming you could find someone selling a pair in your size.

The only real caveat is that anything smaller than a 10.5 is gone, and these run big by a half size or so. But if you like the Red Wing aesthetic, want a solid, sturdy, American-made pair of boots that will last you decades, and are a larger-footed guy, this deal is calling you.

Deadline Week Alert

This is turning out to be a particularly busy week for me at work; the monthly deadline approacheth, as it always doeth, but I find myself juggling that with several other small projects at the same time, so at this moment there's no predicting what posting may be like for the rest of the week.

I was hoping to find some good reading online to point you at, but it's late and I'm more tired than usual (I almost nodded off while watching TV an hour or so ago), so I think you should just go watch this a few times.

Overheard: Not By Me Edition

So I know this person from back when I worked at the Huntington Theatre in the mid-90s. She still works there, and I've run into her a few times at the Mass. Ave. Orange Line station. She recently started twittering things she overhears on the bus, and it's about as strange and amusing as you would expect, so check it out, okay? The best part is you don't even need to "follow" her, you can just hit that link and they're all there.

And The Winner Is...

I watched the entire Grammy awards show last night, something I haven't done in well over a decade. I wasn't planning to, but then I heard about some of the artists scheduled to perform. I also knew that Arcade Fire was nominated for Album of the Year, and although I figured they had no chance of winning, it kind of gave me an excuse to check out the show.

I'm still taken aback that Arcade Fire won, but more because of the competition in the category than for any question about whether or not they deserved to win. The Suburbs is a rich, bittersweet, evocative, nostalgic look back at the joys and heartaches of growing up in this country, and I can only assume that it struck a chord among the academy's voters, not to mention that it's truly an album, one that bears listening to in its entirety—I would not go so far as to call it a concept album, because it isn't, but the same themes and ideas definitely recur from song to song. And even though they were the last act to perform on the show, they pretty much set the Staples Center on fire with raging versions of "Month of May" and "Ready to Start."

The show itself has changed somewhat over the years; not that many awards are given out during the broadcast itself, to allow the focus to shift to live performances, which I think is a good idea, and is probably more of what fans want to see anyway. A few highlights:

Lady Gaga's arrival at the show inside her egg-womb thingy, and her emergence from it to perform her new song "Born This Way," was typical Gaga and a brilliant piece of theatrical self-promotion. The song itself was a little too much of a clone of "Express Yourself," and this surprised me. Lady Gaga goes to a great deal of effort to present and promote herself as a true original, so even if she is this generation's Madonna, I would not expect her to mimic Madonna so closely. Bonus points for presentation, though.

Likewise I won't soon forget the sight of Cee-Lo Green done up as a giant rainbow chicken. (Just imagine the bad trips that caused among those watching the show while high.) The puppet band was cute too. Gwyneth Paltrow, not so much, and I'm not referring to her appearance but to the mere fact of her presence—it was just pandering to the Glee crowd. I felt like she was a distraction and took the emphasis away from Cee-Lo, where it belonged.

I'm totally digging Janelle Monae. I saw a clip of her performing on Late Show a while back, and I was really impressed. She isn't just talented, she has presence. She's fantastic, and I really need to get her music.

I had to mute the Justin Bieber performance. I really can't bear the sight or sound of him. By coincidence, some sort of domestic argument was happening next door (not the first time this has happened) just as he was starting to perform, so the muted TV allowed us to hear some muffled yelling and the arrival of several police cars and an ambulance outside our house.

This Week in Awesome (2/12/11)

I didn't want you to think I'd forgotten TWiA again: the Mrs. is finishing an application to a graduate program, so she was using the computer a lot this weekend, while I tried to stay out of the way and keep quiet.

This compilation video is six minutes or so of people doing questionable things that result in them being injured. I felt bad about watching this, but at the same time I couldn't stop watching it. Discuss... (BuzzFeed via Awl)

The Brooklyn-based blog Lost City (which went away for a while last year but then came back), recently made a visit to Providence, which got my attention. Some excellent photos of Federal Hill signage.

Did someone say "more time-lapse video"? Only too happy to oblige: here's footage of a new bridge that connects surface streets in the Bronx and Manhattan being installed last year. (Jalopnik)

The New York Times went behind the scenes at Pixar, not an everyday occurrence.

And finally, my favorite clip of this past week: a music video of the Joy Division song "Transmission" created using Playmobil figures. (The Awl via Entertainment Weekly)

Keyboard Shortcut

I don't have much to say about tech gear; this may be because I use Macs at home and at work, and they tend to just work without fuss. But recently I noticed that the keyboard I use at home was seeming a little tired. It came with the desktop G4 Mac that I bought in 1998, so it was not exactly a surprise.

I don't care for the keyboards that Apple currently sells; they are too flat, so the keys don't have as much travel and thus have a very poor tactile feel, and I also don't like how the keys are spaced. So I looked around a few online spots and read some reviews, and decided to try a Logitech keyboard.

I don't need to move the keyboard around while I'm using it, so I decided to stick with a USB-corded model. They make a "compact" keyboard that has approximately the same footprint as the Apple keyboard I wanted to replace, which is convenient because the slide-out keyboard shelf on my desk at home has just about enough room for that keyboard and the Apple trackpad I got for my birthday from the Mrs. The compact model is inexpensive, solidly built, and has good key feel—there's a certain springiness to the keys that makes it pleasant to type on.

After I bought it, I happened to see a different model in a store, also a Logitech, with a much sleeker design and illuminated keys. It looked about as flat as one of the Apple keyboards, but the key feel was nothing like the Apple. It felt even better than the one I'd bought, and the keys were also very quiet. It was pretty sharp-looking, and I wanted one, but this one retails for $80 and I could not justify spending that much to replace a keyboard I'd just bought.

But I could justify getting it to use at work. I set up an eBay search for that model and checked it every couple of days. It took several weeks, mainly because the fixed-price auctions were asking too much, but I won an auction for an open-box unit for $30. I've been using it at work for a couple of weeks now, and I highly recommend it.

Office Shoes

Recently I was having an email conversation with the Proper Bostonian about, among other things, winter boots. She asked me if I kept shoes at work to change into so I didn't have to wear my insulated, waterproof boots (which are somewhat heavy and clunky) all day. I told her I don't, because men, as a rule, can rarely be bothered with such things.

