My good friend Jeff plays poker, but since we live 41 miles away from each other we only play together (or against each other, I guess) about 5-6 times a year.   Though our friendship goes much deeper than poker, poker helps us keep connected, and when we are not playing against each other, we are usually complaining or boasting about our games against others.  These infrequent emails are our war stories, and far-fetched they sometimes are.

But honestly, we all do it, not just Jeff and I.  Sharing war stories is half the fun of social poker play.  I have two friends that I frequent the local Indian casinos with and usually we carpool.  The highlight of each trip is discussing our antics on the drive home.  We boast about the big wins and lick our wounds from the big losses, and finally decide if the night was worth it.  We usually decide affirmatively.

A whole magazine is dedicated to poker war stories, Card Player Magazine.  A free version is usually available at card rooms around the valley, so I pick it up when I can hoping to gain something out of reading it or, if not something of value, at least a moment or two of entertainment.  While these war stories are from the pros–that 10% elite group–they still carry the same vocabulary of my emails with Jeff and my conversations with my friends.  Terms like “he chased”, “sucked it out”, “got lucky”, “played it right”, “no regrets”, “trapped him”, “read him right/wrong” and “I’d do it again” are all over those pages.

And that is what makes poker fun, not just winning or losing, but breaking it down in the end.  War stories from a poker table are the prize that even the loser can win every time he plays.

I take one of three busses on my way to and from school every day.  Two are actual city busses, which charge a fare and travel long distances, and one is a free local neighborhood shuttle.  I take a bus almost every day I attend class, only foregoing it to ride my bike instead.  On days when time is of the essence, I drive to and park at the Tempe Library and ride the Orbit Jupiter neighborhood shuttle or my bike to campus, and on days when I have the time I’ll save the gas and pick up a city bus at a terminal close to my home.

Today I was taking my favorite city bus, the 72N from its point of origination near my home.  The 72N that originates at 7:39 AM is operated by an eastern european immigrant with a strong accent.  His speech is slightly broken, often missing articles and using odd verb conjugations, making a conversation with him sometimes funny.  As I boarded the bus, it was completely off.  Unusual, I thought, since often the driver will leave the engine idling during stops for reasons I assume to include keeping the AC operational and the desiel engine warm.  As we neared the departure time, our driver had to exit the bus, walk to the back, and start the engine manually from the behind.  Again, unusual, why did he start it from the back?

We were doing fine for most of the trip, cruising along with far fewer stops than normal.  I was happy; I’d be early.  As the bus crossed over the US-60 freeway, I looked down on the stop-and-go traffic and thought “ha, you’re wasting gas and not moving, I’m saving gas and moving”.  Ironic was the timing of such a thought.  Immediately atfer the bus completed crossing the US-60, which I’ve observed as the point where the bus begins to achieve its daily goal of become a sardine can for its riders, the AC died.  Before I had time to fully comprehend the consequences of a standing room only bus without AC, the engine completely failed.  We came to a complete stop, ironically, at a bus stop.

Peoples faces displayed signs of panic, distress, and frustration.  I knew that a good thrid of the bus was en-route to ASU and some of those students had assignments due or tests today, myself included.  I had plenty of time before class, so I wasn’t worried, but I couldn’t let this cause me to be late.  I did the typical boy scout thing and analyzed the situation.  Though I had a general idea, I didn’t know exactly where I was at the moment.  While the operator was behind the bus trying to get it to start, I weighed my options.  I figured that I was probably close enough to bike all the way there, I could call my grandfather who lived down the road, or I could wait for the next bus and be a little late.  The starter was chugging but the engine wasn’t turning over.  I hadn’t settled on anything yet, but I wanted my solution to also aid the other distressed students stuck in the bus.  I decided I needed to first figure out where I was.  I got up and got a look out the front window.  The driver walked back onto the bus and announced, “We’re not moving for while now.”  The funny way he said it, combined with his accent, earned a weak chuckle from most of the distraught riders.  I laughed too, but not just at the driver, also at the realization where I was… about 1/8 mile from the Tempe Library where, as I said above, I pick up the free neighborhood shuttle on a regular basis.  I had found the solution.

