T-shirt #194 - Mexico

T-shirt #194 - Mexico

No, I am not in Mexico. I am in Hawaii.

Welcome to October.

MR. T-SHIRT BLOGGER'S OFFICIAL HIATUS TEXT - Mr. T-shirt Blogger (that's me) is on vacation in Hawaii until October 9th. Blog posts may be simple and brief during this time, or there may be many Hawaii pictures and updates. No promises. It's vacation.

When My wife an I got married four years ago (as of 10/3), we never took a honeymoon. With our difficult work schedules, there has never been a good time to schedule a trip. Given recent life events, we threw out caution and welcomed chaos and uncertainty. Carpe Diem! So, off we go (or by the time you read this, there we are).

Today's shirt - Today's shirt was a gift from my parents after they went to Mexico for an archtietctural convention and a vacation.

- chris tower - for 1310.01 - pre-written and scheduled.

T-shirt #193 - The Far Side

T-shirt #193 - The Far Side


MR. T-SHIRT BLOGGER'S OFFICIAL HIATUS TEXT - Mr. T-shirt Blogger (that's me) is on vacation in Hawaii until October 9th. Blog posts may be simple and brief during this time, or there may be many Hawaii pictures and updates. No promises. It's vacation.

When My wife an I got married four years ago (as of 10/3), we never took a honeymoon. With our difficult work schedules, there has never been a good time to schedule a trip. Given recent life events, we threw out caution and welcomed chaos and uncertainty. Carpe Diem! So, off we go (or by the time you read this, there we are).

Today's shirt - I think today's shirt was a gift. I cannot remember from whom. Isn't that terrible? It's the Far Side, of course. One of the great comic strips of all time, though I am not sure I put it in my top ten when I did my Calvin and Hobbes entry. If I update this entry, I may check this fact. If there's nothing here, then I am enjoying my vacation.

- chris tower - for 1309.30 - pre-written and scheduled.

T-shirt #192 - Change & The Nature Center

T-shirt #192 - Change & The Nature Center

MR. T-SHIRT BLOGGER'S OFFICIAL HIATUS TEXT - Mr. T-shirt Blogger (that's me) is on vacation in Hawaii until October 9th. Blog posts may be simple and brief during this time, or there may be many Hawaii pictures and updates. No promises. It's vacation.

When My wife an I got married four years ago (as of 10/3), we never took a honeymoon. With our difficult work schedules, there has never been a good time to schedule a trip. Given recent life events, we threw out caution and welcomed chaos and uncertainty. Carpe Diem! So, off we go (or by the time you read this, there we are).

Today's shirt - I believe my father gave me this shirt after our family made a substantial donation to the Nature Center. My dad served on the board of directors (and I think was chairman for a time) for a few years.

- chris tower - for 1309.29 - pre-written and scheduled.

T-shirt #191 - Centrals Society

T-shirt #191 - Centrals Society

Greetings. I am leaving on a jet plane for Hawaii later today.

The next ten blog posts may all be "hiatus" posts.

I am auto-scheduling at least three days of posts this morning.

I may update from Hawaii, and then, I may not.


I suspect that I will have many pictures, and time permitting, I suspect that there will be updates. But I promise nothing. It may all have to wait until I get back.

This shirt is hardly a unique design for which I cannot take complete credit. But it was my idea to create a shirt like this one (themed on so many other shirts of this style) for our Centrals tournaments and sell them at our 2000 tournament.

Aloha!!

- chris tower - 1309.28 - 6:04

T-shirt #190 - Stereolab Green

T-shirt #190 - Stereolab Green

I leave for Hawaii in 24 hours. I will be posting easily described shirts and stock "hiatus vacation" text. However, I may update during the trip. I am not taking any of the shirts I am featuring so updates will not match the featured shirts. I am also going to experiment with the scheduled publishing tool. All of which is not the best way to start a blog entry, but it's what is foremost in my mind.

Today's shirt features Stereolab again. I featured the band originally in T-shirt #145. I actually did some blog recap in that post, but I also did a good job with describing Stereolab and my one time seeing them live in concert. Today, as my follow up, a few random topics (one of which is more blog recaps) and a couple music videos to enjoy more Stereolab music from my playlist of favorites.

BLOG RECAP - PART ONE

Comic books continue to be the number one subject of the blog by category with 58 entries. Not counting the categories I created of shirts by color (of which white still leads followed by black and grey), the second most common category is sports (39). The other top categories include just logos (34), TV and movies (31), gifts (29), music (28), posts with music videos (27), DC comics (25), science fiction (23), and finally ultimate (23) and KUDL (22).

I have logged 15 weeks of the Weekly Comics Stack feature. I analyzed and broke down the new t-shirts (17) category in T-shirt #185.

DC comics (25) continues to beat out Marvel Comics (13) in shirts, leaving 20 shirts that are neither DC or Marvel related (which is also beating out Marvel). These figured surprise me and I may have to examine them in the next blog recap.