But then I started thinking about it, and I realized it would make so much sense to have shoes at work and be able to change out of my boots. Of course, I could just take off my boots and walk around the office in my socks, but there's something a bit presumptuous about that. In fact, I worked with a guy some years back who would remove his shoes as soon as he arrived at the office every day, and spend the day walking around in his socks. He was a nice enough guy, but still...

So I went down to the basement closet annex and retrieved the blucher mocs I bought from L.L. Bean a couple of months ago. They are decidedly not winter shoes (which is why they were in storage), but they're quite suitable for wearing around the office. So thanks, PB, for the suggestion. It's nice not to feel quite so weighted down all day.

What Are You Watching This Winter?

In the realm of television, February is a ratings "sweeps" month (although it's difficult to imagine how that archaic metric is going to remain relevant much longer), so the broadcast and cable networks roll out lots of new programming. Here are a few shows that are worth your time (if you aren't watching them already).

If you watched any of the Super Bowl, you saw plenty of promotion for Fox's new police drama The Chicago Code, which premiered Monday night. The show comes from creator Shawn Ryan, who was responsible for The Shield, one of the most viscerally compelling shows of the past decade. So right there, you've got me interested enough to give it my attention. It's being shot on location in Chicago, so it looks authentic. The plot is going to weave weekly cases with an overarching story about fighting corruption in the city's government. (Watch the first episode here, on Hulu.)

Over on Fox's cable cousin FX (where The Shield ran for seven seasons), the second season of Justified arrives tonight. Based on short stories by Elmore Leonard, Justified follows US Marshal Raylan Givens, who has been assigned to the county in Kentucky where he grew up. This is a sly, thoroughly engaging show that at times feels like a modern Western, with humor, action, and indelible characters, and Timothy Olyphant is utterly magnetic in his portrayal of Raylan. (Episodes of Justified are not streamed online, but each episode is repeated several times over the course of the week; check the schedule on the FX web site for information.)

Also on FX, the hilariously raunchy animated spy spoof Archer returned for its second season a couple of weeks back. Sterling Archer is a superspy and a huge asshole to everyone around him, including his boss (who also happens to be his mother) and fellow spy Lana Kane (who also happens to be his ex). The show derives much of its humor from showing us that even spies have to put up with difficult coworkers and workplace shenanigans. (Episodes of Archer don't post for online viewing until 30 days after they have aired on FX; three of last season's episodes are currently available here, and the multiple airings each week are in effect here as well.)

Does your cable or satellite system carry the IFC channel? If so, you may want to flip over there on Fridays at 10 pm (speaking of archaic... don't flip, just set your DVR) for the TV version of web favorite Onion News Network. ONN makes The Daily Show seem like Meet The Press; instead of merely spoofing news and events, the ONN folks just flat-out make shit up, and really funny shit at that.

Paired with ONN on Fridays is Portlandia, a spoof of life in the laid-back Pacific Northwest city, created by and starring Saturday Night Live's Fred Armisen and musician Carrie Brownstein. My favorite bits so far have been the woman who freaks out when she finds an unattended dog tied to a post outside a restaurant, and Fred and Carrie playing a couple who employ Aimee Mann as their housekeeper (the conceit is that the music business is so bad these days that even talented people like Ms. Mann have to take menial jobs to survive). (Watch clips from Portlandia here.)

Elsewhere: Parks And Recreation is finally back (Thursdays at 9:30 on NBC), and absolutely crushing it. For me, it's tied with 30 Rock for the funniest show on TV right now. New episodes of Top Gear are airing Mondays at 9 on BBC America, and this is the current season that is still airing in the UK, with a delay of only a week or two—quicker than they've ever made it across the pond. (The Middle East Christmas special that was posted on YouTube for a few days will air this coming Monday, the 14th, at 10:20 pm,) And White Collar is cleverly and stylishly playing out the second half of its second season (Tuesdays at 10 on USA).

Cubed

When I wrote last week about my job at the e-commerce company, I neglected to mention one curious aspect of our office environment after we were reunited with the rest of the company in the new office space: our cubicles were equipped with sliding doors.

Let that sink in for a moment: sliding doors on cubicles.

The doors had a sort of translucent corrugated plastic insert. I guess the door was supposed to be used as a sort of "do not disturb" indicator, but come on. This was ten years ago, so my memory is not precise, but I seem to remember that the walls of the cubes were between four and a half and five feet high; regardless, they were low enough that most of the people working there could easily look over the top of the wall. Pretty silly.

The one thing I did like about the cubicles, that I have not come across in any other place I've worked, was that the work surfaces had a light, IKEA-ish fake-wood finish, as opposed to the bland beige or gray desktops you see in most places.

Flopped?

When I got to the bus stop this morning I saw, lying on the sidewalk, a single white flip-flop. Is it possible there's a wormhole in the vicinity, and it accidentally slipped off the foot of a time-traveler?

Crossed Tracks

Apologies for the absence of TWiA over the weekend. What happened? I'm not really sure. It was going to be a light installment anyway, and I think that made my subconscious make me "forget" to post it.

Yesterday I was actually fairly busy almost from the time I got up; there was a lot to be done around the house, and outside of it as well—I spent about two and a half hours breaking ice and removing it from the front steps, the sidewalk, the driveway, and the walkway around the back of the house. Good exercise, actually, and it was a pretty nice day, but now my wrist hurts, of course.

There was weirdness on the way to work this morning too, though not the usual kind. The commute actually started well; the bus came more or less when it's supposed to, and traffic was normal so we were not delayed. When I got to the platform at Wellington, I started a conversation with a neighbor, and a train came in that was pretty well packed so we both decided to wait for the next one.

A few minutes later, as a train was coming in on the outbound side, the PA announced that it would be heading back into Boston. We looked at each other and said, "Seats!"

When I got to North Station I crossed the platform and waited a couple of minutes for an E train. But somewhere along the way, the E turned into a C, except I was pretty engrossed in my newspaper and so didn't notice this until the train was between Hynes and Kenmore. Rather than take the time to double back to Copley and cross the street to catch an E train, I decided to head upstairs at Kenmore and catch one of the buses that passes through the medical area. I had to wait about five minutes for a bus, but otherwise it worked out well, and I suppose I could consider this an alternate route to get to work if necessary.

Early Morning Surprises

The dog's been going through one of her phases where she needs to go out during the wee hours. We think she wakes up because she's cold, or hears a truck pass by outside (she's always been particularly sensitive to the sound of diesel engines, which goes back to her days being transported to and from the race track in a truck), and once she's awake she realizes she needs to go. Lucky us.

