#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.

# 174 Don't be a drag just be a queen.

This is the shirt that I wore on my birthday this year. To celebrate Ali and Brandon and I went to Disneyland for the day and then Ali and I went to the Glee concert. Because I'm the biggest, cheesiest nerd ever I made a shirt for said concert (if you've been following this blog, yes, I did this for the second year in a row and yes, I just made you regret your decision about following this blog).

If you don't watch the show, they did a "Born This Way" Lady Gaga number and all wore shirts sharing the things they were born with that have been an obstacle in their lives. Brittany, the show's caricature of a dumb blonde makes this shirt for the show's lesbian character Santana (Brittany thinks that the shirt in fact says, "lesbian". These characters, they're wacky).

This shirt of course was the one that I related to the most. I feel like I've talked a lot about my whole gay struggle thing (that or it was only once and I felt so nakedly emotional and awkward that I balk at the idea of rehashing it) so I won't go into it again. I will say though, that despite being a pretty stereotypical looking lesbian, I still felt uncomfortable wearing a shirt that obliquely outs me to the world (of people that watch Glee) in public. I don't care if people know of course, but I've never really been someone that shoves their gayness in people's faces. No rainbow flags or clever pins or bumper stickers for me. I like to treat gay like any other trait of mine (like Asian or nerdy or douchebag) and I don't want it to be the one trait that defines me (If I did have to choose one trait to define me, I'd rather choose "awesomeness"). I suppose thinking about it this sentiment seems to go against the whole spirit of the shirt, but hey; it's just a silly shirt for a concert, not a political statement (I'm much too apathetic and lazy to attempt anything like that).

Alright, I may have slightly contradicted what I said at the beginning of that paragraph, but it wasn't really about too many deep issues so for those of you that shy away from emotional intimacy (I'm looking at you, self), I think I've spared you.

#169 MORE Rhinestones!

Not a great picture of the shirt or a particularly good picture of me but it's the best picture of the costume I think.

It was part of my costume for the annual UCI Anteater Band trip up to UC Davis for their Picnic Day Battle of the Bands. This year's theme was Disneyland so I decided to go for the mega obscure (as per usual when it comes to costumed events) and dressed as Captain EO, aka Michael Jackson as an intergalactic sailor on a mission of peace, music, and epic dance moves. This was produced in the 80s, a time when it was apparently generally assumed that music had the power to change the physical properties of things (relevant portion starts at the 1:28 mark). Michael's moves are so fly that they are able to keep his ass from being beaten by evil space robots and transform an evil witch (that looks to be about half-hentai-tentacle-monster and half Eddie Munster) into Anjelica Huston (eh, you can't win 'em all).

BUY: Me and my love of specificity, I bought the official (and relatively pricey) shirt from Disneyland. It does have a very old school soft feel to the material though so it's super comfy.

#168 "You're a loser, Tony. A loser with a skinny weiner!"

Heavyweights was maybe my favorite movie when I was a kid. It's just hilarious and weird and a total classic. Fun fact time: this movie is co-written by Judd Apatow aka the man behind practically every money-making, critically-lauded comedy of the past few years.

This shirt is one of the ones that the kids wear once Ben Stiller's character (Tony Perkis) takes over the camp. By far though, the breakout star of the movie is Lars, one of Uncle Tony's henchmen/camp counselors. Every line he has is pretty much comedy gold.

BUY: I got this one from mypartyshirt.com. They also have the counselor shirts (which are the same but in black).

#135 Spot the Irony

I got this shirt Tuesday night at the weekly Cookie Whiskey. I can't remember if I've mentioned them before, but Cookie Whiskeys are a standing Tuesday night party held at Dexter, Ohannes, and Cameron's apartment. These are usually themed and this week's was Ohannes themed in honor of his recent birthday. Ohannes is the awkward fellow depicted on my shirt. If it's hard to read the text due to the fancy-times font it says "NO FAT CHICKS". Definitely the shirt to wear if ever you decide to sit in on a Women's Studies class. Cameron had a bunch of these printed up and at one point people pulled off their top layer of clothing to reveal that they were wearing these shirts underneath. It was awesome.

