Um, yeah.

Anyone who wears this sweater is awesome in our book. More here.

Write On!

January 23 is National Handwriting Day (not to be confused with National Letter Writing Week, Jan 8-14). We can think of no better day for you to practice your penmanship. Take it from our new Words of Wisdom poster series:

How to Write.

Before you can start practicing how to write your Ps and Qs, you need to learn how to hold a writing utensil. According to this poster, apparently you're supposed to hold a pen like a well-educated adult, not some graceless monkey who may use the pen to inadvertently jab himself in the eyeballs.

Some handy tips to remember:

     -Hold the pen firmly, but not so tightly as to cramp the fingers.

     -Avoid the finger movement. It is not practical.

     -The thoughtful student in penmanship, as in other studies, will win.

And for the love of all that's holy, "Keep both feet on the floor."

Italics mean the poster is serious.

Now that you have learned how to hold a pen, what are you going to do with it? Conduct an orchestra? Stick it in your ear? Eat soup with it?

Why not write someone a letter? Or do your taxes? Or make a list of all the reasons you can't eat soup with a pen? According to this here poster, good penmanship doesn't come naturally, so you'd better study up on how to ensure that your ledger is legible:

How to Improve Your Penmanship in Letter Writing.

Here are a few easy tips:

     -Write plainly and neatly as possible, rapidly if you can, slowly if you must.

     -Neatness, elegance, and correctness are all equally important as mere legibility.

     -Making a wavy line to represent a word is an injury to the writer and is vexatious, unsatisfactory, and disrespectful to the reader.

     -Vexatious: adjective; causing or tending to cause annoyance, frustration, or worry
 
     -You're welcome.

Now that you're able to hold a pen and form words out of letters on a piece of paper, the possibilities are endless! You could apply for a job, practice appropriate business conduct, or buy a horse.

Hey, these posters didn't write themselves.

Whatever you choose to do with your new skills, always remember, keep those feet planted, buddy.

OTF Takes a Field Trip

By now, you're all familiar with Old Tom Foolery's mascot, Ryder Lee.

We call him Master Scruffy McScruffenstien Esquire III

But there's a new dog in town, Zero, who is Jen's Mini Aussie/Border Collie (at least that's what we think she is).

Oh, hai.

Ryder and Zero finally met for the first time when OTF took a doggie field trip to the Minneapolis Metrodome last week. The stadium opened their revolving doors to furry four-legged friends of all sizes and energy levels to run, poo, and pee in the outer rim of the arena.

 
Ryder and Zero met tons of new doggies at the dome and begged us to have a slumber party in which all dogs would be required to paint each others' toenails and talk about that cute schnauzer in math class. However, everyone was pretty worn out after running around in a circle for two hours, so we called it a night.

"OMG, we should totes go get smoothies after this."
"Yes. Totes."

Zero understands her place as co-mascot and has agreed not to try to gain full mascot status. However, she continues to smell Ryder on Jen's jacket and boots for several minutes every night when she gets home from OTF. Plotting to overthrow the hierarchy?

We may never know.

The nicest wrong number

The other night I got a call from a number I didn't recognize. As soon as I said "hello," I heard a click on the other end. A few minutes later, this text came in.

Let's all try to act more like this anonymous person in 2012.

And yes, I know my phone is from the Stone Age.

FABulous news!

We are having a pretty good day considering it's Monday. Usually, Mondays are reserved for dragging ourselves out of bed, screaming obscenities at our monitors, keeping the coffee pot on repeat, and single-handedly downing an entire half-gallon of Edy's mint chocolate chip ice cream for lunch. Mind you, today is no different, except that we opted for strawberry instead of mint chocolate and we're pretty psyched that our products are being featured on fab.com.

What's fab.com, you ask? It's a super swell web store that features different daily deals from design-y companies. Our wallets can confirm that we've been big fans of fab.com for a while. Everything is always offered at a pretty decent sale price, so we've managed to pick up some fun prints, shirts, art, and jewelry at a severe discount. Follow this link to see our Fab shop, but if you don't have an account, you can't peruse the site. We encourage you to sign up and poke around! Hey, it's free to look. Maybe you'll find that chic square pizza cutter or diamond-encrusted space helmet cat bed you've been looking for.*

Anyway, back to us.

Fab.com will feature Old Tom Foolery cards, posters, shirts, and more for the next few days, so order now if you want to save. (Not to hint or anything, but you never did send your elderly neighbor lady a thank you card for the "Kittens Monthly" subscription she got you for Christmas.) While you're at it, invite your friends to join Fab using your special code (see site for details), and you can get credit to spend on the site. We can't think of a better way to spend a Monday!

*If these exist, please leave me a link in the comments. I will buy them today, and I don't even own a cat or a pizza.

(JAN 8-14) National Letter Writing Week

January 8-14 is National Letter Writing Week! (Finally.) What better way to celebrate than to send some uncrappy cards to your loved ones? We have cards for, like, tons of occasions, or no occasion at all! This is a good time to remind you that you never sent your Aunt Gracie a thank you card for that heinous sweater she bought you for Hanukkah. Here's a reasonable one:

Inheritance, here you come!

In an age full of email and texting, receiving a tangible card has never been more special. Awwwwzzzz. 

Seriously, whether you buy it from us or not, send someone a card this week. They’ll love you extra hard.

Sound it Out

Wow, it's already the 4th day of January. Have you given up on your resolutions for the new year yet? I haven't. I vowed to learn the English language real good by following these youTube videos from PronunciationManual:

Hm. I always thought it was pronounced like "quinoa." The K must be silent.

French appetizers have always had my tongue in a twist. Let's give hors d'oeuvres a try:

Mmm... diloosuss.

Or everyone's favourite tex-mex chain restaurant...

Sean Toodle.

If you're looking for someone to sound out English words and Hollywood's best more accurately, visit PronunciationBook (the original dude that PronunciationManual is mocking). But beware, the real guy will never teach you how to say gems like this:

I think Scroti Wontoobsis would approve.