As I was pulling on some clothes at 5 am, making sure I dressed warmly enough, I could hear a low noise coming from outside, nearby, that sounded like some sort of engine. I figured this is what had awakened her.

When we got outside, I discovered that the source of the noise was a Bobcat shovel, being operated by the negligent neighbor I mentioned last week, to clear his sidewalk. (At 5 am; thanks for that, dude.) It only made me more angry, because HE HAS A FRIGGIN' BOBCAT (or at least has access to one), making it super easy (relative to the rest of us snow-schlepping schlubs) for him to clear the walks.

So what's the excuse for not doing it for the past three weeks? I know the guy hasn't been on vacation or anything, because I've seen him plowing after each storm, as the snow got higher and higher on the sidewalks in front of his house. People are such assholes.

Also, I never got back to sleep after I finished walking the dog. Not a great way to start the day.

Caffeine Deprived

I ran out of coffee yesterday. We weren't being good New Englanders and didn't make a pre-storm run to the grocery store. So this morning I had a bowl of instant oatmeal, and no coffee, before I left the house.

When I headed outside to the bus stop, I couldn't find my paper. Things have been a little iffy lately regarding the paper delivery, with the weather and all, so I wasn't completely surprised. But it meant that I had nothing to read on the way to work, and no time to go back in the house to get something.

A couple of stops before I needed to get off the train, I realized that I had nodded off for a few seconds. And then I remembered that I hadn't had any coffee yet. What a strange feeling. I have certainly gone into that groggy zone on the way home from work on a few occasions, but never before even arriving at work.

We are now restocked with coffee and other essentials, just in case.

Frozen Slush

We were told on Tuesday not to go into work today. I think that's the third time this winter. It turned out not to be such a big deal, at least compared to some of the other storms we've had this year. But the forecasts indicated that this one was going to be somewhat unpredictable, due to fluctuating temperatures. The Mrs. got up at 6:30, took the dog out, came back and said it wasn't doing anything outside, and that she was going to work.

I shoveled Tuesday night from the snow that fell that day, because I didn't want it to get trapped under a layer of ice. Today I went outside at around 3:30 pm to assess the situation. The temperature was in the mid-30s for much of the day, but by the time I went out it had dropped back to about 25, so there was an inch or so of frozen slush covering all the areas I'd shoveled clear the night before.

Not only was the slush heavy, but it stuck to the shovel, even the metal one, making for slow going. I was able to clear everything except the sidewalk in front of the house, which had already frozen solid, but was not slippery because the surface was rough from foot traffic. But I bet it will be slick by tomorrow.

I finished clearing the plow-spill from the bottom of the driveway just before the Mrs. arrived home. If we get a decent day soon where it warms up a bit, I can hopefully clear the front walk.

Update: I just took the dog out for last call, and there's a thin frosting of snow on everything; it must have fallen after I came inside. (The forecasts I saw actually predicted the storm would end this way, so give them credit for getting one right.) This may be for the best, as this top layer of snow may provide a little traction tomorrow morning.

Ten Years After

Today marks the day ten years ago when I was laid off from my job at an e-commerce company. Why would I even bother to remember this? I guess the fact that it happened on the first day of the month makes it somewhat easier to remember without really meaning or trying to. At that point I had been employed there for about two and a half years.

What I mainly remember was that the layoffs (four or five others besides me) came as quite a surprise. We were all under the impression that the company was doing well, and it was, but it was not yet at the point where it was self-sustainable, and after the dot-com bubble burst in the second half of 2000, it was much more difficult for fledgling companies to secure that crucial next round of funding.

Working there was a big deal for me because it was the job that got me out of the hell of retail work where I'd been for the previous decade. There are people who enjoy working in retail and are really good at it, and then there are the rest of us, who ended up there because we couldn't land any other sort of job. In my case it had dragged on way too long, and I was stuck. But my retail employer was one of the first clients of the e-commerce company, and I was chosen to be their point of contact.

I didn't wait long before letting them know, very unambiguously, that I wanted to work for them, and then it happened—they asked me to work for them. I'd never pursued a job that way, and gotten it. At first I worked as a freelancer while I still had the other job, but after a couple of months the other job was eliminated, and a couple of months after that the e-commerce folks offered me a full-time contract position.

I came into things relatively early: the office was still in the basement of the founder's home. When I started I was creating new products in the database and assisting with customer service. But within a few months things were moving along well enough that they needed to hire more people, and in order to do that they had to find a real office. I finally felt like I was where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to do.

Things happened very quickly after that. A year after starting as a contractor, I was hired as a full employee. Later that year we ran out of office space, and my department was sent "offshore" to a temporary space while the company waited for new office space to be completed in a building around the corner. When we finally moved back to the mother ship, we were only there for about three months before the first layoffs happened. The company hung on for one more year before ceasing operations.

I was convinced that I would never again find a comparable job. I now had some relevant experience; I just had to find a situation where it would be useful, and there weren't many of those. After exhausting unemployment, I ended up having to return to retail work, but only for nine months. A placement agency found me a position that seemed like it was made for me. The commute was terrible, but it was a good job, and it paid even better than the other one.

I was at that company for two years. During that time we were sold, and our new owners then merged with another company that ended up being in control and moved our operation to North Carolina. Laid off again, I was forced to return to retail yet again, but this time I was also able to get temporary part-time work through the agency that had placed me at the previous job.

These temp gigs led directly to the job I have today: I was placed here on an indefinite assignment five years ago, which allowed me to quit that final retail job, and seventeen months after that I was hired permanently.

When I look at the ups and downs of my last decade of working life, it almost seems like there was planning and design involved. The truth is that it was far more random, but things do happen for a reason, and I'm certain that had I not been laid off ten years ago, I would not be in this job today. Also, I probably would not have met the Proper Bostonian, who became a good friend.

Planning Behind

Even though I've had a smartphone for a year, I don't tend to use the calendar function much. I mean, I use it sometimes when I need to look at a visual representation of a calendar and I'm not at home or at the office (where they are conveniently hung on the wall). But I don't use it to keep track of appointments and important dates. I just prefer to write things down, I think because it gives me a better chance of remembering them.

For the past several years I have been using a Moleskine combination planner book/notebook. These come in several variations; I prefer the kind that shows the week vertically on the left pages, and has ruled lines on the right pages to make notes about whatever I want. For example, this is how I keep track of my online bill payments each month, just as a kind of backup to the confirmation emails.

