I have a very hard time finding clothing. I’m a short and slight adult male, a market segment most clothing stores accord about as much attention as unicorns. Finding a suit is nearly impossible and generally finding clothing that doesn’t require tailoring takes a special kind of patience and a tolerance for indirect putdowns. In clothing terms, I’m not so much a man or a young man, as much as a child. In order to avoid shopping next to 10-year olds, I’ve been forced to put together a mental list of places with a decent percentage of appropriately cut adult-ish clothing (usually 1–10% of what’s on the racks): H&M, DKNY, Express, The Gap, Old Navy. There are others, but H&M is one of the most consistent for finding decent clothing that I can wear off the rack. The downside is that H&M’s aren’t that common and often they’re women’s-only. Fortunately, I live near the King of Prussia Mall, the largest “naturally grown” mall in the U.S.* So when I need to search for an item of uncertain properties (in this case, some kind of button-down shirt I could wear to a casual wedding in a hot climate) I go to the KoP Mall. I was forced to visit most of the stores on my list. And once I used up all of my usual choices, I was forced to go second-tier. In other words: stores I normally ignore or don’t consider: Aeropostale, Vans, American Eagle, etc. This is how I ended up in the hyper-branded, youth-optimized, teen hipness den Hollister.

*I believe it was our friend Julie who coined that phrase. KoP, unlike the Mall of America, was not built huge. It grew through a series of expansions. I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but there you go.

The original Tomb Raider is one of Those Games. You know, a game that people remember. A game whose main character non-gamers know the name of; one that launched a franchise that cut a unique groove for itself and created its own sub-genre, in a way. However, the series began to flag as sequels became not only repetitive but also lacked quality and strayed too far from their progenitor’s strengths. Legend, which I played through a few weeks ago on a weekend, is a very clear move to reclaim the name of Lara Croft and bring it back to its place of prestige in gaming. Many have hailed it as a successful return with a rare shortcoming here and there. I’m not so sure about that. Entertaining and visually lush, Legend is also flawed and diminutive in the face of its heritage. I see this installment as a proof of concept: Tomb Raider is still an IP with life and possibilities. I do not see it as the revelation some are stretching to tout it as.

Straight from the official site:

This September: Original Unaltered Trilogy on DVD

In response to overwhelming demand, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release attractively priced individual two-disc releases of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Each release includes the 2004 digitally remastered version of the movie and, as bonus material, the theatrical edition of the film. That means you'll be able to enjoy Star Wars as it first appeared in 1977, Empire in 1980, and Jedi in 1983.

This release will only be available for a limited time: from September 12th to December 31st. International release will follow on or about the same day. Each original theatrical version will feature Dolby 2.0 Surround sound, close-captioning, and subtitles in English, French and Spanish for their U.S. release. International sound and subtitling vary by territory.

BAM. I am all over that. I feel bad for the poor shmoes who bought the lesser versions on DVD with Lucas’s tinkering and crap-ifying. They will make so much money from this, it’s ridiculous. Some say it's because of the success of the Indiana Jones box set, others say it was Lucas’s plan all along to swear he’d never do it, then double his profits. I don’t really care. Han shot first, and now we’ll all have the proof on digital video discs.

UPDATE: It’s being reported that Lucas is being an asshat about the whole thing and the originals are being anamorphically ripped from an old Laserdisc copy, instead of being done properly. Well, OK then, George. Also they’re packaging the new versions with the old ones. The theory is that they can’t have the old version outselling the new. I won’t comment, as I don’t know if that’s true. Personally, I just want to be able to watch the originals on my DVD player, and someday show the old versions to my children. I think someone knows this and is just working this thing like a money lever. The whole situation sucks, but Lucas, apparently, does not understand why he’s rich and famous and is making many moves to become unappreciated and hermitic. That’s my theory.