Fierce and Mighty's posterous

Acerbus et Ingens

Fierce and Mighty... The Brand the Hipsters Love

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I found out recently about a cool little t-shirt company in my town that does custom shirts... but in a different kind of way. They focus on putting a single word (or a mashed-up string of words) on super comfy t-shirts. The company is say something apparel and you can check them out at http://www.shopsaysomething.com.

I don't think anyone will be surprised at my order pictured above. It's what all the cool kids will be wearing this Spring. Believe it.

The Zen of Baseball

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Growing up, I was all about baseball. It was truly one of my favorite things, from watching games on TV, going to Fenway Park with my family, collecting stacks and stacks of baseball cards or playing one of a thousand forms of the game. They were all good and I didn't want to go without.

As I grew old, all of this faded a bit. It was a slow drift over time, like a fallen leaf on a lake that starts near the shore, but gradually glides further away with each passing moment.

Ahh, but then baseball decided to strike and the bitterness that left in my mouth would last... for years. The game lost something for me at that point. Maybe I still held a nostalgic and naive fondness in my heart that was stung by the labor issues. I'll likely never know for sure, but I did know that baseball could suck it for all I cared.

Then came 2004 when I became caught up in the improbable Red Sox run to make the greatest comeback in sports history against the Yankees and then finally break The Curse after 86 years. From that moment on, the game began its slow and subtle build back into my heart.

Now in 2011, the game has returned fully to my heart as if it had never really left from those days of my childhood where I wore a plastic Oakland A's batting helmet and imagined I was Ricky Henderson stealing base after base. Hell, I even ponied up the money to buy the MLB.TV subscription so I can watch all kinds of baseball on my laptop, Roku player and on that powerful sweet iPad 2 I totally plan on scoring.

I think there is a part of me that truly understands why in the world this has all returned to me with a seemingly effortless grace... it's because I miss the measured complexity, nuance and pace of baseball. It really has hit me of late that what I once thought of as slow and boring in my bulletproof, I-know-everything days of my 20's is really almost like perfect Zen meditation when watchec properly. It becomes a matter of unplugging yourself from the scattered modern lifestyle of uber-connectedness, must check my Facebook every 7.5 minutes and must keep my nose buried in my iPhone to never miss a text. I know I've been pulled into all of that and typically left feeling even LESS connected than ever.

Don't you see it all the time? The classic example is a group of friends, out together, but almost everyone in their own little world checking on what everyone else NOT present is up to... while the moment to connect deeply with those 2 feet away slips by. And without a doubt, I've done this too.

It's to these moments that baseball feels like a perfect antidote... to sit down and just watch a game... not while tweeting or checking out movie trailers on YouTube... but doing nothing but watching a game unfold in its own time.

So here's to hoping for a learning to appreciate a little more richness through the lessons that the master known as baseball can provide. Time to unplug and play ball.