This year, I didn't remember that I needed a new book until I came back to work on January 3rd. Last year I think I bought one at Porter Square Books, but I haven't been over that way in some time, and it's way out of the way for me to go there after work. I kept meaning to stop by the Barnes & Noble in the Prudential Center, which is more or less on my way home, but with the ridiculous weather and the days I haven't even come into the office and the days I've had to head home from work early to take care of the dog, it just kept slipping back on the priority list.

I finally made it there one night last week, and of course I was way too late: anything calendar-related that remained in the store was marked down to at least half-price and piled on a small table, but there was very little left in general. Moleskine doesn't seem to sell its products directly online, but I figured other places must. A little searching got me to the Barnes & Noble online store, where I hadn't visited in several years. Not only did they still have the notebook I wanted in stock, but it was still half-price. A couple of CDs I'd been wanting to get (yeah, I still buy CDs) got me over the free-shipping threshold.

At this point, a month into the year, I would have preferred to find this item in a local store, but then what's a few more days to wait until it arrives?

This Week in Awesome (1/29/11)

Wow, yesterday just completely disappeared down some rabbit hole. Got up, had a crappy commute, worked, had another crappy commute, sat down in front of the TV with some food and a beer to unwind. But now it's Saturday, which means it's time for your regular weekend dose of awesome...

This is a bit late, but it just came to my attention: the 50 most loathsome people of 2010. Naturally, some of them are political, but some are not. (Buffalo Beast via Unlikely Words)

Infographic time: a map of the United States showing what each state is worst in. (Pleated Jeans via The Hairpin)

This one isn't so much awesome as, well, I feel bad for you if you're in a situation where you need this sort of thing. And I feel compelled to point out that, with only three tumblers, there are only 1000 possible combinations, so it wouldn't really take that long for the person you are theoretically protecting your precious ice cream from to run through all of them. Just saying.

I hope you are familiar with the 1968 Steve McQueen movie Bullitt, which contains what many people feel is the greatest car chase ever put on film. (I concur, though I think the final chase in Ronin comes pretty close.) This is an excellent interview with the man who did the stunt driving for McQueen in the movie, with plenty of accompanying photos and video clips. (JazzWax via Jalopnik)

A Thought

So after looking at those pictures, do you think we should do some sort of pool for when the snow will be gone from around my house?

Drifts and Piles

Gee, more snow. Quite a bit more, in fact—this storm left about ten inches. As a result, the drifts in front of our house are getting kind of high. Today, after I finished shoveling, I got my camera and took a few pictures:

Here's the big pile at the corner of our driveway, with a secondary pile visible behind it. These are mainly from clearing the driveway and the sidewalk, plus what gets tossed in by the plows that has to be removed. (We live on what the city considers a key artery, so we never have to worry about the street being plowed, but the flip side of that is the excess that comes in whenever a plow passes.)

The pile in front is now about as tall as me, so six feet high. After the first big storm in December, I had a cleared space from the sidewalk in front of the steps out to the street (that dip in the middle to the right of the tree), but it got plowed in so many times I lost the will to keep it clear.

Here's the pile on the other side of the driveway. Technically this is in front of our neighbor's house, but he doesn't mind me throwing it there.

The driveway is long enough to hold four cars, but we have only the one, so we don't bother clearing the whole thing, because, hell, I'd still be out there. This leaves enough room for a second car to park behind ours, and a wide enough walkway for one of us and the dog.

This is the walkway on the opposite side of the house. Normally I do two shovel widths, but one was all I could handle today. This tends to turn into solid ice (from melting snow dripping off the roof) soon after a storm, so we tend to not use it until there's a thaw.

And this is the house of a neighbor that I have to pass each morning on the way to the bus stop. He owns a truck with a plow, and he usually uses it to plow the sidewalk after storms. This is less than ideal, since he can't clear around the pole with the plow and I guess he's too lazy to get out of his truck and use a shovel, but it's better than nothing. After the storm two weeks ago he didn't plow, so I've gotten to enjoy walking in the street each morning. Today it looks like he actually plowed snow from the street onto the sidewalk, making it worse, which makes no sense. I may have to send this picture to the city.

Bargain Alert: Extra Discounts on Clearance

I probably should have mentioned this sooner, but Lands' End Canvas is offering an additional 40% off everything in their sale section, through tonight. J. Crew has a similar offer (also ending tonight), but their stock is quite picked over, and their prices were significantly higher to start.

As far as LEC, it's mostly fall stuff, with a few things from last summer as well, and all of it has already been marked down substantially. To give you an idea, I got a flannel shirt for $10, a pair of chinos for $10, a pair of shorts for $10, and a polo shirt for $6. Crazy, huh?

And buying things to wear in the summer makes me feel just a tiny bit warmer inside in the face of this nasty winter.

Strange Noises Unit

Every day, at around 12:25 pm, we hear a strange noise at work. It's kind of a cross between a howl and a siren, and it lasts for two or three seconds. It sounds to me like it's coming from the office on the other side of the wall from where I now sit, but one of my coworkers who sits nearby says that she was outside one day at that time and heard it very plainly, so she believes it originates from somewhere outside our building.

It's all very odd. I'm old enough to recall hearing a civil defense siren go off each evening at 6 pm in the city where I grew up, but that lasted for 15 seconds or so. We have not been able to come up with any credible ideas as to what the source of the sound might be, or any businesses nearby in Brigham Circle that would have reason to sound off in such a way. We'll figure it out eventually, but it's going to take some time.

The Heavy-Duty Gear

Well, winter has gotten serious. It's been a while since we've had temps below zero (2005, according to the news); it was -1 when I got up this morning, and actually went down a degree before I'd left the house, however that can be.

[I have a coworker who is a native of Minnesota, so of course she scoffs at the somewhat overblown reaction to this; to her, this is normal winter weather.]

Being a public-transit commuter means you have to be prepared to stand outside in weather like this. In the past I've mentioned my flannel-lined pants and jeans and my insulated boots, but a morning like this one calls for something with a bit more cold-fighting power. I headed down to the basement and broke out the black Eddie Bauer down parka that I've had for more than 15 years.

I purchased this coat in the winter of 1994-95, when there was still an EB retail store on Boylston Street, across from where the Borders and "Filene's Basement" (this will always appear in quotes until such time as the real Basement reopens, if that ever happens) are now.

