#185 I'm So Cool, Guys. Sooooo Cool.

What is there to say about this shirt that you don't get from that cool, cool, so cool photo that I've posted above? I was thinking recently about how, clothing-wise, I didn't really have too many embarrassing phases when it comes to photos that I'll look back on when I'm old and cool. But now I'm starting to realize that this entire blog is a catalog of my embarrassing phase. 

Anywhoozle, this shirt was a gift that I received from Mr. Gerald Tan who knew well of my love of shirts, all things 80s, and things that are epically lame (things so lame that they come back around to being awesome). This was either a birthday or Rex Manning Day gift. I can't remember if I've ever recounted the majesty of Rex Manning Day on this blog. It is as follows:

My group of friends at school decided that because we weren't going to see each other over the holidays, we'd reconvene after break instead and have our own holiday on which to exchange gifts. We dubbed this day Rex Manning Day as a nod to the movie Empire Records. Why Rex Manning Day?Probably because it's shorter than a Respectful of All Faiths Gift-giving and Cake-eating Celebration...Day. Usually this party happened on the President's Day or Martin Luther King Day holidays. Usually I'd point out that the holiday already had its own name but this comment would be met with boos and various objects pelted at my head. We'd exchange ridiculous gifts (examples: Hulk Hands, Legos, Nerf guns), maybe watch Empire Records or some other terrible movie, and have Rex Manning Day cake. 

Things I know about Miami Vice:

• They were fond of neon pastels and wearing shoes with no socks
• It took place in Miami 
• Because of this, I assume it's the inspiration for CSI: Miami
• They used to have a stunt show at Universal Studios
• It sucked.
• The not-Don Johnson star of the show was the first actor to come up with the acronym EGOT, giving himself the goal of winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony award sometime in his career. Considering I can't even remember his name without google-ing it, I imagine he didn't come anywhere near attaining his goal. 
• Note: Now that I've employed the magic of Wikipedia, I've discovered that Phillip Michael Thomas (how could I forget three such totally distinct and not at all generic first names?) was never even nominated for any of those honors. Ouch. 
• Don Johnson also released a song that was a minor hit called "Heartbeat". 
• It sucks.

#184 I appear to be trapped in my shirt

Oddly enough this shows off the shirt better than most of my other "proper" photos. I should really just take photos of the shirts or don a mask for these things. Goodness.

I'm going to try my best to recall all that I wrote the first time I attempted to write this post. Originally there was a very lengthy and heartfelt post about my various big memories about the band Saves the Day, but we'll see if I have the patience to attempt to recreate what was no-doubt a literary masterpiece.

I still remember the first time I heard one of their songs. I was getting a ride home from my high school section leader when the opening notes to "At Your Funeral" started ringing through the radio. As soon as it hit the first verse I started bugging him about if he knew who the song was by and what the title was, making sure to note it in the little reporters notebook I used to keep in my pocket at all times. Probably within the week I made a trek out to Tower Records to pick up their album.

It was unlike anything I'd really heard at the time. Not really groundbreaking, but certainly different than the sort of popular rock bands that flooded the airwaves. This was a time in which I was still mainly using the radio to inform my music listening habits (which kind of blows my mind to think of). I want to say that buying that Saves the Day album marked a turning point in my musical education. After that I really started to turn more to the internet and music sites like AbsolutePunk.net (yeah I thought I was a cool little punk rock kid with my Hot Topic bracelets and random pins on my black backpack. yeesh) to get recommendations about which bands to check out and what shows to see.

Saves the Day was the first concert I ever went to see and I've even got the shirt to prove it. I remember I wasn't familiar with the other albums that they had released before their most recent one so I was left kind of mumbling along or swaying absentmindedly when they played those songs.

This shirt is from one of the other handful of times that I went to see them, and this was from one of my more memorable concert experiences. It was held at the teen center at my town and they got a few songs in before I started to notice that it smelled a lot like gas...

...they ended up stopping in the middle of their set because they had to evacuate the building due to the quite obvious gas leak. The lead singer was kind enough to set up for an impromptu acoustic set in the park adjacent to the concert venue. Then afterward he hung around and singed autographs and took photos with people. I actually had him record my outgoing message, which was probably just confusing for people trying to reach me and only cool to maybe one or two of my friends.

