2012 Traffic Woes in Pittsburgh

Oh, for the love of!?!?!  PennDot Previews 2012 Construction Projects.

In 2010, a stressful commute for me was a flake of snow in the vicinity of Logan Ferry Road outside of Murrysville which caused the entire road to be a sheet of ice. No lie. If one flake of snow fell onto that road it was like that scene from Demolition Man where Wesley Snipes froze into an ice cube.

Now, after a full year of driving from WestMoCo to Robinson I can safely say, I would rather drive in a one horse open sleigh.

Before, if the road got slippery, I was usually the only one out there like an idiot driving the back roads to Plum to the beacon on the hill that used to be a bowling alley.

Now, when the meteorologists even mention a cold front, traffic grinds to a screeching halt on 376 and it takes me two hours to drive 50 minutes. Why? I have no ‘effing idea. [AngryMongo, you have been fined five credits for repeated violations of the verbal morality statute]

Clicky the linky at the top to go see what PennDot has in store for us commuters this year. As if traffic on 28 wasn’t already a nightmare, and if you watch that video on the KDKA page, ask yourself, “Why was John Shumway the only KDKA Pittsburgh media person going to cover the Broncos/Steelers game, anyway?” Didn’t we already have enough ridiculous with whoshewhatsit from ESPN during the 49ers game?

I’m not affected by Veterans’ bridge or 28 stuff, but the Squirrel Hill tunnels are a major impact on my drive.

“The tunnel rehab at Squirrel Hill will go through this summer, the summer of 2013 and wrap up early in the summer of 2014.”

Grrr.

[Begin Shameless Plug]

Keep Calm and Maintain Speed Through Tunnels
Get it at my Skreened store

[End Shameless Plug]

Hopefully, crews will go in and get that elusive tunnel monster that continues to plague drivers heading through it. That has to be the reason why people slow down before they enter the tunnels. They could hire a rag tag group of textile workers to go in and clean it out… That could work. Right?


Right?

The Future of M.A.M.S.

While I’m not convinced that my longevity as a blogger is a given, I do understand that if I don’t put out content, people won’t read. Even if it’s crap, it’s out there and someone will eventually stumble over it like a tricycle in the yard. However, the demands of my real job are going to cut into my ability to keep up with this. Why? Because, I spend more time on the road and have less time in the evening to write. I have to balance this with other stuff like shirt designs and family. So, it’s safe to say that I may not make my long standing quota of three posts a week. Believe me, if I could do this for a living, full time, I would.

In fact that segues right into my point, the future. Call it “Writing as a white space.” For those of you not familiar with the term, it means that exploring a part of the business that I have not yet capitalized on, yet. I started out blogging. I moved onto shirt design. I moved into social media. I blogged more about how all of those concepts work together. I made money on the shirt side, but not the other stuff. Granted, some of the shirt money might have come from those other input channels but most of my sales are because someone went searching blindly on a shirt site or search engine and landed on my designs and clicked “ADD TO CART”.

So, why not use the shirt business to sell some books? Now, I’m talking about selling other people’s books. I’m talking about writing my own. It’s something I’ve been kicking around for awhile now and I better jump on it soon. Why?

Self publishing is right up my alley because I’m a cheap ass, lazy entrepreneur. As a kid, I had this dream of being a writer. When I was 12, I wrote my first story. When I was thirteen, I wrote my second one. When I was fourteen, I wrote my third one. When I was fifteen, I quit writing.

Why?

In those three years, I wrote the stories but did nothing else with them. I had delusions of actually being a paid writer and didn’t think about getting a publisher or what it costs to print and sell a book or the actual need for my work in the market. When I realized that, it was either never going to happen or take a while to happen, I switched game plans. In either case, it was not profitable. But, I held onto the works just in case. Hell, those stories are probably sitting on a 5 ¼ “ floppy disk somewhere in my parents’ house.

