The Swine in Michigan

Barack celebrates 100 years, I mean, err, days in office. It feels like years because he is fixing over a decade of problems. I said over a decade. Yes, I said it! People think the real estate mortgage collapse (which is the catalyst for the current recession) was a product of the Bush era but it started when Greenspan went around deregulating Wall Street in the 80s.

So yeah, leave it to Barack to clean up the dirt. For those who gave him a C or lower grade (ahem, Fox News network) for his performance so far, let's see if you can outdo this man without making all kinds of gaffes like Bush I and Bush II. Why did I not make a Bubba joke? Please, we all love Bubba. And we have to support Ms. Hillary since she did the braver thing twice -- stood by Bubba and stood by Barack.

To celebrate my extremely boring week and fear of catching The Swine, I ventured out of my apartment building today to join a friend for coffee. Along the way, we paid a visit to the Hospital because my friend is his sister's little bitch, I mean, err, his sister's valet and she had a mid-evening Frappuccino craving. Then we went around shaking hands with some of his friends in the Hospital -- nurses, food service people, etc. Yeah, I feared for my life for a good 30 minutes and I pumped the Purell hand sanitizer stuff on two separate occasions.


I suspect Purell must have a $10 million dollar contract with the University of Michigan Health System (including the Hospital) because there was a full-size Purell pump every 10 feet of a corridor and also one in every patient and examination room.

I am praying that The Swine stays at only 2 people in Michigan, though it has been spreading rapidly through the Midwest already, no thanks to the 51 kids in New York. This was supposed to be a Mexico-Texas thing, and America would have gladly allowed Texas to secede from the Union. Now it's global.

Good luck, everyone.

Bad junior fashion in Ypsilanti, MI

I attended a graduation commencement ceremony on Sunday and the weather was blazing hot, so there were a lot of unspeakable fashion mistakes going on everywhere, but I found this little boy to have committed the most grievous of all style sins: the sock-and-sandal.

Yes, that is the boy and his older brother in front of him, with the all-American footwear faux pas. Clearly his parents (especially his mother) are to blame for this display.

Parents, please. Casual is fine but stupid is not okay. If you want the kids to wear socks, then wear shoes. If you want it to be breezy but covered then wear canvas shoes, or (in desperate times, try) Crocs.

Hawt Pink

It's the end of the semester and the kids in the neighbourhood have been partying endlessly, celebrating the last of their exams and the upcoming summer break. Here's a wonderful reminder of some of the craziness that enrolls into college here in Michigan:
My phone's camera is not the greatest but the car is in (in American terms) Pepto Bismol pink, which is a cotton candy pink with a tinge of violet undertones. I've never seen the owner of the car (no prizes for guessing the gender) but s/he parks in a different spot every school day on the street in front of my apartment building.

If I don't see it in Fall when the new school term starts, I will surely miss it.

eLuxury goes bye bye

eLuxury.com, LVMH's comprehensive online luxury shopping website, will be closing all commerce activities by the end of June -- a product of its own retail double-dipping. I will miss it and all the tax-free goods it offers.

A sale is going on now, and I've found below:

1. Best accessory:
Dsquared2
Wooden Necklace
$225.00 SALE PRICE: $135.00 FINAL PRICE NOW $81.00

2. Best sneaker:
Y-3
Checkered Honja High-Top
$290.00 SALE PRICE: $174.00 FINAL PRICE NOW $104.40


3. Ugliest thing you can spend your money on:
Vintage by La Rosa
'50s Corduroy Print Shirt, Red
$595.00 SALE PRICE: $357.00 FINAL PRICE NOW $214.20
Okay, okay. This is supposed to be vintage and super rare. It may be a well-made shirt, but no one should step out of the house with this shirt unless attending a festival / costume party.

Operating system takes up too much space

Happy belated Easter/Passover, everyone.

I've diappeared for a few weeks now, making absolutely no progress in looking for work or securing my scholarship. However, the major thing I've done so far is salvaging my digital data on my hardy old notebook, with many thanks to Mr. O.

The process has taken up most of the last few days (which is, genuinely, a lot of progress since I've abandoned this project for over 6 months; one must wonder how I've ever managed to live without a notebook). Battling "trojanic" malware is like going to war, a fulltime job. Many times I felt like kicking myself for behaving as if I didn't own a technie degree nor any computer usage capabilities at all.

Just a little over 36 months of doing the "lining up numbers" thing has left me incapable of speaking of partitions and installation procedures. I could feel my notebook's humiliation to be owned by me.

I have let my personal techie spirit down.

