Couture
by ::G @ 2005-03-19 21:21
It's Sunday morning, and I actually woke up at 9am. Normally, I wake up after 10 on weekends. Sachie has to work all day today, so I'm taking care of things I've been putting off, like calling family. I talked to my mom for a bit, then tried to call my bro, but he didn't pick up. Must be out partying. Then Joel started messaging me on AIM. I'm currently formatting an 80GB 2.5" HDD in an external USB case; using FAT32 for maximum compatibility, but Win XP is taking forever to format it.
In the meantime, I'm also munching on the last of the kinkans, and loading the washer. After the snowboarding yesterday, I had to wash my gloves, so I put in a load of darks. Most of my clothes are dark: t-shirts, boxers, and socks. My particular dress metaphor is black t-shirts and loose blue jeans. Reminds me of a blurb I read once, Brent Spiner, who played Data from Star Trek, said: "I like this designer called Levi. He does good work." Of course he was being facetious, and actually, the blurb was in Playboy where he was discussing his black t-shirt and jeans fashion sense. Or there's Ben Folds of Ben Folds Five in the lyrics of "Song for the Dumped": "And don't forget to give me back my black t-shirt!" But I digress again, as usual.
Often I think I should be more fashionable, like buying "cool" clothes and wearing different outfits every day. But when I was back in Rochester I wore the t-shirt and jeans thing every day of the week (granted I have various black t-shirts and a bunch of pairs of 560s). Here, I can't wear jeans or t-shirts, so I wear a white polo and slacks every day. I have like 6 different white polos, 5 of which are identical. Why? Because it's easy. I hate having to think about what face to put on every morning. It's the same person under the clothing. When I was coming to Fujisawa on business trips, I wore more variety, but it was mostly darks. Someone told me I look less brooding in white, so for work I switched to the white polos. Ah, so easily influenced. Of course now the complaint is that there's no variety, but it doesn't matter because I wear the IBM-blue lab coat all the time. White is annoying too because it shows sweat and other deposits, like food. Never fails, one ends up eating pasta with tomato-based sauce when wearing white. Ultimately, that's why black shirts rule!
Time is the big thing. If I had plenty of time and were bored, and had people to impress, I'd be more interested in fashion. As it is, I don't know any of the "beautiful people" and I'd prefer to have more time and money for my tech habit, so fashion falls by the wayside. I do have "fashion", but it's my own metaphor! Actually, if I had lots of money, I don't think I'd buy brand clothing. (Except I've always wanted an Armani suit...even though I wear a suit about once a year.) Think about it, the cost of the clothing is way cheap, because it's made in India or Mexico or wherever, so the markup is for the name (and possibly the design). Rather than doing that, if I were rich, I'd rather pay for custom clothing that no one else has. When one thinks about it, people who wear the expensive cookie-cutter brand clothing do so because 1) they have disposable income, 2) they want others to notice what they're wearing, and be envious, and 3) to impart a wealthy feel to themselves (an ego thing). I'd rather be non-pretentious.
Somewhat uncharacteristically, today I'm wearing a non-black shirt: a green Guiness long-sleeved T that Yoshi brought back for me from a business trip in Ireland. Aww yeah, this is true fashion, baby!!
I'm listening to Rie Fu right now. Man, she's cool. I've listened to this album maybe 6 times since Friday night!
In the meantime, I'm also munching on the last of the kinkans, and loading the washer. After the snowboarding yesterday, I had to wash my gloves, so I put in a load of darks. Most of my clothes are dark: t-shirts, boxers, and socks. My particular dress metaphor is black t-shirts and loose blue jeans. Reminds me of a blurb I read once, Brent Spiner, who played Data from Star Trek, said: "I like this designer called Levi. He does good work." Of course he was being facetious, and actually, the blurb was in Playboy where he was discussing his black t-shirt and jeans fashion sense. Or there's Ben Folds of Ben Folds Five in the lyrics of "Song for the Dumped": "And don't forget to give me back my black t-shirt!" But I digress again, as usual.