MARVEL AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

I may render a full review of  this show in the future. I asked Liesel to watch it with me, and she did not enjoy it nearly as much as I did. I was surprised to see Cobie Smulders reprising her role as Maria Hill, director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Will she be a regular? When is the time an actor performed on two primetime network shows at the same time. There were many moments that made me smile. I was not blown away, but I was not disappointed either. I enjoyed the show very much, and I am waiting for the next episode (which I am not likely to see until I get back from Hawaii).

GOTHAM

I am posting two links here. Less than a half hour after the end of the MARVEL AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D., ABC announced its own super-hero themed and related show: Gotham. If only this show were a straight up adaptation of the excellent Gotham Central comic book, by Brubaker and Lark published from 2003-2006, about the Gotham City PD. But it will be a show about the early years of Jim Gordon, who becomes Police Commissioner, in the days before Batman. In an uncharacteristic mode, ABC approved the show straight through to the schedule without the creators needing to create a pilot and winning a slot.

It's a very exciting time to be a comic book fan. And that's a funny thing to share because it makes me think of the next comic book movie, about which I am very excited, Thor 2: Dark World. I shared the promo for Thor 2: Dark World in T-shirt #145, in which I wrote about Stereolab. How is that for a connection.

Gotham TV show - yahoo

Gotham - Damn Good Coffee and Hot update

STEREOLAB VIDEOS

I wanted to share "The Stars Our Destination" from Stereolab's Mars Audiac Quartet, but there is no You Tube video. In any case, for your listening (and maybe a little viewing in some cases) pleasure, four good ones and Stereolab favorites.

And then, off to Hawaii. And so begins the vacation with this soundtrack. I will listen to Stereolab on the volcano on the big island just to make this soundtrack the real thing.

Stereolab- Monstre Sacre

Come and Play in the Milky Night - Stereolab

Stereolab performing Slow Fast Hazel

Stereolab - Prisoner of Mars

- chris tower - 1309.27 - 14:25

T-shirt #189 - Green Lantern - White

T-shirt #189 - Green Lantern - White

When I originally posted this, I had to cheat because Mr. T-shirt Blog Guy is overwhelmed with work to do before he leaves for Hawaii, before I leave for Hawaii. Wow, first person and third person in the same sentence.

Here's the original text I posted here: This is a cheat again. It is Thursday night and after finishing final grades, I have been caught up in a maelstrom of activity all day as there are many things to do before we fly out to Hawaii on Saturday. I will finish as much of this as I can tonight and the rest tomorrow morning. Of course, after I update this entry tomorrow, "finish" it, I may leave this text here for historical accuracy. Meanwhile, if you have stumbled upon this page before I spam out social media, then you get to again see what  a blog in progress looks like as I draft and organize. If you are viewing this after I finished, well, there's no way .... okay, no easy way for me to save the blog's progress in stages. Though, maybe... in the future some time. Though I suspect that this kind of blog drafting step-by-step is only the kind of thing that would be interesting to me.


Today's shirt is the Green Lantern shirt from when DC crowned Kyle Rayner as the Green Lantern of Earth. I have another Green Lantern shirt, so this is my short Green Lantern entry. Kyle became Green Lantern in the DC universe in 1994, which was almost twenty years ago, meaning this shirt may be close to 20 years old. I do not wear it often as the collar is stretched out, and it is no longer in the best condition. In the photos, I am showing the White Lantern ring, a giveaway by DC, following the recent Blackest Night and Brightest Day story lines. Those phrases come from the Green Lantern oath, which we first heard from Hal Jordan in the Silver Age reboot of the 1940s Green Lantern.

“In brightest day, in blackest night,

No evil shall escape my sight.

Let those who worship evil's might,

Beware my power...

Green Lantern's Light!”

—Hal Jordan / Most Green Lantern Corps

Currently, Hal Jordan has once again resumed his mantle as the primary Green Lantern of Earth. Kyle Rayner serves off world as the "White Lantern."

I do not read all the Green Lantern books. But I avidly follow the main Green Lantern comic.

WEEKLY COMIC LIST

No official back log this week, though technically the villains books go into the back log. I am just listing the villains books last because they are not "officially" back logged as there may not be any others of the same title in the back log, but I am definitely not keeping up on the few weekly villains books that I am buying.

I read only Ultimate Spider-Man before I dropped off to sleep last night. Ultimate Spider-Man has been consistently one of Marvel's most excellent books. The switch in artists did not change the quality. The art remains human and emotionally raw. As I have claimed before, Bendis is in the best phase of his career, turning in tremendous writing on nearly every book (so far I am not overly impressed with the Guardians of the Galaxy).

In other notes, FF remains relatively high now that it has been rescued from the back log. I bought a variant edition of Wolverine and the X-Men because Fanfare was sold out of non-variant issues. Fanfare only had one copy, this variant, in stock.

Despite loving Saga, I usually stack it lower because I want to savor it. I am not sure why lower in the stack means "savoring" as this is not what it means for each book that is ranked lower.

