A Tribute to Dawson’s Creek

A few weeks ago, Netflix suggested that I watch Dawson’s Creek. I have no idea how, in fact its kind of creepy. I was a huge fan of the show back in the 90’s and probably hadn’t watched it since. So more than 15 years later, I started watching it again from the beginning. It’s so horrible, that its awesome. It’s even better than I remember. I wanted to do a Dawson’s Creek shirt that you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else. I decided to take it to the extreme and try to create an “Ice House” shirt. The “Ice House” is the dive restaurant that Joey’s sister owns. I checked all over the internet, and a shirt like this did not exist. I knew this would be the coolest choice. Once I started in on this, I realized why. There isn’t a clean shot of this shirt on film! I had to get all C.S.I. on this project. I searched the footage and took snap shots of every semi-clear shot I could find. I had to zoom, sharpen, and use every trick imaginable to get a clear picture of what this looked like. In the end, after a lot of work, I was able to make a shirt inspired from the original shirts worn in the restaurant of the show. This is a sweet gift for any Dawson’s Creek fan.

You can find this in our Etsy store, eBay store, and supersweetshirts.com

February 16, 2014 0

All out of Bubble Gum: "They Live" Shirt

I’m not quite sure why it took so long to pay tribute to John Carpenter’s “They Live”, a legendary bad-ass film. I’m almost ashamed that it took this long. Without further delay, I give you my tribute to “They Live.”

This baby is available on our eBay, Etsy, and at supersweetshirts.com.

January 28, 2014 0

C25K Time!

   Last year I got my blood work done for my yearly check up. I’m healthy, never sick, blood pressure is good, however my cholesterol was not. It was high at 260 with my LDL at 194. At that time, I was able to locate problem areas for food that I eat. I love fries, pizza, the normal delicious foods in life. So for a year, I watched what I ate, still having those things but not nearly as much as I would have normally consumed. I went in for this years check-up and it stayed the same. The Dr. said that I have 5 months to lower my cholesterol, or i’d have to start taking “Statins”. I’ve never been on a medication in the 35 years I’ve been alive, I’m not about to start now.
   So I spoke with my Dr. and told her what I eat regularly and what I don’t do regularly…or even at all…..is exercise. I’m not a fat guy, but I’m out of shape and maybe 10-15 pounds overweight. So now I have a goal. I have 5 Months to get into better shape, and to move that LDL down. The first thing I am going to do is a program my wife had heard a lot about, “C25K” (Couch to 5 K) an app for your phone that trains you over weeks to be able to run 5k without killing you. A slow progression. There are a bunch of apps for this, all offering free versions with limitations. I decided to get the pay version. It’s 1.99, its not going to kill you to cough up $1.99 to use an app for your $600.00 phone. The pay version integrates GPS tracking so that it tracks how far you have gone and your speeds.
   I have finished two days of C25K so far and its going along nicely. It’s kind of like having a trainer in your ear. Instead of going for a run and killing myself randomly deciding how far to run, the app tells you what to do, so I don’t even have to think! The cool part is, I can listen to whatever I want and the C25K app will just chime in when its time to change it up. Definitely a cool app, I’m looking forward to seeing the progress.

January 17, 2014 0

New Conan Shirt

I have a new Conan design that I decided to do. I had come across a red ink that I loved in terms of how it looked on a black shirt. Most water-based inks end up looking barely visible on black shirts unless you get an opaque ink, but I hate using those. I also didn’t want a plastisol look with a big shiny red image that will end up looking stiff and shitty over time. I wanted a faded, cool, look. This ink worked out perfectly and I love this shirt. Any fan of “Conan” will know the the Thulsa Doom symbol of the serpent.

This shirt is now available on our eBay, Etsy, and supersweetshirts.com

January 15, 2014 0

Tutorial: How to Play NES or Genesis Games on your Andriod.

I’ve decided to throw a few tutorials up for Android for a couple simple things that not everyone may know how to do. If your like me, you loved video games back in the golden era, 8 and 16 bit classics. I just recently bought the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 which is pretty much the greatest phone I’ve ever seen. With a screen this size, its perfect for games like these. How can you do this? Follow me.

First off if you have an iPhone, you can’t do this as far as I know unless your phone has been jail broken. The games in this example with be Super Mario Brothers (8 bit) and Sonic the Hedgehog (16 bit). For these we will need to separate emulators. Basically, one of your emulators is Nintendo and the other is your Sega Genesis.

