It's official; we got married and now we dress our animals. We might go and get cloth napkins next. The Holiday Hop is tonight in the Short North. We will have the usual array of wine and coffee so come warm up in our lounge. We got a new shipment last week from both Apolois Activism and the Smooth Company. I thought you would rather see the above photo of Rufus.

Shinzi Katoh!

We got another, larger, from Japanese designer Shinzi Katoh. You know it's time to trade in those paper shopping bags for canvas totes right? And if you have heard that, then you are smart enough to know the ones at the grocery store designed to look like paper bags look like crap. But if you really want to show your friends how much you care, you may want to consider picking up one of these fancy aluminum water bottles. They keep your beverage cold much longer than conventional plastic bottles. Oh, that's not enough? You wish there was someway you could take your own utensils with you? You aren't going to believe me, but we can help you out there too. We have chopsticks with a carrying case! I know, you are worried you'll like the guy who showed up to put put with his own putter? Did his putter ever look like these? No, I didn't think so.





We finally got in short totes!




Chopsticks.




Water bottles.




Vinyl coated bags.


Our store is consumed by Shinzi Katoh at the moment. Sorry for the mess.

The Magic Kingdom Of Baltimore.

Niki and I are getting married Tuesday. Disneyworld was all booked up, so instead of going there we are going to Baltimore on our honeymoon. It's actually more of a business-trip than a honeymoon anyway. We're staying in a businessy hotel in a suburb that we booked on expedia, it's a days drive each way for one full day there; and we're actually going there to dig through a warehouse of old books for our line Maxine, Dear. It's pretty fitting for us. I think we'll get more joy digging through the books than we would most anything else. We also really like crab.
Everyone we have asked so far has told us where not to go in Baltimore. So, if anyone has any good recommendations of must-sees, we would appreciate it.
We will be closed on Tuesday for the aforementioned wedding. I wanted to have it in the store, but Niki shot that idea down pretty quickly. But honestly, how could you go to a wedding in someones store and not buy something from them? I still think it was a good idea. Just buy a little extra Monday and Wednesday and everything should even out. Until Saturday Eric and Ianna will be working here. They are very nice, so come spend some time with them.

Whats in store

These are the first three styles from The Smooth Company, my new favorite men's line. They seem to pay more attention to fit than any other men's line I have seen at this price. Almost everyone that has tried these pieces on has said "wow, it feels like this was tailored for me."




Readymade bag kit # 1. Make your own recycled billboard bag. Most of the ones we have are from I-pod ads. You can't really tell though.

Readymade bag kit # 2. This one is out of priority mail envelopes.

We got our first Ben Sherman bags in! They feature laptop sleeves and look great. Well, not in my photographs.

Obstacle course

In honor of fall we have set up this totally awesome obstacle course for our customers tomorrow. I have included a diagram to help you guys get past it. Duck past the first two barricades, jump over the two sections of orange fencing but look up, there is a building hurling bricks at you.

Whats in store

So we got our marriage license yesterday. I don't think the courthouse should be operating so heavily on the fact that you have spent a lot of time there and, so, know your way around. It was pretty difficult to locate the right area. The whole ordeal, to those of you that have not been through it before, is kind of silly. The "raise your right hand" thing is hard to do with a straight face any longer, I think we as a culture should try and find something to replace it. They also give you TWO copies that are very nice looking for the purpose of framing. I mean, seriously? Can you scrape a few dollars off our fee or something? Is there enough demand to merit one nice looking copy of your marriage license for framing? The highlight of the experience, though, was the clerks name. Loveless.
Oh yeah, here are some of our favorite things we got in last week:




Wallets by WESC



Long Puff Sleeve Tee By LaMade


Hoodie Dress By LaMade



WESC All Over Print Tee. I feel like I should put the dress on again with this print, because it's amazing and you girls keep browsing by it.


Mens Duffel Coat By WESC


Edana Coat By WESC


Amelia Dress By Dace


Sonya Dress By Dace

We got our first styles of Andy Warhol watches as well as our first Modern Amusement Eye wear frames in today!

I know in my head that they are going to be there every time I look, but they still keep catching me by surprise.

I'm On Island Time

Some stories and non sequiturs from Magic.

We arrived in Vegas around 11:30, took the shuttle to the rental car place to be greeting warmly by a fellow Ohioan. He told us he would do something special for us because we were from Ohio, which I didn't really understand but we were supposed to get an economy car so I kept my mouth shut. "Lets see, I've got you in a Honda Accord." I thought this was the special thing, honestly. I drive a Ford Focus, so an Accord seemed pretty sweet. He laughed, and so I pretended to be joking. Niki, in a long conversation where non of the parties can tell the other parties are joking, requests a red Mustang. We got a red Mustang. It was pretty funny at first, until we realized we could be driving basically any car for a week.