20 years ago, I could never conceive of actually becoming a published author, but, in today’s world, a writer can simply write, upload and sell their work for Kindles and Nooks and bypass publishers all together. Some have actually sold a million copies of their books, strictly through ebook sales. So, I am going to try an experiment. I am going to write a book on exactly what I’ve done in the last few years from the business side. I will then attempt to sell it on Amazon or through my site (Those details are sketchy). If I can make a case to myself that it is worth me putting forth the time to write something with the expectation of being paid for it, then I will revisit the idea of creative fiction. Believe me, I still have stories floating around in my head that my nearest and dearest friend/editor has told me to get written.

The caveat is that I have to see a significant interest in this venture before I take the time to attempt a 300 page novel. I just don’t have that kind of free time. Not to mention, I have a few friends with degrees in English and teaching that would probably want to see me DIAF if I actually wrote something and tried to sell it for profit.

The reason I am trying to fast track this experiment is that the new fad smell of self publishing and Kindles are probably going to wear off, soon. Stephen King had once said (paraphrased) that “Ebooks would account for probably 50% of all book sales by 2013. Maybe 2012.” However, he also says that people get tired of the new toys.

By that note, I have an ever shrinking window of opportunity to establish myself before the fad of ebooks or self publishing becomes the MySpace or worse, Friendster of writing avenues.

I still plan to blog as much as possible because I have a great source of material, my kid. Still, the point of MAMS was to rant and rave over the decline of entertainment via the distorted view of a pop culture observer. Those posts take a lot more time to prepare and vet and I have neither the time nor the ambition to do actual research.

I do hope those 4.5 readers I still may have will keep on reading but don’t be surprised if you wake up on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday and don’t see anything new… or worth reading for that matter.

And Now A Word From Our DJ

I gave up on listening to music format radio stations years ago. I do listen to WDVE in the morning on my way to work for the morning show. When they go to a song, I switch the station. Now, if that song is anything by Journey or Warren Zevon or Led Zeppelin or the Doors or… OK there are a lot of exceptions… but in any case, usually, the music means it’s time to go down the dial.
Where I end up is usually 93.7, The Fan. Us old fogies know it as The Station Formally Known As B94. I spend a few minutes there until commercial or they start talking about Pitt. I’m not a hater, I’m an alum. It’s just that somewhere in the last year, The Fan got a contract with the University to air their football and basketball games and even though this is a primarily Pittsburgh based sports talk station, about 50% or more of their discussions and coverage are about Pitt teams. It’s like they have to give lip service to the University every hour or they’ll lose their deal.

But that’s not what really bothers me about radio, these days. I’ve gone on about music and Top 40 and the crap that is out there, playing in heavy rotation every 20 minutes. This is more about what happens on the radio with the individual stations.

Now, let me back this rant up about 30 years. As a kid, I remember driving around town in my Dad’s old Chevy Custom Deluxe pickup truck. He had it tuned to pretty much one station, WCVI AM. It was the hometown radio station, just across the bridge from where we lived. It was mostly news with some middle of the road type music. The news was pretty much read from the newspaper, as you could actually hear the page turning as the broadcaster flipped the page to continue the story. But the real thrill for me was listening to Paul Harvey segments. You’re going to have to go look up Paul Harvey if you are unfamiliar. I could go on another three hours talking about him. I just don’t have that kind of time, right now.

The magic of Paul Harvey was part storytelling and part huckstering. He could seamlessly weave a mysterious tale about a famous person’s background and plug in a pitch for a Coleman Thermos in one breath. He excelled at blurring the line between broadcasting and commercial. Today’s equivalent would be like watching Chuck and noticing that the Nerd Herd “Herders” cars are Toyota’s, not because you know they are a Toyota Matrix, but because in the opening credits the logo is clearly shown. Also, they all love Subway, because there is a Subway wrapper shown in almost every episode. Paul Harvey was a little more subtle in his pitches but after awhile you could see them coming a mile away.

I shed a small tear when Harvey died in 2009. However, nothing burns me more than when I’m stuck in traffic from Wilkinsburg to the other side of the Squirrel Hill tunnels, or trying to frantically get back over to the middle lane at the Grant Street exit, only to hit a wall of traffic due to an accident just outside the Fort Pitt Tunnels, and I switch radio stations looking for actual content and get duped into listening to a commercial because the announcer is the same guy who I listen to during the regular broadcast.

