Rob's Rants

Back on July 23^rd the MBTA finally delivered on one of its promises to Commuter Rail riders and instituted an electronic parking payment system. Called ParkMobile, the system is provided by a company called ParkMobile USA based in Atlanta. Using either an iPhone app, a text message, or a phone call, a user can pay for parking over the phone without having to fold a bunch of dollar bills or find a handful of coins to shove through the slots in Commuter Rail parking lots. I wrote about what a pain in the ass this is several months ago and even suggested a business opportunity for someone to alleviate this pain for commuters.

But it looks like the ParkMobile system goes a long way towards fixing the problem. I signed up and started using it the first day it was available, though not without some learning curve. What you need to do is tell them the license plate number of your car, the lot (they call it the zone), and the space number of your car each day. Then they deduct the $4 for parking and that’s it.

My basic review and impressions after two weeks are this: the iPhone app is pretty bad but usable, the customer service is responsive, and the system as a whole is much easier and more convenient than the old manual way.

I’ve used only the iPhone app, so I can’t comment about the text messaging or the phone methods. The app is pretty crude as far as apps go, and it’s slow as a dog, because it appears to need constant communication with the home server for every screen refresh. But, it eventually does what it needs to do. The one major bug I found is that the app doesn’t allow you to remove old license plate numbers once they’re saved, which caused me my first problem using the system (you can remove it via the website, but that’s not the easiest process either). When I first set up the app, I accidentally put a 7 in my license plate number where a 2 should have been. I couldn’t delete the incorrect plate, so I simply entered the correct version too. The next morning, I set up my parking with, you guessed it, the wrong plate number. I realized this almost immediately and then realized a major flaw in the system – you can’t undo a parking transaction either. So, I created another transaction with the correct plate number, and the same space number. When I got to work, I went to the ParkMobile website and sent an e-mail to their support address (there was no phone number). I received a response within a couple of hours and after a little information exchange, they issued a credit, though they said they needed to send it to my house. Strange that they couldn’t credit the credit card that the parking is charged to. But they were responsive nonetheless.

One benefit occurred to me on a day when I was rushing and put down the wrong space number for my car (I entered 48 when my car was actually in 49). I realized this while I was on the train, but decided to take my chances. And when I got back to the station – no fine envelope. My guess is that the parking police get a list of license plates and were able to figure out that I paid and just screwed up the space number. That’s an advantage over the old system for sure. If you put your bills in the wrong slot, you’re out of luck and you’ll get a fine.

So overall I’m very happy that the MBTA finally did something about their 19^th century parking system and gave us a modern option. I for one won’t be using the slots again – ever.

Thanks MBTA. It’s about time!

For several years Symantec’s Norton products have made my life a living hell. Three years ago I bought my 70 year-old mother a Dell computer to replace her nearly 10 year-old Gateway that was finally too old to run Windows XP. (It actually lives on running Debian Linux in my basement.) The system arrived with the full complement of Dell bloatware, most of which I spent a couple of hours uninstalling. But since she has DSL service, I figured she should have some sort of virus protection, so I left the copy of Norton 360 installed.

Since that fateful moment, every single problem I’ve had to troubleshoot on her computer has been the result of Norton. This is not an exaggeration. My mother lives an hour away from me, so an onsite troubleshooting session is a minimum of two hours of commuting hassle. And Norton has required at least four onsite visits as well as several remote troubleshooting sessions (thank you Team Viewer and the free for personal use policy). The bulk of the problems have come after automatic updates and upgrades. Usually what happens is that the update wouldn’t successfully complete and there would be a constant security warning box that freaked my mother out until I could download an updated version and install it. Other times the problems came at the annual subscription renewal time where my mother could never get the system to take her order and the subscription would run out and the product would flash all kinds of warnings.

But the final straw happened about three weeks ago when another upgrade failed to completely install, and it caused a constant BSOD, which meant I couldn’t remotely troubleshoot it either. So into the car I went, fighting Boston traffic the whole way. Using the Windows Task Manager I confirmed that a Norton process was running when the BSOD happened . So, after the third reboot, I managed to start the task manager fast enough to get in and kill both Norton processes and then verified that the computer would actually stay running, which it did. So I started uninstalling Norton, but as anyone who had tried knows, Norton can’t be uninstalled easily. Using the uninstall option in the Norton program group left enough crap on the system that the upgrade process actually started itself and the incomplete update warning box popped up – after the program was supposed to uninstalled! So I had to download a special uninstall program from the Symantec website, because, well, because why the hell should the uninstall option actually uninstall the program? Fucking hell, Symantec, how do you assholes live with yourselves?

