mulberry wexford – BRYOLOGUE

And just like that… Bryologue turns 10 today!

June 1, 2022bryologue Leave a Comment

An homage to the first ever post, still with the Mulberry Wexford messenger bag

Yes, this page is now 10 years old. I can’t believe it is a decade already. It seems only yesterday I was figuring out how to set-up WordPress.org and posted my first ever post here on June 1, 2012. Surprisingly, my Tumblr is still alive and turned 12 last April.

I can’t stress enough that, in the midst of the ever shortening lifespan of people, I still manage to maintain these pages. And to commemorate this day, I decided to recreate the first ever photo posted:

An interesting thing about the first photo:

the Marc Jacobs coin purse was, of course, already lost August of 2012;
the LV wallet already gave up on me (stashed somewhere);
the iPod Classic’s battery gave up on me (stashed somewhere);
the Blackberry’s battery gave up on me (stashed somewhere);
the camera is no longer working (that photo was taken with that same camera);
the Kindle got smashed on our last day on the field in Mindanao last 2013; and
the Dior pouch, Mulberry agenda, and, surprisingly, that small atomizer bottle are still alive.

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Interesting comment from a reader

March 12, 2013bryologue 1 Comment

Summer is officially here and I should probably start buying lots of plain cotton shirts because of the heat. I love my workshift as I get to do things before going to the office but summer is always a tricky thing to deal with. Lately, I just bring another collared top with me in the office to change my usually drenched with sweat shirt because that was the minimum requirement of the dress code.

Anyway, I attached the trick keychain on the wexford messenger and they looked lovely together under the afternoon sunlight.

What I love most in having a constant access to my email is the ability to read curious events happening on my blog even on the go. So yesterday, when I’ve heard the familiar “You’ve got mail!” AOL-tone, I was surprised to see this message in my Inbox, for a comment left on the entry “Wednesday footwear finds“:

Of course, I was taken aback. It never occurred to me that I had a fake pair of Red Wing shoes. The anonymous reader did not leave any e-mail address nor URL for me to get in touch with him/her, so there was no way for me to reach out to him/her. All I had was the IP address from a user located in G/F Centrum II Building in Makati, just near my workplace. (hmmm…) Anyway, I looked into this possibility and I would have appreciated more this piece of information, had the user elaborated on the reasons why. Personally, it is extremely easy to call out and pronounce something as inauthentic, especially under the cloak of anonymity in the internet. Maybe the comment was not left out of malice and the reader was really concerned; and in his haste, he had forgotten to indicate any contact information. But I can’t help but think of other reasons as well. =D

He had a point, though. When I first posted about the shoes in November, I just cross-examined it with the website of Red Wing and zeroed in immediately on the 875s. I did not bother scrutinizing the tag beneath the tongue of the boots and realized that these were 8875s and NOT 875s. But what’s the difference anyway? I did not know about nuances in design until last night (and I will not bother claiming that I know everything but at least I backed it up with my own research), and thanks to the reader, I got a better understanding of the Red Wing 8875s.

Red Wing Classic Work Moc Round Tote Style No. 8875 boots - Heritage Work

Screencap from redwingshoe.co.jp (Japanese site) with the 8875 boots

Red Wing 875 versus Red Wing 8875 – notice the difference in the color of the eyelets

A careful Google search brought me to forums discussing the 8875 Red Wing boots and I found out here that:

“Different model use different eyelets. 875, 1907 & 877 are different where u can find engrave of ‘red wing’ on each dark color eyelet which silver eyelet dont. 8131, 8875, 8165, 8134, 8167, 9111, 8173 and 8179 are made with silver eyelet.”

I also found out that the 8875 is a model exclusively produced in Japan and is more reddish than the yellowish 875. I also cannot find 8875 in Red Wing’s website but when I was redirected to their Japanese site www.redwingshoe.co.jp, I found the boots after a simple search. I also had a little difficulty searching for the 8875, but after knowing the Japanese connection, I had more relevant results when using google.co.jp.

Anyway, I’m still open to hear again from this curious reader. And hopefully, the next time he calls me out on something, he would leave some contact information so I can easily get back to him for a better exchange of words.

Zombie movie on Valentine’s night

February 15, 2013bryologue 1 Comment

Mon and I were both on halfday leave in the office for Valentine’s Day and it was a sudden decision as well. For today, I wanted a Valentine-related outfit, but alas, I can’t bear to wear anything red nor too dressy. The best thing I can put on, then, was this polo shirt with a black heart on the chest. I also wore this pair of YSL sneakers for the first time. =D

From the office, we just walked to Greenbelt 3 because it was very difficult to get a cab. We had no choice because we still have to claim our tickets for the movie and waiting for an elusive cab to come would definitely eat up our precious time. It was a nice night to walk anyway, because it was quite windy.

Arriving in the Greenbelt area, we immediately noticed how crowded the whole place was. It was dofficult to walk from one place to another, and all restaurants were brimming with people eating and queuing for an available table. Yikes. We had to get our movie tickets first and good thing we have already reserved the night before because if we were to get the tickets right there and then, we’d end up sitting separately or not at all.

As mentioned, every restaurant in the area was full, and the only place available where we can eat was in Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Greenbelt 5. We had no extra time to spare waiting because we had less than 40 minutes before the movie started from the time we got the tickets. We immediately ordered for the most possibly-satisfying food they have on the menu and not all of them were even available. Well, we had little time to eat anyway, even if it was our quickest Valentine’s dinner ever. LOL

We barely finished our food, when we found ourselves walking back to Greenbelt 3 for our 8:35 PM movie. We chose ‘Warm Bodies‘, as it was what we were supposed to watch instead of ‘Mama‘ last Saturday. I can’t even remember seeing the trailer of the movie before, but all I know was it features Nicholas Hoult (who played Beast in ‘X-Men: First Class‘ and a favorite model of Tom Ford, and even starred in the latter’s first ever film ‘A Single Man‘ — and yeah, he is also Jennifer Lawrence’s boyfriend).

