feat(posts): a lot of things

blog/content/posts/AJ11CMFTLowBred.md

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+---
+title: "Air Jordan 11 CMFT Low Bred"
+date: 2021-09-17T12:08:42-04:00
+categories: [shoes, jordan]
+tags: [air jordan 11, black]
+draft: false
+---
+
+![Air Jordan 11 CMFT Low [Black, Red]](/images/aj11cmftlowbredstock.jpg)
+
+The Air Jordan 11 is arguably one of the most popular sneaker silhouettes 
+in existence. Its striking use of patent leather made everyone reconsider 
+what constitutes a "sneaker" and what contexts wearing a pair is appropriate 
+for. Since its initial release, it's been steadily re-released in a variety 
+of colourways, celebrated as an annual holiday tradition for Nike and Jordan 
+(brand), proudly worn both on the basketball court and to more formal 
+functions like weddings and graduation ceremonies.
+
+Beyond the scheduled "retro" releases, the 11 also occasionally sees 
+alternative designs, such as this "CMFT" Low variant, which trades out the  
+Cordura-style ballistic nylon and carbon fiber shank for more breathable 
+textiles and softer midsoles, emphasizing its "comfort" namesake.
+
+Recently, there was a new colourway of the CMFT Low that highly resembles one 
+of the original Air Jordan 11 colourways, the Columbia ("Legend") Blue that I 
+considered picking up, but I already have a pair of the Air Jordan 11 Retro 
+Low "Legend Blue" (2021) that I haven't even started wearing yet.

blog/content/posts/AJ3Georgetown2021.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
 title: "Air Jordan 3 Retro Georgetown (2021)"
-date: 2021-09-14T13:58:33-04:00
+date: 2021-09-14T09:58:33-04:00
 categories: [shoes, jordan]
 tags: [air jordan 3, navy]
 draft: false

blog/content/posts/AdidasNMDCitySock.md

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+---
+title: "Adidas NMD City Sock (White, Gum)"
+date: 2021-09-14T15:59:21-04:00
+categories: [shoes, adidas]
+tags: [nmd, white]
+draft: false
+---
+
+![Adidas NMD City Sock [White, Gum]](/images/adidasnmdcitysockstock.jpg)
+
+Balenciaga released the Speed Trainer to mass appeal in late 2016. They 
+penetrated popular culture, even leading to a hip-hop shoutout from Cardi B, 
+where she called them "(the shoe) that look like a sock". They quickly 
+dominated many fashion circles, leading to a hypersaturation of textile-upper 
+shoes that is probably killing the hype they once had, now almost seen with 
+disdain, which is unfortunate, because conceptually, they were very 
+interesting, as a jumped-to conclusion of the advent of the Yeezy Boost 350. 
+
+Arguably what kicked-off this saturated movement was the "City Sock", an 
+early variant of the Adidas Originals™ NMD, which already featured a 
+knit upper. The City Sock took the NMD's design further by omitting the 
+traditional expectation of laces, leaving only a knit with a heel counter 
+attached to a sole. This particular colourway wasn't released until 2017, but 
+the original was one of the first models available in March 2016, the first 
+NMD release since its quiet debut in New York in December 2015.

blog/content/posts/AprixAPR002.md

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+---
+title: "Aprix APR-002 (Grey, Blue)"
+date: 2021-09-16T09:47:28-04:00
+categories: [shoes, aprix]
+tags: [apr-002, white]
+draft: false
+---
+
+![Aprix APR-002 [Grey, Blue]](/images/aprixapr002stock.jpg)
+
+These were the first suede sneakers I ever bought. All official marketing 
+materials seem to indicate that this is a "grey", but to me, it always felt 
+more like a warm off-white cream. I thought the blue accents would make this 
+shoe pair well with a pair of jeans, so that's what I usually wore them with. 
+All my life, I'd been told not to buy white and/or suede sneakers because 
+they'd be "ruined" too quickly, but as I grew to love and appreciate the 
+character developed in long-lasting, hard-wearing items like raw denim and 
+natural leather belts, I decided I could live with the inevitability of 
+permanent marks of wear on my sneakers, and how glad I was! I can proudly say 
+I buy my shoes to wear and baby in favour of keeping them in pristine 
+condition for some hypothetical "perfect outfit" I would never actually 
+construct. Outfits are ephemeral as are ultimately the items in our 
+wardrobes, so we may was well enjoy them while we can. Even if the upper has 
+been completely matted by repeated abuseby dirt and water, the rubber outsole 
+has held up remarkably well, I think moreso than any other sneaker I've ever 
+owned. For a little visual "refresh" after a couple of years, I replaced the 
+accent-matching blue laces with a pastel braided lace.

