 It all started with a spider.
Well, actually, it all started with a spider drawing.
Well now that we think about it, it actually all started with an overdue chiropractic bill.
 Ill-adjusted (that’s a chiropractor joke, folks – sometimes you just have to walk through that door) Australian e-mail guerilla aficionado David Thorne bravely addressed this overdue bill by sending a personally-crafted drawing of a 7-legged spider (some might call it “defective;” we call it art) as compensation. This back-and-forth exchange didn’t, regrettably, get him out of his bill (art valuation is so subjective). The e-mails did however make him groovily e-famous, putting him in hallowed company with likes of RatherGood and Beached As and the Flying Spaghetti Monster – namely, as an insider T-shirt joke among those of us who simply spend far too much time on the interwebs (a series of tubes). The spider first made an appearance on T-shirts last year and has been adorning the chests of snarky e-mail fans ever since.
We too had the distinct pleasure of an intriguing e-mail exchange with David Thorne (and a spider drawing exchange, to be entirely truthful), and as it happens seems we’re not alone. David now has a book out (with the rather jaunty title “The Internet is a Playground“), and so if you feel a need to immortalize the digital playground that binds us all together, hey – buy the book. It’s funny. And it gives you an excuse to doodle spiders with a questionable limb count.
We recently asked David 5 Very Important & Investigative Questions to get to the bottom of this offbeat merchandising success story. Here is our official 1-part, 5 question interview:
1. CP: Do you believe that the 8th leg of the spider is worth more than any individual of the 7?
DT: Surprisingly enough, every day I am sent emails with an attachment of the missing leg from people thinking they are the first to do so. I now have enough collected to make several hundred spiders. If each of those was actually worth the original, I would have enough money to quit my job and devote my time to developing my idea for a television series about a talking car that fights crime.
2. CP: How has your CafePress shop changed your life?
DT: The extra spending money each month has come in quite handy. Not that long ago, I worried a lot about paying the bills, having food in the fridge and even buying my son a birthday present. Now that I can afford decent drugs, these things no longer concern me at all.
 3. CP: Why did you write a book?
DT: There was certain content on the website that had to be removed or amended due to legal reasons. This did not apply to the book which annoyed some and amused me. I also had a few people at the time telling me that it would be great if the content was in book form so they could give it to people they don’t like.
4. CP: Have you seen Jane since your coy email exchange?
DT: No, I have not been back to that chiropractor and will never go to another. It is a well known fact that the medical test for becoming a qualified chiropractor is to sing as much of the ‘hip bone is connected to the thigh bone’ song as you can remember. This test can be completed online or by mail.
5. CP: Why is Australia so freaking far away from everything else?
DT: Although Australia is well known for its native pandas and snow capped mountains, its large volume of New Zealand immigrants, spiders the size of small children and khaki wearing crocodile wrestlers means that the distance from other countries is probably best for all. The only country worse, and thankfully even further away, is New Zealand.
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So if you want to support David’s effort to improve his attitude and overall worldview via abundant self-medication, buy the book. And if you just want to enjoy some free laughs, check out the 27bslash6 website.
 This month, CafePress turns 10. Woo-hoo! What started as a garage-based start-up in San Leandro, California has grown into a global corporation with locations in San Mateo, California, Louisville, Kentucky and has international websites in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. (After all, unleashing the power of human expression can only go so far in a garage.)
A few words from Fred, our CEO and Co-founder:
“Ten years ago we launched CafePress, and while our most-popular designs may change from day-to-day (depending on the latest talk around water coolers), one thing remains the same: CafePress is a where people come to express their unique personalities. I can’t begin to thank everyone enough for making CafePress such a fun destination for self-expression.”
How about a few fun stats to put it all in perspective?
- We’ve amassed over nine million registered users who make and sell unique T-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons, mugs and more – as a matter of fact they created an online catalog of over 250 million different products.
- On average, the CafePress community adds over 250,000 new products to CafePress everyday. That’s over 10,000 an hour, almost 200 a minute – three new products every second! That’s a whole lot of self-expression!
- Next stop, Paris? If you were to line up all of the T-shirts CafePress has sold, they would stretch from San Francisco to London.
- Wow, talk about sticker shock! With all the bumper stickers CafePress has sold, you could wallpaper the Washington Monument. Six times.
- No laundry until Friday? If you bought one of each available CafePress kid’s garments, you’d have four outfits for every 10-year old in America.