People were stirring in their seats and some were asking the driver how long the rescue bus would be only to be further frustrated by his answer of “at least 20 minutes”.  I realized that I needed to leave soon to catch the next Orbit Jupiter, and fufilling my desire to also aid the other ASU students, I stood up and announced the solution, “If you’re going to ASU, you can take the Orbit with me, it’ll get us there faster”.  The driver, as if it were his idea, echoed me, “Oh, the Jupiter get you there fast!”  One guy behind me said aloud, “I am following this guy, he knows whats going down.”  I stepped off the bus, got my bike, and looked behind me to see 15 or so people following my lead.

From there the rest is history.  Under my lead, the students followed me to the bus stop and we hopped on the Jupiter.  Because of the influx of 72N orphans, the Jupiter filled up much faster than normal, meaning we passed many upset people at bus stops further down the road.  We arrived on campus with 10 minutes to spare, and one chick announced that I was her hero.  “Thanks, I guess,” I muttered, and the 15 students I “saved” rushed off to class.

ASU student: Jeremy Scott

As of this week I am in my sixth week of school.  Last week I completed the first round of tests in all my classes.  I had widely mixed results.  In my Financial Analysis class (FIN302) I am currently sitting at 100%.  I am glad, it is a business school general education requirement and my instructor challenged us to beat the one honors student, and I did (ha ha).  In my Financial Institutions class (FIN331) I am at 72%… below my standards for sure but easy to recover and I have the option of dropping this class without consequence for reasons I will explain later.  Finally, in International Management (MGT 302)… um, er, 60%.  If you’re reading this and you know me at all, that 60% is my first, and hopefully my last D grade on a major assignment in college.

I am taking only three classes this semester.  I purposely set this schedule for a few reasons… first I was at the time very unsure about my major, second I was a little concerned about my ability to balance work, university courses, and home life, so I wanted to take it easy, and third, “easy” to me would still have been 12 credit hours, but I couldn’t find 4 classes because of my late registration.

Lets take some baby steps through these bits of personal history that led me here.

WP Carey School of Business at ASU

Leading up to my “graduation” at MCC, I was dead-set on a Business Management degree.  That is what I was working towards.  My career goal is Socially Responsible Entrepreneur and I thought Business Management would have been for me.  An acquaintance of mine who is a WP Carey School alum suggested I was down the wrong path, as the Business Management degree at ASU teaches you middle management for a Fortune 500 company, not how to start and grow your own company.  I chewed on this, and changed to Finance as I felt that of the other choices I could have made, Finance could offer me the most useful toolkit for my career goal.  But the decision was one that never sat well with me.

As I had previously alluded to, it took an act of God to get my university registration through the red tape, so by the time I was able to register for classes, already late into July, I found most classes full.  I was luckily able to register in two business gen. ed. courses but was also forced to take one Finance-only course.  In my first day of classes, my Finance 302 professor told me a story of his days as an undergrad and how he chose a marketing course as a last-semester business school elective only to find that his “numbers based” mind could note cope in the “creative based” marketing course.

While everyone else (all Finance majors) were laughing, I was horrified.  While I am proficient with numbers, I hate them.  I am a deeply creative person, from writing to web design to creative problem solving.  His unsolicited insight into his past prophesied an opposite like story for my future as a Finance major.  I knew right then that Finance was not my major… I don’t love numbers and I am very creative!

I left that class, found the student lounge, and logged into the student services web site.  While downloading the course requirements for Marketing, Management, and Supply Chain Management, I found a new Business Management in Entrepreneurship degree.  It was tailor-made for me.  It turns out that during my one-year break from school, WP Carey school added the new major.  Three weeks later, I was transferred into the program with no looking back.

So anyway, here I am, a quarter way through my first semester at ASU.  My major is changed and my grades gave me a sharp dose of reality that university requires a different kind of student than junior college.  With  mixed results heading into midterms I face some real challenges to my future as a scholarship-funded student.  Where do I go from here?

Back to School Tomorrow

In FIN 302: Financial Analysis it will be full speed ahead.  My comfort with numbers and my intuitive understanding of ratios will guide me to a curve-setting grade.  My instructor is brilliant, an excellent lecturer, and uses slideshows, tests, and quizzes he wrote himself.  He is a fair grader and a great teacher.  My plan is keep it up and relax at the end of the semester with a strong grade.

