Uh. I could actually read this t-shirt. Does that mean I should get some more time off-line?

You just know your’re in trouble if your girlfriend starts wearing one of these, of gives you one for Valentines day. They where once sold by TShirtHell.com, but after since they are no longer having them on stock, I opened up my own line of these fine t-shirts in my very own Cafepress T-shirt store.

If you have no problem reading hackerish, or need more practice, try this link into Google:
http://www.google.com/preferences?hl=xx-hacker
Click 54V3 PR3F3R3NZ3Z, and try to google in hackerish. You will probably not stand it for very long, but I still think it’s great that Google puts out a language interface like this.

Vaguely related:
Google looking hacked (why do they do this?)

08/31 2005 - What does spam mean to you?

Today I received a cease and decist notice from the intellectual property law firm Merchant & Gould, acting for Hormel Foods, the company that actually owns the trademark SPAM (as in pressed, canned, luncheon meat). If you haven’t ever heard about this rather vicious canned product, you are probably 1) not of anglo-saxian origin, 2) not above 45 years old and 3) not a Monty Python fan.

The lawyer at Merchant & Gould is probably none of the above, and if he is, I really wonder if he could keep a straight face while writing the below letter regarding a t-shirt I’m selling at cafepress.com/stopspam.

We recently became aware of your sale of t-shirts and other goods containing Hormel Foods’ famous and distinctive trademark SPAM opn your website located at [länk3200:cafepress.com/stopspam]. This letter is to notify you that your promotion and sale of clothing and other goods bearing the trademark SPAM infringes on and dilutes Hormel Foods’ trademark rights in its famous trademark SPAM and its family of SPAM marks.

The tradmark SPAM has been used in connection with the sale fo luncheon meat for over sixty-eight years and is a registered trademark of Hormel Foods, LLC, Reg. No. 529,294. The mark is also used on a wide array of other goods. Federal trademark 1,415,969 for “caps,” Reg. No. 1,338,031 for “t-shirts,” and Reg. No. 1,985,602 for “mugs and insulated beverage containers.” Furthermore, Hormel Foods sells over 400 products bearing the SPAM mark and SPAM derivate marks through its website at spamgift.com.

The famous trademark SPAM has been extensively advertised and used by Hormel Foods in interstate and foreign commerce to refer to Hormel Foods’ products and services. As a result, the trademark SPAM are widely known and respected among the public and the public has come to identify Hormel Foods as the sole source of the products and the trademark and federal law protects is as such.

Any unauthorized use of Hormel Foods’ trademarks cannot be accepted. Your promotion and sale of t-shirts, other apparel items and mugs bearing the Hormel Foods’ famous SPAM mark will likely confuse consumers and potential customers that your products are in some way associated with, or sponsored or endorsed by Hormel Foods. Your use also dilutes Hormel Foods’ famous trademark.

Accordingly, we must insist that you immediately cease the promotion and sale of any item bearing Hormel Foods’ trademark SPAM. Please respond to this letter no later than Friday, September 2, 2005, confirming your agreement to cease and desist promoting clothing bearing Hormel Foods’ in its famous trademark.”

Hmmm…

Now, how should I react on this letter? Should I maybe answer with a link to Google’s definition of spam? Should I refer them to the endless pages devoted to spam as we all know it? Should I maybe spell out the fact that the letter mentions SPAM while my t-shirt says spam, and not even that but </spam>?

Actually, there seems to not be a coinsidence that the letter spells out SPAM in capital letters. Accoring to Wikipedia’s definition of spam, SPAM is indeed “a brand of canned meat sold by Hormel” while Spam is “a comedy sketch involving this meat, which in turn gave rise to … Spam (electronic) - unsolicited bulk electronic messages, such as e-mail spam. Repeated, undesired messages in IRC, MUDs and other Internet chats and games, meant to disrupt normal discussion.” In that sence I actually think I’m on the safe side.

I would have been less surprised if Merchant & Gould had had objections to the collage by Andreas Lindqvist, portraying a can of Windows powered spam that I have re-published elsewhere on this site, or if they had objections to the fact that this site features numerous pages devoted to anti-spam. But a harmless ascii t-shirt?

Right now I’m trying to figure out what to do about it. I’ll need to answer him somehow.

Followup two years later: Well. I never answered him, and never heared anything more about it either. As in most cases when you face a cease and decist notice, it was more words and less action.

Today I found the monthly newsletter from TShirtHell.com, promoting their new t-shirts in my Junk basket. Again.

So, once again It’s a week overdue.

