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30
Jul

Stephenie Meyer Borders Interview

categories Stephenie Meyer    

Just a quick post – Stephenie Meyer did a really cool Interview for Borders Book Club online.  It’s long, so make sure you’ve used the bathroom and if you’re viewing from work, make sure your boss is away.  You can get to it from this link here.

27
Jul

Missing Comments and Stuff

categories The Blog    

I would like to take a moment to apologize to all of our friends and fans out there who have been commenting on this blog and wondering “Hey! How come my comment didn’t show up?!” The answer is because my brain is made of trout intestines.

One of the administrative controls for this blog deals with comment moderation. I had inadvertently turned on the moderation capability, which put everyone’s comments into a holding pattern, supposedly until I went in there and approved them. This was a good thing only from the perspective that it kept a lot of stupid spam comments out of the loop. But it also kept a lot of important comments from fans out of the loop as well. I didn’t realize until just the other day what was going on. Once I realized my mistake, I made the appropriate corrections and now you should be able to comment to your heart’s content. Assuming you even want to.

I have incorporated a new comment spam blocker into this blog, so we shouldn’t have any issues with seeing stupid advertisements relating to anything. Rest assured that I will appropriately track down any offending spammers that manage to get through our defenses and torture them mercilessly using either Kevin Federline’s “album” or Paris Hilton’s. This should not be taken to mean that I actually own either of them (the albums).

So anyway, I apologize to everyone out there who left comments that never appeared until now. Especially those who have asked questions and never received a response. This shouldn’t happen again.

On another note, after reading through those comments, I noticed an interesting trend. It seems that there is a misconception among some of Stephenie’s fans/friends that Twilight Teez is run by Stephenie. Please note that this is not the case. While Mrs. Meyer is the inspiration for Twilight Teez, she does not run the company. The company is run from my home, by my wife Sharon and myself. We are based in Sierra Vista, AZ while Stephenie is in the burgeoning metropolis of Scottsdale – some three hours away. The shirts are hers; she came up with the designs and the specifications. We just have a contract with her to manufacture and market them.

So, all that to say that any comments you leave for her won’t be read by her unless she happens to visit this blog and see them. It is unfortunate, but I’m not so sure that happens too much. With her busy schedule, I don’t think she has much time for anything else except her family and her writing. But she knows that y’all love her, and I can assure you the sentiment is returned a million fold. Stephenie loves her fans as if they were her own children/sisters/brothers. Keep encouraging her.

26
Jul

Message Boards are Down

categories News    

If you have been anywhere near a bookstore, lately, you know that there has been a bit of a maniacal frenzy happening in the world of Harry Potter.  Lots of people staying up until all hours of the night to buy a book.  Lots of media coverage about the last book in the serie.  Personally, I think it’s cool that the world can rally in such a positive way.  People who have such a thing in common as being fans of fictional characters tend to be quite good people.  It ahs been my experience that such fans treat each other – people they may know for years and people they’ve never met – with mutual respect and dignity.  They almost automatically love each other (in a brotherly/sisterly sort of way) and almost always find an automatic connection with each other.  It’s brilliant, as Ron would say.

A similar frenzy is happening among Twilighters.  In just a few short days, we’re going to experience our own major release of Stephenie’s latest entry in her Twilight series.  And we will see a similar frenzy among her fans; people staying out until Midnight to get Eclipse, holding release parties, staying up until all hours reading, etc.  It’s going to be a hoot!  I am looking forward to the next release as much as the next fan.

However, there are those who seek to ruin the party for others.  There are those who, for their own diabolical, insidius reasons, want to spoil the fun for everyone else.  They get some weird kick out of it.  And it is because of these types, and because some will accidentally spill the beans (not meaning to cause any harm at all) that I am following through on Stephenie’s indirect request – through our friends at the Twilight Lexicon – and temporarily shutting down the message boards until August 7th.  I know that this might be a bit of an inconvenience, but somehow I get the impression that our boards aren’t nearly as much fun as some of the others anyway.  I don’t think many people will be offended.

Thanks for your patience.

17
Jul

Experimentating

categories News    

One of the things that is required by us Chief Information Officers is the ability to make up new words as necessary. “Experimentating” is number 682 for me.

But a more important duty is creating new services and offerings for our customers. To fulfill my obligation in this matter, I would like to make a quick announcement to our domestic customers. We are currently experimenting with offering UPS as an alternative shipping option for 2nd Day and Next Day shipping services. We will keep an eye on how well this service is received. Personally, I like UPS for the opportunity to get detailed tracking information regarding an order. However, as you will notice, the shipping charges are not exactly the best.

