T-shirt #268 - Purple Under Armor

T-shirt #268 - Purple Under Armor


Because of the delays caused by Friday the Thirteenth and yesterday's entry that took two days to complete, I am going easy today. Here's a tight Under Armor sports shirt that simply allows me to do whatever I want with content.

Today's content will be various shots of my office and of the puppy.

Happy Saturday.

Hope to see you back here tomorrow.






COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 97 shirts remaining


 - chris tower
1312.14
14:54

T-shirt #243 - Movie City

T-shirt #243 - Movie City

I worked in a video store from 1990 to 1995. It was located on the east side of town at Gull Road and Sprinkle Road. It was called Movie City ans was owned by a great guy of whom I am still very fond, a guy named Ken.

I worked all the holidays. Christmas Eve, Easter, New Year's Eve, and any other times that other people wanted off because I needed so much other time off and holidays tended to be good times for me.

It was one of the best jobs I ever had.

I owe a great deal to Ken and his store for teaching me about customer service and building community.

I miss his store. I wish it had not closed, which it did, in or around 1995.

Movie City, I miss you. And I am not the only one.

I miss having access to so many movies. Okay, not true any more with streaming. I miss the time and luxury to bring home stacks of videos and actually binge watch them all. I do not seem to have the time to watch stacks of videos anymore. I am sad about this change and yet not sad. I get more done. I read more.

Today's entry is very short. I am currently in my mythology class as I type this. Lots of grading to do.

ASIDE: The actress Melissa Gilbert (famous for being "Half Pint" on Little House on the Prairie) spent a summer at the Barn Theatre. She came into Movie City one day. She paid with a credit card for a business: Half Pint Enterprises. There's my Movie City brush with fame.

This was not my first shirt choice of the day. I started another entry that will probably go up as Thursday's or even Friday's entry. I photographed this shirt and conceived what I wanted to write later in the afternoon to meet the daily deadline. Tomorrow's and possibly Thursday's entries will be short like this one. And this is supposed to be my light work week.

BTW, the front of the shirt is blank. The design is on the back.

See you tomorrow.

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR: 122 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1311.19 - 20:33

T-shirt #181 - KUDL 2013 Purple: I am teacher; hear me roar

T-shirt #181 - KUDL 2013 Purple: I am teacher; hear me roar

It's Wednesday and that means another KUDL shirt. I am not close to running out of those yet.

This is another 2013 shirt, the purple one. Purple was a cursed color at KUDL, having won no games until it was resurrected this year and that team won some games. Though technically, the winless purple team was my KUSS team (T-shirt #137), and that was KUSS not KUDL, so maybe purple was not actually cursed in KUDL.

But I have written quite a bit about KUDL, and so I will move on to other subjects.

I wore my purple KUDL shirt to school on Monday (1309.16) and have pictures of me teaching at WMU in the new Sangren Hall.

The word of the day was "phlegm." I give words of the day, and I have since I started teaching in 1987. I like to share "phlegm" because not too many people know how to spell it properly. I also like to share the actual dictionary definition: "thick mucus secreted in abnormal quantities." What if you have a little bit of stuff? That's not phlegm. Phlegm is an abnormal quantity. What if it's thin and runny? Also not phlegm. Phlegm is thick. Plus, any word that has mucus, secreted, and abnormal in the definition is a favorite of mine as those are many of my favorite words. This is part of my criteria for choosing words: my own biases.

Though today will be somewhat quick, I plan to expound on a few subjects related to reading (which is what I am seen teaching here), writing, and a few other things.

One of those other things is something I should have mentioned Monday, which is that on Monday (9/16) I celebrated my one-month post surgery date as a cancer survivor, 100% cancer free. The last check was the PSA which was within two-hundredths of zero, so that's essentially zero. I am not back to full activity. After getting back on the ultimate field last week, I am going to try getting back on the bike today and see if I can make the one mile ride (each way) to WMU.

I am also so happy that I have the kind of job in which I can dress as you see me dressed here.

I am very lucky.

