Friday, December 25, 2009

Purple Shirt of the Week: Christmas Wrap-up

Well, Christmas ended 35 minutes ago, so before i sign off here, I
wanted to share the best gift I got this year. No, it wasn't the
"Greyskull" Chuck Taylors with the pirate-style skull and crossbones
on the tongues. And not the remote controlled R2-D2.* Even better
than the vintage-still-in-original-packaging 1984 Stormtrooper action
figure**! It's my newest purple shirt!

Happy Holidays to all, and to all a purple borealis night!

* Well, no, not really.
**Again, not really. Notice a theme this year? And I bought the
giver of this gift a 12-inch Yoda Christmas tree topper

Monday, December 14, 2009

Purple Shirt of the Week: Revenge of the (Purple) Creature

Dear Diary. I'm sorry I've not written you in a long time. I was all
set to, but got very busy. And you know, as soon as you don't do
something, it's much easier to keep not doing it. Which is why I
don't eat cauliflour. Why start when I can just keep not eating it?*

It's a shame, too, because I really had a good need to share something
with the world at large. You see, a great evil force was at work
against the land of Purpledom. You see, my day job involves me
fighting the armies of bad taste as a graphic designer. So on this
particular day in mid-November, I was designing something for a
client. A well-known household name, and it was pretty cool to work
on it since I've used some of their stuff. Anyway, my work came out
pretty nice I thought, and so I sent my design over to them, expecting
it to go over well. Coincidentally, the design was primarily Purple.
But then I got an email back saying "So-and-so person isn't going to
like this because they don't like Purple." Say WHAT??? This was like
the compulsive lip-licking that some of the bad-guys in Harry Potter
do - they may look like everyone else, but there's that little tip-off
that tells you "watch out, either they are a Deatheater or they still
haven't washed off the bit of egg yolk off of their face since
breakfast and are still trying to get to it." So obviously they were
evil-incarnate in this case.

Now, here's the problem. The design itself was solid, and they liked
it. Not liking a color is seldom grounds for dismissing the design.
You eliminate entire color palates that way, don't judge based on what
you would or wouldn't paint your living room in. But more
importantly, the color I chose was THE DOMINANT COLOR OF THEIR LOGO!!!

To counteract this demon, I share with you a mighty and vibrant purple
(not to be confused with mighty purple...that's for another
conversation) top a friend of mine wore to the Tenth of July Mustache
and Tag Sale Party. (By this point she had lost her mustache; she did
play by the rules earlier in the evening...)

Hopefully this now restores balance to the Purple Force.

-brian


*Exception: My friend Ankita makes awesome home-made Indian food. She
tricked me into eating cauliflour. I still haven't forgiven her for
that, but in the meantime will still gladly eat everything she puts in
front of me.** Kind of like my friend Rob's mom when i was growing up
- I didn't realize that broccoli didn't have to be nauseating until I
had it stir-fried Asian style.***


**This pokes a hole in my platform, doesn't it?


***However these two exceptions to the perennial list of "Things Your
Kids Won't Eat" might be the end of my breaks with tradition. Serve
me brussels sprouts and you're at LEAST looking at a broken window as
i defenestrate the dinner.****


****I always liked that word. "Defenestrate". On another note, I
used to like the pun "Extinguish the cat" as in "put the cat
out(side)". Though to do so through a pane of glass would be hard on
the kitty, so these two things are completely unrelated.*****


*****Where was I???