That pisses me off to no end. I land on one station and think I’m listening to the show and find out that it’s a pitch for DirectTV or a car dealership. Now, my friends will be quick to point out that I should get Satellite Radio and hook up my iPod. First of all, I’m too cheap to spend the money on a radio that will have like three channels that I’ll listen to and my iPod has seen better days. Not to mention, the apparatus to hook up my iPod to my radio, so I can listen, is not conducive to me being a safe driver. That goose neck Belkin debacle of an iPod transmitter has nearly caused me more accidents than a teenager with a car and an unlimited text plan, who just got dumped. To sum it all up, I’m a cheap ass who would rather complain about what’s on the radio instead of doing something different.

But back to my tangent. Is it that apparent that no one likes commercials anymore that stations will do whatever it takes to try and work in their ads? Are they trying to be shifty by disguising a commercial by having the applicable on air host do the commercial? Am I just a conspiracy theory loving hater who thinks the world is out to get him? Yes, I know the last one is a rhetorical question.

Maybe this is evolution. Maybe all the tricks the Mad Men have employed over the years are leading to trying to find new ways to sell you something. I for one hate how Google has followed me around for months now on every website I visit. I’ve already paid for my vacation in the Outer Banks with a particular company. Stop showing me their ads when I go to a sports site. I know it’s a cookie thing. I guess they figure that a greater percentage of the population is able to be manipulated versus those of us who are turned away from that kind of advertising. For me, it’s like hypnosis. I don’t believe in it and usually it pushes me even further from whatever product they are selling. The Google thing just makes me want to stop using them altogether. But… it’s like Walmart, more often than not, you end up there because it’s easier.

So, as I develop stronger muscles in my right leg from commuting and a bigger sense of ambivalence towards radio and commercialism I will probably become even more curmudgeonly than I already was. Is that even a grammatically correct statement spell check? There is probably some puppy kicking in my future. And nothing kicks puppies better than my new Nike Cross Trainers… Puppy kicking… Just Do it.

And now you know the rest of the story…

Good Day…

Grrrr.

Don’t Touch Other People’s Stuff

It’s something you try and teach your children at an early age. It’s something I am continually trying to teach my child. She’s in preschool, now, and there is a germ factor to deal with along with an ownership issue. First of all, kids aren’t the cleanest of beings as they touch everything without regard to what they can’t see on surfaces and objects. They will proceed to touch themselves or you and transfer who knows what in the process. In addition, if it doesn’t belong to them and they have not received explicit permission to handle it, they shouldn’t be touching it. This is what I’m trying to tech and it includes all remote and game controllers, purses, keys, knick knacks, and anything else not built out of an industrial strength alloy or space age polymer in my house.

But when an adult exercises such a lack in judgment you can’t help but become shocked by their inability to remember those childhood lessons. What the hell goes through some people’s heads? This post spawned after a quick shopping trip to my local Giant Eagle grocery store in Harrison City, PA. I needed to pick up a few things and relied on the Self-Checkout lanes for quicker service. Usually, my wife is with me and she bags while I scan, but being on my way home from work, at the time, I needed to multi-task.

I grabbed what I needed and headed to the front of the store. Swiped all my items and sent them down the belt. Paid for purchases and went to the other end of the belt to bag and place in my cart and that’s when it happened. Some dick touched my stuff.

As a rule, especially in this economy, every little bit helps. My wife will clip some coupons here or there and on occasion, we will get coupons at the checkout lane from using our Advantage Card. The Advantage Card is like other grocery store cards, I’m sure. You swipe it and receive discounts on certain items. Also, for every $50 we spend, we get $0.10 a gallon for gas. In turn, for every 10 gallons of gas you pump, you can earn 1% off of your grocery bill up to 20%. It also prints out coupons at the register which can be used for future purchases as well as the occasional advertisement which is thrown away at the register nine times out of ten. Regardless of how we acquire coupons, we appreciate them when we get them. Now, I don’t know if there is some unwritten rule out there about grocery stores but if we have a coupon for something we don’t use or will not purchase before the expiration date, we usually leave it on the shelf with the product. I see them left by other people a lot and sometimes they come in handy. Also, when we get printout coupons at the register, I tend to leave the ones I don’t use on top of the Self-Checkout register for others to use.

