SeattleCasbah.Com

Move over, sliced bread!

Let me first say that I own pretty much any type of camping gear out there. I own two pairs of hiking boots, two headlamps, three tents, three day packs, and have drawers just dedicated towards clothes with the word "fleece" in them. I have a smart wool sock drawer. My dream is to one day build my own bat cave of gear where I can stand in the middle of it, equipping myself with items based on weather conditions and elevation, all the while basking in the awesomeness of it all.

The gear I haven't gotten yet is due to price - I'm waiting on Amazon to offer up the Spot Messenger for $50 again and snow shoes are just too expensive to buy when there's actually snow around (a rental for $12 however, is excellent).

So imagine my sheer surprise when my roommate dropped a pair of these babies in front of me, the North Face NSE Tent Mule Booties. While not completely under my radar (I had seen them on sale and skipped over them completely), I'm still shocked that something so perfect had yet to be added to my gear collection.

There's nothing better than taking off one's boots after a long day of hiking. However, it can be a bit cold and wet in the fall, when putting on Teva's or flip flops with wool socks can still be a chilly proposition. These guys are lighter than slippers and just as durable. I wore these for hours in the snow the other day and my feet were actually sweating. A band of elastic around the opening keeps the slipper snug so snow stays out of the foot. The soles are grippy and look like they can keep water out in case you step in any puddles (the top however, is not waterproof, just resistant).

Essentially sleeping bags for the feet, these are perfect for indoors, shoveling snow outside, or popping on after a long day on the trail. For $40, its the best addition to my gear collection in years. One final comparison - on Saturday at the Seahawks game, I wore smart wool socks and a new pair of water proof hiking boots. I didn't have to add hand warmers until half-time. Thursday night, I wore the booties playing snow football and my toes felt nary a chill. They are that impressive. I think I'll buy myself another pair.

Zappos vs. Amazon vs. JCrew.com

So what does one do after winning $180 from the local Indian casino? Go shopping, naturlich.

Shoes, again. I’m not addicted here, I now own 3 pair –it’s nothing like @Sdibble, the shoe anthropologist, who has them all boxed and tagged in plastic containers taking up half of her wall.

After discovering that the shoes were offered by both Zappos.com and Amazon.com at the same price, naturally Zappos was the way to go. Being a WA resident, Amazon charges tax. Shipping was free, but took 7 days. Zappos.com meanwhile, charged no tax and offered the same shipping deal, but I also knew from experience that they loved to throw in a shipping upgrade deal. Zappos: 1, Amazon: 0

Meanwhile, as I am like to do, I ordered another item off of JCrew.com, wondering how a catalogue-based retailer would fare against the Kentucky-based online retailer. Zappos continues to impress. My order was placed in the late afternoon. At 9pm that night, I got an email notifying me of a free upgrade to overnight mail. The very next day, my shoes were waiting for me at the house. Simply astounding.

JCrew on the other hand, charged tax with no free shipping: $15 for 5-7 day standard shipping, $22 for 3-5 day, and overnight was not even offered (“Express” had no definition of how long to expect - I wasn’t about to pay the extra $30 for it). Standard it is. It took 24 hours for the receipt and two days after the purchase, it still had not shipped the item (which in hindsight, I paid too much for). With the holiday and weekend approaching, I’m guessing I’ll be waiting two – three weeks.

JCrew, in an online retail environment, paying for shipping and a 2 week delivery time is unacceptable. You are a lumbering, dying dinosaur trying to compete with newer, nimble mammals. Zappos.com just keeps on evolving.

better than watching 'Heroes'

Just a little Xbox love to throw Bethesda's way. Fallout 3 is fantastic.

 

Last night I finished the “It’s Just Business” mission, requiring me to uh, “kidnap” 3 people by placing exploding collars around their neck. In my defense, when I first starting tracking these people, I was getting my butt handed to me. I needed credits and the salvage wasn’t doing me well. That’s one thing I love about this game – you try to play nice, but when you are constantly forced with picking up every scrap of metal for money and picking through an old corpse for food just to survive, the lines between right and wrong blur quickly. Your equipment wears out, forcing you to continually harvest money for repairs…it’s inevitable; to survive out there in the Wasteland, you have to do some bad things sometimes. 

So I was feeling pretty guilty – here my character is racking up all these accomplishments, getting his praises sung by the survivors, all the while secretly kidnapping people for money on the side (no one is perfect).

Still, I felt pretty bad about the whole thing and decided to redeem myself…which in my case involved me using my ill gotten wealth to turn into a one-man Delta Force and liberate all the folks who had been captured. Here’s what I love about the game #2 – it was hard. While attacking Paradise City isn’t a quest, the layout of the city is built for one thing – heavy resistance. There are very few cover points and a manned gun tower with a view of everything, not to mention tons of baddies walking around the joint. The whole thing is built to convey the idea that it would be a bad idea to attack this place. 

After 20 minutes of heavy, door to door fighting, I approached the captives victorious, ready to bask in their thanks. With a simple click of my screw driver, their exploding collars were deactivated, redeeming my crimes and sending them to freedom. Or so I thought.

A minute later, I stared down at the now-exploded head of my rescue (who again, I kidnapped in the first place) and realized that this was a fantastic game.

And that is how I spent my Monday night.

Zappos vs. Macys.com

As part of my morning fitness routine, I realized I was in dire need of 1) shorts and 2) shoes. Checking prices, I found that Macy's had a sale on my shorts and Zappos.com had great deals on shoes. The same shorts were offered by Zappos, but not at the sale prices. So I put in my order, interested to see how the beleaguered brick and mortar department store would do against a pure "virtual" store. I made both purchases last Thursday.

No surprise, Zappos wins hands down. Within hours of ordering my shoes, I received an email notifying me that they were upgrading my free UPS standard shipping to free overnight shipping. No sales tax was added. Shoes were waiting for me at home the following day. Not only that, but they were already laced. I was astounded.

Macy's charged me $10 for shipping 2 shorts via UPS standard. I paid for shipping. I paid for sales tax (sale prices were still cheaper with the shipping charges and sales tax added in). I received an email 3 days later saying my items have shipped. UPS promises delivery by Monday - a week and a half after I placed the order.

The kicker of it all is that Macy's shipped my items from Illinois (far). Zappos? From Kentucky (farther). I have a nagging feeling that if I were to have contacted Zappos about the Macy's price, they would have matched it.

It'll be interesting to see how Zappos does this season as they have added a full range of merchandise, from clothes to electronic gadgets. As Customer Service has been their #1 mantra from inception, whereas Amazon's has been "frugality", it'll be interesting to watch. I love Amazon's ease of use and wish-lists...I think from now on, if something I want at Amazon is available at Zappos, I'm going Zappos (and you should too)!