Do me a favour: don’t be That Woman. Lululemon is fine (sure, everyone has been wearing it for the last five years, but Chip is awesome and besides, his clothes are actually quite attractive and good quality. But Crocs? Nevah.

Sorry, three weeks in Boondocksville have got me a little punchy. The fashion columnist here was complaining that when she goes to the Big City (I think she means Kamloops) people mistake her for a member of the Pussycat Dolls. Not. A. Good. Look.

Pussycat, Pussycat, would you put on some damn clothes?

Sorry, but this one is for girls only.

You know, I have long been of the opinion that it’s easy to find good quality, expensive items.  Usually if you have one, you have the other.  But it takes lots of dedication to find good quality, relatively inexpensive items.  And my friends, I am one dedicated person.

I discovered these very adorable sandals on Zappos, and even better, they are under thirty dollars!  They have been given rave reviews, and I’m here to share the wealth.

Ragg Kids – Peaches

Ragg Kids – Rainbow

What’s happenin’, dudes and dudettes? We’ve got a dy-no-mite winner of our groovy Friday Caption Contest, and that’s no jive.

Frontier Former Editor Says:
June 28th, 2009 at 8:50 am

The founding meeting of Celebrity Families With Children Having Gender Identity Issues . . .

Congratulations and imaginary swag to Frontier Former Editor. And now, for the presentation of some suitably swinging swag. Give a feverish welcome to the groovaliciousPUMA Cell Meio in oh-so-fashionable orange.

Behold the “Vibram Five Fingers,” a shoe that is to ninja feet what the abominable Croc is to honest, old-fashioned Dutch boy footwear, what the Hummer is to men who have impressive or even just adequate reproductive tackle: in other words, what we have here is yet another example of a voracious consumer class taking a good thing (like bare feet) and spoiling it for the rest of us. Which is, face it, what the middle class seems to spend most of its time doing.

Digression: have you noticed that, no matter who they are, people in the Europe and North America invariably both claim to be middle class (“Oh, we’re just plain Windsors now”) and hate the middle class? It’s true. Self-hatred or branding exercise? But I digress…

We were discussing the world’s ugliest footwear; at this point, the fug is Adult-Only, and we can only pray these things go the way of the (also fugly, but the poor things couldn’t help it) dodo before they come out with a children’s line.

They have a “Classic Edition” as if giving this thing a respectable name could somehow make up for the eye-searing loathesomeness. And they have an even more hideous version which I shall not show you, for those who think their feet just don’t look enough like those of an alien who is wading in a Norwegian Fjord while getting a pedicure from a drunk Cher impersonator.

Not that I’m opinionated about these things.

Because life would simply not be complete without a sneaker that features Linus in the pumpkin patch, right?

New Balance is teaming with the Peanuts gang for a series of shoes to be released this October, natch.

I have to say I’m dubious about the success of this line. The current generation of children does not view the Peanuts as any sort of cultural touchstone like those of us who grew up in the 70′s and 80′s. Who amongst us doesn’t remember the special privilege of getting to stay up late to watch all of the Peanuts “television events,” with that cool multi-colored, spiralling “SPECIAL” that would twirl it’s way around your screen? And the very important-sounding music that accompanied it?

Sadly, I don’t think kids such as my son will even be slightly interested in wearing these shoes, and they will only be made in children’s sizes.

I think New Balance is missing their main market, hipsters and nostalgic Gen X’ers.

We’ve got a winner for our caption contest of last Friday. Yes, the shoe designer really made an ass out of himself with these, but we’ve gotten out our shovel and burro’d deep to get a caption that can carry its weight. It’s been donkey’s years since I had this much fun.

All things considered, I’m still surprised Jennie didn’t win.

gemdiva Says:
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:44 pm

In Shrek 4, Donkey gets booted.

There can be only one prize here: the
Cole Haan – Air Reina riding boot in gorgeous black patent.

Um, wow. I don’t know any kids with a particular thing about donkeys. I mean, they’re not like dinosaurs or horses or robots or other cool things like that. But I suppose if you do happen to have a kid whose every item of clothing must be adorned with donkey ears, these woolenstocks Little Kid/Big Kid Donkey Woogo Slipper Boots would be just the thing to solve the tricksy footwear question.

Captions? Excuses? Donkey stories (keep them clean, please; we are a family blog, yo).

Today’s shoes are brought to you by Wham-O!  Yes, the same company that brought you hula hoops and frisbees now brings you the newest in shoe technology based on the Super Ball.

Yes, you read that right.

It seems that Stride Rite, not being content to let Nike and New Balance get the lion’s share of air-cushioning/levitating fame, is now featuring kid’s shoes with Super Balls in the heels.  Well, of course not really the actual balls, but the synthetic material dubbed Zectron by the inventor that was used in their making.

Original Super Balls from 1965-66 were able to be dropped from a building and would bounce almost all the way back up.   If thrown down, it would exceed the height of the building on the way back up.  I find that both awesome and scary.  Sadly, there are hardly any Super Balls left in the world, although there are many imitators.

But now, your kids can have that very same material on their feet! Imagine the damage they could do on the basketball court!

Do you think it’s just a bunch of hype, or might there be something to this Zectron stuff after all?

Stride Rite – SuperBall Zoom

Stride Rite – Superball Quick Close (Toddler/Youth)