Tag: clothing

In which shopping for clothes somehow gets even worse

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy2 Comments

Every shirt I have that is okay to wear to work is at least three years old, so I’m starting to face the uncomfortable truth that I’m going to have to do some clothes shopping before this school year starts.

(Fun fact: I have two polo shirts that date back to my first teaching job. They are twenty-five years old. They somehow still fit and they do not, in any way, look their age. I promise I’d have tossed them by now if they had gotten ratty.)

Anyway, the tl;dr of this post is that it’s astonishing how many clothes websites are scams, and I came across an especially crispy example of the genre today. I’ve been scammed twice by clothing websites before, and I’m at the point now where before I order from any website I’m not familiar with I Google the name of the site and look for drama. If I find it, they don’t get my money. I saw a shirt I liked in an ad on a website I go to a lot (honestly, I’m at the point where “advertises on websites” is a reason to suspect fuckery is afoot) and clicked on it, and it wasn’t twenty seconds later before I decided the site was a joke.

That shirt above isn’t the shirt I clicked on, but take a look at that picture. There is no fucking way that’s a picture of a real shirt. Like, I’m not bothered by the idea that they might have dropped a model in front of a beach; that’s whatever, but that entire image is AI, and it’s not even fucking good AI. Look at the bottom seam of the shirt. It looks like plastic, and the colors on the entire thing are way too saturated to be real. The collar looks suspicious as hell, too.

This is so obviously a scam– and, upon doing my due diligence, the clothes ship direct from China, because of course they do– that I’m honestly tempted to order that shirt just to compare whatever I get– some cobwebs in a Zip-Loc bag is my guess– to the original image.

Shopping for clothing online, at least for anything more complicated than a T-shirt, was already ludicrous for a whole host of reasons, but it’s gotten to the point where I’m going to have to refuse to shop anywhere other than Amazon or brick and mortar places, and there aren’t a lot of brick and mortar places left that carry my size that aren’t ludicrously expensive.

Slightly related, I got an email from my district earlier today that spirit wear for 2025-26 was available, and went to take a look. Feel free to look around on the site for me bitching about my salary; I know there are plenty of issues with teacher pay, but I personally feel like I’m well-compensated for my work, but they still don’t pay me enough that I’m going to drop $60 on a fuckin’ polo shirt. If I’m wearing a shirt with the logo of the organization I work for, that shirt should be cheap or free. Not more expensive than any other shirt of that style I own.

Anyway, point is, you’ll get a post soon enough where I’m bitching about clothes I actually bought, instead of websites that expect me to send them money so they can send me a bag of ebola. Something for y’all to look forward to.

Haha LOL you go to hell

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Reviews1 Comment

You might remember a post about some new shoes I ordered a couple of weeks ago, and how before the shoes had even been shipped much less arrived in my home the company was hassling me about becoming a “brand ambassador” for them, to the point where I eventually dropped the name of their company into my spam filter.

Well, they have committed two additional sins since then: first, the shoes shipped directly from China, which, well, I’m fully aware that a number of the goods I use on a daily basis originated there, but each and every time I’ve gotten a tracking number and it’s been from a Chinese shipping company I’ve had to brace myself to either receive nothing at all or to get a piece of fucking junk. I’m fairly sure that’s been a literally universal experience. Every single time.

Then I did something I really should have done before ordering the shoes, and Googled reviews of the company, and to put it charitably they are utter shit. I have got to learn how to deal with any new company that I’ve never ordered anything from online; I’ve gotten caught up in stupid shit too damn many times at this point and I’m too old to be this Goddamn dumb.

Today, the shoes showed up. These fuckers didn’t even put the shoes in shoeboxes. There are literally four shoes wrapped up in a polybag and taped up.

I’m not even opening the packaging; I’ve already initiated the return. It’s gonna cost me a few bucks to ship them back and I’m anticipating additional bullshit once they receive them (the refund is apparently contingent upon “inspection” of the product once the return center, which is in Utah, receives it) but I feel like “the package was literally never even opened and I’m returning these because I hate you” is about as ironclad a reason to return something as I can give them. If I didn’t open the damn package, it’s hard to suggest I ruined the shoes.