How did we celebrate here in the office? In our own way of course!
We celebrated ’round these parts with a choice of three fun activities: baking class, Go Kart racing, and sailing. All smiles and in our special 10 birthday T-shirts, we boarded our respective buses to take us to our destinations where we spent a few hours enjoying our event. The we all came back together at the Steelhead Brewery for lunch, games, and more fun.
Check out the photos below.
Kitchen on Fire baking class:
“Drinking champagne for breakfast is not generally a workplace activity, but what better way to ring in 10 years with fellow CP’ers? Baking focaccia with the CFO calls for bubbles – especially when she brings the bubbles.” Leslie, CafePress Blogger – 6 years
 
   
Go Kart racing:
“We work fast and we play fast but unlike the track, in the office I don’t have co-workers slamming me into the wall. Well not unless it’s bagel day. Can’t wait to see what the next 10 laps brings here at CafePress.” Randy, Customer Service Director – 3 1/2 years
 
   
Sailing on the Bay:
“Our morning sailing adventure started off on a foggy note, and we were stuck at the dock for an hour waiting for the morning fog to clear. But once we left, we were treated to a great trip on the bay. Looking out over San Francisco, it was fun to think about how far we’ve come and all the opportunity ahead of us. It continues to be a great journey.” Maheesh, founder – 10 years, since the beginning!
 
   
Celebrating 10 years – the CafePress team!
Thanks so much to the CafePress Community that’s made it all possible! Happy Anniversary to you, too.
 With the Balloon Boy hoax having taken over the airwaves for a week, inspiring our design community to get busy making Balloon Boy T-shirts and such, it seems only fitting that The Great Balloon Boy Saga Hoax be our third Halloween costume suggestion this week.
There are a few variations of this costume, and all can involve a groovy T-shirt.
Costume 1: Balloon Boy
What you need:
If you’re an overachiever and you have friends that want to be part of a group costume, you can easily outfit the Heene parents with some relevant T-shirts and have your other friends dress as the paparazzi. Or reporters. Or Wolf Blitzer.
Extra bonus points: build a cardboard TV screen frame and carry it around, posing with reporters behind it at random.
Extra extra bonus points: actually go out on the town with Wolf Blitzer.
Costume 2: The Balloon Boy Saga
Carrying around a mylar balloon and an empty box all night can be so cumbersome, and it takes away your drinking hand. With 6 simple T-shirts, you (or you and 5 friends) can be the balloon boy saga. Either line up together, or if you’re solo just layer them (it’s chilly on Halloween anyway – layers are good!) and then, at random, blow a whistle* to let people know that you’re about to dramatically re-enact the balloon boy hoax.
What you’ll need:
- A collection of T-shirts (below is a suggested narrative, but you have lots to choose from)
- *a whistle (but only if you want to call attention to periodic, dramatic re-enactments)
- friends (but only if you want to share the glory)
     
 “Saw VI” hit theaters this weekend, just in time to freak you out for Halloween. For you “Saw” fans, we have some appropriately creepy Saw T-shirts for ya.
This week on the blog, we’ll be suggesting interesting costumes that you might fashion from CafePress products. Today we’ll note that we think that wearing a spooooky T-shirt should count as holiday-appropriate Halloween gear, and let’s face it: not everyone is down with silly costumes. So if you’re not feeling the commitment you made to your friends to be the cast of Scooby Doo (getting stuck being Scrappy Doo is, admittedly, the worst lot of the bunch – poor you), consider talking your other 5 friends into representing the Saw franchise. They can always save their Scooby Doo outfits for the next 70’s party.
After all, a T-shirt is a lot more comfortable than a big fuzzy costume head. Don’t worry – painting your van like the Mystery Machine was still a good idea. Really.
 The Astro Boy movie opens in theaters this Friday – and if you enjoy animated features, space stories or classic good vs. evil tales, this is a good weekend movie for ya.
If you’re wondering what one wears to the opening weekend of a futuristic animated feature, look no further: official Astro Boy T-shirts and other groovy gear is available in the Astro Boy shop.
Remember, it’s always cold in movie theaters and it’s flu season. So bundle up in a hip Astro Boy sweatshirt, stuff yourself full of popcorn and enjoy!
 Obama’s surprise Nobel Peace Prize win last week created an unprecedented uproar of conflicting popular opinion, and the designs keep coming in as the debate over the award continues.