READING

I have shared quite a bit about my reading experiences on this blog. But I am not sure that I have given any serious attention to my use of audio books. I did mention them recently (in T-shirt #176) and my recent completion of the audio book of Dimension of Miracles by Robert Sheckley, part of the Neil Gaiman presents audio series. I was even so bold as to post the majority of the page from Audible on my blog.

Back around 2001 or so, I started listening to audio books after I calculated that my time in the car alone each week was over five hours. I also found that the car time I had often enjoyed for using my imagination to prep writing ideas or do actual writing in my head was instead being eaten up with obsessing about stressful crap or situations that were in some way bothering me. I tend to stew and obsess about why someone doesn't like me, what I have done wrong, or what I can say in a given situation when I next encounter a person or some circumstances. I decided that these regurgitations and cycling repetitions of stress and obsession were not healthy and actually a waste of my precious time. Given that I was not using the time productively for writing, I discovered that I could read instead using audio books.

Though my mind would still wander, and though I was still inclined to obsession and anxiety, I found that I could reduce my angst significantly, and I could read three or four times more books per year by listening to audio books. I started with cassette tapes and CDs and later moved on to digital files. But soon I was listening to audio books any time I had something to do that did not take much brain capacity, such as driving, riding my bike, doing dishes, doing laundry, doing yard work, and even just making food for dinner and eating it. Grocery shopping takes just enough of my brain power to make it difficult to track an audio book, but I was one of the first people to soundtrack the experience with my digital music player. I did not see anyone with ear buds until after I started the music while shopping thing, though I hardly think I started the trend but rather other people had the same idea I had around the same time.

During the four moves I have been part of in the last ten years, I listened to audio books while packing an unpacking.

I frequently experience audio book deja vu, in which a place will evoke the memory of the audio book I listened to while riding my bike past that spot or packing boxes in that storage room.

I am a peculiar audio book listener. I always have the paper copy at hand, and I keep my place in the paper copy much like if I were reading it the traditional way. Also, the paper copy helps me to review pages when I feel my mind has wandered, and I am afraid that I may have missed key material. I am always amazed at how much of the audio book actually enters my consciousness.

Though some narrators are awful, and though some books are terrible (such as City of Bones as reviewed in T-shirt #169, I enjoy the audio experience immensely. If not for audio books, I would not be slowly working my way through all of Terry Pratchett's genius Discworld books (I recently finished #16 Soul Music), I may not ever re-read  Dune, which is next up on the docket, and I would never have read at all such wonderful books as Elsewhere and Confessions of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin.

I am also reading books the traditional way, but my progress is slower. I do break each night and try to reserve one or two hours in bed for reading before I go to sleep. But with a stack of comics books, a graphic novel, and two books going at a time, my progress is somewhat slow. I actually spend more time with audio books on average per day than with traditional reading.

Because of my love of reading, I have started a new practice. Since I have a captive audience in my classes at WMU, I am going to recommend one book per class period in the hopes that I inspire even one student to read one of the books. Even that little success will make the work worth it. Monday's book was Blindness by Jose Saramago. Today's book is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.



WRITING - POP!

If you take a look at Monday's to-do list image (T-shirt #179), you will see that writing is on the list of daily tasks but is separate from Daily Shirt, which is blog writing. One of my intentions with starting and maintaining this blog project was to exercise, to do a daily warm up to write fiction. So far, I am letting the blog take the lion's share of the time, and I am not making time for daily fiction writing.

I have many projects in the hopper or on the back burner as one of my friends and I had originally planned a film production company called Backburner Films. Among my projects, I have a YA apocalyptic novel, a combination of cyberpunk and sword and sorcery in an epic series format (I hope), a manual for vampires bent on world domination, a prequel to the aforementioned cyberpunk-sword-and-sorcery epic, and a junior reader series about kids with powers called the Spyder Club.

But right now the project I most want to be working on, and I am trying to find time to work on is called POP! It's a parody of superhero comic books, much in the same vein as things like Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy or more aptly the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett.

I feel that there is a market for such a parody, even though superheroes and comic books are already so over-blown to almost be parodies of themselves at the same time as they try to take themselves seriously. This is a hurdle I am currently trying to decide how to best approach and navigate around (or through).

