Author: Daniel

Sysadmin turned bearpuncher. Whereabouts unknown.
Fragrance
May 27, 2008

Tommy Bahama Set Sail St. Barts – Laid Back

One of the bigger enablers for a perfume enthusiast is the semi-ghetto establishment known as TJ Maxx.  Unfortunately for me (and my wallet), for the past year I’ve worked next door to one.  Normally it’s a bunch of crap inside, Colors, Wings, Adidas Rehash 7,652.  The usual bargain bin stuff.  But ours gets some more exotic stuff in every now and then, from YSL to Thierry Mugler to some of the more popular Kenneth Cole products (always for women sadly, I’m snapping up the first KC Reaction for Men I see there).

So I wasn’t terribly surprised when they received about six 100mL bottles of Tommy Bahama Set Sail St. Barts (hereafter abbreviated to SSSB).  Having no idea what to expect I whip out the iPhone and get on Basenotes to research it a bit, and I find top notes of citrus, tequila and lime, a midsection of guava nectar and more tequila, and a base of crushed greens, “salty sea spray” accord, palm wood, and musk.  Tequila gets mentioned twice?  I immediately recall my limited experience with Le Boise, a rather obscure perfume from the Ginestet winery of Bordeaux, France.  It was pretty much wine, and at $110 for a 100mL bottle I could pretty much splash cheap wine on my body and get much the same olfactory response (though quite messier).  It was so bad my dad told me “You smell like an alcoholic,” which I am not and thus don’t want to wear it as that would incorrectly portray me. :P

One of the “party fouls” of TJ Maxx is opening up a box and spraying some on you, but I was damned sure not going to buy it blind, even semi-blind.  So I spray a little bit on and go on my way back to work.  … (More) “Tommy Bahama Set Sail St. Barts – Laid Back”

Politics
May 26, 2008

Unapologetic

Nothing says “I’m a hopeless incompetent that can’t see past my own nose” quite like cutting education to balance a budget. Thus dumb kids, through no fault of their own, grow up to be politicians who, in a flash of dazzling idiocy, also cut education so they can balance the budget.

Actually it’s probably already happened a couple of times. Does a great deal to explain the state we’re in, and precious little to modulate my rage.… (More) “Unapologetic”

General
May 26, 2008

Ambient

Consider this:
92% of the world’s population
feel that their lives could be better.
what about you?
If you could do anything,
anything at all,
what would you do?
What are you doing now?

Imagine that
you could live your life,
knowing that it could not be better,
and never feeling that you would rather
be doing something else,
be somewhere else,
or be someone else.

Now consider this:
some people actually live that way
and so could you.

Contemplate this:
What if 90% of the problems you encountered in your life
were mere illusions and only existed in your mind?
In your everyday life
whenever something annoys you,
stresses you, makes you mad, or makes you sad,
consider if that something really matters.

Will you even remember
how you felt in one day, one week, one month, one year,
or what about in ten years?
So when the people you work for pressure you, and fail to understand you, does it really matter?
And when they call you on the phone,
screaming and yelling,
does it matter and should you really allow that to influence your life?
It’s all about choices.… (More) “Ambient”

Fragrance Nerd Stuff
May 25, 2008

Clinique Happy – Perfume For Ninjas

Happy was one of the initial three fragrances that started me on this journey (along with Unforgivable and Armani Code). Happy and Code were on the Amazon Top 20 in men’s fragrance and me, not knowing where else to start, took that list and started hitting up stores and crossing fragrances off the list.

My thought process at the time was that Happy was unlike anything else I’d tested; that is, it was much more subtle. The orange juice gives you a clue of what to expect inside, and I’ve written previously on Basenotes that it captures the image of a ripe orange better than an actual orange does, and this is coming from a Miami native. The name makes me laugh, because it was the first time I came to the realization that I may be a homo. Happy For Men? Really? I’m not all that happy for men.

Iga Province, 1596. Fuma Kotaro dozed in the aft end of the ship. His goal was clear; he would kill the greatest ninja that ever lived. He felt the man’s presence before hearing him and awoke instantly, his hand reaching for his nihonto. It was one of his subordinates.

“We have fifteen minutes.”

Kotaro nodded his assent and started searching through his bag, making preparations.

According to Basenotes, Happy features top notes of Kaffir Lime, Kalamanzi Fruit, Mandarin, and Yuzu, with assorted green notes in the middle, set on a base of Cypress, Cedar, and Guiacwood. However, the composition is a little too tight to pinpoint any note in particular. In a word, happy is light. The base isn’t particularly prominent, and so the whole thing has a sort of ethereal quality.