The party was pretty rad. They turned off the lights and just had a blacklight going for a while. There was also a discoball-kinda light going until Drunk Trevor knocked it over and broke it. Oh Drunk Trevor. Who knows what sorts of mischief you'll get yourself into? There was also a swordfight, dancing, Jaws, and an abandoned game of king's cup. There was almost too much party at that party. Almost.

#132 The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

This is one of my very favorite T-shirts. I mean, I'm pretty much over the whole pirate thing, it's just a cool looking shirt with a neat design. Yesterday Brandon, Tim, and I went on a research trip to Disneyland to take some photos for reference since our theme for the Davis trip this year is Disney/Disneyland. All very scientific, hard work I assure you.

Though it actually ended up being somewhat difficult since it's a little awkward taking a photo of someone that doesn't know you're taking a photo of them. One cast member (which I'm later going to abbreviate to CM) seemed particularly displeased to be the subject of Brandon's shot.

Anywho, while in line for Thunder Mountain we randomly spotted Darrin and Tanya. They were there using their free tickets that we got from the Disney Half-marathon so they were spending the whole day. Me being the hedonist that I am I couldn't turn down a day at Disneyland so I stayed at the park with them when Brandon and Tim went home around lunch time. Darrin and Tanya's friends Tim L. and Cierra (also L.) met up with us along with their two young sons. Now I had heard from various people about how adorable their first son Jack was. I come from a gigantic family so I'm used to being surrounded by cute little babies and toddlers. However, having met little Jack I've got to say, that is one cuuuute kid. I was a little worried he might be a bit put off by my presence since we'd never met before but about half an hour into meeting me he motioned for me to lift him up (well, more launch him into the air) and I happily obliged.

The kids were pooped in the afternoon so Tim and Cierra tagged out and Sarah and Sean tagged in. Pretty standard day though at one point Darrin mentioned that he had never gone on the Grizzly Rapids ride at California Adventure. So because the wait time was 5 minutes we agreed to go on it. We got all the way to the stop before the last drop when the ride broke down. To evac it they had to drain the section we were in, attach a ladder to the raft, and then we walked out through the mountain. Neat stuff. Anywho, they gave us a front of the line/fastpass-y thing to make up for the fact that the ride went down. We got one then while we were chatting with the CM about what rides we should use it on he gave us another one since he had extras. We ended up using them later in the evening. We went on the Matterhorn with one, then went on Peter Pan. The CM that was supposed to take the pass never actually collected it, then while we were chatting with the CM that was running the exit she handed us one to use on another ride. The park was pretty close to closing and we still had to get onto Indiana Jones (which we already had a normal fastpass for) so we decided to use one on the Alice in Wonderland ride just for the heck of it. That CM actually ended up handing the pass back to us again because the line wasn't really that long for it. Apparently you just can't give those things away at the end of the night. Too bad we didn't have more time.

#131 *Throaty Heavy-metal Yell*

So maybe I won't move all of my costumes and props downstairs.

Today is the UCI homecoming game against our rivals Long Beach State. Though really Fullerton is so close that they're kind of our rivals too. And we kind of had an old timey feud with the UCSB Pep Band (they're also perennially lame in general) so we're not big fans of them either. Basically UCI always be hatin' on fools. Uh, but officially we're rivals with Long Beach State (we even call them out on our UCI version of the UC fight song. It's like a really lame uptempo rap battle). What helps fuel the rivalry is that Long Beach fans are often really scary and mean. Historically their band also sucks at making signs so we've busted them on that in the past. I swear one of them looked like it was made with pencil on black paper.

UPDATE: The Homecoming game was amazing. I haven't seen the Bren Events Center that packed in a really long time (apparently it was the biggest crowd in four years). A bunch of fans in the crowd put on afro wigs in support of Mike Wilder our afro-rocking shooting guard. Whenever he would something particularly amazing, they'd start chanting "af-ro thun-der". One of the afro fans also had a Spiderman costume on which is probably really confusing to anyone that doesn't know that Darren Moore our point guard's nickname is Spiderman. It was just a straight-up fun game to watch. Pretty close game, very intense (as is sometimes common with our games against Long Beach, a fight almost broke out on the court), lots of jumping up and cheering involuntarily.