Given the recent success so many authors have had with e-books, and feeling my oats with readers of my blog (as always thank you), I started to think that releasing POP! as monthly e-book episodes (much like John Sclazi's The Human Division) would be a worthy project. So far, progress has been slow, and I do not want to release the first episode until I have at least five-six in the can, which, by now, I was hoping to have or be close to completing. I had not wanted to let the cat of the bag about this project so as to avoid a jinx. And yet, I am eager to start making progress on the project, and I am ear marking my upcoming trip to Hawaii as a chance to log some time on my project.

In any case, as I approach the halfway mark for the blog, I have decided to share a taste of this project for those who may be curious. This passage experiments with the rambling, aside-prone narrative voice that I may use with the introduction to a story that at best is a single issue and not the main story on which I am at work. But it provides an idea...

THE SHRINK AND HORNTAIL VS. THE CREATURE FROM THE GALACTIC PANCAKE

Throughout history, or rather for the last century, okay, maybe just for a few minutes today after lunch and a lot of gas produced by a pastrami sandwich on rye, there have been men (sometimes women, too, but not for today’s story ... okay, yes there is a woman in the story but she’s not the main character) who have possessed powers beyond the mortal Barbie and Ken of human reasoning. These men (and women, okay, yes, women, too) have become what some idiot decided to call super-heroes, a common noun that has given the super-powered community no end of headaches, grammar lessons, and nuisance lawsuits. These super-heroes (for lack of a better term) have thrilled the world with their colorful fashion sense, fast and flashy costume changes, and the occasional good deed. Our story today is about such a man (yes, a man, dammit, we introduce the woman later!!) + (no, we don’t always introduce the women later, sometimes they’re first, too. See first issues of The Countercatacalysmic Enema Examination of the SheeSulk and Wipsy Willow Fights the Roller Derby at the Tar Pit), a scientist known to the world as Henry Raymond Pimperton or HRP for short. Since he liked being called HRP so much, people took to calling him Herp as a sort of pronunciation of his initials. But you, dear reader, know him as The Astonishing Shrink! a marvel of diminutive power and precision, a tiny wonder of incredible shrinking heroism in the face of any danger.
You will learn here for the first time on any page (because the story has been shared around a few bars and at one collect-the-keys party) the reason that Herp became the Shrink, the past that gnaws like a cancer at the soul of this man, giving him no rest, driving him to the strangest, most macabre and unusual adventures any human being has ever known! (Okay, not really, but it sure sounds like a more interesting story that way, doesn’t it?) And you will see Herp find a companion to aid in his fight against crime, tyranny, grammatical mistakes in store signage, and other gross injustices that affect us all. The companion (this is the woman, now, okay?) who will become known as... Horntail! would be the one to save Herp from the soul-gnawing cancerous angst chewing holes in his already perforated psyche, if only Herp could let go of the past and live in the present of crime-fighting, sign correcting, excitement and adventure.
Come with us now, as The Shrink and Horntail battle the not quite human – but closely resembling the people who shamble about all-you-can-eat buffets on Friday nights – the terrible menace from beyond time and space... THE CREATURE FROM THE GALACTIC PANCAKE!! 

(NOTE: A link on my tumblr about a Dark Matter Pancake...
MILKY WAY MAY HIDE DARK MATTER PANCAKE )

CARTOON ABOUT READING

Lastly, the link to the full cartoon on reading by Lynda Barry and the last few panels. ENJOY!

Lynda Barry: The 20 stages of reading- full cartoon at The Washington Post

- chris tower - 1309.18 - 13:12

T-shirt #179 - Mystery White Shirt and Lunchbox Museum

T-shirt #179 - Mystery White Shirt, To-Do Lists,  and Lunchbox Museum

Hello and happy Monday.

Today, I am going back to relatively short entries in an attempt to work ahead. I am also presenting some material I have found and saved just for your edification and amusement.

First subject is work and to-dolists. I did write about to-do lists and my work process (with pictures of my office) a little in T-shirt #111: Atom Ant.

