Important If True 35: Hammacher, Schlemmer, and You

[Jake]

Important If True 35:

Hammacher, Schlemmer, and You
When we walked into your living room, and our eyes fell on your fine imported Brazilian Eucalyptis Coffee Table With Integrated Aquarium, we couldn't help but notice that the smartphone, tablet, or other in-home electronic device that signifies your wealth and worldliness was left open to Important If True. "How captivating you must be," we thought, as we leafed through the episode and wondered which of life's biggest conundrums you'd be puzzling through with us, what advice you sought and hoped we'd help answer. Things like: Is a mirror really a reflection of ourselves if it only works when we smile? Do strangers offer helpful advice so they can live on in your memories? And, how do you tie a shoe so it really stays on there? Impressed with your taste, depth, and apparent largess, we buy ourselves a seven million dollar replica Wild West town with your credit card before you notice.

Discussed: Shaq feeling Twitterers around him, defunct online service GEnie, putting in contact lenses, remembering strangers, being a memorable stranger, WikiHow: How to Take Out Contact Lenses Without Touching Your Eye, mirror that only works when you smile, coercive smile-based compensation at customer service jobs, tying your shoes like a square knot instead of a granny knot, Every Time I Tie My Shoes: A Novel, Every Time I Tie My Shoes: Short Fiction, Caldecott Medal-winning children's book Every Time I Tie My Shoes, Hammacher Schlemmer, The Sharper Image, Brookstone, Amphibious Sub-Surface Watercraft ($300,000), 23-Acre Wild West Town Amusement Park ($7,000,000), Genuine 7 Foot Robby the Robot ($32,000), a lot more stupid shit from Hammacher Schlemmer that I'm not going to list all of, what kind of '80s you are, "'Big' or Murderer?", one second a day video made while staring into a smile mirror, Hammacher Schlemmer hoarder house, $30,000 $15,000 Important If True podcast appearance, Zoltar fortune telling machine, The Gotham Golfcart, the shitty Hefner fantasy of Hammacher Schlemmer, weird old early 20th-century aspirational status objects, "Be the New Schlemmer" marketing campaign, J Peterman (catalogue), J Peterman (Seinfeld character), ridiculous strategies to profit on the back of the inane 17-hour time-delay ghost concept from last week's episode, tattooing your naked ghost, the complex path of the Earth through the infinite universe

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Jake's Endorsement: The Idle Thumbs telling of the epic saga of the Team Fortress 2 virtual hat economy, as supplied by CaptainInvictus

Chris' Endorsement: Instant Pot automated pressure cooker and J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's pressure cooker beef stew recipe–and excellent New York Times recipe author Melissa Clark has a detailed Instant Pot guide and a new Instant Pot cookbook

Nick's Endorsement: Doing a good old-fashioned jigsaw puzzle, like the Nick-approved Disneyland map jigsaw puzzle or Pixar: The Artist's Desk jigsaw puzzle

 

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[Salacious Snake]

If you prefer your tutorials in video form, there's a fucking TED Talk about how to tie your shoes (which despite my dismissive tone actually improved my life).

 

https://www.ted.com/talks/terry_moore_how_to_tie_your_shoes

 

[NuclearMonster]

[Aaron M]

Every time I try to say that company's name it comes out "Hammacher Schlemmacher", so I was pleased to hear Chris do the same.

[tabacco]

As a person with a tiny kitchen, I further endorse a traditional stovetop pressure cooker, which doesn't take up as much counter space, and can also be used as a normal pot.

[SecretAsianMan]

I tie my shoes like this

 

 

I also loved the Hammacher Schlemmer/Sharper Image/Brookstone/Sky Mall catalogs as a kid.  I always imagined each product there started as a failed pitch to another company but some executive at one of the catalogs saw it and figured they could make bank by jazzing it up and selling it for ridiculous amounts of money.

 

I've wanted an Instant Pot for the longest time.

[RubixsQube]

I also tie my shoes like that, @SecretAsianMan. It's pretty quick, and seems miraculous. I re-learned how to do that a few years ago. I should write a question into the podcast about skills that required retraining your brain to do something you'd done your entire life up to that point. It's weird to like, remember how I tied my shoes in the more traditional bunny-ears method now. 

 

Also, speaking of SkyMall, it's kind of like Hammacher-Schlemmer in that it was named after its founders:

 

doɥsoʇoɥd ɐ oslɐ sᴉ sᴉɥʇ :uᴉɐƃɐ pǝlooɟ ǝq ʇ,uoʍ ǝʞɐſ os

[Problem Machine]

Fascinating, they should definitely mention that on the next cast.

[SecretAsianMan]

If we're assuming that clothes and ink might not transfer with your time delay ghost, then I'm going to also propose that anything spoken wouldn't function either unless the vibrations in the air are also somehow captured and recorded in the ether the same way your ghostly personage is.

[Roderick]

In no way wanting this Hammacher-Schlemmer discussion to stop; I also tie my shoes like in the gif. It's a thing I discovered randomly on the internet a few years ago and then consciously retrained myself to do. It's a very satisfying way to tie your shoes.

[Jake]

23 minutes ago, Roderick said:

In no way wanting this Hammached-Schlemmer discussion to stop; I also tie my shoes like in the gif. It's a thing I discovered randomly on the internet a few years ago and then consciously retrained myself to do. It's a very satisfying way to tie your shoes.

It's interesting but not entirely related to what I was talking about, which is to make sure your base knot and the bow are tied in opposite directions, so the overall shape is that of a square knot. You could do that fast tie like the gif and still get the base VS bow directions wrong. 

[SecretAsianMan]

4 minutes ago, Jake said:

It's interesting but not entirely related to what I was talking about, which is to make sure your base knot and the bow are tied in opposite directions, so the overall shape is that of a square knot. You could do that fast tie like the gif and still get the base VS bow directions wrong. 

 

If you follow the link I posted along with the gif, the creator of the Ian knot talks about which direction to tie the starting knot so as not to make this mistake.  If you look closely at the gif it begins with the starting knot already in place.  The Ian knot is functionally identical to the bowknot or standard shoelace knot, it's just a faster way to tie it. 

 

And in the interest of pedantry, technically the square knot or reef knot is a different kind of knot.  A square knot has no bows in it.  Its what you get when you tie the starting knot twice in alternate directions.

[Jake]

10 hours ago, SecretAsianMan said:

And in the interest of pedantry, technically the square knot or reef knot is a different kind of knot.  A square knot has no bows in it.  Its what you get when you tie the starting knot twice in alternate directions.

 

I know. Square VS granny is the most known version of that concept even though it's not technically the same as the bow you tie on a shoelace.

 

I didn't mean to be dismissive of this excellent link btw. Sorry if I was. 

[SecretAsianMan]

1 hour ago, Jake said:

 

I know. Square VS granny is the most known version of that concept even though it's not technically the same as the bow you tie on a shoelace.

 

I didn't mean to be dismissive of this excellent link btw. Sorry if I was. 

 

No worries. Your original point of the gif being tangentially related to your original topic is valid. I just found that knot interesting in the same way you did the original article.

[Urthman]

On 10/31/2017 at 6:11 PM, RubixsQube said:

Also, speaking of SkyMall, it's kind of like Hammacher-Schlemmer in that it was named after its founders:

 

You are a bad person and you should feel bad about your life choices.

 

(In other words, you got me.)