Bumper (aka Angela) from camp was in the crowd (she goes to LBSU and is on their dance team) so it was fun catching up with her. We shared stories about performing for school sports. Mr. Schuester from Glee (aka Matthew Morrison) showed up to the game around halftime and sat on the sidelines. Quite nerdily we ended up playing "My Life Would Suck Without You" and "Bad Romance" which are both songs that they've done on the show. I'm not sure if this was on purpose since we do play those songs a lot, but Mark loves him some Glee so I have to imagine that was at least partly orchestrated.

After we won, Brandon mentioned something about storming the court and I was like "oh, it's on." So after we won and played the intro to the fight song, I put down my saxophone, ran past Eric and jumped around on the court with all of the fans. At one point something large and sweaty brushed past me and I realized that the team had joined in after shaking hands with LB (don't be too jealous, ladies and gays). It was a lot of fun. I expected Brandon or someone else to join me, but of course I was the only one crazy enough to run out. After the fight song, fans started to disperse so I ran back over to the band. Eric was looking at me like I was crazy. He apparently didn't see me run out to join the fans. He was like, "Where the fuck did you just come from?" but, you know, with his eyebrows. I made it back just in time to start playing the alma mater (but it was more like every other note in the alma mater. Running out and jumping around and running back in time for the next song can take a lot out of ya). Most fun I've had at a game in a long time.

#128 Title!

Today the band played at a mens volleyball game against USC. We got whupped. This is a shirt that long-standing USC rival UCLA's chapter of KKY sold one year as a fundraiser. If I've learned anything from the chapter at UCLA it's that that they take their rivalries very seriously.

#127 Bieber Fever

I woke up today sick of my hair so I went and got quite a bit of it chopped off. So, once again I resemble Justin Beiber in terms of hairstyle (hence the goofy get-up). This shirt has a twin in black that I wore on Katy's birthday. I know that with the hat on you can't actually see just how short my hair is, but I'm okay with that. Really if I wanted to look like Bieber I should've given some sort of super intense stare into the camera. This pose is a little bit too Backstreet Boys circa '97 (I'm the goofy one!).

Fun fact: the tiny splotch of green on my hat is Reptar.

#113 It kind of looks like the Cowardly Lion's medal of courage

This is a shirt that I got in elementary school (either the second or third grade I think) during a school-wide reading promotion. I managed to be one of the more voracious little readers (read: I spent a lot of time alone and indoors) so I got quite a bit of swag from the campaign. This badass shirt, free pizza coupons, I even got a physical medal like the one on my shirt. When they say "gold medal winner" they aren't playing around (well, the gold part is still a bit of a lie...and they're playing it fast and loose with the word "winner"). I actually had to accept this shirt on stage at an assembly that they had in front of the whole school so they could all laud me for my nerdiness (kneel, peasants!).

#105 If I were to be summed up by one t-shirt, this may or may not be it.

This is one of those shirts that is pretty fitting for me I think. Those who know me best would probably be pretty quick to describe me as indecisive. That or awkward, I'm also pretty awkward. Really, the indecision just adds to the awkwardness.

Anywho, I'm terrible at just choosing stuff and being okay with said decision.

#98 I Heart Cliches

For a somewhat avid shirt collector such as myself, it seems fitting to snatch up the classics of the genre. It's like a comic book collector owning Amazing Fantasy #15 or a baseball card collector owning a Honus Wagner card. Shirts I would also classify as classics are the "Frankie Say Relax", the tuxedo t-shirt, "Kiss me I'm Irish". There are also your passing shirt trends such and Urban Outfitters classics such as "Everybody loves a _____ boy/girl" and "Jesus is my Homeboy" or passing pop culture memes like "Make 7 Up Yours".

Anywhoozle, I've really only been to New York once for a grand total of maybe 24 hours. I went as part of a trip to the east coast in the 8th grade. Saw the Lion King on Broadway, ate at the All Star Cafe in Times Square (I'm pretty sure those don't exist anymore), went to the top of the Empire State Building, it was a fun time. Oddly enough that's not when I got this shirt. Instead I got this shirt at the end of my roadtrip with Bstark in the JFK airport gift shop before I flew back to California.

Happy Little Blog

If you can't tell, today's shirt features artist Bob Ross host of PBS's The Joy of Painting. If you've never seen the show I highly suggest it if you feel the need to take a nap in the afternoon. He's just the most mellow, calm person ever to have been allowed to appear on public television. As Patton Oswalt so put it, the guy's like a "walking quaalude". His narration as he was painting was just so soothing and calming. Everything he painted was a "happy little this" or "happy little that" and he would kind of come up with little stories as to why everything was there. He was just the biggest hippie with the biggest afro* and it was amazing.

