Tim’s Ramblings

Yes. This post will be about these two subjects. Today consisted of the West Side Market for the first time in like a month and a half along with lunch at Nate’s with F. That was nice :) Then on the way home I FINALLY got my car’s oil changed so I was nice to the car and gave it a not-so-cheap treatment of fuel line cleaning, new filters, and the other stuff that they do there (this is why I don’t work on my car…). Then, later, a trip to Best Buy where I picked up a few movies on Blue Ray (just watched 300 on Blue Ray - WOW) and Hot Fuzz on DVD. On the way out, on a pure inpulse buy, I also picked up one of those expensive computer programmed Logitech remote controls just for the pure fun of it. It’s really frickin’ cool!

BUT, let’s move on to the subjects at hand.

While I was waiting in line at the oil change place, I heard this particular report on Weekend America on NPR. It was about this little town in Illinois called Bath where they have this problem with Asian silverhead carp. So to combat it, they organized the “Redneck Fishing Contest” where you have to fish these carp without using a fishing pole or anything. How you say? This is TOTALLY messed up… The fish literally fly out of the lake by the hundreds at the sound of a boat motor and people have gotten hurt getting whacked by these fish. The report was funny. Then they said that there is a video of it. I had to go see it and it is CRAZY.

Here’s the report: http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/programs/2007/08/04/man_versus_fish_on_t.html

But here’s the video from CBS Evening News that is linked to the article. Worth seeing just for the…well…oddness of it all:

–

So…T-shirt. Yeah. People wear lots of T-shirts. You see all types all over the place. But for some reason, one particular t-shirt of mine seems to get lots of attention and I’m not really sure why…

I have this one particular t-shirt that I’m pretty sure I bought at Ozzfest in Pittsburgh in 2005. It’s an Iron Maiden shirt that has a picture of Eddie tearing apart the Earth and finding a brain inside. This image is actually from the World Piece Tour (that is not spelled wrong…it’s for the album Piece of Mind) back in 1983 but I liked it and so I bought it. Here’s the pic on the shirt (of course mine doesn’t have the “World Piece Tour ‘83″ on the bottom though).

The thing is, I can’t really wear this to work… We work in a casual environment. I go to work during the summer in t-shirts, shorts, and even sandals at times. People wear all types of t-shirts. Some that I might look at and go “…hmmm…you know…we DO have business partners walking through here…” (both t-shirts on guys and certain shirts on the girls…yow…) but overall, it’s a pretty casual place. However, personally I just don’t think this particular Iron Maiden shirt is “business friendly”.

This means I wear this shirt on the weekends. It’s not like I wear this EVERY weekend. But due to the reason above, if I’m wearing it…it’s a weekend. For the first year or so I got pretty much no comments whatsoever on my shirt. But recently…I don’t know why…I seem to be attracting attention…

It started about a month and a half ago the last time I was at the West Side Market. I wrote about this back then too. The girl that works at the bread stand that I go to looked at my shirt and actually asked me “So…do you REALLY like that band? Or just wearing the shirt??”. What the hell kind of question is that??? Oh well. I told her “Yes…yes I do. I love Maiden!” to which she looked surprised. Ah well. (on a totally random note - , did you know Iron Maiden is incredibly popular in Brazil as is their lead singer Bruce Dickinson?? They are HUUUUUUGE there for some reason!). Then on the way out to my car, I passed by a guy and as I passed him he stopped and went “EDDIIIIIEEE!!!!!” (the name of the mascot) totally randomly. Ooookay….

Then today, at the West Side Market I was back at the bread stand and the same girl was helping someone else but I saw her glance at the shirt. Then before I can say anything like “…yes..I really DO like them!” she kind of smiled and went “do you always wear that shirt??”. I had to tell her the whole “I can only wear this on the weekend” thing and then since she ONLY sees me on the weekends and these days just like once a month or so the chance of her seeing me in this shirt is pretty high. Though I was touched she remembered me…though I’m not sure if I’m happy about her remembering me with Iron Maiden t-shirt….

Then I went to the cheese stand. Same place I go to every time. Cute girl that works there too. But this time, right before she helped me out she glaces over and goes “cool shirt!”. ….okay then…. I mean, I’m glad she thought it was cool but…totally random too. She’s seen me in it before as well I think. Ah well. She’s cute so I didn’t mind of course :) But it was one of those “huh….popular shirt today” moment.

Then I was at the oil change place and the mechanic changing my oil, while showing me the dipstick, asked me if I was at the concert for this shirt and when I said “yeah” he proceeded to talk for about 2 to 3 minutes about how awesome the show was.

Then when I walked into Best Buy the guy working as the security guy/greeter also went “Iron Maiden! Awesome! Eddie man…Eddie!” (I have no idea what the last phrase meant…) as I walked in…

Apparently it was “rock on to all Iron Maiden T-shirt wearing guy day”…or something. No one said anything to F for her Delicious Vinyl T-shirt!!

This seems to be happening more often too… Just a few weeks ago I got stopped in Newark by a TSA agent who saw my Black Sabbath shirt and proceeded to tell me how he saw them with Ozzy recently during Ozzfest 2004 and 2005 but also saw them with Ozzy back in the day, then also saw them with Dio, and how many shows he’s gone to and so on.

Do you guys do this??? If you see someone wearing a t-shirt of a band you liked or something, would you stop them to tell them about your history of going to their shows? Would you even slap someone on the shoulder as you walk past going “Sabbath!” like it happened to me when I was walking to the cab stand in the Cleveland Airport a week ago? …maybe it’s me… Maybe I should just wear one of those more mysoginistic t-shirts or something…though if I project an aura of “if you like my t-shirt come talk to me” that might not be a good idea…

Just…weird. Ah well.

Now…time to go see if I can program the Logitech remote to work with my fan (yes…I have a fan with a remote…I’m THAT lazy) (^_^)