I’m not quite sure why it keeps finding it’s way in there, but I’m suspecting that the junk filter in Apple’s Mail.app has a foul language checker of some kind. Or a filter for political correctness. Or maybe it’s just the newsleters from TShirtHell.com that are way too long, too full of links and email addresses and too strange to be taken seriously…

Find out for yourselves:

There was a school shooting at the Red Lake Indian Reservation last week. Tribal Elders said it is the worst thing to happen to Native Americans since- well actually pretty much everything has kind of sucked since 1621, with the exception of casino gambling. With that, they all burst into tears and proceeded to get hammered on firewater.

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New Shirts available to good homes, and bad people
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There is lots of crazy shit in the news. We have updated our school
shootings tour t-shirt to take advantage… I mean pay tribute to the most recent tragedy. We also have a new shirt about Terri Schiavo. Plus, we have four more shirts that are guaranteed to tickle your funny bone, and by funny bone I mean that delicate piece of skin just below your asshole.

All of our new shirts are here:

http://www.tshirthell.com/miscpages/newshirt465n.htm

If you’re an AOL user, or unable to click the link above, copy and paste it into your browser.

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A List of People I Don’t Like, and Some That I Do
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A lot of people who are not as good as me, accuse me of being arrogant. It’s true I don’t have much respect for most people, but I do respect a few. Here is a list of some of those people. For the people I don’t respect, I’ve included some helpful hints on how to get their sorry lives back on track!

I’m tired of the Pope. Fuck you, and the Pope Mobile you rode in on. The Pope Mobile is a fucking Range Rover on chrome dubs you arrogant pimp; aren’t you supposed to be feeding the children or something like that? Speaking of children, you might as well be President of NAMBLA you fucking impotent pervert. And you don’t believe people should be allowed to have abortions or use birth control? Make up your mind because you have to give the people something. What are they supposed to do, have babies?

There’s no hope for you. Step down and let Al Sharpton be Pope. He would give the Catholic Church serious street cred and whip it back into shape. Perhaps he would even merge it with the Nation of Islam. Those Nation of Islam guys would clear out all of the perverts in about ten minutes. After that, Pope Sharpton could let them all eat bacon again and I’m sure that would mellow those psychos out. Al Sharpton could fix the Catholic Church and The Nation of Islam all by himself.

Angelina Jolie you need to stop yapping about Third World countries and take your top off. Will someone please slide their thick cock between those full lips and shut her up already? Give back that dirty little foreign baby and devote your life to adult film.

The people fighting to keep Terri Schiavo alive need to find a hobby. Congress wants to pass laws to protect vegetables like her? I just hope they don’t pass any laws that cover my garden because I was hoping to have a salad for lunch. Congress needs to do something useful like pass more tax cuts for the rich, specifically rich people in the dirty t-shirt industry.

Donald Trump needs to go away. It’s popular to make fun of Donald Trump’s hair, and wonder why he doesn’t fix it. Because Donald Trump knows it’s his giant pumpkin head that’s the real problem. His smoking hot new wife can’t stand the sight of him. She will only let him take her from behind, provided he wears a bag over his head, they’re at the bottom of a mine shaft, and she is provided with a welder’s mask. Donald, take some of that money you were going to use to put gold leaf under your wallpaper, and buy Brad Pitt’s empty head, and put your brain in it. Your TV show sucks. The only good thing about it is that eventually all of the morons that you hire from this show, to help run your company, will drive it into the ground. I can’t believe you fired the girl with the big tits.

Now on to the people I respect…

I respect Ricky Gervais who created and starred in, “The Office”. Yes, it is kind of whorish to take money to help produce the steaming turd that is the American version, but Ricky’s a fucking genius and deserves to make some real, American cash. I’m sure they paid him in quid, or crumpets, or some other shit for the British version and he deserves better.

I respect Jimmy Carter. Fuck you I do.

I respect Larry David, who admittedly has too much money to still be working. But, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is brilliant so please don’t stop.

I respect Al Roker who is not only an unsung comic genius; he also lost about 300lbs with only minor medical assistance. Plus, he also predicts the future (weather) with uncanny accuracy and speaks to the dead. In your face John Edwards!

I respect the Kirstie Alley/John Travolta creature. I know a lot of people still don’t believe they are the same person. They point to all of the, “Look Who’s Talking” Movies. Well I saw “The Nutty Professor” and in one scene there were 6 Eddie Murphys sitting around the table so that doesn’t prove shit. This bloated he/she created by the Scientologists should have vanished back into the bowels of the Chrysler Building after, “Cheers”. But somehow it keeps reinventing itself, most recently “playing” a washed up overweight actress. I’m not a fan of the show, or even the concept, but the fact that you can get that show made deserves respect.

Now here are some people I really hate!

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Holier Than Hate Mail
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—– Original Message —–
From: “MF Brooks”
Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2005 8:39 AM
Subject: Arrest Black Babies T-Shirts

Please stop using your T-shirts to belittle other people and cultures. Do you have any idea of the harm you assit in perpetuating when you market negative ideas? People out here are so starved for positive, up-beat messages that I think you could make even more money peddling uplifting ideas and concepts.

