52tease Weekly T-shirt Sale

We're going on Vacation

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:53:00 +0000

That's right, we're closing up shop for a few weeks of much-needed R&R. That means you are not going to see a new t-shirt this week, next week, or the week after. If you don't think you can miss your 52tease fix for that long, might we recommend you visit Uneetee.com? They offer a new t-shirt design on sale every day. Trust me, we wouldn't recommend a direct competitor unless their stuff were truly eye-popping (and they have an affiliate program). We just picked up a beauty of a shirt from them last week.

If shopping Zen isn't your thing, then perhaps the teachings of Sathya Sai Baba will lighten your day.

"At the age of 14, Sathya Sai Baba declared to his parents that he had come to this world with a mission to re-establish the principle of Righteousness, to motivate love for God and service to fellow man. Since then, he has consistently called on all mankind to Love All, Serve All and has repeatedly asserted that the essence of all scriptures is Help Ever, Hurt Never! Through his speeches and writings, Sathya Sai Baba has offered a veritable ocean of knowledge and guidance on all aspects of spiritual, religious, and value-oriented living. He has often repeated that it is not necessary to drink the whole ocean to know its taste, that it is not necessary to read all scriptures to live a life of joy, peace, and love. It is enough to put into practice one aspect of spiritual teaching. A few drops of the ocean of Sathya Sai Baba's teachings, an attempt to encapsulate its essence, follows. Sathya Sai Baba urges mankind to:

• Believe in God --for there is only ONE GOD for all mankind, though He may be called by many names.

• Follow sincerely their respective religions and live their daily lives in consonance with the teachings of good behavior and morality.

• Respect all other religions --for no religion advocates the negative and lower qualities of man.

• Perform selfless service to the poor, the sick, and the needy without thought of reward or fame.

• Cultivate in their lives the values of truth, divine love, right conduct, peace, and nonviolence and promote these values among all.

• Be patriotic and respect the laws of the country in which they..."

Yes, it just ends like that. He must have dozed off while dictating the website. We're not going to be dozing, though. See you in September with newly invigorated t-shirt antics!

Postmodern Tshirt

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 00:01:00 +0000

We asked our scientificologists what it would take to make the ultimate postmodern shirt. A t-shirt that would lash out against the modernism and all the celebration of the human spirit that the era entailed.

After a little head-scratching and some quick tabulation, our crack team realized that the best way to create a post-modern tee shirt would be to imbue a t-shirt with a sense of self.

Much like that which separates humans from most other animals (notice that we said "most"), an awareness of yourself is usually all that is necessary in creating a cynical, individualistic object that is able to question the nature of knowledge.

When you wear the postmodern tshirt, are you really wearing a t-shirt or has it become something more than through it's self-referential nature?

Of course, most of us at The Outpost aren't smart enough to fully understand our scientificologists response to our question, but that's not going to stop us from putting it on a t-shirt.

Couldn't this be, we wonder, a post-modern response to the surrealistic and poignant work of René Magritte? Whereas Magrittes' Ceci n'est pas works point out that "that no matter how closely, through realism-art, we come to depicting an item accurately, we never do catch the item itself, per se, as a Kantian noumenon, but capture only an image on the canvas," this t-shirt is, in fact, the object which it represents, sending the truly pensive viewer in an unceasing spiral of refracted thought.

The shirt itself becomes both an ironic work of art as well as a snide answer to the multitude of ironic shirts that are in vogue among the hipsters and popularity-challenged fashion obsessed.

(BTW, if you're not familiar with the term "Hipster", this short introduction from Wikipedia should suffice: "A hipster is an individual who avoids and often explicitly rejects whatever is seen as mainstream or corporate in nature, instead embracing alternative forms of expression. Often, these alternative forms quickly become mainstream or corporate themselves, thus creating an arms race between the genuinely trendy and the 'played out.' Indeed, even the label 'hipster' is no longer desirable, and it is rarely used for self-identification, except in an ironic or self-deprecating way.")

In respecting this ironic anti-irony, we have also intentionally placed this text, "postmodern tshirt", on some mugs and apparel items that are certainly not t-shirts. Take that Magritte!

Of course, this is just what we understand this week's sale design to mean. For all we know, the scientificologists have just pulled the wool over our eyes again and gotten away with another easy pay check.

You Enter My Heart And Never Leave

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 01:16:00 +0000

Generally we make two different kinds of love t-shirts at 52tease, those that are interested in the power of love to heal all wounds and those that help you meet that someone special (pick-up shirts).

Although our design team has been pumping out shirts for our new PG13+ line of clothing over the past few weeks, they actually decided to create something for those long-term lovers of love (and not the guy or gal looking for the one-night lovefest). Well, to be totally honest, we kind of had to lean on the design folks pretty hard to put out a design that is not geared to the average (and by that, we mean below average, of course) college student.

I'm pretty sure that the design crew was trying to get the upper management upset when they proposed our newest design, an anatomically correct heart placed anatomically incorrectly over one's left breast (instead of closer to the center of the chest).

The big kids, though, weren't going to fall for their bating tactics...and actually thought the anatomically correct heart, showing the correct flow of blood into the vena cava (both superior and inferior), and none leaving the ventricles for the body, was a pretty cute design that needed to see the light of day. Instead of labeling the intake arrows "blood" the idea people wittily inserted script writing with the word "you".

