Reagan and I, have on occasion had discussions regarding the integrity of retailers (lifestyle pushers) like Urban Outfitters. My argument is that, by providing all of those reproduced “vintage” (FYI, I hate the term vintage) tees, etc., in one location, and charging a ton of money for them, Urban Outfitters has effectively taken away everything that may have been cool about the items.

Whereas, if one happened upon the item at some mothball laden Army surplus store, thrift shop, or flea market, the item would have been oozing with character etc..  But because of the advent of Urban Outfitter-type organizations, even the flea market/thrift shop variety has been downgraded in character, coolness, and novelty. Which, I can see how this probably wouldn’t affect Reagan’s purview of the chain much, because I feel like the aspect I’m complaining about isn’t as prevalent in the products for women. Especially since Reagan doesn’t really buy the logo tees and stuff.

So that was my rant about UO, generally. Well, last month the Chain took things to the next level. Now not only can you buy your prepackaged hipster costume at Urban Outfitters, you can also purchase a custom fixie (pictured above) to parade your new faux-vintage duds around town.

I’m not really even sure where to start on my list of things that is wrong about this venture. I mean most of the guys that are legitimately hard core enough to call a fixie their main mode of transportation, most likely also call it a tool of their livelihood and have also most likely never heard of a chain called urban outfitters.

To wrap up this little outburst, lets mix in a little bit of positivity. Check out these hot handlebars that I came across yesterday.

These beauties, made by Nitto, are the B123 model. They are a hot choice for velodromers, messengers and casual commuters alike. This particular bar comes custom painted by Death Spray Custom with the iconic love/hate tattoos (so you don’t have to get real tattoos on your real knuckles).

It seems like with each passing year, the lines become more blurred on when one season starts and another begins. I used to think that it was absolutely preposterous when places would get all decked out with Christmas garb before Thanksgiving. Actually, I still kind of think that. Anyway, these days some places will shamelessly put out all of the angels, Santas, etc., well before Halloween even rolls around.

The same was always true growing up. When I would start to see ads for back-to-school sales between the Saturday morning cartoons, I would get all depressed, because I knew that it must be August and fall was right around the corner. Well, here it is July, and every mens’ magazine that Conde Nast publishes (and probably plenty of others that I don’t read) was chocked full of ads for various designers’ fall/winter lines.

I guess I’m ok with designers being a little bit anxious these days to start advertising that stuff. First of all, I haven’t had to go back to school in the fall for over five years now. Second, Fall fashion ads always provide mountains of fodder for blogging. So lets get is started early this year. One of my favorite items that I have seen so far, doesn’t even require any awkwardly posed models to showcase its absurdity (although, I would be very curious to see what they actually look like on a person’s face. I’m having a tough time visualizing it). I’m referring, of course to Martin Margiela‘s beautiful cyclops inspired baby shown below.

For only 390.00 Euros, they could be yours. Available in two colors, these bad boys are no joke (although it certainly appears otherwise). Then again, those French are crafty. Maybe the joke is on us. Like the electric fork, maybe MM put these glasses on the market just to see if anyone would actually buy and try to wear them. Maybe it is all just so that they can sit back and have a good laugh while wearing berets, smoking cigarettes with wands,  throwing back some escargot, stinky cheese and bordeaux.

The Nike + saga continues. Reagan and I purchased Nike + Sportbands about a year ago, to help us keep track of our running (and to help keep us motivated). For the most part, they have been great. There have definitely been some hiccups along the way, including a design flaw, which caused the LCD to fail. But today, I swapped out our defective old Sportbands for these new ones. I’m pretty excited to try mine out and see if it is any better. Now if I could just get my knee to consistently work correctly.

For the last 3 years, Reagan and I have tried to attend the NY Philharmonic show on the Great Lawn at CP. The first year, Reagan went down to the park early with one of our friends to try to get some good position. About then, a full on monsoon ripped through midtown, and they were lucky to make it out of there without drowning. Last year, there was more rain. On top of that, I ended up having to work late, that night. I will admit that it wasn’t even on our radar for this year. Some of our homies invited us today and everything went swimmingly well. It was a really good time. The music was great, Alec Baldwin was the emcee, and there were fireworks after the music. Not a bad lil’ Tuesday night.

^– Some dude selling glow sticks, etc.

^– The Carters

^– Some fireworks

^– Reagan goofing off with the Mareadys on the way home.

Mo’ photos

I’m a sucker for piano and female vocals. So, of course I’m a fan of Alicia Keys. One of the first songs that I really was nuts about, was “If I ain’t got you.” Reagan, and I both actually love that song. Plus the video was nuts. Remember it? With Method Man, getting hauled off in cuffs? So intense. Plus I love those earrings with the dangly keys, that she is wearing in the vid.

