T-shirt #195 - Centrals 2000

T-shirt #195 - Centrals 2000

 Aloha!! This is the first blog post that has been written in Hawaii as the last three were scheduled to publish and set up on September 28th, the morning we flew out.

Since I had no Internet connection on the plane, and tons of grading to do, I did not work on the blog while in flight (though I may on the way back, working on text offline). Since I got here, I have been grading like a maniac, so I have not had time for much else other than time with my wife and her family. Hawaii is beautiful and serene and very, very special. I have not seen much of it yet, but I did see parts of the Volcano National Park last night before the government shut down. Currently, I am collecting a variety of pictures to post a blog entry about my time in Hawaii thus far, but I have not had time to start cobbling that together. Stay tuned.

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 love this shirt. I totally take credit for coming up with this idea, which seemed very appropriate for the year 2000. In case you do not recognize the imagery (and I am not sure who wouldn't), this is the part of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, in which god touches Adam, bringing him to life. I inserted a disc in between, IE. God giving the game of disc, the game of Ultimate to man. Though, technically, for math geeks, the year 2001 was actually the start of the new millennium, I added the tag line in this year so as to commemorate the new decade, the new century, and the new millennium.

- chris tower - for 1310.02- pre-written and scheduled.

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