At the time I was still working as a book buyer in the gift shop of a local cultural institution, but I had a second part-time job at the Huntington Theatre on the front-of-house staff, which had a jacket-and-tie dress code. I needed a coat that I could wear over a a sport jacket in very cold weather; at the time I owned a trench coat, but it was woefully inadequate below about 30 degrees, plus whatever substance was used as a lining between the outer and inner layers of fabric made a crinkling noise when I wore it out in the cold, so it had to go.

I have no idea how I became aware of this coat, but it was probably from stopping in the store to browse. I do remember that it went on sale in January, for about 1/3 off its original price of $200. I liked its appearance because the horizontal, tubular down chambers (I think they're called baffles) were not visible from the outside of the coat; the exterior is plain, smooth fabric without the visible seams common to down outerwear that I've always disliked so much.

At the time I was earning around $20K a year from my main job, so the primary reason I was working a second job was to accelerate paying off my student loans, and I was diligently dedicating all the money I earned from it to that purpose. But we also received tips from the theater's concessions and coat check, which we divided after each show among those of us who worked that shift.

I quickly realized that if I held onto the tips I received, instead of just adding them into my pocket after each shift, I could accrue enough over the course of a show's run (I was working an average of three shifts a week for the four or five weeks each show ran) to buy myself a present, so to speak, something that I might otherwise not be in a position to buy. And tips were better during the winter, because of the coat check, so that's how I paid for the coat.

Over the years I have needed it only occasionally; in fact, it's just too warm to wear most of the time. It only really makes sense to wear when the temperature drops below about 15 and the wind cranks up, otherwise it's just too warm. It has a hood; I hate hoods, but considering the parameters of its usefulness, having a hood is actually quite appreciated when I need to wear it. And the hood warps around in front into a chin piece, which adds a little extra wind protection for my lower face.

A couple of winters ago I was going through my clothes and considered donating the coat to a shelter. But then we have a day like this one, and I'm really glad I still have it.

This Week in Awesome (1/22/11)

This winter's getting a little nuts. We're supposed to get another big storm next week. I wouldn't mind it quite so much if the assholes in my neighborhood would clear their fucking sidewalks. But I digress...

Thursday was the 50th anniversary of John Kennedy's inauguration, and it got a fair amount of media coverage. Some time back, at least a year ago, I listened to Kennedy's inauguration speech on the Kennedy Library web site and found it quite moving. It's inspirational, of course, as we all know, but it's also a serious and sober assessment of the state of the world at the time, with the threat of atomic weapons hanging over everyday life. Now the library has the video of the speech available, and I highly recommend taking 15 minutes or so and watching it.

We haven't shared a time-lapse video in a while; this one of New York is beautiful and well done. (Vimeo)

This video spoofing both Jersey Shore and LA's particular flavor or hipsterdom got by me when it was released, but it's worth a look. (Funny or Die)

Serious geekery: you can now get a Hot Wheels car with a camera built into it, so you can do track-view videos. (Dvice via Jalopnik)

And finally, did you hear about all those organized crime arrests this week? The Village Voice has done us all the great service of compiling a list of 20 of the arrestees and their nicknames. My personal favorite? "Vinny Carwash." (Kempt)

Intended for Mature Audiences

Last year I mentioned (scroll down to the last few paragraphs of that post) that the British spy show Spooks (known in this country as MI-5) was airing on Boston PBS station WGBH. I watched the first four seasons several years back when they aired on A&E, and five more have aired in the UK since that time. (Season 9 aired in the fall of 2010, and the BBC has announced a tenth season for later this year.)

I wanted to get back into the show but since it had been four years, I thought it would be a good idea to watch those episodes again (I remembered that season 4 ended with a cliffhanger). Additionally, WGBH was promising to show the complete, full-length episodes as they had aired in the UK (the A&E broadcasts had been edited to allow for commercials), so I started recording them.

Because of WGBH's inconsistent scheduling (the show would disappear off the schedule for a month at a time during fundraising periods), I soon grew frustrated and switched to Netflix, which has most episodes of the show available for streaming. For whatever obscure reason that likely has something to do with international rights, seasons 5 and 8 are available from Netflix only on DVD, so I switched back to the physical discs to get through season 5.

During my holiday break, I finished season 5 and jumped back to watching seasons 6 and 7 via streaming. I happened to look at the WGBH web site during this time to see if they were still airing the show, and if so, where they were in the series. In a bit of luck, season 8 was scheduled to begin airing on Friday nights starting in January, so I added it back into my TiVo's to-do list. (Of course, I could go back to Netflix and get the discs to finish season 8 if I want to, and not have to wait for the episodes to air.)

While I feel that the show isn't quite as compelling now as in its earlier seasons, and at times has even become somewhat predictable, it's still fairly entertaining, and its plots are often just a few millimeters off from the realm of events that could actually happen. But I have noticed one curious thing about WGBH's broadcasts.

When I was a young and highly impressionable lad in the 1970s, PBS had the reputation of being somewhat freer with broadcast standards than the big networks. At about age 11 I was introduced to the glory of Monty Python's Flying Circus (airing on WGBH), and although I didn't understand some of the cultural and historical references or know all of the British slang, I stuck around because topless women occasionally appeared, and as a bonus I witnessed some of the greatest sketch comedy ever performed.

I'm not sure exactly when PBS (or maybe it's just WBGH) got timid (maybe something to do with their corporate sponsors?), but I was both amused and annoyed to find that the occasional sprinklings of curse words uttered by characters on MI-5 were being edited out. It's particularly jarring, because the entire audio track drops out for a moment, which takes you out of the show. I'm sure the BBC never bothered to get the actors to record alternate dialogue lines (as The Sopranos did, foreseeing possible syndication) because it never would have occurred to them that such a prudish step was necessary.

Frankly, it isn't. The show airs at 10 pm on Fridays; there's no reason WGBH can't air these episodes without editing out the (very) few salty words, with a warning disclaimer before the broadcasts. There's plenty of the same sort of language being used on shows on AMC, TNT, FX, and other cable channels, which are not subject to FCC restrictions but still have to answer to advertisers. This nannying business worries me; we grown-ups need to be able to make our own decisions about such things. If you're uncomfortable with a show's language or thematic content, don't watch, and don't let your kids watch.

Thank goodness MPFC has been preserved on DVD, because it certainly wouldn't be aired in its original form today.

Easy Friday

I was concerned about how this morning's trek into work would go, but I think a lot of people chose to stay home preemptively, because the roads and the T were a lot less crowded than usual. Today ended up being my easiest morning commute of this week. And as an added bonus, the office is nearly empty; I think there are four other people here, besides me.