Because last week was a small week in terms of numbers of books, I did manage to read all the books that came in with the exception of the two villains books from DC. I am completely unimpressed with THUNDER Agents. And as I predicted, I pulled Thor out of the back log. And though Thor #012 was sort of a fill-in, it was a GREAT fill in, more of a transition issue. It was brilliant and possibly the best Thor yet in this run.

Things will get a bit wonky now as I am not trucking any comics with me to Hawaii. So, not only will I not get through this stack before I leave, but I will have even more to read when I get back. Because I will be out of town, there will be no weekly comic feature next week, and I return the day before comics come out, so early blogs upon my return will feature two comics lists.




COMICS FOR THE WEEK OF 1309.25

Ultimate Spider-Man #27
Guardians of the Galaxy #006
Young Avengers #010
Nova #008
Avengers #20
FF #012
Jupiter's Legacy #3
Uncanny Avengers #012
Wolverine and the X-Men #036 - (Battle for the Atom chapter 5)
Tom Strong and the Planet of Peril #3 of 6
Infinity: Heist #001
Saga #14
Sex Criminals #1
Aquaman: Ocean Master #23.2
Green Lantern: Sinestro: #23.4
Batman: Detective Comics: Man Bat #23.4
Superman: Parasite #23.4













- chris tower - 1309.26 - 13:18

T-shirt #188: KUDL Bear

T-shirt #188: KUDL Bear

Featured on today's shirt, you will find our original KUDL bear logo for our Kalamazoo Ultimate Disc League. This is a specialty item as only a very few of these shirts were produced as a bonus gift from a company we used to use for some of our printing. It was the good idea of Hether Frayer and shared as a great kindness. I know of two other shirts that exist, but I am not sure if there are more than three in existence.

Grading Robot continues to bang away at the pellet dispenser. Crunch time is upon me, and so I am actually writing this entry a day ahead in another meager attempt to bank some entries before the day of posting. Then again, crunched as I am, I did not finish the entry the day before and am now finishing it Wednesday morning when I should be working.

Once again, no KUDL content on KUDL day. I have already written about KUDL a lot. I will say that I missed ultimate last week (IE. KUDL) because I was so buried in work. I am equally buried this week, and yet more determined to go as I need the exercise and the social time. Also, I will miss the next one, so I don't want to be absent three in a row. It will depend on where I am with grades. The first big batch of the week, and the final ones for the semester, are due Thursday morning at 9 a.m. So, I will not be going to KUDL, if I don't have enough of those grades completed. So far, early estimates are favorable; I think I can make it. But I have to get back to it, and what I am doing, I am writing this blog entry a day in advance and making phone calls and doing laundry. All important stuff but not helping me make progress on the mountain that is the final grades due in fewer than 48 hours.

RANDOM STUFF

MOMENTUM - I addressed the idea of the blog as a huge commitment some in T-shirt #158 - Bone. Somewhere I also discussed the issue of momentum a little bit, but I cannot find it. Yes, the blog has officially exceeded my memory at this point. Or it may be the excessive amounts of whisky in my system at all times. It may also be the lies I tell to attempt to display a particular persona to the world.

My therapist asked me if there has been a shift in momentum in regards to the blog since the cancer surgery and discovery that I am cancer free. Yes, there has been a shift. And no, there has not been a shift. It's like the Schrödinger's Cat Quantum Physics puzzle: sometimes the cat is alive with the unopened bottle of poison, sometimes the poison is opened and the cat is dead, and sometimes it's something else. Okay, I added the something else part. I like third choices. The point is that the results depend on when you look. (If you do not know what I am talking about, or if you want a refresher, check out Schrödinger's Cat or the following video).

Schrödinger's Cat

So, the momentum has shifted, and it has not shifted. After 188 days, I find it difficult some days to generate the content that I think is worth your time in reading, which is why I try to work ahead. But as much as I try to work ahead, I always lose the lead and have to try to pull content out of myself the day of posting, which is not always easy.

You cannot always read huge entries just like I cannot always write them. So it will be like the cat. Sometimes the cat will be dead, the inspiration will not be as intense and exciting, the momentum will be weak; and other days, I will produce something that I am really proud to share and recommend.

And on other days, it will be neither of those and both of those at the same time, a confusing third choice.

Stay Tuned.

And now for something completely different (a movie I did not mention in yesterday's Monty Python post, shame shame).

TIGERS CELEBRATING - The Detroit Tigers clinched a playoff berth last night and did not celebrate. I misread the article at first which claimed that the team would not celebrate "until it won the American Central Title." I read this as "American League Championship." Before I noticed my misreading, I liked the idea of the Tigers not celebrating with the spraying of Champagne and all that until they win the American League, at least, if not the World Series.

The World Series win is the big goal this year, especially after last year's disappointing defeat to a team that will not even be in the playoffs this year. Maybe the Tigers should not celebrate until they win it all.

- chris tower - 1309.25 - 8:21