Our good friends over at LadyUmbrella is having a special and promotion which will last from now until May 1st. All T-Shirts have been marked down by 15%  and, if that’s not enough for you bargain shoppers, you can score an additional 15% off  coupon code by heading to the LadyUmbrella Facebook page.
But that’s not all! You see, each piece of LadyUmbrella clothing is unique and limited edition. Every T-Shirt at LadyUmbrella comes with a hang tag that is individually marked with a specific number. LadyUmbrella will be using these unique numbers to do monthly drawings for free tees starting next month. So be sure to pick up you LadyUmbrella tee, save some cash and win a tee!
During the next few days I’ll be featuring the awesome clothing brands that will be setting up booths at Unique LA, an independent design and gift show that will take place on April 24th thru the 25th at the California Market Center.
Brad Lamers and Carlos Salcines turned unemployment into a positive thing in 2008 by starting Pop Casualty. Out of sheer boredom, Brad began painting … his buddy Carlos took notice and Pop Casualty was born! For more art by Brad Lamers, check out his personal website. I’m really drawn to Lamers art, it reminds me a bit of Warhol.
Pop Casualty tees are available for $24.99 (they have a logo tee available for $19.99), but if you stop by Unique LA you can pick up your favorite Pop Casualty tee minus shipping costs!
During the next few days I’ll be featuring the awesome clothing brands that will be setting up booths at Unique LA, an independent design and gift show that will take place on April 24th thru the 25th at the California Market Center.
If you’re an adult with the heart of a big kid then you’ll love the tees that Three Apparel have to offer. Three Apparel specializes in modern cartoon style T-Shirts. Their shirts features vibrant colors and fun, off-the-wall characters. They’ve got a bunch of cool designs but by far my favorites include the one-eyed and five-legged Happy Attack tee and the Mario and Luigi parody, Arab Bros.
Three Apparel features the artwork of Peter Michail and Tony Salama. T-Shirts are printed on 100% Cotton Fine Jersey tees and are available for sale for $20.
During the next few days I’ll be featuring the awesome clothing brands that will be setting up booths at Unique LA, an independent design and gift show that will take place on April 24th thru the 25th at the California Market Center.
For LiNK, making and selling T-Shirts is not just about making a quick buck, but rather it’s about making a difference. LiNK, short for Liberty In North Korea, is the only full-time organization aggressively working on the North Korean human rights crisis in North America. With every T-Shirt sale, LiNK is able to provide humanitarian assistance to North Korean refugees.
Last November, we launched our most aggressive campaign yet: rescuing 100 North Korean refugees from hiding as soon as possible. We began by setting a goal to raise $50,000 by the end of the year and, in just two months, hundreds of you responded by donating to this rescue.
The money has been collected and the final number is in. Together, we raised $41,402.54. Because of the tremendous response, we will be able to bring 16 refugees out of hiding and provide them with an opportunity to begin a new life!
We sincerely thank you for your support, sacrifice and commitment in making the rescue of this first group possible.
We aren’t stopping here. Our goal is to raise $200,000 this year to enable the rescue of the remaining 84 refugees. If you are new to the campaign, please check out the website here and consider donating TODAY to help us reach one hundred.
During the next few days I’ll be featuring the awesome clothing brands that will be setting up booths at Unique LA, an independent design and gift show that will take place on April 24th thru the 25th at the California Market Center.
To kick things off I’d like to feature a brand that was started in 2006 by California designer Chad Eaton called TIMBER! Every shirt featured at TIMBER! is designed and screen printed by Eaton (I love the dedication). This brand has one of the more unique design niches since TIMBER! is all about lumberjack culture.
“TIMBER! is a t-shirt company based on a story about lumberjacks, their bosses (the top hat guys with an excessive hair curse.) and a bigfoot stuck between both their worlds.”
Eaton is currently at work on a fully illustrated book based on the TIMBER! universe so be on the look out for that. TIMBER! tees are priced from $18 to $32 and you can purchase them over at their ETSY shop.
That’s right kiddos, our friends over at GAMA-GO is having a mega ultra super awesome $20 sale that will last only 20 hours. The fun starts tomorrow at 5:00PM PST and ends Friday @ 1:00PM PST! Be sure to grab your share of awesomeness. And just in case you don’t know what to buy (because, hey, I understand that selecting from a bucket full of awesome is a hard task) I’ve made a few selections for you. Yes, you may thank me later.
And just in case you missed it, check out my recent visit to the GAMA-GO flagship store in San Francisco.
In this episode of Co-Tee TV I wear Bird Brain by Erin Jessica King and review Always In The Shadows designed by Godmachine and is available at You’re History. Established in 2009 You’re History is based out of Great Britain and creates clothing based on historical characters and events that have shaped our history.
