Anyway, enough of the pre-amble, lets see why I decided to do an unboxing of this t-shirt (all images link to larger versions on flickr)!

The t-shirt arrived in a nice simple, black posting bag, but it was immediately obvious to me that it didn’t just contain your average, limply inserted t-shirt. Oh no, it was obvious there was something more in here. Some sort of box.

A box covered by nothing less than the highest grade of bubblewrap known to man. (Okay, I might be overegging the pudding a little here, but it was wrapped in bubblewrap. You wouldn’t want the box getting damaged in transit now, would you?)

Of course, being an inquisitive chap I ripped the bubblewrap off the box and discovered a wonderful piece of custom artwork on an old-school VHS tape case. Frankly, this is a level of commitment I have never before seen in any t-shirt that I’ve bought. Of course, I’ve never bought anything that was in a limited edition of 50 worldwide before either, but that’s beside the point. Going to the trouble of creating a second piece of artwork to contain the t-shirt that I was actually purchasing is above and beyond the call of duty.

The box has a whole load of wonderful little touches, such as the rating certificate of “DB: Suitable only for persons of a really cool nature and an unatural (sic) love of film”, and the statement on the front that reads “…Life is a war, be a hero. Be a hero in an awesome t-shirt…”. This packaging makes me happy.

The t-shirt itself is also pretty damn fab. The weight is great, and the feel of the cloth is smooth to the touch. It’s a pity that the tiny text on the design is almost impossible to read, but that’s a very minor criticism. Other than that the design has transferred fantastically from Photoshop to t-shirt.

So, congratulations Alex. You’ve successfully made me happier opening this t-shirt than anyone has ever done before. Good job.

“Robocop: Directive 3 Baby Food” is part of a limited run of 50 t-shirts from Dark Bunny Tees, and is apparently still available for £25 from the website. You’d better get your skates on if you’re a fan though – I wouldn’t bet on it being around for long.

It’s because of my love of ED-209, that loveable rogue from the Robocop films, that Becca bought me this wonderful t-shirt for Christmas. It’s one I’ve had my eye on for some time, since seeing it on Last Exit to Nowhere last year. Last Exit are one of those places that I end up going and looking at quite a lot, because they have rather nice movie based imagery that isn’t just a straight lift and shift from the movies in question.

This, however, is the first t-shirt that I’ve ended up getting from them. Normally I wouldn’t go for t-shirts that are printed on a white or creamy fabric, but since Becca bought this for me I didn’t have much choice. Frankly though, in the flesh I rather like this one. As a larger chap, I tend to think they help to make me look even bigger than I am, but happily this doesn’t seem to be the case with this one. This despite the fact that when I unwrapped it on Christmas morning I was convince that I’d been sent a t-shirt one size larger than I needed!

As it turns out, although the t-shirt was the same size as everything else I own, the neck was considerably larger and the shoulders a bit wider. A bit weird, but nothing that was off-putting to me once I put the t-shirt on.

“ED-209” is available from Last Exit to Nowhere for £18 and is printed on an “ice grey” shirt of no specified brand. And yes, I would buy that for a dollar.

It’s unclear who has the upper hand in this shirt. Maybe the robot is just a gardener trying to trim back his garden. Maybe he was just taking a stroll when the plants attacked him. Maybe he’s some juvenile delinquent robot who just likes setting fire to things. Whatever the case, it makes for a nice t-shirt.

The thing I love most about this t-shirt though is the incredibly fine printing. It’s not something that came across in the photos on Uneetee’s site, but the printing really is fantastic. The design is made up of hundreds of individual strokes, resulting in an image that feels both old and new at the same time. The fact that the design isn’t made up of large blocks of colour also means that it breathes nicely during the summer. Not much of a problem this week, with all the snow that’s falling, but it’s good to know nonetheless.

“The Robotanist” is available from Uneetee for $18.99 and is printed on a dark green American Apparel shirt. It’s sold out if you’re an extra large man like me, but there are still a few available for everyone else.

I got “I’m Magic!” from my fiancée Becca this christmas, after Brad told me about it on twitter.

The t-shirt comes from Tee and Toast, a wee little company from Northern Ireland. They concentrate on cute, childlike imagery, and there are quite a few things on their site that I’d very happily pick up for myself. They’re a really friendly company as well, as Becca and I found out when she had to request a replacement for the t-shirt I’d opened on Christmas morning.

I wear an extra-large t-shirt, you see, but what I opened at Christmas was a large. I was quite disappointed, as I knew I’d never fit into a mere large t-shirt. So, thinking Becca had ordered a large in error, I asked her to email Tee and Toast and see if they’d be happy to replace it with an extra-large for us.

They emailed back pretty quickly and told us that Becca had ordered an extra-large, but that they must have got confused making up the shirts in the Christmas rush. No worries though, if we sent back the t-shirt they’d send us out another in the correct size post-haste. So we did, and they did (and they even sent us a pound coin back with the new t-shirt to cover our return postage).