 As the Nobel committee staunchly stands behind their decision, public opinion flares wildly on both sides. To date the CafePress community has brought about 7,000 Obama Nobel Peace Prize products to life – 57% supporting and 43% opposing the prize.
Perhaps more significant, though, is the foresight of the CafePress community. The Obama/peace theme isn’t a new one ’round these parts; we saw this trend from the get-go when Obama merchandise started to hit the catalogue. Since early 2008, customers have flocked to merchandise featuring the iconic Obama “O” transformed into a peace sign, as well as with the similar messages of “hope” and “change.” With over 180,000 Obama/Peace products made before the award, the feeling that Obama would be the President to leave a legacy of peace speaks loud and clear on the T-shirts. This flavor of candidate messaging was a new one; a search for peace-related President George W. Bush merchandise turns up 375,000 products, mostly displaying ironic messages of war and impeachment.
As the battle of public opinion rages on, we’ll continue to see folks inserting themselves into the social consciousness of this historical moment (and others to come) by making bolder, louder statements via the almighty T-shirt.
 The bar code turns 57 today – which isn’t the big 6-0 or anything, but it did give Google a groovy way to cause a big to-do about this now-momentous occasion.
So happy birthday, bar code. And well done, Doodler.
We’ve known about the bar code’s popularity for some time now; a search for “barcode” reveals 150,000 products, which is three times the amount of bacon products. It would seem that the bar code has a uniquely universal appeal, inspiring everyone from plumbers to porn stars to gay folks and conspiracy theorists. Heck, even the dog is a fan of the bar code.
So yes, you heard it here first: the bar code is more popular than bacon. (The dog would like to remind you, though, that the canine population has a differing opinion.)
To that end, we’ve chosen a few interesting bar code designs to share with y’all…
 People ask me a lot what it’s like to work at CafePress, and when I saw buzzcowboy walk into the building today with the Pocket full of Bacon t-shirt, I just had to take a picture to show you. Yes, we really do wear CafePress t-shirts around the office (especially buzz, who will wear pretty much anything that makes her laugh).
I asked her to pose for a picture and then another employee told her to go get a frying pan. But since we don’t have a stove at the office all she could find was a spatula. Then I found the green piggy bank to go with her awesome shirt. She decided the “Feed your passion” poster was the perfect backdrop, and here’s the result.
It really seems like everyone loves bacon – a simple search for bacon on the Marketplace gives you a result of 50,700 bacon themed products. So I asked buzzcowboy whether her shirt or real bacon was better and she chose her shirt. Here’s why (from the desk of buzzcowboy):
- It’s organic!
- It’s cruelty-free
- It’s more seasonally-appropriate autumn-wear than real bacon
- It has far less fat and far more fiber than real bacon
- It lasts a lot longer
Maybe bacon is the new black this fall.
 Speaking of ninjas and shirts that make you go hmm…
Hmm.
Mimes and ninjas are, indeed, silent. And ’tis true that cholesterol, lacking a voice box or any sound-producing qualities, is silent. But some might argue that cholesterol doesn’t enter your system of its own accord. Cholesterol needs a vehicle to gain access to its victim, and by taking into account the vehicle as the assassin and the cholesterol as the weapon you must then consider the delicious sizzle of a fatty burger hitting a hot skillet, thus making cholesterol less a silent killer than it is a fragrant, mouth-watering, sizzling killer that distracts its victims with an all-fronts sensory overload attack.
So be forewarned: the sound of frying bacon are the dulcet tones of a silent killer, hiding behind the snap crackle pop of melting fat.
As to whether a secret band of mime and ninja assassins are out there targeting their next victims, well… be afraid.
 The latest in “shirts that make you go hmm…”
Hmm. We like to imagine it goes something like this:
Kenji is a skilled ninja. He lives his life to protect the world as we know it, fighting evil and upholding the sacred code of the ninja warrior. Right as his wife goes into labor, a fleet of robo-dragons and their genetically-altered monkey minions invade major cities and threaten to take over the world!
Kenji rushes his wife to the hospital where, unbeknownst to him, a particularly nasty… er, fleet?… of robo-dragons has already taken over the ER! The doctors and nurses are in a panic, wondering what do do and thinking “If only we had a ninja here to save us…”
Both doctor and ninja rush into the hallway, looking for help.
And thus the exchange above.
Hmm… (your alternate scenarios are, of course, welcome)
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