>Next year, they'll be bronzing brides, so that they'll be pretty forever and ever. Me first!<

LOL!!

>As for the Prada bag, etc., it depends on how poor the speaker is. You can bet your bippy that someone living on mac and cheese thinks anyone who would spend 2 grand on a handbag is a sick puppy.<

My grandmother used to say that there are some things you should never get cheap because in the long run, you will spend more money replacing/reparing them than if you had just getting a well-made item. And I've found that spending the money on items I know are going to see a lot of wear (garment bags, for example) are worth it. Now, I have a batch of Target handbags, and some are more durable than others. I like variety and changing around once in a while. However, if I were the kind of person who didn't want that kind of hassle and got sick of having to replace inexpensive bags every season, I'd spring for a Coach or a John Chapman in a minute. I've already made up my mind to never get another watch till I can afford a Hamilton because I realized the total cost of watches that have punked out on me over the years comes out to a Hamilton-and-a-half.

>But part of human nature is that as we get wealthier, our standards change.<

I call that the "K-Mart towel" syndrome. :) When you don't have much money, a good K-M towel (or any kind of towel) is fine. It's only when you get wealthy and feel you have to have brand-names befitting your new class status that you think you have to get Saks or Neiman-Marcus towels. But when you really come down to it, how often is high-end brand-name stuff in some regards worth the extra money? If a K-Mart towel dries you just as well as a Saks, why do you need the designer name? And that "gotta have high-end for everything" insecurity is often the reason some newly-rich people don't hang onto their money long. The smart play, whether you are rich or poor, is to see which items really give value for the money. (Which is why I'm a fan of CONSUMER REPORTS and COOKS ILLUSTRATED magazines, because they are aces at revealing when spending the extra money is worth it--and when it's not.)

...and it had all the signs of a bad story-arc show. Characters you don't care about with five bazillion agendas you don't want to know about involved in complicated-ass shadowy conspiracies that you couldn't _figure_ out even if you had all the time and TIVO in the world. (If one is a veteran of THE X-FILES (or even CARNIVALE) one knows the portents all too well. :)) Series like these ultmately aren't worth the time and energy it takes to follow them, so I'm glad I called this one out the box.

>This whole season has been pretty disappointing though with recycled robo-women, time travelers, oodles of people that see dead people and adorably abominable 20-somethings that are nerds and nerd spies and nerd vampires, and well just generally nerdy.<

It's funny how all this "edgy, unconventional" programming isn't edgy or unconvential--and is basically tedious. Reason: almost none of these shows (with the exception of PUSHING DAISIES, REAPER, and CHUCK) have any real vision or inventiveness behind them. (Or at the very least, some decent writing craft.)

>Thank bog for my Netflix account.<

Thank _Jesus_ for MAD MEN...

...has Heather done VIVA LAUGHLIN yet? Now, there's a textbook example of how not to handle music in a TV series...:P

>But still, this is just a bad version of Alias (before it lost its mind).<

ALIAS had some of the same problems BW does. (It speaks volumes that the original Sydney-working-for-a-rogue-NSA-

crew-within-the-NSA premise was so convoluted even the writer-creater gave up on it at the end of the first season. :)) And Jennifer Garner was never all that convincing as a tormented spy--she just couldn't do the dark side as well as it needed to be done. It's just that ALIAS had better characters--as well as a much-stronger cast who were better-cast.

>Ask anyone actually IN advertising when was the last time they met anyone like those characters.<

1) Why would they have to still be in advertising?

2) Any number of ex-advertising folks over on the MAD MEN blog have noted the show is quite accurate. On there somewhere is an interview with a couple of prominent ex-MM (George Lois, for one), who have said the same. (And even if Lois is a research source for the show--and I'm not saying he is, just guessing) he's in a position to know the times, right?

>My wife would probably ban them from our social life for a while, because it might be "contagious"<

Why would anyone still think that? Yeesh. It's women like that who regard every single woman as a threat to their may-n and do their best to ostracize them. :P

This turkey pulled this before with one of your friends, yet you forgave him and want to let this ride now?!?! You may love him, but he 1) doesn't love you; 2) will keep playing you for the moony-eyed, "gotta have my may-n" sucker you are until you grow some sense.

You know, there should be a law against people using "love" to describe relationships like this. Why don't said folks just come out and confess they are insecure, resourceless losers who have no lives when they don't have a SO--and will put up with any crap instead of getting a life?