Posts filed under 'consumerism'

(sorted by date)

By kate on November 7th, 2007

Today I was at a local community center with Ruby and noticed something. There were 12-15 children playing in the room, and every single girl except Ruby was wearing pink (at least some pink – most had a whole top or bottom that was pink). Every boy was wearing a blue top or bottom (even […]

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Why I don’t want the best for my child

By kate on July 3rd, 2007

“I want the best for my child.” That’s a commonly heard phrase, and if you don’t examine it closely, it sounds pretty good. I kept thinking about it, though, and realized that I disagree. The corollary of “I want the best for my child” is something like “my child is uniquely special in the world […]

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I despair for America…

By kate on February 5th, 2007

Instead of wasting hours sifting through crap and football to see the Super Bowl ads yesterday, I spent an efficient 45 minutes or so today watching and ranking them here. MSNBC has a cool, smart interface that puts the best 32 ads into brackets and lets you watch them and advance them, all on […]

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Scootabout

By kate on October 10th, 2006

My office just moved to the north end of the waterfront (near the soon-to-open Olympic Sculpture park), and my bus commute involves a bit more walking than before. And, I had some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket… so I got one of these: My very own Razor Scooter, in green, natch. […]

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Stuff Stuff Stuff

By kate on January 30th, 2006

Zippy’s birth is seeming more imminent now, so today Steve and I buckled down and went on a shopping trip to acquire some things we don’t yet have. At the end of it, I feel like we’re in pretty good shape for the first few months of her life. We have the small stuff and […]

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Branding & the Baby

By steve on December 29th, 2005

[this entry by Steve] Kate and I are fairly anti-brand-name. Whenever we buy a new bag, we take scissors or a felt pen to the logo to make it disappear. I did the same with the stickers on my laptop. I believe the value of something is intrinsic in the object itself, not in […]