You can also watch this episode on Vimeo, Viddler, YouTube, blip.tv and download and sync all episodes to your iPod or iPhone by subscribing for free to Co-Tee TV in the iTunes Store.
Coty’s Thoughts:
Always In The Shadows by You’re History.Pros: Tee came packaged in a black plastic package with a custom You’re History logo sticker affixed. T-Shirts were neatly wrapped in red tissue paper and sealed with a You’re History logo sticker. The T-Shirts themselves are printed on a black American Apparel tee. The tee features a custom necktag (tagless) and features the You’re History logo on the upper portion of the back of the tee as well. The front of the shirt features an amazingly massive print. This is one of the largest prints I’ve seen and it is very impressive. Design was done by popular UK based artist, Godmachine. The print is very nice, colors are vibrant and is quite soft. Cons: I am not the biggest fan of the logo print on the back, but other than that this tee from You’re History is ace. Price: £16.
Bird Brain by Erin Jessica King.Pros: If you love science, human anatomy, and or physiology than this is the tee for you! Cons: If you’re squeamish then this might not be the tee for you. Then again, it’s just science! Price: $12.
I can never get enough of Glennz Tees. And apparently, Robocop can’t get enough donuts. With such a wide load, he might have to pay a visit to the Celebrity Fit Club before starting work on that Robocop reboot that everyone is talking about. Interestingly enough, Glenn Jones created this piece nearly 5 years ago and it has been a popular vote getter at Glennz. Since going to print, Glenn made a few modifications to the original design. And you know what? Now I want a donut.
If you want to pick up Too Many Donuts, you can do so right now by heading to Glennz Tees and plomping down $19.95. But … imagine how many donuts you could buy with $19.95. That’s a lot of donuts. But between me and you, I’d rather have the T-Shirt. Idea: Glenn, ship this shirt with a donut so that we can wear  this donut tee and consume a donut at the same time. Never mind, that might not be a very good idea.
And while we’re on the topic of Glennz Tees, I though I’d show off this baby onesie that he made which is a remix of his Refill Required tee! So cool. All I need to do now is make a baby cute enough to wear this onesie!
Our friends over at Made With Awesome just released a brand spanking new tee that is perfect for people who aspired to be plumbers based solely on their experiences with Super Mario Bros. You see, Super Mario Bros. changed everything in 1985 when it came to the plumbing industry. Super Mario Bros. was a game changer. It made plumbing exciting and almost James Bond like. As a plumber, you jumped through pipes, beat up the bad guys, smashed a few turtles along the way and then get the girl in the end. Super Mario Bros. made plumbing awesome!
But as with other things in real life, plumbing was not all it was made out to be. After the release of the original Super Mario Bros. for the NES was released, a number of eager kids aspired and eventually became full-fledged plumbers. Needless to say, there was to be no pipe jumping, no beating up the bad guys, no run in with turtles and unfortunately, plumbers never got the girl in the end.
And so the lives of these ordinary plumbers carried on. They’d fix broken pipes, but not do much else. For many children turned adults, the plumbing industry was a big fat lie. And to bring this sham to the attention of the masses, Made With Awesome delivers their very straight forward Video Games Lied To Me About The Adventurous Lives of Plumbers. Because sometimes, you just need to draw a line. This is Made With Awesome drawing a big fat line. You can buy it now from Made With Awesome for just $22.
And P.S., if you enjoyed this shirt then it is a necessity that you check out this list of 101 Nintendo T-Shirts.
Note: This very long 2400+ word post was written entirely on my iPad. Approximate reading time = 10 minutes.
So I’ve had the iPad for about two weeks now and I thought that I’d give my two cents as to what my experience with it has been like thus far. First off, the iPad is fucking amazing, but it’s not without its faults. Yes, I am a MacHead and probably the least bias person you’ll find to review this product. So when reading this review, just keep in mind that this is coming from an unabashed Apple fanboy.
That’s me on April 3rd at the Apple’s Honolulu flagship store. I look pretty happy holding my iPad in my Slide To Unlock tee by Milk & Eggs Co, which by the way you can pick up for $20.
To start, I should say that I did pre-order the 64GB model and I did stand in line at my local Apple Store on April 3, like every other Apple geek in Honolulu and across the nation. Having purchased the device sight unseen (it was an early birthday gift .. do you see me smiling), I was not really sure what expect. What would I use the iPad for was the big question. So for the past two weeks I have been trying to figure out what the killer features and apps on this device would be for me. I think I found more than a few.
Hardware
Let’s start off by talking hardware. The device weighs in at just 1.5 pounds but I have to say that it feels lighter than what I expected a pound and  half to feel like. The weight of the iPad is comfortable to hold and use for a significant amount of time. The black border that surrounds the screen was initially a turn off for me. I didn’t much care for the thick black border but once I started using the device I understood the reason behind such a thick border – my thumbs. When you grip the iPad your fingers need to go somewhere and the black border allows you to rest them on the screen without interfering with the useable real estate.