Kotaro and his band of ninja pore over the map, quietly discussing the plan for the evening. Assignments … (More) “Clinique Happy – Perfume For Ninjas”

Fragrance
May 25, 2008

YSL Kouros – Handle With Care

In the fragrance world few scents are as hotly debated as Yves Saint Laurent’s 1981 classic, Kouros. On Basenotes it’s more or less a constant stream of asinine chatter. People repeat what they’ve heard, or take a mindset going in to smelling a cologne before actually trying it. For Kouros, the buzzword is “urinal cakes”. Whoever was…clever enough to come up with this association has skewed a lot of people’s opinions.

See, I look at the list of notes and I don’t see urinal cake anywhere. Eucalyptus, laurel, bergamot, artemisia, castoreum, clove, carnation, cinnamon, geranium, jasmine, incense, patchouli, amber, civet, oakmoss, vetiver, leather, and musk. Hmm, didn’t see urinal cake anywhere. What I suspect is going on is people are getting the eucalyptus note, and one of the animalic notes (castoreum from beavers, civet from the cat of the same name), and it’s combining to trigger that scent memory of urinal cakes. To stop there is to miss one of the greater “powerhouse” fragrances you’ll ever find, though.

It’s somewhere between clean and dirty, classy yet extremely sexual. Acclaimed NYT fragrance writer Chandler Burr and I don’t agree on much, and Kouros is no exception. He calls it “is as wearable in the 21st century as 19th-century spats,” which is fine considering he was putting it up against Musc Ravageur and Rose Poivree, scents that are three to four times more expensive. I’m not sure what Mr. Burr is expecting out of it, if you’re wearing it during high noon in an August heat wave it will rise up and kill you. The circumstances to wear a fragrance are as important as the juice itself, and this screams evening wear, for low to moderate temperatures.

What we’re coming to, with the 80s powerhouses like Drakkar Noir and Azzaro Pour … (More) “YSL Kouros – Handle With Care”

Life
May 24, 2008

Coming Clean

With six days to the move I find myself awake, after three hours of what would be best described as a full body shutdown.  The stress, the frantic running around, the bureaucratic shuffle with UofL, it all caught up with me today, during my last day of work at the Office Depot in Paducah.  I spent most of my day in a daze, wandering, thinking, feeling and shutting off conscious thought, to the point of stopping mid-sentence with customers a few times.

A week ago, I was thinking.  It was a driving, frenzied sort of train of thought that left sleep totally out of the equation.  So at 4 in the morning, I pour myself some coffee and sit down with the dogs, thinking about the future.

The conscious act of deciding what to do for the next 20 to 30 years is massive.  To ponder that act is itself even more terrifying.

Computer Engineering and Computer Science.  That’s what it says on my transcript.  A field I couldn’t honestly tell you why I selected.  Actually that’s a lie, I know exactly why:  Money.  Prestige, comfort, security.  Materialism.  While I consider myself something of an expert with these machines I have no aspiration to shepherd a farm of servers for the rest of my life.  Nor do I, if I am honest with myself, want to be a database administrator.  I picked Oracle because it was the richest database to master.  Though some of you wouldn’t expect it of me, my favorite thing to do with these things is design things.  Not even cool stuff like models, but flyers and advertisements and stuff.  Graphic Design is even a little too binding a term because I’m not much of an artist, but the act (the art?) of laying out an ad … (More) “Coming Clean”

Life
May 23, 2008

My New Place

Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing you’ve seen in your life? Maybe not, but considering it’s me? Thought so. Here’s a little history lesson for you, the Bernheim Mansion (above, obv.)

This fine example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture was built in 1893 and contains over 8,000 square feet of exotic woods and interesting woodwork. This home is built of stone and its main exterior feature is a stunning triple archway entry. The interior centers around a curved stairwell crowned with stained glass windows.

Early owners were Mr. W.W. Hite (1893) of the Louisville and Evansville Mail Company. By 1899, the house passed to Bernard Bernheim of the Bernheim Distilling Company, whose many charities include the Louisville Park System and the Jefferson Memorial Statue.

So I live in an 8,000 sq. ft. crib. Sweet deal. Of course the whole place isn’t mine, I’m actually living in what was the kitchen (the fact that the kitchen is large enough to comfortably live in speaks volumes). Hardwood in the bedroom, the living room and kitchen have the original 1893-era tile, bathroom’s completely remodeled. I get the feeling this will be the nicest place I will live in for the foreseeable future.… (More) “My New Place”