A Glimpse Inside My Personal Matrix

Today, an event occurred that I just had to share. This post could also be titled “Why I don’t like talking to people.”

Last night, I was playing Second Life. I was just hanging around with my best bud Leila at a sandbox. (A sandbox is a public area used for building).

Now usually if I’m trying to build something, I’ll set up my private skybox to be left alone. You may wonder why I’m so anti-social in the sandbox, but the rest of the story will explain this.

If you can’t be bothered reading on, the answer can be summed up in one word:

Idiots.

So, I’m talking to Leila, and in strides Mr. Fuckwit.

Now, the social “rules” for Second Life are the same for real life. If you see two people together talking, you don’t just stride up and start talking. I mean, you might…but you’d walk up, introduce yourself and join the conversation…not just blurt out the first stupid shit that comes into your head.

This guy was a noob. Not a newb, a noob. There is a difference. A Newb is a new player who is trying to learn the game. A noob is a new player who thinks they know everything, will argue that black is white, and generally act like an asshole.

So he walks up and pulls out, of all things, a trampoline. At least I think that’s what it was meant to be. It was a black circle surrounded by a blue one. Forget the fact he just dropped an object directly on something I was building, the dumb bastard started jumping up and down on it, and tried to make me buy one from him.

Trying to be nice, I just say “No thank you.” To which he continually asks me why I don’t want to part with my hard earned lindens for quite possibly the worst thing I’ve ever seen.

Upping the ante, he pulls out this little marvel:

PLEASE click for a better view...you must see the suckiness!

He said it was a sleigh. What I saw (and what you probably see) is a hollowed out cube filled with different colored primitives).

You see, to build in Second Life, you use “primitives” IE, basic shapes, cubes, spheres and so on. In the hands of a talented builder, they can make simply stunning and detailed objects. In this guy’s hands, you get a hollowed out cube. He starts trying to sell me this prim abortion as well.

Finally, Leila and I snap at the same time. Leila just asks him bluntly why we’d buy something from him we can make ourselves in 2 minutes. (I make a lot of objects for clothes, like flexible skirts, and Leila is herself a very talented builder).

Then, this 4 day old idiot starts telling us we don’t know what we’re talking about, and that we can’t possibly match his building skill.

Actual conversation:

Fuckwit : “Let’s see you try, if it’s so simple, you do it.”

Me : “Dude, I don’t have time for this. Look, I made 4000L this week from the stuff I made, how about you?”

Fuckwit : “I made 20,000 this week.”

Me : “Whatever, dude, can you go away now please?”

Blah, blah, blah.

Me : “Look, your whole sleigh is only made of about 6 prims, even a decent pair of shoes should have at least 20.”

Fuckwit : “You need 20 prims to make a pair of shoes? You mustn’t be a very good builder!”

Two things here. One, I’m making his dialogue actually readable. Two, apparently, more detail is bad in his eyes.

(Just in case you haven’t grasped the situation yet, in Second Life, I’m a successful builder. People actually part with their money to buy my ‘creations’. Leila is the same. This guy had only been playing for 4 days, and was still on his way to mastering the basics. He’s basically the guy from school who would talk out of his ass and argue with the teacher. I’m in no way a master builder, but against this guy, Leila and I might as well be frigging DaVinci)

Then he says “Well, let’s see you make reindeer as good as mine then!”

Big mistake.

Leila, stepping up to the challenge, starts to make a copy of his reindeer. Something she does in a couple minutes, and does a much better effort. I was considering just muting the idiot and going back to what I was doing…but as Leila was busy, and I had no-one there to talk to, I started to build a sleigh.

Of course, fuckwit decided to heckle. There was no way I’d ever be able to match his building mastery.

As the ten minute build progressed, fuckwit began to get nervous. It became obvious that there was no way he could look at my effort and still proclaim to be a better builder than me. So he resorted to making fun of my shoes. (Which was odd, because I didn’t make them, and his shoes where newbie shoes…in other words, just his feet painted black.)

Finally, I stood back, and said:

“There, that’s a ten minute build. I wouldn’t even THINK of trying to sell it. If I wanted to, I’d spend a couple hours, put in ten times the detail and script it to actually fly. Now do you see why I don’t want to buy your from you?”

Here was my effort:

At which point, he called me a cunt and left.

