Eclecticism

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I suppose I should consider myself flattered — either that, or there’s a rather surprising coincidence going on. Update: Coincidence! See the end of this post for more…

In October of 2003, I dreamed up my “I’m just here to get laid” t-shirt and put it up on CafePress, where it’s sold a whopping…um…five. Maybe.

One of the things about CafePress I’m not terribly fond of is that they don’t offer white-on-black merchandise, so for my birthday on May 3rd of this year, I had a white-on-black version of the shirt custom made. Since then, I’ve worn it around town from time to time, both to the Vogue and to the major festivals (Folklife, Fremont Solstice, and Pride), where it’s gotten a lot of good laughs.

Earlier today, thanks to a comment in Brandon’s LiveJournal (where I’m described very accurately and amusingly as “the kilt wearing skinny dude”) that North Shore Shirts (an offshoot of the local weblog Then You Discover) is selling a shirt that looks very familiar (aside from using a different font and ending with an ellipsis rather than a period). According to the store weblog, their shirt was introduced on May 30th of this year.

Admittedly, my first reaction was to get a little peeved — but then, I’m also running on about three hours of sleep today, and my temper can flare up pretty easily — but wasn’t too long before I just thought it was funny. Now, it is entirely possible that it’s nothing more than a remarkable coincidence that another Seattle weblogger would come up with a near-duplicate idea…but if it isn’t a coincidence, then I’ll settle for flattery.

Besides — they obviously have the ability to actually create and sell these things without resorting to CafePress or the like, which I don’t have the ability to do. A pity, too…after the number of compliments I’ve gotten on the shirt, I was starting to poke around various shirt printing sites to see what it would take to make a batch to sell myself. Looks like North Shore beat me to it!

So — if you think the shirt is funny, and would be satisfied with a fair-to-middling quality black-on-white CafePress version, pick one up here and I’ll get a whole dollar (ooooohhhhh…) for each one ordered. On the other hand, if you’d prefer a high-quality (I’m assuming) white-on-black version (and cheaper than CafePress, to boot), you can pick it up from North Shore Shirts, and I’ll get…um…the satisfaction of helping them out with their sales. Yeah. That’s it! ;)

(Oh, and North Shore…if this is all coincidence, then I like your sense of humor. If it isn’t coincidence, is there any chance I could get an “idea by…” or “inspired by…” link on that shirt’s page?)

Update: Word from Mikey at North Shore is that, as I said was very possible, it’s just a coincidence. She also pointed out that there are at least two other variations of the idea floating around out there.

Guess I’m not as creative as I’d like to think. ;)

Hopefully there’s no hard feelings left behind (I did recommend their shirts over mine, after all)…

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

(pause)

“Did you feel that?”

“Yeah…what is that?”

“No idea.”

The entire apartment was shaking, slightly, but very noticeably, about once every second and a half or so. It felt like a small earthquake, except that it was far too regular, and it kept going.

And it seemed to be getting stronger.

I got up, tossed on some clothes, and started to see if it might be coming from somewhere in the apartment building. Someone banging on a wall, maybe? Some late-night work on their apartment?

It was a little stronger on the floor below us — strong enough that the door to the apartment directly below mine was rattling lightly in its frame. As I continued on my way downstairs, it kept feeling a bit stronger. I got to the ground floor and saw a girl from one of the other apartments out in the hall. “Do you feel the building shaking?” she asked.

“Yeah — that’s why I’m up. What’s going on?”

She didn’t know. It seemed to be strongest by the mailboxes. A few moments later another tenant came out of their apartment, then another, and another. Eventually there were eight of us, all wondering just what was going on.

“Oh, I’ve got an idea,” I said. “They’re doing a lot of construction on I-5 this weekend…that’s gotta be it. Some construction equipment pounding the ground for some reason.”

That made sense, and it seemed to be fading a bit, and people started heading back to their apartments. Prairie and I were quite awake by this point, though, so we decided to head out and see if our guess was right. Jim (one of the other tenants, and the one who recognized me earlier this week) came along, and we wandered the two blocks down to the Spring St. bridge over I-5.

Sure enough, a few lanes of I-5 were shut down, and a large truck was slowly moving down one lane, a huge contraption on the back sending what must be an insanely heavy metal slab slamming into the pavement again and again, breaking it up to be removed.

We stood on the bridge and watched it for a few moments, feeling the bridge shudder with each drop, marveling at how heavy this thing must be. “You should have brought your camera,” Prairie said. That sounded like a good idea, so we came back, Jim went back to his apartment, I grabbed my camera, and we headed back out to the bridge.

I took a few shots and a few seconds of video (things like this really are more impressive when you can actually see and hear what’s going on — a still photo just doesn’t give the same impression), and then we headed back home.

The building’s still shaking every few seconds, but it’s not as strong as it was…and now that we know what’s going on, instead of just being somewhat freaked out and envisioning the building foundation suddenly cracking and collapsing, it’s not as disturbing as it was. Prairie’s already crashed out, and I will be as soon as this post goes up.

A bit of an unexpected adventure on a Friday night. Kinda fun, actually.

My apartment building just transferred to a new management company, and along with the letter alerting all the tenants to the transfer, they also gave us a copy of the new rules and regulations for the building (which, as far as I can tell, is the same as the old rules and regulations). For those of us that weren’t home when they distributed these, they left them taped to our doors.

So, since my next door neighbor hadn’t emerged from his apartment to grab his copy yet, I grabbed a big red permanent marker and circled section eight on his copy:

NOISE: All Residents and their guests shall have due regard for the peace, comfort and quiet enjoyment of other Residents at all times. Musical instruments, radios, television sets, laundry facilities, etc. must be kept quiet from 10:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. All noise shall be confined within the walls of Resident’s own apartment.

I doubt it’ll make much of a difference — he hasn’t shown any indication of caring one whit about those of us on either side of him — but it made me feel a little bit better.

“Misery Machine” by Marilyn Manson from the album Portrait of an American Family (1994, 13:09).