#158 "And if we go down, we go down together"

Here's another Taking Back Sunday shirt. Clearly my love for Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, and Saves the Day was unstoppable in my younger years. The tiny text in the word balloon reads "We have no feelings so you may not hurt them." I'm not sure what these words are going to do to discourage the shark, but more power to you, little pirate.

#155 Avast Ye, Cleveland!

This is a shirt that I believe I got from Urban Outfitters. This was back in the heady days of my pirate obsession. I don't know what I was thinking. Mustachioed historical figures are way cooler. I also probably imagined myself as a bit of a rockstar with my emo bangs and pins on my backpack so the guitar crossbones also sealed the deal.

I remember wearing this shirt a lot with my band hawaiian shirt to help keep my uncovered forearms warm I guess.

#116 Could someone please call a surgeon, who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart...?

This shirt is one I got online I believe from The Postal Service's store. The Postal Service is one of Ben Gibbard's forays into music outside of his time as the frontman of Death Cab for Cutie and ridiculously lucky marriage to Zooey Deschanel. The other half of The Postal Service is Jimmy Tamborello of the lesser known band Dntel. They got their name from how they would pass bits of songs back and forth to each other, Tamborello making the bleeps and bloops and mailing them to Gibbard who would add in the talky bits. Fun facts.

I was going to launch into a story about how I first heard about the band and it's a short tale involving a girl I used to know and peanut butter sandwiches but it's part of Allison's continuing saga of romantic failings and it's not terribly interesting or fun so I'll pass.

Music more than food or smells triggers memories for me. I remember what song was playing in my head while I was taking my AP European History Test. I remember the song they played in the background of my completely unnecessary 6th grade graduation ceremony. I remember the CD I borrowed and played on my walkman during the 8th grade trip to the east coast. Movies can often make me cry, but nothing can make me feel more legitimately sad and moody than a song and maybe it's because of the memories and feelings that get stirred up by them. It's also probably why I like music so much, oddly enough. I'll pretty much seek out anything that pulls some sort of response out of me. I'm addicted to feeling things I guess, even though I often feel things that are shitty.

Uh...Happy New Year! Woo...

#95 CIA MIA?

Sorry for the poor lighting, but I don't really care that much, at least not about a CIA shirt. I believe this one is from my junior year. I never really understood why there was a splashy water pattern behind the CIA logo. Lots of ridiculous things happened that year band and basketball wise. Our men's team was undefeated at home, we traveled to the LBSU pyramid and played at a game there, then we lost to LBSU in the tournament off of a crazy three point shot at the buzzer. That was also the year that I learned that a lot of LBSU fans are kind of dicks.

Tonight the women's soccer team won in the first round of the NCAA tournament (they got a bid because they were ranked 11th in the nation) against ASU. We were down by a goal in the first half but we finally scored about 25 mins into the second half and then got another goal in about five minutes after that. It was actually a really fun game once we finally scored because the crowd was super into it. I mean, I barely give a shit about soccer, but that was pretty entertaining.

#85 Why Back In My Day...

This shirt is the chapter shirt from the first year that I joined the fraternity. The thing that kind of looks like an M near the anteater is UCI's chapter designation, Lambda Alpha. Jaime designed it that year and as was kind of the usual case, it was the only design that was made so it was printed.

Things I remember from that year: There were 17 members when I first joined, the meetings were ridiculously long, my candidate class was super competitive, and Brandon and I were the only regular alto sax players (Kaylene came when she could but there were a lot of games with just the two of us. The year before there were maybe four altos on average at games).

Proper Engrish

I got this shirt way back when from Engrish.com. Engrish.com features fabulously failed attempts at English translations, mostly from Japan. That should be a clue as to why the shirt makes sense. You can find the shirt directly right here. It's apparently been discontinued. The rest of their store features a lot of funny and just downright bizarre designs. I think Trevor and Emiko were probably the ones to direct me to that site in the first place since I'm pretty darn white (you can tell because I just used the word darn). Also I neglected to think to do the squinty peace sign face in my picture and that definitely knocks me down a peg on the Asianity scale (which I assume goes from Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's to Jackie Chan playing the violin in a rice paddy hat).

Okay I'm just going to quit while I'm behind.

Is this like a gay thing?

This is a shirt that either Emiko or Gillian gave me their freshman year that they got from their dorm. I was pretty jealous of their housing shirts since they were all in different colors. All I got was this lame white shirt with a weird half globe logo that said "It's all about ME (standing for Middle Earth)". So because I said I liked it one of them gave theirs to me (or stole one or had an extra). I don't really know why their slogan was "got pride?" but by the fact that they used the word pride and had shirts in a rainbow of colors I can only assume that it's some sort of gay thing. So I'm all for it.

