Starry Wisdom

Entropic Words from Neilathotep

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Bitchin’ Kitchen

Soon after I moved in to my flat I arranged to have a particular window replaced. The one that was there went down too far to be useful, and was fairly broken. Within two weeks of moving in I had the job scheduled, but there are delays before these things can actually happen, so it took until two weeks ago for the window to be finally replaced.

While I was waiting for the window to be replaced I had the fridge in front of the window, since it’s original position, near the doorway into the kitchen, made opening the fridge while someone was at the stove a problem. And in a lot of ways, having the fridge in front of the window was optimal, due to the french door design. However, it did block the window.

Well, Mackenzie did a bunch of possible layouts of the kitchen, and due to door clearance issues (particularly if one wants to be able to take the drawers out for cleaning) the ‘in front of the window’ layout was the best. But it wasn’t satisfying at all, especially since I just paid $X for the new fancy window. So she decided I should try putting the fridge in the corner, even with some clearance issues. Earlier this week we arranged it in this layout, and it turns out that it’s pretty good, and I’ll be keeping it like this until I someday remodel the kitchen.

By the way, the title of this post came from a comment when I posted these photos on facebook earlier today.

posted by neil at 1:21 pm
under rambling  

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Sneakers

I posted about athletic socks earlier this year. Now, it’s time for a companion boring post, this time about sneakers.

Throughout my life I’ve been a serial monogamist with sneaker brands. From kangaroos as a young kid, on to Nike in high school, then to Adidas in college (with a short foray into Converse, more on this later), and then to Asics around the turn of the millennium. I can’t prove it, but I think I might be on to a new brand – at least for day to day wear, I’ll probably continue to buy Asics for exercise use.

For a few months I’ve been pondering getting a pair of ‘casual sneakers’ – shoes that are clearly not meant for working out, but are comfortable. I poked around on Zappos a few months ago but nothing really stuck out, and since the brace that I’m still wearing (see the sock post) is likely to deform any shoe I buy, I was hesitant to get something new. But with surgery a scant month out and my current Asics in a sad state, it was really time to buy something new.

I’d seen a few references to Converse Jack Purcells on line. They looked fairly similar to the All-Stars I abandoned after one pari in the 1990s, classic and simple, but perhaps a bit more ‘fancy’. Maybe the fanciness is in my head since they are not the same shoe, which has some associations in my head. Anyway, I bought a pair of black ones and I’m really liking them.

The bonus is that the canvas seems to be more resistant to stretching due to the brace than leather on my other other gym shoes. The question is, however, how long can I keep the rubber toe caps looking presentable?

posted by neil at 1:06 pm
under rambling  

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