Shop Now Open. As the picture suggests.

It’s down at 302B Great North Rd, Grey Lynn, Auckland.

We’re pretty excited that our new retail store is now FINALLY OPEN, it’s super classy, and we want all of you to come down and check it out too… so the first five people that come down and buy a t-shirt with a printed copy of this blog post will get a FREE T-SHIRT!

It’s been a long time coming moving from Parnell, and for anyone that turned up at the old Parnell Showroom looking for us, we send our deepest apologies. We’ve moved to 302B Great North Rd, and you can now come in for your pick-ups & exchanges or just for a blat on your credit card.

Great North Rd is quite a big road though, so if you have any confusion about how to get to us, this will help you find our store.

So come on down and check it out now. We put a lot of work in to it, so we’d love to hear what you guys think about it. Tell all your friends as well; they’ll no doubt think it’s great too.

Loud t-shirt Week

This week we’re doing a ‘Loud t-shirt week’ in aid of ‘Loud Shirt Day’ on the 18^th of September. The Loud shirt day is an annual appeal of The Hearing House and the Southern Cochlear Implant Paediatric Programme - two charities who are dedicated to enabling deaf children with a cochlear implant to listen and speak like their hearing peers.

I hadn’t really thought about the charity too much until we started working with them, and since then I’ve seen a news piece on the life of one of these children who was supported by this surgery and the story was compelling to say the least. What these guys do is really awesome, and it’s a more than worthy cause that we’re stoked to be helping out.

As I’ve said, it’s an awesome cause, and over the next week we’ll be running a new ‘loud shirt’ inspired t-shirt, with 15% of each sale going towards the Loud Shirt Day appeal. So keep an eye out and your credit (or debit) card handy over this next week – we’ve got some wicked designs in store for you.

Make sure you get yours in time for Loud Shirt Day on the 18th... and ensure you're not only the loudest, but also the coolest at your workplace.

Daffodil Day

It’s daffodil day today. Give generously; they’re an awesome cause – Cancer affects everyone is some way, and the Cancer Society support thousands of Kiwis every year. We released the Official Daffodil Day t-shirts on Wednesday, and with 15% of each t-shirt sale going towards the Cancer Society, if you’ve already bought one you’ve shown your support.

We’ll keep them on the site till they sell out, so get in quick. I don’t have mine yet, but I’ll definitely wear it – regardless of whether it’s after daffodil day or not – cos it’s a sweet t-shirt. And the money goes to a good cause so don’t think about it, just do it.

Rob and Andy. No Homo

The other day the gayest thing happened. Rob and Andy both turned up wearing the same t-shirt, the same coloured shorts, the same coloured shoes, the same coloured jackets, the same coloured undies, the same coloured skin, the same cheesy smile, and a similar amount of facial hair. A coincidence? I think not. I mean seriously, what are the odds?

We've moved!

As I’m sure a few of you are aware we’ve been talking about moving offices for a while now, and on Friday and over the weekend we FINALLY MOVED!

At times it was quite a painstaking process - with a few ups and downs that I’ll touch on later - but for the most part I think we were all just excited to be finally getting everything done.

We’re not the most organised bunch here at Mr Vintage, and after boxing up all the t-shirts, packing up all the warehouse shelving, and turning off all the computers, it was finally time to arrange the trucks/Vans that we were going to pick-up all of our stuff with. Only problem was, when we got to Hireace they told us we couldn’t hire anything seeing as we all had our restricted licenses. I know what you’re all thinking…. What a bunch of losers, none of them even have their full licenses. But maybe the joke's on you cos we don’t have to pay the extra to get our full license. We just don’t drive after 10 or carry passengers. lol. But it is reasonably funny that there’s 123 years between; me, Hayden, Joe, Andy and Rob and we can’t even muster a full license.

But we got past that by getting my brother and rob’s Uncle in to hire the van and truck respectively. Our problems didn’t stop there however. Maybe hiring vans out to restricted drivers are prohibited for a good reason, as hours later I had scraped the van past Robs shiny black Holden pulling in outside of work. It was a funny angle, what can I say.

Rob's car came off second best with the van after I misjudged a turn horribly.