1) Head over to the Google Play store and get the app “AndroGens” and “Nostalgia.NES Lite.” Both apps are free. The will look like this were your apps are stored:

2) Before we even open them up, we have to go get the ROMs (games). Disclaimer: “You should only download these games if you already own the original versions.” Head over to coolrom.com, they actually have a pretty nice mobile site and its easy to use. Do a search for “Super Mario Bros.” Hit cancel if you get any annoying pop up ads. You may get a bunch of versions, just look for the result under “NES” and click it. It will take you to this screen. Scroll to the bottom and it will bring you to the download link:

3) This is the tricky part if you are not familiar with the folder system in Android. Find out where your downloads go, its probably in the downloads folder which is default.

My phone setup probably looks nothing like yours, but I’ll get into how to do that in a later blog. The icon for “My Files” will be the same regardless. Then you want to click “All” so that you can see all the folders.

Scroll down to your “Download” Folder in your device storage (not your sd card storage). When you open it, your file should be in there. If you don’t see it make sure you check that you are in the right download folder.

4) Click on the file you downloaded, its time to extract it. You will be given the option to extract it when you click it. Click OK. It will extract the file into the same folder your in.

So now we know where it is located, lets fire up the NES App.

The NES emulator is actually pretty good. It locates the file for you but if you dont see it there, hit the top right preferences icon and it will give you the option to search for the game.

5) Just select the game you want to play and bam!

The Sega app works the exact same way accept you need to locate the file yourself once you open the app, so basically you would just select the file/game you downloaded and play. Good to go! If anyone has any questions feel free to contact me in the comments and I’d be glad to help. Tomorrow I will show you how to Ubuntu you phone out!

January 15, 2014 0

The Grilling Book: Recipe #1 – "Chicken Skewers with Coriander Marinade and Lemon Salsa"

The first recipe I have chosen to tackle in “The Grilling Book” is chicken skewers with coriander marinade and lemon salsa. Lets take a look at the ingredients:

2 Lemons
1/2 cup Cucumber finely chopped
3 Tbsp of thinly sliced Scallions
1 Chili finely chopped
Pinch of suger and Kosher salt
1.5 pounds of boneless skinless chicken thighs cut into 1.5 inch pieces
Freshly ground Black Pepper
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp of fresh chopped Cilantro
1/4 cup plain whole milk Yogurt
1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil plus more for brushing
2 Garlic Cloves coarsely chopped
1 Tsp fresh cracked coriander seeds
1 Tsp Turmeric (optional)

Using a sharp knife, cut all peel and white pith from lemons; discard. Cut between membranes to release lemon segments into a medium bowl; squeeze juice from membranes into bowl and discard membranes. Strain juice into a clean bowl; reserve lemon segments and juices separately. Mix segments, 1 Tbsp. lemon juice (set aside remaining juice for another use), cucumber, 2 Tbsp. scallions, and chile in a small bowl. Stir in sugar; season salsa to taste with salt and set aside. Place chicken in a medium bowl and season with salt and pepper. Purée ¼ cup cilantro, yogurt, 1 Tbsp. oil, garlic, coriander, and turmeric, if using, in a mini food processor or blender until smooth. Pour marinade over chicken; toss to coat. Let marinate at room temperature for 20 minutes. Do Ahead: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before continuing. Build a medium fire in a charcoal grill, or heat a gas grill to medium-high. Brush grill grate with oil. Thread 4 pieces of chicken on each skewer. Grill, turning once and watching closely to prevent burning, until browned and an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat registers 165°F, about 8 minutes. Transfer chicken to plates. Spoon lemon salsa over chicken. Garnish with remaining 2 Tbsp. cilantro and 1 Tbsp. scallions.

A few things about this recipe from the average Joe perspective. I changed the recipe a little bit because I couldn’t find the “Meyer Lemons” the books recipe called for. It stated that I could use regular lemons but to not use as many due to the tartness of them. So I used 4 lemons when making the recipe, which was way too many. 2 would be fine in the future. Also, I had never worked with coriander seeds before, so the way that I cracked them was by putting them between two sheets of paper towel and rolling over them with a rolling pin. Crushing them in a garlic press works as well.
Before I start grilling, I need to arm myself with a beverage. I decided to go with a bomber of Ale Smith IPA, a fantastic IPA from the West Coast and one of my favorite hoppy beverages.