On more than one occasion and in multiple stores, I’ve seen employees walk by the Self-Checkout registers and throw away coupons left by shoppers for other shoppers. I understand why they do it. After all, a coupon is a loss to revenue. If it’s there, it’s considered trash and should be thrown away to help maintain the appearance of the store. However, there is a similar perk in convenience stores and gas stations called the penny tray. Have a penny, leave a penny. Need a penny, take a penny. So, I don’t see this as anything different. Have a coupon, leave a coupon and so forth. It’s a bit petty and “corporate” like to just walk by and throw away these coupons when the intention was for helping out your fellow consumer. I have a point here, bear with me.

So, as I’m bagging up my groceries last Friday, this guy comes by, grabs the coupons I had received from the register, crumbles them up and throws them away. I’m still in the line, mind you, watching all this happen. I was so shocked at the balls this guy had that I was just stunned speechless. Now, he wasn’t dressed in typical store uniform so I cannot guarantee that he was an employee. He was pushing a cart that had empty cardboard boxes in it so he may have been a vendor who was stocking specialty items from the manufacturer. Still, it was rather brazen that he just walked up and did what he did. Of course, two can play at that game. I have already proven that I can be a dick with the best of them.

So, it should shock no one that I took the time to go back to the front of the checkout lane to retrieve the coupons that dickhole threw away and placed them back on top of the register. Dickery turned to outright rage when I realized that he not only threw away any coupons that were laying there, but my receipt as well. MY EFFING RECEIPT. He yanked it from the printer, crumbled it up and tossed it in the garbage can underneath the counter. I use a credit card for grocery shopping and while not all of my numbers are on the receipt, still, who would throw a receipt away in plain sight inviting the possibility that someone could use it against you.

I wanted to find the guy. I wanted to wander all over the store, bags in tow, looking for the guy to just give him a “Don’t touch other people’s stuff, Eff-tard!” prepared statement. He even looked like one. Think of the bad guy from Lethal Weapon 3. He looked like him, complete with the gray brushtache. Yes, I said brushtache because it looked like a brush hanging off his face.

Well, I didn’t find Brustache the Eff-tard which is my World of Warcraft name… kidding. But I did get the satisfaction of going back and wasting energy by digging through the garbage for two advertisements and a coupon for Activia. I don’t care. You don’t touch other people’s stuff. Obviously, I wasn’t finished yet because my receipt was still there. And two. YOU DON’T TOUCH OTHER PEOPLE’S STUFF! Oh, to be a fly on the inside of the windshield on the way home from the store. You know those moments you have where you talk out loud to nobody about what you would say or do to the person who pissed you off at that moment. You even start to verbally take it out on other drivers who aren’t even involved. “What, you wanted to turn at that stop sign, but I went first, causing you to lurch forward and slam on your brakes? Too bad, dick, you didn’t have your turn signal on at the time and you probably touch other people’s stuff, too. Eff off!”

I know there were other ways to handle the situation, the least of all, blogging about it. But, hey, if someone has a problem with that, come talk to me about it. I’m up for debate about the finer points of being a dick. Just ask my wife.

Mongo's Halloween Giveaway 2010

Over at the shirt side of Mongo Angry Mongo Smash there is some big news. I’m holding a giveaway for Halloween. Now, last year I held a contest and it might have been a bit of a challenge compared to what I was giving away. Identify 10 of my designs for one measly item of your choice from my stores. Well, mistakes were made, others were blamed, and not one person entered the contest. But, I will not be deterred in my efforts to give something away. So, I’m trying again. However, this year, I’m not just giving away a shirt. I’m giving away TWO shirts… along with eight other neat prizes all wrapped up into one prize vault for one lucky fan.