So I am officially done with Symantec – I’ve moved into active boycott mode. I have run Kaspersky antivirus on my own systems since it was a freeware program for Linux and I have had only one technical problem in all those years due to a bad upgrade that they posted which caused a major Windows security conflict. But they published a patch within a few hours. So my mom is now running Kaspersky too.

And I am D-O-N-E done with Symantec and Norton products.

Updated 7/3/2010 with first impressions.

About Me

I’m going to admit this up front … I’m not really a car guy. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate a fast car as much as the next guy. I’ve lusted after a Corvette since I was a kid – either an early 60′s split window or maybe a 1967 convertible like the one in the picture to the left. I watch Top Gear regularly and keep up with the world of supercars. I even work on cars (most recently changing the entire front disc brake system from the proportioning valve forward including calipers and discs on my F-150). But when it comes time to spend my money on a car for daily use, I just can’t do it. I currently drive a stock 5 year old Toyota Matrix with over 100,000 miles on it. This car replaced a 6 year old Honda Civic which had 189,000 miles on it when I traded it. None of these cars had aftermarket rims, performance exhausts, or anything else attached to it. Hell, I didn’t even replace the radio. For me, a car is a tool. It gets me to work and back again. As long as it does that reliably and with a minimum of fuss, I’m happy. Cars are not status symbols for me, nor are they investments. I don’t give a shit about scratches and dings or small dents. I rarely wash them, never wax them, and almost never change the oil (I average about 50,000 between oil changes). So I consider the replacement of the basic consumable parts of a car (like tires) a royal pain. I know some people research these things like they matter, but not me.

Which all leads to my most recent adventure – replacing the tires on my Matrix. What lead to this? I got screwed, literally. Arriving home on my train last Wednesday I found my right rear tire flat. After driving home I discovered what appeared to be the shank of a drywall screw embedded in the tread. Since these tires had close to 60,000 miles on them, it was time for four new ones.

[Skip the rest of the bullshit and jump straight to the review...]

Given my attitude about things automotive, I was willing to put all of three hours total into the process of getting new tires. This isn’t something exciting for me … I don’t enjoy researching the latest tread compounds and wear promises from manufacturers. I want something decent that can get done quickly so I can get on with my life.

What I Wanted

I did put enough thought into this to at least come up with my list of priorities:

1. Tire should be quiet when driving.
2. Tire should be available locally and able to be on my car in under two hours from the time I arrive at the store.

There was my comprehensive list. Notice cost and tread life aren’t on the list. Tread life isn’t terribly important for me anymore, because, thankfully, I now have a job that I commute to by train. Last year I drove all of 6300 miles. Really. So even a shitty 30,000 mile warranty tire should last me close to five years. And price isn’t on the list because I am willing to pay to not have to research and deal with the hassle of comparing tires between retailers.

So, I hopped into my car and drove off to my local Town Fair Tire store. The guy there started showing me what they had in the 205/55 R16 size I needed, beginning with the cheap $79 specials and working up from there.

Let me point out that just because I hate researching tires and shopping for them, doesn’t mean I don’t care what they drive like. On the contrary, I care very much. Tires are one of the most important parts of the car. No other part  affects all the critical performance features of the car as much as tires do. Stopping distance, wet and dry cornering, ride comfort, and quietness – all largely determined by the tires. So I want something decent. On the other hand, I know that my stock 1.8 liter, 130 horsepower engine isn’t exactly going to stress the rubber like a Bugatti Veyron. So high performance tires might be a bit of a waste.

