Do I really have to do everything myself??

I want one: http://store.azfn.com/kingcoat.html
But they don't seem to ship out of the US.

Actually, I'd want a hoodie, with an asymmetric cut, I have the design right here in my head. Can't find it anywhere. Can't find anything approaching anywhere.

Each time I want to dress creatively, I get the same problem. The clothes I'd like don't exist for us males. They're either completely bland or printed with some commercial-cum-rebellious-cum philosophical message, in diagonal, on the shoulder or some other stupid attribute that makes me cringe.

So, for my current obsession, which would serve as a sweater.
Do's:

• basic cloth, or cloth with a technical purpose
  
• colours in the discreet (bland?) range, greys, blacks, natural tones, some oranges, most pastels....
  
• inventive, clean cut <-- that's where the uniqueness should be. asymmetry, peacot style, hoodie, different materials or separate cloth pieces with different fiber orientations, well-placed seams along tension lines...
  

Dont's:

• shiny and most patterned cloth
  
• no fancy trick like prints, "inside out" seams, tags on the outside or passants on the shoulders
• white, primary colours, turquoise, most yellows, greens, all purple and any bright colour that's currently in.
  
• no pockets, they're going to get deformed and they're not going to be big enough anyway.

Yes, I'm a difficult customer. I'm a male who wants to look different from the mass and different from those who want to look different, and my difference shall be "with a purpose".

I'm asking for a sewing machine for Christmas.

In the mood. Movies, Music

Movies, too.
I've seen way more movies than I've read books. it takes less time. Most aren't worthy of anything (Hellboy 2, Tropic Thunder, anyone?).
But some are quite interesting. I kinda liked Quantum of Solace, though it's a bit too close to the Bourne franchise.
Mesrine, a two-films series about the infamous french public enemy. The first movie showed a multi-faceted personality, staying safely away from the prejudices and the romance. Mesrine appears like an extremely violent, ruthless, instinctive man who's at the same time seductive, brilliant, protective. The second film hits the screens next week.

Another one I enjoyed? Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Actually, that's the event that pushed me into posting tonight. God I loved it.
It felt like the visual parallel to some of the books I read. Somewhere close to Bonjour Tristesse and with a twisted link to Le Coup de Grace. In colours and in music. With Scarlet Johansson, Penelope cruz and Javier Bardem.
After Scoop, which felt odd, I'm now reconciled with Woody Allen, I think. Although there are two or three scenes that felt unnatural, but maybe that's intentional. Scoop felt that way the whole time, I don't know for sure.
Yes, I loved it, and I'm probably going to watch it again very soon. Any volunteers to accompany me?

So I left the theater in a wistful mood (hence the title of the previous post, and by derivation, this one). Put my music player on with the super insulating earphones and hunted for some appropriate music. Classical, simple, rhythmic.

(Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, right now) The best I could find was the Bolero. Not spot on for the first minute, but I'm weak to classical music. I just absorb it and wrap myself in it like a soft blanket that has the smell of childhood. Well, I was brought up in the refinements of Telemann (one of his menuet is playing now), Mozart, Haendel and Bach. It's a nice change from Metal, Gothic Metal and Rock.

In the end, I'm just happy to be who I am.

Je suis bien dans ma peau, elle est juste à ma taille.

In the mood. Work, Books

Not gonna talk about work, not gonna...
Ok, a little.
The office was officially closed today, officiously open for those who didn't have anything better to do. So I went. I had better to do, but heck, one work day with no colleagues, no phone calls, no mail, no interruption. Too precious to lose. I'll cancel my RTT on Wednesday so I can take it another time.
I ain't workin for free. 7:45AM to 6:50PM, good day, productive, calm. Enjoyable.
And no "I'm-not-a-retard-because-I-have-an-engineering-degree-but-I-sure-look-like-a-slow-guy" colleague 'm supposed to train. Sweet!

I've spent the last months reading, having two books in my bag, either because I forgot to remove the one I just finished or because I already had chosen the next one and kept it ready in case I finished the current one during the bus ride.
In no specific order:
Brisingr by Christopher Paolini,
World Without End by Ken Follet
Galactic Pot-Healer by Philip K Dick
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
La Joueuse d'Echecs de Bertina Henrichs
La Petite Fille de Monsieur Linh de Philippe Claudel
Riverdream by George R.R. Martin
The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill
Ever Since Darwin by S. J. Gould
Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
La Fin des Temps par Barjavel
labyrinth by Kate Mosse
Le Coup de Grace par Marguerite Yourcenar

I'm currently in Ulysse From Bagdad by Eric Emmanuel Schmitt. It moves me, like many of the previous ones did.
I've started and erased half a dozen sentences already. It's quite hard to comment on this book. A work of fiction. the story of a young bright man named Saad Saad, in Iraq, during the current conflict. Fiction, right. His family decimated by suicide bombers, scared foreign soldiers, more bombs, sickness. The only fiction here is the names and the specific sequence of events, but it feels too close to home to feel like fiction. As those many previous ones I've recently finished, I'll not be quite the same after this one. Still me, not different, but not quite the same.
And I've got probably ten more books lying around when I'm done. All the way from a pair of kids books (even an illustrated story for a future three-year-old child) to more science-fiction, Victor Hugo, Descartes and a possible treasure in the form of an erotic novel by a syrian poetess. How exquisite.

I've always loved to read, and spending more than one hour every day waiting for or riding a bus has given me plenty of time to return to this favourite pasttime of mine.