A Geek Horror Story

Yesterday I decided to give the ole computer a bit of a spring clean. (Yes, I’m aware it’s November, I’m a procrastinator, what can I say?)

So I open the case, to find a potentially mineable seam of compacted dust.

This is when things started to go wrong.

I removed the processor fan with no problems and unclipped the heatsink. I tried to lift the heatsink out, and it wouldn’t move. I checked I’d unclipped it properly, and tried again.

This time it came free with a little pressure.

Then I noticed something very, very disturbing.

There was no processor in the socket.

With a sense of growing dread, I looked on the underside of the heatsink. There, almost glued into place with far too much thermal paste, was my processor.

To the non techies-out there, let me explain why this is a problem.

The underside of a processor is made up of hundreds of tiny little pins. These things are Delicate, with a capital D. In fact, they’re so delicate, installing or removing a processor is done with a “zero pressure’ system. The processor is dropped into place, then locked with the use of a tiny little handle.

Guess what I’d just done?

Yep, just yanked out a processor that had been locked into place.

With an even greater sense of growing dread, I examined the underside of the processor.

No fewer than six of the pins were bent.

Know how if you bend a paperclip backwards and forwards a few times it snaps? Ok, now imagine that paperclip is about 0.010mm thick, about 2mm long and is made of gold, one of the softest metals on the planet.

Yep, I hate to bend 6 of them back into place, while trying not to bend any of the other VERY close set pins out of shape.

…and if one of them snapped, it would turn my processor into a $400 plastic and silicon novelty ornament, and my computer into a great big $1100 paperweight.

Oh, and without SL, Sunny would go through withdrawals and probably kill me.

So I spent about an hour moving pins the slightest amount I could, then test fitting it.

Luckily, I finally managed to fix it.

Next time, my computer can get as dirty as it likes. I’m not opening that case unless it’s absolutely necessary.

"The Lost Post" or "MS Word Sucks Big Fat Donkey Balls"

Here I sit, broken hearted,
Tried to blog and got it started,
Halfway through the comp got stuck.
So with a loud voice, I shouted “FUCK!”

Breathing slow, to find my center
tried not to get mad while pressing ‘enter’
My post was gone, not sign of it,
So with a loud voice, I shouted: “SHIT!”

The post is gone, not coming back
I wanna hit the comp with bricks in a sack
I start to realize what I want to do
Give Bill Gates the finger, and a big “FUCK YOU!”

Urgent Press Release

In a shocking press release today, an industry insider leaked out what many computer users have know to be true for a long time.

The existence of the fabled (and long denied) ‘FU Chip’ that resides in all consumer grade printers.

“Well, me and the boys, after completely screwing the printer consuming public on ridiculously over-priced ink, decided to try another way to stick it to our customers.” Said Reginald P. Sackslapper, a Lexmark employee. “We came up with the FU chip as a joke, but it very quickly became a standard component.

So what does the FU chip do?

Using highly advanced technology, satellites and computer monkeys, the chip monitors the output of the printer and adjusts performance accordingly.

“So, if the user is printing a joke from the internet, a digital photograph of a particularly impressive poo or something inconsequential, the printer will work fabulously.” Said Sackslapper. “However, if it detects that something in the printer queue is important, especially if it is time sensitive, or urgent, it will completely crap out…or as well like to say in printer-lingo…’throw a major fucking wobbly, chuck its toys out of the pram and come into your house on Christmas Morning and piss on your kids’.”

So, as an example of this technology if, say, an immigrant to America from England decides to waste paper and printer ink by printing his SL store’s logo just because he thinks it’s pretty cool looking, he will encounter no problems whatsoever.

On the other hand, if he has an interview at a staffing agency at 9:30, and tries to print out his resume at 7am, the printer will completely fail to respond and won’t work until he’s uninstalled all the drivers, re-installed them and disconnected and connected the printer multiple times.

When our reporter asked Mr. Sackslapper why the printer industry enjoys inconveniencing their customers so much, he gave the following statement:

“Why? Why? Fuck ‘em! That’s why!”

(At the time of writing, printer ink is one of the most expensive liquids in the world. If ink was gasoline, it would cost $175,000 to fill your tank.)

Fishy Fishy

So, this week, Sunny and I went grocery shopping…as is our custom, when we’re hungry and there’s no food in the house.

“You know what I really feel like?” I said.

“What’s that?” Asked Sunny.