My Research Rant

Which leads me to my biggest lament: researching tires is a waste of time so you never know what the hell you’re going to get. Seriously. The number of permutations of cars and tires make it utterly impossible for someone else’s review to have any meaning to you. Couple this with the fact that most people in the world drive like shit and are idiots, and getting a decent opinion on the web is utterly hopeless. The major objective reviews available from places like Consumer Reports and Car and Driver only touch a fraction of the brands and models available in any given year. And the variability between tire models within a single manufacturer’s line means that the manufacturer’s performance in one test for one type of tire can’t be extrapolated to another tire model. And the chances of the magazines testing tires on the same make and model car as you have are so slim that most test results are meaningless. I mean, will a given touring tire perform as well on your Honda Accord as it did on some test BMW? Chances are it won’t. You could rely on the subjective reviews on various web sites, but really – do you trust the four sentence reviews of people you haven’t met? Hell, knowing how my friends drive, I don’t even trust the reviews of most of the people I know, never mind strangers. Think of this simple example: I grew up in rural northeastern Pennsylvania driving on winding back roads in very hilly country and living on a dead-end dirt road. I then went to college in southwest New Hampshire and worked winters at a ski area in Vermont where I had to be to work every day no matter the conditions, and where the season after Winter is known as “mud season.” Trust me on this — my definition of “good winter traction” is significantly different than someone who lives in Indiana or Maryland. Think of that the next time you read a tire review online.

The Buying Process

So here I am standing in Town Fair Tire today. The first shocking thing was how many brands of cheap tires there are that I’ve not had any experience with. Hankook tires? Really? Kumho? Fuzion? WTF? Never mind the ones I have heard of but had no experience with, like Yokohama, Sumitomo, Toyo, and others. So I tell the guy to narrow down the choices based on my criteria: quiet ride, in stock, and middle of the price range. I end up with three tires in front of me:

• Goodyear Eagle RS-A
• Mastercraft Avenger Touring
• Hankook Optimo

This was putting me in the roughly $100 range per tire, about $20 below (per tire) the meat of the Goodyear, Michelin, Dunlop, and other recognizable brand name lines.

My immediate problem was that I had some experience with the Goodyear Eagle RS-A tires and I hated them (they were on my previous Civic for a while). The others I never heard of. While the guy was talking about sidewall strength etc. I did some quick research on my iPhone. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who’s never heard of Mastercraft tires either. And I quickly determined that the Hankook was basically a cheap Korean OEM touring tire. But I was intrigued by the Mastercraft for some reason.

Who the Hell is Mastercraft?

Turns out Mastercraft is the budget or “private-label” division of Cooper Tire. Cooper is a perennially on-the-verge-of-bankruptcy (or as of the summer of 2009, bankrupt) American tire manufacturer. They have a decent reputation as a replacement tire option with solid wear and good, if not stellar performance. You know, just what you need on a 1.8 liter economy car. Mastercraft is Cooper’s “private label” brand of tire. For those not familiar, private label products are products made by a major manufacturer using much of the same technology and equipment as their own “white label” products, although often up to a generation of technology behind. The advantage to the manufacturer is that it lets them use excess plant capacity and old (depreciated) tooling to produce products at a low cost, which discount retailers can offer as an option to established brands. The products are typically sold wholesale at a low price compared to similar quality name-brand products because private label products aren’t burdened with high marketing and other costs. The advantage to retailers is that it typically gives them a brand that they can price competitively with similar quality brands but for which their profit margins are higher due to the reduced acquisition cost.

So I get why Town Fair Tire is stocked with several Mastercraft models and why they probably show up on every list that the Sales Guy makes – Town Fair makes more money on them. I’m not morally opposed to that mind you, if they are decent products.

Bottom Line

So I listened to the guy’s pitch and decided to take a chance. And had them mount up four Mastercraft Avenger Touring (H rated) tires. I was out the door, mounted and balanced and with a front-end alignment about 90 minutes later. Total price: $560.64 including 6.25% Massachusetts Sales Tax and mounting, balancing, front-end alignment, lifetime road hazard replacement, and disposal of old tires. The plan also includes a bunch of stuff I’ll never use like free rotation and free snow tire changeover.

And before anyone tells me I could have gotten a better deal from Tirerack.com or some other place, remember my criteria. I am more than willing to pay $100 more to have gotten this done in two hours so I could go play with my daughter.

Are The Tires Any Good?

How the hell should I know? I’ve only driven on them for 30 miles. Not nearly enough time to tell yet. But I can at least start this review by talking about what I’ll be comparing them to.

