Design geeking time:

Here's a design using Comics Sans font. It's easy to read, designed to be more playful than a boring, businesslike font like Times New Roman.

And it's widely, abusively hated.

( Comic Sans was invented by Satan. Who knew? )

Among the discoveries of our recent trip north is that Vancouver, like LA, has become a city of Beautiful People.

The rest of the Pacific Northwest wears simple short haircuts and Eddie Bauer or REI and sandals or cheap flip-flops. Vancouver wears designer jeans and t-shirts and expensive sandals that cost more than my last pair of boots. Flip-flops? A few people are wearing last year's designer brand but flip-flops are clearly heading out, thank God.

I blame the movie industry. That style-over-substance thing they do so well in LA has migrated up to Canada in search of tax advantages.

Worked properly, this system can provide you some benefits. bubblesutonium and I picked up a couple leather jackets and some boots that will make us look far cooler this winter than we actually are. Still, it's safe to say that Vancouver is more fashion-forward than Seattle, so this brings up a small concern:

Beards are out.

Really out. Really, really out. Even the crazy guys on the corner of Robson and Granville found a razor and a mirror somewhere.

The only acceptable beard these days, according to the current Vancouver fashion barometer, is a 90s-style goatee, kept very short. You must be at least thirty years old to get away with it.

Now, I've never claimed to be a fashion plate, but if this trend winds its way down to Seattle, I could have a major problem.

So, it's time for a poll.

Poll #1045964 Facial hair
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 26

Beards for men are acceptable. (1=Never, 5=Absolutely)

The best beard style currently is:

You, waysofseeing, should:

In conclusion:

So on Monday I was informed that I needed to wear a "special" shirt to class today.

Fine.

When we were in Cabo a couple years ago, I bought a Hawaiian-style shirt: a very loose rendition of a Hokusai-style view of Mount Fuji, done in the kind of blues and reds that can only be seen properly with the aid of sunglasses, or possibly welder's goggles.

Unfortunately, when I picked out my outfit this morning, I hadn't quite remembered that today we were meeting with visiting professors from UW-Madison and the UK's University of Leicester. Not to mention a baker's dozen Ph.D. students I'd never met from three different departments.

Oops.

Well, hell. At least I made an impression.

I'm taking a class over in the Communications department this term. It's a great class, a workshop on how to put together cogent research papers on Internet-related subjects or data. The professor is wonderful too.

I'm a bit of an oddity in the class for two reasons. I'm one of only two men in the class. (The other one is frequently absent or so quiet it's hard to remember he's there.) I'm also the only professional nerd. Everyone else comes from a traditional communications or journalism background. This leads to occasional moments of hilarity, as I try to attempt to explain proxy servers or Second Life avatars to an audience whose eyes are steadily becoming dull and filmy.

Whatever geek knowledge I may possess, it's apparently not nearly as interesting as my wardrobe.

The ladies in the class have developed an obsession with my shirts.

I'm not quite sure why. It's the same collection of button-down collared shirts I've been wearing for years. Fine, I have a few whimsical short- sleeve shirts -- I've always liked the shirt with the Mandarin writing and the ones with the embroidery, myself -- but we're not talking about high fashion here. They're all perfectly unexceptional silk or cotton shirts. Most of them don't even have a pattern. Today's was a plain, light blue collared shirt from Brooks Brothers.

Still, this is the level of recurring joke it's become:

PROFESSOR
OK, let's reflect on things we've learned this quarter.

GRAD STUDENT #1
I really like WoS' shirts.

WAYSOFSEEING
::applies head to desk::

GRAD STUDENT #2
Yeah, you're going to have to wear something special for the last class on Wednesday.

GRAD STUDENT #3
How about no shirt at all?

WAYSOFSEEING
That wouldn't be special, that would be terrifying.

GRAD STUDENT #2
You could always get a new tattoo or something.

PROFESSOR
Okay! Moving right along....