You should be more sensitive and circumspect about what you put out. Remember, the lion that killed your neighbor’s sheep last night, will kill your’s tonight, unless you help you neighbor destroy that lion today.

MFBrooks

(Editor’s Note: I’ll tell you what MF, you can corner the market on positive up-beat t-shirts. I’m sure you’ll make a fortune. But what’s the deal with talking shit about my neighbor’s sheep? If you were really a good person, and you had any idea of what sick perversions my neighbor subjects his sheep to nightly: you would know that they bleat and beg for death every day. My sheep on the other hand are perfectly content. The only time they get any action is when the owner of T-Shirt Hell comes over. But all of the sheep agree he is a generous and considerate lover, and his dick tastes like foie gras.)

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—– Original Message —–
From: Heather Ann
Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2005 10:45 AM
Subject: Olsen Twins Shirt

Not that I really care because I read allot of funny shirts and love them but this one… “I FUCKED THE OLSEN TWINS before they were famous” is sick. the Olsen twins were famous as babies, so someone fucked them as babies? Ew. Just thought you like to think before you act and anyone I see where this shirt I would slap because that is CHILD MOLESTATION.

Sincerely,
Heather Ann

(Editor’s Note: Heather Ann I’m always amazed that people as stupid as you are smart enough to send email. Perhaps you dictated this to your keeper, or found someone else who took pity on you, and committed your feeble thoughts to the page. Hopefully, they’re pointing and laughing while they read this to you. If we only sold that shirt to people who actually fucked the Olsen Twins before they were famous, that would be less than a hundred shirts. The rest of the people who buy it are kidding. They never fucked the Olsen Twins. Alright, maybe they fingered Ashley but that hardly counts. Maybe they tea bagged Mary-Kate but that is not the point. Our t-shirts are designed to be purchased and enjoyed by people who are reasonably intelligent. Do people ever mistake you for someone not in a persistent vegetative state? They should yank your feeding tube and strangle you with it. )

———————————————

—– Original Message —–
From:
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 1:44 AM
Subject: latest t-shirt

Throughout the past few months I have been a very big fan of your site and its hilarious t-shirts. But I must say your latest t-shirt about Terri Schiavo is pretty uncalled for. I am not trying to be one of those pathetic and retarded activists who are annoying as hell, but this t-shirt is very cruel in that you are attacking someone who is completely unable to defend themselves. I laugh at the hitler shirts, and the racist shirts, but this is just a disgrace.

(Editor’s Note: Do you think that by admitting it, that you have somehow separated yourself from the other idiots who write in? But I would never call you pathetic or retarded, as that would be an insult to pathetic and retarded people everywhere. You think it’s unfair that Terri Schiavo can’t defend herself? Like Hitler can defend himself? Not without jeopardizing his whereabouts, and the whereabouts of his secret underground fortress! Not to mention the shirt doesn’t actually make fun of Terri Schiavo, it makes fun of Kirstie Alley who I love and respect. But I hate you. I’m going to tell Hitler you’ve been laughing at him, and when he returns with his cyborg gorilla armies they are going to fuck you up, first.)

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—– Original Message —–
From: Chrismc*** @ aol.com
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 8:00 PM
Subject: Re: T-Shirt Hell: Your order #276646 has been shipped

I do not want my son to whear the t-shirt “I’m high on life”, as it also says “and glue”. That is not permited in our home. When he wanted to order it he did not tell me the “and glue” part. Plus the shirt is too small. I want to return it asap. Please reply;

Thanks,
Christine M.

(Editor’s Note: Christine, is it the wearing of the glue sniffing t-shirt that is not permitted in your home, or the actual glue sniffing? Your son is lucky to have such a caring, involved parent. Although, clearly he finds it as easy to manipulate you, as it is for him to manipulate his own ball sack while he pleasures himself to his subscription to ellegirl magazine. Hopefully, he has found someone a little brighter than you to help him with his homework. Your request to return the shirt is denied. We are sending him a new shirt in a larger size.

Did he like the color?)

