Special Blog Post:
The Semi-Annual Fund-Raiser Sale
Every Friday, starting today, a new design will be offered for four days only; on the Tuesday after the design is made available, that bumper sticker will be pulled, and a new design will become available on the Friday following. At left are low-resolution thumbnails of the bumper stickers. The first one is DRAFT REPUBLICANS, and it is available from now through Tuesday, August 2. The second one is HE LIED TO START A WAR, IMPEACH HIM, and that one will be available from Friday, August 5 through Tuesday, August 9. The third one is JUST SAY NO TO MEN WHO AREN'T PRO-CHOICE, and that one will be available from Friday, August 12 through Tuesday, August 16. The fourth and last one is IF YOU VOTED FOR GEORGE BUSH, THANKS, YOU ASSHOLE, and that one will be available from Friday, August 19 through Tuesday, August 23. Depending upon their popularity, some or all of these bumper stickers may be offered again during the next semi-annual fundraiser near the end of the year. And don't forget to check out the other high-quality merchandise available only at The Dark Wraith Forums e-store.The Dark Wraith thanks you for your support.
Published 7/29/2005 01:12:00 AM
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Good morning, Dark Wraith.
Donations are not never accepted. <--- is that what you meant to write?
I'm thinking of getting one of your fine mugs, too. Hey, what about that calendar? What's the status? Huh? Huh?
It's too early to spend money, right now, but as Ahnold is fond of saying, "I'll be back," later, today.
Thank you, Old White Lady. As I've pointed out in the past, I cannot for the life of me edit my own writing worth a darn.
I'm dealing with the calendar issue right now. I've contacted an attorney about the implications of Title 18, Section 2257; but it appears to me to be a pretty grim situation if I want to stay strictly within the law: the documentation that constitutes proof of age of models is clearly designed, in my judgment, to be intrusive to the goal of suppressing erotic graphical presentations or anything that some thuggish government bureaucrat/law enforcement type might deem as such.
I'm working on it, though.
The Dark Wraith prefers to stay miles away from giving the government—especially this government—an excuse to kick his ass twelve different ways to the slammer.
Good morning, Dark Wraith.
My order has been entered.
Now, about delivery. You are going to delivery the goodies, yourself, aren't you?
Now, don't you be waiting until I go to work to deliver! and for heaven's sake, don't you be creeping up to the door, dropping the stuff, ringing the doorbell, and running back to your Jeep!
Let me know when to expect you and I'll have coffee ready:)
Might we make suggestions for the bumper stickers??
Fire away, Lab Kat.
Great graphics Dark Wraith!
Much better than mine (darn it!)
But I am not sure about the "no pussies" thing...Am I missing the point or something? Sorry to be so dense.
Pissed On Politics and Big Brass Alliance Store
I'm partial to "Oh, evolve!"
God bless you, PoliShifter, I was concerned that the allusion would escape someone, but I feared no one would speak up to ask.
Think about it this way. Suppose your female friend owns a cat, and you quite like her cat. However, one day, you and the cat go out to the woods to frolic, and when the two of you return, the cat has acquired a terrible infestation of fleas.
Your female friend, quite dismayed by this, wants you to go to the store with her to buy a shampoo that will rid her cat of the fleas. You, however, become quite upset by this, telling her that you do not support the use of this admittedly very standard, approved treatment. You go so far as to say that such a problem as the one vexing this cat should be allowed to take its own course. "The fleas will leave the cat on their own within a year," you point out. "What you want to do is just not nature's way," you opine.
Well, your friend goes ahead, buys the shampoo, and takes care of the problem with the cat, despite what would otherwise have been a less difficult process had you provided some financial, emotional, and even ideological support.
Awhile later, feeling the need to go to the forest, once again, you invite the cat. Imagine, if you will, PoliShifter, what your female friend is going to have to say about this.
That's right: she's going to say, "No, since you don't believe in getting rid of unwanted fleas, you may not go to the forest with my cat."