Right now, I am experimenting with different ways of working on both my jobs and my blog. I am not by nature a true multi-tasker. Because of my jobs, (yes, plural jobs), I have to multi-task. But I much prefer to work project to project, one thing at time, bear down, put all my focus on finishing, before I move on to the next thing. But life and work and opportunity do not always allow me to be so project fixated.

To best accomplish my goals each week, I have developed the matrix grid to-do list as seen in the photo below. The first photo is an older matrix, so, I am also posting this week's matrix right below it. See how the matrix has evolved? This may be only interesting to me, but I am fascinated by process and how people do their work. I am always trying to learn from others to refine my own process. My matrix has evolved tremendously over 65 iterations since last summer.

Many concepts are the same. There are tasks that I must do every day, and others I must do every week. Then there are long term goals that may stay on the matrix for weeks. I have refined my process to eliminate other to-do lists, trying to use the matrix for everything I have to do, plan to do, or wish to do in a week. I adopted this method from a friend of mine who mentioned making daily to-do lists. When I found that I was wasting time writing the same things over and over, and when I put off the making of the list for days because I was not done with all the items on the list from three days ago, I refined my method. Saving the files to my computer and editing them each week based on what I have to do was the most logical method.

This is another short week for posts in which I have to get ahead on my work. As such, I am trimming back other things that may eat my time as my best friend and his son will be here on Friday to check out Kalamazoo College, and I want to take off the entire day.

Matrix 10 from June 12 2012

Matrix 75 from Sept. 16 2013

TODAY'S SHIRT: the MYSTERY WHITE SHIRT

I have no idea where this shirt came from.

I am a little embarrassed that I cannot identify the source of this T-shirt as I believe it was handmade by the person who gave it to me as a gift.

I may put some more thought into this as time passes, and if I hit on an answer, I will update here and possibly reference this in a future entry.

But for now, the shirt is a mystery. Where did it come from? Who made it for me? I do not remember.

And so, this seems like a great opportunity to write about memory.

As I have shared before (in T-shirt #77 and T-shirt #171), I am big fan of Ray Kurzweil. I receive Ray's daily email newsletter. The other day he had two things on memory: current researching in creating memories and other current research in removing memories. Check these links to the stories on Ray's site.

SELECTIVELY ERASING UNWANTED MEMORIES

CREATING NEW MEMORIES BY DIRECTLY CHANGING THE BRAIN

Neither research would help me recover the lost memory of the origin of this shirt (perhaps hypnosis?), but these are interesting articles that I wanted an excuse to share.

Also, in sharing mode, the very cool (after all it comes from the Cool Hunting site via the Daily Mail in the UK) Lunchbox Museum. I actually own several of the lunch boxes pictured here. Check the site and the very short accompanying video. I think CBS Sunday Morning also visited the Lunchbox Museum.

What's up with that tree in the middle of the showroom?

From WWI to the Beatles and Bee Gees: The world's largest LUNCHBOX museum takes visitors on a trip down memory lane with   2,000 vintage models

- chris tower - 1309.16 - 11:15

T-shirt #140: Mage: Joe Phat

T-shirt #140: Mage: Joe Phat: More Grading Robot

This shirt is not a modified replica of a uniform. This is the actual shirt in terms style, cut, and design as worn by the character Joe Phat in the comic book Mage: The Hero Defined, the second series of stories about Kevin Matchstick and his companions begun by Matt Wagner in 1984 and published by Comico. Wagner returned to the world of Mage in 1997 for a second run of issues, The Hero Defined, this time from Image Comics.


This is my second Joe Phat T-shirt.






My first Joe Phat shirt had a hole punched in it. Dissatisfied with this turn of events, I bought another. The original Joe Phat shirt with its hole will surely come up for its own feature some day when I am under the work gun as I am today and need a quickie.

Joe Phat is an avatar of various Native American characters/identities, such as the Coyote and the Raven. There's a great explanation of Joe Phat, via this link to the Comic Vine page. The Mage Wikipedia page is underwhelming, but it does provide some basics. Joe Phat is loosely based on a friend and colleague of Matt Wagner's, comic creator Joe Matt.

