Conspicuous consumption and brand whoring

[ophy]

Oh, sad about your MINI! I think they are so adorbs. mr.o and I used to debate getting one (pre-kids).

I no longer remember what it is like to ride around in something that isn't a mini-van. Must be nice.

[isadora]

Ugh, I hate buying a car.

We have one car and since we are out in the burbs we need a second and I keep putting it off.

[vanessa]

The thing that bugs me is that I assume that in 2015, I don't actually have to talk to any humans to get this done, that internet buying has to make this easier. But it really doesn't. So I conducted as much of the negotiation as possible via email, and I'm going to go to the dealer this afternoon to finish this nightmare.

[dada_teacher]

Didn't you test drive the car?

[BreezyK]

V, you're doing it exactly the way Nicole Cliffe (of The-Toast fame) recommends!

[emmaleigh]

V, the Juke is cute! I have a Nissan Sentra that I LOVE. It's mostly a commuter car but I've had it for almost seven years and been totally satisfied with Nissan. My mom drives a Nissan Rogue and I love that car too.

[vanessa]

I test drove it with one dealer, but the sales dude was skeevy, so I started emailing with another dealer, and went in and bought the car today!

[emmaleigh]

Congrats!

[ophy]

This is almost the opposite of conspicuous consumption . . . . we ditched cable yesterday, hopefully for good. The one service in our area sucks hard (frequent outages, poor image compression, terrible DVR, frequent missed programs, ridiculous customer service, waaaaaay overpriced, ick, ick, ick). I already know the satellite tv service in this area is just as bad, because we had them for a few years before going back to cable.

So! No more broadcast tv for us, I guess. We will save $1200 a year, which is nice.

Which means I will be getting all of my tv from Hulu Plus, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Google Play, and the occasional month of HBO Now when I'm feeling spendy.

My question is . . . do any of you use an antenna to get basic channels? Even with an antenna, we know we can't get NBC here (bye bye Olympics? *sob*), but it might be nice to have some service when it's time for the Oscars or the Emmys, or other events. It looks like we can get Fox, CBS, ABC, and a couple of PBS stations with the right antenna. There are soooooo many different antennas out there, and I'm kinda lost and looking for recommendations.

I feel like I've done something a little rebellious by cutting the cord. And holy beek, they gave me the hard sell when I called to cancel. But a survey said 87% of people who cut the cord and go antenna/streaming services only don't regret it and don't go back. So I'm hoping I'll be in the majority on this a year later.

[isadora]

I would love to cut the cord and the stupid home phone but Mr. Is is adamant that he NEEDS cable despite rarely watching TV. But when he does he likes to flip and watch 3 boring shows about men doing manual labor at once. It's maddening.

[vanessa]

I cut the cord when I got divorced, and never looked back. My antenna is very basic http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 for reference. I think it can be powered, but I get good reception without a powered antenna. But I live on a hill across the river from downtown Pittsburgh, so YMMV. Locally all the stations have a couple of broadcast frequencies, so the channel 4 that I use is not the same channel 4 that people in the eastern suburbs use. But it shows the same crap.

[roly]

J Crew is doing an additional 50% off final sale items and 40% off other sale items, if anyone's interested. There's a promo code (GETSHOPPING) at the top of the page. It looks like it's just for today.

[emmaleigh]

I got this and these from that sale last week and they were delivered today. Not super exciting but I needed another pair of black jeans and I'm a sucker for neutral shapeless tops right now. It runs big though.

[ophy]

Stuff like that looks good on you, though . . . which is unfair because we are both shortys.

JCrew usually looks awful on me. My boobs are just enough out of proportion with how short my torso is to throw 80% of nice clothes into dumpy-land. I'm not spending $75 on a shirt that will make me look just as dumpy as the $7 ones from Target.

We finally got an H&M in our town this year, and I have the same problem there. Regular sizes are loooong and narrow, and petite sizes are just plain narrow. I need to go to South America to see if someone will perform an illegal torso lengthening operation on me.

But I do like going to H&M to laugh at the Coachella section. It's hilars. Dumb hats and fringe!

[emmaleigh]

It's, as you said, the no real boobs thing. That's the first place I lose and the last place I gain so I never have much to speak of. ALTHOUGH I finally got officially fitted for a bra like five months ago and after buying 34B my whole life like most women with unremarkable chests, I learned I'm actually a 30D. Which almost no retailer carries so stocking up on Target bras is out now but the difference in fit is kind of amazing.