Nice Hat -- maybe.

This is one of my big pet peeves. You're browsing through a magazine, and right there on the page is a picture of something really cool, usually with way too little information about it except for a straight-from-the-press-release blurb praising the item as the New Cool Thing or whatever. But hey, at least they provided a URL...let me just toddle over there and...AAAARGH! No mention of the New Cool Thing! Or, as in the case of this hat, it's a link to the product's brand's parent company's crappy, useless, incredibly badly designed web site.

Sigh. So I'm tempted not to share with you, my vast, hat-craving audience, the one. single. place. I found to actually buy the thing after a whole bunch of Google action. I mean, what have they done for me lately? But what the heck, even G_d gave his 'audience' free will. So click the photo if you think you might want to pay $65 for this hat. (But I'm not gonna tell you its name or who makes it, so there.)

Here's why I think I might: I've been looking for Just The Right Hat to replace my old favorite canvas boony hat that I found at an army surplus store for $18 back in 1997. The heavy, all-cotton olive drab number that shaded my brow for nearly 5 years of fun in the desert sun, and that I then lost literally moments after thinking to myself, "wow, I'm so happy I've held on to this great hat for so long." Curse you, Irony! Anyway, everything I've found so far has fallen well short of Good Enough. This one, though, looks like it has promise. It's got pockets and loops and a nice big neoprene(!) brim so it floats, plus it's got a reflective orange lining on the inside for signaling to rescue planes, "hey, down here! I'm a dork!" It even comes with a useless little compass and a barely useful little flashlight. Once I threw those away, it might make for a nice New Favorite Hat. But for $65, there'd better be a money-back guarantee that it doesn't suck.