There was a period in my life where I wondered whether it was more punk rock to tuck your t-shirt in or leave it out.
In Sally's peer group, tucking your shirt in is really weird. Just Wrong.
I've paid over $100 for jeans, and I definitely look sexier in them than you do in yours.
I nearly always tuck in my shirts, but to get a shirt that fits my chest, it tends to be a bit long on me.
3: Please. That's due to crossfit.
I've paid over $100 for jeans more than once. As it turns out, those jeans wore out too quickly for me, and I found cheaper jeans that look even better. But: spending more money for clothes that look better: not evidently weird.
My NYC comes out. I don't think I've ever spent nearly that much on jeans, and I wouldn't as a matter of policy, but $100 for a pair of jeans doesn't sound like enough that I'd think looking at the kind of person who spends that much would be amusing. That sounds like in the normal range for a fashiony young professional person for me -- extravagant, but not strangely extravagant.
I've probably paid about $100 for a pair of jeans, once, but only because of the exchange rate and London's high prices in general. I've never bought designer jeans.
I used to be extremely cheap about clothes but have now shifted to shopping on the sale rack at slightly nicer places. I just spent $70 on jeans marked down from $130, still way more than I've ever paid for a pair of pants.
I have not purchased a single pair of jeans since 1996 or so.
7: Yeah, but didn't you grow up in the midwest?
Me? No. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I confess: on two occasions I have paid over $100 for jeans.
I've been having a lot of dreams about selvedge denim jeans. If I had the money and the figure, I would totally by the $300 Sugar Cane jeans that the Japanese denim otaku guys get.
I paid about $80 for a pair of jeans marked down from almost $200. They were the best jeans ever, I loved them to pieces (literally), I miss them and have tried unsuccessfully to replace them.
I have no faith that I would get so lucky with another pair of $200 jeans, though, and prefer whenever possible to spend about $10 on any single article of clothing.
Waists are totally the new item, btw. The next item for women is the crop top. Again.
When will the caftan, or muumuu, be recognized as cutting-edge fashion again? I'm not fussy, I'll wear a djellaba or a mother hubbard if that's what they're calling them.
17 is right. But it's not tucking-in-to-show-off-waists.
I've paid well over $100 on leather pants, and for dress pants. But I don't think I ever have on jeans.
Found an amazing pair of stretch snakeskin pattern jeans from some name designer or another second hand for $20 once. Amazing 90s glam-rock things. A bit difficult to find an excuse to wear, though, and I think I must have left them somewhere at some point.
18: Maxis are pretty close. Those revived and exited recently.
I don't think I've spent over $100 on jeans, but I'm sure my wife has. It's a very reachable and not-all-that extravagant price point (e.g., browse luckybrand.com, which isn't even all that high end). Jeans last years and (having one of those non-shaving jobs) I wear them almost every day. It's worth it to get something good quality and flattering.
This is so clearly not my world. I wear jeans as highly casual, sturdy/abuseable pants, mostly around the house and on weekends. If I get to the point for some occasion where I'm thinking about what I'm wearing, jeans aren't even on the list.
OK, so you're all apparently literal minded. How much over $100? Any over $160 ?
Spending more on clothes feels to me like say shelling out for a very nice watch. I have a few, but I basically don't take them out of the house because it feels to me like a costume. Part of this for me is that I work with computer people and rumpled scientists, so there's no upward pressure from my professional wardrobe.
Clothes that require special care seem to me like shitty pets incapable of affection, an impersonal version of the high-maintenance girlfriend, pointless sinks for attention. My jeans usually wind up picking up grease from a bike chain. Beyond clean and suitably respectful for whoever I'll be talking to, the idea that better clothes make a better person just does not register for me. I understand that I'm an oddball in this, just saying where I'm coming from.
Geez, I remember tucking and then carefully partially untucking shirts, back in the days of pleated pants/Z Cavaricci/etc. Then I decided to become a slob and I've never looked back. (I tucked in on the first day of my current job because, as my wife said, it's the least I could do.)
OK, so you're all apparently literal minded. How much over $100? Any over $160 ?
Manipulating the 'shaft is hard, but it comes with time.
I like Luckys, wearing them now. They cost me $34. I buy last years' styles at outlet shops for fancy department stores.
26. No latex gloves around here, so not for me, thanks.
24: This is a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do thing for me, because I'm a godawful dresser. But I actively enjoy looking at interestingly or attractively dressed people (regardless of whether they're personally attractive to me). Someone spends some extra attention on what they're wearing, they're doing me a favor, because I get to look at them.
Now, obviously, there are silly ways to spend your money, and you can certainly drop insane amounts on clothes that aren't particularly appealing. But caring about clothes is a public benefit.
I get 501 shrink to fits marked down from $60 to $15 at the local salvage store. On a similar note, one of my good friends runs a men's style blog, with an emphasis on thrifting, and I guess it seems appropriate to the topic, so, A Fistful of Style.