The insinuation is, of course, that you fill up my heart and, once you enter, you never leave. Of course, our scientificologists don't expect everyone to get that right off the bat, so they were sure to include the post-text (on the bottom): "You enter my heart and never leave" as their little touch.

These t-shirts and other items are sure to be an awesome gift for that special someone in your life. Imagine their joy and awe when they see their very own anatomically correct heart printed over the breast of their new t-shirt.

From a marketing standpoint, we'd really like it if you got a matching set for yourself and your sweety. That way you can be the cutest couple on your block (by far).

Speaking of which, why don't more couples wear matching clothes? Not only would it make it clear to that ogling onlooker in the bar that you're an exclusive item, it could also make it easier for you to find each other in a department store (well, matching clothes and two cell phones with a family plan or "walky talky" function ought to do the trick).

Maybe in our next business venture we will deal exclusively with matching clothes for couples and families (Chas Tenenbaum -Ben Stiller) had the right idea in The Royal Tennenbaums)...but I wouldn't go holding your breath or anything.

Opium Den or College Dorm Room? Original Prints & Gifts

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:13:00 +0000

Apparently, along with the recent introduction of a PG13+ area of the store (parental advisory recommended), our crack team of t-shirt designers and scientificologists have had an interest in bulking it up with drug references and sex-related designs; even though we have tried to convince them otherwise.

Unfortunately, this means that those people who chose to sign up for our new Family Friendly(ish) 52tease.com Weekly T-shirt Sale updates probably think we’ve fallen off the edge of the Earth (to them it looks like we put out our most recent new shirt design on June 25th).

Have no fear, though, as that only happened to the Vikings and those draconian corporate imperatives we mentioned last week.

Those of you who subscribe to our standard weekly t-shirt sale feed should be getting this loud and clear.
You know who else often has a lot of trouble keeping in touch? College students...especially first-year students. For some reason, they've got no problem cutting off all communication with the people who are (probably) paying for their education and with whom they've (more than likely) cohabitated for about eighteen years.

Of course, they're always pretty quick to get in touch when they could use a few bucks, right?

What are those college kids doing with all their time, anyway?

Well, the inquisitive parent is in luck, because we sent our scientificologists around the country to find out what our nation's young men do when they get to college instead of studying. You have to see the photographic evidence to believe it.

Our scientificologists, through extensive surveys, interviews and undercover work discovered that college freshmen live a life very similar to that found in a 1920's opium den. Comparing images from the two eras, it is almost impossible to tell the difference between the men in the opium den and a couple of college freshmen smoking marijuana in their dorm rooms isn't it?

Purchase this unique 52tease.com original poster on sale now for any stoner's dorm room this fall. Choose from either:
mom & dad - College is Awesome! Please send money. ~Justin
OR
mom & dad - Learning a lot at college. Thinking about joining a frat. Send money. ~Mike

What Would a Viking Do? t-shirts & more

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:14:00 +0000

What, you ask, could cause such tumult in the Outpost that this design debut sale announcement is coming to you a full two days after the fact?

Although I would love to answer that question for you in the nicest, most sincere way possible, this week the higher ups enacted "one rule to rule them all" (I doubt they even noticed the redundancy in that parody, but I'm sure it made them feel smart to have thought it up) that supersedes my better judgment.

(I hope they don't fire me for parenthetically inserting a suggestion that those who are easily offended skip past the gore to learn about our new subscription options with parental controls[ish]. If they ask, I didn't say anything.)

You want me to put an axe through your head!? Quit asking those stupid questions!

According to our new corporate policy, every member of the 52tease.com team, whenever confronted with a decision, is to ask him or herself, "What would a viking do?"

Apparently, our scientificologists have become pretty upset that ninjas, pirates, clowns and even Spartans are getting all sorts of Intersphere loving while vikings have gone all but unnoticed among those who rally around a regression-fueled childhood icon.

What can I say? They got the scientificological lobby together and petitioned the boss-types to not only launch a new viking t-shirt design, but also to change the corporate structure in an effort to garner media attention to their cause.

Who knows, maybe CNN is looking for a story about Viking as corporate culture. Well, our offices are open for interviews (but don't be surprised if we're drinking mead out of animal horns and decide to slice off your heads with axes--we just do that sometimes).

In the midst of this corporate restructuring, we've also managed to completely update our RSS and E-mail subscription system. Subscribe via RSS or e-mail to only those posts that interest you. Confused by these options? Find more information on our subscription page.

New T-shirt Designs on Sale (weekly updates, at most)

52tease.com Weekly T-shirt Sale (every category)
Family Friendly(ish) 52tease.com Weekly T-shirt Sale (every category except "mature humor")
Political Apparel Designs
Graphic T-shirt Designs
Mature Humor Designs
Family Humor Designs
WWWT? (What were we thinking?) Designs

The 52tease.com Blog (updates possible multiple times a day)
52tease.com Buzzzzz (the whole enchilada)
52tease.com Linkage (no new shirts, only links to the Intersphere)

Hopefully the boss-types will come to their senses and we'll be back to the "norm" by next week

Our Most Recent (and last?) Big Birthing

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:16:00 +0000

Sorry that you hadn't heard from us in a while, but there have been so many things going on in the past week and a half that we're just happy to finally be finished with it all.

