It is Tuesday already? I swear I just finished writing this thing for the Halloween week. *Yawn* … Alright, alright already. Just let me go freshen up; I’ll be out in a few moments.
Woo! Let’s hear some noise Woundupers (yes, I will continue to mash this word into new and terrible forms)! Put your hands together and cheer. Woundup! Woundup! Woundup! It’s time for the one, the only (thank heavens it’s the only), Wangus’ Weekly Woot Woundup! Accept no imitations! Or, um, accept them, but still come back to me. Please? … Please come back … I’m … I’m so lonely…. So alone. *sniff*
(All thoughts and decisions are not necessarily affiliated with woot or the woot broadcasting network. But you know, they could be. I bet that the staffers are looking at some of the submissions laughing their collective asses off sometimes. They’d of course, be sitting atop bean bag chairs made of money, because that’s how I usually imagine the woot offices are. And I bet at least a few of them have tried to submit a design under a false screen name. Yes, I’m on to you! All rights reserved.)
The Theme: Nutrition? Apparently. I’ll be straight with you readers: unlike the past two weeks where I have had to leave a number of shirts I liked behind because there were simply too many, I’ve actually had to scan through a couple times over to find shirts to put into this WWWW because I just don’t think the designs are overall as fantastic as weeks past. I know full well that I couldn’t do any better, and in fact, I blame this tragedy not on the designs, but on the theme itself. This theme was pretty hard to work with, and a large majority of shirts suffer from title/derby-dependencitis by necessity, which you’ll see mentioned more than once in the upcoming reviews. Here’s to a better theme next week.
The FoxBox!
Powered By Cheese by briannyc128: Our favorite 128th Brian to live in New York City (ever) is finally in the box, and it’s well deserved (especially after his lost ‘lope showing). Now, I’ll be honest, I love cheese, regardless of the fact that I’m not supposed to eat it if I wish to remain … um, alive, which ultimately means that I probably won’t buy it. However, the design is simplistic and catchy and looks fantastic on the shirt. The bar reminds me of those old video games where life bars were apples or some other ridiculous object.
Verdict: Good job, Brian.
Sugar bsod by vishneda: I have actually been asked what bsod is a couple of times, so in case you are wondering (and google is somehow not working for you) it’s the dreaded Blue Screen of Death that often occurs with a computer crash. This shirt is just pure nerdapalooza, from the bsod itself to the chemistry nod. I get that the woot base is pretty far on the geek side, but even as a self-proclaimed nerd I don’t think I’d be too interested in actually buying the shirt. Also, I don’t like the idea of giving people an excuse to stare at me while trying to finish reading my clever shirt.
Verdict: Good for a laugh, but not my ten dollars.
Say No To Scurvy by fablefire: Dammit. I seem to be damning fablefire a lot, but its not my fault he/she is so unfairly talented. The style and humor always resonates with what I like, and I’m even (gasp) accepting of words in fablefire’s designs. I mean, it’s an orange! In a pirate outfit! How am I supposed to resist this? It’s clever and clean and I pretty much just stupidly love it. One caveat? There were some concerns with the size of the design, and while woot will likely just scrunch/crop the image, I’d beware of how it turns out. I’d hope that they’d contact fablefire first so he/she can work something out with them rather they just making some messed up executive decision.
Verdict: I’m hooked (yarr).
The Cake Is A Liar by geekfactor12: Um… I don’t get it. But over 300 people must since it’s in the fog. I remember glancing through and seeing someone say that it’s a Portal joke. I … well I don’t know what that means either. I suppose there goes my nerd cred. The design seems simple and fairly minimal, which makes me assume that most of the pull is in the concept, the joke, but like I said before, I don’t know what that might be.
Verdict: <blink> <enter cricket chirp>
The Path of Bitter Bitter Tears
Eating Healthy by tgentry: A recently removed fog runner, I was pretty impressed with this design. A really funny concept brought to life by a unique style of execution. It’s a little reminiscent of my faved ‘Blobbie’, and I’m only now realizing that these giant man-eating blobs are actually based off of some dungeons & dragons type game, and NOT (as I once thought) purely imagined from scratch. They’re still hilarious regardless. However, without the title, I don’t think the fact that the monster is eating runners makes much of an impact.
Verdict: Dependencitis VICTIM (cue sad/mysterious music)
For the Discerning Palate by derekfilley: Derek, of angry German kid fame, gives us this little number to enjoy, which (and no offense to the man) I like a lot better than his first submission. I’m a huge foodie, and the page discerning the different sections of meat is my favorite page in my Alton Brown’s I’m Just Here For The Food (product placement!) book. What I love about the shirt is that it can hold its own on without any explanation of title or derby theme. Also, I love the stegosaurus; it’s the best dinosaur ever (screw you T-rex fanboys).
Verdict: I Want One. (I can’t always be clever)
A Healthy Robot Diet by edgarrmcherly: There’s something silly and simplistic about this design that really draws me to it. It’s almost like my niece could draw this but only an adult would get to appreciate it. I like the color choice, especially the light blue shirt background, and I love the lopsided eyes. Sadly, I think it loses much of its value outside of the nutrition derby context. Other than that, the only complaint I have is that I would’ve preferred more immobile joints on the robot.
Verdict: WoundupBot requires sustenance!
Insert Creative Division Here!
Ham-Burger by gutsmasher77: Thankfully I love terrible puns. It’s a particular weakness of mine. And while the title definitely draws me to the shirt, it still manages alright without it (and if someone around you could decipher it, well that would be pretty damned awesome). I switch back and forth between how much like or dislike the fact that the pig looks just like my piggy bank when I was little. More importantly, there’s something ‘off’ with the design to me. I think it’s the fact that it’s so circularly centered on the shirt, but it could just be that I don’t want to have yet another brown shirt.woot in my closet.
Verdict: I never put any money in my piggy bank (I was too afraid my parents would yell at me if I ever broke it).
Tofu Kung Fu by evawilder: At first I thought this shirt said To-Kung-Fu, which I thought was pretty terrible and pretty genius at the same time, but it turns out I was wrong. Still, I like execution and the little touches in this shirt: the ridiculous karate outfits and the oriental-style plate. The plate reminds me more of a Japanese sushi plate so I would’ve preferred something like wasabi rather than whatever is on there (mint sprig?). I do question the color choice of yellow against the colors of the design, and there is some sort of spacing/position issue that I can’t seem to properly explanation that doesn’t appeal to my eyes.
Verdict: Tofo is good for you.
Caveman Diet by ign2: This is a pretty creative shirt, and while it doesn’t exactly hit the concept of nutrition all that well, the idea behind it is still catchy. I specifically like the tiny depictions of the ‘hunt’ and the ‘gather’ and I believe this is a style that could really make some impact in future derbies. A word of warning: there are a slew of text haters amidst the forums (I am usually one of them, though it appears from recent issues of the W^4 that I’m softening a bit), so learn to try and use it properly/sparingly.
Verdict: Mmmmmm … Mastadon Meat.
That's it. A little short and early this time because I'm a bit busy. See you next week, good folks.