Today launches the 2010 Halloween giveaway and one person will win TEN items all within the themes of Halloween, Pittsburgh, Zombies, Movies, and Horror. Let’s look at what the prizes are:

• Battery Powered LED Mini Strobe Light
• 50 Pack of Glow Bracelets
• Halloween Sound Effect CD which also doubles as a DVD with Night Of The Living Dead on it.
• Very Scary Music CD with tracks from classic Horror and Thriller films like The Exorcist, The Shining, and Poltergeist.
• $20 Skreened Gift Card good for online or in store (Columbus, Ohio) purchases.
• The Monster Squad on Blu-Ray Disc
• Brand New Zombie Survival Guide Book (paperback)
• Zombies: Eat Flesh shirt courtesy of Mongo Angry! Mongo Smash!
• Zombey Road shirt courtesy of Mongo Angry! Mongo Smash!
• Signed Photo from David L. Early of Dawn of the Dead, Creepshow, The Dark Half, and Silence of the Lambs fame, and all around cool guy.

And I’m making it super easy this year.   Between Friday, September 17^th, 2010 and Friday, October 1^st, 2010, go to either my store blog or my Facebook group and pick your favorite Monster Hunter.  To be qualified just  leave a comment in the comments section of the blog post or Facebook note (NOTE: You will have to LIKE the group to enter on Facebook.)  After the last day of the giveaway I will pick, at random, one winner out of all the comments from both places and that person will win the prize vault.  I am hoping to have it shipped out to them before Halloween.

Good luck!

The End of the Beginning

Ok, you’ve all had time adjust or digest or discard the changes that are coming to the blog. This is the last post that will be used primarily as a topic for CaféPress store discussion. After this, I am unhooking this blog from the Facebook page that is devoted to the store and attaching the new blog. In case there are any fans who wish to continue seeing specifically blog posts dealing with the writing aspects of Mongo, here is a place to become a fan of on Facebook. Those of you who are already friends of the man behind Mongo will still see his self delusional attempts at writing legitimacy posted to his profile and your news feeds if you haven’t already tuned him out.

For those of you who wish to continue seeing posts about CaféPress shirt designs and are interested in seeing how some of the effects are achieved, then become a fan here, if you haven’t already. Starting tomorrow, I will begin posting some designs to the new blog. Mixed into the offerings will be a couple of tutorials on how to achieve certain effects like aging your images and making them look like they were inked, to name a few.

It’s been swell having you as a reader for the shirt side of Mongo but in order to deliver quality posts to the masses…yes you four know who you are… I need to separate the business from the pleasure and focus on one at a time.

Take care, so long and thanks for all the fish.

Mongo

CafePress Shopkeeping Now It Is For Real.

I have officially ended my free trial period and am now a full time Premium Shopkeeper, that is according to my email that states I’ve just been charged $59.95. What does that mean? I have money in my account….thankfully. It also means I am on the hook for $5.00 every month. As a basic shopkeeper I was getting free use of my shop to create and promote one design per article (shirt, mug, button). Now, for my monthly fee, I am able to create and produce several designs for the same article, customize my storefront, and create sections and sub sections for better organization of my designs. To top it all off, I am able to create a product line and import it into another section so that I can change the image, description, name, and price in bulk. Not bad for the price of a Caramel Macchiato at Starbucks.

Since opening my basic shops back in 2006, I have managed to sell four items in the span of two years. Since opening my premium shop at the beginning of March, I’ve sold just as many items in the span of two weeks. It doesn’t take a Fortune 500 CEO to see that membership has its privileges. Then again, I did more work in two weeks than I did in those first two years. Paying for something tends to motivate you versus getting it for free. Granted, with what I’ve made, I do not have to dip into my own pocket for four months. Hopefully, my stream of sales will be steady enough to show a bit of profit by the end of the year so that I don’t have to spend my own money. I’ve already made a deal with myself that if I don’t make enough to at least cover operating expenses in the first year, I’ll close up shop.