As I'm sure you're aware, the media just decided in the last two weeks that Dick Cheney's hegemony of the Executive branch (from outside yet inside the Executive branch, mind you) as well as the proposed articles of impeachment were some newsworthy items. You can thank us for that.

Sure, we may appear to be a lowly t-shirt shop with few political connections, but we happen to have some attentive ears on the inside.

Unfortunately, Trickier Dick and his band of unmerry men sniffed us out so we had to go underground for a little while. In fact, we are so scared of Cheney's probing claws, we've completely overhauled our web site to throw him and the CIA off our trail.

Which brings us to the other special events we celebrated over the past week. We were fortunate enough to celebrate a birthday and a "birth" day. The former, a celebration of America's independence, went off pretty well (except for some rain, but our scientificologists were prepared for that with some sort of new tarp with one sticky side they were testing out...it worked pretty well until the bugs decided to try to eat the glue. As you might expect, that was quite an ugly mess.) and the latter has been a difficult birth to rival the creation of the universe --at least as far as our scientificologists can accurately assess.

The second birth was one of our own. That's right. The 52tease.com community is proud to present our bouncing baby, a beautiful creature if ever we saw one and testament to the evil that birthing can be.

Before you go around passing cigars, though, our lawyertainers have indicated our legal responsibility to impart to you the information that this baby is not, in fact, human, but a brand new website design for 52tease.com (go on, check it out. It's funtacular!)

We affectionately call the cute little tike "52tease.com version 5" around the Outpost. Doesn't it have a nice ring to it?

Although we love the wee little one to death, the delivery of this bundle of joy has caused the entire 52tease.com staff to swear off any future parturition in the near future.

In fact, some have gone and sworn off kids forever. In honor of their commitment to being "kid free" we are happy to debut our first design celebrating the absolute end of our patience (that doesn't have to do with the Bush administration, of course), vasectomized t-shirts and gifts.

Of course, we recognize that the majority of men who choose to get a vasectomy already have children, that's why we've put together a hilarious gift for the child of a vasectomy patient. These children's items say "daddy says i'm the reason he got himself vasectomized."

What? We could send the scientificologists home after over forty-eight hours away from their families (hence the late arrival) without at least a little present for their kids. Right?

Mood: exasperated (in a good way) Playing: Reggae - to calm the soul

Bzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzzz

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 01:55:00 +0000

Maintaining radio silence. The big DC may be onto us.

He won't stop us from putting out new t-shirt designs on sale, though. Enjoy!

Carpe Vacationem or Carpe Diem Otiosam t-shirts

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:53:00 +0000

With the Summer solstice firmly behind us, we in the Northern Hemisphere have finally entered the oft-coveted Summer months...a lovely time for some poolside relaxing, barbecues, family road trips, and possibly summer camp.

In honor of this, one of the most exulted seasons of the year, and the celebration of all things relaxing, we are happy to unleash several 52tease.com versions of "Carpe diem" (often translated as "seize the day") including Carpe diem otiosam (literally translated as "seize the leisure-full day" or "seize the day off"). Unfortunately, the Romans didn't have a term for the weekend or day off, so we've had to make do with some interesting wordplay that still incorporates the base phrase. (The only other commercial push we've found for this saying is Maryland's current tourism tagline, "seize the day off", but they couldn't even be bothered to translate it into Latin.)

Wouldn't you know it? Although the Romans didn't have a term for "day off", they certainly had a way to talk about holidays that is still in use today. Hence, our second 52tease.com original t-shirt design debuting this week-- Carpe vacationem or "s eize the holiday."

(BTW, Google tells you that it should be spelled vacationum, that's just because Google is stupid and the only other online presence to even touch on these modern originals is a lone vacation company with an issue spelling Latin correctly.)

Don't get us wrong. We're certainly fans of going all out and trying to make the most of every day we're alive, but many weekend warriors understand that the weekday exists only to be tolerated and the weekend is when the real fun begins. You don't have to be a Latin scholar, speaker of dead languages or even a big fan of the movie 300 to wear this humorous seize the day off tee shirt design.

We're pretty sure that wearing one of these Latin parody t-shirts (or even using one of the carpe vacationem coffee mugs if you don't want to commit to the t-shirt version) will raise your IQ (or, at least, the visual equivalent) enough to help you hold your own in the company of even the most erudite academics.

Should you not feel comfortable in such an intellectual community, we're sure you will love our more whimsical, cartoony carpe vacationem t-shirts...as these shouldn't leave the average layperson on the street as perplexed as the former design.

And, if you find yourself traveling with family this summer or on any holiday or vacation, these shirts also serve as an excellent way to get a laugh and make it easy to identify your crew among a crowd.

Go on, you know you want to become the "Carpe vacationem" family!

Although our scientificologists can usually handle anything we throw at them, they did have a little trouble figuring out the appropriate Latin forms for the phrase "seize the day off". We'd like to extend a special thanks to the overly-helpful and generous members of the Latin Forum.

Wanna Party With A Fungi t-shirts

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:46:00 +0000

Although we don't yet have the reputation of being the "partiest t-shirt brand across the land" we've decided that going for the crown is a laudable goal for a quickly rising t-shirt company.