As of today I have completed my third re-installation. I am now familiar with free antivirus software (AVG) and this aggressive little treasure called Spybot Search and Destroy (it deserves a prize for its name, or at least a movie named after it). I have rediscovered the unnecessary luxury of online shpping, of staring aimessly at stuff I don't need to buy, of vowing to buy all the things I have seen online. I have gotten used to the hunched over posture of my sitting on the couch while simultaneously eyeing Anderson Cooper / Jon Stewart / Stephen Colbert on TV and reading Perez Hilton's latest post and resisting the crazy things Marc Jacobs is trying to peddle at Louis Vuitton.

It feels great to be a netizen again! I was up surfing and installing until 0700 hours, clocked in about three hours of sleep and then woke up to yell at my SA at the Vuitton store (it really does not take two weeks for something to travel from Los Angeles to Detroit, bla bla bla).

Regardless still, I had a decent day today: I indulged and stocked up on imported Asian junk food. The rain left and there was sunshine, the weather hit the high 50s. I had plenty of sushi. And then I decided to be one step ahead of keeping my system safe from the big, bad trojans out there; I attempted to download Service Pack 3 when I was brutally slapped with the fact that my 5GB partition could not house my operating system (OS) and all the updates/service packs Microsoft had created for it.

WHAT? Since when was 5GB not enough for an OS? This is bullshit. Now I have to reallocate my partitions and start over.

Yes, there will be a fourth re-installation after this post. If you don't hear from me for a few days, you will know it is because I am still wrestling around with Windows.

*sigh*

Nice shoes in Ann Arbor, MI

It was April Fool's Day yesterday and I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw these two people walking down the street. While they were not particularly spectacular, their feet gave them away and I suspect that were anything but Midwestern American.

The man on the left had on the slimmest dark wash jeans only Hedi Slimane would approve of, and a pair of deep red (almost cordovan coloured) driving loafers. Trust me, the pictures really do not show how immensely slim his jeans were –- not tight; just very, very slim; like matchsticks. The lady walking with him wore two of Spring's most important items: leggings, and the nude peep-toe platform stiletto pump.

Ah, delightful. Seeing them definitely made my day. I feel a shoe purchase coming on. Oh, no!

Anderson Cooper goes to Mexico

Anderson Cooper is going on live from the Mexican border, tomorrow and Thursday on CNN, to cover the very serious Mexican drug cartel problems (think classic Colombian: drugs, firearms, sexual assault, murder beheading style, bla bla bla) that are rapidly bleeding into American soil. Whomever said the Mexicans are not enterprising people clearly have not been watching the news, thought they are a doing things a little passé. Who knew selling drugs was still on trend.

Anyway, I thought it would be nice to send some good mojo Mr. AC360°'s way since who knows what the drug lords over at the border have planned for him. Anderson Cooper is probably (more like definitely) the most blueblood of all American reporters and is worth a healthy sum of family trust fund/inheritance.

Nothing makes Italian leather look more lived in than Iraqi sand and Mexican mud. Let's hope he comes back with his Prada boots all intact.

Colbert up in space

Breaking news! Looks like Stephen Colbert's appeal to his "nation" to get his name in a new NASA space station room has worked. He was so popular; he beat out the next competitor by tens and thousands of votes. I'm sure he will be announcing this news on his show tonight at 2330 EDT. More updates to see if the decision will be final.

(Mental) Recession leads to Forever 21

The last few days have been extremely emotional and uncertain for me, mentally. I cannot begin to explain this newfound stress that has taken over ever waking moment that I have with regards to so many aspects of my life now. I know I am too young for this (hogwash) but since I have always believed that I am an old soul trapped in the body of a young adult, I shall continue trooping on. These days, words of encouragement do not even sound realistic anymore.

I've been asking Jesus for favours but he does have a long line of people to get to before it is my turn. I have a deadline, godamnit! Yes, apparently swearing and using the Lord's name in vain will push me to the back of the line even quicker. I've never had the need to be considered a good Christian (to the folks upstairs) until now.

One of the harder aspects of the recession is the immediate lifestyle change that must be adapted to in order to preserve monetary reserves. For one, I can no longer buy many types of products and services I have grown accustomed to and the worse part is that absolute, defeating feeling when I knowingly pay money for an immensely sub-standard alternative.

Take for example my first "unnecessary purchase" last week at the very popular Forever 21 store.

Sidebar regarding F21:
Yes, they of the devout-Christian, professional-counterfeiting Korean couple of Los Angeles! I don't buy their goods not only because they rip-off every dead and living designer they can get their hands on but also because you really get what you pay for in that store. The shoes are not $9.99 without a good reason. Remember folks, counterfeit is theft -- so much for being devout-Christian Koreans! I believe all designers should follow Diane von Furstenberg's move and sue their asses. Buy the real thing or don't buy at all.