Eventually, PoliShifter, you may come to understand that your relationship with that cat is predicated on a respect for its owner's right to remove unwanted fleas.
I shall leave it to you to coördinate the above story with the message of the bumpersticker.
The Dark Wraith has woven his tale.
??
I follow (basically), but MAN is that a labored explanation!
- oddjob
So basically if you are pro-life you get no bush...
That for the fable Dark Wraith.
Now I understand.
Maybe thats what all women should do.
"If you want to be pro-life then you can't touch my vagina"
There's always lesbianism and there's nothing wrong with it.
Dark Wraith - what a great lengthy explantion of the no cats logo on the bumper sticker. That was great!
Our mom would not allow us to go out to frolic in the woods with anyone..
Just meowing....
Good evening, CottonSaddieMango. Do as your mother says: there are lots of animals out there just looking for a chance to get some kitty-cats.
The Dark Wraith always escorts his own pets when they wander outside.
Oh, and by the way, PoliShifter, thank you for the compliment on the graphics.
(The trick is to avoid using Photoslop... er, Photoshop whenever and wherever possible.)
The Dark Wraith does love to do graphics.
Dark Wraith,
what do you use for graphics program?
Good evening, Lab Kat.
I would dearly love to do an "Oh, evolve!" bumper sticker, but that one has too many possibilities for getting the whoopee-doo litigated out of me for piracy issues, some of which could reach the level of accusations of out-and-out copyright violations. I haven't researched "Oh, evolve" with respect to copyright, but I have seen it before, and I'm pretty sure I saw it on a bumpersticker. That's enough to make me want to be a zillion miles from using it in the exactly the same way, non-transformatively, commercially, and without any parodic intent on the original usage.
Obviously, I cannot and would not render legal opinion for anyone else, but I do so for my own purposes as a matter of training, experience, and prudence. In some ways, I really am overly cautious (and in other ways, I scare myself with how incautious I can get sometimes). I'd probably even avoid selling goat burgers for fear Mr. Goat™ would take me to court, saying I had diminished the commercial value of his own Goat meat.
You know how litigious goats can be.
The Dark Wraith doesn't want to get trapped with that Goat in Judge Judy's chambers... she might paddle both of us!
Good evening, PoliShifter.
For the most part, I use Paint Shop Pro. I use Photoshop only when there is something I simply cannot do in another graphics program, but for the most part, I can accomplish most things a whole lot more quickly in something other than Photoshop (and I don't have to wait 'til the cows come home for the stupid program to launch).
I do use Photoshop for vector graphics, but with the greater acceptance of PNG format these days, some of the principal reasons for doing vector graphics have become moot. Not having to deal with the maddening frustrations of JPG format anymore, while not having to spend hours and hours in Photoshop fiddling with vector graphics, means being able to use a relatively simple graphics program that doesn't throw a bazillion windows in your face and make it a master's thesis-level task just to get a lettering set-up rendered, colorized, and set to a clean, publication-quality background. It also makes pre-flight a heckuva lot simpler.
Two years ago, a T-shirt screener with whom I was working on a school project just had a fit about having to have a "Photoshopped, vector graphics" version of the images for the front and back of the shirts.
A month ago, a new T-shirt screener with whom I was working took the PNGs I'd created in Paint Shop Pro, and I had store-quality shirts two days later.
Oh, yes, and the screener with whom I'd worked several Summers ago?—his line was disconnected when I tried to call him initially to do the work this Summer.
The Dark Wraith sees a lesson in there somewhere.
My experience with Adobe software suggests it's usually very powerful, and also very user-hostile.
- oddjob
I like that, OddJob: "user-hostile."
It almost has a marketing appeal to it... in a perverse sort of way. It kind of makes you feel butch if you're one of the few people who can actually make sense of it.
The Dark Wraith might even describe economics as "user-hostile" sometimes.
Especially when the econ. research data is being crunched deep in the bowels of SAS, right?
- oddjob
(THAT'S user-hostility!)