My most recent set of tires was a set of Goodyear Assurance Comfortread tires. They were decent. At best. Overall I’d say that, although they worked pretty well for 50,000 miles or so, they had a noticeable drop in traction after only 20,000 miles. And they were never that great in the wet to begin with. And Jesus H. Christ they were noisy. Unbearably noisy toward the end of their lives. They definitely didn’t go quietly. But their gas mileage was good as was their dry traction. And I’d say the wear was great, considering the fact that I barely rotated them more than twice in 50,000 miles.

Prior to that I had an OEM set of Continental ContiTrack touring tires. They were fucking horrible. If the road was so much as moist you felt like you were taking your life into your hands. These tires were scary-bad in wet weather. Not only did they slip all over the place, but they hydroplaned if there was anything more than a molecular film of water on the road. Truly so horrible that I will never buy another set of Continental tires again as long as I live. They weren’t much better when it was dry either.

On my prior Honda, I had a set of Michelin Harmony somethings. They were OK, but they wore oddly, showing signs of scalloping long before they should have. And I know it was the tire not the inflation or car etc. because the set of Goodyear Eagle RS-As which replaced them never showed the same signs.

For additional opinions, I did find a few things on the Internet. Several people think that the Mastercraft Avenger is the same tire as the Cooper CS4, which has some good reviews. But I can tell you that the tread pattern isn’t the same. See for yourself:

Mastercraft Avenger

Cooper CS4

So this is what the Mastrcrafts need to live up to. I’ll keep this updated over the next year.

Update 7/3/2010

I’ve now had these tires almost two months and have finally put a thousand plus miles on them. My quick impression thus far is that they offer good dry traction, excellent wet traction, and decent mileage. They seem only OK as far as quietness – they are definitely louder than the Goodyear Comforttreads when they were new.

Starting and cornering when the road is wet is definitely better than with my old tires, and when driving through some absolutely huge puddles (more like minor flooding) from big thunderstorms at road speed I can say they do not hydroplane easily. I’d call them excellent tires in wet conditions. I have no complaints about dry traction either. They are, however, relatively noisy compared to some other tires. They are a marked improvement over the worn tires they replaced, but they could be quieter.

Overall I’m pleased and I would recommend these tires to others.

This is just a brain dump of random music thoughts floating around in my head. Been meaning to record them for some time.

Best artist’s name: Michelle Shocked. Don’t listen to her, but you gotta’ admit, that’s a damn good stage name.

Best album name: Motörhead – “Everything Louder than Everyone Else.” Pretty well captures the Motörhead spirit.

Motörhead bonus – best Rock & Roll quote: “If this band moved in next door to you, your lawn would die.”

Tom Dowd

Most important person in Rock & Roll that you’ve never heard of: Tom Dowd. Seriously. If you appreciate anything about music recorded after 1940 you need to know who Tom Dowd is. His Wikipedia page doesn’t even come close to doing his life and career justice. Aside from working with, influencing, and creating music with everyone important in modern music, the man also invented nearly everything important about music recording. First stereo music recording: Tom Dowd. Eight track recording: Tom Dowd. The linear sliders you see on every modern mixing board: yup, invented by Tom Dowd. Wanna’ know who got Eric Clapton and Duane Allman together in the studio to record Layla? Tom Dowd. And he mixed it and produced it too. What do Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Wilson Pickett have in common (besides greatness): Tom Dowd produced them. Oh yeah, and he worked on the Manhattan Project at Columbia University too. Starting when he was only 16.

Take the time to watch the most important biography/documentary in music: “Tom Dowd and the Language of Music” you will not be disappointed.

Best guitar solo: the solo Eric Clapton usually inserts into Badge by Cream. From the studio version to the live version on the Royal Albert Hall: London May 2, 3, 5, 6 2005 album this one always impresses me. I’ve seen Clapton in concert three times and I will never forget the first — in 1990 my college roommate, my girlfriend, and I drove over 100 miles across Vermont and New York State to see Clapton at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. We got there late and I got to the top of the aisle looking down on the stage just as Clapton started Badge. He rocked the solo. I’ve never been the same since. (For real music fans – yes, this was the tour on which Stevie Ray Vaughn would die later in the summer. Never saw SRV – we arrived too late.)

