Jonathan Farrington writes:

Has anyone considered us poor folks, who tirelessly promote EzineArticles, but reside outside of North America and who are desperate for a beverage from one of the “hallowed” mugs?

Yes, it is the first Tuesday in the month and I can be a “grumpy old man”

Would it help if I paid the postage?

JF

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Kathy Ostman-Magnusen writes:

~~*~~

I vote that Jonathan be sent a mug!

Kathy

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Jan Verhoeff writes:

I love my ezines mug! It serves the bestests coffee in the world!

Jan

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Jonathan Farrington writes:

Aloha my good friend?

Have you got one?

J

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Kathy Ostman-Magnusen writes:

Yes Jonathan I have one.

BUT Parcel Post goes out for the same bucks amount to Hawaii for small pkg. as to the mainland, in EA’s defense (smile).

Aloha to you too Jonathan,

Kathy

PS I keep my cup by my computer to remind me to write articles.

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Jonathan Farrington writes:

Well, now I am totally dismayed! Is there anyone else that doesn’t have one?

Such a small prize to reward loyality – I think I am going to make this a key issue when I announce the “JF Annual Article Community Awards” on Dec 31st.

Kathy, may I give your address to receive my mug on my behalf? That’s if I am awarded one :-(

I bet Lance has a cabinet full.

JF

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Jonathan,

They cost us 4X to ship them to the UK vs USA… and many that we’ve shipped beyond the states in some test shipments to VIP authors have arrived broken (we’ve learned some packing lessons).

Currently only sending them to USA based authors with Canada, Australia and the UK next on our list with no ETA for when we’ll be expanding shipments.

In addition to the 4X costs to ship beyond the USA, the TIME it takes to ship with customs documents, declarations, etc. really adds up.

You’ve been a good friend to the EzineArticles family and April on our team will make sure you get one shipped this week.

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Jonathan Farrington writes:

Thanks Chris:

To all those in Hawaii who campaigned tirelessly on my behalf – a heartfelt thanks.

This message from the Director of Mug Distribution has just been received.

Hi Jonathan,

In appreciation of your Platinum Author status we would like to send
you an ‘I Love EzineArticles’ mug.

Chris wanted to make sure you knew that your tireless promotion does
not go unnoticed. :-)

Please reply with your correct postal mailing address within the next
24 hours if possible. :)

Thanks!
April

JF

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Christina Sponias writes:

Hi Chris!

Can you send mine to my uncle in California? He’ll come again to Greece on October, so he could give it to me!

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Jan Verhoeff writes:

With all this talk about the mug — I forgot to write my comment about the photo!!!

I love the photo and the incredibly simple directions that came with it on Jim’s blog. I’ve played with a lot of graphic designs on my new designer, but I so miss myold one. It was so much EASIER to use.

Okay – back to putting my office back together across the hall so I can move my puter! We’re running all new electrical wiring, and we’re half way done! YAHOO!!!

Jan

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Kathy Ostman-Magnusen writes:

Ahh me.. this is all too funny! I love it!

Lance, where are you? Is your mug gold plated?

Chris, just so happens I used to have a souvenir business for 20 years. Specializing in….

Ta dow.. MUGS!

Hand sculpt, wheel thrown. I mindlessly made 120 to 180 mugs a day, had 7 contracted workers plus a full time shipper. We shipped up to 2K mugs a month. This is why I refuse to make more than 2 of anything with these hands again.

I KNOW HOW to ship mugs!

I have used everything from bubble wrap, peanuts to straw You cannot imagine the customer complaints during the straw shipping period! Everyone had compost piles!

Soo when you ship to Jonathan?

Use the wine bottle theory of shipping. Wrap mug in newspaper.. two separate times, single sheets, roll mug up with corrugated cardboard the length of the box. This is KEY! This gives strength to the box from top to bottom. While it is true that it may take a blow from the side it won’t be all that bad because the corners of the box also add stability. I hope I explained that well. I am trying to picture it in my mind.

Happy shipping this holiday season everyone.

Kathy

PS If you do use peanuts? The idea is to stabilize the object within the box. You fill the box MUCH fuller than needed with peanuts and then squish them down. Course.. peanuts are BAD for the planet, sooo.

