Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Let the floodgates open mitherfuckers. Arriving today:

Two T-Shirts from Brian Wood’s “Northern Boy” line. I’ve been looking for alternatives to band t-shirts for a while. I hate branded shirts, not because I have moral objections to the business practices of big names (though, I do) but mainly because I am fundamentally opposed to the idea that I pay to advertise someone else by buying ito their conspiracy of cool. I circumvented that after a while when it became obvious plain t-shirts were becoming hard to come by in interesting designs and colours, and the middle ground I settled upon was paying to advertise things I did actually endorse, hence a swathe of Radiohead, Manics, Placebo and Transformers clothing. In recent times it’s been getting harder to find bands with t-shirts that I actually like. Ben Folds’ t-shirt efforts were just pitiful, for instance, as were Garbage’s, and the Gorillaz’ and you get the picture. I decided I’d look for something a bit more original, but the alternatives were the socially irredeemable thinkgeek range, or generic mass produced generic and meaningless logos from high street fashion stores. Pre-faded american university logos people wear like they actually mean something. Save me.

All of which mental breakdownand overreaction led me to Brian Wood’s clothing store. That and a sale he had at the time. This is pretty much the sort of thing I was after, because I can guarantee there aren’t a thousand examples clogging up every backward ass shithole from here to wherever I stop acknowledging the UK (which, to be fair, is anywhere north of Birmingham.) But that’s only half the story, because I actually understand what the design on the t-shirts is about, and it’s done by an artist and writer I admire. I can’t imagine a better innovative t-shirt solution to my t-shirt problem.

So, now that you’ve read that, you can have a look at them:

If you like these, you can get them and more at the Northern Boy store. Probably not for a little while, because I think he’s slowing down on shirt production for a while as he moves house, but production is slated to restart at the earliest opportunity.

Also, I mentioned briefly when I was searching out this gear, but while I had the camera out, I thought I’d make sure everyone had photographic proof that I am still cool:

That’s right. Nikki’s Gameboy, My SNES, and assorted games. Actually, at this point, my PC probably counts as retro gaming. Also, if you can make it out, note the Autobot sticker on the front of my computar machine.

Unfortunately, most of the original SNES games were lost when they got lent to someone and never retrieved, but then, the games I planning to re-buy weren’t necessarily those ones anyway. I know for certain I have to buy Mario Kart and Street Fighter 2, after that it’s up in the air. I’ve still got Mario All Stars and Captain America kicking around somewhere, but at home all I’ve got is Mario World and Wolverine, and my Super Gameboy. Maybe the nostalgic value will wear off soon enough and it’ll got back into storage, but for now, let’s all admire the design and agree they don’t make consoles like this anymore.