The Black House

A slow news day, as they say (do "they" still say that?), and I was trying to come up with something semi-worthwhile to post when I remembered this photo I took about three months ago (for the purpose of posting here) of a house that isn't exactly in our immediate neighborhood, but is one we drive past once a week or so:

This house is painted black, which is not a color choice you typically see on dwellings. Why? Well, just look at it. It looks wrong, like it's made of antimatter or something, like all sorts of nefarious things go on inside. (Actually, if you were going to do nefarious things, you'd probably want your house to look as normal as possible from the outside, so as not to draw undue attention.)

Whenever we go past this house, I can't help but think, Who would paint their house black? Was there any particular reason you did it? Are you going to murder me for looking at your house? That sort of thing.

And what's with that white awning? Why isn't that black? I mean, you went so far as to paint the window frames and other trim black too. I'm also a tiny bit surprised their minivan isn't black.

It Wasn't Broken

I've mentioned many times that I like to tune into New England Cable News in the morning while getting ready to leave the house. I got the information I needed, and I liked the format: pretty straightforward news and information, minimal fluff, occasional humor (especially during Scott Montminy's traffic reports).

So of course I was dismayed when I read last week that NECN was revamping its morning show to be more like the national shows. I think this is a terrible idea; I've never watched Today or Good Morning America or... whatever that perennial third-place show on CBS is called, precisely because I don't care for the chatty, pseudo-living-room atmosphere.

The new NECN morning show, oh-so-imaginatively titled The Morning Show (right there, a clear indication of forthcoming vapidity), debuted this past Monday. I was up at 8 that morning, but since it was a holiday I didn't bother turning on the TV, so I checked it out yesterday and today. Two new hosts have displaced the former morning anchors, and just like the big shows they've brought in a third person (a current NECN anchor) to run through the news stories before tossing back to the hosts for fluffy time.

Now, the thing about my morning routine is, I don't really have the time to sit around and watch TV, so I'm generally just listening to it, often from the adjacent room, while I go about getting ready. Even without having to look at it, I already hate this show, its hosts, and its format so much I won't bother to tune in anymore. Maybe, maybe if they'd kept Mike Nikitas and Karen Swensen around to ease viewers into the idea of the new format, it wouldn't be quite so bad. But the new hosts are just phony, synthetic talking heads, and even though the basic outline of the content is the same, the way it's presented makes it intolerable to me.

I'm disgusted, but more than that, I'm disappointed. I considered NECN the last bastion of real news around here, and I'm worried that the rest of the channel's programming is going to drift away from that foundation. This is pretty much how I felt when channel 7 took over the 10 pm news on channel 56 a few years back: thanks for nothing, NECN, you ruined something that didn't need meddling with.

I guess I'll just listen to the radio in the mornings.

Lil

I realized this afternoon that today used to be my grandmother's birthday. She passed away 15 years ago at age 90, and I probably haven't thought of her as often as I should have in the years since, but I saw "January 18" on something, and she just popped into my head.

I lost my other three grandparents in the space of about two and a half years; I was not quite six when my father's father died in 1969, and then my mother's parents died in 1970 and 1972, so my dad's mother was the only grandparent I had in my life for most of my life, and she was a significant presence in that respect.

She was born in the Bronx in 1906 to Italian immigrants, one of 14 children. I believe there were two sets of twins in there, and a couple of her siblings didn't made it to adulthood, childhood illness being somewhat more common a century ago.

She never learned to drive, so we had that in common. I was the oldest grandchild, and though she never said so, I always kind of felt like I was her favorite. When I was a kid, she used to take me on the bus with her to go shopping in downtown Providence ("downcity," as Rhode Islanders still say). You could say that she's a big part of the reason I like to shop so much.

Her name was Adeline, but somewhere along the way she acquired the nickname Lil. I was never sure of the reason for that. It might have had something to do with one of her siblings; several of them had one given name but were known by different names.

Lil was fiercely loyal to her family, but there was, to me, always a sadness about her. She never got over losing her husband. She didn't live to see me get married, but she met the Mrs. several times.

In one other bit of family trivia, her husband's birthday was the day after hers. She used to tell him, "I get the cake and you get what's left over."

Laundry Day

Yesterday was a day off for me, but my laundry pile had reached crisis proportions, so I spent most of the day doing laundry, and dutifully folding and putting away that laundry (really the more difficult part of the task to execute), and catching up on a few other miscellaneous tasks lingering from our pest control adventures last month. I apologize for not having anything fresh to post; my mind was elsewhere.

This Week in Awesome (1/15/11)

How's your weekend? These selections should provide some entertainment.

This guy's mishap while attempting to bring back streaking demonstrates the benefits of being familiar with your surroundings. (Various internet outlets)

Has the Snuggie trend jumped the shark? This garment, called Forever Lazy (seriously), suggests it has. In an uncanny parallel to human evolution, it's a Snuggie that has grown legs. Wait a minute--that's not evolution, that's just an adult onesie with feet.

A belt buckle that folds down to hold your beer? Brilliant idea, but I still have an aversion to oversize belt buckles. (Los Angeles Times All The Rage blog)

This clip demonstrates that German drivers are about as capable of navigating a rotary as Massholes. I'm not a traffic engineer, but filling in the middle of the circle with some sort of obstacle might dissuade drivers from driving through it instead of around it. (The Daily What via Gawker TV)

And finally this week, a police car dashboard-cam video with a difference. Nothing made me laugh more this week. I'm not sure if that says more about me or the subject of the video. (Videogum)

Friday Madness

Well, I had a fun commute home today. Guess I was due for some T travail. You may have heard about the tunnel fire this afternoon (cranky grammarian note: I have no idea why Chinatown is spelled as two words in that story).

I left work early and was on my way home to tend to the dog because the Mrs. couldn't get away from work at her usual time. Everything was going smoothly, and I was on pace to make the 5:00 bus out of Wellington when my Orange Line train stopped at Back Bay and never left. The operator announced that the train was being held "by master control." That probably should have tipped me off that something was up. A few minutes later we learned that the delay was due to a fire in the tunnel.

Shortly after, the operator said that there was no Orange Line service in either direction between North Station and Back Bay, and started instructing people about alternate routes, like taking the 39 bus to get to Forest Hills. I had to laugh when she said to use the commuter rail to get to North Station, because the rail lines that go through Back Bay go into South Station, so there were kind of a few steps missing in that suggestion. I figured I would just stay put and wait for the trains to start moving again.

After about 20 minutes, I overheard a T police officer make a comment (to one person, not a general announcement) suggesting that it might be another 30 or 40 minutes before the trains were moving again. Had the operator announced that time frame earlier on, instead of just repeating the same instructions over and over in the same monotone, I might have changed my mind about waiting around.

I left Back Bay station and walked to Copley, where I joined approximately 75,000 other commuters trying to take the Green Line due to the Orange Line delay. Surprisingly, I was able to get onto maybe the third train to come through that was going to North Station. It was packed and overheated, but people seemed to be in good humor about the whole thing.

[Side note: wouldn't you think that after a century or so of the subway's existence, people would not have to be told to let passengers off the train before trying to board? Just saying.]

Eventually I made it to North Station, where I joined approximately 200,000 other commuters trying to get onto the now-restored Orange Line service. This scene was several orders of magnitude more chaotic; the northbound platform was so crowded that people were lined up on the steps waiting to get down onto it, and the line snaked all the way up to the mezzanine level.

I watched at least 25 people walk across from Green Line trains and try to head down the up escalator that comes up from the platform below. Maybe they thought the escalator would have been shut off to make getting down to the platform easier? (Come to think of it, that might have been a good idea.) I stayed off to one side and waited until a couple of trains had come through, and enough room had opened on the platform to allow people to move down onto it.

After that, there was a 10-minute wait for the next train, and of course I could not get on it. Another one followed shortly after, and there was enough room on that one. I made it to Wellington just in time to watch the 6:00 bus pull away. But hey, it's only 20 minutes between buses, as long as they're running on time and aren't delayed by traffic at Wellington Circle, or iffy winter road conditions.

Just another ordinary day on the T.

In case you're wondering, the next bus did show up when it was supposed to.

The "Rules": How I Break Them

When I go back to work on the day after a big snowstorm, I like to dress down a little more than I otherwise would (especially if the storm has kept me home the previous day). I guess it's my way of pretending that I'm sitting around at home drinking cocoa instead of getting back to work, or something. But it does represent the only time I allow myself to break my own rule about what's appropriate to wear to work.

It's not like there's any specific dress code in my office; it's just my own personal code and beliefs. I got to thinking about this a little more the other day when I saw the post over at Put This On about breaking the rules and conventions of style. Since I don't go to work in a suit, or even in what would generally be considered business attire, I don't really have to be concerned with the rules (though I am generally familiar with them, by and large). In my situation, it's more like "what conventions of adult male dress don't apply to me?" or "which ones do I choose not to concern myself with?"

Probably the biggest one of these, at least as far as most men would be concerned, is that I don't wear navy blue. Ever. I just don't like the color, it does nothing for my appearance, and I get by fine without it. (I feel the same way about yellow.) This isn't something that I arrived at overnight, and it's not recent. The last time I can recall owning a navy blazer is when I was a senior in college, some 25 years ago. During the course of that year, I experienced a major shift in my tastes and style in clothing, and I gradually replaced the navy items in my wardrobe with black and, later, dark gray.

I don't miss having navy sweaters or pants or socks; in a situation where a man would typically wear a navy blazer, I would and do substitute a patterned sportcoat, like a herringbone tweed. Not everyone would be okay with this, which is completely understandable; a navy blazer is considered one of the foundation pieces of a man's wardrobe, but it simply doesn't work for me. I don't care much for light blue shirts, either; I have one, but it's an end-on-end fabric so there's a bit of visual texture to it. I like blue just fine, but I prefer my blues to be bright or deep, without approaching navy.

(By the way, denim doesn't count in the "no navy" thing, because it's a combination of dyed and white threads, and because there are so many shades of blue denim.)

I don't especially care for sport jackets with patch pockets either. In certain instances, like on some styles of tweed jackets, they make sense, but I just don't like how they look. Plus there's still the whole Miami Vice thing, one of the blackest marks on our collective male fashion consciousness. One word: espadrilles. Espadrilles. On MEN? I had a girlfriend at the time who thought it was hilarious—she used to taunt me, "Are you sure you don't want some espadrilles?"

Elsewhere in footwear, I have no interest in desert boots, monk straps, wingtips, Bean boots, or tassel loafers. All of these are considered staples, maybe even classics, and all of them are newly returned to popularity, but none of them are shoes I want to wear, mainly for aesthetic reasons. And that's fine, because there are plenty of other shoe styles I do want to wear.

I don't like wearing my jeans cuffed, and I can't stand the high-water look. I see guys wearing it and I think, How could you not know your own pants size? and Aren't your ankles cold? I can't respect anyone whose pants end two inches above his shoes, because I just think he looks like a clown.

My real point is this: what works for me may not work for you, and vice versa. Figure out what works for you, and put aside what doesn't.

Vertical Snow

I'm about to head outside and start clearing the snow. Just spotted this on the back porch, thought it was kind of cool:

Collected snow in the porch railing slats, with help from the wind. Not sure how much is on the ground, difficult to tell from inside.

Snow Day Ahead

Word came through right around lunch time that we should not come into work tomorrow due to the impending snowstorm. I was already planning on making it a work-at-home day, but it's nice for it to be made official.

Spending My Christmas Cash

While we were visiting my family for Christmas, my sister mentioned that she thought I should ease back on the shopping stuff I talk about here. I understood what she was saying, and I probably should have explained to her that a significant portion of my weekly visitors are folks who find their way to me via the link graciously posted on The Choosy Beggar.

While style and shopping are not the only topics I choose to write about, I feel I should be providing a certain amount of content that will (hopefully) be of interest to those visitors. Besides, style and shopping are things I care about and spend a lot of time thinking about and doing, but I can also appreciate the idea of trying to maintain some balance.

With that bit of housekeeping out of the way, you may have noticed that I haven't really had much to say about shopping and clothes and stuff during the past couple of weeks. In fact, I had been trying not to shop, even in the midst of all the post-holiday sales going on. I guess I'm just trying to approach the new year with a bit more restraint, but I knew that I would end up doing some shopping eventually.

My parents typically give us money for Christmas, and we usually deposit it into our joint account until we figure out something to use it toward. This year we decided to split it up and use it on ourselves individually. On Saturday we set out for South Shore Plaza, where we hadn't been for several years—I think it's possible that the last time I was there, the Filene's was still open.

We had a couple of reasons for choosing to go to that mall in particular. For one, my brother and sister gave us a Back Bay Restaurant Group gift card for Christmas, and there's a Joe's Bar and Grill in the mall, so we knew we could eat when we were finished shopping. I also wanted to visit the Sterlingwear store, which I had recently learned about from an ad that ran on NECN in December.