I'm telling you this to help ameliorate the disappointment you must be feeling as we didn't unveil our design of the week yesterday.

You see, The Outpost is not just the only place in the world in which scientificologists are able create and share ideas in a free and open environment. It is also party central for the entire underground scientificologist movement.

What many people don't realize is that our company's most prized asset, the people who are able to produce some of the Intersphere's most original and unique quality t-shirts on a weekly basis, are actually forced to hide their identities from the general populace to avoid the enmity and scorn of those less blessed. (well, there's that and the fact that scientificologists are notoriously private people--we're getting to that.)

Like mushrooms, fruiting bodies of fungi, the scientificologists we are fortunate enough to work with are only a small visible reminder of an amazing and complex underground society. Each scientificologist, it appears, also harbors an inner party-animal just waiting to "mushroom" up given the right circumstances. (In fact, we've recruited some of our best workers at these functions...we're always eager to get at that raw blossoming talent.)

Those scientificologists who do work at 52tease.com are the most socially adjusted of the entire population, easily functioning alongside their coworkers. When the entire group of scientificologists gets together (we can say, proudly, at the 52tease.com Outpost), our crack team constantly takes the helm of any party and hogs the limelight (probably to the relief of their more private counterparts) with wild and crazy antics.

If you think you saw geeks get down in Real Genius (1:06) , you ain't seen nothing yet. I only wish I were smart enough to think of even one example of the alcohol-induced punning and assorted verbal repartee that occurs among these behemoths of the brainscape.

Although they often think they've come up with the best t-shirt ideas EVER, approximately 90% of the ideas generated at these mega-events get thrown in the trash with their discarded empties. Occasionally, though, they come up with a beauty that transcends all prior design concepts.

Our wanna party with a fungi line is not one of those designs, but it's good enough for a post-bacchanal demonstration of admiration.

To honor those wild and crazy gals and guys, and in tribute to their raucous parties (the most recent of which lasted three days instead of the expected one, hence the delay in shirts this week) we are proud to present a new design for party animals, mycologists and amateur mushroom hunters alike.

We figure that anyone who walks around wearing these shirts will get one of two reactions. Either you'll meet someone special who wants to party with a Fungi (yes, we're talking about hooking up...we're trying to insinuate that our products will increase your opportunities to have sex with a stranger) or a bunch of hippy kids will come up to you to ask if you've got any "shrooms." (btw, we didn't realize the drug angle until we got this far in production. We are not trying to imply that you will have an easier time selling drugs if you wear our Fungi shirts.)

Prosecutors Will Be Violated t-shirts

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:25:00 +0000

Let your t-shirt serve as a warning sign for all overzealous litigators: Prosecutors will be violated t-shirts!

Of course, in designing this week's special, we had to take into account that at least a few lawyers either bought or cheated their way into the profession. How to get our "prosecutors will be violated" message across to the illiterate lawyer? We think there's no better way than a simple 52tease.com alteration of some universal icons.

As you can see in the accompanying pictures, the lawyer in question is slightly bent over at the wrong end of the long arm of the law. That's gotta hurt!

To be totally honest, we don't have anything against lawyers...well, good lawyers who care about what they do and not what they make. It just seems to us that everyone knows a good lawyer joke and nobody knows a good lawyer--as Wikipedia corroborates:

"Hostility towards the legal profession is a widespread phenomenon. The legal profession was abolished in Prussia in 1780 and in France in 1789, though both countries eventually realized that their judicial systems could not function efficiently without lawyers. Complaints about too many lawyers were common in both England and the United States in the 1840s Germany in the 1910s, and in Australia, Canada, the United States, and Scotland in the 1980s.

Lawyer jokes (already a perennial favorite) soared in popularity in English-speaking North America as a result of Watergate. In 1989, American legal self-help publisher Nolo Press published a 171-page compilation of negative anecdotes about lawyers from throughout human history."

Speaking of lawyer jokes, have you heard the one about the small town trial?

During the proceedings, the prosecuting attorney called an elderly woman to the stand and asked, "Ma'am, do you know me?"

She replied, "Yes I do. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you."

The Lawyer was stunned, but asked his next question, "Do you know the defense attorney?" "Why yes, I do. He's has a drinking problem, his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state, and he cheated on his wife with five women, including your wife."

The judge ordered both lawyers to approach the bench, and quietly said, "If either of you asks her if she knows me, I'll throw you in jail for contempt."

Mood: Thinking about Macs | Playing: Limbik Frequencies

George W. Bush Freedumb Fighter

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 16:29:00 +0000

We bet you're wondering what 52tease.com would be without George W. Bush to make fun of, aren't you? Although we try to be fair and balanced in our distaste for (and t-shirt designs that make fun of) any "ends justify the means power-mongers," Dubya has just proven to be an amazing(ly ugly) confluence of pure evil and absolute stupidity.

How else can you explain an administration that continues to argue military solutions to political situations regardless of the facts or players involved (unless we're dealing with North Korea, of course)? In fact, this administration seems to make it a point to dispute every single fact that does not fully support their world view. We have it on good faith that the Bushies don't even believe that facts exist, if you can't use your faith to support your statements then don't even bother.

"Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated 'I am the president!' He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of 'our country’s destiny.'"