Now, if I close up shop what happens to all my stuff? I already planned for that event. If I close up shop, I will move all of my designs into basic shops. That means I will have one basic shop for every design. You see why premium is better? I would have to manage multiple sites and multiple marketing streams. It also becomes problematic because in some cases I would have to double up on a site in order to have the same image with a different background. Confused?

Let’s take this design for example, iPoot. Ok, so I am not above doing fart jokes. Who is? It’s a funny subject. I’m sure you recognize the context of the picture. It has a dark green background which shows up nice on white shirts. However, on the dark shirts it becomes a problem. To deal with this issue, I created three more images with the same theme but different color schemes. There’s the transparent with just the picture in black and lettering in white. This allows you to utilize the different colored shirts as the background colors in the various ads you’ve probably seen. In essence the entire shirt becomes a colored background like the small box around the original image. Then there is the inverted transparent image with no background color and all black letters and picture. This works great for buttons and magnets that aren’t exactly square as well as apparel that have colored sleeves or use the image on the pocket like golf shirts, light colored shirts, and zipper apparel. To maximize the possibilities I used two different images on the same shirts that offered multiple colors, including black. On one shirt, I removed black as an option for one of the designs and on the other included all of them. If I revert back to a basic shop format, I would need to have two different shops for one style of shirt. Believe me, it is a lot of work to maintain separate sections on one site.

So, what has been the biggest problem I’ve had as a shopkeeper? I’ve had two which are kind of number one and two in my book. I think the biggest problem is the amount of time that goes into organization, not to mention how those changes affect searching. When I started out, I had about 10 designs which all kind of sat in my main storefront. That became rather unorganized and just kind of sitting there. I wanted to be able to have people use the store with certain ideas in mind. “I’m at Mongo’s store, not what? Oh, I see a bunch of different designs with nothing to tie them together. Bye bye.”

I went back and created sections. Designs that were inspired by Video Game Themes, Television Themes, Movie Themes, Pop Culture Themes, Zombie Themes, and Mongo Themed items to promote the blog. Within each of those sections are designs based off of the theme. Within each design section is all of the products with that design. Now, when people come to my store, they can decide what type of design they want based off of the theme and then they can see all the products that contain that design. It also serves to allow them to see a bigger picture of the design and then they can see what it looks like shrunk down to the size of the image on the product.

Searching from the main CafePress site has nothing to do with the organization of my items in my store and just allows anyone to search for a design and then see mine in the list of results. That’s where my second issue arises. I usually do a quick search for the idea I have to see if it has already been created. This keeps me from copying other people or gives me the opportunity to see how my design can be an improvement on someone else’s. It’s not copying because my thought process never used their design as a basis just as a comparison. If I feel mine is better suited, I will create it. If I don’t, I’m not going to waste the time designing the artwork and then competing with an established design.

However, if I see a lot of themes playing out, I will consider mine to be listed among them. Different designs, different logos, similar concepts. For instance, I am an animal lover. I have four cats, how can I not be one? Anyway, I saw a button a few years ago that parodied the “I Heart Something” shirts. Instead of the letter “I” and the graphical depiction of the Valentine Heart it was the letter “I” and the graphical representation of a playing card Club Suit and then a picture of a baby seal. In essence, “I Club Seals.” Crude and possibly offensive, but a clever take on the whole “I heart” genre of designs.

Oh, come on, how can you be that offended by that? I’m not advocating poaching and whaling and all that horrible behavior. I’m just making light of situation. Geez. Where was I?