They make 501s that cost more than one hundred dollars!
Now I want to go buy some Reebok high tops, a tin of Skoal, and find somebody's older brother to buy me a 12-pack of Milwaukee's Best Light.
There's a lot of room between "I paid over $100 for jeans" and "Jeans under $500 - a steal!". I can conceive of a situation in which I might pay $150 for jeans. I cannot conceive of one in which paying $450 for jeans ("denim") would qualify as "a steal". The mind boggles.
The caftan has had a long moment recently. I would love to get me a nice one, but the nice ones are pricey.
public benefit.
In principle, yeah. But in practice, the links on the post much of the time for me. I'm more interested in faces and body language, gestures especially, than clothes.
501s much too tight in the thigh for me, takes an enormous waist for the rest of the pants to fit. Is there a different numbered Levi that solves this problem? Dockers has the numbers for this, D1 through D4.
Dockers has sizes for how large your thighs are?
I like Levi's 514s, but I have no idea what problem they solve besides "fit well on me".
Basically yes, they do. It's the ass-to-waist ratio more or less.
re: $100 as the magic price (that is, 5x minimum price rather than my chosen 2.5x minimum price)
What's the care protocol for $150 jeans? Wash them with everything else? Avoid street food or bicycling while you wear these because they're special? If traveling, save these for evenings out?
They fit well on him.
They fit well
on him. They fit
well on him.
40: Didn't Flippanter just explain that you put them in the freezer rather than laundering them?
Wash them inside-out by themselves, in cold water.
Avoid street food or bicycling while you wear these because they're special?
Pfft, whatever, the individual patterns of wear and staining that come from your distinctive pattern of use are what make them special, duder.
Or maybe I'm just saying that because you can very clearly tell, from looking at (certain pairs of) my jeans, what pocket I carry my phone in.
I hand wash mine cold, and soak them very hot when they stretch too much, otherwise, no washing. Levi's has a rough explanation of their fits on their website
I always had to avoid keeping the tin of Skoal in the same pocket so my mom wouldn't see the tell-tale circle.
I've never paid over $80 for jeans, but I'm considering breaking this rule for these amazing $350 vintage overalls because who doesn't like looking like a homeless farmer?
Didn't Flippanter just explain that you put them in the freezer rather than laundering them?
That's for selvedge jeans. Not all >$150 jeans are selvedge; the ones that aren't are safe to (carefully) launder.
I've spent in the $100 range for jeans. I bike in them. Paying that much doesn't mean that they are fancy and have to be treated with more care, but rather that the cut and materials are such that you will look much better while you do all the same things you'd do in the $60 jeans.
I'm annoyed and somewhat embarrassed when I spend $65-$70 on jeans, but it's the only way I can get ones that are long enough. $30-$40 would be a reasonable price; I'd feel like a traitor to my upbringing if I ever spent more than $75. I don't even bother looking for pants at thrift stores; the chances of finding any in my size are infinitesimal.
what pocket I carry my phone in
OT, but I occasionally switch my phone from my front pocket to the back, and have found that I still feel its vibrations in the front of my leg. There is clearly a lot of signal compression going on in my peripheral nervous system, which makes me wonder what sensation I lost when I learned how to recognize text messages.
To clarify, I didn't mean in 49 that you have to spend $100 to have jeans that look good. Rather, having found jeans that did look that good, I didn't find it too much to pay. And as Kraab points out, there's the question of what jeans will fit your particular body.
Jackmormon if you get a caftan you have to lounge in it and plan a brunch on your own behalf and do every other activity mentioned in "The Ladies Who Lunch."
If I get a caftan, I will find a lanai and learn how to play mah-jong.
54: I will bring you a pack of Benson and Hedges Ultra Light 100s and make you a mai tai.
Now taking applications for cabana boys!
I want to dress like Penelope Keith in Good Neighbors.
When you say cabana boy, you are including older men who have been ridden hard and put up wet, right? Like vintage jeans, except cheaper starting out and well-ravaged?
older men who have been ridden hard and put up wet
Whoa. Whoa.
Caftans, yay! No tucking!
To heebie's point in the post about shirt tucking: It's really difficult to tuck in a shirt and not have it look weird when you've got boobs.
I'd need to do something drastic about my eyebrows. And invest in some seriously architectural bra technology. But after that, floor-length drapy garments in silky fabrics and loud prints, here I come.
architectural bra technology
The Falling Water line of bras was a diaster.
I'm wearing a pair of jeans that cost more than $100 right now. Laydeez. (G-Star, I love 'em.)
I can't tuck in shirts for reasons in 60 and also because waistlines are low enough and shirts are short enough that they pull out too easily.
I haven't spent $100 on jeans, but it doesn't sound insanely expensive to me, and I've been on a white t-shirt and Levi's kick lately so I am clearly not fashionable.