In MGT 302: International Business I will need some adjustments in study habits. Now that I am in a management sub-major it is critical that I turn this grade around.  I am allowed to drop one test so I figure if I can excel in the other three tests, I’ll be able to put the D behind me.  I have met up with a small student study group that I plan to study with for the future tests, and given the additional attention I intend to dedicate to course, I am sure I can turn this around.

FIN 332 Financial Institutions I am not as sure about.  The teacher is frustrating me because he is modifying the university approved syllabus and literally ignoring the book because he feels that the news on the economy is rewriting the book.  I agree that the changes in the economy will result in a drastically rewritten book in the next edition, I don’t think this loose-cannon approach to teaching is a better alternative.  If his tests get easier because they are primarily current events based, I will be able to turn it around, but if he continues to dabble around reading Wall St Journal articles and then test me on book content, I will drop this class and face no consequence, as the class doesn’t count in my new major.

So, here we go, onto the rest of the semester.

• First is tcritic, written by a great guy named Karl.  Tcritic gets about 8 posts a week, considerably less than other t-shirt blogs, but each is full quality information.  Karl regularly rewards his readers for involvement in his blog, either through tipping him off to t-shirt news, participating in the comments, or playing his contests with gift certificates to Threadless and other sites.  Also, Karl recently crossed over from t-blogger to t-maker when he introduced the funny and timely Prez Dispenser shirt and began his dabbling into t-shirt production.
• Another favorite of mine is Hide Your Arms.  HYA is written by Andy and his blog offers some great insight into international t-shirt sources as well as domestic, since he currently resides overseas–though he is moving to Philadelphia for an internship shortly.  He posts regularly and sometimes writes a lot about the same vendors, but the high load of posts doesn’t mean he lacks quality.  His blog name is actually related to his first love, hoodies, but he takes a break during the summer to write about tees.
• Finally, Shirts on Sale is an excellent source for saving money.   I should note that they mostly collect headlines from other blogs with the similar news [sources], but as a simple source for cheap designer tees, I love it.

Update: Note that this list is in no way exhaustive, there are hundreds of t-shirt blogs out there, but these three are my favorites for the various reasons listed.

In other news, Design by Humans announced the winners of the DBH $10k contest.  To my surprise my choice, Black Hole Sun, won, but when the graphic was finally translated onto a t-shirt, it is nothing like what I thought.  Compare for yourself:

Where did the blue go?  Where did the fuschia and purple go?  Why bother having us vote on these designs if Design by Humans will then go and drastically alter the design?  I won’t be buying this shirt, which is sad, because I was greatly looking forward to it being printed.

This week’s featured t-shirt is “Most Deadly” by Busted Tees.

Like I said way back in the first installment of T-Shirt Tuesday, I avoid buying joke t-shirts. I prefer to wear though-provoking clothes, or at the very least, clothes that don’t characterize me as something I am not.  While depending on your personality, the VILF shirt can be pretty funny, I won’t wear it because I see it as only slightly humorous and mostly unintelligent, divisive, and crude, all of which I am not.  But occasionally, I’ll make an exception, and this shirt is one.

For those of you not from my generation, this shirt likely makes no sense to you. It is based on the life-status bars for the player from the 007 Goldeneye video game of the late 1990’s. This game was “the game” during my early teenage years when I played lots of video games. I was 12 when I got the game in 1998, and I played it with regularity on solo missions or multiplayer deathmatches with friends until I formed my businesses in 2001. One of the greatest accomplishments of my life prior to the success of my business and my earning the eagle scout rank was the day my brother and I beat the hardest side mission in the game and won the most elusive special achievement: invincibility. While Halo now rules the world of first-person multiplayer shooter games, 007 was the trendsetter, changing the way people played multiplayer video games. I feel 007 made social video game play possible.

BustedTees, the maker of numerous stupid joke shirts, produced this one.  I find the quality to be exceptional, and the shirt soft and comfortable.  I have washed the shirt twice and noticed no major fading of ink, something I am always concerned about when buying for the first time from a vendor.  The design, for essentially copying a graphic from a video game, is very nicely done, and I am especially a fan of the dithered colors in the health meters.  For those who don’t know, dithering is a way to blend pixels of two different colors together to create the look of another color.  In the game it was used to simulate a gradient, since 64-bit technology was limited in color choices.  With today’s t-shirt production technology, a gradient would have come out looking really nice, but by using a dithered color pattern it made the design accurate to the original source and also gave it nice detail in an otherwise simple design.