So back to the story:
I had been hunting for a pair of blue coloured jeans for a "long time" (about 2 years) now. I am not talking about "regular denim" (which, these days, are popularly washed in a dark indigo-denim tint); I am talking about the type of blue that you look at and you say, "That is lapis," or azure, or turquoise, or cerulean -- that kind of blue. So guess where I found the perfect azure blue jeans -- no prizes -- at the godamn Forever 21 store, for a dirt-cheap full retail price of $13.50! This pair was about 7% of what I usually pay for a pair of jeans. Just too good to be true. The colour was unbelievably beautiful -- saturation was spot-on.

I tried them on and there was the immediate tell. The jeans were $13.50 for a reason. The label may have claimed 98% cotton, 2% spandex but it felt more like 3% or 4% spandex. The weave was not as tight as a $200 pair and the texture was thinner. I sighed many times. I told myself I don't look good in skinny jeans anyway (actually no one does, except 5'10" runway models) so why buy this; I had so many pairs of them already. I said, "You will regret this purchase after you wash it because this horrendously cheap fabric will be out of shape." For all the men reading this post: yes, we women talk like this in our heads.

But I bought it. I don't like counterfeiting Koreans who claim to be running their operations as "the will of God", but I bought it anyway. The colour was perfect, and I had decided to convince myself that if I were to survive this recession, I must buy within my means. I shudder to think if I will dare to give up my cashmere sweaters for acrylic but we shall see. This is a push-comes-to-shove scenario. I do not wish to be in such a desperate situation.

I've been wearing the jeans for most of the weekend and when I paired them with an awesome sky-high pair of cognac-coloured, leather gladiators yesterday, the compliments were beaming. I guess recession fashion will be quite manageable, at least for now.

God is an Italian cobbler Part II

This is about a bunch of shoes I ordered before the recession but they came recently and I wasn't really bothered to deal with them until now because ... well, I've had to get rid of some of them.

Before I start my homage to all Italian cobblers I want to give a shout out to the team that designs the footwear collections each season at Calvin Klein. They've really always been dismissible but about 3 years ago, the quality and the design that has come out of the White Label and Collection lines have been amazing. I now wear both lines quite fanatically.

So, in this 21st century day of mass-produced manufacturing, why does Calvin Klein still bother to make shoes in Italy? Let's be honest, people will still be suckered to pay $700 for a pair of Christian Louboutin even if he decided to make them in Afghanistan. And while Italian shoe manufacturing processes are widely known and documented (read: Salvatore Ferragamo gluing only half of the footstep base sole), how has Calvin Klein managed to convince the folks working at the Italian shoe factories to give individual attention to each shoe in his line?

I present to you the hand-hammered sole! I know -- when was the last time you saw something like this? I think they only do these on custom men's leather shoes (maybe John Lobb; everyone else has gotten lazy). Take a look below:

CK does the matte black box. I like.

My favourite of the bunch. Can you tell?

Close-up of the vamp. This shoe is so friggin' gorgeous. I am not kidding.

Shearling and suede booties. I bit out of my usual range but I was being adventurous because it is best to embrace the current times.

So here is the hand-hammered sole. See the little nails at the sole curve leading to the arch.

There are also 3 little nails hammered into the tip of the sole below the vamp.

Little nails, woweee!

Now on to the heels, which is the only reason women buy shoes. This one is architectural.

This one has nice exposed stitching on the outer back seam.

Too bad this pair is not in my size. Look how awesome the patent contrasts with the matte cowhide.

*Sob*sob* Bye bye nice shoes.

It's St. Paddy! Slainte!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Today is not a federal holiday of any sort but I believe most people will be taking a mental vacation from school and/or work, so watch out for the drunk drivers out there. I estimate the Ypsi/Ann Arbor area will register about 400-500 alcohol-related hospital visits today alone. This is a rough and dirty estimate but I think the number is pretty accurate since there are at least 65,000 students covering this 20 square mile corridor in southeast metro Detroit.

The weather was excellent yesterday (very high 50s) and today (mid 60s), with plenty of sunblock-worthy UVA/B rays, and I went walking around to see the jovial embrace of spring in Ann Arbor; depicted below:

Nice weather brought the kids out in full force. I was being kind so I did not snap pictures of the fashion mishaps. It is the start of spring after all, so some folks need time to get the wardrobe thing together.