“Some fish. We haven’t had fish in ages.”

“Fish? You want fish?” She asked, incredulously.

This is a phenomenon I’ll never understand. You see, despite the fact that there’s pretty much no type of fish I don’t like, everyone lives under the mistaken belief that not only do I not like fish…but I detest it with the Fury of the Gods, the Wrath of Kings and the Burning Intensity of a Thousand Suns.

When I lived in England, I’d ask my dear mother for fish when she asked what the wanted for dinner…then we’d get into a 15 minute argument whether I like fish or not.

I like fish. I could walk up to my mother and Sunny and say in a clear loud voice:

“I Like Fish!”

Then, mere minutes later, if I so much as mentioned fish, both would insist I don’t like fish, have never liked fish, and will never in a million years eat fish.

So, after the argument…we bought some fish.

Then, today, Sunny is getting ready to take something out of the freezer for dinner.

“EEEEEWWW! EEEEW, EW, EWWWWW!” I hear from the kitchen.

Expecting a mouse, or for something to have rotted in the freezer, I investigate.

Sunny is pointing at the box of fish we bought, like is was a maggot infested rat carcass.

“What is it?” I ask.

“It’s FISH!” She says, startled.

“Well, I know it’s fish.” I say. “It says so right on the box.”

“No, but it’s fish fish.”

“Fish fish?” I ask, puzzled.

Eventually it turned out that sunny was stunned, shocked and amazed that the fish we bought actually had scales. It was basically a box of fish that had been cleaned, but otherwise left intact.

It seems my wife doesn’t understand that fish doesn’t come out of the ocean filleted, battered and deep fried.

I don’t know whether to tell her that those things we catch out of the pond with the fishing poles are actual fish…might put her off eating them for life.

I Hear ALL!!!

This story, I just have to relay because it cracked me up. Chances are it’s one of those “You had to be there” stories, but who cares? This is my blog, and I can write what I want!

First, the back story.

The vendor in my SL store has a report function. In other words, if I’m online, the second someone buys something I get a notification of who bought what, how much they paid and which location they bought it from.

Now being the simply fantastic guy I am, I often check my sales list and either completely refund money that came from friends, or at least return half of it. (It’s not a strict policy, it depends on if I’m online or not, or can be bothered trawling through my sales reports).

Well, Misty is often online at the same time I am, so I usually get notification when she’s bought something right away. So from her point of view, she buys an item and then suddenly finds I pay her either the whole amount or half back.

This is where things get interesting.

For Misty, this had led to the belief that I am somehow omnipresent, at least within the confines of my store. The rumor has spread that nothing can happen in my stores without me being instantly aware of it.

How does he know what I’ve bought? How can he pay back the money so fast? How does he know?

Now while it’s true that SL is home to some extremely nasty and simply devious listening devices, it’s also they’re against the SL Terms of Service. If you record someone’s conversation without their knowledge, it’s a bannable offense.

In other words, while I’d love to eavesdrop and listen to what people are saying about my outfits…I don’t want to get banned from SL to do it.

So let me put that rumor to rest right now. If you’re in my store, I only know if you buy something. Nothing else.

Now for the actual story:

So yesterday morning, I log in early because I had some maintenance to do. Within seconds, I get an IM from Bridget…

Let me describe Bridget. You may know her as “Enigma” from her blog. She’s one of those funny, irreverent people, but I wouldn’t actually describe her as ‘silly’.

So I was surprised when I got her IM.

(This isn’t verbatim, but as close as I can remember)

Bridget : ROFL, Did you just log in for any particular reason?

Paulius : Huh? I’m just on for a few minutes, need to update my server.

Bridget : Oh, ok *giggle*

Sunny was sitting next to me, and said what I was thinking. “What’s going on with Bridget?” Why was my simple act of logging in funny?…and did she just giggle?

Paulius : Have you been drinking?

An obvious question I thought.

Bridget : LOL, no. (more giggles, rofl’s and lmao’s)

Apparently, she’d bought into the omnipresence theory. She finally cut and pasted what she’d said upon entering my store

Bridget : Kicks the big grey vendor thing because it won’t load fast enough.

Bridget : “Sigh, guess I’ll come back later”

Bridget : Looks around

Bridget : Picks her underwear out of her ass, and looks around again.

Bridget : “Did ya see that, Paulius? Did ya see that, huh?!?!”