We did not win. If any of your friends go to Vegas in the future, they will tell you if they do win. If they don't tell you they have won, it is probably a sore subject.

The first day of the show was spent in line. Thanks to all of you who told me I did not need to pre-register. Including Magic.

Von Dutch is back. It is wearing a disguise consisting of Ed Hardy hats and tees, and True Religion jeans. I am pretty sure Niki and I are the only people who can see this. I did drink a bottle of Ed Hardy water, so I may have been infected by the douche virus. Expect to see me in a ridiculous shirt and comically stitched jeans in a week or so.

We went to the pool one day. I had almost submerged myself when Niki pointed out the girl sunbathing spread eagle on one of the islands. She had a pretty gross rash. I guess it is hard to have a rash that isn't gross. It brought to mind a lot of questions about her. To be honest, she looked like the sort that you would assume had that rash anyway. So, maybe she is just so confident that it doesn't matter to her. It did matter to us, and we went to the other pool.

We found out that Eric is at least as capable to run Tigertree as we are. We kind of expected that though, we are pretty sorry salespeople.

Also if you would like an unbiased opinion about how EVERYONE is giving us the finger regarding the parking situation down here, you should talk to him. It is still screwing us pretty hard, but its nice to have someone who can finally empathize.

We got some pretty great lines. A lot of gift stuff for holiday, including Ben Sherman accessories, Modern Amusement eye wear, Andy Warhol watches and these really cool kits by Ready-Made. We picked up a couple of clothing lines and a mens shoe line as well.

I don't know why it (or most other things) made me so angry, but a lot of people wore their convention badges all week. I mean, if you want to keep the lanyard around your neck for lunch, thats fine but I am talking about at night. And on the airplane home.

We spent most of our time at Project. If the convention itself is not enough to give you a migraine; Ed Hardy played an air-raid siren every five minutes, just to remind you how much you hate them.

Our very good friend and favorite artist Jon Klassen has agreed to design our wedding invitations. We are very excited by this. We will be showing his work in our store sometime soon. We don't really want to publicize it so that we can buy it all for our new place, but we probably will. If I haven't made you already, you should check out his website at www.burstofbeaden.com.
We leave for Vegas tomorrow, so if you have any last minute "please please please, check out this line, because no one else in Columbus has it, and I would buy it all from you if you carried it!"'s then you had better get them in now.

Brown Sound

I swear it's going to cool off any day now, and when it does you'll want one of these to keep you warm. Oh, wait, is layering still cool? Well just get both then.


Sublime Hoodie: 76.00

Fox Hole Jacket: 175.00

Free People has been working hard the last couple of weeks to make our womens section even better. The Prim and Proper dress, shown here, is just one example of the new shipment we have just received.

And no one that won't be offended by this will understand it, but I need to get it off my chest. Yes, those are washcloths.

Eye of the Tiger Lilies

My parents were in town the last couple of days. There is an, apparent, new tradition of night caps at the hotel (which is invariably the Hyatt) followed by them harassing us to take a cab the half mile home. We eventually tell them we will, which they know is a lie, then we walk home through the convention center. The convention center is really eerie at night. I hate flying so its resemblance to an airport already makes me uneasy; but at night when it's empty I get kind of jumpy. We have had this walk the last few nights, we stop to read the following days convention schedule with titles like "making your perennials and annual success!" I should say there is currently a perennials convention occurring. While eavesdropping on conversations both at breakfast (another new tradition) and the bar I couldn't help but wonder, who are these people? what goes on at this convention? These answers and more were answered last night as we peaked through the door marked "authorized personnel only!"held slightly ajar by a trashcan full of flowers. We could not actually see the band, in fact it was more likely a track, but we could hear the voice flowing up and over the jungle motif which adorned the entrance to this secret room like the waterfall you find just as your canteen runs dry. She was getting ready for the next day of inspiring fifty-somethings to sell, sell, sell! She was doing this by learning her reworded rendition of "Eye of the Tiger." I noticed the first couple of times the chorus ran past us that something seemed off, so I started paying a little more attention to the chorus, which had been changed to "You've Got the Power." I could not understand the verses over the drum track ping-ponging throughout the empty room, so I will trust my gut that they had to do with selling a specific variety of flowers.

Oh yeah, we got some great dresses in today from Free People. Seriously, some of the best dresses we've ever had in. I'll edit this with pictures later, but I really have to go buy some leather.