This thread is making me regret my relatively formal workplace. I don't regret it that much and it's not that formal - ties are optional, I think I see my supervisor in a sweater more often than not and very rarely a sportcoat - but still, it would be nice to have reason to wear jeans and sneakers and even, god forbid, t-shirts outside the house more than twice a week.
I don't think I've ever paid more than $100 for jeans, maybe not even more than $50, I 'm not sure. As for tucking in shirts, I tend to go untucked when not at work, and tucked but baggy while at work.
And if you know how to play bridge you know how to play mah jongg -- so JM is good to go!
The Falling Water line of bras was a diaster.
I've always been perplexed by the scene in Vertigo where Midge explains about the bra designed like a cantilevered bridge.
Isn't that the story that Howard Hughes had an aircraft engineer design an improved pushup bra for Jane Russell when they were dating?
I think that was a cover for the CIA's effort to find a Soviet sub.
All my jeans are either thrift-store purchases or castoffs from my mom, who occasionally convinces herself that pants with a 34" inseam will be OK and then wears them for a few months before deciding nope, too short. But I see that my current butt covers retail for almost $200.
They do look really, really good. I might pay like $80 for them, if I had to.
Jane Russell's tits were a cover for searching for a Soviet sub? How did that work?
If anyone knows a source for the AW11, Farah Albany needle cords, colour tobacco, size 34/32, I'd be delighted to know, as some bastard linked them on moneysavingexpert.com and the slashdot cleared out every pair on the Internets below 36W.
What couldn't Jane Russell's tits do?
The most I ever spent on jeans was probably in middle school. Z. Cavaricci for, IIRC, $85.
My boss's boss's boss just banned jeans in our workplace. I'm pissed off.
You should complain to your boss's boss's boss's boss.
My boss's boss's boss's boss doesn't have time for that shit.
Busy working on the *big* picture, banning pants altogether.
83: At least we know he's not in the pocket of Big Pants.
I only own a few pairs of jeans and haven't more than $40 on any of them. I've spent more than $100 on a single item of clothing (coats or blazers mostly) a couple times, but it's really hard. I've tried to spend close to $100 on shoes, but physically could not bring myself to do so. Like my body would not allow me to carry them to the counter.
Part of this is growing up lower-middle class, part living on limited income a long time and having debt that should be paid before I allow myself such indulgences. Part is also knowing that I can get decent things for much less than that. It's very hard to pay $80 for a pair of slacks in a department store when I know that I can probably get something similar for less than $30 at m@rshalls.
Slacks in the morning, slacks in the evening, slacks at suppertime.
I'm an uncool dad in the 'burbs so I am content with my thirteen dollar Kirkland jeans from Costco. Mostly worn with t-shirts or a polo shirt. Shirt tucked in or out depends on what gun and holster I'm wearing.
I never tuck in my shirt. I believe there may once have been a time at which I did, but I had strange ideas then, and wore shirts that allowed for tucking in the first place.
No clothing over $100; but of course, I not only don't need it in my line of work, I can find similar at a good thrift store. I do very occasionally go so far as to spend over $50 on shoes, but that's a different matter altogether.
Wait, does GSwift rock the copstache? That would be great.
Ok, this is the perfect thread for this bleg.
I bought myself a tenure present - a $140 purse off etsy. I never would have paid this much for a purse if I wasn't treating myself like this.
I've had it one month, and it's torn along a seam. It's definitely not something I could fix - you'd have to deconstruct the lining, or do some sort of extraordinarily tidy patch or something.
I could write the woman, but I'm not sure exactly what I'd ask for. I can imagine that it would take more know-how to fix this than it did to make the original purse, so even if she offered, I'm not sure what she'd do when she got it.
(Frankly, I think she may have used vintage fabric which was just too old.)
Ideas? Should I just take it to some local tailors and eat the bill?
I think the Etsy woman has another fulltime job, judging from the timing that she answered emails. So fixing the purses of old sales probably isn't high on her priority list, anyway.
I thought $140 is super cheap for a purse. Mind you, I have no idea why, but holy fuck do those things seem expensive.
It's super cheap for a name-brand purse, but I've always done thrifted purses.
And I don't find name-brand purses very appealing.
The purse was probably made in a prison in China and she has another full-time job falsifying reports to fool human rights monitors.
193: I'd ask her for the hell of it, making clear that you are not being a demanding person expecting that she's going to fix the thing for you for the rest of your life, but that you wonder if she has any thoughts about the best approach for a fix.
Certainly, if it's a case of her having used a too-old vintage fabric, this is something she might want to know. But don't say that! I'd just politely say how much you love the purse (assuming you do), but now, since she's the expert, does she any inside knowledge about repair? Because you were thinking about bringing it to a tailor.
Shorter me: sure, let her know and ask her what she thinks.
Oh, 193 should obvs. be 93 there. I'm not used to these short threads.