As far as buttons go, Apple follows the footsteps of the iPhone. Physical buttons on this device are kept to a minimum and I like that. You will find an on and off button on the top right of the device like you would on the iPhone. On the right border you’ll find a volume button and a screen lock button. The screen lock allows you to keep the orientation of the screen in either landscape or portrait mode. This is especially useful when watching movies or video clips or want to keep your iPad in landscape mode while you type away on the larger keypad.
The iPad screen is fantastic. If you own a newer MacBook and you like the glossy screen on your MacBook then you will love the screen on the iPad. The glare on the device can be annoying if looking directly at the device but tilting it a bit alleviates the problem for me. When reading at night, I find myself reducing the brightness to about 35%. This reduces the strain on my eyes significantly.
Audio on this device is quite nice. The speakers on my original iPhone sucked. The iPad speakers, on the other hand, are surprisingly good.
Battery life on the iPad is fantastic. I have not found a situation yet where I had run out of battery while doing something on the iPad. I’ve even gone a few days without charging and this was after a couple of days of video and game play. The occasional moments in which I need to sync the iPad with my MacBook is really the only times that I have recharged the battery.
Finally, I’d like to say that the device feels very sturdy and solid. One thing you won’t get with the iPad is a generic plastic feel.
Software
When Apple first announced the iPad I initially thought that it would be great device for media consumption (i.e. movies, podcasts, music, games, reading, browsing) but suck at content creation (i.e. writing papers, blogging). For the most part, I was right.
Media Consumption
The iPad was born to consume and feed us rich media. Video on this device is amazing and interacting with photos is inspiring. On the iPhone, video is clumped together with music in the iPod app. On the iPad, video has it’s own dedicated app where your podcasts, movies and music videos live. I’m happy Apple gave video it’s own app. The device has been a godsend when it comes to watching podcasts while I work on the MacBook Pro.
The Netflix app is one of my killer apps. Having the Netflix app on your iPad is equivalent to having thousands of movies and tv shows at your finger tips, literally. I was able to watch a 2 hour movie flawlessly. I was able pause, go to the restroom, return to my desk and then carry on right where the movie left off. Even after a few hours away from the movie, upon return, the Netflix app picked up right where I had left off. The Netflix app is awesome and is a definite must have (it’s free) if you own an iPad and have a Netflix subscription. And if you have an iPad but not a Netflix subscription then I highly recommend that you subscribe to Netflix – it’ll enhance your iPad experience significantly, I guarantee it.
Another media consumption app that I have been using a lot is the ABC app. I admit that I am not a fan of streaming tv on the Internet. Other than Hulu, streaming TV sites like ABC, CBS and NBC aren’t very good. The interfaces on these sites are typically very clunky and the streaming is often unreliable. And so I was skeptical when it came to streaming shows using the ABC app on the iPad. I was mistaken. The ABC app was made with the iPad in mind. It looks beautiful and works flawlessly. I have been using the ABC app to watch Modern Family and I have fallen in love with the show. I will admit, though, that the app did freeze on me once towards the end of an episode. Unfortuantely, the app does not allow you to fast forward. So if I had wanted to finish the episode I would have needed to watch it from the beginning. Kind of lame, but I can deal. The app does show commercials intermittently. The commercials are short, about 10 seconds a piece, and are actually not that annoying.
So many people considered the iPad to be the Kindle killer. I’ve never used a Kindle before so I can’t compare the two. What I can do is tell you about my experience in using iBooks on the iPad. iBooks is Apple’s book application, built into it is the Apple iBookstore. I found it weird that iBooks was not a default app on the iPad, instead, you need to download it from the AppStore (it’s free). iBooks does come with a free book, Winnie the Pooh and they also offer the entire Gutenberg Project Catalog in the iBookstore. I thought this was great considering that if you’re interested in reading a classic (over 3000+ classics), you can, for free!
I decided to make Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter ($9.99) my first iBookstore purchase. My reading experience thus far with reading this book on the iPad has been great. You are able to swipe to turn the page and you can increase and decrease the font size to your hearts desire. One of my favorite features is the dictionary feature within iBooks. Don’t know a word as you’re reading? Click it and select dictionary and boom, instant definition. Want to bookmark a word or paragraph, you can do that too. The iPad will make me read for enjoyment more so than I did pre-iPad and that is a good thing.
I’ve had a few people ask me what the iPad is like when reading outside under sunlight. Unfortunately I can’t answer that question because I normally don’t read outside. I have only used this device indoors.
