Category: supersweetshirts.com

Awesome new Shirt: American Apparel Royal Tenenbaums Richie and Mordecai Shirt

   I have a new shirt out this week and it turned out pretty sweet.  People really enjoyed the Bill Murray Life Aquatic shirt I came out with, this new Richie Tenenbaum shirt cam out pretty awesome with that same artsy look too it.  This is now available in our Etsy and eBay shops as well as at supersweetshirts.com.

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Home Postage Service: Crash Course.

   If you haven’t been reading this blog, when I’m not making ridiculous shirts, I dabble in the technology.  One of the things I am quite fond of is Ubuntu.  It’s hands down the greatest.  If you don’t feel like spending over a thousand dollars on a Mac and becoming a slave to the genius’s, its a great OS and gives you the opportunity to learn the in’s and out’s of an open source OS while at the same time containing user friendly basics.  It’s great. But enough about Ubuntu, this is about home postage services like Stamps.com, Endicia, and Pitney Bowes.  Honestly, I hate the concept that our own US postal service doesn’t allow you to print first class mail or first class international mail on its website.  It’s complete bullshit.  Instead the postal service is in bed with these other companies making it so that if you need to print anything other than Priority mail or Express, you will need to join one of these sites, pay a monthly fee, and also pay for the postage.  Again, it’s total shit.  When I sell from my ebay or etsy store, that cost is configured into the final value fees I pay with each sale, so I can print this type of postage within their sites.  If I sell anything on my main website, I am shit out of luck and need one of these services. 
   When I was a windows user for many years, I was a stamps.com customer.  It wasn’t a service I was nuts about but it worked for what I needed it to do.  They made you install their software to be able to print anything.  The software was horrendous and looked like something you ran on a 1995 Gateway Computer. It crashed constantly and was terrible at telling you if you were doing anything wrong trying to print postage.  It was terrible but I learned how to use it on the rare occasion that I needed it.  Well I got to the point where I switched over to Ubuntu, and what do you know?  Stamps.com ancient software does not run on Linux.  Having faced this issue with my tax software, I did some research.  Unless I wanted to install a virtual OS, it wasn’t going to run.  So I went online to cancel my account.  Of course you can’t cancel on the website, you need to call so that some asshole can try and convince you to stay.  Luckily my reason was pretty cut and dry, there would really be nothing to argue….so I thought…(I’ll get to that later).   Stamps.com business hours were closed during this so I was going to have to cancel the next day.  In the mean time, I joined Endicia.  This service was a little cheaper for what I needed, $9.99 a month.  Endicia was extremely annoying right out of the box!  I signed up for my account, downloaded the horrific software (actually worse than stamps.com) and tried to log in.  I was greeted with “Account not active.”  No further information mind you, just “Account not Active.”  So I called the tech support line.  After waiting about 10 minutes on hold, the customer service rep told me my account wasn’t active because my IP address wasn’t coinciding with my home address.  You know…..because businesses don’t use VPN’s for security, or travel.  Ridiculous.  Also, they didn’t like the password I chose (a valid excuse).  My problem is more with the fact that instead of prompting you of these issues, they give you a generic message and no details!  At this point I was livid and extremely annoyed.  After that was all squared away, I finally logged into the ancient software and tried to print an international label.  I was then greeted with yet another error message.  This time it was just some weird codes, etc.  Again, no real reason.  I used the online tech support via chat.  The representative was such an idiot that I quit the chat session and canceled the account.

  I decided to try one more option.

    Pitney Bowes offered something that was truly cutting edge compared to the other services.  Something unheard of.  A web based client.  No ridiculous software to install.  It was a few dollars more expensive a month but they also throw in a free USB scale which was awesome.  I badly wanted a web based service, so I signed up.  I had a few minor hiccups signing up, but nothing major.  Basically after I signed up, it wouldn’t let me add funds to buy postage.  This was fixed with a quick phone call.  All in all the service works great.  I got my scale in the mail insanely quick and the interface looks like something you would see in 2014 not 1995. 
    If you get stuck having to use one of these services, I highly suggest Pitney Bowes.  The others were so bad in so many ways, that it amazed me that they were even in business.
    This should technically be the end of this post, however I still needed to cancel my stamps.com account.  I called them up during regular business hours.  The poor bastard on the phone tried to use all of the lines provided for him to keep me as a customer, none making any sense at all as my sole reason for leaving was because they wouldn’t provide linux support.  He finally put me on hold for 15 minutes while he “went to check something out” quick.  When he returned, he sounded confident, “Do you have explorer?”  I chose not to scream, and politely said “No, but I really just need to cancel this now please.”  Finally I was able to.

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New Predator Shirt!

   This week I released new shirt, and potentially the start of a whole new line of similar shirts depending on how this does.  I was actually working on a different design when I came across those generic Helvetica shirts.  if you haven’t seen them, they look sort of like this:

This isn’t one of mine, I just google searched “generic Helvetica shirt” and this came up.