———————————————

—– Original Message —–
From: Milt*** @ ***aol.com
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 8:57 AM

I’M PROUD OF YOU!!

i always look forward to getting my newest update on your tasteless humor…
i know it’s all in good fun, and appreciate it for what it is. reading through your latest edition as you mention something about the soldiers i was bracing myself for something that just may cross the line with me. i spent 5 years in the army, i was in iraq for the first go-around, i know several soldiers that are in iraq this time and have lost some friends to the war.

what a total shock and surprise it was to see that your new shirts for the soldiers was just a sexual innuendo and nothing more… thank you for your humor and not attacking the patriotism and pride of the boys and girls in iraq!!

milt

(Editor’s Note: Milt you are an asshole who has no idea what we are about. Yes, this particular shirt does not attack the patriotism or pride of our soldiers in Iraq. But that is not the point. We didn’t have a funny shirt idea that attacked our soldiers, their patriotism, and their pride, but that sure as hell doesn’t mean we won’t have one in the future. And as far as attacking goes, we may even send badgers to attack their spouses and children who are sitting home defenseless. You’re such a dick. You’re proud of us? Fuck you. We’re ashamed of you and your pussy opinions on what is an appropriate subject to mock, and how to go about mocking it. We will dedicate our next outrageously anti-soldier shirt to you and any other douchebag soldier who makes us ashamed to be Americans, and black women.)

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Road Rage Cards!
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Yes, Road Rage cards are still available. If you’re anything like me, you’re no less angry now then you were when you didn’t order them last month. In that time I’m sure plenty of people have cut you off, tailgated you, and given you the finger. So what are you waiting for? They make a great gift for Mother’s Day or Pesach.

www.roadrage.com

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That’s it. You’re done. No more cookies for you, fatty.

————————————————————-

Now, go check out the site at:
www.TShirtHell.com

I made a winter t-shirt for Cocktailguiden.com. See it at www.cafepress.com/afterski!

It’s funny, here in Sweden we call to the bar-brawling activities that take place after skiing for that. After Ski. Not Apres Ski, since we don’t really like speak French, any of us. More than a third of us took about three years of French classes in school, but all of us had at least six years of English lessons.

Therefor After Ski it is, and those of us, like myself, who don’t even ski, might just as well save up on the rentals, and go for a nice after ski hoodie instead.

Looks cool does’t it? Go get it at www.cafepress.com/afterski.

Projektet dagens t-shirt rullar vidare.

Jag har just, vid nyligen fyllda 40 äntligen kommit mig för med att ta körkort. Och eftersom det ena intresset lätt avspeglas i det andra, så har mitt pågående dagens t-shirt-projekt fått en ny vändning.

Vägmärken och liknande piktogramförsedda skyltar har visserligen alltid varit något jag har fascinerats av. Jag är väl en av de få människorna i världen som kan glida in på Systemtext för att fönstershoppa bland deras klistermärken. (Det finns ett riktigt snyggt piktogram där som varnar snattare för vad som händer om de åker fast, det blir nog t-shirt av det också så småningom.)

Vägmärket Motortrafikled är min absoluta favorit. Snyggare bilpiktogram får man ju leta efter. Genast som jag såg det tänkte jag på förra årets TT-tröjor. Fast den här är bättre.

Dessutom har den fler användningsområden! Känner du någon som just har tagit körkort? Då är det här den perfekta presenten! Eller har du just tagit körkort själv och vill berätta det för världen?

Min senaste t-shirt-bod innehållder därför förutom de vanliga tröjmodellerna ett par muggar, en musmatta, ett förkläde och lite annan smått och gott.

Adressen till shoppen är www.cafeshops.com/motortrafikled

12/14 2004 - I’m reading William Gibson’s latest novel, Pattern Recognition, and it takes me forever. It’s not the dreamy, sleepwaking pace of the main character Cayce Pollard that sets my mind adrift, but rather all the ideas that surge through my head while reading. I get t-shirt ideas, ideas for new articles, thoughts on how I should rebuild websites and what to do with my life… Just the way a good book should work.

This is how Pattern Recognition is presented at Gibson’s official website:

Cayce Pollard is an expensive, spookily intuitive market-research consultant. In London on a job, she is offered a secret assignment: to investigate some intriguing snippets of video that have been appearing on the Internet. An entire subculture of people is obsessed with these bits of footage, and anybody who can create that kind of brand loyalty would be a gold mine for Cayce’s client. But when her borrowed apartment is burgled and her computer hacked, she realizes there’s more to this project than she had expected.
www.williamgibsonbooks.com/books/pattern.asp

So what has all this to do with the Michelin Man?

Cayce Pollard’s nack of recoginizing a good brand is due to some kind of allergic reactions. She gets physically ill when seeing some well known, and overly exposed brands. Her worst reactions are to the Michelin Man, whose name, we learn in Gibson’s book, is Bibendum.

Cayce Pollard, is at one point in the book exposed to both the name Bibendum, and the graphic image of the Michelin Man, and reacts as an asthmatic person would to a room full of cats and cigarr smoke.

If you would like to add to the over exposure, by wearing a Michelin Man t-shirt. Visit RadRowdies.com. Here is a link directly to the Bibendum t-shirt page:
http://www.radrowdies.com/vt/asp/…/tv/buyA.htm

But don’t stop there. Get the t-shirt, and also the book. Read it. Build up your own reaction.