I feel like in addition to being so great on the piano, and having such a hot voice, she has done a great job to retain a soul/funk sound in a lot of songs. Despite the fact that she definitely broke into the pop scene with a lot her popular singles, she did a great job of maintaining the integrity of her sound (in my opinion).

So, the song that I’m sharing today, is actually one that I feel falls into the group I just described. It has a grindy funk beat, complete with wah-wah guitar and funk organ backing up the flow. Although I don’t feel like this song really showcases her vocal ability, it oozes with style. I feel like AK knows that it is not necessary to belt her guts out and bust into fancy dramatic runs in every single song, the way that Beyonce does. In my opinion, she is all the better, for it. Here is “Rock wit you.” It is a little over 5 and 1/2 minutes. Bend your ear and give it a listen.

We had a pretty great visit with Piper today. She was on trache collar, pretty much the whole time that we were there. That’s always nice, because she has less secretions, and is more mobile. But for whatever reason, the humidity, or something kept making her choke, which would necessitate suctioning. Since she was finishing up a feeding, she ended up throwing up twice during suctioning. Of course, both times, I was the one holding her, hahahaha.  It was kind of a bummer. Of course she was a sport about it. She was being very cute and mellow, the whole time.

I wish that I could have been with her on Friday, when Reagan was there. Reagan got some of the cutest photos, that I have seen in a long time. I especially love the one of Piper on all fours, studying some childrens’ literature.

These are a couple more shots from the antique store in RI, last weekend.

I actually have scheduled them both to post on my daily photo blog, but I though that I would share them on here, as well.

I totally cracked up, when I saw this photo, last night. Obama busted at a G8 Summit, by a Reuters photographer, scoping out some Brazilian booty. It appears, that the Jr. delegate, Bam is ogling, is an 18 y/o Brazilian who lives just outside of Rio. I say give the guy a break. Under normal circumstance, I’m sure that that he would have been able to maintain his composure. But the Brazil factor tends to set things off kilter a bit. I admit that I caught myself pulling the same move Obama is demonstrating above, on a couple of occasions during my stint in Brazil. And that is saying something, because dude, I was extremely focused during those years. Thank goodness I wasn’t surrounded by packs of journalists with their lenses constantly aimed in my direction.

Earlier this week, I received a pretty interesting email from Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora Radio. He starts out writing about how Pandora was able to survive the internet royalty ruling of 2007. Ok, I figured that out. It is 2009 and your site is still up and running. Tim goes on to inform me that:

While we did the best we could to lower the rates, we are going to have to make an adjustment that will affect about 10% of our users who are our heaviest listeners. Specifically, we are going to begin limiting listening to 40 hours per month on the web. Because we have to pay royalty fees per song and per listener, it makes very heavy listeners hard to support on advertising alone. Most listeners will never hit this cap, but it seems that you might.

Where does he get off calling me a “heavy” listener? I bet I weigh less than he does! Hahahaha. Forgive the crappy joke. Thank goodness for Slacker.

Reagan and I have a terrible habit of eating out at all of the same places, all of the time. We have a couple of “usual” spots in just about every neighborhood. It is a safe approach. We are never disappointed, because we already know what’s on the menu and what’s good. I’m not going to pretend like I’m some sort of foodie or something, but, there is nothing worse than shelling out the big bucks for an overrated mediocre meal. Ok, there are actually a lot of things that are worse, but overpaying for a sub-par meal is pretty annoying.

The downside to always playing it safe, is that we are missing out on about 9 million other great places to eat. But it is so tough to weed through all of the mediocrity and locate a place that really hits the spot.

There are couple of methods that we employ for branching out. Reagan will normally go by, either a place that she read about in some local mag at her salon, or a place that she walks past and thinks looks cute. I normally choose something that has been personally recommended to me. Actually, I normally just shoot down Reagan’s choice and go to one of the usual spots. Empirically, none of the above methods are foolproof. It is always a bit of a gamble, no matter how cute they look.

Wellllaaahhhh, there is a solution to this debacle that comes around every now and again, called Restaurant Week. During this time, the participating restaurants will offer three course meals at a prix-fixe lunch for $24 and dinner for $35. Summer 2009 Restaurant Week begins on Sunday and contrary to the name (which seems to indicate that it only lasts for one week), Restaurant Week lasts for three weeks! In past years, Reagan and I haven’t really taken advantage of it, as much as we would have liked to. I have already been checking out the menu and planning different ways to get fat over the next three weeks.