 I have see this shirt design all over, played to death, and they are totally stupid.  So I had an idea.  If you are a fan of supersweetshirts.com then you are well aware that we specialize in shirts for bad action movies.  I decided to take classic one liners from our favorite films and to design my own generic Helvetica shirt!  How can we make a stupid shirt design even more ridiculous?  I present to you:

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/eNr0WXQ3Ho4&source=uds

The baby is available in our Etsy shop, eBay store, and at supersweetshirts.com.

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Prentious Product Review: "Harry’s Razors"

   I have not done a blog in quite some time, mainly because I barely have time to breathe.  I have returned to do a review on a product I bought listening to an ad on a podcast that I listen to.  I’ve seen similar companies advertised, like “Dollar Shave Club”, but that to me always sounded like a lower quality product.  It might be great, who knows? I just know that, for me, it came across as a cheap product from the advertising.  So for my entire life, I’ve used “Gillette” Razors.  Occasionally when I didn’t feel like draining my wallet buying them, I would go and get the knock off brands, which were still expensive, but not THAT expensive, and they aren’t very good.
   When I heard the ad for “Harry’s”, it came across as a great product.  A classy advertisement, about this blue collar razor company making a great product at a lower cost.  Plus at the time, I had a coupon code that got me a free 4 pack of razors, which if they were “Gillette”, would have cost me $12.49 at the store.  So I went onto “Harrys.com” and read a little about the company.

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    Pretty much when I saw this, I knew I had to try it out.  This guy looks awesome, and the company looked awesome.  The website is incredibly well done and loaded with information on the product.  The pricing, even better.  If you go online, I’m sure you will find a coupon code to use, but basically this is what I got.

One of these packs of razors was free with the coupon code.

The packaging was super impressive!  The product was attractive and slick.  I was really impressed.  The shave? Terrific!  I found that I barely had to push down on the razor.  My beard hair is intense.  This razor mowed through it like a knife in warm butter. 
    So what was the cost of this? The handle was $10.00 which comes with one razor.  They allow you to choose from a variety of colors.  They also have more expensive handles ranging from $10.00-$35.00.  The blades start at $8.00 for a 4 pack, and then get lower (cost per blade) the more you buy.  The best part?  Free shipping.  Straight up.  Harry’s rules.  When I first ordered these, my wife rolled her eyes and said “pretentious”….. Is it? Maybe? Or is it just flat out smart.

Yeah……smart.

Cheers!

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Blade Runner Shirt

    This week we have a few new items hitting the shops.  The first is the new Blade Runner inspired design.  Any fan of this classic book/movie will love this design featuring Deckard (Harrison Ford) and the origami unicorn.  This shirt is for die hards.  The shirt is available in all of our shops (Etsy, eBay, and Supersweetshirts.com) and you have the option to get the American Apparel Cotton  version or the Standard Cotton version (cheaper), both in grey.  Use promo code: BLOGRUNNER for a $3.00 discount on this shirt at our main website only!

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BombFell to the Rescue.

    It’s been so busy lately.  There was a time when days dragged, but now they go by so fast, that it’s impossible to get everything done!   I rarely write about other clothing companies, but its fair to say that this one isn’t exactly a direct competitor of mine.  I’m just like everyone else that buys stuff from the Super Sweet Shirt Company.  A t-shirt and jeans kinda guy.  I haven’t really changed that aspect of me, but occasionally I need wear something a little more on the dressy side.  I cant wear a Steven Seagal shirt to dinner, or family gathering.  I can’t take my wife to dinner wearing a Death Wish shirt.  If you do want some of those things, I suggest you head over to supersweetshirts.com, but if you are in desperate need of some fancier clothes, head over to Bombfell.com.
    These days, I’m so busy with work, making shirts, raising a kid with my beautiful wife, and working on the house, it’s impossible to find the time to find some nicer things to add to my wardrobe.  Bombfell takes all the effort out of it.  You basically sign up, tell them a bit about yourself, what kind of clothes you wear, and what you hate, etc.  They then assign you a stylist.  That’s right. I have a stylist.  After you do all of this, in a few days they will tell you what’s coming your way.  You can select the types of things that you are looking for them to send you (pants, jeans, shirt, dress shirt, etc.) Once you see what they have chosen, you can decide weather or not you want them to mail the stuff to you or if you want something else.  Once you get the clothes, you can try them on, if you hate them, they pay for the return shipping, and the return supplies are all included.  It’s pretty awesome.  They sent me 4 things, the first, a pair of grey chinos.

This isn’t me.