Best band you’ve never heard of unless you live in Pittsburgh: The Clarks. Go to the web or to iTunes and download their 2001 “The Clarks Live“ album. It’s an excellent album and a great example of a band that really needs to be heard live. The Clarks rock on that album. If you like that, and you should, I suggest following with their latest record, “Restless Days.”

Best band period: Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. Grace Potter is a true artist, with a creative range that I haven’t heard in years. And she has, without a doubt, the single best female voice in music today. Screw today. Maybe one of the best female voices ever. I was introduced to Grace Potter via a performance at the Boston Music Awards several years ago. The video gives me chills it is so good. Don’t believe me? See for yourself – just promise not to play it on some shitty, tinny laptop speakers.

Take note that she was 24 years old when this was recorded and this is an original composition. You name me one other 24 year-old American Idol pop star wannabe that would dare to perform an original two and a half minute a cappella piece live in front of an audience and then kick ass on a Hammond B3 organ. You can’t. Search You Tube for Grace Potter and take some time to discover her band’s range.

If iTunes is more your speed, then I recommend starting with a 5 song EP they released in 2008 called “Live in Skowhegan.” (It’s a town in Maine, dumbass.) This is a good representation of the range of their catalog up to that point. But remember, this band needs to be heard live.

According to the little spinning Revolver Map in the sidebar I’ve had 10,000 more or less unique visitors to this blog since 7/31 of 2009. I think that’s kind of impressive … Most seem to come looking for information on the T-Mobile Dash 3G phone, followed by people looking for residential generator information, followed by people looking for info on smoking meat and making bacon. No matter what brings them though, 10,000 is a pretty big number for an amateur like me.

I got stuck at South Station this evening as my train sat on the tracks not moving for twenty minutes past its scheduled departure time. It seemed that the MBCR couldn’t tell me why. My guess is that it had something to with President Obama’s unannounced visit to the MEMA Bunker in Framingham. The T-alert’s e-mail said the delay was because of a Police Action. If that’s the case then there is one seriously paranoid security idiot in charge, because by my calculation the tracks pass only within 2 miles of the bunker and it’s not like someone is going to divert the train. Plus, IT’S A HARDENED NUCLEAR BUNKER. But I’m missing my main point.

This incident got me thinking about how the T handles incidents like this and commuting in general. And they are really bad. So I thought I’d clearly lay out several demands. I thought about declaring this a T-rider’s Bill of Rights, but that seemed a little too extreme. So I guess this my list of minimally reasonable expectations.

The MBTA/MBCR Rider’s List of Reasonable Expectations

1. I expect to be told the reason for a delayed train. Someone knows the reason, and the crew has radios. Put the two together and the result is informed passengers.
2. I expect immediate compensation for a severely delayed train. The current system of filling out a form and waiting for some arbitrary decision to get a tiny little ticket for a free ride is unacceptable. And it doesn’t do a thing for people who travel on a pass every month. When a train is late by more than fifteen minutes the crew should immediately issue refunds to all passengers. Not ride vouchers, not free tickets. Real cash refunds for people who just bought tickets and a convertible-to-cash voucher for people with monthly or 12-ride passes.
3. I expect to be able to change my plans when informed of a delay. This means you open the doors and let me off, even if I’m on a subway. Yes that’s right. There was the story of a Red Line train stopped on the bridge just after the Charles/MGH stop. People sat on the train for 40 minutes. Unacceptable. And I don’t want to hear about any safety issues either, because if you can’t evacuate me safely from a broken train then you can’t do it from a burning one either, and that is a serious problem. If any train is stuck for more than 15 minutes at any point in the system I demand the choice of evacuation so I can walk to where I need to be if necessary.
4. I expect to exit my train at the closest door. Not the closest door you’ve arbitrarily decided to staff today, but the closest door. Open all the doors at all the stops, period. If you have a staffing problem, fix it. Bust your union if you need to or fix your pension problem … but staff the train and open the doors.
5. I expect to board my train when it’s ready, not at some arbitrary time. It is simply ridiculous that passengers are forced to stand in a giant herd at South Station for ten or more minutes until some designated time comes, only to board a train which has been sitting in front of them the whole time. Do us all a favor and just post the track number as soon as the train is empty from the previous run.

