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ADVENTURE SERIES PART 2

The location of the photo on the second shirt released last week should be fairly obvious.  It was taken in Venice, Italy, also known as “The Windy City.”  

These gondolas are docked directly in front of the Doge's Palace, built nearly 700 years ago. Those of you who study art history will know that Venice is largely recognized as the home of the Renaissance, and although you can’t see in this photo, directly behind me when I took it was a man selling t-shirts featuring Bart Simpson imploring the viewer to, “Don’t have a cow, man.”  

While in Venice, we took a boat over to the island of Murano, where we got to blow glass with one of the masters of the craft. Truly, glass blowing is an art, requiring a lifetime to perfect.  

Speaking of art, Venice is home to a Guggenheim Museum, which contains one of the most important collections of modern art ever assembled. Highly recommended.

Also, a nice group of fans waited outside our hotel and sang All The Small Things at me when I left for dinner.

Welcome to the Adventure Series of shirts, many more to come in the future.

ADVENTURE SERIES PART 1

Hi, my name is Mark, and I’m here today to introduce our new line of Adventure Tees.  The first two shirts in this series were released a few days ago. Travel and Adventure are two of the values we hold important and the images in this new line come from our trips around the world.

 

The photo of the fish was taken at a fairly remote lake in southern Alaska, accessible only by pontoon plane.  It was late July, when the salmon swim upstream to spawn. The stream leading to the lake was barely deep enough to be called such, and the fish waited anxiously in their thousands for the chance to negotiate it.  So packed are the waiting fish they swim over and around one another, a teeming mass of salmon. Obviously, these conditions make for great fishing, which was why I found myself in an aluminum boat in a remote lake in the wilderness of Alaska in late July. Well, at least why my father-in-law was there.

 

I was there to take photos and witness the wholesale dispatch of these fish.  To say the fishing that day was easy would be to grossly undersell the event. On every cast, the hook barely hit the water before it was snatched up and the fish reeled in.  One after another, the salmon filled the waiting cooler.

 The fish on the shirt was the first of these majestic creatures to come out of the water.  Also, the fish jamming the edge of the lake waiting to go upstream attract grizzly and black bears, which you will see on a future Adventure Series shirt.

 

THE MYSTERY BOX

We are about to introduce our very first Mystery Box. Now, most of you are probably already familiar with how a Mystery Box works. A company does a spring cleaning of sorts, over the course of a year, after numerous print runs and sampling, a good size collection starts in the offices, one-offs, random colors, shipments that never got past Customs. All these add up. Rather than create new product pages, or do a typical "sale", the more exciting (i.e.; Fun Option) idea is to create mystery packages. 

Now before you can say, how can repackaging products be considered a true mystery? Well, we've had those same thoughts and decided to add something to the box to throw everyone off-guard. Something that will for sure surprise you and make you very happy. That's all we can say about that, it is after all a "mystery" box.

Limited to only 200. Once word gets out, these will be gone.

SAVE THE DATE

One of the most talented people on the planet is about to have an art show. We are taking about the one and only Greg Simkins AKA "Craola". May 17th at the Merry Kranowsky Gallery  in Los Angles. Why are we talking about something that's not going to happen for another 2 months? Because we don't want to hear any excuses, you need to start making your plans, book your flights, reserve your hotels..now!  You are going to look back 20 years from now and kick yourself for not seeing this in person. It would be like having the opportunity to see Salvador Dali or Norman Rockwell's art in person and not going, only to live the rest of your life in regret of what could have been, and what you could have seen with your own eyes. Maybe you need to be reminded of the talent of Greg Simkins....

We've made our point, we will see you all on May 17th.

CARD STACKING W/ SCOTT DYER

Last week we decided to have a little fun with our newly released collection of playing cards with D&D. Naturally, everyone at some point in their lives has been bored enough to build a house of cards. If you could get your cards to stand strong long enough to three stories tall you pretty much ruled.

Two stories, though essentially meek by most standards, might still have taken you an hour without cheating, so you deserve some praise.  After announcing the contest, we waited with baited breath to see all the entries come flowing in. This was one of those contests that had a pretty level playing field for anyone to enter. We couldn't have been more wrong.  Meet the second person who entered the HMNIM contest and world class card stacker Scott Dyer.

Scott has been stacking for as long as he can remember. Not everyone can make that statement. They still do the things they love from childhood today, with the same enjoyment and passion. On Scott's website, he talks about the trials and tribulations that come with a lifetime of "stack'n" (as they refer to it on the streets), how he'd come close to stopping and what would pull him back in, like heroin. Or maybe nothing at all like heroin, but similar...you get what we're saying...

Where does one go with such a skill like Scott's? You go for the world record. The record is currently held by Scott's nemesis, Bryan Berg, who in 1992 built the tallest card tower of 75 stories or for those of you who can't do "card math" that's 25' 9.438". Scott hopes to obliterate that meager accomplishment with a 40+ foot behemoth. Good luck to you Scott, maybe try and use one of our playing cards in your tower so we can be a small part of your dream.

 

FROM US TO YOU

We wanted to do something nice for everyone in the HMNIM family. So we thought, flowers? No, that's stupid. Can you imagine? Ordering a package and getting some wilted, dying flowers in your package. So, we went back to the drawing board. Cash? We could put some money in everyone's order, but that's really not that thoughtful. That's something your aunt and uncle get you because they don't really know you well enough to get you a good present. Now, we think we know you pretty well, so you can forget about getting a cash present from us. What is the one thing that almost everyone loves? Chocolate. And if you don't like chocolate, you can regift it to someone else and they might like it, and most likely like you more than before for giving them the gift of chocolate.

When can you expect this gift? Maybe just in time for Valentine's Day? Stay tuned, and be sure to have some cold milk ready.