The Van. Unscathed.

So we’re all settled in now, and we’re getting out all the orders we had to delay while we were moving (so apologies if you were in that group) and we’ll be setting up the showroom as soon as we can. We’re down on Great North Rd, and as soon as the showroom’s open we’ll let you know. In the mean-time, here's a few images from our move. Exciting eh.

There were shit-loads of boxes, but we got there in the end.

The Parnell Showroom. End of an era really.

PC Load Letter

Andy’s had a lot of trouble with his printer for a while now, and been it’s a cause of great frustration for our Muscley Oompa Loompa trainer. It always seems to have a ‘Paper-Jam’, even when there’s clearly no paper jammed in the little bugger. Earlier this year Andrew was luckily rewarded for his years of hard work and service with a brand new printer… and that meant only one thing, we had to destroy that evil machine with our bare hands (and a hammer).

Office Space: Great movie, and they really inspired us to beat the shit out of our asshole printer.

It was quite an emotional time, and in the end it really did feel like the scene from Office Space when Peter, Samir and Michael release their frustration on their ‘PC Load-Letter’ printer. If you haven’t seen it, Office Space is a fantastic movie and that scene’s a standout. We didn’t go to an isolated field though; we just went out on to Falcon Street outside our office and got to the job at hand. After the second throw to the heavens, we all ran inside like we had just broken the neighbors window playing cricket on the street. Man it feels good to be a gangster.

This is why Andy is better than us. He goes to the gym.

Impressive toss from Andy first up.

We were quite surprised it came out relatively unscathed after the fall.

It was obviously clear another attempt was necessary. So up she went for a second time.

That's more like it, the glass shattering was rather loud this time.

Andy proceeded to vent years of pent up frustration on the poor printer using his friend, the hammer.

Andy proudly holds aloft the battered carcass of his defeated opponent. Kinda like Conan the barbarian, except smiley.

Rugby and Restaurants

I asked Andy what I should blog about today, and he said I should just blog about what I know, rugby. He was taking the piss, as no one else in the office likes rugby at all. But I thought I might as well.

I seen all this kafuffle lately with some fight at a schoolboy rugby game between Kelston and Auckland Grammar School. They are making a bigger deal out of it than they need to really, fights happen, and brawls happen in rugby. No big deal, dry your eyes Murray Deaker. I might call him actually and say, “Muwwy, two things; you’re a dick mate, go back to your Team NZ BlackHeart campaign”. Probably won’t though. I’m a man of many intentions and little action. But I did go to Auckland Grammar School, making me a Grammar Old Boy I suppose – and I can assure you that Grammar didn’t start it. It was all Kelston Boys High. lol.

Rugby Brawling. That's fine.

One more thing, I went to dinner the other night with my special lady friend at this Greek restaurant Plato's in Ponsonby. Wouldn’t go there again. It’s a Greek restaurant, Greek themed, Greek menu…. You get the idea. So we get in there, sit down at our table, and then they start blasting the music. Now I’m all for music at a restaurant sure, but they proceeded to play the entire bloody Feelers album. It’s a Greek restaurant; play some Greek music for shits sake. And turn it the hell down so it’s not so obtrusive. Nothing more off-putting than hearing James Reid screaming down your ears while your trying to enjoy a Greek Moussaka! And then their EFTPOS didn’t work. They couldn’t quite figure out why. It’s because their phone line is disconnected – exactly the reason I couldn’t make a booking by phone you shmucks.

Plato's in Ponsonby: Wouldn't go there if I was you. Unless you really like the Feelers and paying in cash only.

Beckham wears GNK Sketch!

Check out this sweet picture that Mel spotted in the NZ Women’s Weekly. She claims she was just browsing and never reads the magazine, but we know she loves shows like Gossip Girl and Ugly Betty. Back to the photo though, there’s David Beckham’s little boy Brooklyn wearing our ‘Goodnight Kiwi Sketch’ t-shirt. Whoever has my dream job of writing the captions for NZ Women’s Weekly has speculated that David may have picked it up while on his last trip to NZ, but we know the inside scoop…. We gave a bunch of t-shirts to Becks’ family and the rest of the LA Galaxy team when they were over last year for their exhibition match against the Wellington Phoenix. How did we get them to Mr Beckham? I think Andy and Rob met him at the ‘Pony Club’ one night out; they were pretty much part of the furniture around that place back then. lol

Brooklyn's a Kiwi Kid. Well he's not but he's got one of our 'GNK Sketch' tees.

