The Sanest Man on the Internet

It's not me.  It might be James Lileks, as in this example from today's Bleat:

No, there was more. Daughter had two friends over for a sleepover, and they went up to the water tower to slide down and be giddy 13-year-olds. It’s a joy to be around them. 

“You wear Converses,” said the . . . more forward friend. “Are you a hipster?”

“I’m too cool to be a hipster,” I said. I get more comments about wearing Converses than anything else. I have eight pairs. That’s what I wear. For some reason being shod only in a particular brand whose myriad deviations are available to all is something of a distinction; I haven’t the faintest idea why. A man should have a pair of Converse shoes, a Zippo, and a Swiss Army Knife. It should be a given.

Lileks is in his mid-50s, younger than I am by a few years.  I totally agree on the Zippo and SAK, even though I usually carry a butane lighter.  Maybe I just fell through the Converse crack.  The only thing I ever thought they were good for was running the river, and I have -- I don't know what you call them -- aquatic athletic (?) shoes that won't rot and fall apart after a month. 

I remember a commercial for Lee jeans, the denim Pepsi to Levi's Coke, in which the narrator was singing about getting a new girlfriend, a new pair of sneakers (which meant Converse back then), and a new pair of Lee jeans at the start of the summer.  The girl was gone after a couple of weeks and the sneakers wore out by the Fourth of July, but the Lee jeans were just starting to get broken in good.  I think I was better at keeping women and harder on shoes, but it's not too far off.  Apart from that, though, Lileks helps keep me within a couple of digits of sane's zipcode.