Food Thoughts

Yesterday my mother said she wanted pizza for dinner. It's kind of an ideal way to phase out of turkey and all the trimmings.

And apple pie makes an excellent Saturday morning breakfast.

Time and Texture

I took this shot today with my phone, for no reason other than I liked how everything looked together:

The Spaceview has been seen before; the shirt is an L.L. Bean Signature chambray, the jacket is a vintage Brooks Brothers tweed that I recently scored on eBay. It's a very interesting jacket, so I think I'll post some additional shots of it soon.

Another Chance for Pie

Following up from last week's Pie Day post: the deadline to order a pie was last Saturday, but if you want to get a pie and support Community Servings, you can still do so.

Tomorrow is pickup day for those who pre-ordered pies, and as I have done for the past three years, I will be at a pickup location downtown. If you missed out on pre-ordering, the good news is that many of these locations will also be doing walk-up sales.

Over the years so many people stopped at the pickup tables and said that they had forgotten to order, or hadn't heard of Community Servings and Pie in the Sky, so it was natural to offer this option. Here is the list of on-site sales locations.

Closed on Thanksgiving

Yeah, TWiA did not happen this weekend, in case anyone was wondering. It'll definitely be back next weekend.

At this point I'm pretty sure I don't have to mention that you should not go shopping on Black Friday, right? So it totally goes without saying that you shouldn't go shopping on Thanksgiving Day either, unless you're doing it on your computer. Besides, the Patriots are playing the Jets in prime time on Thursday, so why would you be doing anything else instead of watching that?

Anyway, I got an email today from JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson that reads, in part:

...and yes, we're going to start our Black Friday—on Friday.

I know that some retailers are opening on Thanksgiving this year. But spending Thanksgiving with family is one of America's greatest traditions. Since jcp was founded on the Golden Rule, I'm proud to honor this tradition by keeping our stores closed on this special day.

I hope our customers and employees all enjoy a wonderful holiday with loved ones.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson, for doing your part to respect this holiday. Look, I understand that some people don't enjoy holidays for whatever reasons, and not everyone gets along with their family members. But there also have to be some limits to the lengths retailers will go to to separate people from their money, and the effect these policies have on their employees.

I keep hearing that working on these Thursday-night openings is voluntary, and there may be employees who do want to work those shifts, but having spent more than a decade working in various retail settings, I know too well that "voluntary" often means "compulsory." I think retail employees deserve to have the Thanksgiving holiday off, and I think that staying away from stores on Thursday night is a simple thing you can do to show your support for that belief.

Retro Video Unit (11/16/12)

I'm in the mood for a trip in the wayback machine, back to some real first-wave new wave. Who better, then, than Gary Numan?

He wasn't the first rock performer to float the "I've just arrived on your planet from outer space and I'm here to blow your minds and change music forever" story, but he certainly looked like it might have been true.

His early releases were genuinely groundbreaking, and he's still recording and touring after nearly four decades, mainly in Europe, where he has remained popular all along. Here's one of my favorite songs of his, "Down in the Park," a live version from the outstanding compilation album Urgh! A Music War.

Don't Be An...

I just learned that there is a book about the history of the word "asshole" and what it has come to mean in our society. It's a serious book, written by a linguist. This is excellent; I want to read it.

Hi There

I spent a couple of hours today trying to coax people into having a free piece of cake, explaining why free cake was being given away, and handing them postcards they could refer to after they'd walked away and forgotten what I'd said.

I haven't dealt with the public in any meaningful capacity for almost seven years. I've never handed out flyers or anything like that. But what was very interesting about today was: I had a hell of a time just getting people to make eye contact, even as I was speaking to them.

As people walked toward me in the mall corridor, I would say "hi there" or "hello" or something like that. Talk about a tough crowd. I'd say I had barely a 1% success rate. And I'm not talking about the people texting, talking on the phone, or otherwise manipulating a digital device. I didn't even bother with them. When people try to talk to me or hand me things on the street, I always say "no thanks" so they at least know I'm not ignoring them.

If I succeeded in making eye contact, it was a lot easier. I would then say something like, "Are you in the mood for some dessert?" That got most people's attention. But most people wouldn't even acknowledge that I was speaking to them. Look, I get it, you're on your lunch break, you only have 30 minutes and you have to get three other errands done before you have to go back. I'm not trying to poison you or sell you anything. Really. I'm just trying to get you to look me in the eye for a second, that's all. Come on, give it a try.

Pie Day 2012

In years past I've mentioned local organization Community Servings and the great work they do bringing meals to ill people all over the Boston area (and now in Worcester as well). This is the time of year when CS has its big fall fundraiser, Pie in the Sky. The pies, which are baked by dozens of area restaurants and bakeries, are $25, and that amount provides a full week of meals for a client.

Tuesday, November 13th is Pie Day. Volunteers will be at several sites around Boston and Cambridge, offering pie samples and information about Pie in the Sky. In the morning visit Dewey Square from 8 am to 9:30ish (pie for breakfast is awesome, and they'll have coffee too), or come by the Prudential Center from 11 am to 2 pm (I'll be there). From 4:30 to 6:30 pm there will be folks in both Kendall Square (Marriott courtyard) and Central Square (Cambridge City Hall).

This Week in Awesome (11/10/12)

Gotta love the weather around here: snowstorm last Tuesday night, 60 degrees today, 65 tomorrow, back to the mid-40s by Wednesday...

This fascinating series creates time-lapse videos of cities with people and vehicles digitally removed. There are four installments so far, with more sure to come. All of them are here, along with some behind-the-scenes clips.

New York magazine goes behind the scenes of its post-hurricane issue's cover image. (Kempt)

The latest installment of PBS's Off Book series (which I've referenced previously) looks at outdated forms of media and why people still care about them. (Laughing Squid)

And finally this week, I'm just going to leave this over here... this woman is the definition of awesome. It's 16 minutes long and worth it, but if you don't feel like watching all of it, just jump to the 12:50 mark. (Dangerous Minds)

At the Movies

I really want to see Skyfall (naturally), but I decided I didn't feel like dealing with opening-weekend madness. We did go to a movie last night, though: Argo. It was kind of a make-up for planning to go see it the previous two weekends, and failing.

It's a really good movie, quite tense and suspenseful. I have to give credit to Ben Affleck as a director. He has demonstrated good instincts in the projects he's chosen to direct, and his execution of them keeps getting better. It also has the feel of a movie from the time in which it takes place: there's a certain graininess to the image on screen, and the colors are appropriately washed out and muted.

As for the Bond movie, I think it merits seeing on an IMAX screen, so we're going to plan to see it at Jordans.

Or Not...

A pleasant surprise: by the time I got up this morning, the snow had turned to rain and washed away whatever was sticking to the sidewalks last night, so I didn't have to shovel after all. If it had been a little warmer in the early part of this week, this would have been just a rainstorm with a lot of wind. It's still pretty unpleasant outside now, though.

November Surprise

I am definitely going to have to shovel snow tomorrow morning... what fun.

Direct Effect?

So now that the president has been reelected, I automatically get a new job, right? Isn't that how it works? Related: we were also promised jetpacks, and flying cars...

Uniqlo Online Shopping: In-Person Report

After Uniqlo's US e-commerce went live two weeks ago, you know I had to get in on the action right away. I placed an order that very afternoon, and since their warehouse is in New Jersey (and the hurricane hadn't happened yet) I got my package only two days later.

There were some "grand opening" type specials, including colored jeans for $10. I wasn't interested in those, but after looking around for a while I discovered that a couple of styles of their plain dark denim were also available for $10 (the regular price is $50), so I ordered a pair of those.

I've been going back and forth on Uniqlo's pants since my first visit to the Soho store in 2007. Most of their stuff has been cut wrong for my middle-aged body, but on my visit back in April of this year I bought a pair of their vintage chinos that I like a lot, and they have added a "relaxed fit" jean cut. Unfortunately that style wasn't part of the $10 promotion; the one that was is called "regular fit."