I am not a hardcore gamer. I like simple puzzle games, like Bejeweled. Nonetheless, I had to get a feel of the gaming experience on the iPad and to do that I downloaded a game called Azkend HD, which is Bejeweled type game were you need to match three or more objects in order to clear it from the board. Needless to say, I had a great time playing this game. And for someone that is notorious for not finishing games, I finished Azkend HD in a little less than two weeks. Total gameplay time was just a little over 5 hours. If you like puzzle games then definitely check out Azkend HD. It’s available now in the AppStore for $4.99. Again, I am not a gamer but that did not stop me from buying Sparkle from the AppStore and I also think that I will be buying Plants vs. Zombies in the very near future. The iPad makes for an awesome casual game playing device.
Content Creation
As a blogger, my main test of content creation was publishing an actual blog post from the iPad and straight to the web. As such, I am typing this article using just the WordPress app on my iPad. I started off typing using my thumbs with the iPad in portrait mode. That lasted two paragraphs before I began to get annoyed. I then switched to the peck and hunt method using my pointer finger in portrait mode, and that was even more annoying. Finally, I jumped on my bed and plopped myself on my tummy and began typing away with the iPad on my bed in landscape mode. I started using the slightly smaller then normal keyboard the way that I’d normally use a keyboard and I was surprised by how good the landscape keyboard was. I was able to quadruple my typing time from the very slow thumb and peck and hunt methods. Having said that I still wish that I was typing this on my MacBook Pro.
I can see the iPad being useful for short blog posts, but for longer posts like this one, it can become cumbersome. Trust, you don’t want to type long documents on the iPad. If you need to write more than 1000 words, I would suggest using your desktop or laptop.
The WordPress app was also a bit buggy. I found that it did not save certain pages even after I had hit the save button. The fix for me was to sync my WordPress blog every time I wanted to do a save. Also, the one thing that found very difficult to was add pictures to this post. WordPress allows you to add photos to your post but it does not allow you to specify where you would like the photo to go. All photos are place at the end of the post by default. This sucks. I ended up having to add photos using my MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, with the WordPress app you cannot make formatting changes such as bold and italicize, nor can you change font sizes. And finally, I had a lot of trouble publishing this post from the WordPress App. I finally resorted to copying and pasting the post from the dedicated WordPress app to the browser version of WordPress using Safari on the iPad. Wordpress, please fix this.
The WordPress for iPad app is very bare bones. In order to make significant formatting changes and to add photos you still need to use the browser version of WordPress, which you can access via Safari on the iPad, i just wish you could do it all within the dedicated WordPress app. This SHOULD be a killer app for me, but for now, it’s barely functional. I might have to give BlogPress as an alternative or until WordPress get’s its iPad app into working order.
The Flash Issue
I really don’t care that flash is not supported on the iPad or iPhone for that matter. Flash is buggy and is a resource hog. HTML5 is the future and Apple knows this. Flash is to the iPad as the floppy drive was to the original Bondi Blue iMac. Flash is unnecessary. For a list of iPad compatible video sites that matter, check out this short list composed by Apple.
Some side notes:
Everything is fast and responsive on the iPad. Apps load very quickly and are very responsive to your touch. Browsing on the Internet with Safari is very fast and pages load very quickly. My only gripe is that Safari does not cache pages so every time you go to a page it has to load. Also, I wish there was a private browsing option within Safari.
Emailing on the iPad is a pleasure. The interface is beautiful and very spacious. I am currently using Twitteriffic but I am patiently waiting for Tweetie to make its way to the iPad. Tweetie was actually bought out by Twitter and will be rebranded as the official Twitter app. AIM is another app that I use regularly on the iPad and it just works, in fact, the AIM app for the iPad is much better than the iPhone version.
I did purchase Pages, Apple’s software equivalent of Microsoft Word. However, I have not yet used it to write a paper or take notes. I did, however, use it to import a highly formatted Word file that I had downloaded from email. The Word file opened up in Pages but not without a formatting issues. The main issue was that the running header was partially missing on all pages, an odd error I know. Other than that, paragraphs breaks were there as well as indents and other formatting changes. Images imported fine as well.
As a researcher and academic scholar in training, I print and read a ton of articles from scientific journals. On my MacBook Pro I use Papers to organize all of my scientific journal articles. Needless to say I was surprised to find that at launch, there was a Papers app made specifically for the iPad. The iPad version of Papers and the full version of Papers on my MacBook work together flawlessly. Whenever both applications are open they sync together wirelessly and flawlessly. Papers on the iPad is a definite killer app for me. No more printing out articles. I have every journal article I’ve ever downloaded at my finger tips, much like I do my podcasts, movies and music. I love Papers!
Final Thoughts
Overall, I am very happy with the iPad. I was skeptical when it was first announced, but having actually used one for a good two weeks I have to say that I am officially sold. The iPad has met and surpassed all expectations that I had for it. Apple has innovated once again. Now, when I head to the coffee shop the only thing that I am left to worry about is whether or not I really need to lug that “big” MacBook Pro along with me.
