Electric Rock Guitar.

Size: M
Where: ThinkGeek


Why: Christmas present from Kevin & Lisa

Comment: It's a shirt. With a an electric guitar on it. THAT PLAYS.

Seriously.

It comes with an amp and "picks" and everything:


Surely you will instantaneously rise to some sort of rock Valhalla if you were to break this shirt out at a gig sometime and actually play a song on it.





The sound is actually quite satisfyingly loud and rocking!



Here is the shirt in action (not me, unfortunately, as I personally am not quite yet prepared to ascend to god status):

Ubuntu.

Size: M
Where: Ubuntu Education Fund



Why: Free for volunteer work.



Comment: I first learned about Ubuntu Education Fund through volunteering with One Brick. Since then, I've volunteered with Ubuntu several times, and has become one of my favorite places to work.



Ubuntu Education Fund came about in the late '90s from a chance meeting between two strangers who had a common dream of helping the children of some of the poorest communities in South Africa overcome Apartheid's legacy of poverty, disease, and inequality through education and community based on the African philosophy of Ubuntu, which loosely translates as the idea that "a person is a person through other people."

(And now you can brag about knowing what the word actually means at your next nerdy Linux party :p)


David Letterman's involvement unclear.

The Madness of Mission Six.

Size: M
Where: threadless



Why: Pac Man never made any kind of sense to me until I saw this shirt.

Comment: So I read the other day that Michael Bay or someone was finally going to be bringing a Pac Man movie to the big screen. I wonder if this is the direction that he wants to take the movie.


Tag.

I like threadless shirts a lot. I was just saying the other day that, much as I hate to say it, I'd buy a lot more of their stuff if they didn't use such douchey models.

Heart Fighter.

Size: M
Where: woot



Why: Another great shirt from woot, and a just about perfect summation of a) my love for 8-bit graphics and b) sooo where I live (right now). Love it. Or don't. Whatever.

Soundwave.

Size: M
Where: teejmart (now defunct)



Why: I originally found this seller on eBay when I was looking for a Patlabor shirt (which I will post on here as soon as I can find it in my closet). They had some nice stuff on eBay, but an even greater selection (and, somewhat mysteriously, better shipping rates) at their own website.

I'm pretty sure this is not an originally-drawn design, and I would also guessed that it's unlicensed, but the store is no longer around so I guess it doesn't matter.

This Soundwave image I'm guessing is from some kind of Transformers G1 fight sequence, but decontextualized here it looks like he's breakdancing. Awesome.

Soundwave was always everyone's favorite Transformer growing up, in my experience, and among the most highly coveted in any neighborhood kid's toy collection.

lala.

Size: L
Where: lala site (now defunct)



Why: sent free, as part of some referral program I believe.

Comment: lala began life as a CD-swapping site. After that idea didn't pan out, I believe it became an online radio station - I had long stopped using the site by then, so I really don't know for sure. The site is no longer around.

I joined the site back in the CD-swapping days, and at the time they had a promotion going on where if a new user registered you as the one who referred them, they sent you a free t-shirt.



I think they had five (or seven) different designs, one for each "day" of the week, and your ultimate goal was to refer five (or seven) people to get all the shirts. I, unfortunately, only got as far as "Monday".

It's a cute-enough design, I suppose, but it cracks me up how they managed to mess up the printing along the bottom - apparently the hem of the shirt folded up during the process, leaving half of the text to be printed on the inside of the shirt:




A foreshadowing of days to come...? :s

Serenity.

Size: XL
Where: the Universal marketing department, I guess.



Why: This shirt was given to me for free (via Josie) along with a bunch of other cool freebies in exchange for some random guerrilla marketing projects that I participated in leading up to the release of the movie.

Comment: I was originally given this shirt in M, but at the time I was wearing only size L shirts so asked if they maybe had one a size bigger. They didn't, but a few weeks later they did have this extra one in XL they could give me. I took it, happily. Oh well, 20/20 hindsight and that.

The Last Day.

Size: M
Where: woot



Why: I liked the color, and it's a GREAT graphic.

Comment: Another great shirt from woot. Seriously, look at the detail on this thing.



For the most part, I don't think the casual observer will really "get" the shirt. Most people who've seen it just think it's abstract splotches, while one or two more literal-minded people have thought it was either a) some kind of flaming Pac Man or b) an egg. A closer look, and the name of the shirt ("The Last Day") tells all.



Just a guy and his dog, sitting alone at the top of the hill, watching and waiting for the end of...well, everything. Together to the end and all that - I think it's rather sweet and beautiful, personally. Even if we are talking about the end of the world, and all life as we know it.

Seriously, one of my all-time favorite shirts.

Mosquitoes.

Size: M
Where: Hugo Boss, via Macy's, via John and Sunny.



Why: It was a Christmas gift.

Comment: Spring is in full swing here in NYC, and in an attempt to appease the mosquito god(s), I'm posting this shirt and hoping it's enough for him to ask his minions to leave me alone this year (too late).

The shirt is very thin, almost sheer, and requires a plain white T to be worn under it (which can be a bit awkward, with this shirt's large neck hole) if leaving the house.

For some reason, the first dozen or so times I looked at this shirt I thought they were ants. I may have been too grossed out to look too closely.



Nope. Mosquitoes.

