Tag: hats

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.

In which I’m in trouble

On By Luther M. SilerIn ReadingLeave a comment

Allow me, if you will, to show you a picture from a few weeks ago of one of my bookshelves:

Direct your attention to the upper left of that picture. Now look at this:

I’ve made this distinction before: my wife reads a lot too, right? Not as much as I do, but more than most people. My wife and I are both readers, but I have a second hobby, which is that I collect books. My wife distinctly and definitely does not collect books. We would be in desperate trouble if she did. She buys perhaps a couple a year and most of the time exists off of rereads and reading books I’ve bought.

I feel like I’ve crossed a line lately.

I’ve never really liked the covers to the Red Rising books, particularly the specific ones I own. If you look really closely at the dust jackets in the top cover you’ll notice a couple of small tears in Golden Son and a rub mark in the bottom of Iron Gold, both signs that I got the books from Amazon, because I wouldn’t have bought them from a physical store with flaws in them. Those awesome covers are not new books– I actually special-ordered custom dust jackets from Juniper Books to replace the original dust jackets on my hardcovers. Which I’m keeping, of course, although I’m not entirely sure why.

I’ve found myself really tempted by special editions of books I already own lately, too, especially if their original covers annoyed me in some way. For example, I think whoever is responsible for this abomination should be literally pilloried:

…and, as it turns out, there’s site called the Broken Binding that offers these fucking beautiful bastards, at the low low cost of $150 for four books I already own:

And, Goddammit, I’m tempted. Sorely tempted. I just kicked ass at work and I feel like I can justify rewarding myself, but shit, that’s a lot of money, for something just to look better on a shelf, which … feels unreasonable, even to me?

I dunno. My birthday’s July 5?

(I also keep almost ordering this hat, not because I think it would look good on me but because the model in the picture is rocking it, and I feel like maybe ordering clothing I can’t wear because it makes a different human look good is maybe a sign that having a small amount of discretionary money is starting to get to me. Can I just shift into Saves Money Guy for a few years, please? Enough for a decent emergency fund, or at least to pay for the new fucking computer I’m probably going to need soon without putting it on a card?)

(We won’t talk about how much of my money Lego is currently trying, and failing, to take from me.)

Sigh.

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.

Assess the new look

On By Luther M. SilerIn life, PoliticsLeave a comment

I have had two problems with my lifestyle lately. One, I’m spending way too much time sitting in front of the computer– which remains vastly preferable to the alternative, but still an issue. Two, I am bald and for some reason bald this year has been cold in a way that it simply hasn’t in previous years.

Enter the skullcap, which fits nicely (more of a problem than you might believe; it’s nearly impossible to find hats that fit) and which I intend to wear around the house and outdoors on these sorts of days, and the fact that I am back in glasses, sort of, which will sit by the computer and be worn nowhere else, as they are blue light blockers and are supposed to cut down on eyestrain. I have close friends who will be mildly berated if they don’t work.

(This is not true. I have been describing myself as reasonably financially comfortable for a few years now, and my definition of “comfortable” is “can spend $20 pretty much whenever I like.” These glasses were $20. I won’t even bother returning them if I decide they don’t work.)

I sort of like the look of the skullcap (feel free to yell at me if you disagree) but I’m not in love with the Harry Potter style of the glasses. Then again, this picture will be the only time anyone who isn’t married to or genetically related to me sees them, so I don’t much care what they look like. I’ve gotta say, it’s weird having glasses back on my face again.

(Figures eyes are already hurty enough for the day, takes them off, figuring it won’t get worse)

(Questions own logic)

(Does it anyway)

Blah blah blah blah election panic-cakes. Amy Coney Barrett’s successful nomination makes it all the more critical that we take the Senate and then pack the hell out of the Supreme Court, hopefully impeaching Brett Kavanaugh along the way. My position all along has been that Coney’s nomination was legitimate– there wasn’t a “no election years!” rule when Merrick Garland was nominated and there isn’t one now– but that she should nonetheless be opposed with, well, every arrow in our quiver, Ms. Pelosi, and with every procedural trick and lowdown dirty bit of nonsense our parliamentarians can come up with.

Welp.

There are a number of dark and depressing paths my brain could wander down at the moment; I’m doing my best to cling to what little optimism I can find. If the election is won by a large enough margin we don’t have to worry about the electoral college or the Supreme Court stealing it, and if the presidency is won by that large of a margin it should take the Senate with it. We’ll worry about that first, then move on to the other stuff.

The degree to which the last two Supreme Court nominees are poster children for overpromoted white mediocrity is pretty impressive, by the way. I actually brought up Coney Barrett last time around as an example of a nominee they could have picked who wasn’t a drunken, belligerent rapist and would still be a stenographer for whatever the Republicans wanted, but I still feel like there still has to be someone out there who has maybe been a judge for longer than I spent in high school, or, like, actually been a lawyer, maybe. But whatever. It’s fine, she’s white, that’s good enough for them, yeah? Sure.

Dragostea din tei

On By Luther M. SilerIn Parenting5 Comments

adebisi_hat-1_186241093Yeah, the numa numa song has been running through my head all day, and so what if I’m mentally stuck in 2004.  Pbbbbbt.  

I have not been having a stunning daddy week, as I’ve had to pick my son up from day care twice this week and both times have resulted in me hauling him out of the building, his coat only precariously on his body, bawling his damn fool little head off.

Well, okay, part of that’s not true; no reasonable human being would ever call my son’s head little.  He’s clearly inherited that part of his anatomy from me.

Anyway.  Point is, there’s been something every time, and I’m pretty sure that the next time I need to pick him up I’m going to have to find a way to kill an hour before I do it.   I get off work before my wife does, so when I pick him up he’s one of the first kids to leave, and everybody’s in full play mode.  When she picks him up, other kids have left first and things are calming down for the day and he’s a little more prepared to leave.  He’s also thrown fits about putting his coat on both days; he has this genuinely obnoxious tic about his sleeves where they have to not only be just the right length but the sleeves on his shirt must also be of the proper length and visible from his coat sleeves.  When he doesn’t want to put on the coat, the sleeve obsession makes the entire process roughly four dozen times as obnoxious as it needs to be.

Today, making things worse, once I got him out to the car in his coat, I realized that we really haven’t adjusted the straps on the car seat in my car to accommodate his winter coat, so the winter coat that caused all sorts of stress and nonsense to get him into then had to be taken off of him before I could actually get him strapped in properly and brought home.  Come to think of it, we’ll have to fix that tonight, because I think tomorrow I have to take him to day care, and I’ll be damned if I’m bringing my three-year-old into day care without his coat on in the weather we’re going to be having tomorrow morning.  So… yay.

(The first time we walked out, I walked past the reception desk and said “I swear he’s mine” to them as he struggled and tried to get out of my arms and screamed.  Today it was “He’s still mine, but if this happens again this week he can be yours if you want.”  Because I am a champion as a parent.)