The campus activists took advantage of the sunshine ...

... as well as the protesters. They protest almost every day, even in winter. But Jesus was throwing them a bone this week.

This spiffy thing is, in plain English, a garbage can that self-compacts. The top domed part of the box is made of glass and houses a large solar panel. Yes, these Ann Arbor liberals thrash their trash very seriously.

This is the Denali loft condo block on Liberty Street, quite possibly the most misplaced and uncannily cool albeit ridiculously expensive piece of real estate in Ann Arbor. I am not exaggerating when I say that the loft condos in this building sell (not for rent, like most of the places in Ann Arbor) for $650,000 to $800,000. The biggest unit is probably only 1,300 square feet by my estimates. Not a worthy investment by any standards but since real estate prices have never fallen in Ann Arbor, even in today's recession and real estate bust, grab these if you see them for sale and you like loft living.

This picture is self-explanatory.

Norman Rockwell is in Detroit, bitches!

Network updates

I have not made any progress with Recession Plan A so far and that failing spirit is starting to drag me down. However, I have started to spread the news to good friends about my untimely misfortune and over the weekend, particularly today, many have responded with mighty words of encouragement. One has called and told me it is time to jump straight to Plan C. I have very averse feelings about Plan C. Only time will tell.

Not usually a horoscope reader, I stumbled upon an e-mail from my cousin and also some online-published predictions for the day. One of them read:
"Hard workers. Warm-hearted. Strong, has endurance. Solid beings who are stable and secure in their ways. Not looking for shortcuts. Patient and reliable. Determined."

Well I sure hope all this horoscope mumbo jumbo is true. Times are bad so I am reading now because I want to believe. I am determined not to let this recession win. You can't get rid of me so easily, America!
Who else is going to buy all your stupid, gloriously-designed-but-never-better-than-the-Europeans consumer goods ... err ... fashion ... err ... electronics ... err ... crap.

The perfect pinstripe

I'm not a big fan of the "obvious pinstripe" suit on anyone but check out Lewis Hamilton (yes, people, in case you didn't know: the world's best Formula 1 driver is a black man; yes) at Buckingham Palace this week, where he received his Order of the British Empire (MBE) award. This is how you wear a grey pinstripe suit. See the wool fabrication, tailoring, triple button (!!!) medium stance, slim lapel, spread collar, slim (not skinny) tie. *aouuuu*

God is an Italian cobbler

More to come on this beauty.

America's top 10 unhappiest cities by BusinessWeek

Detroit ranks 4th on the list.

Cloudy days = 185/365. Now I can yell back at the Michiganders (official name = Michiganians, but it sounds stupid) who claim there are less than 100 days of sun in Michigan.

Unemployment rate (December 2008)= 18.6% --> This is a sharp jump from the last stat I saw at 10.6% but we're still at the top of the list in the Land of Yank with unemployment rates. *woohooo*

Technology is dead

Okay, stop staring at your iPods and cell phones. In general technology is alive. But in the employment market, it is dead now.

Remember the dot.com bubble, and all the wonderful academic programmes pushing IT-related employment to young hopefuls deciding what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives? Yeah, that technology is dead. Granted, I never did anything with my IT degree but even if I wanted to "fall back" on it, I wouldn't have a chance now. America does not love IT anymore.

America loves healthcare. That's right, I said it.

I'm not talking about doctors. They have been around a long time. America loves healthcare so much now that they have college programmes to teach you how to operate medical billing applications! Yes, you read right again. These entry-level, high school graduate jobs now require certificates. And along with all the other healthcare related employment out there (they can't seem to hire enough nurses, medical assistants, etc.), I wonder if my IT degree is as 1967 as bell bottom jeans and hippie headgear.

(I realise that, like fashion, many things have cycles of popularity again).

I just don't have time to wait for IT to be hip again. I can't be job hunting for 20 years. Who is going to pay my rent? Who is going to pay my Amex bill? If you need more proof that technology is dead, look at Bill Gates -- even he is not bothered with technology anymore. He is busy spending the money technology made him on; guess what; medical aid and healthcare programmes for third world countries. I can't believe that Bill Gates is more on trend than I am when it comes to employment! (Well, it looks like he always has been).

Jesus, just give me a job!

p/s: But more proof that old things will come back in style again:
This recent January authorities seized the first distribution-sized package of "processed DMT" in New Jersey and warned that the hallucinogenic drug once popular in the '60s could be making a comeback.

Hah!