Overall, for breaking my no-joke-shirt rule, I love my choice.  This shirt is a must-buy for all the kids of my generation who grew up shooting their friends to bits with digital bullets on 007 Goldeneye.

The Boston Tea Party.

In the late eighteenth century, a group of protesters dressed as Native Americans boarded a merchant ship and then off loaded its cargo of tea directly into Boston Harbor [1].  That famous protest, known as the Boston Tea Party, became one of the first highlights in America’s rich history of protests and political activism.  Though the issues behind the Tea Party were long ago left in our past, the American protest spirit demonstrated during the Tea Party would perpetuate, each generation adopting a new issue, defining the social growth and progress of a people through its first two centuries.  With leaders such as Fredrick Douglas, Susan B. Anthony, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the protesters persistently, but peacefully, stood for their cause.  The match-ups were often uneven and greatly in favor of the oppressors: the colonists versus the King of England, women versus the male-dominated society/government, slaves and abolitionists versus deeply entrenched slaveholders, the minorities versus segregation and bigotry, and so many more.  Americans’ example of peaceful protest has been compared to, and even may have inspired, worldwide figures like Nelson Mandella, Mahatama Ghandi, and Desmond Tutu, who led social equality revolutions in their own countries.  America would not be where it is today without its protest history, but unfortunately its protest future looks dim.

My observation of recent protest and activist movements in the United States is that the role of aggressor has shifted from the oppressor to the protestor. This shift has occurred at all levels of the community, and now it is like we have taken protest for granted, and have changed it from the peaceful thing it once was into the hate-mongering thing it now is.  This has led to a break-down of civil political discourse in America, and the vicious speech employed by activists only further strengthen the barriers to communication and compromise.  This is especially true recently, as the last few years have seen activists breeding hate and unrest instead of pushing for peace and unity.

Starting at the top, lots of blame is due to the activist groups.  Organizations like PETA take to Washington streets dressed in almost nothing to demand animal rights[2], causing chaos and upsetting order in the process, while groups like Greenpeace vandalize corporate property or disrupt corporate activity[3] in an effort to make a point about that business’s environmental policies.  Meanwhile, groups like the Sierra Club, NRA, etc, pay lobbyists to delay the progress of our laws while their spokespeople bounce from news interviews to press conferences denouncing and embarrassing our elected leaders.  No longer is the protest movement based in the idea of lifting people out of an oppressed state, rather in those seeking further entitlement for causes not nearly important as those of the past.

MLK during the March on Washington. What would he think of today's protesters and activists?

A recent example of a negative aggressive protest group is the PUMA group, or Party Unity My Ass un-Party, a group founded in protest of Hillary Clinton’s departure from/loss of the Democratic presidential primary.  These people spent time, money, and effort trying to undo the loss of their candidate claiming “disenfranchisement” and “deceptive practices”.  Leading up to the Democratic National Convention, they spent their efforts trying to demonize and minimize Obama as a viable candidate, presumably to allow McCain to win and then allow Hillary to run again in 2012.  Most who followed the PUMA movement would agree that it employed bitter, hateful aggression to try and make their point made.  Why?  They would say to make America better, most would say they accomplished the opposite.

Media figureheads who use media outlets as theaters to stage biased presentations of quote-un-quote news and opinion to further their views play a big role in this issue as well.  People like Michael Moore and Ann Coulter, in the name of their political affiliation, resort to lies, half-truths, conspiracies, and viscous verbal attacks to try and demean and beat down the beliefs of the other half of their America.  Meanwhile, Keith Olbermann, Rush Limbaugh, Chris Matthews, and Bill O’Reilly fill their airspace with heavily biased presentations, highlighting news that benefits their views while discarding that which does not and tearing apart their interviewees with different views while spoon feeding easy questions to like-minded interviewees.

Unfortunately, while the likes of media moguls and activist groups spew their vicious, sometimes hateful, words and stir unrest from the pulpit of American media outlets, everyday people express their own one-sided view of the world from the soapbox of blogs and social media websites.  It is there that the divisions are being further deepened, and is it on the web that I see no hope for America’s protest future.