I’d like to make a point about one thing, though. Please keep in mind that Second-Day and Next-Day shipping only refers to the timeframe from when the item is shipped to when it arrives at your door. This shipping time does not start from the day you order your item. For example, if you were to place your order right now and were to select Next-Day shipping from UPS, you can not expect your order to arrive literally tomorrow. Due to our small size, we cannot offer same-day shipping at this time (although we do hope to work our way up to that point). You need to expect a couple of days to pass before we can get your item packaged and shipped. Once the item has shipped, you can expect the item to arrive within the timeframe of the service you paid for.

Unfortunately, we are not offering UPS shipping to our international customers. This is primarily due to cost. Not ours, but yours. UPS international shipping rates are no where near as good as what we’ve been getting from USPS. If you were to see the prices, we think you would agree that most people would not take the UPS options – they’ve been known to exceed the cost of the shirts.

Update: Well, that was short. Turns out the whole UPS thing is obnoxiously inconvenient. Don’t get me wrong, I love UPS. I will choose UPS for any shipping option – so long as it’s not me doing the shipping. First of all, we were getting inaccurate quotes from the UPS shipping module on our site. When we’d go for actually printing out the lable, we’d get a completely different quote, which was usually more expensive. Second, to print our labels, we had to disrupt the pack-n-slap flow that Sharon had developed and became so good at. Third, the labels that get printed do not fit on our mailing label stock as the USPS labels do. Fourth, we can schedule pickups right from our doorstep through USPS at no cost, whereas UPS charges extra for that service. And finally, after all of that, UPS is generally more expensive. And what do we get after all of that? Nothing, really. As far as I can tell, the only real benefit is a better tracking system.

So we’re discontinuing the UPS offering. For those of you who have already placed an order with the UPS shipping option, don’t worry, we’ll still ship it as such. However, we will be asking if you still want that method, considering that the USPS method is about $2.00 less expensive (we will refund you the difference if you choose the USPS method). Maybe sometime in the future we can try and reintegrate the UPS option. For now, we’re turning it off. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

-Brian

9
Jul

Busy Weekend

categories News    

Before I get to the point of this post, I should make a quick announcement.

Due to scheduled system maintenance, our credit card payment processor will not be available for processing credit card orders on July 13, 2007 from 12:30 AM to 1:30 AM PDT (7:30 PM to 8:30 PM GMT). During this time frame, you will not be able to use your credit card to pay for your order directly through our web site, nor will you be able to access the Pay with PayPal option. Other payment options will be available as usual. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you are unsure what time this period will be effective for your timezone, you can visit this web site to find out.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let me speak of a matter that is far more important – my new shed.

Actually, it’s not my shed, per se. The company paid for it. It’s just sitting in my back yard. Technically, since I own half of the company and I own a goodly portion of my back yard, I own half of the shed. My half is the outside of it.

Sharon gets the inside. Mainly because she’s the one who takes care of most of the administrative duties for the company, including the fulfillment of everyone’s orders. And because she gets the inside, it turns out that’s the most important part. But because I’m the technical part of the company, I get to be the one to build out all of the upgrades we’re making to it.

Now, strictly speaking, there’s nothing particularly impressive about this shed. It’s got a floor, four walls, a roof, two vents, a window, and plenty of space for little critters to enter (removing the critters and the the space for them to enter will be part of the upgrades). From an outsider’s perspective, if I were to show it off most people would say, “and…?” But this is not just a shed. It is an excellent opportunity for me to buy more power tools. But more than that, it is a much needed storage solution. Until this thing is completed, our inventory and order fulfillment center is, quite literally, my living room, family room, and portions of a storage closet. We have boxes all over the place, and this doesn’t make for a very comfortable environment to entertain. Or even function as a family. A typical conversation in our home lately has gone something like this:

Sharon: Can you hand me that box over there?

Me: Which one?

Sharon: The one by the piano.

Me: There’s six of them by the piano.

And so on. Needless to say, this kind of conversation gets old very quickly. So it became more than apparent that we needed an actual place to put our inventory. Thus, the shed was purchased.

Now the hard part comes in. It’d be one thing to simply have a water-proof place to put all of our inventory. But we also want a place that can be out of the way to fold the shirts and pack them for shipment. Which means someone will need to work in the shed.

I’d like to remind you that Twilight Teez is based in Sunny Sierra Vista; a lovely little town in southern Arizona with a population of approximately 42,000 at the base of a very large mountain range called the Huachucas (you can see their outline in our updated logo). The problem is, if you know southern Arizona well, you know that we are also right smack in a desert. The word desert is a combination of two Latin words; des which means “place”, and ert which means “that is hotter than Hades.”* In other words, it’s very hot here. And hot plus uninsulated, non-climate-controlled shed equals heatstroke in a matter of six seconds.

