Fans of “It’s Me or the Dog” will remember Stains the Hypnodog, who made such an impression on his television debut that he was featured on “The Soup” as well.

If you haven’t seen the show: “It’s Me or the Dog” is essentially the canine version of Supernanny, give or take a leash.

Stains the Hypnodog was featured hanging tough in a training exercise wherein British dog trainer Victoria Stilwell held a plate of cupcakes in front of him to teach him about self-control.

Stains’ pained, hypnotic gaze made him an instant hit with fans, most of whom would probably give a similar look if some random British lady invaded their household, stuck a plate of cupcakes in front of their noses and then told them they couldn’t have any with a clipped “AWAY!” command.

And so this episode illustrates both how to deal with a dog who sneaks human food, and why Victoria Stilwell is not the host of “The Biggest Loser.”

While the counter-surfing Stains didn’t get to eat a cupcake that day, things are looking up for him: he has his own website now, and his human parents have created an online Stains shop for him as well.

Stains himself is the recipient of a Fantasy T-Wearer award today, with the “I Eat Carbs” shirt at right.

For those of you who didn’t get to see this classic canine moment, here it is.  Disclaimer: no dogs or cupcakes were harmed during the filming of this episode, but a sandwich was horribly maimed.

A boy in India married a dog recently to prevent tiger attacks – which is arguably a better reason than marrying someone for money or fame or any number of other reasons that folks get married.  And then divorced.

The boy is from the Munda tribe, which feels that any tooth growth before 2 years of age makes an infant prone to being attacked by wild animals.  The marriage was undertaken with the intent to ward off evil spirits.

No worries for any potential brides of the human variety: the marriage will not interfere with any future marriage plans.  Or so say the humans; the dog has not been available for public comment.

The male dog in question belonged to the neighbor, and celebrated his big day by ditching out on his new groom to be a gadabout around town.

And so we award this special dog 2 Fantasy T-Wearer Awards, both present and future.  May the shirt above honor his special day, and may the one at right help him cope with the reality that, once his human husband discovers human girls, it’s likely that he’ll be Just Not That Into Him.

A Boca Raton couple has welcomed a new puppy into their household recently.  Well, sort of a new puppy.  The pup is a clone of their yellow Lab Lancelot, who died at 11 of cancer.  Ed and Nina Otto spent just over $150K to have their dog cloned by the Bay Area company BioArts, who sent Lancelot’s DNA to South Korea.  Lancelot Encore was born 10 weeks ago, the result of inserting Lancelot’s DNA into the egg of a Korean dog, then inseminating another Korean dog with the fertilized egg.

While this all may sound like something out of a sci-fi movie, the puppy is alive and well and has just moved home to Florida.  The Ottos have 9 other dogs and 2 cats; no word on whether any of the other pets have told Lancelot Encore of his unusual beginnings, but if “Charlotte’s Web” and “Babe” have taught us anything, it’s that there’s always That Guy in the group who’s gonna give the new kid a hard time with a harsh dose of reality.  Then again, they say that dogs live in the present.

Interesting from our end is that we have a number of cloning t-shirts and anti-cloning t-shirts, and we even some designs that deal specifically with cloning dogs.  And that of course means that someone out there created some cloning Dog T-shirts, giving Lancelot Encore and any future cloned pups to come a lot of nice wardrobe choices.

And so it is that Lancelot Encore becomes the first dog, cloned or otherwise, to win a Fantasy T-Wearer award today.  May he enjoy the Superclone dog shirt at right.  (We don’t know how the rest of the pack feels, but we’ll go out on a limb and assume that at least one of the cats would rather put him in a different outfit.)

While cloning overall raises a lot of controversial questions, we’ll leave you with this puzzler: if a cloned dog chews up the furniture, who’s fault is it?

A California teenager now serves as a poster child for unlimited texting by sending 14,528 texts in a month.

Whether that poster is lauding the massive savings brought on by having an unlimited texting plan or warning parents that their children may develop a text addiction due to the unfettered, glorious freedom of an unlimited texting plan is subjective.