The internet has undoubtedly changed the way my generation communicates with our world.  However, the internet’s greatest asset (and curse), the instant unmoderated flow of information and ideas, has given people the freedom to be as civilized or as barbaric as they choose, and most choose to be barbaric.

Good journalists write and rewrite their pieces, have them reviewed by an editor, and then rewrite it some more.  Their efforts, even if biased, usually are backed by research, offer some dissenting views, and are moderated by editors whose job it is to minimize bias and ensure good research.  Bloggers are rarely good journalists, often citing uncertain sources or unconventional and biased media, if citations are provided at all.  Their words back their own biased opinions and dissenting views are often ignored in favor of progressing their message.  Numerous fallacies are employed, possibly in an effort to throw the readers into an emotional state where they won’t question the work but either agree or dismiss it, or possibly because they know that research is not enough to justify their views.  Yet people consume this new form of media with vigor, hailing it as the future of the media, failing to see it for what it is, while traditional moderated media loses income and market share. Please don’t get me wrong, not every conventional media news article is perfect and not every blogger is biased, but in general what I have observed is supports my beliefs.

For instance, the other day I followed a link to a blog article where the the blogger was response to an accomplished journalist’s opinion piece on Republican Vice Presidental nominee Governor Sarah Palin.  In the opinion piece by Bradley Buston, which the blogger quotes in his post, the journalist explains his fear of us electing another politician unaware of his or her own shortcomings.  In the opinion piece, the journalist references an exchange between ABC’s Charlie Gibson and Gov. Palin during a media interview as evidence to support his belief.  The blogger fundamentally disagrees with the question that Gibson asked of Gov. Palin and therefore he argues that Gov. Palin’s response should not be considered as support to the journalist’s opinion.  But before the blogger even gets to establishing his counter arguement, he first says this of the journalist:

But what about Bradley Buston’s blindness to his own shortcomings: his unjustified certitude, his complacency, his arrogance, and his misinformedness?

How does this ad hominem attack further the message the blogger presenets? I would argue: not at all.  But what is does do is fires up all his like-minded readers while infurates all his those who aren’t.  And fruther down the hole we go.

One of the most common ways a regular American can protest is writing responses or opinion pieces for local to national news outlets.  The blog world has that too, call comments.  But they are abused.  Readers use the freedom of anonymous commenting to attempt, in whatever way possible, to strengthen or defeat the message of the writer.  Commentors carry out their effort by employing fallacy-rich argumentation lacking content but chock-full of unintelligent attacks.  Even after skimming through the heavily moderated comments section of the CNN Political Ticker, I found commentors calling candidates things like McChicken, spineless, and idiotic while accusing them of treason, perjury, and other unethical behavior.  How do these words benefit the discussion or the message?  How do these words strengthen America?  They don’t.  When as few as five years ago if you wanted to comment on a news article or opinion piece, your words were often thought out before submission and then of course moderated by the publisher, today you can respond, if you want, to a piece in seconds.  Nowadays, ones raw emotions can be typed up and submitted before there is a chance for even self-moderation, and then left online and unmoderated in the spirit of free speech.

From the high-profile activist groups, to the media mouguls, citizen journalists, and general people, the American protest and activist spirit has been tarnished by hate-mongering bigoted efforts of aggression.  In allowing our conventional and citizen media to feed us this, and in allowing ourselves to accept it, we are allowing America to deteriorate into a country of hate mongerers and aggressive protestors.  Yet when we turn on the TV and see a rally in Tehran, we express our gratitude for being Americans.  How shorted sighted we are, for if we allow our discourse and protest to further part from the peaceful civil roots it was founded in, we could be there sooner than anyone dares to believe.  I beg of America: civility please.  Let us not forget the responsibility that comes with the power of free speech, lest our abuse of it may lead to its demise.

Before I get to the featured shirt of the week, I got some news and noteworthies from the t-shirt collecting world. First, a web design/digital artist type guy launched a new company called Around Shirts. The site sells shirts inspired by places.  While each of the five designs at site launch are basically the same design with a different location’s name (e.g.: Tokyo, Los Angeles), the premise and about us page suggest some neat designs soon to come.