Apparently, I logged in mere moments later.

Well, I thought it was funny. It was a slow news day.

On the upside, an SL typo led me to accidentally coin the word “Buttloaf”, which is my new favorite insult word ever. As in:

“Shut it, Buttloaf.”

The Man in A Salon Effect

Well, if you’ve read my last post, you’ll know that I escaped the “pith” or “nightmare” of old ladies, depending on your definition…and I promised to tell you what happened next.

Well, Sunny decided that she needed her eyebrows waxed. (That’s something I’ll never understand, my wife will gladly pay to have hot wax poured on her face and her eyebrows pulled out by the root…but actually faints at the mere sight of a needle).

So, being a good husband, I rode to the salon with her, instead of having her drop me off at home.

Now I felt what all men feel when stepping into the estrogen ocean that is a beauty salon…fear. It’s like being Jewish and suddenly finding yourself at Nazi party headquarters during WW2. You know you just…don’t…belong.

So we walked in, me in my patented Ninja Stance for when the Salon Denizens attempt to tear gas me and sacrifice me to the Revlon God.

“Hello!” Said one of the hairdressers (pardon me…stylists) and suddenly started talking to Sunny about things that I have no idea how she knew about. (They sneak into my house at night and take notes…I know it….The almighty Revlon gets hungry).

I also got a cursory smile and a “hello”.

You see, at this point, I was a ‘Female Accompanied Male’, not unheard of in the Salon Cult, although frowned upon by all concerned.

Then, Sunny went into the back room with one of her ‘stylists’ (pardon me, Paid Torturer).

A strange thing happened. I took a seat near the front, and another stylist walked in, and looked right through me. She didn’t even acknowledge my presence.

A second stylist walked past without a second (or even a first) glance in my direction.

It was odd. Usually people in the South are very friendly. I didn’t even get acknowledged.

Then, two more customers walked in…and I realized what was going on.

You see, I was sitting near the door. The first customer walked in, glanced at me, and there was a moment of shock in her eyes…before they glazed over and sort of ‘slid’ away.

What we had here was a case of forced perceptual cropping.

I was an Unattended Male™ in a Beauty Salon.

It was said that when Captain Cook’s ship anchored off the coast of Australia, the Aborigines couldn’t actually see it. His ship simply didn’t exist in their view of the world. They couldn’t comprehend that such a thing could exist…so to them, it didn’t.

(For completeness, apparently a local medicine man noticed that the waves where breaking differently as they hit the boat. He stared for a day until he finally saw the ship. When he announced its presence to the rest of his people, they could finally see it).

I was experiencing the same thing. An Unattended Male™ in a Beauty Salon simply can’t happen…so the customers and staff couldn’t actually see me.

At the front of the Salon they had all kinds of crap for sale, including 8-ball keychains. I took two off them and held them up to my ears like earrings.

Not a single comment.

I coughed loudly and suddenly, and no one looked up.

I was invisible.

I considered dancing a jig around the room, or covering my entire head with styling mousse. For a brief moment I considered making myself a fort out of the waiting room chairs, fashioning a crude bow from hairclips and scrunchies, and declaring war on the old lady getting a perm in chair three.

Unfortunately, just as I was finishing up my head-dress (feathers made from trashy romance novels and wig catalogues), Sunny made her entrance, the skin around her eyebrows so red, she looked like she was wearing war-paint.

The spell was broken. I was again a “Female Accompanied Male™’, and therefore plainly visible to the rest of the Salon denizens. I hastily dropped the plastic head I’d just scalped, and said:

“Ready to go, sweetie?”

(Warning, the above story may contain some slight exaggerations…you have been warned).

Bad luck, Incompetent Staff and Turmpet Guarding Old Ladies

So this morning, I went out searching for jobs.

I think the term “Absolute unstoppable cluster-fuck” would describe the experience.

The first place I visited was another temp agency, Sunny drove me WAY across town to find it, and I walked in, smile on my face and resume under my arm.

I walked up to the desk…

“Hi!” I said cheerily. “I’d like to put in an application, do you take applications for general office and clerical positions?”

“No.” Said the receptionist. Shit, I thought. “We offer temp services for three industries. Janitorial…”

Wait right there. I need a job, but I’m not that desperate just yet. I’ve got a degree for fuck’s sake…I don’t want to end up mopping the floors in a school where I’m more highly qualified than most of the teachers.