Well, hey, if a program can be "user-friendly", why can it not be "user-hostile"?
- oddjob
i really enjoyed your cat-tale.
it is always prudent to be wary of the revenuers.
checking with my accountant on whether or not i can afford some of your fine merchandise.
my cats, the gargles(gargoyles,aka...'punky and merlin) think the dough should go to catnip, although they do appreciate your cat-tales and cat-terwailing.:-)
Good morning, Lenin's Ghost.
If you want to hear some caterwauling, go over to the Old White Lady's blog, It's Morning Somewhere: she opened a bitchfest thread, so I decided to jump in.
Needless to say, it got real ugly, what with my story about the dog, the Bible, and the Black & Decker tools.
The Dark Wraith probably should have kept his heartache to himself.
Good afternoon, Dark Wraith.
I didn't exactly say your sad story was fiction, I was just pointing out some possible discrepancies (as I saw them).
Sometimes, I don't know when to shut up. :)
Oh yeah.. Thanks for reminding Cotton, Saddie, & Mango to do as I say. They don't always listen to me.....
Good afternoon, Old White Lady. For some reason, that reminds me of the old joke about the parrot whose owner, frustrated with his pet's obstinate behavior, mumbled, "Stupid bird," to which the parrot responded, "I can talk. Can you fly?"
The Dark Wraith finds claims of evolutionary hierarchies to be suspect.
Good morning, Dark Wraith.
I clicked the link on the banner at the BBS and it brought me right over here. That's Neato!
Good morning, Old White Lady.
The only problem is that it's sort of a "secret door" kind of trick about which only the insiders on the message board will know. On the other hand, maybe that's one of its greatest advantages.
The Dark Wraith can't decide.
thx for the tip, dark one.
on my way to the sight with the three wise felines (oldwhitelady)
Hello DW,
I have a bumper sticker suggestion. "Guns don't kill people. People kill people. With guns." Perhaps that's not original enough to keep you out of court, but I like it. Excellent cat story, BTW.
Good evening, Crabletta.
Thank you for the compliment on the cat story.
You're right about the "Guns Don't Kill People..." idea: it would get too close to a copyright infringement. I do, however, have one that's a very good twist on it that would pass originality muster.
I need to get an independent pipeline secured for bumper sticker production. Among the several problems I'll have—most of which are relatively easy to surmount, since I used to do these kinds of things when I was a consultant—is the fact that it's so darned cheap to get things made in China that it's just stupid: I'm here to tell you that the wholesale price differences just leave you thinking to yourself, 'This can't be right,' but it is.
The differences have always been there. Taiwan manufacturers used to knock me dead with how much lower their quotes were than their American counterparts' quotes for manufacturing consumer items; but the Chinese! My God, Crabletta.
It's one thing to talk about this from an academic/political standpoint, but it's a whole different world—one I lived in but had almost forgotten about—when you're seeing it from the business end.
Forgive the rambling. It's just that I have all these runs of bumper stickers and other items I want to do, and I need to decide whether I'm going to get it done, and get it done cheaply, or just limp along with this inefficient way I'm doing it right now.
The Dark Wraith didn't think he was going to end up getting back into the business side of business again in his lifetime.
Good afternoon Mr. Wraith (a late afternoon that is). I was wondering, do you get real time feedback from the store so you can see how sales are going at any point in time. Or do you have to check the next day for the prior day's totals, etc.?
I'm asking because I've not been involved in an online store (aside from buying, and not counting eBay) and am curious how business friendly a place like cafepress is to the seller.
On a different note, some folks might be out of town traveling and not have access to purchase their favorite sticker during the period it is available. Maybe you could consider offering all of them during one additional sales period, rather than having to wait until the end of the year?
Good evening, Mr. Goat.
CafePress is about as user friendly as you get for a merchant who cannot do the manufacturing, order processing, and fulfilling on his or her own.
If I could set up a merchant account, I could do the whole thing myself far more cheaply; and I've already written the software so I could get real-time data like nothing even CafePress can do. That having been said, CafePress is awfully impressive with providing real-time information.