BTW.. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MY MUG! No one else does that! A wonderful attention to detail.

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Kathy Ostman-Magnusen writes:

Oops forgot.. fill in the excess around the mug that has been wrapped with corrugated cardboard with crumpled up newspaper.. (or straw, ha ha)

Also, WONDERFUL manipulation of images done with the mug.

“Good one Jim!”

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Jonathan Farrington writes:

Kathy,

You have not taken into account French customs officers: Because of the 35 hour week, they now operate in gangs (Why have one person to check passports, when you can have fifteen – it does wonders for the unemployment statistics) so to respond to your excellent packaging instructions, I would add this:

“Soo when you ship to Jonathan?

Use the wine bottle theory of shipping. Wrap mug in newspaper. (No they will read it)

two separate times,(Two of them will read it)

single sheets, roll mug up with corrugated cardboard the length of the box. ( They will enjoy using this in their lavatory)

This is KEY! This gives strength to the box from top to bottom. While it is true that it may take a blow from the side it won’t be all that bad because the corners of the box also add stability.

(As soon as they recognise an English recipient, it will receive several blows and may well be kicked around their den)

I hope I explained that well. I am trying to picture it in my mind. (Impoossible unless you can imagine French mentality – tricky, even for one as creative as you)

Happy shipping this holiday season everyone.(Yep, my thoughts too but “Hopeful shipping thoughts” might be more apprporiate)

Kathy

PS If you do use peanuts? The idea is to stabilize the object within the box. You fill the box MUCH fuller than needed with peanuts and then squish them down. Course.. peanuts are BAD for the planet, sooo.

(Don’t add peanuts if shipping to France – they will eat them with their Pernod – just before they finish for the day!!)

JF

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Christina Sponias writes:

Or you can use polystyrene boxes, without peanuts and without anything else.
They are used to ship ancient vases and statues from Greece to everywhere.

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Kathy Ostman-Magnusen writes:

Jonathan.. you are just darling! I love your playfulness.

On the serious side? I think if I were in Paris like you? I would never stop crying for all the art there.. I would be in heaven.

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Jonathan Farrington writes:

Kathy,

You would never stop crying because of all the queues to get in to look at all the wonderful art: That’s after you have cried because it took you three and a half weeks to find a parking space – except in August.

France and in particular Paris, is not for the feint-hearted – it is populated by the French :-)

But I love it and it is where I choose to live in the summer – now it is time to pack the bags and move South for the winter – the Brits have gone home!

JF

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Dan Snyder writes:

What?

Is the US the only place with custom mug manufacturers?

Chris, why don’t you have a conference on writing articles and every non-US platinum EzineArticles author gets an official EzineArticles mug upon their arrival.

I vote for east coast – Virginia Beach or DC are good choices.

(I bet you my mug that Chris has already thought of this.)

Dan

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Dona Hatherley writes:

What a beautiful mug! Very lovely photo background.

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Lance Winslow writes:

Excellent, I made this my screen saver, too cool. Now when I am at Starbucks typing my articles and telling people about EzineArticles, I can show them my Mug Shot!

Lance

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Christina Sponias writes:

Hi Lance!

It’s being a long time since we talked about something here. You and I are the best writers of this Ezine, that’s why we have something in common. I know I’m new here and my 68 articles cannot be compared with your 11.111.111 articles! But I’m going to write even more articles than you in the future, that’s why I’m telling you which is the explanation for our identification.

Perhaps you can help me acquire my mug, since you are my friend, because Chris ignored completely my request.

I have a Greek uncle that lives in California and comes to Greece very often for business. He can bring me my mug on October.
Could you help me, Lance? I believe I deserve it.

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Lance Winslow writes:

Christina,

Well, I certainly think that your participation on this BLOG alone, would show that you are a beneficial EzineArticles “Groupie” who deserves a Custom Limited Edition Mug. They are an extremely hot commodity. Of course, I think they usually order these Mugs in honor of the Holiday Season, “Thanksgiving, Christmas” and thus, if you continue writing articles at such an incredible rate then surely you may be amongst the top authors to get one.