Weird news in the United States (today)

I'm sure by now everyone has heard that woman-beater Chris Brown and Chris-Brown-battery-victim Rihanna are reconciling their relationship. The media also reports that Rihanna's father "will be supportive. If that's the road she wants to choose," which completely contradicts his statements at the beginning of this fiasco when he suggested that his daughter no longer pursue anything with the assaulter, teenager Chris Brown. Love is blind, if there is such a thing as love anymore.

Yes, I believe time heals all wounds but violence is never to be healed in relationships. There is absolutely no excuse for one person in the relationship to hit the other. I have noticed that old married men don't say many things to me but the one "fatherly advice" they always seem to mention is that I should walk away and never return if anyone were to hit me. Who wants to guess how long before Chris Brown hits Rihanna again?

In other news, the folks at Champaign-Urbana in Illinois have found placentas in their water sewage system. Count it, not one but three this year. Yes, you read right, placentas, as in the stuff that "carries" the baby in the womb. Pretty disgusting. Turns out the bad economy may be a factor -- medical waste disposal costs money and dumping it down the drain is free. The news snippet says:
State regulations allow parents to keep their baby's placenta, said state Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman Maggie Carson. Some parents may want them for a post-birth ritual, she said.

"But it is never acceptable to put placenta into the sewer system," Carson said. "Never."

And in local news, kids attending any school in the Detroit Public Schools system will be required to bring their own toilet paper. The DPS is so broke, they cannot afford light bulbs and toilet rolls for the schools. America is behaving very "Third World" now.

Recession Gastronomy

While I was waiting for Russell Peters to come on TV, the programme before his was some sort of "101 Celebrity Slimdowns" list. America is obsessed with weight (as in staying slim) yet it is probably the most overweight country in the world. This is surely proof that no one in America is really starving -- I mean really -- even the homeless have soup kitchens to feed them.

So back to the programme that I caught a snippet of: the number one celebrity slimdown was Oprah Winfrey. Apparently when she was overweight she was about 200 lbs (which is about 91 kgs), and on her frame (she's probably no more than 5'4") that would be very hefty. So Oprah slimmed down. She cut out three food groups (rice, pasta, bread), hired a trainer to torture her and "closed her kitchen at 7:30pm".

This is my point about being on a diet -- only rich people can afford it. When I say rich, the term here is used loosely, covering the spectrum to all people of above average and comfortable financial means. Granted, poor people don't really have enough food to eat to a point where they can truly be overweight and/or obese. But rich people can decide that they have eaten enough rice, pasta, and bread and now just stick to soups and salads, and then suffer a tiring workout with drill sergeant fitness trainers.

In this recession, the best way to get a filling meal without burning a hole in your pocket is sticking to, guess what, rice, pasta, and bread. This holy trinity of carbs have long provided sustenance in good and bad times. I find it annoying that people are losing homes and employment but yet no one seems to be able to keep their weight under control. Why do carbohydrates get such a bad name? It is because people blame carbs for making them fat, which is very untrue. It's like Osama giving Islam a bad name because he decided to fly a few planes into some buildings.

So what does the recession have in store once the economy takes a turn for the better: more fat people who survived the crisis by eating all those carbs?

If only we had Oprah's kitchen. I would like to keep it open way past 7:30pm. And you know Oprah recently confessed to getting all tubby again; she said she's already back to 200lbs. So cutting carbs is not the cure after all.

Eat proper portions and get off your big butts America, move around. No one should starve or completely cut carbs to lose weight.

Monetary Freefall

The unemployment rate at Michigan is 10.6% as of early 2009 and it continues to rise. Michigan is the state with the highest unemployment rate in the country, and ranks lowest in job creation since the start of 2008. To tie it all in, we're a northern Midwest state, so when they line us up and we're showing statistics as if we're one of the Southern or Great Plains states, it proves something has gone terribly wrong with the economy in Michigan and in the country.

It's absolutely heartbreaking to know you won't be making money anymore. Most people would be concerned with the financial obligations already lined up to be paid, like mortgages, car payments, student loans, bla bla bla. The only thing I could think about was the inability to travel. Yes, I worry about immigration and paying the rent. But I like to look further, always look further. I worry about superficiality like spending my money on the hedonistic things in life. Some people amass wealth to buy a big house, an expensive car, diamonds, designer clothes. I'd like all of those things too; who doesn't.

Still those material things are all secondary to me. I'd rather go broke travelling. I cried when I realised that I had waited two years to see Europe again and now I can no longer go forward with those plans, at least not in the near future.

America is large, wide, and plenty. Still there is nothing like stepping on European (Union) soil. I will weep for many days, and maybe many years until I can spend my Euros. By choosing not to go broke travelling, for once, I have elected measured mental torture.