This isn't the only time in the past few weeks that Bush has acted out in this way: "some big money players up from Texas recently paid a visit to their friend in the White House. The story goes that they got out exactly one question, and the rest of the meeting consisted of The President in an extended whine, a rant, actually, about no one understands him, the critics are all messed up, if only people would see what he’s doing things would be OK…etc., etc. This is called a 'bunker mentality' and it's not attractive when a friend does it. When the friend is the President of the United States, it can be downright dangerous. Apparently the Texas friends were suitably appalled, hence the story now in circulation."

One would think that the administration would have at least tried to "smarten things up" a little after the American voters overwhelmingly voted against their foreign and domestic policy decisions. Of course, that would assume that they're smart enough to even figure out that they need some more intelligent people steering the ship. Instead, they have continued to blunder their way through international disgraces and cross-border insults.

At 52tease.com, we believe in the power of idiocy to reign supreme (doesn't it say that meek shall inherit the Earth in the bible?) and, as such, have chosen an excellent Bush quote to point out his ability to retain power and control even after so many stupid missteps.

We truly believe, as does our noble president, that "over time and across the Earth, FREEDUMB will find a way."

As the leader of free world, George W. Bush sees himself as a crusader for the oppressed and under-served everywhere...the ultimate freedom fighter. Of course we respect his might; we just wonder if one of the most powerful people in the world has enough neurons firing (after his prior alcohol abuse issues) to even notice the intentional spelling error on our newest anti-Bush FREEDUMB fighter t-shirts.

In case you haven't figured out the theme of this weeks' shirts yet, we will make it abundantly clear to you:

George "Dubya" Bush is an idiot!

Thanks to a new exhibit that the National Archives, School House to White House: The Education of the Presidents, we've even got corroborating evidence: "George H.W. Bush's high school transcript shows marks in the 60s and 70s for many classes." Of course Bush isn't alone, but you have to admit that he's the easiest to make fun of.

Political t-shirts, Freedumb Bush , Anti-Bush, Freedumb Fighter

Mood: Pleased | Playing: WFMU

Looking Good Feeling Good t-shirts & gifts

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Mon, 21 May 2007 17:59:00 +0000

In honor of this week's healthy-initiative t-shirt design, "looking good-feeling good!" let's learn about how to achieve these goals through diet and exercise:

Self-care is a personal choice in health maintenance; it is the extent to which an individual, family or community engages in any activity with the intention of improving health, preventing disease, managing conditions, and restoring health.

Encompassing a broad spectrum of behavior, self-care includes all health decisions consumers make for themselves and their families to maintain a good level of physical and mental health. These include maintaining physical fitness and good health to preventing disease or managing conditions, using self-medication to treat and prevent illness, and managing one’s health after discharge from tertiary health care.

Generally, a healthy diet will include:

1. Sufficient calories to maintain a person's metabolic and activity needs, but not so excessive as to result in fat storage greater than roughly 12% of body mass;

2. Sufficient quantities of fat, including monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat and saturated fat, with a balance of omega-6 and long-chain omega-3 lipids;

3. Avoidance of trans-fat;

4. Sufficient essential amino acids ("complete protein") to provide cellular replenishment and transport proteins;

5. Essential micronutrients such as vitamins and certain minerals;

6. Avoiding directly poisonous (e.g. heavy metals) and carcinogenic (e.g. benzene) substances;

7. Avoiding foods contaminated by human pathogens (e.g. e. coli, tapeworm eggs);

8. Avoiding chronic high doses of certain foods that are benign or beneficial in small or occasional doses, such as:

* foods or substances with directly toxic properties at high chronic doses (e.g. ethyl alcohol);
* foods that may interfere at high doses with other body processes (e.g. table salt);
* foods that may burden or exhaust normal functions (e.g. refined carbohydrates without adequate dietary fiber).

Achieving a healthy diet is popularly misperceived as being attainable by eating 'healthy foods'. Many people falsely believe that there are 'good' and 'bad' foods; they develop bad diets because they think that abundant eating of foods they consider 'healthy' will create a healthy diet. However, this is far from the truth.

The consumption of nothing but substances that are deemed healthy, such as an "all-grain diet" or a diet consisting only of pasta or other health-foods, would most likely result in deficiencies because important nutrients (like protein-based foods) would be missed. Foods such as grains, fish, corn, etc. are healthy when consumed with a balanced diet, because in combination they supply us with all of the required nutrients. The most important aspect of any diet is maintaining a healthy intake and balance of foods.

The balance of micronutrients gained from meat, vegetables, and other foods is what makes diets healthy, not only consuming 'healthy' foods. For instance, milk, cheese, and other dairy products are known to have a relatively high fat content. Removing such dairy products from a diet may lower fat ingestion, but it will also negatively affect the intake of calcium and riboflavin that such foods offer.

Diet itself helps to increase calorie burning by boosting metabolism, a process further enhanced while gaining more lean muscle. An aerobic exercise program can burn fat and increase the metabolic rate.

General fitness training works towards broad goals of overall health and well-being, rather than narrow goals of sport competition, larger muscles or concerns over appearance. A regular moderate workout regimen and healthy diet can improve general appearance markers of good health such as muscle tone, healthy skin, hair and nails, while preventing age or lifestyle-related reductions in health and the series of heart and organ failures that accompany inactivity and poor diet.