The chicken marinates in the purée blend created. Super Tasty.

This dish turned out awesome. My first grilling recipe from this book was a total success. Chicken Thigh meat is delicious on the grill and is incredibly juicy. The lemon salsa was really tasty as well, however my wife and I both agreed that the salsa without the side of wild rice that we added might have been a little too intense. Overall, this recipe was solid!

January 13, 2014 0

A Blog Related Goal This Year: "The Grillng Book"

I love to cook. Actually I should correct that statement. I love to cook if its making pizza or grilling. Nicole had gotten me this awesome grilling book I wanted for Christmas called, “The Grilling Book.”
The book is gigantic and is loaded with amazing pictures from tons of grilling recipes. I’m making a goal to try and cook one of these recipes a week until I have cooked the entire book.

The first dish I will be making is “Chicken Skewers with Coriander Marinade and Lemon Salsa.” Stay Tuned, I should be cooking this sometime this weekend!

January 10, 2014 0

Netflix Alert: "The Last Stand"

    When I saw that this was on Netflix, I was super excited. First off, the people that made the trailer for this should be fired. The trailer was so hoaky, that even I had my doubts about the movie going into it. I was wrong. This movie was exactly what I could have hoped for. Arnold’s first full blown movie back from politics is nothing more than your typical Arnold action film. That’s all a guy like me can ask for.
    One thing I noticed while watching this, was that it took me a little bit to get used to what Arnold looks like now. He’s not like other actors, where you didn’t really notice the ageing much because you have continuously watched their movies year after year. He was literally gone from movies for a very long time. The initial shock of how old he actually is goes away after a little bit. Once that leaves, its easy to get sucked into this simplistic but entertaining action thriller. It also helps that Arnold plays an old sheriff and isn’t exactly trying to be what Stallone makes himself out to be in the “Expendables” movies.
    The movie’s plot is simple. Arnold plays an ex-cop from the LAPD who basically decided to go the simple route after being involved in some heavy shit back in LA. He is now the loved Sheriff in a wholesome little town full of old people, family diners, and hot country girls. Every girl under the age of 30-35 looked like a model in country clothes. The Police department consists of one Sheriff and four deputies. Johnny Knoxville also has an entertaining roll in the movie as a citizen of the town that is kind of whacky and just so happens to collect weapons (obviously). I think that this is were the trailer went wrong. It’s very Knoxville/Arnold heavy, almost as if its a buddy flick, when in reality, Knoxville isn’t even in it that much. Its like they made the trailer and didn’t care about getting the story across but only wanted to sell it by showing the only two stars in the movie in a sequence of scenes that made no sense.
   The ball gets rolling when an escaped convict who just so happens to be very dangerous and has a racing background, escaped custody in an elaborate sequence of events, and is racing to the border of a bridge his men made, into Mexico. He is travelling in this modified Corvette that apparently has 1000 horsepower and can out run helicopters. So many of the scenes involving this car gave me flashbacks to the old Knight Rider show, I often laughed.

Of course on the way to this bridge that they made, the convict must travel through this town, where Arnold has just become aware of this guy and has basically told the FBI to eat it as he wants to handle it himself.
I enjoyed this film way more than I expected to! It was an awesome “welcome back” movie for Arnold and has gotten me even more excited for his future projects. The action scenes were awesome, the film was really violent, and the battle scenes involving Arnold were just as bad ass as they used to be. He’s still got it.

I definitely recommend this one.

January 9, 2014 0

The "Do’s and Don’ts" of Torrenting

This post by no means promotes the downloading of anything illegal, please use the information I provide here at your own risk.

I have been torrenting files for a long time. I remember when I first discovered torrents. This was around the time when people were using Napster-like p2p clients to download single songs. I remember the thrill I got downloading entire collections with the click of a button, all organized in folders by album. It was fucking awesome. I don’t swear much on this blog, but when I do, its warranted. Getting a decade of albums downloaded from a band in 5 minutes is indeed “fucking awesome.” Back then things were easier, nobody really knew how to fight the war on file sharing. Today its different. I am an advocate of file sharing to the fullest, but you need to take precautions before doing so.
Someone that is not familiar with using bit torrents might just waltz over to the Pirate Bay and start downloading. Maybe back then it was a good idea, but these days, you have to be smart. There are 3rd party companies that scour IP’s looking for idiots downloading cam videos of movies released yesterday only to offer them scary settlements or cease and desist letters. Here are some rules and guidelines to follow.