blog/content/posts/BirkenstockArizona.md

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+---
+title: "Birkenstock Arizona ("Havana" Oiled Leather)"
+date: 2021-09-17T15:12:16-04:00
+categories: [shoes, birkenstock]
+tags: [arizona, brown]
+draft: false
+---
+
+![Birkenstock Arizona with Oiled Leather [Brown]](/images/birkenstockarizonastock.jpg)
+
+It's funny that what now seems like a ubiquitous sandal didn't even exist 
+before 1973. It's what I picture Jesus walking around in as he lectures the 
+masses, which is frankly absurd. Two leather straps tape your foot down to a 
+suede-lined cup for your foot made of cork, stuck onto an EVA outsole. They 
+feel like torture for the first couple of weeks, but after they actually 
+conform to the shape of your foot. The shoemakers in Germany must know what 
+they're doing.
+
+Even if you wear through the EVA outsole, any decent cobbler should be able 
+to replace it with something materially similar, if not an official 
+Birkenstock-branded outsole, thereby eliminating the need to purchase a new 
+upper and midsole and the break-in period that they come with.

blog/content/posts/CelineMicroBelt.md

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+---
+title: "Céline Mint Green Micro Belt Bag (Fall 2017)"
+date: 2021-09-14T13:05:03-04:00
+categories: [bags, celine]
+tags: [belt bag, mint green]
+draft: false
+---
+
+![Céline Micro Belt Bag (Fall 2017) [Mint Green]](/images/celinemicrobeltbagstock.jpg)
+
+The Belt Bag debuted in 2015, as a more minimal followup to the Luggage Tote 
+and the Trapeze Bag. Season after season, it was reissued in new colourways, 
+and even sizes. In her final year at Céline, Pheobe Philo's Céline released 
+some of their largest collections before her departure, including this 
+specific colourway. I bought this when I learned Hedi Slimane, Celine's new 
+creative director, made the decision to remove the acute accent from the 'e' 
+in the creative house's branding (which Philo added), despite continuing to 
+sell Philo's original designs. This bag is a symbol of style that was made by 
+an icon who was being erased by her successor; I had to have one with "her" 
+name still on it. In my mind, she's like the British Woman counterpart to the 
+American Man that is Rick Owens; her designs were focused on what she believed 
+women truly wanted to wear, a similar philosophy to how Owens is inspired to 
+design by things he'd want to wear in his everyday life.
+
+This bag is made of an artifically grained calfskin, similar to Hermès' 
+"Epsom" leathers, meaning that before construction, the hides were processed 
+with heat and pressure to create a perfectly consistent grain that masks 
+small imperfections in the material, and makes it more resistant to scratches 
+and water.

blog/content/posts/DiadoraMiBasketUsed.md

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+---
+title: "Diadora MI Basket Used"
+date: 2021-09-15T15:21:33-04:00
+categories: [shoes, diadora]
+tags: [mi basket, white]
+draft: false
+---
+
+![Diadora MI Basket Used [White]](/images/diadoramibasketusedstock.jpg)
+
+I knew it would be nearly impossible to acquire the Nike Air Jordan 1 '85 
+Hi's from a retailer instead of a reseller who would mark it up for 100% over 
+retail, so I ordered a pair of these in consolation. The year before Michael 
+Jordan got his Nike contract, when he was still wearing Converse Pro Leathers 
+and Adidas Forum Hi's, Diadora sponsored the Milan basketball team in 1984, 
+and they've released these as a nod to that heritage. The materials on these 
+shoes feel far nicer than anything I've felt on any shoe put out by 
+Nike/Jordan (brand) in the last decade, and they've been artifically aged to 
+look like they really came from 1984.