The Big Week begins

This week is a very big week – not because Flavor Flav has some very important decisions to make (although he does, and they are in fact very important) – we’re finally moving premises this weekend. Yeah, it’s been a long time coming I know, but we had to paint everything and we’re not professional painters. Painting was quite fun though; we’d sink a few beers, and it kind of felt like the scene from ‘Shawshank Redemption’ when they have the cold brewskies on the roof. I also put some ‘war paint’ on my face, which was fun; it made me look like a real warrior. Sadly we don’t have any pictures documenting our painting efforts, so I’ve added this picture of Flavor Flav.

Flavor Flav: He's such a little cutie-pie.

Blogging

I see that 2 Degrees have now launched, and I’ve got to say that I’m pretty impressed with their whole marketing campaign and launch…. Using Rhys Darby in the campaign is like fishing with dynamite – the guy’s more bankable than Will Smith. And their plans seem pretty sweet too, Mel has got herself a SIM card, so it’ll be interesting to see how that pans out – I’m more than interested in jumping ship.

Insert 'Giant Logo' gag here.

To make this blog more of a blog, I thought I’d add a sweet picture for you to look at.

Cute eh. Look how small it is.

Telethon Returns...

Watched some of that Telethon this weekend. Saw that they raised almost $2 million, which is cool, it’s going to a good cause and that’s the main thing. Seems like the young kids really got in to it, and so too did a whole bunch of B-Grade celebrities – just like the old times really. Good shit. Apart from Brooke-Howard Smith, that guy needs to stop yelling so much and chill the hell out. And Toni Marsh (bless her soul) and Hamish McKay aren’t a good team, they were like a couple of virgins bumbling their way about on their honeymoon night – very excited, great enthusiasm, but little end product. Other than that it was a wicked event, and I actually stayed up pretty late watching it. I didn’t get around to building a fort though; I got a dead leg from football and my movement was severely restricted.

Raised a whole bunch of money for Kiwi Kids. Good on ya NZ.

We’re stepping shit up on the facebook fan page now too; we’ve decided to do daily giveaways to our facebook mates, so get amongst that if you haven’t already. I think I’ll probably struggle to come up with lots of little trivia questions by myself, so Andy will prove a helpful ally there. He knows all sorts of crap about everything. He also loves watching documentaries. We may just do it on Twitter also, but I’m not sure the Twitter community would appreciate all the Tweets – they’re more in to networking and ‘Tweet-Ups’, which is cool but it’s just not always for us so much.

Add us on facebook, we're giving away a tee every day.

Model Interviews

I was reading this American t-shirt companies blog the other day, and they had all these ‘model interviews’ on there… just a few words with the models that you see on the site all the time, and it was quite interesting that I was interested in it, usually I’d just look at the pictures. So I think we’ll do some interviews with our models on the blog – that’ll be one to look forward to. Not sure what we’ll ask them though, if you’ve gots any ideas let us know.

Car-Park Twat

Last Friday this Johnson (extremely under-utilised term for penis) parked right in front of our showroom door from about mid-day to after we left work. We could barely get out the door! Hayden kept going on about it being a fire hazard, but it was more the principle of it all. In any case, I just don’t understand what would make someone think that it’s a park; you can’t park in front of a door, that’s ludicrous. Anyway, we wanted to get them towed, but turns out it’s a council issue, and you know they only come with tickets when you don’t want them to. So the bugger got let off the hook. Well, not quite, we did draw some Johnsons (I know, you get it, I like using the name Johnson instead of dick) on the back of his car in the dust. That’s worse than getting towed. Don’t mess with us.

yeah, that's our showroom door. you can't park there. you're a dick mate.



only when we were about to nip up to Hollywood to get a Steak & Cheese did we notice that we could barely get out of the door.



look, that's scandalous that is.