Often I think I should be more fashionable, like buying "cool" clothes and wearing different outfits every day. But when I was back in Rochester I wore the t-shirt and jeans thing every day of the week (granted I have various black t-shirts and a bunch of pairs of 560s). Here, I can't wear jeans or t-shirts, so I wear a white polo and slacks every day. I have like 6 different white polos, 5 of which are identical. Why? Because it's easy. I hate having to think about what face to put on every morning. It's the same person under the clothing. When I was coming to Fujisawa on business trips, I wore more variety, but it was mostly darks. Someone told me I look less brooding in white, so for work I switched to the white polos. Ah, so easily influenced. Of course now the complaint is that there's no variety, but it doesn't matter because I wear the IBM-blue lab coat all the time. White is annoying too because it shows sweat and other deposits, like food. Never fails, one ends up eating pasta with tomato-based sauce when wearing white. Ultimately, that's why black shirts rule!
Time is the big thing. If I had plenty of time and were bored, and had people to impress, I'd be more interested in fashion. As it is, I don't know any of the "beautiful people" and I'd prefer to have more time and money for my tech habit, so fashion falls by the wayside. I do have "fashion", but it's my own metaphor! Actually, if I had lots of money, I don't think I'd buy brand clothing. (Except I've always wanted an Armani suit...even though I wear a suit about once a year.) Think about it, the cost of the clothing is way cheap, because it's made in India or Mexico or wherever, so the markup is for the name (and possibly the design). Rather than doing that, if I were rich, I'd rather pay for custom clothing that no one else has. When one thinks about it, people who wear the expensive cookie-cutter brand clothing do so because 1) they have disposable income, 2) they want others to notice what they're wearing, and be envious, and 3) to impart a wealthy feel to themselves (an ego thing). I'd rather be non-pretentious.
Somewhat uncharacteristically, today I'm wearing a non-black shirt: a green Guiness long-sleeved T that Yoshi brought back for me from a business trip in Ireland. Aww yeah, this is true fashion, baby!!
I'm listening to Rie Fu right now. Man, she's cool. I've listened to this album maybe 6 times since Friday night!
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Uh, I'll try to listen to her music in near days. Currently I'm listening to Love Psychedelico's Best every day, with cycling the road or typing something in front of PC. Refreshing! :D ♪
I'm not big into the brand clothing thing. I sometimes find a certain brand might make clothes that fit me better, but that is counted under laziness. I'm a girl, so sometimes I actually like shopping. But I fail terribly b/c I usually get tired of clothes shopping rather quickly. Unless I get filthy rich, I don't think I'd ever become a brand clothing person.
On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with having a really good suit. Everyone needs one. Tailored suits are even better.
Turns out Win XP couldn't format the disk in FAT32. What a piece of crap! Actually, it only listed NTFS under Disk Manager, but "format" on the command line has the option. When I tried that, eventually it died saying that the disk was too big. B.S.!! A FAT16 volume with 64kB clusters could hold 4GB, so you can bet FAT32 can hold a measly 20 times that. That was the whole point! The bottom line is, Windows sucks. I'll have to format this HDD using other means. Well, I wanted to build a new Linux box anyway....
Regarding clothing, I'm talking about the big spendy brands like Gucci or Chanel. Stuff like Target's Cherokee certainly are a brand, but not "brand clothing" in the sense of it's a name that makes everyone go "ooooh". I buy Levi's because they're comfortable, even though they cost $40/pair and one can get el cheapo jeans for $15/pair. I like the design of the 560s, so I pay for the difference. Still, that's within my tolerances: $200 for a pair of brand jeans that has no difference in quality, because they're both made in Guam or wherever, is just dumb.
Actually, I've noticed that the feel of the same item made in two different countries can be drastically changed. That's a quality control problem.
I have a suit that was fitted to me, but it's the only real suit I have (other than a sportscoat and nice slacks), and it only cost $600. There's a big difference between that and a $2000 Armani suit. I need to take a trip to Italy to scarf some good pasta and pick up some nice threads....