After spending the last few weeks inundated with unhappy emails from international customers, I’ve changed our shipping methods so we have a little more assurance that our international packages will actually arrive at their destinations. Until now we’d been using first class mail, which is inexpensive but offers no tracking. Some of our orders were arriving more than a month after we shipped them. A few never arrived at all
So starting today, we are shipping all orders to Canada via FedEx Ground. All orders going outside the US and Canada will be shipped via International Priority (which also offers package tracking). These two shipping services were the least expensive options we were able to find that came with package tracking. I realize they’re not as cheap as our old prices but it also means you’ll actually get your order in a much more timely fashion.
If you’re outside the US and looking to save on shipping, we are offering FREE shipping to ALL destinations on orders over $149.00. No coupon required, no expiration date on this offer. So share our website with your friends and see if they want to go in on an order with you. Or order a tee for every day of the week; summer will be here before you know it.
You’d never know my cats spent last night trying to murder each other. They left the hallway littered with their fur as they wrestled around for hours yowling and pouncing. Right now they’re both curled in bed spooning, fast asleep. I guess they made up. I’ll never understand animal kingdom relationships, but here are some interesting ones:
See the entire set of strange animal kingdom friendships over at Fork Party
My wife brought this product to my attention the other day, and it’s about as compelling as a train wreck; it’s extremely disturbing on a couple of levels, but also gnarly in a cool way, making me want to experience it myself, if only to survive it.
Spike Your Juice™ is a revolutionary home fermenting kit, created to allow you, the average consumer, to turn your favorite juice beverage into a fizzy, boozy libation. I’m envisioning a cross between the Izze brand softdrinks and Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill.
I have to admit that this is about as enticing as it gets for me; I love booze, and have often thought about getting into home brewing, but it’s an expensive hobby, and is essentially an exercise in delayed gratification. For those of you who arrived late, I design t-shirts about drinking, making out and eating donuts for a living—I don’t do delayed gratification. It’s for suckers.
But now, thanks to “a group of Europeans living in California” (specificity is for wusses!), I can turn any ol’ bottle of cran-grape into a delicious jug o’ moonshine. My dreams are about to become realities!
That said… why is this stuff marketed and packaged as though it’s meant for children? There is Comic Sans all over the box! It’s peppered with bouncing balls and fizzy bubbles! It’s covered in bold, bright colors! Everything about this product’s packaging screams “Hey kids, let’s have some FUN!” Then again, my mother’s preferred method of lulling me to sleep as a child when we had guests over involved footy PJs and a Bartles & James wine cooler….
Today’s WTF Wednesday is a double dose, because there’s lots of weird stuff to share. First up, Star Wars themed burlesque, because apparently sexy girls in and of themselves aren’t enough to excite men? If you’re in LA and want to see a topless C3PO have at it I guess?
In other totally unrelated WTF news, remember last month when the mayor of Copenhagen made a fuss about how the environmental summit crowd should save the planet by avoiding the city’s prostitutes? This puritanical posturing seems like quite a far cry from the country’s bizarre attempt at viral marketing.
VisitDenmark put out a video featuring an attractive young Danish woman claiming that she was looking for the father of her baby — a tourist she had a drunken one night stand with. So I guess the message was supposed to be something along the lines of “Denmark: come for the beer, stay for the unprotected sex with our loose women?” I like how, in the video, she say she hasn’t been with anyone but this tourist, so he must be the father. That’s right, hot Danish girls are saving themselves for unsafe sex with drunk tourists.
When asked about this major marketing fail, VisitDenmark’s spokeswoman said “Karens story shows that Denmark is a free place with space for you to be who you want. The film is good exposure for Danish self sufficient and dignified women.” WTF?! Naturally, response to this video was less than favorable and VisitDenmark removed their video, but you know how it is, once in cyberspace, always in cyberspace. You can enjoy the WTFery below:
Would this actually make people want to visit Denmark?
When I started printing t-shirts there was one major quandary: to American Apparel or not to American Apparel. About half the t-shirt buying public loves this brand and the other half hates it. Both sides have totally legit arguments for their feelings and I knew no matter what brand of blank tee I picked someone would complain. So starting today, I’m offering both!
I am starting this off with just a men’s collection, which I’m calling the slim fit line. The difference between a traditional fit mens tee and an American Apparel mens tee are pretty substantial. Our ladies tees, which are made by Bella, are pretty similar in terms of fabric feel and fit to American Apparel and a million other blank ladies tees.