Haven't seen ya in a while, wondering what's been going on...

I don’t really have anything on my mind that I think you’d find especially funny or interesting, so I thought I’d just give you all an update on things here at Mr Vintage. Boring, I know – and there are a few things for me to complain about actually, so if you get thinking, “oh man, these guys at Mr Vintage are such a bunch of pussy whiners”, we’re not usually this bad, it’s just I haven’t blogged in a while and it’s ‘that time of the month’ for me – a while back I decided that just because I’m not a chick it doesn’t mean I can’t use that excuse - so here I am today using it.

So here goes…. Gee whiz, things have been different around here, lots of changes. Not bad different like the All Blacks suddenly being like the Warriors and not being able to catch the ball, but different like the Topp Twins. They’re cool cos they’re weird and they’re yodeling lesbians and all that – and you don’t get that everyday.

The Topp Twins. Lesbos - the good kind.

We’re implementing some new accounting software. While I don’t really know what’s going on there, I know it’s meant we’ve had to re-make and re-load every single product on the website – so if there are a few issues with the website over the coming days, please forgive us, we’re only new to all these systematic practices. If we had it our way, it’d all be on one trusty spreadsheet like back in the old days. But apparently being a full-blown business now we have to make some changes.

New Accounting Software: We're so busy Rob's been working from home too!

All of this is going on while we’re getting ready for our move as well, which is scheduled in for an as yet unconfirmed date. It’s all moving along on that front, I wouldn’t say nicely, but it’s moving along. It turns out we’ve got this grumpy neighbor next door causing a bit of grief and getting up in the builders grill. We might take him to TV show ‘Neighbors from Hell’, probably not though. We’re yet to plan the opening party as well, but we’ll give you more on that in good time.

New Store update...

We tend to get pretty restless on Fridays here at Mr Vintage, and last Friday Rob was kind enough to take us out for a little treat to quell our insatiable appetite for action... we went to see our new home!

It’s looking heaps better than last time – there are a whole new bunch of walls and gib everywhere (me and Hayden know a little bit about gib after our recent early morning escapades at the Mr V HQ, but that’s another story for another day)... So yeah, check it out, it won’t be too long before we’re in there – and rest assured, we’ll have a grand party before we open.

What will be our new showroom. Complete with sunshine streaming in.

This was our band shot in the warehouse, sweet eh. Check out Andy's ample calves.

That's me climbing the scaffolding in the second part of the warehouse. I'm so adventurous.

Those are Joes feet, inside Joe's shoes. They're like size 13 or something. BFG.

Andy - getting to work already. lol (He already had this caption in mind when posing for the photo).

Rob. What a beauty. No homo.

Me getting my 'Super-Kawaii' on.

TheA-List.co.nz

Ed Hardy. Goes particularly well with Sunbeds. The A-List just loves both.

Feedback on Daily Tees as Requested.

We got an email the other day from some dude who wasn’t all that happy about our t-shirts and, well, our site in general. We don’t get that many excessively negative emails like this, so I thought it’d be fun to reply to him and share the whole conversation with you guys. I think subconsciously I felt compelled to challenge this particular young man because he had the old ‘69’ included in his email address. I think anyone that has 69 in their email address needs a swift slap to the face. Sadly the correspondence didn’t last as long as I had hoped, but it might make for some interesting reading in any case.

.

.

Subject:Feedback on Daily Tees as Requested.
From:Dave
Enquiry date:2009-07-07 12:36

Seriously Poor designs. I have no idea what your marketing strategy is, but can you honestly see people wearing the vast majority of these shit designs you have been spamming out.

I currently own two of your shirts; "Hamiltron City of the Future" and "Georgie Pie." The latter is the only great daily shirt release so far and the former is class.I once purchased "Keep NZ Beautiful" but literally threw it away after one wear - the Kiwiana design was great. However the Shirt was a poor cut, making me [6ft, 70kgs, slim build] look like a formless, raging fatty! It also was thick, coarse and picked up lint + fiber like crazy. Finally the transfer/decal was a horrible plastic that didn’t breathe or contour with the shirt folds.