I listened to their "Stay What You Are" to get me in the right mindset as I was composing this post. I've got to say it still holds up fairly well. I'm still a big fan of their bass grooves and there's some good guitar work in there too. Further listening: Tracks 1, 4, 8, and 10

#183 Pa-pa--paparazzi

I've come to regret the decision to include my face in these picture posts.

Anywho, I got this shirt from Stacy. I believe it was part of some skit she had to do for German class in high school. Apparently that's all they did in her German class because one of the other big stories I've gotten from her also involves a skit in German class (if you haven't heard it before, the punchline is that Stacy had to play the ugly one). Kind of a meh shirt. I pretty much just wore it as a black undershirt.

Instead of talking about the shirt, I'll relate how I spent last Monday. I perhaps foolishly spent the day at Disneyland in the rain. However, unlike last year I was infinitely more prepared this time around (and the rain actually let up in the late afternoon). Highlights included singing along to "Part of Your World" with Nuno for no apparent reason and going with it anyway, riding on the swinging ferris wheel cars with people that are terrified of it, and riding the roller coaster twice with the rain whipping us in the face (I'm pretty sure it was also raining the hardest while we were on it too).

#182 Whoa. This is Heavy.

Here's a little known fact about me: I'm super cool, guys. Super, super cool.

Anywho, if there's any delay in getting this post done, it's going to be only because I love Back to the Future and could not shut up about it. Definitely one of my very, very, very, very (that's right; bold, underlined, and italicized for extra, extra, extra emphasis) favorite movie series when I was a kid. I must have put "hoverboard" on my Christmas list at least a few times until I realized they weren't real (and then probably for another year after I found out they didn't already exist because Santa's magic anyway and he could probably have the accomplished elf scientists of the North Pole fabricate one, no problem).

I idolized Marty McFly. By now I sense there's a clear pattern emerging in all of my childhood heroes. Ferris Bueller, Marty McFly, Han Solo, Zach Morris - all cocky assholes who know exactly how cool they are. Indiana Jones fits this role about half of the time but I still probably lump him into the more strong, solemn hero type. But McFly was just the coolest. Much like a Greek hero though, Marty actually gets punished for his hubris and we all learn a valuable lesson about humility, the end. About here is where I'm tempted to make an easy joke about being Asian and not seeing anything wrong with being called yellow (or Yellah! if it's getting spat at you by Mad Dog Tannen) but instead I'll refrain from my natural instinct to pun.

But gosh, how does one sum up what makes these movies so good? They're fun, have a great sense of humor, and at the base of the movies are pretty tightly plotted and engaging. It's also a movie that has a lot of great callbacks and plays well with its own mythology. But more than that, dude, how cool are hoverboards?! And those self-lacing shoes! Lord knows I hate laces. It's always interesting to see how different people interpret what the future will bring.

The second movie was always my favorite partly because of the future section. It also played the most with time travel with the alternate 1985 and the brilliant sequence with the two Martys at the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance. Plus, Michael J. Fox plays his own daughter in it. You've got to respect a man comfortable enough with himself to rock tights and a skirt. Even when he's playing a woman, MJF is the man.

#181 Magic Music Days

I apparently had zero sense of how big I was back in the day because so many of my things from high school were huge. It's like those before and after photos for weight loss ads except the before is just ill-fitting baggy clothing (and the after is someone that's still fat. whoops).

This was a particularly fun trip. Though, I suppose it's hard to go wrong with a trip to Disneyland. I think it might have also been my first time exploring California Adventure. I'm pretty sure when we were going about the parks, me and my friends were the kinds of teens that I'd scoff at now. Skipping, randomly singing, laughing like donkeys (or maybe that's just me on a normal day). I suppose there was some actual music played and performed but really it was all about going on rides and eating churros. I always appreciated that our trips in high school band were very thinly veiled excuses to have fun (e.g. our trip to Colorado my senior year for a "music festival" aka "SKI TRIP, BITCHES!").

#180 Bob's Big Boy

I believe this shirt was purchased at the Bob's Big Boy in Burbank (say that 5 times fast) while we grabbed a snack before a TV taping.

I didn't have an actual Big Boy burger until a year later when Brandon Stark (and perhaps Elaine?) and I made a pilgrimage out to one as part of a sort of a tour of famous fatass foodie spots in Southern California.

As for the burger itself, it was okay. I'm not sure how I feel about sweet relish on a burger.

#179 It's a me!

Not much to say about this one other than, man, my hair sucks in this photo. I got it on a whim because it's pretty cute and super comfy.