The 13-year-old girl managed to text herself silly by sending an average 484 text messages per day.  This breaks down to about 30 messages an hour, assuming she slept for 8 hours (unknown, and perhaps a bad assumption).  What’s not listed is how many phone calls she made, and how many texts might have been avoided by (a) making a phone call or (b) going over to a friend’s house to have an in-person conversation.

Without an unlimited plan her texting habit would have cost Dad around $3000.  As it is, the 440-page bill was enough to make the logging industry look good by comparison, and has led her parents to limit her texting after dinner.

On the plus side, her new texting restrictions will prevent this one teenager from unduly influencing the results of American Idol.  No word on whether her efforts were instrumental on keeping Sanjaya in the running for so long, but we have our suspicions.

In any case, we award this sore-fingered teen a Fantasy T-Wearer award with the “World’s Best TXT MSSNGER” t-shirt, at left.

We were going to award her a mug, but that might interfere with her texting.

Perhaps you already have your perfect Obama t-shirt, but you’re looking for something a little different to celebrate the inauguration – and an Obama thong isn’t really your style.

No worries: as of tomorrow, it’s geek chic time with Marvel’s new edition of Spider-Man #583, Spidey Meets the President.

The plot centers around Obama and Spiderman facing off with a supervillain at the inaugural ceremonies, after the ever-astute Peter Parker notices that there’s an Obama impostor trying to… well, I don’t want to spoil the ending.  Let’s just say he’s a bad dude.

Marvel was compelled to write this story after the President-elect told reporters that he collected Spider-Man comic books as a child, thus earning him the title “Nerd-in-Chief” by Spider-Man editors.

Past presidents have also been featured in comic books – Nixon, FDR, JFK and Bush have all had cameo appearances, with FDR’s issue centering around him cheering on the superheroes as they bravely fought Hitler.

And so we award Obama a Fantasy T-Wearer award this week, with the Comics Code Authority t-shirt here at left.

You can of course choose your own Fantasy T-shirt for this occasion, so if you find a better one feel free to holler.  The comics selection alone is worth a browse, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Still-But-Just-Barely-Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was impeached today by the Illinois House of Representatives.

Blagojevich is accused of various abuses of power, most notably putting Obama’s Senate Seat for sale and shaking down both the Chicago Tribune and a Children’s hospital.

One might think that an arrest of this nature combined with taped evidence, a call from his party and the President-elect to resign and a subsequent impeachment might lead some politicians to call it a day, but Blagojevich has shown that he’s anything but a quitter.  He continues to deny any wrongdoing, and it would seem that he’ll keep showing up for work until the Illionois State Senate proceeds with their own impeachment trial – or until Patrick Fitzgerald gets impatient and shows up with a stage hook.  (Though one might assume that a wad of cash with a sly wink in his direction would work too.)

Our Blagojevich t-shirt collection has continued to grow as the Still-Governor has continued to retain his office, and although he’s already won a Fantasy T-Wearer award we’re compelled to give him another one today.

And so it is that the first Fantasy T-Wearer award of 2009 goes to the ever-tenacious Rod Blagojevich, with the “Never Say Die” pirate hoodie (since it’s winter and all) at left.

Just when you thought the auto industry’s $35 billion bailout request sounded astronomical; when Blagojevich arrived on the scene as a new shoe-in for the heavily contended 2008 ClownLouse of the Year award; when we’d kind of almost forgotten about bailing out the banks earlier this year… Wall Street took back the headlines with news of the largest Ponzi (pyramid) scheme in history, to the tune of $50 billion dollars.

Bernard Madoff, former Chairman of the NASDAQ, was arrested last week for allegedly engineering an investment fraud scheme that may date back to the 1970′s.   How someone managed to perpetrate such a long-standing and far-reaching fraud scheme raises serious questions about the efficacy of the SEC, which seems to have been asleep at the switch an awful lot in recent history.  While sending Martha Stewart to jail may be a shining moment for investment fraud investigators, that daring nab is slightly overshadowed by fiascos like Enron, the Bear Stearns bailout, the mortgage crisis, and – last but most assuredly not least – Bernard Madoff.

Madoff was turned in by his sons after he admitted to them that his investment advisory business was “a giant Ponzi scheme.”  Although both sons worked for Madoff’s company, it seems they were in the dark on the fraud… until Madoff decided to tell them about it, that is.

