Mood:  don't ask

Hey, guys; you're likely having a better weekend than I am.  Cafepress recently blocked this image for the mere mention of freaking Twitter in the image caption!  That's right--the caption "Dude, Trump just blocked me on Twitter" somehow violates Twitter's intellectual property rights!  As if their company only just invented the word "twitter", which has existed, as both a noun and a verb, for centuries or longer.  Plus, there's nothing defamatory or derogatory about the mere mention of Trump or Twitter, as I argued in an email. 

Didn't seem to matter to them; they seem to fear being sued if one of their store owners sells something mentioning a specific social media site.  In fact, I'm not the only one with a design mentioning Twitter; and I'm definitely not the first to mention the eejit who's about to become POTUS, either. Guess I'll have to stay on these folks, and see what I can negotiate with them.  Stay tuned...

Mood:  lyrical

Yep, that's right folks; and I'm still working on new designs based on photos I took during my first-ever trip to Central America!  My designs are getting more complex with time and experience; and I'm especially pleased with how a couple of brand-new teeshirt designs turned out, and how they look now in the new SubLair known as To Guatemala With Love.  No politics in this one--just stunning scenery and warm, friendly energy, such as my mom and I experienced during our 10-day visit to that small, vibrant nation!  At least one other design is now up in greeting-card form at The Lair of Cards.  Here is some idea of what the three images look like on new Cafepress products...

Mood:  happy

Big news, LairCronies: At long last, my Irish LairShop, Éireann85, has been upgraded to Premium (or whatever Cafepress is calling upgraded shops these days)!!  It still has the same url and main image; but it now has a much prettier, green-themed design, as well as my "standard" six SubLairs! 

In addition to featuring the best of the 1985 Irish images previously uploaded (couldn't leave out the Carrowmore Dolmen, could we?), there are also plenty of products with the more recent images from the trip around the Irish coast in the spring of 2006.  Hence, there are many more products to check out than we previously had for sale in the Basic LairShop.  We just have, I think, one and a half SubLairs to finish upgrading; meanwhile, have a look at a few of our new items:

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Mood:  chillin'

I've been trying to promote the LairShops all sorts of ways since I first opened them circa 2002.  Facebook, the LiveJournal blog, my own website, my Myspace profile, links in my email signature--I've done them all.  The only thing I've been lacking has been Twitter, and who's got time for that?  I hardly have time for the online fora I currently occupy.

What may prove the most effective promotional technique, however, may be SEO tactics, including image tagging and metatags in the storefronts themselves.  I have been making sales now and again--most especially in the Lair of Cards' Bumpersticker collection.  Recently, while looking through my LairShops image collection, it occurred to me that my previous efforts at image tagging had gotten it all wrong: I needed to sharpen and focus my image keywords; make them highly specific, not use generalized keywords, courtesy of Google Adwords, that could be attached to practically any image out there.  Therefore, I've been going through the whole image collection all over again during the past couple of weeks, and completely redoing all their keywords to make them more visible to fans of Marija Gimbutas, aerial photos of the North Atlantic, and Neolithic European pottery motifs. 

 I'll comment more on all this later.  Meanwhile, before closing off this post, I'd like to encourage all readers here to check out the special collection of ornaments at Artifacts of the Lair.  I call this section "Festivity Happens."  Hanging round and oval ornaments: they're not just for Christmas trees anymore!

Mood:  mischievious

Well, folks, Colton Harris-Moore's little cross-country trek wrapped up just about a year ago; but we've still got our collection of slightly satirical "Join the Barefoot Bandit Tour 2010" merch up at Artifacts of the Lair and The Lair of Cards!  We've got a whole range of teeshirts, mugs, ornaments, stickers; and just recently, some new decorative items such as keychains and charm necklaces!

Anyway, these might not be up for sale much longer; so come get 'em while they're cool!  Here are some examples of our sardonic Colton love that we've been hawking over the past year: 

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Mood:  rushed

I should have done this entry a long time ago; sorry it's been ages since I posted at all!  I just wanted to post about each individual LairShop in my collection, prior to posting about specific features such as our recent all-ornament collection, Festivity Happens, for example.  This post is about our all-paper LairShop, The Lair of Cards.  Sort of like "house of cards"; except ours is still standing, n'est-ce pas?

The Lair of Cards is the result of a desire I had to have a LairShop that was all-paper products with original photos and digital art.  I wanted my work on calendars, greeting cards, postcards and such like; and thus the Lair of Cards came along.  Actually, parts of it are still works in progress, as I'm aiming for a dozen items (give or take a couple) in each LairShop's every SubLair.  The only problematic thing about the Lair of Cards is that it borrows images from practically all my other LairShops; and thus it kind of lacks focus.  Perhaps focus is something it will achieve down the road a ways.  Meanwhile, I've still got a huge backlog of original photos awaiting processing and uploading to this, and my Imagekind galleries; and I'm getting new ideas for digital art pieces all the time (check out my somewhat disturbing "Palin/Voldemort 2012" bumpersticker, for example). 

Anyway, here are a few examples of what we've got up this LairShop so far...

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Mood:  don't ask

***All right, where the BLOODY HELL did my last post (on the LairShop 'All Bunnyz, All the Time') go?!!  It just DISAPPEARED off this blog!!  Whoever made off with it had better BRING IT THE FRICK BACK right this instant!  No excuses!!!

UPDATE: Erm...it just reappeared, as if from nowhere.  Right after I posted this post.  I don't know how it vanished, and then reappeared.  Guess I need a refresher course on how Angelfire blogs work...

Whatever.  As long as I've got the bloody post back.