blog/content/posts/FujitsuPFUHHKBPro2.md

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+---
+title: "Fujitsu PFU Happy Hacking Keyboard Professional 2"
+date: 2021-09-15T11:13:44-04:00
+categories: [input hardware, topre]
+tags: [keyboard, black]
+draft: false
+---
+
+![Fujitsu PFU Happy Hacking Keyboard Professional 2 [Black]](/images/fujitsupfuhhkbpro2stock.jpg)
+
+This is my current daily driver. A compact, 60% keyboard made with 
+Topre-designed electro capacitive keyswitches. More inexperienced, misguided 
+keyboard enthusiasts will tell you that Topre's proprietary switch mechanisms 
+aren't worth paying for because they're "glorified rubber domes". What these 
+people fail to recognize is that "rubber domes" aren't an inherently bad 
+quality in a keyboard, assuming the mechanisms are built well enough. I've 
+seen keyboard YouTubers boast about how they've "vastly improved" a friend's 
+typing experience by building them a new keyboard using Cherry MX derivative 
+linear switches, while tossing out their supposedly terrible Dell keyboards 
+that happen to be made with Alps SKCMs and NMB domes with sliders that would 
+have provided vastly superior typing experiences if they were just cleaned 
+and refurbished, but I digress.
+
+As much as I love the feeling of the sliders moving through this keyboard's 
+plastic housing, I'm just not a fan of any of the layouts that can be enabled 
+on this keyboard via the DIP switch block accessible from the back, under a 
+removable cover. Thanks to someone over at the GeekHack forums who goes by 
+"hasu," most Topre popular boards have been reverse-engineered, so I was able 
+to set up a custom build of QMK relatively easily, after rewiring the 
+keyswitch PCB to a new MCU (the ATMega32u4 on a Teensy 2.0), and write my own 
+custom keyboard firmware.

blog/content/posts/HermesBirkin30OrangeEpsom.md

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+---
+title: "Hermès Birkin 30 (Orange Epsom)"
+date: 2021-09-16T13:22:48-04:00
+categories: [bags, hermes]
+tags: [birkin, orange]
+draft: false
+---
+
+![Hermès Birkin 30 in Epsom Calfskin [Orange]](/images/hermesbirkin30orangeepsomstock.jpg)
+
+This bag is so notorious, that it made its brand notorious. Supposedly 
+designed for Jane Birkin after a basket she was carrying througn an airport 
+spilled its contents when she tried to stuff it into a plane's overhead 
+storage, it's become an icon of a supposed "selectivism" of the brand's 
+choice of customers; even if the average person did have thousands of dollars 
+to spend on a piece of hand luggage on a whim, they are so sought after, that 
+they nearly instantly sell out when stores get the chance to restock them. 
+The date code on mine denotes that it was made in 2016.
+
+Epsom is Hermès' name for calfskins that have experienced an artificial 
+graining process. Calfskins not suitable for more "natural" finishes such as 
+Togo are applied with heat and pressure to make its grain perfectly 
+consistent and hide small imperfections in the skin, as well as more scratch 
+and water resistent.

