Here is my scarf (a birthday present from Marita).
Now, ten points to the first person who can name that pattern. (If you’ve already been told, keep your trap shut.)
Here are my oldest and newest items of clothing. (Well, if you don’t count the socks I bought last week.)
The red jumper is an Exacto brand windcheater which dates from probably about 1989 or 1990. It still gets an outing on cold evenings at home, and when painting (note the paint stain, a fairly recent addition).
The coat I bought a couple of weeks ago, and I like it so much that I’m wearing it at every opportunity.
I was standing in Myer looking at coats, accompanied by my very own “What Not To Wear” Trinny and Susannah — only these two were called Marita and Justine.
They spurned the jacket I was considering, instead pointing out a more expensive one. I tried it on.
“That’s a very good coat Daniel.”
“It is.”
For a moment they seemed so approving I almost thought they were taking the piss.
“See that’s casual enough to wear on weekends.”
“Look in the mirror. Those shoes aren’t helping.”
No, it’s true, the shoes weren’t helping. Even with my limited capacity in the clothing judgement department, it was undeniable that the coat was very nice. Ch-ching, or should I say swipe — another purchase on the credit card. Maybe the sales assistant sensed my fear; he emphasised I could return it for any reason. “Even if you decide you don’t like it.”
But I do like it. And hey, at least the advice was free. Sometimes I need all the advice I can get.
Here is my rather nice new (rather expensive) suit, seen over a startlingly bright red shirt I bought recently. (Rather more RED than I saw in the shop, admittedly.)
What clothing have you bought recently? Leave a comment or a trackback.
I went to that bastion of good fashion, Big W after work tonight, to look at some eveningwear. Not the night on the town with my special lady kind of eveningwear, more the sitting at home alone in front of the telly on a cold winter evening kind of eveningwear. Trackie dacks, to be precise.
I found a fine pair that should suit my requirements, for $8. Pondering the fact that I’d looked at some very nice suits in my favourite suit shop yesterday costing around a hundred times that (and that was the sale price, but they were pretty damn nice), I toddled along to the checkout, with a couple of other nearly-bargains I’d chanced upon.
As I paid for the items, I noticed the plastic bag the girl had put my acquisitions in had no handles. No straps, and no holes for me to put my hand through. All the other bags she had were identical. On the train home it felt like I was carrying a swag.
(Yes yes, I had to take a bag; I don’t take my re-usable ones into work you know…)
What’s the bright idea behind giving out bags with no handles? Surely it can’t be an economy measure. Or perhaps encouragement for us to not take plastic bags, by making them inconvenient to use?
Those of you who make the extra effort to seek out ethical or organic products might be interested to know that Cadbury is taking over Green & Black’s chocolates. As one blogger commented — hey, at least it’s not Nestle. (via Andy)
From time to time I’ve sampled G&B’s. Yummy stuff, and I for one will be disappointed if Cadbury’s merges it into their existing lines. Not that I expect them to — assuming there’s a profitable market for organic ethically produced chocolate, there’s no reason to assume Cadbury would want to change that, particularly if it’s the only prominent brand out there.
Meanwhile, the Store Wars is promoting organic foods, featuring Egg Stormtroopers and full of bad Star Wars/food puns. Funny stuff.
So, is organic better? To my mind, not necessarily. As per usual, it’s not a black and white argument with black representing the evil processed, pesticided McCardboard muck and white representing pure natural gloriously delicious food. Mud is pure and natural. So are locusts. Doesn’t mean I want to eat them. So nope, personally, I don’t generally go out looking specifically for organic produce, though I do look out for stuff that’s fresh, and not overly sprayed or genetically modified (I have a nagging feeling that GM foods fall into the “we don’t yet know enough about this to know if it’s good or bad” category).
Speaking of ethical products, you can now get sweatshop-free sneakers (distributed in Australia by Community Aid Abroad shops). I do need some new sneakers. Not sure I had their limited styles in mind, though.
Programmes such as Fair Wear are helping to spread information about manufacturers who commit to fair wages and conditions of their workers, though in Fair Wear’s case, it’s limited to products made in Australia, which I guess explains how Nike got onto their list of signatories. Until there’s a unified list of products and manufacturers (and maybe there is, but I haven’t found it), it will remain difficult to find and buy from them.
It’s 6pm, and you’re working back late. Outside the only shops left open are those such as the CD shop you have to run up to shortly to buy a birthday present, before heading to an evening co-curricular meeting.
Then you realise that your trousers are developing a hole in the seat. Not a huge gaping hole, but a hole nonetheless. What do you do?
Me? I put my jacket on, went out and finished those tasks I needed to do, while trying not to squirm too much while sitting. Then I caught the train home, occasionally glancing around to see if anybody was snickering.
Which nobody was, at least noticeably. Time to go trouser shopping.
It’s the last day of my holidays, though perhaps fittingly, I’ve been bombarded with support calls today. Oh the curse of the mobile phone and remote network connection.
Some questions that might be resolved by Monday. Or maybe not:
I bought some clothes yesterday. Can I actually pull off 3/4 length pants, or will they look ridiculous on me?
I also bought a kitchen chair from Ikea yesterday. Got it home to discover it wasn’t quite the exact match of the old ones that I thought. Will notice and laugh?
Are today’s work issues caused by a bug in one of Microsoft’s libraries?
Will I be able to shout about that, so as not to make too much noise about the other bug I found today, in my own code? (Oh so THAT’s why it takes ages to run, and spits out the wrong figures.)
One day will the remote network connection be less flakey? Or is it just my machine’s setup?
Once all the work stuff is over, will I find the time to have a shower, tidy up the house, have some lunch, do some shopping, iron some shirts for work next week, then get all my stuff together for going away for the weekend? (Don’t get too excited. It’s only Seymour. With a bit of luck I’ll prepare a Here Is My photo today, to appear on Sunday.)
Will the paint specks on my arms and legs from helping paint Josh and Cathy’s house last night eventually come off?
Is there time for another cup of tea?