Five simple steps to competent service. Post your ideas in the comments.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post praising the cheap suit. In it, I said that for most people, the quality of a cheap suit really doesn’t matter.

But there are some concessions that must be made to cheapness. One of the distinguishing characteristics of a cheap suit is cheap fabric. And cheap fabric has problems. Namely, it wrinkles easily, it starts out “shiny” and gets worse the more it’s cleaned, and it falls apart faster than expensive threads. So what’s a cheap suit fan to do?

The Cheap Suit's Secret Weapon

The main answer is to reduce the number of trips to the dry cleaner that the suit takes. Each dry cleaning makes all the deficiencies of a cheap suit worse – the fabric gets shinier, the lining starts to come loose, and the wear increases. The good news is that no suit needs to be cleaned after every wearing, no matter how cheap or expensive. But how do you avoid looking like a wrinkled mess when you go to wear it again?

The answer is a home steamer. That’s right, the wrinkles can be steamed right out and the creases steamed back in. And it’s easier than ironing.

So, after you buy your cheap suit, buy one of these. There are several models available. I have the Conair model shown at left that I paid well under $100 for a few years ago. It works great, on suits, shirts, pants, and other clothes. And, it makes quick work of wrinkled clothes in the morning before work. I usually flip the heat on when I get out of the shower, and by the time I’m done brushing my teeth the steam is flowing and I can be wrinkle-free in minutes. The clothes are ready to wear as soon as I’m done. I can usually get three or four wearings out of a suit and still look crisp and pressed each time. And three or four wearings, rotated among the five suits in my closet means well over a year between dry cleanings. Provided of course you don’t spill anything on yourself and you don’t find yourself standing in the August sun sweating until your suit is soaked. Then you might want to clean the stink out of it.

Trust me on this — the steamer is the cheap suit’s best friend.

This is without question the most lucid and correct assessment of the state of conservatives in the wake of the healthcare reform bill signing. Please read it.

http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo

Some important excerpts:

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

And this, which so accurately captures my feelings towards self-described conservatives on the radio:

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

In short:

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

Finally. Some conservative sanity. Maybe now the real conservatives will wake the fuck up and get back to governing instead of waving signs from the balcony of the House.

I’ve always felt at home in New England, even though didn’t grow up here. The traditional New England values of thrift and ingenuity appeal to me. If you couple these ideas with my aversion to shopping, and you’ll understand the title of this post.

A suit is the uniform of the powerless man; the universal projection of insecurity combined with narcissism. Think about it – a suit is neither comfortable nor practical. So by definition it is used for something impractical, namely projecting your wealth as a proxy for your power. But herein lies the issue. One cannot project power through a suit, expensive or otherwise. I quote Margaret Thatcher to explain:

Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.

Following this logic, there would never be a time to wear a suit at all. Unfortunately, much of the world hasn’t realized the silliness of this whole endeavor, and in some places a suit is still the standard uniform. It is, unfortunately, something that I am not going to change single-handedly. But, given the silliness of the whole suit exercise, at least one shouldn’t pay a lot for the privilege of trying to reinforce your status through your clothes.

Apparently, this message was lost on a large part of the US during the last economic boom. Starting with Queer Eye [for the Straight Guy] back in 2003 the world of men’s clothes started growing rapidly. It mostly seemed to mirror the growth of other “form-over-substance” industries like Investment Banking, and Private Equity; you know, where men (and it is mostly men) try and out “compete” each other by conquering business without actually doing anything besides pushing paper around. In an industry where one is measured purely by money tracked on a computer, there is no way to show the score, unless you prove how much money you’ve amassed by buying ridiculously expensive things. So, in the Wall Street banking world, men’s clothes have become the newest battleground for penis size competitions, with participants moving up the clothing ladder and ridiculing anyone who doesn’t play their reindeer games.

"Wow, Fred sure has on a nice suit!"

This phenomenon lead to the growth of several online communities for men to talk about clothes. (As a side note, are you noting the extreme change in the definition of manliness underlying this? Can you picture men working in a real industry like coal mining or an auto plant or a steel mill actually talking about clothes? If nothing else the development of these message boards cements the United States’ transition away from an industrial economy.) Two of the biggest such message boards are Ask Andy About Clothes (AAAC for people in the know …) and Styleforum.