“…security…”

Not something I want to do. Minimum wage with a possibility of getting my ass kicked or shot off.

“…or light industrial.”

A possibility.

“So what’s light industrial?” I asked.

“Production line kind of work, but we’ll only consider you for that if you have at least 6 months recent experience in a similar field.”

“And security?”

“Well, that’s open to anyone as long as you’re an American Citizen.”

Fuck.

“Oh well, thanks anyway.”

Yep, yet another nice long drive that was a complete waste of time. Still…I’m not bitter.

So I get back into the car and Sunny gives me a quizzical look. I explain the situation.

“Next place.” I say.

Now, Sunny had told me that she knew of, and I quote, “A blue zillion” staffing places, but all of them had slipped her mind, and she certainly didn’t know of any others on that side of town. So we decided to drive home, get out the ‘ole phonebook, and look up some other places.

“My blood sugar’s dropping. I’m starting to get the shakes.” Sunny said.

This, while it seems totally superfluous now, does have a bearing later on….stay tuned.

“Isn’t ‘Staples’ on the way home?” I asked.

“Yep.” Replied Sunny.

“Well, let’s stop there on the way home, and I’ll see if I can get an application for there. That’s something I could do, and it’s nice and close to the house.”

And lo’, it was agreed that this was a good idea.

So we pull into the parking lot in front of Staples. I run in.

“Hey!” I say cheerfully to one of the check out girls. “I have a quick question. Who do I need to speak to for…”

“Hey! I like the way you talk, where are you from?”

Fifteen minutes later…

“So in conclusion,” I said, “I have seen ‘Friends’, no I didn’t live in the thatched cottage and we do have cars in England. Now, who do I need to speak to about putting in a job application?”

“Oh, we do those on a computer in the store. It’ll take you about half an hour to 45 minutes. I’ll get someone to set it up for you.”

So she asks someone…someone who doesn’t know and had to ask someone else…who also doesn’t know…

“Excuse me.” I said. “While you’re sorting this out, I’m just gonna run outside for a moment (I need to scream), to tell my wife that she can go run some errands while she’s waiting.”

“Ok.” She responds, brightly.

I run outside and open the car door:

“Sweetie? This is gonna take about half an hour. Why don’t you go grab yourself something to eat (I told you the blood sugar thing had a bearing on the story) while I do this?”

“Ok.” My darling wife replied. “I’ll run to the pharmacy as well, I need to pick up some things.”

So I wave her off, and stride purposefully back into the store. (When looking for a job, always stride purposefully, it shows you mean business.) I see checkout girl again.

“Ok,” she says, “I made a mistake.” (No! Really?) “We don’t do applications in the store any more, you have to do it over the internet from home.”

I sigh. “What’s the address? Just ‘Staples.com’?”

You know that feeling when you ask a question, and instantly regret asking it? Well, that’s what I was feeling. Apparently, absolutely no-one in the store knew the web address…and considering these where the people I wanted a job from, I couldn’t exactly say “Fuck it! I’ll just google it!”

Then I realized something.

Sunny had driven away. She would be gone for at least 45 minutes, while I was stuck here…and worse yet, I’d left my cigarettes in the car.

So I spend the next 15 minutes wandering around the store.

Now it has to be said that Staples isn’t a particularly bad place to get stranded at. You can drool over the laptops, the huge LCD monitors and all other kinds of gadgetry. It really is like a geek’s porn-store.

…Except for the fact that everyone in there knows you as “The guy who wants to put in an application”, and stops you every 2 minutes to ask if you know that they don’t do in-store applications anymore.

Eventually, after being stopped by the same guy three times and told the same thing, I leave the store and just wait out front. After 2 minutes I’m bored.

So I go next door, which is a strange consignment store kind of thing. They sell everything from trumpets to towels, poker chips to pajamas.

Of course, I’m forgetting the number one rule. If you spend more than 10 minutes in any shop, just wandering around and looking at nothing in particular, they automatically assume you’re a shoplifter.

So I find myself locked in an intricate ballet with a Very Suspicious Old Lady™, who is doing everything she can to make sure she can watch my every move without me knowing about it. She fails at this dismally.

So for a while, I find myself walking nonchalantly along an aisle, watching her following me at the other end… then as soon as her view of me is blocked by the shelves, I make a quick about turn and head the other way.