While many would assume that Madoff would be in custody, he is instead back at home in Manhattan with his wife Ruth.  But he has a curfew, so apparently bilking investors for $50 billion dollars gets you the same punishment as taking the skinny kid’s lunch money on the playground.  No word on whether he was made to stand in the corner before heading home.

And so it is that Bernard Madoff wins a Fantasy T-Wearer award, with the “Cook The Books” sweatshirt here at left.  And we’ll give a second award to SEC Chairman Christopher Cox for, quite literally, passing the buck.  Or $50 million of them.

Congratulations, gentlemen.  You’ve certainly earned it.

Wearing fitted pants isn’t just a fashion tip anymore; as New York Giant Plaxico Burress taught us all this weekend, it’s a safety tip, too.

Burress is in hot water after accidentally shooting himself in the leg in Manhattan’s LQ nightclub, where he’d been detained by security after telling them he was packing heat.  Explaining that his bling needed a nickel-plated bodyguard, Burress was allowed to enter the club with his gun.

Unfortunately, Burress ostensibly doesn’t believe in engaging a safety.  Nor does he apparently find a gun holster to be a fashionable nightclub firearm accessory, as it would seem he was instead carrying his weapon in his waistband.

Gravity and clumsiness did the rest, as the gun slipped down his pants leg, Burress fumbled to catch it, and he shot himself in the thigh during the process.

On the bright side for Giants fans, Burress is arguably more skilled at handling footballs than he is at handling handguns.  On the not-so-bright side, Burress just signed a $35 million dollar contract with the Giants and is now sidelined due to both a pulled hamstring and, more recently, a bullet hole in his leg.

While his future with the Giants is an unknown, it’s safe to assume that Burress has dethroned Dick Cheney as the least likely candidate to replace Charleton Heston as NRA celebrity spokesperon.

And so we award Plaxico Burress a Fantasy T-Wearer award, wearing the “Guns Backfire” t-shirt seen here at right.

You may notice a slight difference in the CafePress website today.  Things are a bit cleaner, a little more natural, a lot more fun and a whole lot less green.

Not that we’re losing the green, a’course.  But it’s taking a back seat to our most colorful design asset of all: your designs.

And so this week’s Fantasy T-Wearer is: the CafePress website!  Oh, if only our website could wear a t-shirt… hmm, perhaps our friendly IT guys would let me put a sticker on the servers… [insert sound of horrified engineers gasping here.]

So anyway, we hope you enjoy the new look – after all, you’re the ones who designed it!

The third and final Presidential debate covered the economy, healthcare, taxation and the VP choices – but none of them were afforded as much attention as Joe the Plumber.

McCain mentioned Joe 21 times and Obama was good for 5 mentions, for a grand total of 26 mentions for Joe the Plumber.  By contrast,  Iraq came up 6 times.  Joe came up more that the economy (16 times) and outshone mention of Sarah Palin and Joe Biden as well.  Not surprisingly, we saw Joe the Plumber designs hit the system mid-debate and within a few hours Joe had about 1/4 the content of all plumber designs.

Joe Wurzelbacher (his last name isn’t “The Plumber” after all) became an unlikely hero for the McCain campaign after having a discussion with Obama on the campaign trail about the Illinois Senator’s proposed tax plan.  McCain used Joe as an example of a hardworking American (dare we say Joe Six Pack?) who would pay more taxes under the Obama plan.

Obama countered by repeating what he’s been saying throughout the debates:  That if you make less than $200,000 a year, your taxes will decrease.  This works out to 98% of small business and 95% of America, making some wonder why Joe the Plumber is being held up as an everyman if he’s in the top 5% of small business owners.

As it turns out, Joe the Plumber doesn’t actually make $250,000 a year and is eligible for the Obama tax cuts.  It would also seem that Joe would be eligible for the Obama tax cuts if he purchased the business he referenced, as gross receipts (the $250,000 – $280,000) is different than taxable income.

It seems Joe was concerned about the principle behind Obama’s plan.  He worries that if he someday makes that much money he’ll be penalized for it, and he’s concerned that Obama might at some point lower the taxation thresholds.

Despite being made an instant celebrity thanks to McCain, Joe won’t endorse either candidate and is keeping his vote private.

Because that’s the American way.