1) Don’t use Pirate Bay. Don’t get me wrong. The Pirate Bay is legendary and they are constantly fighting for internet freedom. The truth is, unless you are pretty experienced downloading torrents, this site can expose you to torrents riddled with virus’s, fake files, or torrents monitored closely for infringement.

2) Get yourself onto a private tracker. There are some really great private trackers out there. The problem with these is that its tough to find any with open registration. The only way to get into them is to be persistent and check every day to see if they open up registration. Another way is to get an invite from someone who is already a member. You can sometimes gain invites by being cool in a forum where someone might have a spare one for you. There are a number of great private trackers out there, just do a little research. I belong to “Iptorrents”. Another good one is “ilovetorrents”. Again, there are tons. The benefits of belonging to these are high speed downloads, and every file posted will usually have plenty of very accurate comments pertaining to the file of interest. You rarely find fake files posted or anything infected with a virus. One thing that you can’t be when belonging to a private tracker is a “leacher”. These are people who download files but do not share them. The trackers usually have a minimum ratio of download to upload that they want you to maintain. If you don’t maintain this requirement over a period of time, they will ban you from the community. This can sometimes be tough to do, especially when we get to my next topic.

3) Be careful what you seed. This won’t be popular amongst file sharing community, but if you are new to torrenting, don’t seed anything until you learn the ropes. You are probably thinking, “How can i get my sharing ratio up on a private tracker if I shouldn’t seed?” That answer is easy. Know and understand what you are seeding. Don’t seed anything new and popular as they are sure to be targeted files. Join a private tracker and download something obscure. A lot of the time, you can sort the search results for files that have a lot of people downloading them. Look for something obscure, even if its something that you don’t care about, you are getting it to increase your ratio. Another way to increase your ratio without uploading, is to “Donate”. Many of the private trackers will grant you a certain amount of Gigabyte downloads per dollar that you donate. The money goes towards server costs. Its a nice way to not seed, but to contribute without being looked at as a leach.

4) Get a VPN or Torrent Proxy….or even better..Both. These days, with the NSA nonsense, there hasn’t been a better time to get yourself a VPN. VPN’s are tricky. If you are not familiar with a VPN, its basically a service that gives you an alternate IP address other than your own. Everything you do online will go through the vpn first, kind of like a middle man. This in turn hides your IP address from prying eyes. Just recently, TorrentFreak recently published an article that was more of an investigative piece, where they went to all of the VPN services asking them about “Logging”. The article can be seen here. Many of them openly stated that they didn’t keep logs while some chose to not comment. The others simply said that they emptied the logs after a few days or daily, simply because they didn’t have the space to house that much data. When it comes down to it, this is the statement that carries the most validity. When it comes down to it, they could be lying, who knows. One thing that is probably true though, is that the amount of data to log every users activities is probably pretty ridiculous, and they would need to empty the logs. Regardless, you might as well go with one that promises complete anonymity. Torguard offers a VPN and specifically a torrent proxy, both relatively inexpensive. So basically I have my VPN and then when I torrent, my traffic goes through a proxy and then through the vpn, and vice versa. Can your activities be tracked if you use a VPN. Its possible, depends on how much they want to spend figuring out who you are and tracking your whereabouts. Again, this post isn’t promoting illegal downloading so this shouldn’t be a concern, but you should know your options when trying to stay private.

There is so much to learn about file-sharing, that your research shouldn’t end here. Read as much as you can about downloading and about current events with the copyright wars. It all directly effects file sharing and torrents weather you download illegal content or not. Always be educated and informed. Knowing is half the battle!

January 9, 2014 0

Happy Birthday! Wooden 6 Pack from Rustic Creek Products

My wife knows me well. We joke often about how I’m super easy to buy a gift for for the holidays or for my birthday. I’m just constantly into tons of things. One thing that is pretty consistent with me is my love for really good beer. My stepfather is also a beer advocate, so often there are times when I head over to his house with some select beers from home. Normally I look around for an old empty 6 pack cardboard and then just fill it with random beers. Not any more.

From Rustic Creek Wood Products

This nifty device not only makes it easy to carry some select beverages to my destination, but it also has a sweet old fashioned opener on the side of it. Mine of course came equipped with 6 awesome beers that my wife has researched before getting. This is a great gift for any beer lover!

January 5, 2014 0

Category: super sweet shirt co.