Kiwiana is truly cool, but it needs to be mainstream to appeal to me. 90% of the designs that you have released in you daily t-shirt have been obscure and rubbish. I actually unsubscribed to the mail list for a time as it was painful to see. Added to this was the sheer dorkyness of some of the concepts. I hate being forced to explain a funny t shirt, it is akin to explaining a joke, and it loses so much when done.

I would suggest you look around some of the other Tee sites; 6dollartshirts.com, bustedtees.com, snorgtees and my favourite - palmercash.com.

I only frequent mrvintage on the forlorn hope you have required some class. Strangely some of the better designs have disappeared - e.g.; "Monopoly - I won $10 in a beauty contest" etc. I assume you pay a royalty fee so your margins are smaller, but variety and consumerism based shirts are rockin.

From: jay@mrvintage.co.nz

To: g####_69@hotmail.com

Subject: Re: Feedback on Daily Tees as Requested.

Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 11:57:33 +1200

Hey Dave,

Thanks for your feedback, we appreciate all feedback here at Mr Vintage - good and bad.

I'm glad you have contributed towards our wages by buying a few of our t-shirts. That's great news. I'm sorry to hear our Marketing Strategy is not to your liking, but it appears that your opinion is in contrast to the majority of our customers - who have shaped this model.

I'm also sorry to hear the KNZB t-shirt wasn't to your liking, it may have been in the age of our first t-shirts, which were a little bigger. But your size dimensions do astound me, and I'm happy to say that Andy from work has made some suggestions. Andy spends a lot of time at the gym, and his body is a master-piece. He says that he too used to be a frighteningly skinny boy, and he would recommend that you begin to eat bigger meals; plenty of protein, carbs, and a whole lot of steak. After this he recommends you hit the gym and work your way in to a Men's Small. Prospective lady friends will too notice your increased efforts to look more manly and less rake-like.

Thanks for pointing out those websites, seeing as we're in the t-shirt industry we're always interested to see what other professionals are up to. I've circulated the list around the office, and we're all going to take turns on the only office computer that has Internet capabilities and check them out. We'll probably all sit around and talk about t-shirts while the web-pages are loading as well, as the connection via dial-up is not the quickest apparently. We want to unbundle soon. Amateurs.

Again, I find myself apologising. Our designs should never have been so obscure that you had to explain them to your friends. Please send my apologies to them for making them think - that was wrong of us, and I will make a promise to you: We will never design a t-shirt that makes you think. *Pinky Promise*.

I regret to inform you that in addition, we will not be altering our 'Marketing Strategy' for you. If you have any further concerns, please let me know and I will put my head together with Andy and come up with a suitable solution for you Kind Sir.


Regards,

Jay Govind

Prince of Marketing

Mr Vintage Ltd

From: Dave
To: jay@mrvintage.co.nz
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: RE: Feedback on Daily Tees as Requested.

Lol, Nice one.

If only your shirts were as funny as this reply!

100% Scary

Just a quick shout out (I've always wanted to do a shout-out) to the guys over at 100% They're the dudes that ended up buying the 'Scary Washing Machine' that you all love so much...

They've since embarked on a nation wide Charity tour of New Zealand, which definitely makes them good buggers in my books. Check em out.

BIG NEWS

We’re moving!

Parnell has been a great home for us over the last 2 and a bit years, and we’ve grown especially fond of the Hollywood Bakery on Parnell Rd. But it is time for us to move in to a bigger space – should be cool, it’ll be more of an actual retail store, so you won’t have us looking at you from behind the computers uncomfortably while you shop. The offices will be out back, and hopefully it’ll mean I won’t put my foot in it by saying inappropriate things in front of customers as much – which will be a nice change.

But before we go we’ll have some kind of ‘closing down’ sale to clear a bit of stock, mainly because it means less stuff for us to move. And rest assured we’ll have a massive ‘new store opening’ party, this time mainly because we like to party. More to come on that later though.

Anyway, we checked out the new premises - and while we can’t say where it is just yet – the place is going to be pretty sweet. We got Joe to take some photos, check it.

Showrom space. Yes boss.

