Something That Makes Me Nauseous.

Affliction or Ed Hardy T-Shirts.

"How are we supposed to get laid when every other douche in this place is wearing the same thing?"



A person wearing them is advertising one of the following, listed by percent of likelihood:

55%: "I am a slavishly trend-following and unoriginal douchebag."
20%: "Midlife Crisis. Seriously, brah."
20%: "I took the free introductory lesson at a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school. Now I'm a man-mountain of badass. My distressed flaming skull pattern is proof I am unstoppable."
4.9%: "I'll buy anything at unreasonably high prices."
.00001%: "I am a professional mixed martial artist with an endorsement deal from Affliction."

I'll admit, I wore some pretty hideous shirts back in the day. Time was, if it was oversized and covered in kanji, reflective characters, or wide-eyed samurai drawings, I'd wear it. Somebody should have punched me and told me how ridiculous I looked. I grew out of it, thankfully. In my defense, even at my height of clothing-based social expression I wasn't bankrupting myself on overpriced schlock like these guys are wearing.

It's important to differentiate between Ed Hardy and Affliction, even though they are basically the head and tail of the douchebag coin. Both of them appeal to a groupthink mentality, and are designed to slap you in the face with enough distressed graphics and tattoo flash (shamelessly stolen from the master himself, Sailor Jerry) to kill a charging bull moose. The first time I saw some 27-year old hipster strutting around in one of these Ed Hardy monstrosities, I nearly expired from a combination epilepsy/laughter fit. +15 Douche Points if you wear a matching trucker hat.

Affliction wearers are the guys that were wearing TapOut t-shirts a few years ago. Now, they've either landed a steady gig at Orange Julius, Express Men, or they're old enough to access their trust fund and now desire a higher class of clothing. Rather than go with quality manufacture and classic mature trends, they've opted to to wear something that looks like a tattoo artist just vomited all over a smock, but not before putting some random MMA fighter's name in Olde English lettering on it.


Take a memo, gentlemen. You don't look intimidating. As a matter of fact, the only person that does whilst wearing an Affliction shirt is Randy Couture. And let's face it, that guy would look scary as hell wearing a poodle skirt.

"I'm gonna choke the shit out of the Renaissance Faire."

I...am...Gadolinium Man!!!

*insert crunchy riff here*

I had my first MRI today. I found the experience to be pretty enjoyable actually. I'm fairly certain they were taking an angiogram, considering my circulation is suspect.
For those that don't know the backstory, I was recently diagnosed with Stage Two Hypertension. This is odd because I'm 29, 5'6, 145lb and not exactly sedentary. At any rate, this has inspired me to quit smoking once and for all, get back into cardio training, and make some serious but necessary changes in my life. Hooray for me.
So, wearing a pair of scrubs, I had an IV needle placed in my arm by a kindly young gentleman who may have just inspired me to go into the field of medical imaging myself. I was then laid on the "bed" portion, and then noticed a nice serene oceanside scene to look at before I was loaded into the superpowered magnetic torus.
Overall impressions? Not bad at all. I'm former USN, so claustrophobia is a non-issue. I could have taken a nap in that thing no sweat. I did have headphones on, which helped somewhat. Local classic rock station. Good stuff. The guy even gave me a blanket for the experience, which had been WARMED UP to the kind of fabric temperature that makes you think of hot apple cider, Christmas morning and biscuits in the oven. That part was awesome.
The most interesting part was the first pass after a gadolinium-based contrast enhancing agent was injected through the IV and into my bloodstream. It was a slow and rolling wave of icy, but not painful, cold that crept up my arm and shoulder and into my neck. As the first imaging pass ensued, I could feel a reaction in my soft palate...like the underside of my tounge had a subcutaneal sparkler firework going off. Pretty cool.
I'm going to try to get an animated loop of my MRI results to share if I can.

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