"Man shopping" for clothes

Over the past several "semi-retired" years my wardrobe, modest in the best of times, has taken a nose dive.  I can count only three decent sports shirts that I can wear out in the evening or to a casual business meeting.  As I have another meeting tomorrow and they've already seen me as "Larry, Curly, and Moe", I figured it was time to go do a little shopping.

 Whatdayamean "Am I going out looking like this?"

Like many men, I'm not a good shopper.  That's why I rarely do it.  That's also why I usually look like a holocaust survivor, except for the part about being brutally starved.  (Trust me, I DON'T look starved.)  My default version of clothes shopping consists of going to the LL Bean website and buying some new shorts and t-shirts, then waiting for the UPS man to arrive.  Easy peasy.

But today I felt brave and ventured out to the big mall just a couple of blocks away.  I went in to Dillard's first, found the men's department in the back corner, and then found several shirts that looked nice.  The lady whose first language sounded like it was Russian told me they were now 40% off.  Sweet!

I whipped out my wallet and she said, "I'll need your Dillard's card, please."

I said, "I'll just pay with my debit card, thank you."

"Oh no sir (or maybe it was "Comrade"), the sale price is only for Dillard's Club members.  I'll be happy to open you a membership.  ("Membership" must now be the code word for credit card.)  Nope, no more "memberships" for me.

Bye-Bye.

At the other end of the mall was Macy's.  Same drill, found the men's department and a couple of nice shirts....they were Tommy Bahama....but they were waaaaay over $100 each.

Bye-Bye. 

Next it was on to Nordstrom's.  I found their men's department in the corner of the basement (how come women get 95% of the store?) and a couple of acceptable shirts.

The tag said the fabric was "modal".  So I said to myself, "Self, WTF is modal?  And more importantly, does it need to be ironed?"  I looked it up on the World Wide Web (thank you iPhone) and it said modal "pills" and likely needs ironing.

Bye-Bye.

I decided my last stop before I gave up entirely would be REI.  Fortunately they had a couple of Colombia shirts that I liked, never mind that they looked like I was going fishing, so I bought 'em.

Now I'm just hoping the "fisherman look" is better than the "holocaust survivor look".  I'm thinking it's a toss-up.  Meh.  ;)

S

Veeeeeeery interesting

This is pretty interesting:  It seems that a papayrus fragment (early writing paper) that was discovered in 2012 and has become known as "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife" is likely real and not a modern day forgery.  

Researchers at Colombia, Harvard, and MIT (and The National Enquirer?) did their fancy-pants analysis and said it was almost certainly part of an ancient manuscript that wasn't edited or tampered with.  

The papyrus, ink, etc was all genuinely ancient and not a modern reproduction.  On it is supposedly written, "Jesus said to them, 'My wife....'." and goes on to say, "She will be able to be my disciple...".

I'm sure women's groups are ecstatic, reminding everyone of the old saying, "Behind every good man is a good woman" and saying this should open the door for women to become priests.

And atheists are probably stirring the pot, too, suggesting that Jesus might have just been a guy looking for an excuse to get away from the Mrs, the in-laws, taking out the trash, etc.

I'm thinking this will eventually just go into that "unsolved" file along with the Shroud of Turin and that supposedly divine piece of toast that looked like Jesus.

I doubt it will change many minds.  Carry on.  :)

S

Twinkies and Tony Bennett

It looks like Twinkies are on their last legs, their parent company, Hostess, threatening bankruptcy liquidation.  A world without Twinkies?  How could that be?  I mean Twinkies are a culinary institution.  What kid didn't chow down on a RC Cola and a couple 'o Twinkies?  It was a rite of passage into chubby adolescence....gone forever?  I can't imagine it.  What kinda crap do parents feed their kids these days if not Twinkies? Lemme guess....those little tiny carrots?  *blech*


Since when did Tony Bennett become our Secretary of Defense?  They try to dress him down with more distinguished spectacles, a less stylish do and a new name, but come on, who are they kidding?

Sec Def "Leon Panetta" (yeah... right) was on TV this morning chastising some of his military guys for their partying in Colombia recently, and I'm thinking, "Tony, you old dog....like you haven't serenaded a few Latin ladies in your day?"  Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. "Leon", *wink* you'd better let Hillary play the "bad cop" on this one.

Don't you see it?  ;)

S