Now my warning before I go any further. These sites are populated primarily by cocks. Cocks in the British, Top Gear, slang for rich idiots with more money than sense sense. The kind who drive BMW M3s just because they think they should. They say things like:

“Men think about clothes with fire and intensity and all day long.” (And you thought it was sex …)

And this gem …

Thank you for your website.  I’ve been using many of your web pages (I even printed some of them) since prep school.  There were only a few senior superlatives to go around and you are certainly partly responsible for my snagging “most likely to be seen in dress code.”
Best, Paul

If only Paul realized what an insult that would be to the rest of the world (and I went to a prep school with a dress code, so I know.) Poor Paul. I bet he pegs the Top Gear Cock-o-Meter in his M3.

Wow. He Pegged It!

And this, finally, brings me to my main point. On these boards, the inexpensive off-the-rack (OTR) suit is universally maligned. I suppose that in the insulated world of Wall Street and law firms and wherever else it is that denizens of these fora live and work, a man really is judged by his clothes. And that is a true shame.

By cheap suit, I mean a suit from one of the big (also growing) men’s clothing chain stores like Men’s Warehouse and Jos. A Bank. Of the two, Jos. A Bank actually has a slightly better reputation (and I do mean slightly) on the message boards, but the comparison can be best summed up by this quote from a poster named “LA Guy” comparing the two on the Styleforum:

I say that this contest is like two fat kids wrestling. At the end of the day, there is no “winner”. There are just two fat kids. Men’s Wearhouse sells dreck for a little less than does Jos. A. Banks. That’s what it boils down too [sic]. Seriously, if I really, really, needed a cheap suit in a pinch, and only had access to retail, I would go to Macys and pick up something by Calvin Klein (the new, cheap, black label collection.)

Seriously? “If I only had access to retail.” What a cock. Can’t you just hear the condescension dripping from that statement? A little lower down the thread, a slightly funnier and less pompous Kaga weighs in:

This would be like a Kitchen Stadium battle between Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders.

OK — I’ll admit that one was funny.

The boards go into all sorts of critiques of construction of the big-box retail suits and lament the lack of full-canvassed construction and the proliferation of fused (read glued) linings. In general, anyone who frequents these boards thinks that anything but the $1000 + Signature Gold suit from Jos. A Bank is shit and you are an undesirable a-hole if you buy one.

The ultimate expression of narcissism is the “bespoke” suit. Bespoke being a British term for “giant insecure cock who needs others to praise him and grovel at his feet.” Actually, it refers to a suit made completely by hand in the traditional sense by a tailor, but it also means outrageously expensive. (A great description of bespoke can be found on the “English Cut” blog from Thomas Mahon, a London tailor.) Back at the height of this craze in 2006, the Boston Globe ran an article on a Boston tailor who had one client, A fund manager from Fidelity, that spent $300,000 at one single tailor in a year. Read that again after you get done choking. The full quote from the article:

One Sullivan client, a fund manager at Fidelity who wished to remain anonymous, buys suits that cost up to $9,500. He spent almost $300,000 on clothing last year; this year he’s already run up a $190,000 tab. Sullivan is now working on a vicuna winter coat for him that will cost $24,000.

No wonder the client wanted to be anonymous. That this can happen in the United States isn’t a source of pride, it’s a national fucking tragedy. To add some perspective, in 2006, $24,000 was roughly the Federal poverty level for a family of 5. I wonder if five people were going to live in this asshole’s coat?

So, where am I going with this?

It’s some actual praise for a cheap suit. It takes a certain kind of narcissist to be a banker or high-profile corporate lawyer in the first place (you know, the kind who believes that THEY really affect the outcomes they’re being compensated for rather than realizing the true complexity of the systems in which they operate and the luck of events that got them where they are). And these guys will never understand how the rest of the world runs. Nor do they want to. They can debate all they want whether a $1200 made-to-measure suit looks worse than a $2500 bespoke suit, and the rest of us will get on fine.