99: I think this is very good advice.
If I was the maker of the purse I would want to know about this.
I kind of feel like a demanding customer - first I emailed her about the refund policy. Then I exchanged the first purse, because it wasn't as picture. She was very courteous about all this, but she ought to be sick of me.
All of these came with lots of emails - shipping numbers, etc - and I felt like I kept hassling her.
You customer ladies are all alike, I swear!
Kidding. Uh, I see the problem. I might just take it to a tailor in that case. Do you know any handy seamstress-type friend people who could give you an idea of how difficult a fix would be? Honestly, maybe it would only be $30 bucks or something for a tailor to fix it up. I don't know how fancy this purse is, or how much you love it.
So write an e-mail that says, "After all that bullshit, the fucking thing ripped. What are you going to do about it?", save it in your drafts and progressively edit it to reasonableness over the next few days so that when do you send it you'll feel like a veritable paragon of undemanding sweetness and light.
I don't actually feel angry. I'm mostly worried that this portends a very short shelf-life for the purse, if the fabric is just deteriorating. I really don't want to go on another purse hunt.
I'm very picky about my purses and I'm totally out of step with what's been trendy for the past 10 years or so.
106: I know you don't feel angry. The plan is to simulate that so your actual feelings of ambivalence feel chivalrous in comparison.
You shouldn't hassle people about shipping numbers unless it's absolutely necessary, heebie.
I hadn't! She hassled me, when I was trying to return the first bag!
I have never paid over $100 for jeans, but I would if I found the right pair (dark denim, flattering, well-made & well-fitting), because I could and would wear them every day, dressing them up or down accordingly. They would have to be jeans that don't stretch out a size after each wear, which is a problem I've found with many women's jeans recently.
On tucking in shirts (esp. button up shirts), for women, boobs + mid-rise jeans mean you get a tent-like effect with some billowing out over your waist which then constricts around your hips. It's a great look if "thick-waisted matron" is what you're going for.
I recommend contacting the seller, even if only to let her know what happened, and to let her know you're happy to take care of it locally with a tailor and are just soliciting suggestions.
My one bad Etsy experience (piece of jewelry; Priority Mail flat-rate mailer arrived open on one end with nothing inside) resulted in the seller very graciously making me a custom piece of jewelry. (It turned out she had tried a new packing method for my order, which packing method obviously failed miserably.) I was very reluctant to contact her at first but glad I did in the end.
Oh, and on shirt tucking, I've been tucking in my shirt recently, but that's mostly because I lost some weight and now all my shirts are too big. If I don't tuck, it's like I'm wearing a spinnaker.
112: I was very reluctant to contact her at first but glad I did in the end.
As an internet merchant, I say to you all again: Please contact the seller! Do not assume from the get-go an adversarial relationship, as though the seller is either out to rip you off, or will rip you off (by refusing to provide a refund or a replacement), or is some kind of mean person in general. Most of the time that is not the case at all. And frankly, it's a drag from a seller's perspective to be suddenly hit with a credit card chargeback or some such, when as far as you knew, everything had gone fine, and you hadn't heard a thing otherwise from the buyer.
Seriously. The number of people who are apparently afraid of the seller and immediately adopt an adversarial stance is just astonishing.
Having a reputation for dressing well has its advantages and its disadvantages.
For example, this morning, I was sent home by my boss to change into a more interesting outfit.
She wrote back:
Oh no! I am so sorry to hear this. I am very sorry that your bag has torn with normal everyday use. I take a lot of pride in the quality of my bags. I am more than happy to fix your bag free of charge and I'll also reinforce it for future use. It is true that some vintage fabrics may wear differently from a 'new' fabric, and I choose vintage fabrics carefully for this reason.
If you would like to send me your bag, I'll fix it free of charge and pay for shipping both ways. (Let me know how much shipping is on the way to me and I'll send you a refund via Paypal).
What a nice person! I declined her offer to pay for shipping, but otherwise I think it sounds great.
Give her good feedback (if there is such a thing on Etsy), and notice that she said "normal everyday use". If you were throwing gallon bottles of water or spiked sticks in there, well, she would have no idea of that, so she's speaking carefully.
It was daily use - I don't like to swap purses, so I'm going to use it every day until it falls apart - but only for a month.
I don't like to switch pants because of the stuff in the pockets, but I usually get much less than a month before I have to.
119: I understand. She probably would like to see what went wrong with the seam, and may revise her seam-reinforcement procedures in future, while considering the fabric, blah blah. Her purses may have to become more expensive, but durability is important. (I'm really just thinking from her perspective.)
If you post a photo of your purse contents, I will do the same with what's in my pockets. I will throw in my gym bag if the volume difference seems objectionable.
Advanced exercise: assorted crud on the floor of the car.