Kingdom Comes, a Finalist in the DBH $10,000 Contest

Design by Humans has lately been rather underwhelming in regard to new designs and promotions, but last week broke that trend with a quality release and continued it this week with announcing contest winners.   Released last week and still available is the bold Shark with pixelated teeth (terrible name), and also the mellow and chill I Love Hitchcock.  They have been running a few contests lately, and the winners for the Unity Through Art contest were announced today, with my favorite, entitled We just started with art, taking second place.  The DBH Logo is used in that shirt, and I always liked that logo for its lively feel, which means that this shirt is on my list for that reason alone. Also in DBH news, the big $10,000 contest has its 10 finalists chosen and they are up for a vote on DBH right now.  My favorites are Black Hole Sun (below) and Kingdom Comes (above), but go out and vote for your own favorites!

Black Hole Sun, finalist in the DBH $10,000 Contest

Other items of note:

• Enclothe has a minor sale going on right now. Only 30% off two tees, but that is deal considering that if I had the money I’d get their shirts like Axis Mundi and Ghost Ship at full price!
• A new company for me, with a BOGO free sale going on right now, is Reverie.  They have a small and great line including this one called Promise.
• Marc Ecko, the man behind the Ecko brand, seems to love Star Wars, or at least loves exploiting the money of Star Wars fans.  He has created some beautiful shirts based on the Original Trilogy.  They are expensive, but amazing works of art.  Check out the Marc Ecko Star Wars collection.
• From their about us, “[fivehumans] create hip, fashionable t-shirts so you can support your cause in style!”  These guys make stylish shirts that advocate a cause, like child welfare, cancer, diabetes, autism and more, and then donate a percentage of the proceeds to related non-profit groups.  The shirts cost about average to slightly higher than average and worth the money, especially with part of the money being donated.
• And finally, as Andy at Hide Your Arms puts it, a shirt “that further dilutes political discourse in the USA”: the V.I.L.F. shirt.  No comment.

The Element Mosaic Text Shirt

This week’s featured t-shirt is actually a mass-market shirt (gasp!) by Element Skateboard Company.  I am not against mass-market clothing, but I avoid it for two reasons: most brands carry an image about them that I don’t want to associate myself with–for instance Abercrombie portraying an image of preppiness and cockiness, or Famous offering a raw inner-city rough around the edges feel–and second I hate seeing people wearing a shirt I also own–or worse, that I am currently wearing.  But when a work of art comes in the form of a mass-market t-shirt, I won’t not buy it, so this shirt was quickly added to my collection.

This photo, in black and white, excentuates the textures by the mosaic text.

I’ve owned Element shirts before.  I like the brand because its image of promoting social responsibility through the skate (aka, generation y) subculture.  The brand often has artwork that is primitive, natural, and oraganic in design, so when I am feeling earthy or enviro-friendly their shirts find their way onto my back. This Element brand tee isn’t exactly organic, but it is a sweet design and I picked it up without hesitation.

If you remember last week’s feature, you will recall my discussion on typographic designs making great shirts.  This one is no exception.  The picture to the left shows it in black and white, and it still looks great!  The text, in a newsprint type font, is of the company mission statement.  The blocks of text are cut up and mosaicked into a visually stunning design.  It is an awesome shirt, and worthy of the recognition of being one of my featured shirts of the week.

Element Mosaic Text Detail

Accessed on Aug 31, 2008 on NYT.com

PS: Sorry I posted this 10 days after I found it.

I like these guys, they have a great folky-alt-rock sound with a compelling message. I also like this video… it is wonderful example of design, typography, and breaking-of-the-mold. Check it out if you have a sec.

Last night on my way home, I passed a woman on the road whose tire had blown out.  I stopped, because I am a boy scout.  She had someone on their way to help her, but I stayed with her until her help came.  No woman should be stranded alone on the side of the road at 11 PM.  I would have changed the tire for her but she insisted that I not. Help arrived, and I departed after her grateful thanks.

Almost 12 hours later, I was stranded in a parking lot with jumper cables hanging out my engine compartment wildly waving to passing vehicles.  Apparently my battery was dead.  After 20 minutes, no boy scouts or good samaritans had stopped for me, so I called roadside assistance. My insurance company is now $60 poorer, and I am sunburned and out of an hour of my life.

Sometimes I wish there were more boy scouts around.

McCain oh-eight, er 1908 (via Busted Tees)