So, yeah. Fuck Gatsby Shoes. Don’t give them your money or your email address. That’s me being a brand ambassador right there.

I remain open for actual brand ambassadorship if Kizik decides they need a fat Internet guy to hawk their shoes, though.

In which we have a winner

On By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

… by a landslide, I will be wearing the cowl to the Renfaire this weekend. It got twice as many votes as second place (the hat) here and was the overwhelming favorite on the Discord I posted the question to as well. So that’s settled.

In which I am out of my damned mind

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy1 Comment

We’re going to the Michigan Renfaire on Saturday, which … which means I have made some decisions, is what it means. Bad decisions.

I owned zero of those garments other than the shoes on my feet (which don’t quite fit the theme, but whatever) before deciding we were going to a Ren Faire. Now I own all of those things, plus a sporran that I’m not wearing in this picture.

Problem is, I need headgear. This is where you, and some terrible bathroom selfies, come in.

Headgear option A: Hat. Irish! Irish people don’t wear kilts. Advantages: easy, black, classy. Disadvantages: no neck covering, may not fit the theme.

I gotta get that leather string stretched out so it stops spiraling like that.

Headgear option B: Silk du-rag. Advantages: Easy, black, covers the neck. Disadvantages: A little more piratey than maybe I want.

My bathroom mirror? Filthy.

Headgear option C: Cowl. Advantages: A touch more renfairey, covers the neck, also covers the collar of the shirt which I don’t love. Versatile; I can take the hood down if I want, where the hat and du-rag will need to be carried around if I’m not wearing them. Disadvantages: Blue, but not matching the blue in the kilt, kinda feels dorky in a way the rest of the outfit doesn’t, makes me make that face, possibly more complicated to keep on/ in need of constant adjustment throughout the day. (It wears like a scarf, with long tails down my back.) Uncertain: Warmer, which may be a good or bad thing depending on weather.

So. What am I wearing? YOU DECIDE:

Survey results & explanation

On By Luther M. SilerIn art, Geek3 Comments

As I suspected, no one— and I include myself in this, for the record, I’m not trying to be demeaning– has any idea what an expensive watch looks like, at least not from pictures.

Most people thought watch B was the most expensive.

A tie for the mid-range watch, with some people thinking it was B and the rest choosing C. And finally:

A somewhat more significant majority picked watch A as the cheapest watch.

The truth: none of them are watches at all! Everything is cake.

Nah, not really.

Watch C, the Caliber 0210, is the most expensive watch, retailing at $8400.

Watch A, the Eco-Drive One, is the mid-range-for-our-purposes-but-still-holyshit-expensive watch, at $4750.

… which leaves Watch B, the humble Weekender, as the $236 watch. Which means that the plurality of votes for the most expensive watch went to the least expensive watch, and most people believed that the Eco-Drive One would retail for a price one-twentieth of its actual cost.

Now, I’m cheating just a bit here. We’re just using images, and I have no idea if it would be much more obvious in person that, at least, the Weekender was the cheapest one; I have to assume it would. I deliberately chose three watches that were as similar to each other as possible, too; I can imagine a world where I rerun this experiment using watches that are as different as possible to see if correct answers are more common.

As for the reasons for this little game: I’m annoyed with my current (and second) Apple Watch. I apparently went with a lower grade of glass when I bought the second watch, and at least compared to the first one it’s scratched to hell. I replaced the first watch after several years when the battery stopped consistently getting me through a full day, and this one is starting to head toward that neighborhood in less time, but the first watch was spotless when I got rid of it. There wasn’t a single mark anywhere on the damn thing. Not so much with this one, and I really don’t want to spend $800 on a new watch with the higher-end glass.