One issue of overseas delivery is that the postage is tough and the addressing is too and thus it is harder for them to get these Limited Edition, highly sought after mugs to you. Where does your relative live in Sunny CA? Today I am writing at the Malibu, CA Starbucks, the weather is great and the Peperdine Univeristy has girls in “RUSH” for their sororities, running around. The weather is perfect, everyone is dressed casual and LA has just come off an incredible heat wave, but it never really got above 99 degrees here with the Pacific Ocean offshore breeze. The Chili Cook-Off was great last weekend and my uncle has a house two doors down from Paris Hilton’s Malibu Beach House. I even talked to some paparazzi (sp?) who have been totally harassing her and taking up all the parking here.

Well, California is great this time of year, people are cool and life is a beach of course. Apparently, I am not the only author hanging his hat here in Malibu, there are so many – Lance

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Christina Sponias writes:

My uncle lives in San Diego. I thought the Ezine could send him the mug as if it was sending it to me.
He’ll come to Greece on October by plane and he can bring it without any danger.

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Lance Winslow writes:

San Diego is an excellent place to live. My brother owns two-coffee shops there. Great weather, a bit of traffic congestion, but a wonderful place to reside. Yes, well, why not use the secondary address on your profile for your Greek Residence and the other for your mailing address, then since you will hit the peak number by then you can get one of the 2007 Limited Edition Custom Mugs. Every year they get better.

I think that the Mug should come with gum inside, as people like to chew gum when they type and because Mug spelled backwards is Gum. And sitting around writing articles means less time to work out and thus chewing gum might curb the appetite a bit? What do you think?

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Jan Verhoeff writes:

I was just more than happy with my Gingerbread Coffee Lance. Can’t imagine gum with all my dental work… YIKES.

Secondary addresses is a nice solution to the no mug issue…

Perhaps we need to start ezine coffee houses all over the world and then you can just walk in with your platinum award tattooed on your forehead and receive your FREE mug and a cup of EzineArticles specialty coffees with the cream of your choice.

Link up to the internet and grab your EzineArticles.com FIX while you’re there!

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Lance Winslow writes:

Yes indeed, “The Ezine Internet Articles Cafe” and we shall franchise it world-wide to cross the digital divide. I like it, smart marketing.

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Jan Verhoeff writes:

And Jim can design the magic cups with a sunset and the ezine logo mug with finesse.

And Chris shall make more money than ever before from Franchises, and hire more reviewers, and all shall write articles for marketing their businesses.

And google adsense shall discover oil in the land of the Great Christopher Knight.

And The Good Knight shall be crowned KING of the Coffee Mug of Appreciation.

And it shall be called good…

And we shall tell all their job is well done, they’ve been accepted in Platinum Heaven and they shall be stamped with a link to their Bio Pages.

Jan

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Lance Winslow writes:

And Sir Lance-a-lot gets the girl and everyone lives happily ever after! Serving coffee and tea and reading articles for free and on the seventh day, we all rested!

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Christina Sponias writes:

Sorry for not answering yesterday Lance, because it was too late here in Athens and I had to go to bed.

Thank you for your suggestion, I’m going to give my uncle’s address to the Ezine as my second address! Or perhaps one of my cousin’s addresses.

Today I’m not so interested in this mug, to tell you the truth, and I’m thinking about all the trouble to call my uncle’s secretary, or send an email to my cousin number 3 because he works with my uncle to ask him if I can give my uncle’s address to the Ezine because his secretary never knows what to do since she has to wait for his orders! But I’m going to give to the Ezine my cousin’s address without trouble.

Perhaps my uncle won’t agree to carry this mug in the plane, I didn’t think about that!
Anyhow, it can be a gift for one of my cousins.

The ‚¬“Ezine Internet Articles Cafe‚¬ seems to be a good idea. Only that we foreigners cannot come! Never mind. It’s going to be very nice for all Americans! Coffee & Culture!

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Jan Verhoeff writes:

Christina,

I thought we were talking Coffee Houses all over the world…

Jan

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Christina Sponias writes:

This is great Jan! I didn’t read everything you wrote before because I was on a hurry.

I’d love to have an Ezine Caf© here!

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Jeff Herring - The Article Guy writes:

Good idea Lance – but just be mindful when talking about the ‚¬“Ezine Internet Articles Cafe‚¬ that the difference between the word cafe and the word cage is JUST ONE LETTER!

coincidence? I think not!