OT: I just had an IT guy come into my office to "fix" a problem that was about at the level of a "how do I send a reply to this so-called 'email' from my 'inbox'" level of question. I am turning into 80 year old lawyer guy. Next stop: secretary prints out all emails and I hand-draft replies. Then: Dictaphone.
My most favorite dinosaur colleague responds to emails at the bottom of the thread. Each time, no matter how long it's getting. "Hey, why I'd get this blank email? Oh, it's from Norm." Scroll-scroll-scroll.
123: Keep going! If you reach far enough into the past, you will get to TRIAL BY COMBAT and everything you learned in Crossfit will come in handy.
116.2 is useless without pictures.
assorted crud on the floor of the car
Oh, man. I seem to have become some kind of horrible person who has a bunch of junk on the floor of the car.
I'm becoming uncomfortable with this. Maybe I'll even go to one of those places with the super-duper vacuums, to suck up the pebbles and whatnot, after I clear away random newsprint and bags and other things I cannot describe in this space.
The question was "I can't load the paper into my personal personal printer in my office." The printer has been in my office for 2 1/2 years and I'd never figured out how to load the paper.
The level of contempt and bewilderment from IT guy was pretty awesome. Don't be fooled, IT guy, beneath this awesome physique beats the heart of a decrepit 80 year old imbecile.
Tell your managing partner that the firm must hire shorthand capable secretaries.
This very website renders most-recent-at-bottom.
dinosaur colleague meets robot colleague at herpy.
This very website renders most-recent-at-bottom.
I'm fine with either convention, but it's odd to be the one person doggedly sticking to the opposite of everyone else.
127: I think you've come to the time of your life when you should get a shop vac. They make small ones that have good power. The really low HP ones won't suck up liquids very well.
Halford, dude. Get a grip on your paper-loading abilities. That is just embarrassing for everyone, you in particular. 40 extra pull-ups + load paper into your printer every single time it needs it, to infinity. Else mortification.
133: My housemate has a shop-vac, and it's used for various things. I grok you.
122, 123: An IT guy at another location somewhat famously had the most junky car interior you could imagine. It became even more famous when he was going to drive his supervisor some place and said supervisor took a picture of the seat (which he refused to sit in--it was truly atrocious and the seat itself was broken) and distributed it fairly widely.
I once saw a truck I'd traded in. It was sitting in the parking lot of a movie theater with the entire passenger side full of trash and cigarette butts spilling out of some container on the floor (the ashtray was stolen when the truck was mine).
129: For loading paper, I can imagine having trouble depending on the printer. But why would you call IT rather than ask the nearest other person -- lawyer, paralegal, secretary, whoever? Someone should have been able to figure it out.
The IT guy was in the office for other stuff today, and I remembered it. I didn't call him specifically for this, at least.
138: Perhaps because then other people in the nearest offices would have known ... about the thing ... about the paper-loading.
Oh. In light of 139, I apologize to Halford.
Wait, you just hadn't printed anything on the personal office printer for 2 1/2 years because you didn't know how to load the paper?
141.2 is correct. I mean, I could use other printers.
So why do you even have this printer?
I have an acquaintance who used the back seat of his car as a trashcan, to the point where opening the back doors would have been a really bad idea. Eventually its catalytic converter was stolen, rendering it immobile; he neglected to do anything about it and just let it be towed away by the city, and never saw it again.
Say that you use the printer down the hall because research shows that uninterrupted sitting will kill you.
143 -- to be more gangster. It's supposed to be a convenience for smaller print jobs.
Okay. I'm finding this totally amusing.
142 is great. For foreign-language typing, do you cut and paste one character at a time? Have you ever taken a screenshot with your telephone camera?
I'm not even sure what the second and third sentences of 148 are referring to. I guess I figured out some shortcut to make an accent aigu over the e when that was necessary for a case.
Sorry, giving you a hard time, undeservedly. Using a different printer because of paper load simultaneously combines energy to keep going and avoidance of using the manual, which leads to other kinds of hilarity often.
I've done 148, still do it for searching Chinese.
Oh, I'm pretty sure I deserve a hard time for this one.
||
Goddamn Bronx. Bronx lawyers, Bronx judges, Bronx part clerks. The whole county.
|>
I feel that the Crossfit philosophy should apply to other areas of life: one should obviously know how to load paper, hoe a row, raise a barn, and however all the rest of that goes.
Also, shaking the toner cartridge will get you a few more pages.
Editorz (7:53:26 PM): I got a free copy of Details magazine and it had an article abou tremoving unsightly back hairEditorz (7:53:26 PM): I'm going to tryu it
Maf54 (7:53:32 PM): love details
Editorz (7:53:35 PM): yes it is a fine publication
Maf54 (7:53:39 PM): really
Editorz (7:53:44 PM): word is bond
Editorz (7:53:52 PM): I'm going to try it now
Maf54 (7:53:54 PM): do you really do it face down
Editorz (7:54:10 PM): the article doesn't specify, but I think that would be difficult that way
Link. I miss the Poor Man Institute.
Whoa... Over $140 is super cheap for a purse? Wow. I think if I spent $50 on a purse, I'd feel like I was being very fancy. (Since I'm definitely not very fancy, I just carry a wallet.)
I just carry a wallet
This I have never understood. I realize it's a much-rehearsed story, but I just feel the need to carry too much additional stuff to go without a purse/bag.
See, I can't imagine what else I could possibly need.
89: so cop! so, so cop!
What's sad is that I've been a stick in the mud about fashion since forever. My mom still tells the story of how in elementary school I refused to wear anything but red or blue Izod shirts and jeans. As I type I realize that I wore a red polo and jeans to the meetup.
Standard in purse:
wallet, of course
medication
chapstick
vitamins (taken with lunch, specific time of day)
small ace bandage (for occasional wrist flare-up)
hair clip & scrunchy thingy
small thing of Aveeno lotion (for dry skin)
pen
small thing of ibuprofen
optional, sometimes: checkbook, granola bar, small thing of saline solution (if wearing contacts) and/or contact lens holder and glasses (if wearing contacts)
I could do without the Aveeno lotion -- I rarely need it -- but otherwise these are things I want/need regularly. Some of the impulse comes from feeling the need to know I'm prepared in any routine situation; I used to be much more of a nomad than I am now.
You don't have a phone or you clip it to your belt?
That part on your waist to which you affix the onion.
Which was the style in the '90s.
People who carry only a wallet have a car. My purse carries 8-12 hours worth of stuff: phone, chapstick, makeup, book(s), medication, two or three pens, keys, wallet--and that's the minimum. On the plus side, my daily purse is large enough to fit an extra shirt and underwear, so that's handy.
BS on Letterman, the segment after Rob Lowe. I don't suppose those jeans cost all that much.
Can't argue with his ambition for next year, after he's termed out: fish in the morning, drink whiskey in the afternoon, and if anyone calls with a problem, give them the phone number of someone who gives a shit.
I just had an IT guy come into my office to "fix" a problem that was about at the level of a "how do I send a reply to this so-called 'email' from my 'inbox'" level of question.
I was going to give you serious grief about this, but then I decided you should take heart; at least you did not spend an hour on a webinar today at which an entire cadre of people was being slowly, painfully walked through the enormously difficult task of logging into a website and registering for an online course.
Next stop: secretary prints out all emails and I hand-draft replies. Then: Dictaphone.
Dude, Dictaphones are awesome. I believe I have raved about them here before. (Geeze, was that really five years ago?)
Oh yeah. Keys.
I have a car, but I do not keep my chapstick and medication and so on in there -- that would be silly. Even with a car, the bag/purse carries 8-12 hours worth of stuff.
I have quite a few purses/bags of varying sizes, I realize, some approaching briefcase size (for, yes, an extra scarf or gloves or sweater or socks or books/magazines). You can pick up purses pretty cheaply at thrift stores when you see a nice one.
I got a wallet to which my keys attach, so there's that. Phone goes in a pocket or just in my hand. I bet if I dug around under the seats of my car, there are probably a few pens and a melted chapstick. Mostly, my car spends its days parked at a train station, so it's not much of a purse on wheels. I do schlepp a backpack to and from the office, but that's just for the work I bring home to not do on the train. I would feel naked walking to the train without the backpack, admittedly.
I was going to mock the need for a purse, but then I realized I carry a backpack all the time. But can your purses carry a laptop, several books, a sweater, and a bunch of groceries?
Can they do all that and be ergonomically balanced?
You backpack carriers haven't a leg to stand on, I'm afraid.
Probably not, but they do seem to be less likely to be smacked into me while on the bus. If you have a backpack and won't remove it (hello CMU class of 2016), you really shouldn't pivot on a bus.
180 to 178.
179: I've been smacked with as many swinging purses as backpacks. And don't get me started on people tripping me with their wheely-bags.
OT: Götterdämmerung is really long. And there was no dragon. You people lied to me. Also the Times critic savaged the production up and down like Chuck Norris vs. that guy in Invasion U.S.A.
OOT: If people don't want comments pointing out how they could improve their story structure and characterization, they shouldn't let their friends send me drafts of their television pilot scripts. It's just basic science.
You must have gone to the restroom when the dragon appeared.
I guess I did miss "Jetzt ist es doch Clobberinzeit."
Many people don't go for gratuitous nude scenes like that.
Whoa... Over $140 is super cheap for a purse? Wow. I think if I spent $50 on a purse, I'd feel like I was being very fancy.
No, it was super expensive! It was a tenure present!
Halford said he thought it was super cheap.
And you deserve no matter the price, HG.
Halford has a special IT guy to load the paper into his printer, so I think his ideas of cheap and expensive are off in Hollywood outer space.
I think if I spent $50 on a purse, I'd feel like I was being very fancy.
If you go to a not even high end department store, like Macy's, $50 won't buy you a purse made of leather.
With jeans, in the UK, basic jeans from anywhere except at the absolute bottom end of the market, are going to cost at least $50 - $60 US, and that's ordinary department store type brands, nothing fancy. GAP jeans in the UK are more like $80-$90 US. You wouldn't have to go for a designer or even expensive brand to break $100. Although I don't buy Levi's myself, you could easily spend over $100 on a pair.
ttaM wears only vintage Soviet jeans.
Soviet vintage jeans might not be so bad; when Brezhnev wanted a denim outfit, his tailor cut it for him, but they had to send to Italy for decent selvage cloth because that was beyond the powers of the Soviet textile industry. So if you buy into the whole Evisu mythology about the old Levis power looms and what-not, you'd arguably be trying to track them down.
Also, this ferociously informative comment.
193: You guys have a VAT and, at least in Pennsylvania, there is no tax at all on clothing of nearly every kind.
I was about to mock the need for bags, but then I remembered that one of the reasons I hate summer is that I can't wear a coat, which I like to wear because it has big pockets for books and newspapers and games machines and things.
You could wear a light jacket with big pockets.
They don't really exist and moreover the point is gets too hot to wear any sort of jacket.
I thought you were on knifecrime island.
Where, to finish my unstated thought, it really doesn't get hot even in the summer.
I am. It still gets relatively hot here, and also as a ginger I can't really handle anything above 25 degrees or so.
You should avoid the entire continental U.S. during the summer.
Except maybe San Francisco and a few of the taller mountains.
I try to. Though last year my cousin got married in Illinois in August. I almost died.
Actually, now that I think about it, it was Wisconsin. Still bloody hot at the time though.
Parts of Wisconsin were developed for the purpose of letting people from Chicago have some place cool to go in the summer.
209: Reading backwards, I thought to myself "Surely the Dells are not 'cool,' Moby. No matter what one thinks of the Robot Show or the Waterskiing Squirrel." Ah, but now I see.
The Dells are where a lifeguard advised me that I could not ride a waterslide pregnant. I was very much not pregnant. Fuck the Dells.
Yeah, fuck the Dells. The coolest cool kids go to Lodi to visit Susie the Duck.
Also, I just figured out how Moraine State Park got its name and the birthplace of Tom Wopat. That's a really useful wikipedia page.
How did it get the birthplace of Tom Wopat?
I assume there was some sort of bidding process.
Consolation prize for not being the birthplace of John Schneider.
215 - Things got bad and things got worse. I guess you will know the tune.
all sb will
Lately I've been surprised to find how many younger folks don't know this tune, discussion of which comes up now and then when wines from certain Central Valley vineyards are consumed.
Some chick needs to back me up on the $140 being cheap for a purse thing. I swear I'm not delusional on this, they are monster expensive. I've been to the local mall to pick one out as a gift and there were definitely more over $1000 than under $200.
I would back you on this, but my SO gets really upset if I talk about her purse habit and how much it costs.
221: Well, I can just imagine what mall you were at, halford, but yes, in certain stores -- not, you know, Nordstrom -- $140 is going to be bottom-end "accessible nice."
221: IME, normal people buy $30 knockoffs. You're right that to walk into a indoor store and buy a decent purse from the company that purportedly designed it, you're going to get into hundreds of dollars very quickly, but that's the same reality where jeans under $500 are a steal.
Damn indoor stores with their fancy walls.
Here is a survey of the kind of prices a reasonably thrifty person could expect to pay for a purse.
I never doubted you, RH. Just stunned at the costs my femininity-challenged personality has spared me.
I have a few friends who prefer to own fewer*, high-priced items, and they'd all tend towards $150 purses. I think my SIL got a $350 purse for Christmas in the recent past.
*this may be wishful thinking but I'm sticking to it.
224: Knock offs are easier to buy in New York than in Boston. A well-made leather bag would cost more regardless of who designed it. Lower-end Nordstrom stuff is often the same or less than mid-level Macy's stuff. I think you might get something nice for $35 *on sale*. I've bought more expensive stuff; I think that you could get good things not on sale for $65.
Here's the purse in question, btw. Scroll down to the bottom, for the oatmeal heather one.
224: it's people like you who make Louis Vuitton suffer so terribly, you know.
Knock offs are easier to buy in New York than in Boston.
But that's using "knock offs" to mean really trying to pass as a specific brand. Cheap bags are available everywhere. Plus there's an internet.
The bag I carried today was something Buck got free at an IBM System i users conference. It's black nylon, with a large logo. Louis Vuitton's withers are unwrung.
A few months ago I got a messenger bag for $100. It wasn't the cheapest option I looked at, but I don't think I saw anything vaguely like what I wanted (big enough for a bike helmet and then some) for less than $60. Maybe I was shopping in the wrong neighborhood. I wouldn't want to shop online for something like this, though, considering how much the feel of it matters.
