Baking bread

It was Mrs. Curmudgeon who said, "You can't not buy that shirt."

The end is literally nigh

The illiterates have won the figurative battle over "literally," according to cnn.com. In a victory for the "dictionary-as-linguistic-anthropology-as-opposed-to-a-tool-for-pedants" school, several major dictionaries now offer (what is, in effect) "figuratively" as a definition for "literally."

Congratulations, barbarian hordes. You win this round. But you're not getting my snarky superiority complex until you pry it from my cold dead fingers.

(Don't give up the fight: get the t-shirt to the right [and which represents all that is right, incidentally], here.)

College Waitlist Pride

I thought these t-shirts from shirtwoot were mildly amusing, in an ironic kind of way, until I scrolled all the way down the page and saw this:

Which is just awesome.

I do have a birthday coming up, you know...

It fits in with my mission statement

However, since shirt.woot raised its t-shirt price to $12, I'm a little slower to hit the "buy" button.

Sigh.

Racer 5

I am not ashamed to admit I will try a beer for no other reason than an attractive label. When I was at Denver's Falling Rock Taphouse with Pa Curmudgeon last summer, my inner six-year-old couldn't help but notice the very Speed Racerish Racer 5 IPA taphead. I've been back several times and had Racer 5 on each occasion. It may not be the greatest IPA ever, but the logo makes it a thrill. Since it comes from a California brewery, I've only ever had it on tap. Someday, I hope to pick up a six-pack, although that would probably mean setting foot in California again.

In the meantime, Bear Republic has an online gift shop with a good assortment of Racer 5-emblazoned caps and t-shirts. Just in case you were wondering what to get me for this Lenten season.

Funny

But perhaps too subtle to be 10 bucks worth of funny.

Draw a picture, then

Driving to work today, I immediately changed the radio station when I heard a song in which the singer praised himself for the childhood habit of coloring outside the lines when his mother gave him a coloring book and crayons. Pray tell, how did "coloring outside the lines" become a dominant metaphor for being a creative free spirit instead of, as is self-evident, lacking the common sense with which the average kumquat is gifted? The purpose of coloring books is, well, to color the pictures therein. Coloring outside the lines produces an unsightly mess, not a work of art.

If you're such a creative individual, draw a picture. And apologize to your mother for being such an ungrateful ingrate.

(T-shirt compliments of woot.)

The Genius of Miles Davis

I know many of you wanted to gift me this box set designed specifically for obsessive-compulsive lunatics (in a trumpet case! A trumpet case!) this Christmas, but were intimidated by the $1200 price tag. The good news, according to a recent Denver Post jazz column by Brett Saunders, is that it's now been reduced to a much more reasonable $750.

C'mon. Make a curmudgeon smile.

It makes an '80s gamer smile

Today at shirt.woot, for those of us who don't understand how to play video games without a joystick.

A Love Supreme

In my mid-20s, I decided to get serious about jazz. My course of study, which I recommend to any neophyte, was to listen to everything Miles Davis ever recorded, in chronological order, and branch out from there. Sometime early on in my education, I bought a copy of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, largely because I knew it is one of the all-time standard works. But at that stage in my development, I just didn't get it, and so set it aside.

It's been a few years; in fact, I counted up the t-shirts and realized I've been supporting Denver's jazz station, KUVO, for over ten years now. And now, just now, I'm beginning to get A Love Supreme. I still don't understand it, but it makes the effort and time worth it.

My sad obsessions

  As all right-thinking people agree, Abraham Lincoln was the greatest rhetorician in American history, saving the Union with words alone.  (Okay, and the Union war machine.)  And as anyone who survived the 80s would agree, t-shirts are the finest vehicle available for communicating important philosophical concepts to one's community.  

  Now the fine folks at woot.com have pressed all my buttons with this portrait of Lincoln rendered in the text of the Gettysbury Address.  So tell me that you love me for only $15 by going to http://shirt.woot.com/Friends.aspx?k=5229.