So if you’re a super skinny guy looking for a slim fit tee, have at it. If you’re an avid hater of Dov Charney you can still order our traditional mens tees.
I am also shopping around for some new good stuff to add to our line so stay tuned for upcoming product launches in the next couple of months. If there’s something you wish we’d start printing on, let me know.
Thinking about getting your man a little something special? Looking to treat yourself, guys? Here are a few ideas:
1. Man Girdle
Available at Marks & Spencers, the Bodymax Short Sleeve “Shaping Vest” is what Kramer and Frank Costanza dreamed up all those years ago on Seinfeld. Seriously, why not just market it as a “manssiere” or a “bro”? You basically double your market share by including both the freaks that buy this thing seriously and those who want it as either a gag gift or a Halloween costume. What’s so great about this is how emphatically it strikes a blow for gender equality; we can ALL pretend that there’s such a thing as a miracle fix for our muffin tops.
2. Mantyhose
The great irony of e-manicpate’s “mantyhose” line is the name of the company. Have you ever met a woman that loved wearing pantyhose? The closest I’ve ever come to that is hearing them complain about having to wear pantyhose to hide varicose veins (*shudder*). That’s not a desire, that’s a necessity. They would LOVE to be “emancipated” from hot, itchy hosiery. So what exactly do mantyhose offer emancipation from? My guess: your manliness. Unless you’re Trent Reznor or something, that guy can pull off that sort of thing.
3. Pants That “Enhance” Your Junk
Calvin Klein’s Destructed Ore Low-Rise Slim Fit jeans. Billed as featuring a “profile enhancing reinforced fly”, these jeans are like a Wonderbra for your man parts.
On potential concern: your date’s disappointment when instead of a salami, you whip out your vienna sausage?
4. Man Purse
Like the ladies, we have a lot of stuff to carry (usually most of it’s theirs). I’m all for a nice unisex messenger bag. However, if you prefer something more like your wife’s handbag, check out this “men’s organizer bag” from Piel. I wonder if you can have it personalized? Maybe get “No, this is not a purse, this is a European men’s carry-all” stamped into the leather?
5. It’s like Massengill for dudes
Let me just saying one thing about NodorO, the “amazing” product that removes male genital odors: SO DO SHOWERS. That said, if showers aren’t your thing and you still want daisy fresh junk, have at it.
We just passed the new year but my local Rite Aid tells me it’ll be Valentine’s Day before too long. (Yes, the chalky conversation hearts are already on the shelves.) My girl’s taste in baubles is less than traditional so this little shop might be just what I need. Piggy’s charming, offbeat selection is unlike what you’ll find at Zales or other local mall haunts, and the price tag is even starving-artist friendly.
If you’re more of a booze hound than a beer snob, this NY Times story about locally distilled absinthe might spark your interest. The article covers the indie booze-brewing adventures of a New York absinthe maker, including a florid description of her product made using “fennel, anise, hyssop, lemon balm, lemon thyme and violet.” Evocative, no?
The last (and only) time I sampled absinthe was on vacation in Prague. We went to a bar called Marquis de Sade and enjoyed absinthe shots, complete with fire and sugar cubes. (As my friend Tom once said as we drove to a bonfire party at our high school, “Dude, when I think of the two coolest things in the world…they’re both fire.”) As a British ex-pat played Who covers on an acoustic guitar, we got so completely hammered with another couple vacationing from Slovenia that it took us 2 hours to find our hotel, which was about a 10 minute walk from the bar.
Apparently, in my very drunk state I happened upon the guy who served us breakfast earlier that day and shouted “Hey! Waffle Guy!” and then proceeded to slur at him about soccer and the European hockey championship (the Czech Republic’s national team was contending that year). The next morning we got breakfast again at the same cafe, but by then memories of the night before were lost in the haze of a hangover (I believe that’s called a “blackout”). All I knew was that the waiter was giving me the hairy eyeball throughout breakfast. Don’t get me wrong, I love flattery no matter the orientation. But the intense staring was seriously creeping me out. When I pointed this out to my wife she said “Oh yeah, I think you yelled at him around 2am about waffles and soccer.”
our customers
My wife brought this product to my attention the other day, and it’s about as compelling as a train wreck; it’s extremely disturbing on a couple of levels, but also gnarly in a cool way, making me want to experience it myself, if only to survive it.