Physical exercise is important for maintaining physical fitness and can contribute positively to maintaining a healthy weight; building and maintaining healthy bone density, muscle strength, and joint mobility; promoting physiological well-being; reducing surgical risks; and strengthening the immune system.

Frequent and regular aerobic exercise has been shown to help prevent or treat serious and life-threatening chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, insomnia, and depression. Strength training appears to have continuous energy-burning effects that persist for about 24 hours after the training, though they do not offer the same cardiovascular benefits of aerobic exercises. Exercise can also increase energy and raise one's threshold for pain.

There is conflicting evidence as to whether vigorous exercise (more than 70% of VO2 Max) is more or less beneficial than moderate exercise (40 to 70% of VO2 Max). Some studies have shown that vigorous exercise executed by healthy individuals can effectively increase opioid peptides (aka endorphins, a naturally occurring opiate that in conjunction with other neurotransmitters is responsible for exercise induced euphoria and has been shown to be addictive), positively influence hormone production (i.e., increase testosterone and growth hormone) benefits that are not as fully realized with moderate exercise.

Exercise has been shown to improve cognitive functioning via improvement of hippocampus-dependent spatial learning, and enhancement of synaptic plasticity and neurogenesis. In addition, physical activity has been shown to be neuroprotective in many neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases. Physical activity is thought to have other beneficial effects related to cognition as it increases levels of nerve growth factors, which support the survival and growth of a number of neuronal cells.

Both aerobic and anaerobic exercise also work to increase the mechanical efficiency of the heart by increasing cardiac volume (aerobic exercise), or myocardial thickness (strength training, see Organ hypertrophy).

It is a common belief that exercise and training a particular body part will preferentially shed the fat on that part; for example, that doing sit-ups is the most direct way to reduce subcutaneous belly fat. This is false: one cannot reduce fat from one area of the body to the exclusion of others. Most of the energy derived from fat gets to the muscle through the bloodstream and reduces stored fat in the entire body, from the last place where fat was deposited. Sit-ups may improve the size and shape of abdominal muscles but will not specifically target belly fat for loss. Such exercise might help reduce overall body fat and shrink the size of fat cells.

Looking good feeling good!, exercise, healthy diet, Random

Mood: Itchin' to get outdoors | Playing: Viva Intersphere Radio!

What do You do With Emptiness?

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Mon, 14 May 2007 18:40:00 +0000

This week, as you can tell by glancing over the pictures in this blog entry, we're offering you several options riffing off the idea of emptiness. The first explores the religions aspect of emptiness, the second looks at the graphic nature and primal responses and the third deals with President Bush's head (although, to be fair, the third design is not on sale this week as we created it to satisfy a custom-request).

To be completely honest, even the first design, fill the emptiness, was a custom request, but one we wanted to share with the world at large at a discounted price. If you're having trouble seeing the first image, it includes a fire-tinged stained-glass window of a repentant or prayerful person with another's hands on his shoulders. The entire image, as well as the text, Fill the emptiness, has a "ripped" or distressed quality to it.

This is another one of those shirt designs wherein the wearer and the viewer may have a completely different interpretation of the meaning. Is this t-shirt arguing that religion is necessary to fill the void or only that it is a useless opiate for the masses...one that ultimately destroys our identity and sense of self?

Don't ask us...we just envision, design and make these things.

After working on the fill the emptiness design for a client, our design crew started toying around with some of the elements/concepts and came up with the more abstract and highly colorful design you see to your right.

What if, instead of trying to fill the emptiness, one instead wanted to experience it...to FEEL the emptiness? Although it is difficult to see the detail applied to the shirts, you can rest assured that any products you purchase with this design will include the fine detail and vivid colors you see to the right. Of course, the only part of the image that is in grayscale (or greyscale as they write it in "Jolly Old England") is the text, creating a visual 'emptiness' for the viewer.

Boy, all this talk about emptiness has got us thinking about what's between the ears of the current President of the United States of America, one George W. Bush (yes, our favorite political target--come on, you'd have to be blind, bound up, missing most of your limbs and slowly drowning in quicksand to miss a shot at that administration).

Although we won't argue that he has absolutely nothing between his ears, a lot of parents have already proudly declared that their children are "already smarter than Bush."

We have sold countless already smarter than Bush onesies, toddler t-shirts and youth t-shirts. That was why we realized that this would be the perfect design to debut our newest product, maternity t-shirts!

What better way to point out the idiocy of the current president and your disdain for the way things are going in America than to slap this slogan across your big, pregnant belly? Seriously, pick up an already smarter than Bush maternity shirt for your fetus and you'll be the envy of expecting mothers everywhere.

We are currently able to print maternity shirts in the normal fashion and on the bellies, as you can see on these two products. Although we aren't the type of t-shirt shop that would focus solely on this segment of our clientèle, we are always happy to offer more clothing choices for more body types.

Stick with us as we promise even more new products, excellent designs, and Bush bashing in the future.

Political t-shirts,Graphic designs, Already smarter than Bush, Fill the emptiness, Feel the emptiness

Mood: Devoid of emotion (not really) | Playing: Bishop Allen--Rain

Dewey Does It! t-shirts, mugs & gifts

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Mon, 07 May 2007 17:29:00 +0000

This week's design comes straight to us from the mind of a wild and crazy media center specialist (that's a librarian to those of you who grew up before the media explosion we endearingly call the Intersphere) with a love of all things Dewey.