blog/content/posts/HermesBirkin35BlackBox.md

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+---
+title: "Hermès Birkin 35 (Black Box)"
+date: 2021-09-15T16:42:29-04:00
+categories: [bags, hermes]
+tags: [birkin, black]
+draft: false
+---
+
+![Hermès Birkin 30 in Box Calfskin [Black]](/images/hermesbirkin35blackboxstock.jpg)
+
+These bags are so desirable that if you manage to purchase one from an Hermès 
+boutique, you could easily walk out of the store and sell it to someone else 
+for a great deal more than you paid for it at the retailer. Because they're 
+so valuable outside of their own retail environment and move so quickly, the 
+brand's sales associates (SAs) refuse to sell the bags to anyone other than 
+"dedicated" Hermès brand fanatics and loyalists. A good measure that seems to 
+sway most SAs into offering one of these coveted bags for sale is to spend at 
+least the (retail) value of the bag on other items sold by Hermès--the 
+housewares, the blankets, the clothes, the belts, the footwear, the silk 
+scarves and the perfumes. Of course, none of this matters if you happen to be 
+someone willing to buy them second-hand.
+
+Box leather is named after late-19th century English shoe craftsman Joseph 
+Box. It was originally formulated for making black shoes that develop a 
+gorgeous patina with wear, and was used almost exclusively on vintage Hermès 
+bags, like the Kelly. Creases made in the material are very difficult to get 
+out, so the fact that their craftsmen who construct the bags can 
+saddle-stitch them together by hand without leaving any marks is 
+exceptionally impressive. It's almost a tragedy that these are constructed to 
+such a high standard only to inevitably see those marks of wear: the 
+scratches that can't be buffed out, the creases that almost resemble veins. 
+But maybe the fact that the only marks I see on the bag could have come from 
+myself, and not where I got it from, is a part of the beauty.

blog/content/posts/PumaRSFastSuperMarioGalaxy.md

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+---
+title: "Puma RS-Fast Super Mario Galaxy"
+date: 2021-09-17T13:55:31-04:00
+categories: [shoes, puma]
+tags: [rs-fast, black, white]
+draft: false
+---
+
+![Puma RS-Fast Super Mario Galaxy [Black, White]](/images/pumarsfastsupermariogalaxystock.jpg)
+
+This may be hard to hear for anyone who grew up with the earlier iterations 
+of Super Mario Bros., but the Nintendo Wii outsold the original Nintendo 
+Entertainment System (NES) by over 60 million units, so it's not unthinkable 
+that today, more children have grown up playing the flagship Wii Mario game 
+than its NES predecessor.
+
+That being said, Galaxy undoubtably owes a lot of its evolution from previous 
+3D Mario entries (64, Sunshine) to the linearity of "traditional" 2D Mario 
+games. Nintendo transformed a game that was once focused on exploration just 
+as its developer was exploring what made playing in 3D fun that couldn't be 
+accomplished in 2D, into a much more tightly focused experience that guides 
+you through worlds in a variety of predefined routes that was honestly more 
+reminiscent of what Mario games used to be: a track of obstacles that could 
+be beautifully presented with absolute contextual relevence because the 
+developers knew exactly where the camera would always be.

blog/content/posts/ReebokClubC85Menthol.md

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+---
+title: "Reebok Club C 85 (Menthol)"
+date: 2021-09-16T18:12:35-04:00
+categories: [shoes, reebok]
+tags: [club c, white]
+draft: false
+---
+
+![Reebok Club C 85 [Chalk, Heritage Teal, Cool Shadow]](/images/reebokclubc85mentholstock.jpg)
+
+I bought these shoes because they reminded me of a menthol cigarette. That's 
+a bit of an oversimplification, so let me explain: back in 2006, following 
+the praise of BAPE's "bootleg" of the Air Force 1, the "Bapestas," fellow 
+sneakerhead Ari Saal Forman released a 252 pairs of the "Ari Menthol 10s" in 
+a sample run to a couple of smaller retailer in New York.
+
+The Ari Menthol 10s were a spin on the Air Force 1 that inverted the Nike 
+"Swoosh" Logo, making it more resemble the branding of Newport Cigarettes; 
+they were a criticism of "the two brands who have taken the most and given 
+the least": Nike and Newport, who've both in some capacity, exploited and 
+profitted from the Black American community. Neither Nike nor Newport were 
+happy about this product, so they sued Ari into oblivion.
+
+These are just a classic tennis shoe in a colourway that happens to resemble 
+a menthol cigarette, but they'll always remind me of that piece of "lore" I 
+mentioned earlier.