Unfortunately, I would dearly love to offer every one of the items at the same time; however, CafePress doesn't permit that. One product can be offered in one graphic only. That's why I have to do the bumper stickers one after the other and kill the entire offer of bumper stickers and magnets and buttons for three days between graphics: that allows orders in progress with one graphic to clear the system; otherwise, orders for one graphic might go into production after the graphic the customer wanted had been pulled and another one was in the hopper to affix the prints on orders.
Now, I can have different graphics for different classes of products, but a single product can't be offered with a choice of different graphics.
That genuinely sucks, I know. If I could set up the merchant account, I could do the entire deal like I used to set up online stores for other companies. But that isn't going to happen for me.
Not, at least, in this lifetime.
The Dark Wraith finds entrepreneurial activity a little daunting sometimes.
Thanks for the answer. That is an unfortunate limitation on the graphics, especially since you want to limit your fundraising to short periods.
Wow, bumper sticker production is way complicated. If I ever get into the biz, I'll stick with CafePress.
I figured my suggestion was too derivative. Here is a complete original: W: Stay the eff* out of my uterus.
*I substitute the real thing for 'eff.'
Afternoon Wraith,
Looking forward to adorning my fridge.
Ever thought of offering one of these graphics on a dart board?
Good Morning Mr.Wraith,
I am curious about the restrictions on designs and merchandise. THe AmericaBlog store has multiple designs on everything from T-Shirts to stickers. Or is this a function of using a paid version of CafePress?
Stickers seem to come in a couple different shapes-an alternative to bumperstickers. Unless of course, my guess that there is a premium version that has a much greater variety of stuff means you are limited to what we see.
I'm going to try AGAIN to get CafePress to recognize my bankcard and let me order a mug.
Good Morning Dark Wraith,
It's simple to set up a merchant account - all you need is a bank account........Oh, I get it.
Oh well, staying off the grid has it's drawbacks. Must be a real pain when it comes time to pay your bills. I prefer online banking - billpay is the best thing since credit cards... I actually never have to think about it!
Good morning, Wild Clover.
The difference is, as you noted, the paid versus the free CafePress account. It wouldn't be cost-effective right now to do the fee-based version. Actually, it really wouldn't be cost-effective, anyway. I can construct an on-line store without breaking a sweat. In fact, I've had quite a number of people at a large, local community college who want me to offer a course in on-line catalog shop creation. To do it right, though, I'd have to make it a fairly serious course only for those who had background in things like CSS, MySQL databases, and other arcane matters of the backroom. Besides, like most colleges with which I deal these days, the Powers That Be just don't see the importance of all the "peripheral," Internet-related stuff. The schools are suffering such a degree of institutional rigor mortis: either it's hard-core programming and hardware courses, or it's Microsoft Office courses. The vast world of deployable, usable applications is left to beg.
The closest thing to fun I have is when, after I get students comfortable with writing VBS code, I tell them the secret, second meaning of "VBS": Virus Building Script. For the younger students, it takes, oh, about one second for the lights to come on about what "macroviruses" are.
I really, really shouldn't bring up things like that in a respectable classroom.
I really shouldn't.
The Dark Wraith is one day going to get his backside kicked for corrupting students.
Good morning, SB Gypsy.
Yes, staying below the radar has its drawbacks. Sometimes, I think to myself, "Boy, if people only knew what kinds of databases are being built and how vulnerable people are to the power of this financial deathgrip the banks have, especially with the Patriot Act and with the ways all of this information can be used and... and..."
Then, it occurs to me: people do know. At least many people have some greater or lesser degree of understanding. People aren't stupid. They do what they have to do to get by in a world that is, by its very nature, unfree. I need to stay off my pedestal about things like that because, whatever way I choose to deal with the system, it is, at the end of the day, just another way to be unfree in an unfree world.
The Dark Wraith finds that epiphany worthy of an annoyed grunt.