To be honest, we don't totally get it, but this is how it went down:

52: Excuse me (mister librarian guy) but do you know the call number for books about enjoying coffee?

Librarian guy: Sure, let me look that up for you. Is there any particular reason?

52: Yeah, I make t-shirts and I'm going to make a mug for librarians that has the call number on it instead of coffee. It will be a sort of inside joke for people who know the Dewey Decimal System.

Librarian guy: You know, it would be really cool if you guys put out a librarian shirt.

52: (hey librarian-person, you know there are gals here as well --don't forget our diatribe about the gender-specificity of the English language.) Yeah, that would be cool. You got any good ideas?

LG: Oh sure, I've got lot's of good ideas. Like once, I had this idea that they should put all the books in a library on conveyor belts and bring them to people when they try to search for information a computer just like the "Tubes" that Senator Stevens was talking about...

52: Uh yeah, not to interrupt or anything, but we don't design libraries. We do t-shirts. Do you have any good t-shirt ideas for librarians?

LG: Yup. I had this idea the other day about actually like, you know, sewing a book into the front of a shirt. It would be really cool to take your favorite book and sew it onto the front of your shirt so people could read it. You could, like, point out important passages and stuff and people could even show their personality by dog-earing the pages that they really like. What do you think?

52: Well...other than the fact that trying to sew a book onto the front of a shirt would probably rip the thing, I can't really see people willing to bear the weight of their favorite book~unless it's a picture book or comic book or something. Oh yeah; one more problem--we only do print designs, nothing with glitter or sewn-in stuff or anything like that...don't worry about it man, I'm sure someone else can make that shirt for you. (although who would buy it? That's another issue altogether.) It's been real interesting talking to you, I've got to, uh...I've got to go. Thanks for the ideas.

LG: No, wait! Dewey Does It!

52: Huh?

LG: Dewey Does It! That's the shirt idea. You should make a shirt that says Dewey Does It! You know, it sounds kind of like "easy does it," but it's Melvil Dewey instead. There's this huge fight between librarians about the best classification system and whether or not they should even be using Dewey anymore.

There are a bunch other than the Dewey Decimal System like Bliss bibliographic classification, Library of Congress Classification, and Dickinson classification. There are even some for different languages like Nippon Decimal Classification, Chinese Library Classification, and Korean Decimal Classification. Also, a lot of people are talking about using things like the "tags" you find online with books and stuff now that everything is getting computerized.

Anyway, I just thought it would be cool to have a t-shirt for catalogers or librarians who like Dewey that says "Dewey Does It!"

52: Well, I still don't get what you're talking about exactly, but it does sound like "easy does it" and we have been looking for a way to appeal to a broader bibliophilic base...consider it done.By the way, back to my original question...what's the call number for coffee?

LG: Oh yeah...hold on a second. Here you go.

52: Thanks. Keep an eye out for that shirt.

LG: I will.

Geek humor, Librarian shirts, Dewey Does It, Melvil Dewey

Mood: Feelin' fine | Playing: Limbik Frequencies (on iTunes)

Imbush Peach t-shirts, buttons, stickers

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 14:36:00 +0000

True to form, we're either behind or ahead of the times at the 52tease.com Outpost (we can't quite figure out which it is). Two days ago, the Vermont state senate voted 16-9 to impeach President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. There is little chance of the Vermont House of Representatives to take up the vote, possibly setting impeachment proceedings in motion thanks to rules written by former President Thomas Jefferson to govern the U.S. House. That doesn't take away from this amazing symbolic move on the part of a state legislature.

Equally symbolic (and ineffective) is Representative Dennis Kucinich's letter this past week that announces his intention to introduce Articles of Impeachment with respect to the conduct of Vice President Cheney. (As USA Today points out, sadly, Kucinich doesn't even register on the latest Gallup poll regarding Democratic Presidential hopefuls).

Although Kucinich is only grandstanding, this is one more indication of a nation looking to wake from a long, ugly political slumber.

Don't believe us? Just look at all the websites that exist with the word "impeach" in their urls:
http://www.impeachpac.org - Electing a Congress to Impeach Bush and Cheney
http://www.impeachbush.org
http://www.impeachbush.tv - Editorials and Information on How to Impeach Bush & Cheney
http://impeachforpeace.org - Nonpartisan efforts to Impeach Bush & Cheney
http://www.impeach07.org
http://www.impeach-andrewjohnson.com/- Okay, maybe that one doesn't have to do with the current administration
http://www.impeachthemotherfuckeralready.com - Now you know what ITMA means
http://impeachbushcoalition.blogspot.com - A United Coalition of Bloggers for the Impeachment of George W. Bush
http://www.thefourreasons.org/ - Although that one doesn't have "impeach" in the url, it is pretty scathing

People are waking up the atrocities of the current administration (which they have actively pursued since before September 11th, mind you) and calling for action.

Of course, while all this is going on, we've recently been tuned into the atrocities perpetuated by Peach, who is worth of imbushment (that's right, we're hoping on the nascent Imbush Peach movement). Although we haven't yet read through all the literature, we're pretty sure they aren't talking about Princess Peach. Other than being repeatedly kidnapped by Bowser and apparently in love with a plumber, she hasn't real done anything truly imbushable, right?

