Category: default || By jt3y

I checked on the Tube City Online store the other day and noticed that a good number of people bought things during November and December ... presumably as Christmas presents for ex-patriate McKeesporters.

My first thought was: Gee, aren't they going to be disappointed Christmas morning, or during Hanukkah, when they open up a box to find something from Tube City Online under the tree?

But my second thought was to be very flattered and happy that readers find the stuff amusing, useful and/or interesting. There are some expenses to running the site --- thankfully, no webhosting costs, since I've been very fortunate to have server space donated for all of these years --- so the couple of extra bucks is most welcome.

(Incidentally, I'd like to know if the items are good quality. Is the printing legible? Is it blurred at all? Do the colors seem OK? I've tried to make the images that they print as high resolution as possible, and size them properly, but I don't have any control over what gets sent out. If you've bought something, let me know if you're happy or not.)

Admittedly, CafePress's overhead is fairly pricey (you are, after all, getting them to print one or two T-shirts at a time), so I've tried to keep the retail prices as low as possible. That means I only make a dollar or so per item, so the sales over November and December netted me enough for, perhaps, a pizza.

But more likely, in the spirit of the season, I'll give the money to people who are truly needy and unfortunate ... like my creditors.

That includes the poor blighters at Equitable Gas (motto: "Blowing it up your pipe since 1888"), who, despite their usual feelings of generosity, peace, love, and understanding during the holidays, were recently forced to hike the budget payments at Tube City Omnimedia World Headquarters by about $35 a month.

From what I hear from other people around the Mon-Yough area, I got off fairly easily, so I'm not complaining. And I'm sure that the decision to yank up the prices was made only with great reluctance on behalf of Equitable's executives. I can envision them sitting in their wood-paneled offices on the 33rd floor of One Oxford Center, weeping into their $15 linen Brooks Brothers handkerchiefs, thinking, "Oh, Lord, what have we done?" I'm sure the extra 10 cents a share they made last quarter is being used for raises for their employees and to buy crutches for crippled children.

Naturally, coping with this budgetary pressure has required some adaptation at Tube City Omnimedia headquarters. So if there's been a lack of Almanacs the last few days, it's because I've got the thermostat set very low, and it's very difficult to type with mittens on. And when I say my computer has "frozen up," I mean frozen up. (I keep a little ice scraper on my desk to take the frost off of the monitor. I also may have the only disk drive in the world with studded tires.)

Seriously: Thank yinz from the bottom of my heart. I do appreciate your kind emails, your comments, your putting up with this drivel, and now, your support of my tiny, little e-commerce effort. A merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and happy new year to you and yours.