Sterlingwear is an apparel manufacturer located in East Boston--yes, that's right, actual garment making going on right within the city limits—pretty cool. I had been thinking about getting a pea coat, and Sterlingwear has been the official supplier to the US Navy for more than 40 years. I was more interested in the made-in-USA aspect of their business, and the advantage of being able to try on the coats to get the right size. (They also have a store in Nashua, NH.)

Sterlingwear makes several different styles of pea coat, with minor differences in cut, collar, details like number of buttons and whether or not there is a back vent, and type of lining, making an in-person inspection of the merchandise even more important to me. The coat with the heaviest lining felt too bulky, and I wasn't necessarily looking for the warmest coat I could get; I was thinking of the pea coat as more of an in-between coat. The one with eight buttons instead of six was cut an inch or so shorter and didn't look quite right: the shoulders were too wide, and I didn't care for its more stand-up style of collar.

Eventually I determined that I preferred the style called Navigator, with a satin lining and slightly less padded shoulders. I wasn't necessarily planning on buying it right at that moment, but I was told by the store clerks that all their coat prices are increasing $50 on February 1. If that was said just to get a sale, then it worked; if it's true (I have no reason to think otherwise), then I saved some money.

I did have to make one compromise: the other styles were available in a nice heathery medium gray, which I really liked, because I like gray in general and you don't typically see pea coats in gray. But the Navigator is not stocked in the gray; I could have ordered it, but it would have cost an extra $20 and I would have had to wait for it to be made. So I chose to get mine in black.

If you are interested in this type of coat, Sterlingwear offers them in a wide variety of sizes for men and women, and all styles are available in short, regular, and long. I assumed I would need a long, as I tend to in suits and sport jackets, but I found that the sleeves were too long. Both sleeves and body length were just right with a regular, though I did have to go up one size from my normal jacket size to get a comfortable fit through the torso.

Over the weekend I also bought a couple of things from the sale section of Lands' End Canvas (online; I don't know why I didn't think to go into Sears and check out the LEC sale stuff when I was at the mall). I got a J. Crew gift card from my brother and an L.L. Bean gift card from my mother, both of which I'll use eventually. I did check out the J. Crew in the mall, and it looked like it might be on the verge of closing; there was hardly any sale merchandise left, and an awful lot of bare shelf space overall. Even if it's just because they'd sold most of their fall stuff, the spring merchandise is usually starting so show up by this point.

In fact, there were a noticeable number of empty storefronts in the South Shore Plaza. Boston.com ran a story the other day on the state of things at the Atrium and the Mall at Chestnut Hill, but they might want to send those reporters down to Braintree, because I don't think these retail vacancy issues are confined to Newton.

This Week in Awesome (1/8/11)

It's been snowing on and off for more than 24 hours, and there's still only about an inch on the ground here. But don't worry, there's plenty of TWiA to (hopefully) keep you amused:

There are hobbyists, and there are hobbyists. This intrepid gentleman, who happens to live in nearby Winchester, MA, creates incredibly realistic-looking scenes and backdrops for his collection of 1/24 scale Franklin Mint vehicles. The Wheels blog at the New York Times has the story, and you can check out Mr. Smith's Flickr images here. Amazing stuff.

Who doesn't love gloriously cheesy training videos from the '80s? This one happens to be for new police recruits, which makes it even more awesome in its awfulness. (Everything Is Terrible, naturally)

The Awl collected 10 web videos from 2010 that it thinks are particularly memorable.

And finally this week, a headbanging penguin, just because. (Videogum)

Cannot Compute

Well, the server here at work went down about an hour ago. I can still do some work locally, but there are other things I'm unable to access. Sounds like a good reason to leave early today...

Just A Trim

Between haircuts, I find it necessary to do some maintenance grooming on my own, mainly on the sideburns and the back of the neck. Several years back I bought a rechargeable trimmer with several interchangeable heads for various types of trimming (this also enables me to tame the pesky ear and nose hairs that are such a charming part of growing older).

It was nothing fancy, just a Conair that I found at drugstore.com for around $15 or so. The largest head has two comb attachments that allow for trimming to various lengths, but I only use one of them and keep it at its closest setting.

I have to remove the comb for close trimming, and a couple of months ago I dropped the comb, and it broke into several pieces--I guess it was just brittle enough and the tile floor in the bathroom was just hard enough.

Without that comb, I could not do any of my usual sideburn trimming, and I thought I would have to buy a whole new trimmer, but that seemed unnecessarily wasteful. First, I went on Conair's web site and looked up replacement parts. I found some, but not the one I needed.

I decided to send an email to customer service, specifying the model number of my trimmer, to see if I might be able to purchase the comb anyway. It took a couple of days to receive a reply, but the rep said they had a small number of the combs available and would send them to me free of charge.

A few days later a small package was in my mailbox, and the combs were packed inside, in bubble wrap so they would not get damaged during shipping. I greatly appreciated this gesture, as it was definitely beyond what I was expecting in terms of customer service. Companies used to provide this level of service all the time, and it's nice to know that some still do.

Country of Origin?

Roving correspondent DC snapped this picture and sent it to me on New Year's Day, presumably while shopping at Dillard's:

Curious, I did a quick search on the google. At first I thought the tag said "Ukrania" (which, it turns out, is a tiny country in Central America), but it actually says "Ukraina" which is presumably a misspelling of "Ukraine." Any further insight is welcome.

Back to It

A short while ago, as I was leaving the building to go get coffee, I saw someone I know who works in another office here. After we exchanged hellos, she looked at her watch and said, "Well, it didn't take long for the glow of the holiday break to wear off." That very accurately and concisely sums up how I'm feeling today.

This Week in Awesome (1/1/11)

Yes, I know I didn't post this yesterday, but I couldn't resist the chance to do the "1/1/11" thing. My blog, my rules...

You think we got a lot of snow last week? Have a look at some serious snow-removal equipment from Japan. (Gizmodo via Jalopnik)

This compilation clip is called Informercial Hell, so it's pretty self-explanatory. (Funny or Die via Consumerist)

National Geographic is launching a yearlong series about the world's population, and this interesting and informative clip offers some population statistics. (The Daily What)

(I was going to link to the Top Gear Christmas special that aired in the UK last Sunday night, which someone thoughtfully posted to YouTube, but it has finally been removed--though it took several days for that to happen.)