I woke up this morning with the thought in my head that this should be the shirt of the day. Originally, I had another shirt planned. But, today, Grading Robot, my alter ego, must channel the essence of Joe Phat. I have to be FAST. I have to be dedicated and disciplined. I have to persevere and overcome and triumph.

I am also going to the county fair with my dad.

And I was going to have a haircut but I needed to save work time, so I am re-scheduling.

Grading Robot must run at full power today.



The Mage books are very good, though as much as I like them, if I am going to recommend comics to a non-comics reader, or even recommend comics to a comics reader who doesn't know the stuff  that I am recommending, Mage would not make the top ten (though it might make the top twenty). Books like Optic Nerve, Concrete, The Tale of One Bad Rat, Strangers in Paradise, Bone, Fables, Y the Last Man, and a few others are the first things to come to mind outside the mainstream.


I have at least two other shirts that will give me a chance to share about Kevin Matchstick and the Mage stories. For now, Grading Robot must cycle up to full velocity and break the quantum barrier between this world and the next.

Have a good day!

- chris tower - 1308.08 - 8:56

PS: I could not stay awake last night as I was reading comic books and listening to the Detroit Tigers game on the radio. When Rondon gave up a run in the bottom of the eighth to make it 4-4, I had to go to sleep. I woke a little after midnight and checked my tablet to see through bleary eyes that the Tigers had won 6-5. I slept happily after seeing that and yet I was not sure of it. I had to check again this morning to make sure I had not dreamed that I had seen a winning score and the eleventh straight, consecutive victory for my favorite. It's a good day to be a Detroit Tigers fan.

PPS: Two covers and a page of interior art to inspire those who do not know the comics that are Mage.

T-shirt #111: Atom Ant

T-shirt #111: Up and at 'em, Atom Ant

This T-shirt thing is not a new interest, obviously. If I had not been buying and receiving T-shirts as gifts for years, I would not be in a position to wonder if I have 365 or more shirts.

Today's blog will present various related thoughts and ideas via blurbs and snippets: the proverbial sound bite. Though now, as I edit, I notice that the text looks like more paragraphs than bites. I am so Baroque.

This Atom Ant shirt was a gift from Liesel and the kids for Christmas 2011.

When I was making my gift wish list (yes, I make lists), I examined various T-shirt web sites and discovered that one could now buy T-shirts featuring many of my favorite cartoon characters, such as the Jetsons and Atom Ant.

In trying to decide among the various Atom Ant shirts, I chose this one because it is not the classic pose like some of the other images shown in today's entry. Look down at the one by the Wiki quote.

I liked the look of "surprise" and maybe fear on Atom Ant's face in this image. This is definitely a "what the fuck" look or an "oh shit" look, though Atom Ant would never say either statement.

I remember watching a lot of Atom Ant during my childhood, but in researching for today's entry, I learned that there were only two seasons and a total of 26 episodes produced by Hanna-Barbera and broadcast on NBC between 1965-1968. It seems to me that I saw a lot more Atom Ant and for more years than those years.


I made a top ten favorite list of Hanna-Barbera in
T-shirt #101 for the Jetsons. Atom Ant ranked #3 on that list but maybe I did that simply because I knew I was going to feature this shirt.

Here in the photo to the left, you can see up close the toy I own (as seen in the photo above).

Lots of Atom Ant videos are available for viewing on You Tube.

Some of the You Tube  like "Atom Ant Meets Karate" are very racist in depictions of Asians and Latinos.

Atom Ant Meets Karate Video clip - STEREOTYPE ALERT

"Atom Ant is a cartoon ant and superhero, created by Hanna-Barbera in 1965. His name may have been derived from adamant, which gives indication towards his great strength, exceeding "250 times his own weight". The name and character might also be a gentle parody of the Charlton Comics character, Captain Atom. Atom costarred in The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show (sharing top billing with Secret Squirrel). In syndication, Atom Ant aired alongside Precious Pupp and The Hillbilly Bears.

"Atom Ant (voiced by the late Howard Morris then by Don Messick in later episodes) operated out of an anthill in the countryside, where he possessed such things as a mainframe computer and exercise equipment. His powers mostly consisted of the ability to fly, super speed, and incredible strength.