Wax a chump like a candle?

This shirt is from Vintage Vantage which is very sadly going out of business. Most of their stuff is now around the 5 dollar range since they're getting rid of all of their merch. I seen a ton of their shirts sold at places like Urban Outfitters so I'm pretty shocked that they're closing up shop. They have had tons of clever designs in the past featuring things like an Indian chief that says "I Have Reservations", two mounties kissing called "French Canadienne", "Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go to RUSSIA", "Honk if you love geese", and "New Mexico, cleaner than regular Mexico". They're all really silly and there are tons more funny slogans and I'm sad to see them go. They also have a lot of shirts were the design doesn't really have anything to do with the image, e.g. one with a fighter jet on it that says "Who loves burritos?".

If you do check out Vintage Vantage be sure to check out their sale section because for some reason even though they're all on sale there are some shirts there that aren't in the regular section.

Anywho this shirt is called "Ice, Ice, Baby". If you can't tell, the tiny flag on the igloo says "ice ice" on it. The baby saying "too cold" is also a reference to a line from the song ("Ice, ice, baby. Too cold to hold."). It's also kind of a depressing thing for the naked baby to be saying if you think about it too much.

I've got a lot more band shirts than I thought I did

It's at this point I'm realizing that I've got way, way, way more band T-shirts than I thought I did. And like out of all of them I maybe still listen to two of the bands whose shirts I own. Brand New is not one of these bands. I'm just not angry enough for that music these days. Most stuff I listen to is on the sleepy, mellow side. Anwho this shirt is one that I got from a St. Vincent DePaul thrift store back in the day. I also picked up another Brand New shirt while I was there. I like to think some jilted ex-girlfriend decided to donate away her boyfriend's Brand New shirts to punish her ex in a socially conscious way.

No interesting stories today. Today is day 2 of our so far at least 3 day adventure in trying to get connected to a new cable and internet provider. This means I've been stuck indoors for the better part of today and yesterday and depending on when they come by tomorrow, it could be the case then as well.

Oh and I forgot to mention it yesterday but I believe the chum shirt is shirt number 50 for this blog. Kind of hard to believe there's already been that many. There's still plenty more to go.

Digging Myself Deeper Into a Pit of Nerdiness

This is another homemade shirt further exemplifying my extreme nerdiness. This was made before going to see a 3:30 AM showing of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Why 3:30 AM you say?

1) Midnight was sold out
2) I managed to convince everyone the day before that it would be cool to go
3) I apparently hate sleep.

I'm pretty sure we all fell asleep at some point during the film (for me it was sometime around when they visit Kashyyyk). Star Whore is short for Star Whores which is a porn parody I'm sure exists somewhere.

I'm a fan of Star Wars. I've seen the original trilogy many times (mostly because it was on TV a lot when I was a kid), I named my dog after Chewbacca, and I dressed up as Han Solo last Halloween. If I were to have twins that were a boy and a girl later in life, I'm pretty sure I'd strongly consider convincing my partner to let me name them Luke and Leia. Oddly enough, Star Wars isn't even my favorite film franchise. I actually love the Indiana Jones series more, but I've done fewer nerdy things in the name of Indiana Jones (I don't think I even own one Indiana Jones shirt, gasp!).

Get It: Considering I made this myself the only way for you to get it is for you to steal it from me, and that's just mean. You could also presumably just make your own.

Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica

Today's shirt is from Glarkware which specializes in original pop culture themed apparel (mainly tv shows). This one is called "Number One Threat" which is a reference to the Colbert Report and features a giant bear terrorizing several famous American landmarks. You can find it here. Their shirts for the most part are pretty obscure in their references (Veronica Mars) but some are pretty obvious (Star Wars) and some are just balls out random (Bigfoot vs. Abe Lincoln).

Why?: I like bears. I called my big bro a bear because he was big and burly, partly because of this I nicknamed two of my little bros Chocolate and Vanilla Bear (also partly because of Scrubs). Plus Bear's just a fun word to say.

Gabba Gabba Hey

Um I guess this shirt represents the non-current music that I listen to, that or because it's black it'll match the long sleeve shirt that I'm going to wear over it. I'm doing my best impression of the stars of Rock and Roll High School with the hair in my eyes and dark sunglasses, but my hair's not quite long enough anymore. I listened to the Ramones the most during mid-high school to early college. This is also about the time I discovered The Smiths and The Cure (which are both bands that have had more staying power in my music collection than The Ramones). They're still a fun band to listen to especially during the summer. I feel like they probably get used in amusement park commercials a lot.

Find It:
I actually got it at some memorabilia store at the mall, but you can find it online at the official Ramones store. There's no direct link, but it's about 4/5ths down the page (called their "Standing Logo" shirt).