I used to be pretty addicted to the show. There was something so compelling about watching him take a blank canvas and all of a sudden turn it into this really impressive work of art and then immediately fuck it up by adding a gigantic fucking tree in the foreground. I've seen quite a few episodes and there are very few ones that end without him adding a giant brown pine tree on the side of the painting which ends up covering about a fifth of the work he's already done. Like of the maybe two episodes that I haven't seen him paint a big tree like that, one was because all he painted that day was a giant bunny on a blank background.

*Tangent time: There's a little red line below the word afro in my post. Apparently it's a proper noun as my computer wants me to correct it to Afro. After looking at the wiki it's probably because it's short for Afro-American. Wait. My computer didn't correct the word wiki, but afro is improper? What is this madness?

I've become uncomfortable with my own face.

This is a shirt that Ali was just going to donate away since it belonged to an ex-boyfriend. I however snatched it up because it fit nicely and I like a good white shirt ([bitchy gay alert] it really pops against my perpetually tan skin). This I think was a promo shirt for that show where Gene Simmons teaches British schoolkids how to be rockstars (I swear I'm not making this up).

This isn't the first time I've capitalized upon the break ups of others (hmm, upon reflection that just makes me sound like some sort of skank). Um, anyway I just wanted to say that I also have a fancy, expensive down comforter that an ex-girlfriend got from a friend.

Seriously I'm not a slut.

That is a truth fact.

This shirt is one that Brandon had specially printed for him back in the day. It's a reference to a quote on the show [fanfare!] Veronica Mars. It's something that she tricks a rival character into saying on one of the episodes. Brandon was getting rid of it (it's too big for his tiny man frame) so I nabbed it since it'll at least make a good undershirt. I did enjoy Veronica Mars, but sometimes the mysteries and romantic dramas got a liiiiitle too crazy for my tastes. You can't really expect much from the CW (home of Gossip Girl and the Vampire Diaries).

Oh, I got a small digital copy of the photo with Kobe that was taken last week. Here we are. It's a wonder Orville is even conscious.

Cowabunga, Gentlemen.

The shirt for today was a birthday gift from my friend, Hannah. She wasn't terribly subtle about what she was getting me that year since she straight up asked me one day close to my bday, "Which do you like more, ninja turtles or pirates?" Love you, Hannah. In case it's hard to read it says "Adult Mutant Ninja Turtles", hence the business suits and matching ties. I do love that gray haired, balding (even though he didn't have hair to begin with) Michelangelo still loves pizza.

The ninja turtles is without a doubt the pop culture phenomenon that I loved the most when I was a kid. As someone that is a fan of popular culture, I don't take this statement lightly. TMNT is my oldest and most enduring pop culture love.

A funny story involving ninja turtles and my stupid mouth: Bstark, Elaine, Dylan, and I were on a roadtrip years ago and somehow we got to the topic of I think different baby and kid versions of existing cartoon franchises, e.g. Muppet Babies, Baby Loony Toons, Tiny Toons, The Flintstone Kids, A Pup Named Scooby Doo (one of my FAVORITE cartoons as a child), etc. We got to the topic of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and how there should have been a baby version of that show and my brilliant response was "Yeah, like they'd call it 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Babies'". There was a pause and Elaine said, "Um, I think you mean Baby Mutant Ninja Turtles." [cue hysterical laughter and facepalm] Yeah, I wasn't able to live that one down for a while.

Find it:
It's from Snorg Tees which I think of as like Busted Tees' lil' brother. This specific shirt can be found here.

Even Bears Love Rock Band

I own this shirt for three reasons:

1. It was 5 dollars at Target
2. It has bears on it
3. Said bears are PLAYING ROCK BAND.

That's pretty much all there is to it. The reason why I'm wearing it today however is because two close friends that recently married (Hi, Mark and Stacey!) are having a rock band themed wedding reception today. I joked about wearing a tuxedo, but the shirt will fit in much better I think.

P.S. I ended up wearing the tux anyway. I guess I joked about it enough that my friends wouldn't let me puss out.