What I've Been Looking At: January 27 Edition.

I haven't written anything on my blog lately, but it's the dead part of winter so I thought I would just write randomly about some of the things I've been looking at/thinking about in the last few weeks.

P.S. I normally take time to edit and pare things down. My fear right now is that I won't ever post this if I take more time with it, so I'm doing it now in less-than-concise form. My apologies.

1. What makes for quality mens clothing?
I decided to look into this after hearing an interview with the author of "Cheap: The High Cost Of Discount Culture". One of the central ideas put forward in this book is that buying most low-priced items is actually a poor value - you end up having to replace things more often, which takes a lot of time, adds to the garbage/waste problem, creates an unskilled retail labor caste (um, maybe including me, though I'm not exactly the bottom rung), and of course we end up spending more money.

That led me to think about the dress shirts I usually buy for work, which also get used for other occasions. Could I even afford 'tailored' shirts that weren't made in Bangladesh? The answer is: sort of. A concurrent trip to Goodwill produced an excellent quality dress shirt by an unheard-of manufacturer, and from the USA. That shirt was likely not tailored, but sold at a dedicated men's clothing store and made with much more attention. I don't want to get too geeky about it, but it has elements that are only (sometimes) seen in a shirt sold at Kohl's or the mall. The shirt cost $4, and is even better than the "fitted" shirts I normally buy for around $20 (or, more often, $7-$15 on clearance and out-of-season).

It is probably rare to find a shirt like that, and even good quality shirts are usually not made in the US anymore. There are high end retailers who make quality shirts that are more expensive, but are manufactured much better (and slower!). Many tailored shirts are made in Hong Kong, which is historically a tailoring capital - that doesn't guarantee sweatshop-free goods, but better-made clothing takes time and care, and therefore it seems less likely these items are being made under atrocious conditions.

I have read good things about 2 places (online) that will make a shirt to measure for you, for about $60 (or more if you want luxury materials, monogramming, etc). I won't recommend them because I haven't tried them yet. And yes, $60 is a lot of money, but you get a good shirt that you can wear for longer, and not be stuck with junk that wears terribly while not fitting your body shape properly. Plus you can delete the breast-pocket, which seems kind of pointless much of the time.

My closet is getting full. I like the idea of having maybe 6 well-made dress shirts that I like, rather than 20 that I only sort of like. That's less laundry/ironing to worry about, too. With many of those 20 shirts I own, I only wear them grudgingly because they fit so poorly, but I feel bad about throwing them away before they are worn out. Even at sale prices, think of the money I've wasted! Think of all the crap in your closet you've only worn a few times because it's junk!

There are many other areas to explore here about consumerism, labor and waste; this was just a practical, recent example. I will try to return to this topic again.

2. Black tea
As it turns out, I like tea about as much as coffee, but here again, I've been drinking the bad stuff, and hadn't really figured out what to buy that is good. Right now I'm drinking PG Tips, which is a common brand in the UK. This isn't loose tea, but it's fantastic with a little half/half and Splenda (exactly how I take my coffee). The caffeine doesn't seem to be so much as to make me jittery, so I can drink more tea if I'm sitting at the computer (like right now).

3. That Apple tablet computer
As a long term Apple-watcher and someone who is interested in the dynamics of mass media, I was interested to see what the Apple tablet was going to be able to do (revealed today to be called the "iPad"). Almost a year ago, I was already reading articles on the web that claimed that such a device from Apple would save the newspaper and magazine industry the same way Apple had "saved" the music industry.

The idea put forth in these articles was that traditional content found in paper magazines or in internet form could be transformed into a third 'tablet' form that would take the best of both media, and that people would be willing to pay for it. At the very least advertising could be better leveraged to pay the bills of running a media enterprise like Time, The New York Times or Sports Illustrated. A few months back TimeWarner put together a demo video on YouTube that showed how such a publication would work on an iPad-like device.

Now that it's been revealed, we know the iPad, with its 9.7" screen and single button, looks like a giant iPod Touch with the ability to download content over cellular phone networks (which costs extra). This means it can surf the web in WiFi hotspots like your house or a café, as well as on the bus or in the park.

But will you ever have it with you? A small device like an iPhone can do almost everything this can, and you always have that in your pocket. The iPad is also somewhat heavy at just under 2 pounds, which means it isn't as good for reading e-books as say, Amazon's Kindle. Something like this has to be as light as a paperback book for people to take it with them everywhere. Plus it doesn't look like something that can be dropped, so it's not like it will replace a newspaper in every circumstance.

However, the screen on the iPad is supposed to be amazing - almost immersive because you would hold it closer to your face than a laptop, and it's at HD resolution. It also has a 10-hour battery, which means in many circumstances it's better to have along than a laptop, and can do many (though certainly not all) the things you might do on a laptop, like making presentations or typing a paper. And it can run anything an iPhone can, so there's already a huge library of applications available for it, including all the time-wasters you've used your iPhone for previously.

I must force myself to reserve judgement until I see the thing, but my initial thought is that the iPad won't be the revolution that's hoped for by the media gods. But it IS certainly nice, and Apple will therefore sell a ton of them. It's usually not wise to bet against Apple. At the $500 base price, it's not much more than buying an iPod Touch anyway. The damn thing is even largely recyclable, as its two chief materials are aluminum and glass.

And, for you misanthropes out there, it's one more way for you to never interact with another human being ever again.