The truth is out there

I think I will take the afternoon off….

[Reply]

Jim Degerstrom writes:

The EzineArticles mug illustration post and tutorial that I created has been updated. The proportions are perfect for desktop wallpaper, so above my signature on the post is a link to download free wallpaper of the mug in high resolution.

Unlike some sites, you do not have to register or provide an email address to grab the wallpaper. In IE just right click and save target as for the 250kb zipped folder JPG.

The mug provides a great reminder to write often, too.

Jim

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Vern writes:

Hey Chris,

that mug is awesome! I’m sure it will come in as a great gift for my coffee break when taking “short rests” between my writing sessions.

I reside in Singapore but if I got a relative living in New York would it be alright to request for one?

Sincerely Interested,
Vern

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Nice Jim!
http://www.jimdegerstrom.com/blog/2007/09/ezinearticles-desktop-wallpaper.html

I even put it on my monitor today:

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Sandi Krakowski writes:

Ok Chris, I want the mug, and I am so glad I am a Platinum author- but right now my focus in on your monitor!! I want one of those!!! Is that 3-panels?? Considering I am a writer, copywriter, marketing specialist and more- I think I have to get one, you have sold me without even trying! :)

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Here’s the hi-res version of the above photo:
http://blog.EzineArticles.com/images/ezinearticleswallpaper1024.jpg

I use (3) Dell 24″ Wide monitors and they are all driven from my Dell M1710 notebook via an Advanced docking station with another video card installed.

Here’s a post where I went in depth on my office tech:
http://blog.EzineArticles.com/2006/12/happy-holidays-cheer-post.html

I tried 4 monitors on a quad stand and got headaches from how bright the top monitors were… I felt like I was trying to see the bottom monitors with headlights on my forehead all the time.

New since the last time I shared my office setup, is the addition of a Audio Technica A3060 mic on a broadcast DJ mic stand from O.C. White. Looking forward to using it this fall/winter for teleclasses.

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Sandi Krakowski writes:

Hey Chris,

One more question- does having more than one monitor make an ADD environment or does it help you get more done. Have you read Rich Schefren’s Attention piece he wrote? I wonder if having two monitors would make me more distracted.. how about you? what have you noticed since doing that.
And you run all of that on a notebook? Sheesh! Is it a desktop replacement?

On a side note that is the mic my son uses in doing interviews, film and such as business events- great toy! ;)

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Sandi,

I will never return to a single monitor… and everyone on our team has “dualies” (meaning, all EzineArticles team members have two monitors on their desk or more. They would be seriously impacted if forced to run on single monitors.

Studies have already proven productivity rises from using dualies. Go search the net for a Microsoft study on dual monitors.

I had the pleasure of touring a very well known publicly traded company last month and as I scanned one of their floors of people working, I believe 85% of them had dual monitors.

I use a variety of notebook PC’s to do my job ranging from iPhone to Sony TZ vaio to Dell M1710 to an Alienware mALX notebook… all depending on the application.

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Sandi Krakowski writes:

WOW- I had no idea! I can see how if I am writing a sales copy piece and I need to walk away from it or do something else, I could use my other monitor, etc. Rather than having so many windows open on one monitor. Not to run this so long but does it split the effort of the processor when you have two monitors? rather than having 10 windows open in just one?

I’ll go do a search on the info you mentioned! I appreciate all the time you take with us Chris! :)
Sandi

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

I assume it does, but I’ve noticed no lag. I also don’t keep any of my computers for more than 2 years, so if yours is older than 2-7 years old, you may want to upgrade before going to dualies.

Also, the secret to making dualies a great experience if you’re running a PC: A nifty program called “UltraMon” manages the task bar for each monitor.

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Sandi Krakowski writes:

Hey Chris
Since I ‘ve begun working online (10 yrs ago) I have not been able to keep a computer longer than 2 years either- it either dies, becomes messed up or my needs increase and I have to get a newer one.

The desktop I have now is 9 months old from Dell, and the laptop I have is about to have a funeral and get replaced. ;)

I’ll write UltraMon down, and put it in my dualies file! