Blog Archive for August 2008

The delirious? Soccer Jersey

OK, so I'm already breaking one of my rules for the T-shirt blog posts.  I'm not currently wearing this shirt.  But, this is one of my more rarely worn shirts, the delirious? jersey:

Just in case it's not immediately apparent, this is an actual soccer jersey made by a company in Brazil.  (This is one reason why I don't wear it often, because that type of fabric feels weird to me.)  It has a UK logo and a red stripe on the front as well as the "delirious?" and "d:" logos, plus a "DELIRIOUS?" and "5" on the back.  This is one of my most prized shirts, partially because I bought it directly from the UK webstore for a bit more money than I usually spend on a shirt, and partially because it's my all-time favorite band.  (I also don't wear it much because it's a bit small for me, to which one of my roommates remarked, "Dan, most of your shirts are a bit too small for you.")

I mostly wear this shirts to concerts, mostly because those are special events.  I wore it last week to the Music Builds tour in Chicago, where Switchfoot, Third Day, Jars of Clay and Robert Randolph & The Family Band rocked the ampitheater.  (Incidentally, I also got another shirt which looks like it'll be rather tight on me, my first T-shirt ever from Jars of Clay, who are one of my favorite bands as well, but that's another blog post.)  The show was great, and I got to spend the weekend with my two youngest sisters.

However, today, August 30th, is also an important day on the delirious? calendar.  Here's a clip from their biography on h2g2:
The next major event, although horrific, shaped the history and gave us Delirious? as they are today. On August 30, 1995, Martin was driving his wife Anna, and Jon (Anna's youngest brother) home from a late night gig. They'd almost reached Littlehampton when they had an accident - as a result of tiredness from the long journey, Martin fell asleep and drove the car straight into a wall just around the corner from his house. Jon and Anna escaped with minor injuries but it took the rescue workers a few hours to get Martin out of the car, and it took a couple of months for Martin to rehabilitate in hospital as he had suffered a broken leg. During this period he spent a lot of time on his own thinking things through. He also read Bill Flannagan's U2 at the End of the World, and this inspired him into a decision, to which the others agreed. They found a bassist - Martin's brother-in-law Jon (In fact, he's Tim and Stew's brother-in-law as well. Confused yet?) - and on April 1, 1996, Delirious?, and their own independent record label Furious? Records, was born.

A song based on this part of the delirious? history is the song "August 30th" and is on their King of Fools album.  It is a rather terrible event to remember, but it's likely that without that experience the band would probably never have became a full-time band and would have just stayed a church worship band.

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Bus and Rail Directions via Google Maps

I just noticed that, a week or two ago, MetroTransit announced that route and trip information for their buses and trains throughout the Minneapolis/St. Paul area is now available via Google Maps.  The program, dubbed Google Transit, has been active for a year or two in such major markets as Portland and Chicago, among many others.  Here's a trip I just queued up:

On the right side of your trip, you have a map that shows the transfer points and the routes taken, as well as any parts that need to include walking.  On the left side, there are three options of similar trips leaving at the time, but notice that only the first one (which is selected) uses the light rail - the others route you down University Ave. and down Snelling Ave.  Below the trip you've selected it gives you details of each leg of the trip as well and most locations even include a Street View of the corner.

Why use Google Transit? First of all, with MetroTransit's website, you had to look up the address and then route it.  Google Maps is smart enough to figure out the address for you so that saves a step.  The map details are much better and gives you a road view as well as a sattelite view, which gives you much more data about where you are going.  And many say that MetroTransit's website is terrible, but after visiting some other sites for other services, I've found it to be fairly competent.  Still, though, the Google Maps interface for the exact same data gives you all of the route information that you can get at MetroTransit and a bit more in an easier-to-use package.

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The St. Thomas Shirt, Take 1

Today, I'm starting off a new feature. Every couple days (or whenever) I will post a T-shirt that I currently own and am actually currently wearing. (The picture may have been pre-recorded, though, on account of not carrying around a good camera at all hours of my life.) I'll post a couple comments on the shirt and then give you a little background on where it came from. And just to make sure I can outdo myself, I'm going to do one of my most boring shirts first! Without further ado, here's the first one:

Yes, this shirt was purchased at my alma mater, the University of St. Thomas. Shortly before graduating, I received a gift certificate from my work-study employer for the UST Bookstore, so I figured I should by some UST merch (besides my uber-cool, limited-edition UST hat). Therefore, I purchased a couple T-shirts that just say "University St. Thomas" in big letter on the front. I usually wear these on pretty boring, low-key days because I'm not that huge of a fan of my alma mater, although I made the best of it.

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Pixar and Nintendo Saving the World? Heck Yes!

Since I have nothing exciting to post at the moment, why not just copy stuff from someone else's blog? Here's some from a great post by my friend, Joe:
Because that’s what this movie is about: WALL-E is the protector of EVE and the life she carries inside of her. It’s one of the most beautiful — and perhaps unexpected — metaphors for life, and the role of a husband to protect his wife and family, that I’ve ever seen.

This is just a tiny bit of a great article, so go read it already. Also, check out Joe's blog for more great stuff about gaming, life, and cool movies. Who knows, you might even find Joe and I doing some sort of discussion podcast sometime in the future. I know, that sounds scary. I'd probably get bored listening to it myself.

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