Why are we jumping on the Imbush Peach bandwagon? Trying to impeach the President is so passé. We know that imbushing is going to be the new thing and want a piece of the action. Peach is unconscionable and must be stopped at all costs.

That...and we just think it's really funny.

Political t-shirts, Imbush Peach, Impeach Bush

Mood: Staunchly political | Playing: Weezer-Maladroit

Let the Love Continue

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:47:00 +0000

Wow, we could not have picked a better time to try to spread some love and goodness into the world. There are college students dying as we speak, a national uproar over racial relations thanks to the on air antics of Don Imus, Indians (not to be confused with Native Americans) burning effigies of Richard Gere, Muqtada al-Sadr has quit the Iraqi government, a magnet school in NYC is causing controversy just because it focuses on Arabic issues and even the sea lions are turning against us.

Things are certainly falling to pieces fast and we at 52tease.com think that's because we've learned to embrace hate at the expense of love. You know this isn't new ground for us. We've been talking about celebrating love for a while...but the current trend of racial and cultural acrimony has to stop.

We hope that our Let the Love Continue icon, of interlocking hands colored the spectrum of a rainbow, will help serve as a reminder of those bastions of nineteen sixties hippie culture: peace, love and understanding.

As you can see by the design on the right, we've gotten back to some good old-fashioned male-chauvinistic roots with our other accompanying text, "Let the brotherly love continue." Although we considered a "Let the simblingly love continue" design, we just couldn't figure out how people could vocalize such a tongue-twisty word.

These logos speak not just to racial and cultural harmony, but to the concepts of love and peace. We're especially fond of this design because it reminds us of our youth when we joined hands with our fellow man (and woman) for Hands Across America.

We're not going to recommend another nation-wide event like that, as the world is a different place. We're now living in the era of the long tail where the Internet and widespread communication devices allow small niche groups of people to find each other across the globe and form larger, established groups. As a culture we have moved from a micro, to macro and back to micro scale.

One example of this type of interaction is the new badge you may have noticed in our side bar over the last few weeks. This Kiva badge allows you to join with others in helping the smallest of business people get a very small loan to, hopefully, drag themselves out of poverty.

From the Kiva website:

Kiva is a Swahili word meaning “agreement” or “unity”. Kiva.org is a 501c3 non-profit public benefit corporation registered in the state of California. Your donations to Kiva.org are tax-deductible.

Kiva.org currently has financial support from a number of angel investors, including Silicon Valley donors, and corporate sponsors including Microsoft Research. However, self-sustainability is critical to Kiva.org and we intend to be fully self-sustainable by 2008. This will be achieved through the implementation of a number of income streams which may include optional transaction charges to lenders and low debt capital fees to Field Partners. Currently, 100% of your loan goes to the entrepreneur.

Kiva.org is not a religious organization, although we are open to partnering with religious organizations.

Consider finding a suitable entrepreneur on Kiva.org today and help let the love continue.

Political t-shirts, Graphic designs, Love, Brotherly Love

Mood: Patient and understanding | Playing: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

Brainpower in the Nether Regions

noreply@blogger.com (Alpha Zen) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 21:39:00 +0000

Although most of our recorded history and science represents men as the essential ingredient to the survival of the species, they don't traditionally carry the title of "sharpest tool in the shed."

This belief often springs from the fact that males tend to spend more time thinking with their sex organ (yes, the penis) than their heads. Whenever there's a conflict between logic and possible sex, it's a fair bet that intercourse is going to win.

Sure, this may be a vast female conspiracy to paint men as idiots, but they certainly have a lot of evidence to back them up.

Take, for example, the very recent case of the Japanese naval officers who, in an effort to share porn (way to be cost-effective guys!), may be responsible for leaking top secret information about the Japanese missile defense program, the high-tech Aegis radar system.One of the navy officers happens to be married to a Chinese woman, making this a bigger intelligence boondoggle than it would otherwise have been.

The officer told police he accidentally copied the confidential data onto his computer's hard disk when copying porn from a computer belonging to a crew member from another destroyer, the Yomiuri newspaper reported.

A third officer was also found to have copied data on the Aegis system alongside pornographic images, the Yomiuri said.

Seriously guys, how smart do you have to be to figure out the difference between pornography and scientific specs?

We salute men like you with this week's design, an arrow pointing toward the man's head with the text "the dummy" and another arrow pointing to his penis with the text "the ventriloquist." A unique and original 52tease.com version of the classic "his penis does his thinking for him" line.

Of course, we can't just point fingers at Japanese men when discussing those who let their private parts do all the "heavy lifting."

The Ugandan legislature recently had to scrap a law that privileged men's libidinal interests quite a bit over the concept of fair and equal treatment.

Not only did the law allow married men to cheat without legal recriminations while either fining married women or sentencing them to a year in jail, it also gave men more rights than women if their partner died.

Geez-louise! The way these laws are written you would think that men think they run the world or something. Of course, women know that it's not the men--just their appendages--that are doing the real thinking.

College humor, Penis humor, Ventriloquism, Stupid men

Mood: Mildly amused | Playing: Mumbles (the radio's too low)