Puma Commander II Perf for $10!

Okay so yesterday I went to Sports Station in Senayan City and scored myself a sweet little deal: a pair of Puma Commander for Rp. 100,000!! ($10). Awesome!! The actual price of the Commander was over Rp. 500,000 ($50) but Sports Station was having a sale up to 70% off. And without bargaining, this lonely little Commander was mine for a little over $10 after paying the taxes.

It's unreal how they managed to sell this for 10 bucks. How long had they held this? The inventory cost for this thing is prolly already $50 from the time it didn't sell till now.

I'm stoked, I had been looking for a good parkour shoes and this may prove to be just it... Until recently I've been training in my worn out Nike in which I slipped and fell a coupla times due to the worn soles...... then I was thinking of buying the Feiyou martial arts shoes but they cost like Rp. 125,000, and words from other traceurs is that it is harsh for beginners because the shoes provide very little padding. I can't imagine myself runing on those flat shoes.

The great thing about the Commander is that there's padding, but not that much. The sole is thin enough that it allows me to feel what I'm stepping on. And it's also flexible enough that I can balance myself on a rail, unlike my Reebok Zigtech which is basically a brick.

Nice sole: thin enough, but still provide padding for a beginner like me.

Durability of the shoes.... don't know yet, only time will tell although there does seem to be a lot of stitching going on here... but I dunno, they should be able to hold (hopefully) a year or so before they burst out from all that cat leaps and extreme braking. The fit & finish of the material looks very decent though.

Hmmm.... lots of stitches though.

The sole however is what totally sold me on it. It has all the requirement that I want from a parkour shoes: continuous, unbroken (except for the Puma segment) one-piece rubber, thin enough sole and.... just look at that beautiful herringbone pattern! When I tried it on at the store the rubber is just oh-so-grippy, and I know for a fact that when I'm out there doing cat leaps or scaling up walls (not yet, btw), the herringbone tread would have no problem sticking to coarse walls. In fact, I would not hesitate to canyoneer with this baby!

And would you look at that.... it even has a heel and toe gripper! It's almost like a climbing shoes! It reminds me of my Mad Rock.... which needs resoling btw.

Although honestly with the type of activities I'll be doing, I dont know how long it'll last before they get cleanly shaven.

Now as for the compound, I'm too lazy to read the description for material breakdown but it does seem like it's got a good mixture of soft and hard properties. The herringbone treads are very responsive to pressure but the overall sole holds up to pressure well. Again, only time will tell, but I sure hope they don't shave off clean within the next three months! These treads are seriously amazingly grippy and act like hundreds of counter-opposing gripping forces when you step down on them.

I think the padding on this shoes is just perfect. It's not too thick and not too thin so as to not provide any cushioning at all... I was led to believe that the Dunlop Volleys has about the same thickness but that they're just more flexible and just a tad less bit of padding.

But check this out, even Dunlop Volleys are selling on the internet for $50 bucks now..... whilst I got mine for $10. Another quick search for Puma Commander also reveals average "sale" price at $64.60. That's no freakin' sale! THIS, however, is a sale: $50 shoes discounted to 70% = $10. If they had 10 of those shoes at Sports Station, I'd buy them all.

Although to be a jerk and a nerd, I do have to say that I generally try NOT to support Puma or Adidas..... so far with little consistency on my part. I do still love both of these brands, and Adidas in particular is my favorite all-around uber cool brand. But Adidas and Puma are both German, and they both come from the same brothers, who split later on - but not before joining the Nazi party in WWII, a fact I'm positive the new leaderships at both Adidas and Puma are VERY keen to forget. But yep, they're both Nazi members once.

At least if I buy Dunlop Volleys, I'll be buying an Australian brand. Or Nike. Or best yet, New Balance. OMG I love New Balance. But there you go. A piece of nasty heritage which sometimes raises the question on my part, is it still worth to care about something like this? It was, after all, WWII, and Adidas and Puma today resembles nothing like Adidas and Puma under the leadership of the two original German brothers. But it still tickles the mind, particularly mine.

My First Experience Getting Hit By A Motorcycle - A Lesson Well Learned

I think I'm accumulating more and more immersive, in-depth experiences in this country faster than I thought. Over the past three months, I've been ticketed and lost my newly acquired driver's license, experienced epic (and I mean EPIC) traffic jams, re-learned driving in hellish traffic and getting honked by various types of cars and motorcycles more times than all of my 12 years of living in LOS ANGELES combined (LA drivers aren't exactly friendly, they ain't), learned how to jaywalk like a pro (frogger-style), became very adept at chasing city buses and jumping aboard at the last minute......... and today I proudly learned another essential skill mandatory for survival in Jakarta: Look both ways before you cross the street.

In the afternoon, as usual I had my coffee craving, so I went outside my office to the small "warung" (street food stall) across the street. Yes, in the US, I go to Starbucks to order my coffee, but in here, I can either send someone to fetch me the coffee or I can go myself, order it, then have it delivered to my office. Ahh....such is the life.

There was a medium-sized boxed truck parked right in front of the coffee warung. Although logically this would be a strange sight considering that the small alleyway street is only about 5 meters wide and two-way traffic normally passes by here, I've gotten used to such sights and thought of nothing further.

In a hindsight, I should've known that that was my blind spot coming out from the warung. After ordering the coffee and making small talks with the shopkeeper, I carelessly stepped out of the warung and, thinking nothing further, appeared from behind the boxed truck to cross the street back to my office.

It happened so fast. I only had a chance to swing my arm out when out of nowhere, a zooming motorcycle swiped my entire right arm at high speed. Shocked, I left my arm flailing in the air, my wrist bone throbbing from the impact, and then I turned my head around and saw everything in slow motion: The zooming motorcycle swerving and losing its balance, the driver obviously just as shocked from the thought of hitting someone full-on, and then - wobble, wobble, wobble, and - CRASH! The driver and its passenger crashed to the ground with a resounding thud, skidded a small distance, then hit an oncoming motorcycle from the opposite side, which also wobbled and fell.

I watched the entire chain reaction with my left arm still hanging in the air, mouth agape. I didn't know whether I should be mad or laughing. The entire scene would've been so comical if it weren't so f***d up. The sound of the crash was pretty horrifying, and very unfortunately for the dude riding on the back seat, he wore a short pants. I think he was fine, though, as I didn't notice any burn marks on the leg that he skidded over. He was nice enough to turn around very quickly and asked if I was okay. I didn't reply right away, still in shock, and he looked pretty concerned.

For a moment, all three of us just stared at each other, not knowing what to say. I was at fault for appearing suddenly from behind the truck. The driver of the "ojek" (ojek is motorcycle for hire, a common transportation form in Jakarta. You pay the driver to drive you somewhere and pay him an agreed-upon fare) was obviously at fault for driving up against the one-way street. And at high speed. The passenger was looking at both of us like, seriously, this is some f***d up s**t. I'm wearing a short, yo. Could've lost a leg there.

But after small mumbles and grumbles (none of us dared to point fingers because ALL of us were at fault one way or the other), everyone just went along their way. I returned safely to my office, and as I waited for my coffee to arrive, I sat very quietly and thought to myself, "I have an interesting life." I thank the Lord for His perpetual protection on my emptyheaded ass, and for this rich life that I have. Rich not in terms of financially, but rich in terms of the life experiences I've gathered over the years; the library of stories that I'll be able to tell my kids and grandkids and amuse them for hours on end. Life IS beautiful - if you only know how to look.

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