It was tagged as a “paranormal, romantic zombie comedy’, which was a peculiar but very apt description of what we saw on screen. It was told in the point of view of R (Nicholas Hoult), which after a usual hunting spree with a pack of zombies, fell in love with the human Julie (Teresa Palmer), who was also out with a bunch of humans including her boyfriend Perry (Dave Franco) and bestfriend Nora (Analeigh Tipton) to forage for medical supplies. The zombie pack attacked the group and R ended up eating the brains of Perry, which eventually reinforced his attraction towards Julie.

I particularly had a good time hearing the hilarious timing of John Waite’s ‘Missing You‘ played on vinyl, during the key moments of the film, particularly when R first laid his eyes on Julie. I knew the song very well because Tina Turner’s version was once use by my old squad as music in one of the most amazing choreography I have ever seen. Anyway, the movie really had lots of funny moments, particularly when Julie was pretending to be a zombie and was acting a bit too much, perhaps based on a canned knowledge of how zombies move. LOL It was also good to see Analeigh in the movie. She was my favorite contestant in Cycle 11 of ANTM, and I was really heartbroken when she got eliminated. I did not realize how tall she really is, not until this movie, because she looked quite small next to the other contestants and Nigel and Ms. Jay. Analeigh has been doing good in her movie career, and her screen time in this movie was well spent. Excellent comedic timing and she was really hilarious in every scene that she was in. Julie, who I first thought to be a blonde and can-actually-act version of Kristen Stewart, looked very familiar. Searching Google after the movie, I was right in guessing that she was the love interest of the protagonist in ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice‘.

After the movie, we went to another Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Greenbelt 3 to have a quick snack and a drink of coffee (Mon opted for a non-caffeine drink). I was surprisingly full from our quick dinner and I even had to push myself to eat this cookie and biscotti. LOL At almost 11:00 PM, the place was still bustling with people but we were lucky to get good seats inside, near the window.

When we were about to go home, we passed by the row of high-end stores and I was delighted to see Prada’s display window, with Sasha Pivovarova in it. Last October 2012, I expressed my delight to see the new mother doing fashion work again.

I’m not a fan of flowers and Mon was fully aware of that. Instead, he gave me this stuffed heart which I will be bringing to the office with me. Happy Valentine’s Mon and thanks for the sweets as well! =D

Half of January

January 15, 2013bryologue 1 Comment

It seems only yesterday when we were busy preparing for the New Year and now, we are already on the 15th of January. Time really flies so fast whenever we are doing a lot of things, yet I still have more to accomplish even before the month ends.

I went to the dentist yesterday and I wore the Abraham Lincoln shirt I have thrifted last Friday. It was really funny because some of the people who saw my shirt were sniggering because they suddenly realized that Abraham Lincoln was actually cross-eyed. LOL

It also rained a lot yesterday so it was a good call to use a nylon messenger and my favorite pair of brown 8-hole Doc Martens. For the past months, I’ve been using only my Red Wing and black 8-hole DMs that my other boots were left, uhm, desolate in our wooden shoe cabinet. I cleaned and moisturized all of them last Sunday afternoon and vowed to rotate using my shoes more.

For today, it fortunately did not rain and I used my wexford messenger again. However, my love for heavy bags has been slowly dwindling because well, they are heavy. LOL Seriously, nylons and canvases are doing it more for me now than my heavy leather ones.

Before sleeping last night, I took several photos to be used as ID picture. One of the requirements was an ID picture with my complete name on it. I planned to get this taken in UP, from the same stall where I had photocopied my classmate’s book.

But as I highly doubt that they have a chalkboard there to write my name on; and usually, getting pictures taken outside entail limited choices as you get one and two shots and pray unto the highest heavens you have a good one. I wore the same royal blue shirt and silk necktie from an October shoot we had in the office because I really love how the color pops in picture. I got a decent shot in the one but I had a little fun with the camera as well.

I have also finally reserved our tickets to watch Les Misérables tomorrow. We will be on halfday leave because I still have several carryover leaves in the office and I have carefully allocated all of them until February. My friend, Ikle, will be back in the Philippines next Monday and we were to go to Baguio City for a three day vacation.

However, as I am desperately trying to complete my requirements for a January 31st deadline, we had moved our sojourn to February 2.

Brick and black

November 22, 2012bryologue Leave a Comment

Few months ago, I wore the same top and pants as today but with the only brown pair of Doc Martens I have. Then I realized that I have never used the pants with any of my black DMs. But then again, I only wore the pants a few times more than my usual black ones.

Honestly, as the weather was still hot, I get too lazy dressing properly for work and I just go the office in the most basic things (a T-shirt most of the time) and just change with the clothes I keep in the office. But recently, after almost five years, I just found out the location of the shuttle station near our place that services all the way to Ayala Avenue, Makati. For years, I thought that the only station was near Concepcion Church and they only operate in the morning. I really could not remember what triggered me to research about the other one that operates until afternoon, but I got there anyway. For five consecutive work days, I’ve been taking the shuttle service and it was really more comfortable (as expected). Also, this comfort now allows me to give ‘better’ office dressing another chance. =)