1.28.2007

a thousand apologies

the weekend came early here at the 12MC. suffice it to say, we did it big and survived to the tell tale.

we hope that you will accept our sincerest apologies for going MIA, as well as this humble gift:

1.25.2007

Ags freely hand over moral high ground. Native American sale of Manhattan recalled.

UPDATE: Hours after publication the A&M Marketing office reversed their decision to send a letter to RivalWear.com. Apparently, Mike Huddleston reads this blog.

"The call was made late Wednesday night because the T-shirts did not meet the criteria necessary to pursue the letter. The shirts did not feature "University colors, an accurate depiction of Reveille as a mascot, and didn't contain any other identifying marks," Huddleston said."



In what is quickly devolving into a contest of which school can out-gay the other, A&M is threatening to sue a Longhorn t-shirt website, RivalWear, for it's t-shirt mocking/imitating Aggieland Outfitter's 'Saw 'em Off' shirt.



While Texas' case against Aggieland Outfitters is weak, atleast the logo being parodied is clearly identifiable as theirs. According to the article, A&M claims it has copyrighted the image of an American Collie wearing an A&M blanket...



  1. No where on the RivalWear collie silhouette is there anything that identifies A&M.

  2. The collie featured in the image isn't even wearing a blanket

  3. Why did we even copyright the image of an insane inbred collie to begin with?

1.23.2007

OSU Game: photo recap

better late than never

Texas A&M - 67
OSU - 49



Fightin' Texas Aggie Capacity Crowd White-Out! WHOOP!


Cowpoke starting lineup?? booooring..



Aggie Basketball Commit'08 target, Nathan Walkup Corbin Ray, is texting everyone he knows how much he thinks Pistol Pete is teh gay..


Texas Aggie Basketball!?!? WooHoo!!



AK44 taking it hard to the hoop


The Aggie defense was the pepto-bismol to JamesOn's curry style of play.. (zing?)


Tyler Hatch, subject of MTV's upcoming documentary True Life: I'm The Bastard Child of Victoria Gotti and a Porcupine



Billy inquires why anyone would ever drink diluted oklahoma beer.


the refs confer, ultimately deciding that OK Beer > TX Beer



Buck goes ballistic..

it's time for the War Hymn:

Young and Old Ags alike, Saw Varsity's Horns Off, Short!


Aggie Basketball recruits/commits (left to right) Willie Warren, Tony McG, and BJ Holmes love to saw.


things are starting to get tense down low, as Jones continues his domination of the paint


AK goes down, hard. Reed is terrifyingly quiet. Hopes of Aggie Basketball still playing after spring break flashed before our eyes..


he's up, but in serious pain. he'll be back on the court to round out a 14-pt night. if AK is anything, he's tough and determined. (check out the great story by the DMN's Rachel Cohen on AK's struggles)


can anyone tell me what the hell this device does? it says "Precision Time" on it, so it must have something to do with the shot/game clock, but why does every ref on the court have one?


arguably the drunkest guys in the arena, definitely the most embarassing on national tv.


Despite shutting down and clobbering OSU and the commencement of post-victory festivities, Kirk is still ready to dominate someone.

stranger things have happened.. right?



so i'm drifting off to sleep in my STAT class this morning when I start getting texts saying "dude, your name's in the paper" and "hey, nice picture". While having my work published in the paper is not unusual, what made these texts different is that they were from friends.. at UT. Apparently the Daily Texan ran a story on the Logo Lawsuit today, and used my photo from yesterday's Battalion.

I almost consider it an honor to have something featured in the Daily Texan, a student paper so good, that in my opinion, they covered the dedication of Bonfire Memorial (Nov. 2004) better than The Battalion did.

perhaps the single greatest photo montage ever

as I'm sure you're keenly aware, we here at the 12MC have a rather (un)healthy obsession with ESPN reporter, Erin Andrews.

today, a 3:01 gift from heaven:


(thanks to The Wiz for the heads up)

1.22.2007

UT QBs in short supply. UT Lawyers not so much

Saw 'em Off


The University of Texas is suing Aggieland Outfitters, alleging that AO's "Saw 'em Off" logo "..is likely to cause confusion, to cause mistake, or to deceive customers".

While it's debatable who first (and when) visually depicted what "Saw Varsity's Horns Off.." would look like, Aggieland Outfitters was the first to standardize the image and sell it on t-shirts back in 1997. Since then, the logo's popularity has exploded and is almost considered a secondary logo for Texas A&M:

the FTAB Saws em Off
the image is so popular that even the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band will bust it out every once in a while.


J-Train, shortly before sawing em off for real


a lot of people from other schools think that's a "horns down", it's actually the horns sawed off.

Rev Saw Em Off
Both my favorite Texas shirt and proof that not only has UT been keenly aware of the logo, they've been playing along too.

The lawsuit against the decade old logo was filed Dec. 4th, 2006. That's right, a week after the Aggies beat the Longhorns 12-7 in Austin.

You decided what's worse:

Late Hit on McCoy

Or

Trying to put a family out of business because your team got embarassed by the school you like to pretend isn't a rival anymore


If UT was truly interested in protecting its trademark, it would be filing lawsuits against the likes of:



City of Fort Worth
the city of Fort Worth


Microsoft Windows Longhorn
Microsoft



inverted longhorn

OU shirt vendors



Leonard Middle School
hundreds of schools around the state of Texas




While Seattle fans may be taking much pleasure from this debacle, I think most reasonable sports fans see this action as fairly childish and to be honest, very opposite of the carefully constructed image of We're Texas (and stupidly arrogant).

Whether you hate Texas, support A&M, or just can't stand bullies, stop by AggielandOutfitters.com and buy one of their new shirts (below) inspired by the lawsuit OR tell everyone you know about the story. The more negative publicity for UT that is generated, the less inclined they'll be to continue with the lawsuit.

The shirt says it all:


update (10:34PM): to all the anonymous horns comparing this case to the Ft. Worth case or the Seattle/12th Man case. What Aggieland Outfitters is doing is called Parody and has been upheld by the Supreme Court for the past two decades. As a Professor of Trademark Law, Louis T. Pirkey (UT's lawyer) should know better. Either Pirkey shouldn't be teaching at such a prestigious law school, or UT was counting on hollow intimidation to get what it wanted.

HT: The Battalion

1.20.2007

Basketball Bandwagoning: Ch. 3



Chapter 3: The Season Ahead

here's where we'll take a look at the remaining schedule and make no bs (analysis)predictions of Win, Loss, or Toss Up.

Home Games:

The Ags shouldn't lose to anyone at home this year.







1.20 - Win
1.27 - Win
1.31 - Win
2.05 - Toss Up
2.13 - Win
2.24 - Win
3.03 - Win


Road Games:

If the Ags want a piece of the reg. season BigXII title they must win in Allen Fieldhouse (Kansas) and win at either Gallagher-Iba (OK State) or Frank Erwin (Texas).






1.24 - Win
2.03 - Toss Up
2.10 - Win
2.17 - Win
2.21 - Loss
2.28 - Toss Up