   I was looking forward to getting these.  Once I put them on, I stood proudly in front of my wife, showing her how they fit.  She was just staring at my mid-section and then pointed out that the pants gave me male camel toe.  I looked down, and sure enough they did. Dammit.  I like the pants, but I wasn’t going to be able to make male camel toe look fashionable.  These had to go back.
   The next item was the “Ben Sherman CLASSIC GINGHAM MOD SHIRT.”  I liked the look of this shirt when they told me it was coming.  The fit was perfect, they nailed this one.
   The final two items where “Mavi Matt Mid Rise Straight Jeans” and my favorite, the “Original Penguin FULL-ZIP MOCK-NECK CARDIGAN”

Both of these items fit incredibly well.  The jeans especially.  Normally I wear a 34, which every time I buy myself a pair of 34’s, they are tight.  These fit awesome.
    My first experience doing something like this was great.  I know what you’re wondering, “Is it expensive?”  Its not bad.  When I first looked into something like this I tried Trunkclub which was a similar service.  I received a call from one of their stylists who told me the clothes ranged from $100-$300 per item.  That was way out of my range.  Bombfell is more like $60-$100.  Basically your paying the ticketed price on the clothing, (where as normally you could get it at a department store on sale.)  You basically pay the full retail price and that’s how the stylist gets paid.  It’s a price I’d gladly pay to not have to put any effort into getting some nicer threads.  Definitely something to think about if you have something coming up where you need a few fancy clothes.

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Let’s Have a Listen: Biffy Clyro – "Opposites"

    I love days where I capture the true benefit of being a Spotify subscriber.   As I get older, it gets more and more difficult to find new music.  When this happens, I venture over to the “Discover” section where they analyse everything you normally listen to and suggest new music.  Occasionally they insult me by trying to choose music based on my age like:

“Back when you were in high school, this album was popular…”

I’m pretty much never going to see this suggestion and go, “Oh man that album was amazing.  Looks like I’m set for music today!” 
    Further down the list there was a suggestion that I would possibly like a band called “Biffy Clyro”, so I decided to take a listen at the most recent album (2013) “Opposites.” Biffy Clyro is a Scottish band formed in Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire with a huge variety of influences like Metallica, Rush, Foo Fighters, Sunny Day Real Estate, Fugazi, and Weezer.  I’d say from listening to this album, the Rush and Weezer influences really stand out.  The first song on the album, “Different People” had me hooked.  The guitar work pounded with a mixture of solid, power chord rock, reminiscent of Weezer/Jimmy Eat World, and was also loaded with complex off beat drums/base/and lead guitar.  It was a great combination of styles.  The rest of the album is just a solid, which is pretty tough to maintain when doing a double disk.

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/pLS_CkEnmmg&source=uds

If you are in the mood to try something new, give this album a try.  It’s one of the better albums I’ve listened to recently.

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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

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Pork Tenderloin W/ Jamaican Spices

Ok, so I didn’t make the “1 recipe a week” goal, but I’m still at it!  Today is a great day to brush the wet snow off the Buffalo Bills grill cover, and fire up the command station to make:

Pork Tenderloin with Jamaican Spices
Here is what we need for this:
9 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
9 Tbsp fresh lime juice
6 1-inch long pieces of peeled ginger
1.5 Tbsp of kosher salt
1 Tbsp ground allspice
1 Tbsp ground coriander 
1 Tbsp freshly ground black pepper
3 1-1/2 pork tenderloins 
Now clearly i’m not making this recipe to accommodate 3 pork tenderloins.  We are going to be cooking just one.
You you first want to put the first 7 items in a food processor and and blend it up nicely until it turns into a thicker liquid, almost a paste.  Mine ended up being slightly more watery but still thick enough.  You then want to take your tenderloin and cut it down the middle like a hot dog bun.  Don’t slice it all the way through, do it just as you would if you were slicing a hot dog bun.  This creates a nice little grove for the marinade to rest in while coating the rest of the pork.  It also helps the tenderloin to cook quicker while keeping moist and tender. 

 

After you pour the marinade you just created over the pork, pop it in the fridge for an hour to marinate.  The maximum time this should marinate is 1 day.  I did it for an hour and it worked great.
Now lets get to the grill. In the winter, I tend to drink stouts, and when I’m grilling, I always have a beer in hand.  It helps me relax and really take in the grilling, especially when I’m standing in freezing temperatures with the snow.  It’s oddly awesome.

 
Lets get to grilling.  I cranked up all four burners on this baby to reach an internal temp of a little over 300 degrees Fahrenheit.  I then oiled up the grates and put the heat on 2 of the burners to the lowest setting.  It was this side that I laid the pork down while the side without anything on it stayed at a higher temp.  This allows a slower cook of the pork without charing the outside. 

Heat until pork is at an internal temp of 145 degrees.  Never press on your meats while they are on the grill, leave it be!

This recipe was totally delicious and by far the best one I’ve cooked from this book.  Its simple, quick, and very delicious.  If you want a recipe for pork tenderloin that packs an impressive taste.  This is a good one.

Cheers!

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