Mood:  mischievious

This, folks, is the original image that my Dad, Tom Olsen (1936-2009) emailed me sometime back in 2002, when he heard that I was uploading original digital art images onto teeshirts and other products in Cafepress LairShops. As he was messing around with some software firm's version of MS Paint, he duly created an image of his own that he apparently considered suitable for little kids; and sent it to me via email, suggesting that I open a store featuring his latest creation. He was actually a physicist with some background in engineering; digital art, clearly was not his forte. But he presumably had fun with it in his free time.

My initial reaction? Thought I: "You've got to be bloody joking! That's got to be the single UGLIEST rabbit cartoon I've ever seen, bar none!!" But after dithering over it awhile, I decided, "Oh well, if Dad'll be flattered at seeing his bunny pic on a couple of teeshirts, why not?  Basic Cafepress stores are still free to set up, after all."  That was the beginning of the rabbit's den of iniquity that is All Bunnyz, All the Time!  I can just imagine the look on my Dad's face when he got an email a couple of days later, with a link to the new LairShop, which began: "Dear folks: So, you didn't think I'd do it, did you? Well, check this out!" According to my Mom, he was so impressed with the stuff with his Bunny pic uploaded onto them that he promptly ordered four coffee mugs; and after they arrived, he would proudly show them off to any visitor who crossed my folks' threshold.

Also, in addition to the original blue-background image, I created a couple of alternate versions: the infamous Dark Bunny (black background, Photoshop flare, red font), and a more innocuous white-background version. I recently added another version, Bleak House Bunny, with the Bunny'z head against the doorway of a cathedral in Ballina, Co. Mayo, Ireland. I keep meaning to make versions for Christmas and St. Patrick's Day as well; I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

My Dad passed away on March 1, 2009, after living with slow-growing liver cancer for nearly six years. However, I've kept up both the LairShop, and the Squidoo lens that promotes it; and, in fact, am still thinking up new All Bunnyz images based on the original. I've also been promoting this critter for years as a kind of edgy/alt-rock cult figure, if my descriptions of the All Bunnyz store products tell you anything! Anyway, check out this shop, and the scary bunny staring out at you from various shirts, mugs, postcards, and that scandalous thong! Plus, look for a possible upgrade of the store to a Premium Bunnyz Emporium one of these days...!!

Here are a few of the goodies currently available at the All Bunnyz LairShop. Click their images to be directed to the sales page of each item:

Mood:  quizzical

Folks, I need to update all the LairShops for spring and summer!  Trouble is, I feel the need to refurbish my large collection of images by creating new ones.  I've been through a dry spell lately when it comes to digital art creation.  Does anyone have any ideas for that? 

 I need to go for long walks and look at more illustrations of Neolithic art, I suppose.  The original motifs on Neolithic pottery clearly indicate that their creators saw analogies between shapes found in nature and the shapes of some of their own artifacts--such as the analogues of butterfly wings and double-headed harvesting axes (as only one example).  I should go out to Alki Beach and walk around, or the Arboretum near the UW campus; or perhaps further afield, to Bainbridge Island, Victoria or the San Juans, whenever the funds arrive to finance such excursions (sigh)...

 Anyway, I'll soon be back to blog on the two LairShops that haven't been featured here yet!  I also may well be making promotional videos for each of the LairShops, and images used therein, now that I've nearly mastered the making of video slideshows with music or other audio files added...

Mood:  lazy

For today's post on our third-ever LairShop, Eireann85, I'd like first to invite you to visit the Squidoo lens dedicated to this LairShop.  It's quite pretty, includes illustrated links to items from the shop, and features blog feeds on Irish megalithic sites!  After that, I'd like to invite you to visit Ireland at your earliest convenience.  After all, that's where the images for Eireann85 came from (originally during 1984-85, my third year of college); and we've heard the dollar-Euro exchange rate is improving on our end.  Unfortunately, the Irish have had their lives messed up by the global Depression 2.0 recession like the rest of us; but an influx of tourist dollars (in Euro form) would be of some help to them.

Eireann85 came about because I had all these prints and slides from my first Irish visit languishing in photo albums, and I wanted to do something with them.  Thus, having already opened up our first two LairShops, Artifacts of the Lair and The LithicLair, yet another LairShop seemed like a logical step.  The tough part was deciding which prints to scan and upload to our Image collection at Cafepress.  At the time we were shooting various landmarks and archaeological/prehistoric sites in the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, I was still sort of learning to do scenic photography with my old 35mm. Pentax somethingorother, now long since deceased (I managed to sell the lens to a used camera shop a few years ago; but the guy wouldn't touch the actual camera with a ten-meter stadia rod).  Hence, my one surviving shot of the cliffs of Moher, a popular site to visit on Ireland's west coast, got its auto lighting a bit screwed up; the cliffs look more like a multi-tiered black bookshelf lying on its side.  However, I was lucky enough to get some decent shots of the Giant's Causeway (right as I was running out of shots in my film supply), as well as a few dolmens and stone circles in the Carrowmore megalithic complex, spread out over a number of farmers' fields near Sligo town (taken in rather stormy, windy weather, with local farmers out liming their fields, and warning me to stay upwind of the lime dust.  I needed to head to a roadside pub for a nice hot whiskey-and-lemon after that trek).

Anyway, our Eireann85 LairShop is the result of the collection of mid-1980's 35mm. prints scanned and uploaded, with some tweaking on Photoshop along the way.  We have also recently added a few images from my 2006 solo tour around Ireland (only my second-ever visit!) sometime in the future.  I just hope it's not another 21 years until my next visit to the Emerald Isle!  Here, meanwhile, are some linked items from the LairShop itself.  Click on each image to be taken to its Cafepress sales page:

Enjoy! And pay a visit to an Irish dolmen today!!