johnrobe

I came across this story about a woman's customer service moment-of-truth with Zappos.com, and online shoe retailer, and to be honest, I was very touched. (Read it if you want a warm fuzzy.) I'm not the type of guy to buy shoes online, but I have to admit, if I was going to, I would order from Zappos after hearing this story.

That being said, then I went to the site and discovered that when it comes to the world there are things I know a lot about (like Simpsons episodes and World War II aircraft) and things I know hardly anything about, apparently, such as shoes.

Zappos' problem from my perspective is that for me there are really not that many categories of shoes. I would pretty much say there are:

- Dress shoes
- Running shoes
- Bowling shoes
- Snow shoes

I would admit that there are many varieties within those categories, like lace-up vs. slip-on, but I wouldn't give them names, per se.

Then I saw the category list on Zappos:

Loafer
- View ALL Loafers
- Algonquin/Split/Bicycle Toe
- Moc Toe
- Penny
- Plain Loafer
- Tasseled Loafer
- Woven
Made in the USA
Monk Strap
Oxfords
- View ALL Oxfords
- Algonquin/Split/Bicycle Toe
- Cap Toe
- Comfort
- Hiking
- Moc Toe
- Plain Toe
- Rugged
- Saddle Shoes
- Steel Toe
- Two Tone
- Wingtip

And that is about a quarter of the categories on the men's shoe page. Seriously!

I just don't know what to do when confronted with a list like this. Algonquin toe? Good lord, what the hell is that? It makes me scared and want to run away and buy my shoes in a physical store where I don’t need to know what something is called, just what it looks like.

I do understand that not everyone is as ignorant about shoe types as I am, but I can't be alone in this.

Anyway, for you shoe experts and/or fetishists out there, you now know where to go!

John The Weeb

The image above was taken from Timmi’s spam folder. As you can see, it’s from me, and I am proposing some fun plans for tonight!

I love spam.

John Love, The Weeb

Ever have a song in your head that goes on and on and on all day, yet you don't know what the song is?

I had that going on today. It was spinning around and around in my brain. I'd hum it, I'd whistle it, but no luck figuring out what it was.

Then I came home, watched Scrubs, and after it was over, there it was — the song that had been haunting me, filling the room with its horrible melody.

The theme to America's Funniest Home Videos.

Sometimes hearing the real versino of the song that is going through your head will cure you. Sometimes, like now, it only makes it worse, more clear, more accurate. That is the hell in which I now live.

What have I done to deserve this?

John Music

While Timmi and I were out shopping today,we came upon a massive pumpkin sale at Dominion. We were looking through them, looking for some perfect pumpkins, and were distracted by a little kid running up and down the length of the boxes.

He was with his grandfather, who seemed like a nice older gentleman slightly overwhelmed with keeping up with an enthusiastic little kid confronted with hundreds of pumpkins.

As the boy darted from box to box, the grandfather eventually said, "Just pick one, they're all the same."

The boy responded, "No! I want a big one! A really big one!"

The grandfather sighed, and said, "They're all the same size," as Timmi and I walked past him.

Timmi smiled and said, "I don't blame him, I want a big one too."

Then grampa waggled his eyebrows at Timmi and said, "Hey, we were talking about pumpkins."

Timmi was so shocked at the outrageous statement from gramps that she couldn't do anything except hang her mouth open in shock for the next 10 minutes.

Once we recovered, we did buy a bunch of pumpkins. Little ones. Because it's not how big the pumpkin is, it's what you do with it.

John Love

I love my neighbourhood, and I have to say that generally speaking, I am politically aligned with it. Every election though, I find myself shocked, not so much at the results for my riding, but at the people in it.

People in The Beaches (not The Beach, which I refuse to buy into) come in two types, if you look at the people standing in line at my polling stations.

1) Soccer moms, their kids and their husbands
2) Hippies

Not the tie-dye wearing flower children type of hippie, but the type who grew up, bought houses, had kids, worked at real jobs, but still play guitar on the weekends and wear sandals everywhere.

Seriously, last night was raining and cold, yet half the people in my polling station were wearing sandals!

Although this sounds rant-ish, it’s really not. My neighbours are all great. I just question their choice in footwear.

John Politics, Rants

One of these things is not like the other …

Top Music in the Toronto, ON network.

1. R&b
2. Hip Hop
3. Rock
4. Reggae
5. Radiohead

John The Weeb

Researchers in (pick two):

a) France
b) Italy
c) Japan
d) Denmark

Have completed mapping out the genome of the following (pick one):

1) The lowlands mountain gorilla
2) The chimpanzee
3) Neanderthal man
4) The pinot noir grape

If you guessed a + b and 4 — You’re right!

You know, generally, I think that for all the mocking that goes on, folks in countries like France and Italy have the right attitude. After all, would I rather go to work 12 hours a day, or would I rather work 7 hours a day? Would I rather have 3 weeks vacation or 5 weeks vacation? Would I rather drink high glucose corn syrup cola or a wine from burgundy that I bought for 4 euros?

But this might be pushing it beyond the pale. I really hope all the researchers involved in this flunked out of cancer-curing school and instead found useful employment in the grape research field rather than what I fear is really the case. The Human Genome Project took 13 years to map out human DNA. It was a worldwide effort that involved incredibly brilliant minds and awesome computational power. The human genome has 25,000 genes.

The pinot noir grape has 30,000.

Is that interesting? Yes. Will it help my enjoyment of wine? No.

My rant is out of steam because I am now going to get a drink. If I can’t taste 30,000 different tastes, I’m going to be bitter!

John Food, Rants