I haven't tried it yet specifically, but I wonder if this is one of those mosquito-repellent shirts? I don't know how they work - I suspect they're just dipped in chemicals, or something? Could that be safe? Could that work? I've tried some of those soaps that are supposed to be mosquito-repellent, and I can tell you that they do not work.

Not for me, at least. I fear I am just one of those highly-susceptible people. Seriously. About 85% people are susceptible, but there is something like 10% that mosquitoes just go right for, right away, for whatever mysterious body-chemical reason. In summertime I sleep with the windows cracked not even wide enough to slip a credit card through, and with screens, and I wake up covered in bites, usually at 3 AM, from all the buzzing in my ear. And seriously, I get bit in the weirdest places. My knuckles. The soles of my feet. My elbows. Who the hell gets mosquito bites on their elbows?

Anyway, here's a shirt with lots of mosquitoes on it.

Lietuva (Lithuania).

Size: M
Where: Lithuania, perhaps? Dagfinn gave it to me.



Why: I guess he thought I'd like it (he was right), though I suspect he just found it in his closet while packing and decided he didn't need it anymore. :)

Comment: You may or may not notice at first glance that the stylized cross-like symbol in the shield is actually a guy with a sword on a horse. I'm guessing it is Vytis, the White Knight, who appears on the official coat of arms of Lithuania, though it could possibly also be Saint George, also often spotted in the area, also on horseback, spearing a dragon into the ground

What are you looking at?

Size: L?
Where: Cranky Design



Why: Another shirt from John and Sunny.

Comment: I think this is my last Cranky shirt - I really need to pick up some more.

This guy's name is Ninjack. You can learn more about him, and all the other inhabitants of Cranky Village, here.

Red Bulls - Blue

Size: L
Where: RBNY



Why: They just randomly passed these out at one of the matches last year.

Comment: I believe it was the last home game of the regular season (no playoffs for us - we truly, madly, deeply SUCKED last year), and I want to say it was against Toronto FC, but I'd have to check the archives for that one and get back to you.

But yeah, here we have another free RBNY shirt. The skewed logo is an interesting talking point - why? What does it mean? What does it tell us? Nothing. Moving on.

Again with the faux-vintaging. Though, now that the "new" logo is over a year old, might it make sense this time? It certainly didn't make much sense last time. (Though personally, not being a fan of fake-vintage shirts, I would argue that it doesn't ever make sense.)

(And speaking of that shirt, guess what? They sent us four of those exact ones again with our ticket package this year! Now I have two. I guess we all do. Cheap! At least the team is playing a thousand times better this year so far, and the new stadium is pretty sweet.)

(I'm just rambling now. I'm tired.)

I remember it was raining pretty hard that night, and at one point on the way back to the car I dropped the shirt in a pretty oily puddle. Hmm, maybe that's not faux-vintaging after all.... :s

Maule Bear and Friends.

Size: M
Where: Giant Robot



Why: Giant Robot was having a deal where they gave you a free shirt with subscription. You didn't know which shirt they were sending until you received it. I'm glad I got this one, because the only thing cuter than a running cartoon bear is a running cartoon bear with a backpack, ascot, and a hat with a little feather in it.


Tag.

Comment: I'm not a big magazine reader, not least of all because pretty much every magazine that I take an interest in seems to cease publication within a year or two of my getting into it - I'm serious! Cargo, NewType USA, Comic Foundry, the list goes on and on.

I enjoyed Giant Robot way back in the 90s, but had kind of completely forgotten all about it until some people were talking about it on Twitter a couple months back. Here's hoping, now that I've subscribed, that my "magazine curse" will not continue.

Whip It.

Size: L
Where: Dave got it free at a promo screening of the movie.



Why: Dave went to a promo sneak of the movie where apparently everyone was given a free t-shirt, and afterward they had enough left over that he was able to grab an extra one to mail to me, because he knew that I had also seen and enjoyed the movie, and because I'm just a fan of derby in general.

Comment: This is a great shirt to wear while running. Also, I have on my to-read pile Shauna Cross' novel on which the movie was based. Possibly on vacation. Possibly as we speak....

Fundació Joan Miró.

Size: M
Where: Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona



Why: John and Sunny got it on their honeymoon and gave it to me for Christmas.

Comment: Not sure how well the black-on-black will show up on your particular monitor, but the writing under the building reads (surprise) "Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona".


Tag.

Comment: I think I like Joan Miró, though honestly I get him mixed up with Kandinsky, which would have made it super-awkward had I actually visited the museum, I suppose.

R2 Unit Owners Workshop Manual.

Size: M
Where: Teefury



Why: I've already made clear my love for Star Wars-inspired shirts, particularly ones that I think are clever and funny. Here we have the cover for an R2 Unit manual in the classic Haynes manual style.



Comment: Did you know that I didn't even realize what was going on inside of R2 until I took these photos? Just at a glance, I thought it was just a bunch of pulleys and belts and things. Real observant = me.

Australia.

Size: L
Where: Australia



Why: Shannon got it for me from her vacation.

Comment: I had asked Shannon to bring me back a shirt from Australia. I specifically asked if she could find one that had the year on it. Apparently this triggered a nationwide hunt for the perfect shirt, and they finally found this one on their very last day. Good choice!


The tag is beautiful too, isn't it?