Right, what I don’t like about being a Shopkeeper. Designing is tough. Anybody can just slap a bunch of words on a shirt, or even a picture that represents words. but to truly think up clever or unique designs takes talent and time. Again, that’s why I do a preliminary search on any idea I come up with before I take the time to go and design it. The other problem with that is that sometimes when we attempt to parody or lampoon certain themes we tend to forget the policies put in place by the administrators of the site. For instance, I did two other silhouette iSomething type of designs. One lampooned Bernie Madoff with his facial likeness a silhouette and his white hair and white lapels from his shirt take the place of the headphones in most of those ads. I simply adorned the image with the word “ iStole.” If you do a search on Bernie Madoff there are currently 92 different designs based on him being a crook or part of Wall Street’s crookedness. Mine never names him in person nor shows his picture. The Content Usage Police nailed me for it. The reason was the “Right of Publicity clause makes it unlawful to use another's identity for commercial advantage without permission. A person's "identity" includes, for example, his look, voice, name, nickname, professional name, and other distinctive characteristics. For example, the "Right of Publicity prohibits you using the picture of a celebrity without authorization on your merchandise.” Now, I can totally be fine with that if I hadn’t seen so many instances of designs based off his likeliness. I opted to get rid of any physical resemblance to Madoff and go with the more obvious of referential parodies.

Another case of supposed infringement was another silhouette design with a drawing of the girl from Night of the Living Dead. Part of her face and the collar from her shirt is in white and the only words on the image is iHurt, which is the only line the character has in the movie. Ok, first off, I should probably stop doing silhouette designs. I get it. It’s a little dated. Secondly, the movie Night of the Living Dead is in the public domain. You can legally download it from some website. What happened was that Romero didn’t properly secure the rights back in the 1960’s and the film slipped into the public domain. When he and John Russo parted ways, later, it opened the door for countless non-canonical sequels, such as the Return of the Living Dead series and other bad “Dead” movies. So, the original is up for grabs. So, I did a search and found several designs based on her character from the movie. However, my design was once again nailed by the Content Police. Why? Their reasoning “Although the copyright might have expired you are still using the likeness of the actor which you cannot do unless they have provided you with an authorization for commercial resale.”

Again, I am willing to abide by that but since there are designs which utilize media stills from the movie, including the likeness of actors without their permission such as Judith O’Dea and Russell Streiner, I volleyed back showing examples and they still didn’t budge. The only saving grace to this is that the likeness in question belongs to Kyra Schon who sells stuff on CafePress from her website using her image as Karen Cooper. That’s why I didn’t fight it when they shut me down the second time. Still, there are a few out there with her likeness and the other cast members which infuriates me. I am not willing to jeopardize my store account because of this. That’s why I kind of classify this as the second ranked annoyance with CafePress.

Ok, so, that’s it for this long winded update. Stay tuned for more tales from the Shopkeeper.

CafePress Premium Store Updates

It has been an exhausting week. First off, today is the day of Mongo’s birth…..which I’ve been trying to fly under the radar with but still people find out and wish me a Happy Birthday. Not that I mind, but I try not to be too outgoing on this day because I may not be in a good mood and why dash someone’s well wishes with my wishy washy well being?

That being said, my wife thinks that I am obsessed with the new store. Well, it’s hard to get up and running, especially during a trial period, so that you can maximize any selling opportunities before they start charging you for your premium store.

On a positive note, I sold another shirt. This little number was inspired by those Spencer Gifts tees with 13 different pictures depicting an act or emotion of the character like Anger, Hunger, Happy, etc. Mix that with the Zombie theme and you basically get the same picture for each mood.

I had to include ennui as it is just too funny to think of a zombie that way.

Now, I added that design on March 3rd and within 2 days, I sold one. Again, I don’t make that much off of each shirt, but it helps boost the visibility of the design early on and will maybe generate more sales. It came from the “Marketplace” which means someone searched a keyword that led them to my shirt, rather than they stumbled into my store and bought something off the rack, as it were.

In that regard, I’ve done some rework on the store, finally. I used the basic template and structure to get things up and running, but as I add designs and products for those designs, I find myself having a hard time managing all these products in one place. Now, being in the job I currently am, I am very conscious towards scrolling and clicks to the center of a tootsie pop. If someone searches CafePress for keywords that lead to my items, so be it, but that is only half the battle. You might also get people wandering into your store and the further they are from a selection means the further you are from a sale. If you have some good marketing skills you can drive customers into your store from outside CafePress’ website. In that case, the better your organization is, the better you can fight a two front battle.