That's where we'll do the break-dancing.

Rob talking smack.

Rob wore a shirt as he had some very important decisions to make. Like Flavor Flav.

t-shirt Design Submission of the week:

Andy told me it's a play on the saying "as useless as tits on a Bull". I get it now.

Thanks Kelly

Today we received a package from a customer who obviously has a lot of love and compassion in her heart. After hearing about our current plight, she sent in two bottles of wine. They were accompanied by this lovely note, and we are totally chuffed. The wine will definitely help pick us up.

Dear Mr Vintage,

I have always loved the creativity of your t-shirt designs, and my friends and family have enjoyed receiving them as gifts. I also love getting my t-shirt of the day email, as it always puts a smile on my face.

I was really saddened to hear about the break in that happened to your Parnell store. I cannot replace what was taken, or make you feel more at ease about someone rummaging through your stuff, but I thought these couple of bottles of wine might help pick you up.

All the best in getting everything sorted out.

Loyal fan
Kelly Reed
Northern Market Manager
Constellation New Zealand Ltd

the A-list.co.nz:

TK: Nah bro, totally leave the glasses on. Kieran: Yeah. I thought they looked cool.

That's Awesome

In light of recent events at Mr Vintage, I thought it was a good idea to put something up that would make even the saddest man in the world smile. See, it looks like they're having a little jacuzzi.

some bastards stole our shit.

This morning I pulled in to work and noticed Rob was outside on the phone. As I smiled gleefully, I observed that he was deep in conversation and had a facial expression resembling a frown. I thought to myself that this may have been because he got a little too steamed at Mardi Gras over the weekend and he still had an upset stomach. Turns out it wasn’t.

We got ROBBED. It seems some people don’t care too much for paying for their computers, so they stole our 3 Macs as well as the till. At least they were smart enough to know that’s where the money’s kept. They weren’t smart enough to steal the mouse and the keyboard of one of the computers though! Mwah ha ha ha. We had the last laugh as it turns out.

Maybe it was the Hamburgler. Look at his cheecky little grin.

But seriously, it really sucks that they took the computers. We lost about a months’ worth of designs, and Joe works real hard on those designs, so it’s not very nice for Joe. And then we have to fill out a bunch of these insurance forms and stuff, which sucks – no one likes filling out forms.

We had to sit around for a while and wait for the cops to come and check out the crime scene for fingerprints and whatnot. When they did arrive, I was a tad dissapointed to say the least. I was expecting a CSI-like team to stroll in and take control of the situation. You know, a Gil Grissom or maybe a sunglass-clad Horacio popping in with his stylish suit and sharp brain. Instead we got a couple of balding, middle aged burly men in some kind of blue police jumpsuits. They came in, dusted down a few things, asked a few questions, jotted a few things down in their note pads and left. We probably won’t hear from them again.

Because we lost a whole lot of our designs we’ll have to cancel the ‘t-shirt of the day’ specials for the rest of this week, so you can blame those cowardly thieves for that one. We also had a pretty sweet promotion planned for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week that we’ll have to delay.

So here’s the deal, we’re so scared about more of our stuff being stolen that we’re going to give a whole bunch of it away – so no-one will ever break in to our store again. Next week we’re going to give away over 150 prizes, and one MASSIVE amazingly awesome prize. Not even typing massive in capitals does it justice. So stay tuned to the Mr Vintage blog, our Facebook page, or our Twitter account for more details.

Detention Worthy?

Yes.

1. Firstly, I have great respect for any kid who has the gumption to stand up in front of his peers, rip open his shirt and declare that he is Superman.
2. The fact that he had the Superman t-shirt under his school shirt tells me the act was pre-planned. That means he woke up on the morning of 31st of May, 2006 and decided he was going to reveal his true identity to his class mates. That means he’s awesome.
3. There should never have been any ‘character points’ deducted for this announcement. Truth be told, he should have been awarded an extra 20 ‘character points’ for such a bold statement of awesomeness.
4. I hope he got some seriously hot lady friends after this. If there wasn’t a line of girls waiting to kiss him and become his Lois Lane, the Girls at his school are useless.