I would describe that fit as not quite as regular as I'd expected or hoped. It does fit, but the waist is still a little low for my taste. I've seen them described as similar to the Levi's 514, which I've never tried on, mainly because the legs are pretty skinny, but it may be a helpful reference point for some people. The leg openings on the Uniqlo jeans are closer to what I usually wear, and I will wear these, but probably not as much as my now-preferred Levi's 505s. I think it's in my interest to try on the Uniqlo relaxed fit at some point, but I'll probably wait until I'm in New York again.

One other note about the Uniqlo denim: the dye is very dark, and it came with a warning about rubbing off on lighter-colored upholstery and clothing. That could get to be a nuisance, and might be a deal-breaker for some people. I soaked my pair overnight in the washing machine, and it seemed to remove some of the excess dye, but I have no idea how much, or how transferable they still are.

I also bought a V-neck lambswool sweater at the everyday price of $20, which is a genuine bargain. The fabric is a nice weight—not too thick, not too thin—and the XL fits me well, as do all XL tops (shirts and sweaters) that I've bought from Uniqlo. However, the color was not what I expected; on the website it looked like a deep cobalt, but in person it's definitely navy. Getting color representation right is one of the toughest things to accomplish in e-commerce, and I think a bit of "caveat emptor" is warranted. If this was one of their $80 cashmere sweaters it would be worth it for me to pay $7 to return it, but in this case I'll probably just give it to someone else, since I don't wear navy.

I added a couple of pairs of socks and a couple of pairs of underwear to my order. This is one area where Uniqlo excels: the quality is very good and the prices are very cheap. If you're trying to get to the $100 threshold for free shipping, this would be an easy way to fill out an order.

One other note: at the moment, Uniqlo's site says they have temporarily suspended online shopping due to the storm's aftermath. Let's hope they get back to normal soon.

This Week in Awesome (11/3/12)

Got together with most of my laid-off former coworkers last night, and had a really nice time catching up. I don't miss working, but I miss being around them every day.

Many TV shows, when looked at in hindsight, exhibited curious and questionable fashion choices. For a show set in space, the weirdness factor gets a lot higher. (Racked)

Here's a pre-hurricane video of New York that cleverly combines daylight and nighttime footage of the same locations. (Laughing Squid)

The Boston Business Journal did some hard-hitting and necessary research to compile this list of the ten oldest bars in Boston. I've only been to half of them. (Universal Hub)

Google's satellite images can be used for all sorts of purposes. (The Daily What)

And finally this week, an erroneous rumor about Chrysler shifting Jeep production to China (that stemmed from a story about Chrysler's desire to add supplemental Jeep production in China) led to several instances of misinformation being reported as fact, including a tweet from that Apprentice guy. He was promptly and amusingly shot down by Chrysler's VP of design. (Jalopnik)

Retro Video Unit (11/2/12)

As the clock winds down to the election (and we'll finally be rid of all the political ads on TV for... what, the next three months or so?), I saw this clip and thought I'd deviate from the usual content of this feature:

Uh-Oh

Today I walked through a part of the neighborhood I hadn't been by in a while, and came upon this:

This tree was at the back edge of a park where we sometimes take the dog to sniff around. Just behind the park's border fence is a house, but when it came down it went in exactly the opposite direction from the house. It also appears to have missed all the utility wires.

Period Incorrect

I've been watching the new CBS series Vegas (not to be confused with NBC's dreadful Las Vegas from half a decade ago, or the late-1970s ABC private-eye show Vega$). The premise is very loosely based on the life of Ralph Lamb, a rancher who became sheriff in 1960 and remained in the position for nearly two decades.

I was drawn in initially by the show's pedigree, with Nicholas Pileggi, the author of the books on which GoodFellas and Casino are based (and co-writer with Martin Scorsese of those films' screenplays) as its co-creator. Pileggi's involvement probably helped to lure Dennis Quaid to accept his first regular TV series role as Lamb, and Michael Chiklis of The Shield to come on board as mobster Vincent Savino. Jason O'Mara (star of the American version of Life On Mars) and Carrie-Anne Moss (probably best known as Trinity from the Matrix trilogy, here an amusing contrast in 1960s clothes and hair) are other appealing reasons to watch.

The idea of Quaid and Chiklis's characters as adversaries made me interested enough to sample Vegas, along with the setting at the beginning of the Mad Men era. To its credit the show looks terrific, but unfortunately it's turning out to have the familiar feel of many other cop shows: a case of the week intertwined with longer story arcs involving Savino's ambitions to become a legitimate businessman, and the conflicts this causes with his bosses back in Chicago.

But my biggest gripe with the show has nothing to do with the storytelling, but with the props, specifically the cars and trucks being used. It's been made clear to viewers that these initial episodes are taking place in 1960, but most of the vehicles that have appeared so far are newer. There are a couple of 1961 models (Savino's Lincoln Continental, the assistant DA's Thunderbird) which could kind of be excused, depending on the specific point in the calendar year the show is in, but there have been plenty of 1962 and 1963 models, and even a few '64s and '65s running around in the background. Even the sheriff's pickup truck is at least two or three years too new.

(Speaking of Mad Men, both Don's 1962 Cadillac and Betty's 1962 Mercury station wagon have made appearances, indicating the producers are using the same vintage car supplier.)

Now, most people wouldn't notice this, and fewer would care. The reason it jumps out to me as a glaring error is because, for the American car companies, 1960 was a crucial turning point in the evolution of automobile design. The designs of the 1950s grew increasingly gaudy and outlandish with each passing year, but by 1959 the stylists finally realized that they had pushed the excess too far. The designs of 1960 models generally represented a fresh application of restraint that would lead to a decade of style high points before once again swinging back to excess during the 1970s.

With that in mind, the show's use of newer cars results in the atmosphere looking confused. There should still be plenty of older 1950s cars on view and in regular use, and there are some, but not enough; the choice of using mostly post-1960 cars makes it look like the show is set in the middle of the 1960s instead of the beginning. If you're trying to establish the mood of a certain place and time, such details make a difference. Matthew Weiner certainly knows this, but it seems like the producers of Vegas aren't as interested in being as true as possible to their show's setting, and this ends up detracting and distracting from the rest of what's on screen.

Storm Aftermath

I was just out walking the dog, and things are much quieter than they were 24 hours ago. But even so, we barely got touched by this thing, and we're extremely lucky compared to just about everywhere else. We never even lost power.

We got our share of high winds, and this morning there were tree branches all over the place. A couple of substantial limbs dropped into the street across from us yesterday, and within an hour or two a city crew came around with a truck pulling a wood chipper to clear them and turn them into mulch.

The next-door neighbors' back fence was knocked down, but I'm not sure how securely it was installed to begin with; a couple of years ago the teenagers who live there had a party, and eventually the police arrived to break it up, and some of the guests decided to, um, leave hastily by climbing over that same fence, and in the process it fell down, so who knows.

The dog had a tough time yesterday. The Mrs. took her out in the morning, before things had really gotten going. I took her out later on in the afternoon, and she turned around and headed back toward the house almost immediately. A few hours later it was the same thing, except the conditions were much worse. It wasn't until around 10:30 that it had calmed down enough for her to be able to complete her bodily functions.

Trash Day Gamble

Monday is trash day where we live. With the storm coming I decided it wasn't such a good idea for the trash can to sit out at the curb overnight, so I reasoned that the city would delay collection by a day, like they do on holiday weekends. But the truck just came through. Most of the neighbors had put out their trash, and almost all their cans had been knocked down before the pickup. Oh well...

This Week in Awesome (10/27/12)

At some point I hope to get back to posting these on Saturday...

Just in time for Halloween: frightening, and also kind of hilarious. (Blogfood)

This collection of tips and suggestions takes a while to scroll through, but it's worth it. (Kottke via The Billfold)

Time-lapse time. This week's destination: Paris, part one and part two. (Laughing Squid)

Here's an article about the, um, distinctive commercials employed by the Carvel ice cream chain back in the 1970s and '80s. It refers to the "tri-state area" of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut where many Carvel stores were concentrated, but I grew up in Rhode Island with a Carvel just a bit up the road, and I'm quite familiar with these commercials because they ran on our local TV stations too. (AdAge via The Awl)

And finally this week, I don't know why I didn't think to post this after it first ran on Adult Swim a couple of weeks back, but crush objects Jon Hamm and Adam Scott did a spoof/homage to the '80s-tastic TV series Simon & Simon. You can also find some background on how it came together over here.

Pop-Ups and Fleas

Last weekend I stopped by a couple of clothing-related events taking place in the area. On Saturday I visited the American Field pop-up organized by Ball and Buck. It was a prime opportunity for close-up inspection of all sorts of American-made clothing and gear. I thought this was going to be an outdoor event, but it was inside an old building in the South End. (Maybe a hedge against the weather?) The live music was too loud for the indoor space, and the promised food trucks didn't materialize (there was one lone truck), but otherwise this is an event I'd like to see happening annually.

The highlights for me: imploring the rep from Red Wing to pass along my request to make more of their offerings in wide widths; getting hands-on with San Francisco's Tellason jeans (at $200 a pair they are definitely beyond my budget now, but someday I'm going to find a way to own a pair of these); and seeing Maine's Rancourt & Co. shoes in person for the first time—the quality and workmanship of these is really impressive, and they're also an excellent value. I also enjoyed looking over the goods from Taylor Stitch (also a San francisco company) and learning that their shirts are offered in chest sizes, which provides a better fit for more men.

On Sunday it was over to the VFW in Davis Square for the sixth edition of An Affordable Wardrobe's semi-annual Top Shelf Flea Market. It's always nice to stop by, say hello to Giuseppe, and chat about clothes. This time I was able to bring home something genuinely interesting and cool: a deadstock (old, but never sold) Brooks Brothers dress shirt (pics here) in my size, white with burgundy stripes and a semi-spread collar, still sporting a price tag from Filene's Basement along with its original collar stays and obvious fold lines from being in its original packaging for a long time. It's difficult to tell just how old this is, but the shirt is made in USA and the price tag suggests it probably dates from at least the late 1990s.

Success

Orvis came through: the shirt arrived yesterday. I'll probably never know how the wrong shirt got attached to the right image, but something must have been going on with their inventory. I'd offer to work for them in inventory control, but their warehouse is in Virginia.

Her Ignorance Is Showing (and Telling)

As you know, I avoid politics in this space. It has to do with how I was brought up and my distaste of how the media already covers political issues in our country. But after I heard about this I was furious. Fortunately, John Franklin Stephens wrote a far more eloquent and dignified reply than I would have been capable of (and more than I think was deserved), so I decided to make an exception.

I am quoting this material directly from The Daily What:

After Ann Coulter referred to President Obama as a retard in a tweet during Monday night's presidential debate, Special Olympics athlete and global messenger John Franklin Stephens penned her this open letter:

Dear Ann Coulter,

Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren't dumb and you aren't shallow. So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult?

I'm a 30 year old man with Down syndrome who has struggled with the public's perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb and shallow. I am not either of those things, but I do process information more slowly than the rest of you. In fact it has taken me all day to figure out how to respond to your use of the R-word last night.

I thought first of asking whether you meant to describe the President as someone who was bullied as a child by people like you, but rose above it to find a way to succeed in life as many of my fellow Special Olympians have.

Then I wondered if you meant to describe him as someone who has to struggle to be thoughtful about everything he says, as everyone else races from one snarkey sound bite to the next.

Finally, I wondered if you meant to degrade him as someone who is likely to receive bad health care, live in low grade housing with very little income and still manages to see life as a wonderful gift.

Because, Ms. Coulter, that is who we are — and much, much more.

After I saw your tweet, I realized you just wanted to belittle the President by linking him to people like me. You assumed that people would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an insult and you assumed you could get away with it and still appear on TV.

I have to wonder if you considered other hateful words but recoiled from the backlash.

Well, Ms. Coulter, you, and society, need to learn that being compared to people like me should be considered a badge of honor.

No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.

Come join us someday at Special Olympics. See if you can walk away with your heart unchanged.

A friend you haven't made yet, 

John Franklin Stephens
Global Messenger
Special Olympics Virginia

Ann Coulter is a miserable, despicable excuse for a human being. Her venomous ignorance reflects poorly on all of us as humans and as Americans. I am generally disinclined to wish harm to others, but if something terrible were to happen to her I would not be the tiniest bit upset.

Maybe...

So, another phone call from Orvis customer service, this time with the good news that they were able to locate the shirt I wanted in the correct color, and it's on its way to me. Fingers crossed...

Finally!

The rumors and promises have been swirling for nearly a year, and now it's finally official: Uniqlo has launched its US e-commerce operation. I think this may be a soft opening, as I receive regular emails from them and I haven't heard from them about this yet. But it's not a beta version, it's a fully up-and-running online store.

If you aren't familiar with Uniqlo, it's a Japanese retailer that emphasizes quality and value in basic styles meant for everyday wear.

The selection is quite broad; everything you can find in a Uniqlo store is on the website. Standard shipping is $7 (free on orders of $100) and returns are not free either, but until now the only option was a trip to New York (or the much more recently opened San Francisco and New Jersey stores).

In keeping with the pattern of their recent store openings, there are special prices on certain items, like fleece jackets for $20, men's cashmere sweaters for $80, and colored jeans for $10.

Uniqlo has big plans for expansion in the US over the next five to ten years, and it's a safe assumption that a store in the Boston area will happen at some point, but for now this is the next-best thing.

This Week in Awesome (10/20/12)

Today is National Nachos Day, and there's still time for you to participate if you act quickly (or are in the Pacific time zone). Meanwhile, back on the internet...

Here's a cool time-lapse of the space shuttle Endeavour's trip through the streets of Los Angeles last weekend. (Los Angeles Times via Devour)

One of these scarves would make a nice gift for a literature lover. (Etsy via Laughing Squid)

T-shirt iconography in movies summed up in one graphic. (BlueCotton via /film)

The Onion spoofs the TED Talks. (If you don't know what that is, ask an intellectual nerd.)

And finally this week, those of you who, like me, are fans of Arrested Development and are eagerly awaiting the show's return (on Netflix) will enjoy this compilation of memorable quotes from the show. If you haven't experienced the show for yourself and are curious, the three seasons that aired on Fox are all available on Netflix streaming. (The Daily What)

Retro Video Unit (10/19/12)

I've been thinking about posting this one for some time, and I had a couple of conversations this week about Freddie Mercury's legacy so I think it's as good a time as any.

"Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie—if you don't love this song, there may be something wrong with you...

Update from Orvis

According to the email I received, a replacement shirt is on its way to me, but it will be at least a few more days before I know whether or not it's the one I'm hoping to get.

Update to the update: oops, I guess I posted this too quickly, because I just got a voice mail from Orvis customer service telling me that the order was checked before shipping and they found it was the same incorrect shirt I had already received. They are still trying to find the correct item for me.

More Made in USA

I just read that work-clothing company Carhartt has a "made in the USA" line featuring some of its most popular pieces. I think this is smart business and I'd like to support it, though I don't need any work clothes at the moment.

I do have one of these jackets in black. I bought it several years ago and I generally wear it on weekends and sometimes to walk the dog, depending on the temperature. I like it because it's simple and rugged, and the styling is plain and classic, not something that will be "out of fashion" in a year or so. Mine was not made in the USA, and at the moment I can't justify spending the money to replace it with an American-made version, but it's nice to know that there are options.

And $75 is a very reasonable amount to spend on such a jacket, especially when you know the purchase supports American workers. A lot of companies are making great clothing in the USA, but not all of them are as accessibly priced.

You can see Carhartt's other made in USA items here (note: if you click that link, the page has a video that plays automatically). Perhaps sales of these products will encourage Carhartt to consider making more items domestically.

(By the way, if you live in the Boston area, there is a Carhartt store in the Legacy Place shopping center in Dedham, which offers an opportunity to check out these items firsthand.)

Eyewear Out There

Retro-cool and wallet-friendly eyeglass purveyors Warby Parker, where you can get frames with prescription lenses for as little as $95, is traversing the country showing off its wares in a converted school bus.

This "class trip" has rolled into Boston for the week: you'll find the bus parked between Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market from today through Sunday the 21st, and if you stop by you'll be able to try on their offerings. I was downtown this afternoon and went by to have a look. The folks on the bus are very friendly and capable of answering any questions you may have about their products.

If you can't make it, don't worry; you can still order frames to be shipped to you for an in-home try-on.

The Unknown Shirt

Recently I ordered a shirt from Orvis. I don't buy a lot from them, mainly because I think a lot of their stuff is overpriced. But some things go on sale eventually, it just tends to take longer.

For example, the shirt I ordered was one I'd first seen and liked over a year ago. During that time its price actually increased, from $79 to $89, before landing in the sale section at $59. Then they offered 25% off everything in the sale section, along with free shipping for a certain period of time. My size was still available (another frequent problem with waiting for things to go on sale) so I placed an order.

When the shirt arrived, it was a different pattern than what I'd ordered, but it wasn't any of the other colors or patterns this particular shirt was offered in. In fact it was a pattern I had never seen before, either online or in an Orvis store. I ordered a red plaid shirt, this was a lighter red stripe with some thin white and navy stripes. Very strange.

I called customer service, which has been uniformly terrific in my experience, and the rep promised to have someone find the shirt I want and send it to me, so we'll see how this story ends in a few days.

This Week in Awesome (10/13/12)

It's chilly outside, and I love it. I guess that makes me a true New Englander, or something?

This one's tough to explain, so just have a look and you'll get it. (FILMography via Esquire Style Blog)

Pinterest is already full of weird things you can buy for your pets, and other stuff. (BuzzFeed FWD)

This is a commercial for The Simpsons in Russia. That may not sound like a big deal, but man it's impressive. (The Daily What)

This week's time-lapse video takes us to San Francisco. Go Giants!* (Laughing Squid via The Daily What)

And finally this week, you may have heard that Pixar is releasing a prequel to Monsters, Inc. next summer called Monsters University. The inevitable marketing onslaught has already begun, but in a much more clever way than you might expect.

*I can say that, right? I mean, the Red Sox aren't in it...

Boot Talk

Red Wing's Heritage boots have been favored by style bloggers and workwear partisans for several years now. I thought about getting a pair a couple of years ago, and I wrote about certain styles that interested me.

The internet tells me that Red Wings run big (so you should size down) but narrow (so they probably wouldn't be comfortable for me and my widish feet). As it happened, I never got around to trying on any of those boots, but a couple of months later I bought a pair of Wolverine's 1000 Mile Boots, in part because I was able to try them on and found that they have a generously wide fit, even for a shoe labeled as medium width. However, as with Red Wings I did find them to run a half-size large. (This tends to happen with many brands and styles of boots.)

More recently I was thinking about getting a new pair of black lace-up work boots. My Caterpillar Second Shift boots are really comfortable and durable, but they are well worn-in and probably aren't appropriate to wear to work anymore (assuming that I go back to work at some point), and I kind of wanted to find something a little less clunky and a little more refined-looking.

While looking around I discovered a style of Red Wing boots that wasn't available when I was looking two years ago, that had already been discontinued. On Amazon they were priced at about half what they cost new, so I decided to give them a try. Remembering their sizing I ordered a half-size down from what I usually get, and they were plenty long enough, but as I'd suspected they were too narrow to wear comfortably.

I briefly entertained the idea of trying to stretch them, but ultimately decided to return them. But what could I get instead? I'd also come across boots from Frye that looked almost exactly like the Red Wings and which were also made in USA. They were somewhat more expensive, but Amazon was in the process of closing down its shoe site Endless, and to entice customers to shop the shoe section on Amazon they offered a 25% discount for signing up for emails. By using that code I was able to get the Frye boots for only about $15 more than I'd paid for the Red Wings. These are also offered only in medium width, but they are wide enough to be wearable. (From looking at that last link, it appears I managed to just miss a substantial price increase, which is kind of an extra bonus.)

I didn't like the laces that the Frye boots came with, but I was able to find flat textile laces that look just like the ones on the Red Wing boots. Since it's finally fall for real, I started wearing them this week, and they hardly even needed breaking in. By the way, I found that I didn't have to size down with the Frye boots; I got the same size as I wear in dress shoes.

By the way, if you like Red Wing boots and are interested in seeing them and trying them on, they are doing a sort of "trunk show" at Brooks Brothers locations nationwide this weekend, following a similar, smaller-scale event last fall. The information doesn't appear on the BB website, but I learned about it here and you can call your local store to check on it.

My message to Red Wing: please consider offering at least some of your styles (besides the Iron Ranger) in wider widths, because from my personal experience, what you call medium is more like narrow. More widths equals more sales.

SAR's Kitchen Helper: Very Easy Chili

In my household, both of us are quite capable of cooking, but neither of us is really that into it. But since I'm not working at the moment and the Mrs. is spending two days a week at an internship and one day a week on campus, I decided I should endeavor to cook something at least once a week that gives us enough for a couple of meals.

Last week I cooked some chicken breasts, cut them up, made a bag of tortellini, and threw it together with tomatoes, olives, and pesto. I'll probably do this again, but I think I'll vary it by adding some artichoke hearts and using that pre-cooked chicken sausage from Trader Joe's.

This week I decided that since it's turned cooler outside, I would make chili. I prefer to make mine in a slow cooker because it does most of the work for you. It's really easy to make good chili, and the slow cooker makes it pretty much mistake-proof. All you really have to do is cook some meat and open some cans.

Ground beef is the most common choice, but you can use ground turkey if you like (it's leaner, so less of it cooks off). I've used a meat I found at Stop & Shop called "skillet steak" that works really nicely, but I couldn't find it this time around. Once I had amazing chili that had been made using meat from a beautiful roast, but that's expensive and unnecessarily elaborate. Whatever meat you decide to use, you should get around two pounds of it.

Get two cans of diced tomatoes. I prefer the kind without peppers in them, but that's up to you. Also two cans of beans; most people use kidney beans but I like to use one can of kidney and one can of black beans, just for a little variety. Get one small can of tomato sauce; you want something that has not been seasoned to taste like spaghetti sauce. I like to add onion, but some people don't like onions. One large onion should be enough.

I do cheat a little regarding the seasoning: I buy one of those "chili kits" (they're usually near the salsa) because the seasonings are already mixed and you can just use however much makes it taste the way you like. Like I said above, easy and foolproof. These kits also come with cayenne pepper, which I don't use, and flour to thicken the chili, which I do use.

Cook the meat on the stove first in some olive oil, with salt, pepper, and maybe a little oregano and garlic powder. Cut up the onion and throw that in with the meat. While it's cooking, open all the cans. Dump everything in the slow cooker. When the meat is done add that and turn on the cooker, then add the seasoning. Stir everything up really well, then go away. Come back and stir once in a while. Follow the kit's instructions on adding the flour. Let it cook for at least three hours, probably four.

Serve with shredded cheese on top and cold beer.

Armchair Network Executive

I watch Saturday Night Live more out of habit than any other reason; these days the show is only intermittently funny, but sometimes I want to see a particular musical guest, or see how a guest host does. I was looking forward to this past weekend's show with Daniel Craig as host because I've seen him display a sharp wit in interviews on shows like The Colbert Report, and I suspected he would be game for whatever the writers cooked up.

He was game, but unfortunately the material largely failed him, and there was one sketch that he didn't even appear in. (Why bother even having a guest host, then?) For years SNL has relied far too heavily on sketches that consist of a single joke repeated over and over again, and I suspect this is at least partly due to the challenge of coming up with a show's worth of new material each week. I recognize how difficult it must be to produce this show on such a tight schedule, but I think the overall quality of the show ends up suffering as a result.

The Mrs. is not as much of a TV fan as I am, but after watching this show she made an observation about SNL that I haven't heard anywhere else, but that makes a lot of sense: maybe it's time to stop trying to do the show within the space of one week. Maybe SNL should be on only every other week, which would allow more time to develop sketch ideas and make them as funny as possible.

The network would still end up with about the same number of new shows over the course of the eight-month television season, and NBC could fill in the off weeks with classic episodes that many younger viewers have likely never seen. Just a thought...

The Name's The Same

Last night the Mrs. and I had dinner in the North End, at Piccola Venezia on Hanover Street. It had been quite some time since we'd last been there, possibly more than a decade. I had bought a Groupon for the place earlier this year and it was nearing expiration, so off we went. We enjoyed our meal, and had plenty left on our plates to bring home, so it's definitely a good value.

One of the interesting things about living in one place for a long time is the perspective you gain from your relationship to it. It's impossible for me to go to Piccola Venezia without thinking about how I first experienced it some 25 years ago, when it was in a much smaller space over on Salem Street. Back then the entrees generally were priced under $10, and a comparably inexpensive plastic pitcher of potent red wine would be served in the traditional (for Italian-Americans) "juice glasses."

After I'd been there a few times, I recall being told by a coworker that there were certain dishes that weren't officially on the menu, but could be had if you knew to ask for them. The whole experience of going to this place somewhat regularly, of being recognized and greeted by the staff when I returned, and of knowing I could order "off the menu" made me feel like an in-the-know Boston insider; there were just as many tourists wandering the streets of the North End back then, but it seemed they would be more likely to choose other restaurants.

Times change, and I'm sure it was a good business move for the restaurant's owners to move to a larger space in a more visible location, but it did mean losing some of what made the original incarnation intimate and special. I'm glad I was around to experience it.

This Week in Awesome (10/6/12)

Another weekend, another MIA TWiA. Sorry about that...

Want to watch some pretty cool video of the earth from space, with narration? Sure you do. (The Awl via Grist)

Customize your ride with one of these special badges. (Etsy via Jalopnik)

Use these '80s pop lyrics to explain life back then to your kids. (The Morning News via The Hairpin)

And finally this week, in honor of the return of 30 Rock this past Thursday for the start of its seventh and final season (wah), a couple of treats: a collection of some of the show's best jokes in visual form (Vulture) and a gathering of favorite Liz Lemon sayings (click on the elevator buttons for audio). (Complex magazine via Videogum)

Overheard: Probably Not Medical Use Edition

While stopped at a traffic light, two men were standing on the curb, one talking about his preference in recreational drugs: "Naw, man, I don't like that shit, just give me the regular reefer... unless you're gettin' it from the rich boys."

Retro Video Unit (10/5/12)

Sometimes I pick a song/video to feature here because the song has personal significance, or it's just something I've always thought was particularly good. Sometimes it's because of the video. Sometimes it's both.

In this case it's the song, "Blood And Roses" by The Smithereens, who had a run of several better-than-average albums in the 1980s. Their first album, Especially For You, is filled with good songs, and this is one of the best.

More Belts

When I started yesterday's post, I was planning to write about belts, but I got off on the tie tangent. So, let's swing back: a well-made, durable belt will last a long time and get better with age. You should not wear the same belt every day for the same reason you shouldn't wear the same pair of shoes every day: you'll wear it out too quickly.

I try to have a number of different belts to choose from so I can wear one that's close in color to whatever shoes I'm wearing that day. (You know you are generally supposed to do this, right?) Also, I don't wear any gold jewelry or gold watches, so I try to avoid belts with brass or gold-colored buckles, which are not always so easy to find, so when I do I tend to stick with them. If you go to a department store like Macy's and look at the belts they sell, they are generally of mediocre quality, and most of them have cheesy-looking brass-colored buckles.

A few months back, I was placing an order with J. Crew and realized that I lacked a dark brown belt, specifically a more casual one that I could wear with jeans. I found a 1.5" belt in the sale section with a roller buckle in a gunmetal finish. This is wider than I normally like, but with jeans it works fine. It had rough, unfinished edges and had a reddish tinge to the color. It appears to be gone from their site, but it looks like this:

At the same time I was in need of a nicer black belt, having worn one out after many years. J. Crew happened to have one of those on sale too, and both were made in USA. The black belt is 1-3/16" wide and the leather has a matte finish, which makes it more suitable to wear with most casual and dressy outfits. This one is still available, and also comes in dark brown and caramel.

You can also find American-made belts at Allen Edmonds. They tend to be more expensive (mainly in the $100 range), but they are in the midst of their annual sale.

Fluctuations

You may not know it, or even have thought about it, but J. Crew has its belts and ties manufactured domestically. Their ties are nice enough, but each year they have followed the prevailing trend and gotten a little narrower. I bought one three or four years back that is 3" wide, and if you look at their site now you'll see that the standard width is 2.5".

That can be all right if you are of smaller stature (in which case, your jacket lapels should be proportionally narrower as well, to help lengthen your appearance vertically), but if you're 5' 8" or taller, or beyond your early thirties, you should probably be wearing ties that are proportionally wider and less trendy. Otherwise you'll run the risk of looking like you bought dress clothing when you first got out of high school or college and haven't bothered to update any of it.

Personally I prefer my ties to be 3.5" wide, which used to be something of a standard. The narrowing and widening trend of ties is annoying, especially if you've found a width that you like. I hadn't noticed personally, but I was recently informed that Brooks Brothers, in its ongoing quest to lure younger customers, has narrowed its standard tie width to 3.25", and they also offer "slim" ties that are almost as narrow as those from J. Crew.

You can still find 3.5" ties without too much effort (check stores like Nordstrom or Lord & Taylor, and websites like The Tie Bar or Mountain & Sackett), but it's disappointing when a company as traditional as Brooks feels the need to cave in to a trend that will obviously be played out in a few more seasons. I do think that with more casual fabrics, like summer ties in cotton madras, you can go a little narrower, but when I wore that 3" J. Crew tie a while back, it didn't look right on me.

Welcome to October

I had planned to post yesterday, but a combination of an afternoon of errands and an evening of sinus discomfort quashed that. When the weather changes it often affects pressure inside my head, and seasonal allergies contribute as well.

Like APB, October is my favorite month too. I thought we had shaken off the last remains of summer weather, and I had started to return to dressing in jeans and long-sleeve shirts, but at the moment it's 72 degrees and I just walked the dog in shorts and a T-shirt. One significant difference, though, is the humidity, or rather the lack of it, making days like today much more pleasant.

It looks like this pattern will be around for the remainder of this week, with more seasonally typical temperatures moving back in over the weekend, just in time for us to see some out-of-town visitors.

This Week in Awesome (9/29/12)

Oops, I forgot something... this:

There's a bit of a music theme this week, starting with this film from the 1950s showing how vinyl records are produced. (Turn the Record Over via BuzzFeed)

Two people are using a rudimentary field-recording technique to document contemporary folk music. (The 78 Project via The Awl)

Did you ever think about what early designs for the space shuttle may have looked like? (io9)

This week's bit of infrastructure obsession: maps. (Transit Maps)

And finally this week (and circling back to music), Aimee Mann has a new album, Charmer, and she's made a couple of fun and interesting videos for songs from it. The first, for the title track, features a robot version of Aimee played by someone you'll probably recognize. The second, for the song "Labrador," has Jon Hamm playing a fictitious version of the video's actual director, but is more notable because it's a shot-for-shot recreation of the video for Til Tuesday's "Voices Carry," which will be familiar to anyone who watched MTV during the 1980s. (Stereogum)

Six

After last night's musings on aging and the passage of time, I guess it's only appropriate that it's time to make note of another anniversary: it was six years ago today that I started this... thing.

I started doing this without any firm conception of what I wanted it to be: I mainly wanted to encourage myself to write more regularly and frequently, so by those parameters I have far exceeded any expectations of my own. It's been fun to have it grow and evolve right in front of me, so to speak, and there is also a distinct sort of pleasure that comes from having ideas arrive in my brain, or at least a vague feeling of encouragement from these indications that my brain does in fact still work as it's supposed to, sometimes.

Blogging has also led to some new acquaintances, and I appreciate everyone that visits to read and comment.

Regularly scheduled programming (TWiA) will return later tonight...

I Don't Wanna Rock As Much Anymore, and Preferably While Sitting Down When I Do

Last week I went to the Paradise club to see the band Stars, and it got me thinking about a number of things.

I've been to dozens of shows at the Paradise over the years, possibly more than a hundred, but as I walked in I realized that it had been at least three years since I'd last been there. The Mrs. is not much of a live music fan, and her tastes remain about where they were when she was in high school and college; even the bands that she loved then aren't enough of an enticement to her. She also tends to go to sleep fairly early, which doesn't work well for seeing bands at clubs.

So when a band I want to see comes around, I either find a friend to go along or go alone. And even though music is a highly personal experience, I don't enjoy going alone, which makes me less likely to want to go in the future.

As I watched one of the opening bands last Friday I thought about how much I used to enjoy going to see bands play live, and how it isn't really as meaningful to me anymore. I'm approaching 50, and having to stand on a concrete floor for two or three hours surrounded by people who weren't even born when I saw the Pixies play in the same club (as the opening act for Throwing Muses) definitely takes some of the fun out of the equation.

At this point I definitely prefer shows with seating, but the possibility of that depends on the band and the venue. Between bands I went up to the balcony and found a spot to sit down for a while, but when Stars came on I had to get up again, or else I would have been able to hear the band but not see them, and then I might as well have stayed home, which is sort of what I was thinking by that point anyway.

I also don't get all the kids who are either filming the show or texting their friends. If you're doing that stuff, you can't be enjoying the performance in the moment. Sure, I could film a show and watch the video later, but I would rather use my memory to recall the experience, and I worry that this type of specific experiential memory is something that young people aren't going to have, or know how to have.

Also, you may recall that I don't drive, and Boston's early-to-bed transit system means getting home from a show probably involves a cab ride; last week the cab home cost me $25, after having paid $25 for the show ticket. Imagine if I lived further away from the city.

As it is now I only go to see a handful of shows a year, but going forward it's probably going to be fewer. Age is relative, or just a number, but it's still a reality that must be faced. Fun ain't what it used to be.

Dots

Last Saturday was the wedding after-party I mentioned earlier this month, for which I bought the linen jacket. It worked out quite well; the evening was on the warmer side, but not uncomfortably so; inside the bar I was able to keep the jacket on for two hours and not feel overheated at all.

An event like this is a perfect opportunity to get a little creative with an outfit, and the jacket was a blank canvas asking to be surrounded by color. A pocket square was just what I needed for that extra little touch.

I cheated a little; I purchased this cloth with a square in mind, but I have not yet gotten around to finishing the edges, so they stayed hidden inside the pocket.

(As usual with my camera, the color is a bit off; the actual fabric ground is a bit more red than it appears here.)

Uglified

I updated my iPhone to the latest operating system last week. I don't really have any opinion one way or the other about the Maps app, except that when using the traffic overlay it only shows problem areas, whereas Google's map showed traffic flow as green, yellow, or red, which is easier to take in at a glance. On the other hand, the new map app does seem to scroll and zoom in and out much faster, which is frequently more important when trying to obtain information in a moving vehicle.

But Apple has made other changes that you might not notice immediately. I don't make a lot of phone calls these days, so it wasn't until a few days later that I went into the phone function and found that Apple had made a significant change to the appearance of the dial pad. The number pad has been reversed from white digits on black keys to black digits on white keys. Not only is this ugly, it's also harder for me to read. There just isn't as much contrast.

Obviously this isn't anything crucial, but I haven't seen it mentioned in any reviews of iOS 6. This might be one of those things that you can change if you are willing to "jailbreak" your phone, but I don't feel confident enough to undertake such an endeavor.

Too Soon?

There's a house around the corner from us that's already fully decorated for Halloween. I know the mornings have been getting brisk around here, but it seems like it might be more reasonable to at least wait until it's officially October. Then again, I've seen reports of Christmas decorations starting to show up in stores...

Emmy Fatigue

I spent last night flipping back and forth between the Patriots game and the Emmy awards ceremony. I'm kind of glad I didn't end up devoting my full attention to either event, because both were letdowns (for different reasons).

As usual, most of the Emmy winners were people who had already won, making for a predictable and disappointing program. I haven't seen Homeland, but I've heard many good things about it, and I'm sure I will get around to seeing it soon. I'm happy the academy recognized the show and its actors and creators, but it came at Mad Men's expense. I'm less disappointed about the show not winning a fifth Best Drama award than I am that Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Christina Hendricks, and Jared Harris were shut out of the acting awards. At this point it seems no one from MM is ever going to win an acting Emmy, which is a real shame.

It was nice to see Louis CK get recognized for his work on his great, great show. Maybe Amy Poehler's turn will come next year. On the other hand, I'm not sure at the exact point Ricky Gervais became such an utter asshole that I can no longer stand the sight of his face nor the sound of his voice, but when he appeared last night I had to switch back to the game. And Jimmy Kimmel was a big disappointment as host; pretty much everything he did and said fell flat.

I sincerely hope Lena Dunham uses some of what she's earned/earning from HBO for Girls to invest in the services of a stylist. Look, I get it, you're a 26-year-old hipster chick chronicling the lives of twentysomething hipster chicks: you're supposed to be edgy and look like you don't care about stuff like fashion or beauty. But that dress looks like something that your grandmother would have rejected as too frumpy, and I don't think you understand how eye makeup is supposed to be used.

P.S. I love Elisabeth Moss as a blonde, but the dress she chose to wear was iffy, too. Nice cut, awful fabric.

This Week in Awesome (9/22/12)

A busy weekend for us, but in a good way: happy events to attend. I'm taking care of this tonight because I don't think I'll have time tomorrow...

Time-lapse time: Boston gets its due. A lot of work went into this, it's beautiful, and the music goes with it really well. And as a bonus, if you enjoy this sort of thing you can visit this site for lots more. (Vimeo via boston.com)

Have you ever wondered how many times Bruce Springsteen has played [city name here] over the course of his four-decade career? Here you go. (OpenCulture via Metafilter)

Remember Misery Bear? He's back for another misadventure, this time on the singles scene. (BBC Three via The Daily What)

This is a popular time of year for weddings (our anniversary is this coming week). But be careful: you don't always know what sort of celebration you're in for. (Refinery29 via Kempt)

And finally this week, you know how sometimes a person can resemble an animal? This is sort of like that, only with NFL quarterbacks, and not with animals. (BuzzFeed)

(Not So) Retro Video Unit (9/21/12)

For this installment I'm moving out of my usual range of 1970s and '80s favorites and obscurities, because I went to see this band last night. I first saw Stars live back in 2007, and this song, "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" (from their 2004 album Set Yourself on Fire) is still one of their best.

It seems they've gotten better known over the ensuing five years, because when they played this last night the entire house sang along. It's also just a really cool video and, given its icy setting, a distinctively Canadian one as well (the band is from Montreal).

Next Issue Please

After finishing the computer switch, my next tech task was to sync my iPod with the computer. The computer already had the bulk of my music on it, roughly duplicating what was on my computer at home. But since iTunes doesn't let an iPod sync to more than one computer, I had cheated, sort of. I used a freeware utility called Senuti (get it?) that works in reverse: it pulls music off an iPod and loads it into iTunes.

I could have just left it alone and continued using the iPod with the songs and playlists from my old home computer. But being stubborn, I wanted to have everything matching and up to date. Unfortunately the computer didn't want to cooperate. Each time I tried to sync the iPod to the iMac, it would choke on a random song during the sync process and I would get an "unknown error." Each time it was a different song at a different point in the process, so I did not believe I had any corrupted files. I gave up for a couple of days, tried again, and got the same result.

I had already been thinking about upgrading to the newest Apple operating system, which came out a couple of months ago (something my old computer didn't have the specs to handle), so I thought that doing that might eliminate the sync problem. Turns out it did, though I don't have the slightest idea why. Now the only issue is that my iPod is full, but I have a lot more music in iTunes that won't fit.

I think the solution to that might be to spend $25 a year to sign up for iTunes Match, which mirrors your entire music library in the cloud. That would let me play my music through my iPhone without having to have the files physically stored on it, which would be great because the iPhone's capacity is half of the iPod's.

Watch Wednesday Thursday (9/20/12)

I have been endeavoring to behave myself with regard to buying stuff, and in fact I bought this watch six or seven weeks ago. I was browsing the website of RumbaTime, the company that sells this watch, and found some women's watches in their sale section for as little as $5 or $10. After deciding to get something for the Mrs., I added this one to the order for myself. It wasn't on sale, but it was only $35 for this version (or $5 less for one with a "slap" style strap instead of nylon).

This is a perfect summer watch; it weighs next to nothing (the case is plastic) and it doesn't matter if it gets bumped or dinged up. It came with a black nylon strap, but I switched it to the blue one I picked up at Target a while back, and I think it looks better than all-black, especially in warm-weather months. Just about any bright color would work with the black case.

Grooming Garage: Brush Your Hair

I have used a brush on my hair instead of a comb for as long as I can remember. At one time I had very thick hair, but now most of it is gone, at least from the top of my head (thanks, heredity!). But regardless of how much hair I do or don't have, I find a brush easier to use and more effective.

For years I bought whatever junky, low-cost brushes I found at the drug store, not realizing that some types of bristles were better for my hair than others. Then, about 15 years ago we went to New York to visit a friend of the Mrs. who had recently moved to Brooklyn after finishing grad school in the midwest.

On our way to visit the Whitney Museum, we passed a fancy-looking cosmetics and beauty store a block up Madison Avenue. The Mrs. and her friend wanted to check it out, so after we left the museum we went back. It was called Zitomer, and it's still there. It was a long, narrow store, and I was bored at first, until I discovered the men's section back in a corner. They carried products I had never seen before, mainly shaving creams and other grooming products from England. They also had hair brushes from England that happened to be 40% off, so naturally I bought one.

The brushes are from a company called Denman, and are also made in England. I've been using that same brush for the past 15 years. The bristles are boar, which help bring out the natural oils in hair, and they are set in a cushioned base, which makes using the brush more comfortable. Recently though, I noticed that my brush was looking rather worn, and I realized that even though I use it every day, I rarely think about my hair brush.

I decided to replace it with another just like it. Zitomer did not have the same brush available on its website, so I searched around online and found what I was looking for available through Amazon and several different online beauty supply retailers. I was glad to see that Denman's brushes are still made in the UK. I paid a bit more this time, but if I get 15 years of use out of this one, it will be worth it.

Words Not Minced

Last week was Fashion Week in New York, where designers show their collections for the forthcoming season (in this case, next spring) and everyone loses their collective mind over some trend or other. Even though I spend an inordinate amount of time shopping for and thinking about clothes, I don't pay any attention to what goes on at Fashion Week, because it has absolutely no relevance to how I dress or what I might consider buying.

Designers often structure their collections around a theme, which is an entirely justifiable creative impulse. However, sometimes the chosen theme is so obtuse, recycled, or just plain wrong that it merits special (negative) attention.

I consider Michael Bastian a talented designer whose work is best seen in his own namesake collection. Those clothes are classically styled but with a more modern cut, made exceptionally well of beautiful fabrics, and are obscenely expensive.

His line for Gant, however, is another thing entirely, and a young thrifter and blogger from Portland, ME who goes by A Fistful of Style has done a deservedly venomous takedown of the spring 2013 collection from Gant by Michael Bastian. Read it first, then see for yourself. It is honestly insulting to think that he and Gant expect people to pay good money for this horrible-looking retread crap, but obviously I am not the target market for the line.

This Week in Awesome (9/15/12)

The hardest thing about weekends lately? Two whole days without any T.J. Hooker reruns. I know I said I was going to try not to make a habit of watching it, but I am obviously weak, and not working does things to you...

Photos were being manipulated long before there was Photoshop. (BuzzFeed FWD)

Here's a bunch of useful cooking info in one graphic. (The Roosevelts via Daily What)

Penny Marshall has a book coming out. Here's "Penny Marshall" doing a promo for it. (Deadline Hollywood via Videogum)

And finally this week, it may seem like Jimmy Kimmel is taking aim at an easy target, but I see it as more the fault of the people responsible for the source material being on TV in the first place. (Vulture)

Night Music

Our dog has been on a pretty regular walk schedule for a long time. I used to walk her in the morning before leaving for work, and the Mrs. would walk her when she got home. When she started school last fall, I would come home early on the day the Mrs. had classes to take the dog out. Given her age, she gets a couple more trips out to the yard each evening, one around 7:30 and the other around midnight.

For the past few months the dog has been waking us up between 6 and 6:30 most days; 7 is late for her. That means she wants to go out again around mid-afternoon. For a week or two, she has been needing to go out again an hour or so after her mid-evening yard visit, and during the past week she has woken us needing to go out around 4 am. These temporary changes in her schedule are not totally unprecedented, but they are somewhat unusual.

For the past several nights I have been taking the dog on another walk around 11 pm, hoping to prevent more 4 am wake-ups from deep sleep. At that hour the neighborhood is pretty quiet, with the exception of motorcycles and the occasional tow truck or flatbed from the garage nearby. We walk on a side street because there are fewer distractions (these things make a difference when you're hoping a dog will focus long enough to do what it needs to), and I have discovered that we have a neighbor who is an accomplished pianist.

This person has been playing or practicing at this late hour each night this week when I've walked the dog down this particular side street. Their windows are open, and the sounds are flowing out freely into the night. I don't recognize any of the music being played, but I would characterize it as neither pop nor classical; it reminds me of Scott Joplin more than anything else.

The houses in our neighborhood are spaced only about ten feet apart, so the playing must be audible to the player's immediate neighbors, but from more than a couple of houses away it can't be heard, so I have been stopping in front of the house for a minute or so to listen. It's quite a pleasant change from the typical outside sounds we hear during warm weather.

Domestic Stuff

The Mrs. started her second and final year of grad school last week. She has three three-hour classes one day each week (with some time between classes to eat and such), just like last fall, and an internship (different place than last year) that she's required to be at 20 hours a week, which she's choosing to do in two 10-hour days. That leaves her weekends free, along with Mondays and Fridays. Much of that time is spent reading, researching, writing, and otherwise studying.

This is a rather aggressive schedule, but it's of her choosing. The college is about 20 miles away, so it's preferable to her to have to go to campus only one day a week. Likewise the internship is also about 20 miles away, but in a different direction, so it wouldn't be convenient to be there for part of a day and then go to the school for a class.

it's also made possible by the fact that she is choosing to go to school full-time and not work, in order to complete the program in two academic years. That's right, neither of us is working. Kind of funny, really, because her decision was based partly on the belief that I had job security.

But things are fine, actually. She qualified for loans, and is eligible to collect unemployment under a training provision (basically it says you aren't working or looking for work because you are devoting your time to furthering your career). I was fortunate enough to get a rather generous severance package, and I'm also collecting unemployment while I look for another job. I am paying for health insurance through COBRA. I do have to force myself to cut back on my shopping, which isn't easy but is necessary.

Life is unpredictable, and things happen when you aren't expecting them. But we don't have children and, perhaps most crucially, we have no long-term debt (her loan will be repaid after she graduates), so as long as we can meet our living expenses we're good. and the dog is getting very spoiled by us being around so much.

Sunday TV Note

Do you watch football games on Sundays? Do you watch or record shows that come on CBS on Sunday nights after football games? Then you know the frustration that frequently arises from this situation. If a game goes into overtime, then all the shows that follow air late, sometimes up to 30 minutes late, occasionally longer than that.

Fox solved this problem several years back by basically giving up on showing any regular programming in the 7 o'clock hour. They created The OT, a postgame wrap-up show that can run for any length of time until 8 pm, when The Simpsons comes on.

The problem with this solution, at least from CBS's point of view, is that they air 60 Minutes at 7 pm, and have been doing so for decades. I'd been thinking for at least the past year that CBS ought to try something like what Fox does: during the fall football months, make the length of 60 Minutes variable, and give it another half-hour (or even an hour) somewhere else during the week—Saturday night, maybe? not much going on then besides reruns—to air additional segments that didn't fit in the Sunday show.

It's very unlikely that CBS would ever do that, though. Then, to make things just a little worse, the NFL announced that this year, the late games would start ten minutes later, to allow the early games time to finish without having to cut away in certain markets for contractual reasons. So on a good day, even without any overtime, 60 Minutes isn't going to start until 7:30, pushing back The Amazing Race, The Good Wife, and whatever now airs after that (I have no clue, at the moment).

CBS has decided to acknowledge the annoyance by formally pushing back the official start time of 60 Minutes to 7:30 on Sundays when they are airing two games (this article has the specific dates for this season). This way, if you watch The Good Wife (I came to the show late, but I'm a fan now) you can set your DVR accordingly, and it will know that the show won't be starting until at least 9:30. You will still need to add some padding at the end for the possibility of an overrun, depending on what happens with the late games that day, but you'll at least have a better chance of getting it right.

Tedium

I finally finished switching computers, although I would have been done a lot sooner if I had not drawn out the process so much.

The big time sucks were the iTunes library and browser bookmarks. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had set up both computers with iCloud, but I didn't see the point of doing that with a computer I was about to stop using. There was also a reason why I didn't want to use Firefox Sync to match the bookmark sets, but I've already forgotten what it was. I copied the bookmarks file over to  the new Mac, but I still had to visit each site manually and re-bookmark it.

As for iTunes, I copied a bunch of music that was on the older computer onto a flash drive and dropped it in the newer one, so that only took a few minutes. I was trying to find a way to transfer my playlists instead of having to rebuild them, but when I took a good look at my music library I realized that I had only three playlists that I used with any regularity, and that I had put any effort into compiling. So I just went ahead and recreated them manually with the two computers sitting side by side.

Hopefully this type of thing won't be an issue in the future, because either my stuff will be living in the cloud (or at least backed up to a cloud somewhere) or I'll just be moving to a new computer (one without anything on it that I want to keep) and can use the Migration Assistant to automate the process.

This Week in Awesome (9/8/12)

It seems weird to be getting ready to watch the first Patriots game of the season while the air conditioning is still on. Just sayin'...

An intrepid photographer has blended pictures from the 1906 earthquake with pictures of the same locations taken in the present day. The results (part 1; part 2) are fairly mind-bending. (BuzzFeed)

Have you seen the trailer for Skyfall? They showed it before Raiders at the IMAX theater, and it looks like it's going to play in IMAX at some theaters, which is pretty cool. Anyway, how about a supercut of Bond movie chases? (Jalopnik)

Did you watch the season finale of Breaking Bad? If not, this ins't in any way spoilery, but you might want to skip over it just the same. If you did see it, or decided to read on anyway, this person takes a swing at answering one of the more interesting bits of trivia that came up during the episode. (Quora via Videogum)

Have you ever wondered about where the @ symbol came from, or how it came to be used in email addresses? (Smithsonian magazine)

And finally this week, a bit of Mad Men fluff to help us fans bide our time until next season. As you're watching it, think about how much work went into making it. (Richard Sandling via Basket of Kisses)

Retro Video Unit (9/7/12)

Yep, remembered to do it on the correct day this time...

Of all the music and videos I have posted here from the late 1970s and MTV eras (those tags are perhaps overly broad, but they'll do), New Order is probably one of the most personally significant bands to me. During my freshman year in college I was walking down a hall in the dorm and heard a song coming out of someone's room that was so unlike anything I had heard before that I literally came to a stop so I could listen to it.

It turned out it was being played on a college station, and I was eventually able to learn that the song was "Temptation" by New Order. If the only version of it you know is the one that was included on the greatest-hits album Substance, you haven't really heard the song, because that isn't the version of the song as it was originally released. (The version on Substance is lighter and poppier, and the vocals are sung at a higher pitch.)

But there's no video for "Temptation," so I'm going with "Blue Monday," another particularly fine rendering of New Order's distinctive style. I don't recall ever seeing this on MTV, which isn't all that surprising, and makes it that much more interesting (to me, at least).

Wedding Casual

We have a wedding to attend in a few weeks, so of course I have been thinking about what I might wear. But it isn't going to be a typical wedding, so it's unlikely I'll wear what I would typically choose wear to a wedding.

The bride is a friend and former coworker of the Mrs., and as we did, she and her fiancé are paying for the wedding themselves. To save money, the actual wedding and reception are to be family-only; what we are attending is the "after-party" at a local tavern, on a Saturday evening.

The first thing I decided is that there will be no point in wearing a suit or a tie. No one else will be as dressed up as that, which I find unfortunate, but I also don't to be the one guy who shows up in a suit and tie and ends up looking foolish.

Also, it will probably still be fairly warm; our wedding was in the last week of September and I believe the high that day was around 72. By 7 pm it will be starting to cool off, but it's likely to still be in the mid-to-upper 60s that evening. I want to look sharp but casual, and be comfortable.

I never had much interest in linen, but I'm realizing its value in warm-weather dressing situations. A linen jacket with only a partial lining is about the most comfortable thing a guy can wear on a warm day when the situation calls for any amount of dressing up. A couple of weeks ago I happened to see a blog post somewhere that mentioned a cream-colored linen jacket, and it made me realize that such a jacket would be a great piece to build an outfit around for this event.

I scanned the sale sections of some websites; the best option I found was at Nordstrom Rack, but the marked-down price was $120 and they were sold out of my size anyway. I was hoping to find something for less, if possible, so I turned to eBay. I immediately got really, really lucky: I found an auction for a cream Brooks Brothers linen jacket, made in Italy, in my size.

It has patch pockets, which are more casual than the set-in style pockets you typically see in suits and sportcoats. This is a nod to the more relaxed nature of dressing up in warm weather. The measurements indicated that this jacket would very likely fit me quite nicely. Amazingly, no one else bid on it, so I walked away with it for $50. It arrived yesterday, and it fits me perfectly; I don't even need to have the sleeves altered. It may have been worn, but it appears new.

There are some creases from being folded for shipping, but those can be steamed out easily. It's a three-button jacket, and from the position of the buttons it looks like it might be a decade or so old. I'd prefer that the lapels roll to the center button, which is more traditional, so I'll have a go at it with the iron, but I'm not especially worried about how successful I'll be.

Now to figure out what I'm going to wear with it...

The Picture Just Got Bigger

When's the last time you saw Raiders of the Lost Ark? Oh, excuse me, Indiana Jones and The Raiders of the Lost Ark? It was probably a DVD that you own, or maybe a Blu-Ray. Well, starting this Friday you'll have one week to see the 1981 classic on an IMAX screen, which is, you know, super-big and has awesome sound.

Go to the IMAX website for details and to find a theater near you.

Mac to Mac

All right, my imaginary vacation is over. Now it's back to my ongoing sorta permanent vacation, otherwise known as unemployment.

Not working has some advantages, though. The weather was really nice last week. The Mrs. and I had lunch with the Proper Bostonian outside at Piattini on Newbury Street, and we even had a brief visit from the male contingent of our West Coast relatives (our two nephews and their stepdad), who were on their way back from visiting one of the stepdad's relatives in Vermont. We had a nice dinner at Watch City Brewing in Waltham, and a tasty brunch at the Warren Tavern in Charlestown.

TWiA took the weekend off, in case you were wondering. I had intended to post something yesterday, but I got wrapped up in a home tech project: when I left my job I was able to take my computer with me. It has a lot of useful software on it that I didn't already have on my home computer, so I had planned to switch over eventually. My current monitor is six years old and is starting to show its age (it's too dim when first turned on, and takes a couple of minutes to stop flickering and reach proper brightness), so it seemed like the right time to make the switch. The work computer is an iMac, so the external display won't be needed.

When you buy a new Mac to replace an older one, you can use a utility called Migration Assistant to copy all the relevant stuff from old computer to new. But with a machine that's been in use for a while and has software you want to keep, I'm not sure the assistant would work. I suppose I could have gone into an Apple store and asked someone, but I remembered that you can also connect two Macs with a Firewire cable and make one appear on the desktop of the other, just like an external drive, and then just drag files from one to the other.

Now that that's been accomplished, I need to go through the browsers and make sure I have all the bookmarks I want, and go through iTunes and make sure I have all the music I want. Then the old computer can be officially decommissioned.

Reduced Reductions

Every year at this time, outdoor store Hilton's Tent City has a big sale, and offers 25% off outerwear from brands like Barbour and Filson that bloggers like me tend to like. Two years ago I bought an American-made Filson waxed-cotton jacket there.

The other day I went to the Hilton's website to confirm the sale and was dismayed, but not really surprised, to find that the discount has been decreased to 10%. I guess maybe the sale got too popular, or it's just tough to make a living running an independent store these days.

Even with the decreased discount, if you're thinking of buying something outdoorish, Hilton's is a great place to shop. If you live in the Boston area, it's an old-fashioned shopping experience the likes of which is becoming increasingly rare; if you're out there in webland, you can still support an independent business.