When I first opened the store, I wasn’t thinking ahead. Oh, I’ll throw up a couple of designs and add some shirts and that’s it. But what I found was that you need to constantly be thinking and working ideas to see which produces results. If you have a niche store, selling unique designs, you probably don’t have to do as much work. Simply add a new design every so often, throw it on some products and wait. But, if your brain is constantly going, like mine, you want to try and capture everything. Hey, I just thought of a funny design, I need to go work on that. Soon, you have 15 designs. Oooh, I want that to be in different colors for the dark shirts. Take those 15 designs and multiply by that by how many colors you want to display.

Here’s a prime example. I have a store section called, “Insert Coin.” This is basically where I’ve put all my designs that are based on or inspired by video games. Being a child of the Atari Age, I thought it would be cool to capture some of those pop culture kernels of cheesy goodness and “make some shirt.” I had three ideas which I thought were clever. So far, I’ve only gotten to one. The other two are going to be awhile, because my first design spawned three more related designs and three colors for each.

Based off the old Adventure game, I put the dragons on individual shirts. Clean and simple recreations drawn on a transparent background should be easy. Let’s face it, the Atari was not that advanced, recreating a blocky dragon that looks like a duck is easy. However, there are three distinct dragons in the game, Yellow – Yorgle, Green – Grindle, and Red- Rhindle. Now, I have three colored designs on 15 or so shirts. Then, the other two designs I had for the dragons had to be produced the same way. Now, my section was very crowded with all these dragon shirts and my poor Keytar Hero shirts were lost in the shuffle. Rearranging the store to stagger the designs on each style shirt style caused any customer to have to scroll through a lot of dragons to find a Keytar Hero shirt that they may want.

Rhindle, the meanest of all three dragons.

This is where my work experience comes in to play. If I break up the section into designs. I can then have the front of the Insert Coin section showcase the individual design. If they click on that design, they can go to a section of those products and instead of scrolling through multiple designs, now they are scrolling through multiple products with the same design. In essence, I’ve created a basic shop all over again and imported it into a premium hierarchy. Remember, in your basic shops, you are allowed one design per product but multiple products per one design. I can’t believe I didn’t see this concept sooner. If I were to create different basic shops, like I used to, I would follow the same pattern. So, if I follow that model, managing my products will be a lot easier.

Now, whenever I come up with an idea for a shirt, I build the section, first. Add a design to the section and then import all of the shirt styles from another section. This keeps me from having to go through and choose each one the list. Then, I can now check all and change the name, description, and image on the shirts in bulk. With each section devoted to a design instead of a theme, this frees me from having to scroll down through 30 or so shirts checking which ones I want to change. It also makes it easier to manage the markups and color choices. Some designs don't work well on dark shirts, so I have to go back and choose those to change the image to an inverted color scheme so that they'll show up. This came into play with my Wii-knee shirts. Apparently, there is a report that Wii related injuries have been cropping up involving gamers' knees. How could I resist?

The drawn outline shows up OK on a white t-shirt.


But it would have been lost on a dark shirt, so an inverted image is used.


Just in case, I also included a design with just the phrase.

That's all for now. I still have many designs to try and get into the store, but I am just about out of trial time, so the quicker the better. Now, I'm paying $5.00 a month and as of today, I have about three months paid up with sales. Hopefully, soon, a profit will be made. More later.

Mongo Angry! Mongo Smash! Mongo Made a Little Cash!

I'm interrupting the flow of my posts to give a big shout out to the person who bought one of my shirts at the Mongo Store. I just happened to notice that I had a bit o' cash in my account from GetMongo! The item purchased was a lovely black sweatshirt with the scowl and catchphrase emblazoned underneath.

You can find lots more products by going to my store, GetMongo. We got shirts, caps, bibs for the babies, boxer shorts, mugs, etc. "Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the real money from the blog is made!"

In any case, other than a blatant ad to schlep products, I was just happy to have someone buy one. So, to the guy who bought my sweatshirt, thanks! Now, tell your friends.

Mongo Out!