So here’s what you need to know about cheap suits:

Quality Doesn’t Matter for Most People

Seriously. If you are starting in a job that requires a suit every day, stop reading now. Because for daily wear, construction quality matter a lot. For daily wear, you should buy several good quality $1000 suits (preferably on sale). But for the rest of us, quality doesn’t matter. I work for a prestigious organization (honestly). I have been asked to give presentations at several university conferences this year, including Stanford. And I wear a suit no more than 15 days a year. And I am far ahead of most of the US. Most people looking for a suit will wear it 3 times a year tops. And even if they dry clean it after every wearing, it will still last three to five years. Three cheap suits might last someone like this a decade or more. I have five inexpensive suits in my closet right now, most won’t be worn more than three times this year, and then only cleaned once.

99% of Looking Good is in the Fit; Take the Time To Find Something That Fits You Well

A decently fit $199 Men’s Warehouse suit will look better on you than a poorly fitting $2500 bespoke suit. So, unless you keep yourself in shape and don’t routinely change weight by more than 5 pounds, a bespoke suit probably isn’t going to help. You need to have a stable body for a bespoke suit to be worth the money.

Borrowed from: http://www.austenmcdonald.com/writings/ocmf/images/suit.diagram.jpg

I recommend going to whatever retailers are around and trying on several suits before you buy one. You will invariably find that one brand fits you better than another, even before tailoring. This is probably more important than anything else. I have several Men’s Warehouse suits and their cut off the rack just fits a little better in the shoulders than say a Jos. A Bank Executive suit, which is always a bit wide for me. As a disclaimer, I have three Jos. A Bank suits in my closet now, and no one I ask ever notices the shoulders until I point them out, but there is something just a little off about them. I did have a little work done on the jackets to make them look a little better though.

In my opinion, you are better off spending an additional $50 for a good tailor to get a suit fitted than spending an extra $50 on the suit itself.

What defines a good fit? Like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stuart defining obscenity, “you’ll know it when you see it.” But basically, it means:

• A suit jacket where the shoulders fit well. That means a slight slope down and that they don’t stick out too far. One good rule of thumb: put on your jacket and stand perpendicular to a wall, with your arms relaxed at your sides. Lean towards the wall. If the suit touches before your shoulder does, it’s too wide. On a cheap suit this is difficult to fix, so try another brad or style until you find one that fits well.
• When buttoned  the vents on the suit coat shouldn’t open up. The vents only open when you sit.
• 

  Perhaps a bit too high ...

  The sleeves are the correct length. (This also depends on wearing the right shirt, but a well-fitting suit helps.) It is common for you to have different length arms, or at least for them to hang differently depending on the straightness of your spine, etc. Seriously. So a suit jacket will often need the sleeves adjusted to the proper length in order to hang correctly when you stand. When standing straight with your arms relaxed, about 1/4 to 1/2 an inch of shirt sleeve should show.

• Pants that ride correctly. Not too high like Urkel from Full House, and not too low.
• Pants that are the correct length. How your pants hang at your shoes is called the “break,” as in “full break,” “medium break,” etc. (Read this for a better description.) The break really refers to the amount of slope created by the pant resting on the front your shoes and hanging lower in the rear. A full break can be stylish, but most normal people don’t get chauffeured to work or travel on private jets, so there is a practical consideration. A full break hangs low down in the back with maybe 1/2″ clearance to the ground. In my world I am sometimes forced to walk through snow and puddles and pants with a full break tend to soak up a lot of this leading to a premature demise. So I opt for a medium break instead.

Whatever your style, get your suit tailored. The in-store tailor at one of the big box chains will do a decent job, but make sure they aren’t just going through the motions. Even the cheapest suit (like the Jos. A Banks Executive suits that I just bought on sale at 3 for $499) needs tailoring. Wear a good dress shirt to the store so you can gauge the sleeve length correctly. Also wear the dress shoes you normally do. If you don’t want to, then ask to borrow a shirt and shoes. This is critical and you shouldn’t be embarrassed. All decent stores (certainly the chains) have these things to borrow. You can expect to pay $30 to $50 per suit for this service.

And whatever you do, don’t let the cocks convince you otherwise. A well fitting $166 suit (Jos. A Bank Executive at 3 for $499) is going to look as good on you the three or four times it’s worn as a $1500 suit. Save your money and spend it on something you’ll actually use.

Finally, once you have a closet full of cheap suits you’ll need something to care for them. See my recommendation here.