Robot Destruction.

Size: L
Where: ADV store



Why: Cute logo.

Comment: ADV carries (carried? the store appears to be down at the moment) a line of shirt that has all of Anime Network's fake show "advisories", and they're all cute. I need to pick up a few more one of these days.

Felix.

Size: L
Where: eBay seller

Why: I've been kind of going through a Felix the Cat obsession the last few months. I'm dealing with it.

Comment: Just to dispel any notion that I've stopped buying new shirts since starting this blog (which I never said I'd do -- that smell is YOU! :p), I'm gonna be posting some new ones from time to time.

So I've been dying for a Felix shirt, but wasn't satisfied with any of the designs that were on the 'Bay. Then this one popped up from a seller in Britain.

Upon arrival, I knew immediately that this wasn't exactly the Felix shirt of my dreams. The design is great, but I saw that it was of the poorest-quality iron-on type, which I KNEW would warp and crack after the very first wash. I was right.


Before first wash.


After first wash.

Another annoyance was the fact that the seller stressed continuously that these shirts ran a size small, and insisted that anyone would HAVE TO order a size up, otherwise they'd never fit. Because of this I ordered it in L. I got the shirt a week or two later, tried it on, and saw immediately that it fit like an L. I'm wearing it now after a couple washes and it still fits like an L.

File this one under "t-shirt fail" (as the kids these days say). I really would like to get this design properly silkscreened onto a shirt that actually fits, though. Someday.

International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame.

Size: L
Where: International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame.



Why: I loved the color scheme and the retro boomerang/asterisk/diamond graphics.

Comment: I talked a little bit about my trip to St. Louis here. In short, I'm sure that St. Louis has lots of cool, fun, interesting things to do and see. I just didn't happen to do or see any of them, or didn't even know where they were. Other than the International Bowling Museum, which I loved. Someday I will get around to putting up the photos and videos I took there on my flickr, or whatever.

As much as I love this shirt and its graphics, I have a few minor quibbles:

* What is with the two balls and one pin? Shouldn't it be one ball and two (or more) pins? Is it meant to look phallic? Because it's just kind of weird.

* The placement of the words bothers me a little. It looks like it's talking about a museum of international bowling, rather than an international museum of bowling. Sometimes I look at this shirt and ask myself, "What's 'international bowling'?"

The shirt does not advertise that the same building is also home to (and accessible with the same ticket for) the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame, which frankly smacked slightly of "stuff the real Baseball Hall of Fame didn't really care about" (the cute little red Corvette that Mark McGwire won after he broke the home run record, etc.)

Zombie.

Size: L
Where: Oddica



Why: Honestly? It was nearing Halloween-time a few years back, and I needed something to wear to a get-together and I was not putting on a costume.


Easter egg.

Comment: Another favorite from Oddica. Always a hit at church. :)

Red Bull New York - "Home"

Size: M
Where: MLS Gear



Why: GO RED BULLS!

Comment: This concludes Red Bull New York week here at t-shirtsofmike.

We really had a time, didn't we?

We did.

We had a time.

Red Bull New York - 2007

Size: M
Where: RBNY



Why: This shirt came free with one of the ticket packages we bought during the 2007 season.

Comment: You can see that this shirt has the old, 2007-style logo, with the streaks. I'm personally glad that they got rid of them for subsequent seasons.

The 2007 home schedule on back was pretty handy, and makes it a real "collector's item". I once saw one on the 'bay going for $60! I doubt it actually sold, as there were one or two others up for bid at the same time going for three or four dollars.

Red Bull New York - 2009

Size: M
Where: RBNY



Why: This is the shirt that came free with our 2009 home season opener ticket package.

Comment: Is it the economy? Am I a bad person for looking a gift-shirt in the mouth? This shirt is almost identical to the shirt they sent us last year! All they did was take off the faux-vintaging, add the "crown" of player silhouettes to the top, and slap the badge and URL on the back. Lame.



Worse yet, while they sent us four shirts for four tickets last year, this year they only sent us TWO. For FIVE tickets, yet! I invoked my right as ticket-purchaser to call dibs on one of the shirts, leaving Megan and Robert to rochambeau for the one remaining.

Round one: Megan and Robert both choose "foil" - draw.

Round two: Megan and Robert again both choose "foil" - draw.

Round three: in a stunning move, Robert chooses "kitty" and Megan chooses "microwave" - Megan wins the shirt! But Robert gets the next one, if there is a next one.

True story.

Red Bull New York - 2008

Size: M
Where: RBNY



Why: This was the shirt that came free with our 2008 home season opener ticket package.

Comment: It's a small thing, but I find the faux-vintaging slightly humorous on this shirt, as anyone who would wear or otherwise care about this shirt would recognize the graphic as the club's newer logo - how old could this shirt actually be?

Red Bull New York - "Away"

Size: M
Where: RBNY match



Why: It's a Red Bulls shirt.