"He was often contacted by the police, who sent him out on assignment. Some of these missions parodied those of Batman. The police force was constantly shown to be underfunded and inept, as they relied on Atom Ant to do all their police work. The only two police officers were the chief and deputy chief. The department only possessed one rusted patrol car. Atom Ant fights various villains including recurring ones like Ferocious Flea (voiced by Don Messick) and mad scientist Professor Von Gimmick" ("Atom Ant," Wikipedia, 2013).

#WarnerArchive #WarnerBros #AtomAnt
Theme Song with Lyrics | Atom Ant | Warner Archive
Aug 5, 2016



Warner Archive
Atom Ant (1965) #WarnerArchive #WarnerBros #AtomAnt
Atom Ant theme song.

Lyrics below:
Up and at 'em it's Atom Ant

He's strength, he's might,
He's speed, he's fight
He's Atom Ant, that tiny ant, and his atomic power

Has what it takes and always makes
The vilest villain cower
He's rough, he's tough,
And bad guys yell enough
When he is up and at 'em
Atom Ant.


Directed By Joseph Barbera, William Hanna
Starring Ted Cassidy, Henry Corden, Don Messick

Atom Ant | Up and Atom | Boomerang Official

Apr 23, 2019

Boomerang Official

Who remembers this tiny but mighty cartoon bug?

Atom Ant's catch phrase is "Up and at 'em, Atom Ant." My shirt reminds me that I need to keep egging myself along to accomplish things with this "go get 'em" -type attitude.

There are lots of things to do in each day. Like, I have to go to the store to buy food so that the wife and the children do not starve. (Though Liesel also goes to the store much more often than she would like. Neither of us like how often we are at the grocery store.)

I often rock the T-shirt as I shop.

"Up and at 'em, Atom Ant."

Things to do. Things to do.

I also dedicated an early shirt to my work attitude: T-shirt #6: Discipline.

I have also mentioned work in
T-shirt #36: Kraftwerk and the concept of Grading Robot.

I have been enjoying a work break but next week I will have to bring Grading Robot up to full power again: "Up and at 'em, Atom Ant!!"

The work matrix

So, back to work. Here's my weekly to-do list (image above). A friend of mine suggested to-do lists to help with my organization and juggling as many as nine classes. After a few weeks of writing daily lists, I noticed that many items were repeated, and I was wasting time writing them over and over again.
So I gave birth to the weekly matrix to-do list. I modify the file each week based on what I have to do.

For instance, last week was not so busy, and so, in the matrix, the far right column, which is the majority of the demanding and time consuming work-work was shorter and contained fewer tasks.

One more week in which Grading Robot is operating at a quarter power and speed. It all ramps back up for the month-long sprint starting next week.


This is the central command station of the home office. I added the second monitor earlier this year, and I have found many uses for it.

The dark blob nestled inside the desk pod is the Herman Miller Aeron chair I bought last year, which has made all the hours of sitting so much more bearable.

Is it all too messy?

In the image on the right, you can see the left side of the office. The art finally hit the walls back in March at the last big work break like the one I am enjoying now.

Note the hats, toys, and yesterday's T-shirt (lower left corner) draped on the standing work station with the laptop underneath.

On the TV, you will find the Mystery Machine, Underdog, Robby the Robot, and Doctor Strange, who is perched on a baseball.
These all may make appearances in future blog entries. I am nothing, if not a show off.



The office is due for an over haul. This is one of the projects for this work break like that so many others has not been accomplished yet. Messy? Oh, yes. But it's a work space that constantly shifts. And actual work is accomplished in the space. The mess is definitely proportionally related to the amount of time I am spending maintaining it and keeping it cleared.

You can see part of Aquaman in the top center of the photo (hmmm, future blog prop?). Previews, with which I order comics from Fanfare, is sitting waiting to be conquered, and that issue of Comic Creator I have been buzzing about it under the phone: KIRBY'S KINGDOM.

- chris tower - 1307.10 - 9:16

PS: Today's is my step-daughter Piper's birthday. This does not seem related to Atom Ant in any way but I wanted to mention it.