AWOL Apparel
February 27th, 2007 | 
It has happened to all of us. You fall in love with a particular piece of clothing only to one day realize you have no idea where it is or what happened to it. To quote Warden Samuel Norton from The Shawshank Redemption, it just “up and vanished like a fart in the wind!” This has happened to me too many times to count, but there are three t-shirts of which I was particularly fond that are AWOL to this day.
AWOL T-Shirt #1: Limited Edition Final Fantasy VII Promotional, c. 1997, missing since unknown date (pictured at right). I mentioned in a previous post that I received this shirt as a gift for pre-ordering Final Fantasy VII. Displaying a huge video game character across my chest may have both exposed my geekiness and prevented me from getting any dates, but I loved this shirt nevertheless. I did some digging and saw that one of these shirts recently sold on eBay for $40.
AWOL T-Shirt #2: SparkNotes Promotional, c. 2000, missing since unknown date. Two years before SparkNotes was bought out by Barnes & Noble, the company gave away some 30,000 t-shirts in a promotional campaign. As a junior in high school and established internet nerd, I signed up to receive one of their shirts. It was navy blue with the SparkNotes logo on the front and on the back it said – here’s the kicker – “Taking the F out of ucking up.”
AWOL T-Shirt #3: Iowa Starbase Leadership Camp, c. 1995, missing since 2002. Apparently the Iowa STARBASE Leadership Camp (ISLC) doesn’t exist anymore (so says the omniscient Google). It was a camp sponsored by the Iowa Army National Guard for a hundred 5th grade students who demonstrated leadership traits. My class voted for me and so I got to attend Nerd Camp. I don’t remember much about the week except that I fell in love with another camper and we wrote each other letters for a while after camp was over. Anyway, I had my ISLC shirt forever… I clearly remember still wearing it freshman year of college even though it was a little snug and worn thin. I haven’t seen it since.
I know I am not the only one. Go ahead, tell me about your AWOL apparel.
- Joyce Hatto is a prolific piano plagiarist. “In total she recorded more than 120 CDs — including many of the most difficult piano pieces ever written, played with breathtaking speed and accuracy… Since then, analysis by professional sound engineers and piano enthusiasts across the globe has pushed toward the same conclusion: the entire Joyce Hatto oeuvre recorded after 1989 appears to be stolen from the CDs of other pianists. It is a scandal unparalleled in the annals of classical music.” 02/26/2007
- How to avoid colloquial (informal) writing. “Read! Reading will not only help to improve your vocabulary, but it will also help you to distinguish between formal and informal writing.” 02/26/2007
Twenty three
As I reflect on the 23rd anniversary of my birth, I have been thinking about the significance of the number 23. Besides the new thriller opening tomorrow, The Number 23, a film about a man who becomes obsessed with a book about the number 23, perhaps my favorite album of all time is entitled Twentythree Places by Matt Wertz.
There’s more. 23 was the number worn by baseball Hall-of-Famer and former Cubs second baseman Ryne “Ryno” Sandberg. The number has since been retired by the Cubs.
Here are a few more interesting facts about the number 23:
Alright, enough with all this 23 nonsense; bring on the Facebook messages, baby!
P.S. You should be reminded that last year I received the greatest birthday present ever from Peter Ilten.
Undeclared in the ICCA (again)
Undeclared is again participating in the International Championships of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) this Saturday at Michigan State University. We competed last year, but did not advance past quarterfinals. ICCA is
the only international tournament that showcases the art of student a cappella singing. [It is] dedicated to providing top-notch collegiate a cappella groups with valuable feedback from our highly qualified judges… Vocalists also have the opportunity to showcase their talent to an international audience and develop relationships with each other, cultivating the art of a cappella singing and a lifelong love of music.
We are competing against seven other groups from six schools:
This year our set consists of three songs. The first is a tune called “One Thing”, originally performed by an a cappella group from Texas called Schrödinger’s Cat. The second song is an arrangement of “Over My Head (Cable Car)” by the Fray. We close our set with the song “Stand Out” from A Goofy Movie. In case you (1) haven’t ever seen A Goofy Movie or (2) have seen it and remember how awesome “Stand Out” is, I have provided the video of the song below.
Wish us luck!
- “Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream” is the newest ice cream flavor from Ben & Jerry’s. “I’m not afraid to say it. Dessert has a well-known liberal agenda,” Colbert said in a statement. “What I hope to do with this ice cream is bring some balance back to the freezer case.” 02/15/2007
- Andrew Jones (TallSkinnyKiwi) offers his review of the new book Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives (@ Amazon). “Critics who say the emerging church leaders are not clear on their theology should shut the heck up and buy this book.” 02/14/2007
T9 is so book
I have been meaning to post about this for a while. Apparently, people are using the word “book” as a synonym for “cool”.
While in T9 mode for text-messaging (also known as T9word or just Word), which predicts text as you type it on the alphanumeric keypad, “book” is created with the same keystrokes as “cool” – by pressing 2-6-6-5. “Book” comes up first (I think T9 has a programmed hierarchy of which words, arranged by which ones are used more often), and to get to the word “cool”, you simply press “Next”, which is usually the 0 key.
Of course there are many, many of these synonyms, which have been coined “T9onyms”. Sadly, I have many of them memorized. For example, when I am texting and I want to say the word “me” by pressing 6-3, I know that “of” always comes first so I will have to press “Next”. When I fell off a trailer last August, I landed on my phone and broke the screen, but it was still somewhat usable. I had some speed-dials memorized, so I tried to text the phrase “Come home soon” to someone and because of T9onyms I accidentally sent “Come good room”.
I have since added “book” to my personal slang vocabulary and am growing quite fond of it. In fact, while writing this post I discovered T9.com, which is pretty book in its own right.
- Friend and fellow blogger Peter questions Sue Grafton’s novel-writing conundrum. “She’s effed after that 26th book comes out. What will she go to next? Not numbers, surely. And if Microsoft Excel spreadsheet has anything to say about it, her next option would be AA and “AA is for Aardvark” just doesn’t have that same appeal. Sue Grafton, you silly *****. What have you done to your career?” 02/06/2007
- Ever wondered what happens to the shirts and hats that are printed for the Super Bowl losers? “They will be shipped Monday morning to a warehouse in Sewickley, Pa., near Pittsburgh, where they will become property of World Vision, a relief organization that will package the clothing in wooden boxes and send it to a developing nation, usually in Africa.” 02/04/2007
No feed reader? No problem! Subscribe by email to receive daily updates featuring the freshest content from JakeBouma.com!
