I'm really eating way too much ice cream these days – at least one cone every single day and usually more. At this rate I'll gain 5 kilos before the summer is over but it's just so delicious…
I was fortunate enough not to know anything about Ben & Jerry's before but it won't take long before I've tasted every flavor they have to offer. I've already had "Cookie Dough", "Phish Food" and "Peace of Cake" since they arrived to Finland little over a month ago. I don't have a favourite among the flavors yet and that's because they're all just awesome… and loaded with sugar & fat too!
There's also a finnish brand called "Aino" I'm quite fond of. They offer a full line of weird flavors like "gingerbread cookies and glögi (a ginger flavored bewerage we drink during the Christmas season)." My absolute favourite has to be "blueberry pie" though. I'm just obsessed with it! Mmmmmmpie. Blueberrypiee…
Well, I guess my addiction to ice cream is fairly harmless. It’s not like I’m smoking crack, I just have a sweet tooth!
I learned an important lesson on blogging today; whenever we get new shirts I have to take the time to blog about them whether I really have it or not. Especially during the summer season our shirts are selling like crazy and if I don’t blog about them instantly it just might be too late. After all, I don’t want to end up getting crucified by all of you out there and I do want you to get as many of the shirts we have to offer as possible.
Well, I suppose it’s not an actual catashtrophe yet – most of you propably check out the new products even without the blog entries and even if ”Free Hugs” has sold over 300 pieces in 2 days there are little under 200 still left. Let’s give a big hand to Béji for making this print!
It actually reminds me of a poem by Kirsi Kunnas even though the poem is about a hedgehog, not a cactus. I’ll try to translate it here, but remember that the translation is very rough.
The other new shirt, ”35h” by Cib is selling quite fast too – over 200 pieces sold in 2 days. Even though the birdie is taking a vacation I hope you are not on one in case you want to have this shirt. It won’t take long until it’s sold out, that’s for sure.
…and finally, the 2 shirts together.
We're closing down our Derby Store ("The Derby" was our german t-shirt competition before laFraise) in Berlin as we're soon about to open a new store dedicated only for laFraise. The guys in Germany have been going through our stocks and it seems we still have a few dozen really nice t-shirts left from the Derby. Today and next friday you have a chance to get one of them for yourself. After that they're finished. Kaput. No longer available. I'm handing out 5 of them now and the catch is that the five lucky winners don't get to choose the shirt they get (but of course they'll get one that fits them) – we'll just send them a surprise package.
So, what do you have to do to get one? It's pretty basic and simple; just give me a good reason why it's you that deserves a fresh new design shirt that are soon to become collectors' items. Suck up as much as you can, tell me a really sad story from your childhood or just be funny as hell – what tactics you decide to use is completely up to you! The game runs until midnight (GMT) and I will select the 5 fortunate winners after that.
Be creative and have fun!
PS. If you want to see more Derby shirts, check out Mike's album on Flickr.
…will start 2 hours later today. We're having the same game in all 3 blogs as today is a special day; we're handing out 30 shirts. More info soon. ;)
edit: A little chance of plans in the last minute; the massive friday game has to be postponed because of some scheduling issues we can't really do anything about. Don't worry though – I'm still handing out 5 shirts instead of one today and the game starts at 15:00 GMT (That's 16:00 CET and 17:00 in "Jouniland" as Lâm put it).
I'm not aware how people celebrate midsummer in other countries (mind my ignorance on this issue) but it's a huge party here in Finland. Partying the finnish way is pretty radical; traditionally people get drunk off their asses and the ones that don't have major burns after barbequing way too much sausage get a heart attack after spending hours after hours in sauna or drown while they're swimming right after that. Betting on the amount of midsummer casualties is also a gnarly habbit with long roots.
Well, seriously; some of that unfortunately happens too, but mainly people just concentrate into getting wasted and making huge bonfires. The midsummer eve is on friday and that's when the mayhem starts. Most of the saturday finns spend on getting rid of the massive hangover they're having. The sporty ones start their morning after by having a sixpack for breakfast…
While this may sound nasty I'm actually quite fond of it in a special way that only a finnish guy can really understand (or maybe the norwegians too, at least based on my recent experience). This year I'm planning on taking it easy though – only a couple of beers with some friends, a decent amount of sausages and mustard, maybe checking out a bonfire in Helsinki and possible a little sauna session on saturday. I'm not that big on going to sauna anyway (some say I'm not a proper finn because of that).
What do you plan on doing during the following weekend? The usual stuff or some celebrating?
We've got two new shirts on the store – both of them with french prints, but this time the ideas are still pretty easy to grasp even for our international users.
Out of these two "Préfecture" by Last is my favourite even if the subject comes from the world of french bureaucracy – Lâm and Sophie told me stories about that earlier this year when Sophie had an issue with her passport. Well, other than being a really nice print I can easily relate to it. I hate all kinds of paperwork with state bureaus and I'm quite glad I don't have to deal with too much of that these days. All that running around like a rat in a maze and waiting in lines makes me seriously consider poking my own eyes out just to amuse myself for two seconds.
The second print translates to "save a monday morning – eat your boss" and in case you want to wear it in front of your boss it's propably just a good thing that it's not in english. My bosses are pretty nice (hi there!) but I'm buying one of these for a friend who's boss is a total pain in the backside. "Eat a boss" is a pretty illustrative print by Monsieur Gloup.
Usually I don't mind working from my home office but every now and then the solitude can be a bit too overwhelming. Yesterday I realized that I can actually escape from that whenever I want to; these days there are open WLAN's almost everywhere and I don't need my desktop computer for most of the stuff I do anyway. So, today I decided to give my new OpenAirOffice a try and am writing this entry from the Esplanadi Park in Helsinki.
Thousands of people are passing by, the weather is quite nice (well, there are some occasional small rain showers but I'm sitting under a big tree) and I'm having a blast. It's not really the social part of working in the same space with other people I miss. I don't want too much company while I'm working because that way I'm more effective. Still it's very nice to see people come and go at the same time.
The only problem with this arrangement is the fact that I might actually run into some friends of mine too while sitting here. No, wait… that's not really a problem either!
Ok, just like I promised you here's the first ever winning design from the EU-competition!
"Forest Party" is a fresh summer print by Kamerléon and we'll be printing 500 of these in the near future. I've been trying to reach the designer but haven't had any luck with that yet – then again it's june and most people propably spend a little less time on the computer during the summer than I do. I'm pretty sure it's going to be a pleasant surprise when he logs on the next time and finds out that we have 1000 euros waiting for him. ;)
As soon as I get a hold of him I'll do a mini-interview and publish it here. If you check out our stocks you can clearly see that we're running pretty low on shirts at the moment. That means only one thing; more winners are waiting around the corner and hopefully I get the change to ask them a few questions too. I'd like thank everyone for voting and I hope you keep doing that. I quite enjoy having more and more company here!