All of this to say that my new project with the shed is to get it insulated and wired for air conditioning. I’m also putting in some lights, a phone line, and a data connection. That’s what I did most of the weekend. I had some help from my beloved brother-in-law (who happens to know a thing or two about electricity) and we wired the place up for all of those things. This included digging a 15-foot-long trench from my electrical box to the shed.

Again, I remind you, we are in a desert. Desert not only means hot, but when combined with the word Arizona, means “hot and full of hard dry ground that will cause you to have a heart attack if you try to dig through it.” I was fortunate. I did not have to dig through our famous Arizona Caliche (pronounced cuh lee chay). According to dictionary.com, this stuff is “a surface deposit consisting of sand or clay impregnated with crystalline salts such as sodium nitrate or sodium chloride.” That makes it sound so nice and soft, right? When talking about caliche, the word soft would be like saying that Kevin Federline was a talented musical genius. And I mean that only in the best way possible. Caliche usually resides mere inches under Arizona soil. This stuff will eat you for lunch. I am delightfully surprised that I did not hit a single inch of it. But digging that (naughty word) trench is probably going to be the death of me anyway. I am not, as some might say, Emmet.

So that’s where we stand. We have to wait for the inspector to come by and – I am not making this up – inspect things. Then I can finish off with insulation and drywall (or wallboard, gypsum board, or whatever). Then we can move our inventory into it and then things will really be rocking. Until then, we have to suffer with “hand me that box over there” type of conversations.

-Brian

*It would not be wise to use this blog as a source for your research into the history and meanings of Latin words.

3
Jul

Long Overdue Update

categories News    

Well, it has certainly been far too long since I’ve written anything here. It’s been a very busy last two months. So let me take a moment to update y’all on what’s going on over here at Twilight Teez.

First, let me recap the Eclipse Prom. We had a very successful event. And I’m not just talking about Twilight Teez, here. For those of you who attended, you can attest to this – the Eclipse Prom rocked! A lot of people showed up. The lines for Stephenie’s autograph and photos with Eddie and Jake – we’re so close I can call them Eddie and Jake – extended around the gymnasium, intermingling with each other. The sound system did lack a bit, and it was hard to hear Stephenie clearly, but did anyone really care? From what I saw, that answer is an emphatic no. It was enough to watch or read along. The food was fun, and the music carried a good beat and you could dance to it (although not many did). as for Twilight Teez, we did a pretty brisk business and I personally would like to thank all who bought a shirt from us for that. All in all, it was a good time. I’d post photos here, but the ones I took didn’t come out. There’s nothing more irritating than having a camera misbehave during a rare event such as this.

As many of you have seen, we now have what is left of our Eclipse shirt stock on our web site. We still have some left over, so if you didn’t get an opportunity to get a shirt at the prom, we got them here. Just keep in mind that once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Next up, many of you have asked us about our idea submissions page. This was an extremely popular part of our web site. More so than we anticipated. We’ve been open for not quite six months, and we have received hundreds of submissions. We appreciate everyone’s patience, and we do intend to eventually get around to offering these. It’s just that…man! There are so many of them! Twilight Teez is not a huge conglemerate. It’s just the two of us, for now, and there’s a lot to keep up with. As you know, we’ve had to temporarily shut down our Idea Submissions page. We intend to get that back up and running soon. For now, we ask for your continued patience. If you’ve submitted an idea, it’s still in within the realm of possibility that yours will be selected. So don’t give up.

We do have some other projects that are well underway, though. We have contracted with Daymond Hoffman to offer some of his work on shirts. We expect that we will be able to make his first design available by the end of the month, if not sooner. He has some very interesting vampire-related work and we believe you will agree. His first set of shirts has been unofficially labeled “Vampitude”. When you see the designs, we think you’ll agree that it’s apptly titled.

Finally, we have been given the green light to offer the Alice shirt in a girlie design. However, we have a bit of a conundrum. We’ve received some feedback relating to that text on the back of the shirt – “Official Member of the I Love Alice Cullen Fan Club”. Some have stated that they’d rather it not say that. So we’re going to open up a poll and let our customers decide. Let us know what your opinion is over in the forums. Click here to get to the poll. Incidentally, we will most likely start adding new color options to this shirt, as well, so keep your eyes open.

Well, that’s all for now. Got to get back to work getting your orders out and making new designs. Until next time!

-Brian