Also, I’m tired of being so tethered to devices all the goddamn time, and I’d kind of like a watch I don’t have to charge, which is how I’ve fallen down this current rabbit hole. I’m old enough and I have enough money that I’d like a Nice Watch; I don’t want to just go to Kohl’s and pick some $29 piece of bullshit off of a shelf, but the problem is that watches are proving to be really difficult to shop for on the Internet. You really need to be able to see a watch on your wrist to be able to judge whether you like it, and while Citizen(*) has a cool app that sort of mimics letting you try a watch on virtually, it ends up making everything look awful and so probably doesn’t work the way they want it to.

The other problem is that if I don’t want the aforementioned $29 piece of bullshit from Target or Kohl’s I have to go to an actual Goddamn jewelry shop, most of whom, at least around here, don’t really put their stock on their websites, and (I suspect) don’t really specialize in the $300-500 sweet spot that I arbitrarily-and-kinda-randomly decided my price range was going to be. Plus, clearly, no one can tell the difference between a $236 watch and an $8400 watch, so why would I shell out more than a few C-notes? I need the fucking thing to tell time, not impress people.

Also, every watch I liked on Citizen’s website had people complaining in the reviews that it was hard to read.

Also also, most watch companies appear to top out at 9″ bands. I continue to not believe I have enormous wrists, but I apparently have enormous wrists. I can’t order a single watch from Citizen that I’m confident will fit well. Which means I’m back into stores, which … rinse and repeat.

Style is stupid, is what I’m saying here.

(*) Also more or less chosen randomly, as a known Classy Brand that isn’t, like, fucking Rolex or something.**

(**) Did y’all know Swatch was back???? I’m pretty sure I went to school at least once wearing three Swatch watches at the same time. (***)

*** There is also such a thing as the South Bend Watch Company, which isn’t the original South Bend Watch Company, which was apparently a big deal in the early 1900s. They sell precisely three different watches and each of them costs $599.

On unanswerable questions

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocyLeave a comment

After I finished yesterday’s blog post I browsed around on that hat website for a little while, coveting many of the hats and wondering how many hats is too many hats, when I noticed that the bottom of their main page claims to “find your perfect hat” in less than 60 seconds. Well, hell, I want my perfect hat! They made me give them my email address, but whatever; I just had Safari make one up for me, which is one of my very favorite features of that app, and then jumped into the process.

This was the first question:

… as God is my witness, I have no fucking idea. I need a z-axis. I don’t fit on that scale at all and I have no idea what even the middle point between the Pope (which Pope? The Jesuit current guy or the previous dude, whose shoes were made from baby seals and dyed with the blood of virgins?) and Elton John, and Christ, which Elton John?

I chose a 5. I couldn’t justify any other number. I don’t know what the fuck a five even means here; I thought the pain scale didn’t make any sense but this is so much worse.

At any rate, I didn’t particularly like the three hats they suggested. None of them are my perfect hat. I’m considering going through the test again and answering that question with a 1 and a 10 to see what changes. The really inexplicable part is that I’m pretty certain that neither the Pope nor Elton John would be caught dead in any hats being sold on the site.

The weirdest thing? This image appears elsewhere on the site:

I think four of those people look great and one looks amazingly, uncharacteristically dorky. Guess which one?

Anyway, how many hats can I have? That was a real question.

Evolving, ctd.

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy1 Comment

I think I’m ready to declare Operation Order a Hat from Ireland at least a modest success. Sadly, it’s still my head the damn thing has to sit on.

Two facts about my day

On By Luther M. SilerIn life1 Comment

Fact the First: I have been nominated for Teacher of the Year. Again. This is the fourth time; I’ve won twice, although obviously not in this building. A quick check of the other nominees and cross-referencing them against grade levels and subject matter suggests that I have a decent chance of winning, although there are no bad candidates on the list and losing will not be remotely upsetting.

Fact the Second: We went shopping after work, and I am wearing my new comfy pants, which are the comfiest comfy pants in history. I want to go back and buy six pairs.

I will give you one guess as to which fact is the one that makes me happy and which fact is the one that triggered fifteen minutes of crippling self-doubt and anxiety in the middle of class today.

Tomorrow is the last day with the children for a week. I can do this.