Comment: It's Red Bull New York week here at t-shirtsofmike. Relax, I only have five, and even if I wind up getting any more, they certainly wouldn't get to me before the end of the week.

Some of the shirts have stories. Some, like this one, don't, but just look really cool.

After a...lackluster, let's say...start-of-season match against Seattle over the weekend, here's hoping they get it together in time for the home opener this Saturday against the Revs!

Ping Pong Vader.

Size: L
Where: Oddica



Why: a) Star Wars, b) clever, c) funny.

Comment: This was actually the shirt for which I was supposed to get a replacement, but wound up having to get the scratching monkey shirt instead. You can't see it in the picture, but the shirt actually shipped with a big hole in one of the sleeve seams.



The Easter eggs on these Oddica shirts are almost always just little detail images of the main graphic, but I really love this one because it actually continues the "story" of the shirt. It's all just so..very..cool.

I Don't Do Sadness.

Size: M
Where: the store at duncansheik.com



Why: I got this shirt for free as a "thank you" for helping with the DS fan site.



Comment: I really like this shirt, as it's so different from your typical "show shirt", which is always just the show logo ironed onto a plain white or black T. This one at least attempts to be the least bit "designy". I think the tear drops on the front are cute, especially the little explosion above the last "S".

KXLU 89.9 FM.

Size: XL
Where: KXLU fundraiser



Why: KXLU saved my life. I can say that without the slightest exaggeration.

Comment: KXLU was the best radio station ever. It may still be, I don't know. I haven't listened to it in ten years.



Yes, I know it's probably online, I'd be shocked if it wasn't, but...I remember laying in bed awake at 3 AM, unable to sleep, reaching over and turning on the radio and just hearing that one song, that one perfect song, and needing to know who it was and where I could get it, counting songs until finally getting to the DJ break, maybe even an hour or longer, and working backwards through the list until you finally had the information you needed, finally being able to turn off the noise, fall back into bed, into sleep.

Now, you can just look up playlists online anytime you want. It's all just so easy now, and I don't know why that makes me sad, but it does.

Black Belt Jones.

Size: S/M
Where: China



Why: Dagfinn brought this back for me from his trip to China.

Comment: This shirt is BEAUTIFUL, unfortunately I can't really wear it as I had forgotten that an "International Medium" is actually an "American small". I don't think my head could even fit through the neck hole at this point.

It makes me sad that I can't wear this, but I can still look at it and enjoy it (and now, so can you!).

Enter the Wired.

Size: L
Where: eBay seller



Why: Serial Experiments Lain is one of my favorite anime series of all-time, and I really liked the stencil graffiti-ish graphic of this shirt.

Comment: The black ink is really picking up a bad reflection of the flash in this picture. The actual shirt is nowhere near this "shiny". Of course, maybe it actually is and I just never noticed.

Serial Experiments Lain is another one of those shows that I'm dying to make a live-action, English adaptation of. Come on, what other show discusses Vannevar Bush in the same breath, and with the same seriousness, that it talks about MIBs, aliens, deicide, and the birth of Apple Computers?

Hotel Mercurio - Puerto Vallarta.

Size: M (I think)
Where: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (presumably)



Why: I honestly have no idea where I got this shirt. I want to say Tim gave it to me, but honestly? Not a clue.

Comment: This is the t-shirt I usually wear under my work clothes when I'm overdue on laundry and have no more white t-shirts left. There, now you know more about me than you ever wanted to.


Right sleeve.

Hard Rock Cafe - Washington, D.C.

Size: XL
Where: Hard Rock Cafe, DC



Why: My old friend Bruce got this for me on one of his annual class trips to DC, almost ten years ago (yikes).



Comment: So I guess it's a little embarrassing that I actually have a Hard Rock Cafe shirt in my collection. It's embarrassing, yet I'm not embarrassed. Does that make any sense? No? Alright. Moving on, then.

(Bruce. We miss you, man.)

Robotech - Skull One.

Size: XL
Where: Free with Robotech: Battlecry game



Why: I looove Robotech, and after many years and several failed (or half-hearted) attempts to make a really cool Robotech console game here in the states, we finally got Robotech: Battlecry from TDK Mediactive. Which a lot of people didn't really like, but I thought it was fun. And this limited edition set came in a big box with the game, this shirt, some dogtags, and a bunch of other stuff I can't even remember. Maybe some art cards or a book or something.



Comment: This shirt is gorgeous (especially for a freebie), and I'd wear it all the time if it was actually my size.

And no, the game wasn't PERFECT (there were way too many boring "escort" missions and not nearly enough just-blow-the-crap-out-of-junk stuff for my tastes), but it was something, and depending on the mission, actually quite a lot of fun.



I'm actually not a huge gamer - the only consoles I had were the PS1 and the Gamecube, for which I had this game, and which suddenly just died a few years back. If anyone wants some Gamecube discs for cheap or to trade for some dvds or comics or whatnot, let me know and I'll send you a list (there's not that many).