The lurkers are fawning over my purse over email.
I think my messenger bag cost $65, but it's lasted twenty years in essentially perfect condition, so that was sort of a deal, it turned out.
My messenger bag has lasted twenty years but it's in shitty condition. However, I don't carry it often so I don't care.
It also has a lifetime warranty, which I thought was moot since the company had gone out of business but nope, still around.
I very much like this bag but it's a little bulkier than I'd want for everyday use.
I know that song, but not the lyricsin detail.
IME, normal people buy $30 knockoffs.
Tia's link to overstock seems to me like the kinds of bags most people buy: some stuff in vaguely current styles, some direct copies of designer bags (Steve Madden has a lot of these), a lot of generic tote-style bags, some lower end name brand stuff (Longchamp). Ebags.com also has that range of stuff. But outside of really good deals, a decent leather bag is going to cost more than $30. Even at T.J. Maxx. I prefer nylon bags to fake leather.
I had a good Coach purse my parents got me in high school until recently, and then the strap broke (the leather tore, so no fixing it). I haven't had a usable purse since -- Buck got me one for Christmas the year my old one broke, but it's too small. And I don't want to put in the effort buying one that doesn't annoy me: I want something so boring it's invisible, that's guaranteed to last a couple of decades.
So, backpacks and a briefcase for work.
"rent designer handbag" turns up companies that do this very thing. Is this normal?
Also: eBay.
This is the greatest bag ever. I've carried one nearly daily for 8 years. It's not fussy, the pockets are perfect and useful, it holds a ton of stuff but still looks good with just a thing or two in it, and the straps are plenty long enough to wear on your shoulder even with a heavy coat but also work if you carry it in your hand like a tote bag. Also, the straps somehow distribute weight in a way that other shoulder bags I've tried don't. (Maybe lots of designer bags are well designed that way? I wouldn't know.)
Can you look on eBay for the same model Coach purse as your old one?
I carry a Timbuktu messenger bag, because I'm a totally fucking predictable hipster it works well, it's built like a tank, and it's water-resistant, which is awesome when I'm accidentally caught in the rain with a laptop in-tow
I get about a half dozen Louis Vuitton and Rolex offers every morning on the way to work. Plus another half dozen generic 'watches' and 'purses'. What happened to good old fashioned drug dealing? Kids these days.
ttaM If you wear jeans and want Levis, buy them while you're here. They run between $20-$60 depending on model and store. I was rather shocked to see 501's for 120 CFH (c. $130-140) last time I was in Geneva. Same damn things I buy for thirty or forty bucks.
I used to carry a Manhattan Portage canvas mini, but I recently expanded to a Kenneth Cole vinyl/canvas number a bit bigger, but still smaller than anything properly called a satchel. I am a man with a purse.
My ex-SIL's two priorities if we were headed there or she was headed here were always Levis and Diet Pepsi.
I was going to send courierware an email about how awesomely my bag has held up, but they already have dozens of emails to that effect posted on their site. And it turns out they will let you trade in your old bag for up to half its retail value! And in the custom section you can order bags to wear right or (as I do) left! They rule. Everybody should get one of their bags. Everybody!
I used to use a very awesome Timbuk2 messenger bag until my doctor yelled at me after I hurt my back. Now I use a very awesome Timbuk2 backpack. (Looks-wise, I still prefer the bag.)
OK an informal office survey has revealed that I'm totally right about the costs of purses ("I mean, you might find some deal on something cute, but if you want to be even a little stylish . . .")
Oh yeah. I am not at all into purses (or "bags" as they are likely to be called in practice, but I will continue calling them purses to distinguish them from the variety of not-expensive bags I actually put my stuff in), so I don't spend real money on them -- and therefore don't really own anything that is in fact a purse -- but if I wanted something that looked stylish and chic I would expect to pay lots. If it is leather, and it probably is, you are talking about something that is basically multiple pairs of shoes (and I certainly pay plenty for non-sneaker shoes).
258: Pauline Kael would totally spend more than $140 on a purse.
Everybody should get one of their bags. Everybody!
Okay, I'm tempted.
Question: I mostly use a backpack now. I bike commute when it's nice out, but I take the bus when the weather's lousy and I spend more time on foot than I do on a bike. Would I want a courier bag or a walking bag? I leaning towards the latter, but I'm not sure how much of an improvement on a backpack it would be.
I wear mine (which is a courier bag, in I think the large size) while walking a lot. They're designed so you can quickly adjust the strap length depending on load/mode of locomotion.
And then, blow some $ and get the Tumi strap which has pivot points at the shoulder pad too. Makes a big difference in comfort and stayonedness.
http://www.tumi.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4209669&prodFindSrc=prodCrossSell&refProd=4209670