It didn’t fool her for a second. She was old, but very wily. She would require me as a target within seconds.

(I’ve always thought we don’t take enough advantage of the powers of old ladies. I mean, we could fight a war with someone, and just get a bunch of old ladies to stand on the front line, and glare unapprovingly at the opposing army. Maybe occasionally shouting “Does your mum know you’re out this late playing with that gun? Get home you little rascal before I take my slipper to you!”…the opposing army wouldn’t dare attack!)

Anyway, I took a small item off the shelf (a sudoku game) to examine it more closely. I heard a sharp intake of breath from her at the other end of the aisle. She obviously believed she’d caught me “making my move”, and was waiting for my to slip the item into my shirt, so she could blow the whistle and have me swarmed by the other old lady in the store.

(What’s the term for a swarm of old lady? I didn’t know a single person actually could swarm…but that was her plan…I know it.)

I put the game back, and I swear I heard a sigh of disappointment.

I wonded if, by taking and replacing items of various values, I could actually get her to play a tune with her ‘shocked’ and ‘relieved’ sounds.

Well, I had to entertain myself somehow.

Anyway, I realized I was pushing my luck, so I waited outside for Sunny to come back.

Later that day I went with her to the salon, but that’s a story for tomorrow.

The Great Make-Under

A few days ago, I stumbled across the secret to making a ton of cash.

Unfortunately, it’s not tons of real cash, it’s SL cash…but let’s just say the amount of money I made has jumped a whopping 4000% in the space of a few weeks.

Basically, if we’re talking in terms of the amount of real money I’d get if I cashed in my SL money, I’ve jumped from making about 40 cents a week to about $20 a week.

This is kinda sad when you realize that’s pretty much the same wage I used to get at my very first Saturday job.

So what’s the shocking secret?

For added effect here, pretend I’ve just handed you a ‘DaVinci Code’ style cryptex and told you the password was ‘ultimate secret’. With trembling hands, you align the dials and pull it apart, revealing an ancient yellowing scroll that reads:

Make people believe you don’t actually need or want their money.

Basically, I made over my store. Well, technically, that’s the wrong word. What I really did was give my store a make-under. Before the make-under, I made my store as inviting and friendly as possible. Now it’s a monochrome shrine to the God of “I Have More Money Than You”.

Take a look at my old shop sign and logo:

I worked fairly hard on this. I created a background, composited four pictures of my model wearing different outfits, put in my store name and tag-line (complete with drop shadow), and even went ahead and using all kinds of Photoshop magicks, even put in a subtle bloom lighting effect.

Turned out this, along with my pricing, was a recipe for disaster.

Why?

I was trying too hard. Plus, there was the small matter of the ‘great prices’ tagline. Apparently, no established SL player will be caught dead buying from a ‘cheap’ store. Half the fun of a new outfit is when someone asks you where you got it, telling them the price, safe in the knowledge that the person asking you can in no way afford it.

Add to that the point that my prices, while exceptionally low by SL standards, is just out of newbie range. Sure, I might be selling an outfit for L$150 that would cost at least L$500 – L$800 elsewhere…but that doesn’t help if the customer base you’re attracting only has L$50 to spend.

In other words, my store wasn’t doing so well thanks to the phenomenon that causes someone to walk past Wal-mart, where you can get a three-pack of plain white T-shirts for less than $10… and instead buy exactly the same T-shirt at a designer store, where you pay $80 and only get one.

So I decided to go a little “upscale”.

My prices remained the same, but I changed my store logo to this:

Sexy, huh?

Actually, it pretty much killed me to make this. Black and White? What’s the point in Photoshopping something if you can’t add all kinds of gradients and lens flares?

But it did the trick.

My old sign said “Look! Here’s what you can buy! I’m selling it cheap as well!”

My new sign says “I’m so rich, I don’t need to advertise. I don’t even need your money. Hell, I don’t even want it. In fact, the whole thing is a huge hassle, so if you really must buy something, be quick about it, lest I smite you.”

I even changed from “Paulius Designs” to “PD”…you see, I’m so successful, I don’t even need to tell you the name of my store!

Apparently, people no longer care if my clothes are good or not. I’ve arrived at the Calvin Klein stage where people aren’t buying my clothes for the looks…they’re buying it for the label.