Throughout the whole process I loved the customer service from Tee and Toast. They were lovely and friendly, and did everything they could to make sure I got the t-shirt back for last week’s Pub Standards (it came the day before, and I was very happy). I’d have no hesitation buying from them again, and in fact I have — I bought a Mr T “I pity the fool who don’t drink tea” hoodie for Becca for her birthday today.

The t-shirt itself is a simple two colour heat transfer print of a lovely unicorn that knows it’s magic, and isn’t afraid to tell you. The only thing I wish is that it was available on a bright pink t-shirt for guys as well as girls. Oh well, you can’t have everything, can you?

“I’m Magic!” is available from Tee and Toast for £20, but shipping is free within the UK.

Sure, it took a long time to build the city, but since it was funded by the government they didn’t seem to mind that we we over budget and over schedule – what we came up with in the end was pretty, if a little bit uncomfortable to walk around on in bare feet.

I’m a big fan of Lego, so any shirt showing a minifig is immediately going to score extra points in my book. Add to that the use of Starship’s “We Built This City” and we have a winner.

The shirt isn’t over the top, using a simple single colour print. The print colour is Lego minifig yellow, and the typeface is the classic Lego font. Add to that the fact that the minifigs are the modern era “simple” minifgs that I grew up with and this shirt quickly became a must have for me.

“We Built This City” is printed on a red American Apparel t-shirt and is sold by Busted Tees for $18.99. It comes in both male and female sizes.

So yeah, like I said – idiot.

The thing I like most about this shirt, and which isn’t obvious from the photos on Busted Tee’s site, is the fine detail of the scarecrow. If you look closely at the image above you’ll see very thin lines of dark brown around the bright red of zombie-scarecrow’s eyes, and light green detailing around the tufts of corn protruding from his clothes. It’s scratchy, but it’s there and I kind of like it.

“Brains!” is available from Busted Tees for $13.99 in both men’s and women’s sizes. It’s printed on a bright green American Apparel t-shirt and it wants to eat your brains.

“Beware of Beard” is a full frontal print. It’s big, and takes up the entire front of the t-shirt. But it’s cool. Raise it up over the lower half of your head and you can pull faces, and people will never know whether you’re sporting hair or not. This t-shirt tells the world that beards aren’t to be trusted, and if you see one you should run away, fast. Either that or stroke it. I’m not sure which.

This is the first shirt that I’ve bought from turn nocturnal, and it’s a good’un. The print has a high quality rubbery feel to it, and is printed on a Gildan Heavy Cotton t-shirt. My only (very minor) gripe is the postcard-sized Turn Nocturnal logo on the back of the shirt, but even that’s not that obtrusive.

Given the fact that I love this shirt, it’s a pity that Turn Nocturnal don’t have anything else in their selection that really inspires me. I’m sure a lot of people would love Puctuation and sans-serif, but they just don’t do it for me.

“Beware of Beard” is currently available from Turn Nocturnal for $10 and it’s printed on a dark red Gildan Heavy Cotton shirt. Unfortunately only small sizes are still available, but you could always ask them to reprint – it couldn’t hurt. Yarr.

Of course, this shirt isn’t just good if you’ve lost a finger yourself. Maybe you know someone who has, or maybe you just like eating human fingers. Whatever your reason, this cheeky little print is sure to brighten your day.

“Noodle Surprise” is the first shirt I’ve bought from Split the Atom and I’ve got to say I’m impressed. I ordered it in the wee small hours of Sunday morning and by the time I got home from work on Tuesday it was there, sitting on my front mat waiting for me. They also made me smile by including a sticker in the package to go onto my laptop. Sure, it’s a little big to be able to go on in one go, but I can cut it up a bit and fit it in somewhere. It makes me happy when something a little extra arrives in the package with my shirt.

“Noodle Surprise” is printed on an orange American Apparel shirt, and is available from Split the Atom for £15.99.

The t-shirt itself is pretty simple. A CTRL key dressed like a policeman is chasing after an ESC key. Obviously, the ESC key tried to fight the law, but it looks as though the law is going to win. C’est la vie.

Maybe things aren’t as simple as that though. Whilst the CTRL is definitely a cop, the ESC could just be a normal person – he isn’t wearing the stereotypical striped convict’s outfit so beloved of the 1920s. So, maybe the t-shirt is actually an allegory of the control the state has over our lives and that the common man must always run to stay alive.

Or, maybe it’s just a cute t-shirt.

“Fugitive” is available from uneetee for $17.99 and is printed on a asphalt American Apparel shirt.

Unlike the actual OS X trash can though, this bin is for recyclables. You see? As well as wearing a groovy t-shirt with a very cute piece of paper on it, I’m also making a social statement – recycling is good. Of course, the little TPS report dude isn’t going to be too happy, being pummelled down into pulp and all, but what can he do about it? Anyway, he’ll probably get turned into something far cooler, like a wonderbra advert from the 90s that causes people to crash their cars. Or maybe a post-it note.

Whatever happens to him though, I’m sure he’ll be happy that you chose to buy a t-shirt that immortalised him.

“Mr File Attachment got Dumped” is available from uneetee for $17.99 and is printed on an American Apparel t-shirt.