My Shirt Design Was Accepted!

However, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to get printed. Please click on the link below, click that you would buy it as a shirt and a print, and then hit 5.



I know I should be excited that it even made it this far, and I am. After reading the long list of responses I could expect if they didn't accept it, making it this far is quite a triumph. But now I want it all. Sure, the money would be nice, but I want to know that I made something that people liked and it's going to be made and distributed. Hipsters across the globe will see my design and want it. People I've never even met will be wearing something that I pretty much put on them.

This is my first step on my quest for world domination.

Threadless T-Shirts

So after hours of painstaking work, and hours of Leslie getting frustrated because I don't know how to use Photoshop, I have successfully submitted a design for Threadless.

Threadless is a t-shirt shop in Chicago that I was introduced to by my dear friends Angie and John. They also accept submissions for t-shirts. So I put something together and sent it off.

You can see the status of my design here:



Once it gets approved, I will need everyone to go and vote for me!!!

I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I'm really proud of how it turned out, and I really feel my design fits the kind of stuff they do on the site. Some of the other designs up just don't really go with the style of the shirts the site offers. I don't know, maybe I just have a bit head, but I really think I have a shot. And I've always felt that if you get paid for art that you've created, that officially makes you an artist. So somehow if I pull this off I feel as if it would validate all the claims I've been making in my head for many years now. That and I would love some free t-shirts!

The Dark Knight

Wow. Seriously, wow. This film is deserving of all the hype it's been getting. It really is one of the best superhero films in years. Brilliantly written and performed, this will be remembered as one of the best comic book films ever made, by far the best Batman movie ever. This film proves that comic book movies can be taken seriously and be recognized not just as giant blockbusters, but as art.

There were so many things that I loved about this film. Like nearly ever Batman film since Tim Burton's first Batman, they decided to put two villains into the story. Typically this makes things a bit too over the top and you fall into the typical corny, rehashed story where the villains turn on each other or something like that. However it works in this film on so many levels. I knew Harvey Dent was going to turn into Two Face, but I wasn't sure when in the story it was going to happen to him, if at all. I was expecting it to happen at the end and lead into the third film. This was so much better than that.

I really enjoyed the Spider-man and the X-Men films, and Iron Man is a welcome member to the family. However those all feel very grounded in a different, more fantastic word. The only thing that removes The Dark Knight from the real world to me is Batman's technology, which could all one day be real. In the first one the Scarecrow's fear toxin is a bit of a stretch, but with this one you don't feel that way.

I was worried that I was going to keep getting taken out of the film by the presence of Heath Ledger. I didn't want to get too distracted when remembering that the guy is dead now. However, I still have trouble looking at the Joker in the movie and understanding it's Ledger behind the greasepaint. His performance is so demented it's not nothing else that he had ever done. This would have opened up so many doors for him. This film serves for him as his swan song.

As far as how they wrote the Joker, they did an excellent job. He's a brilliant character who is so much more psychotic then Jack Nicholson portrayed him in the first Batman film. He is every serial killer and mad man rolled into one. He's more scary than funny, and when he is funny, it's even more scary. The disappearing pencil bit is a perfect example (and one of my favorite parts of the movie I might add!).

Just a couple minor details I didn't like about the film. I'm a big Batman fan and the Joker has always been one of my favorite villains. I think Heath Ledger truly understood the character. However, as sick and twisted as they managed to make him, he wasn't particularly funny. I kept waiting for that one token Joker joke. Nothing too poignant or silly, just a little anecdote to remind viewers, "This guy's f_cking nuts!".

Another thing that bugs me is Christian Bales Batman voice. For those of you that didn't know, Bale is English and suppresses his accent for most American films. When he puts on the cape and cowl, he changes his voice to a whispery thing, probably so people that know Bruce Wayne don't recognize him. However when Bale does this voice it sounds like his trying not to sneeze, and it was very distracting to me.

But those are two minor details in a nearly flawless film.

Do yourself a favor and go see this movie. The Dark Knight is one of the riskiest film I've seen in a while, it is the best movie of the summer if not the year.

Home-town Hero Gone Sour

We're in Connecticut for the wedding of our dear friends Angie and John. The wedding was Saturday night in Mystic. We really had an amazing time. The food was good, the music was fantastic, and the company was second to none. I love my family, but I still stand behind the statement that our friends are the best friends in the world. More on the wedding later.

Of course no trip to CT would be complete without the obligatory visits to the parental units. So far most of our time has been spent with my father and step mother in Bridgeport, from where I'm writing this. We're going to New York tomorrow for a couple days and then we'll return and spend a few days with my mother. My mother still lives in West Haven, in the very house I grew up in. Being in West Haven fills me with anxiety. For some reason I am terrified to bump into people from high school. For the most part I don't really care for the majority of the folks in my graduating class, and with a couple of exceptions, I keep in touch with everyone I care to from West Haven.

So I am filled with dread and fear wherever we go. Every establishment I enter is a potentially awkward encounter with someone from my past life as a Connectican. I don't feel like chatting it up in an aisle at Walgreens feigning interest in how many kids you have now and how your husband/wife is serving in Iraq. I try not to make eye contact with anyone any where I go for fear they might recognize me and I'll be forced to converse with them.

But I'm a realist. I'm not really so conceited to believe that any of my classmates would want be compelled to stop and catch up with me. It's only happened to me a couple times in the handful of visits since I've abondoned the state. However this logic does not compute when I'm out and about. There are a couple folks that would actually make for some REALLY uncomfortable moments. Oh course my life wouldn't come to an end if I bumped into one of these people. I might have a momentary loss of control in my bowels, but after a shower and a quick stop at the laundry mat and I'll be as good as new.

Is it perhaps because I'm not pleased with the direction my life has gone? I have an amazing wife. I have a decent job. I live in a awesome city. However I still haven't completed college, I haven't published anything yet, I haven't had any screenplays made into films. Okay, so that last few are a bit much, but these are the things that go through my mind.

Whatever. People are out there. If I'm meant to bump into them I will. Some of them I will hate, others I will be excited to see, but most will make me flee the scene. The one thing they all have in common is that they all stay here when my vacation ends, and that's all that matters.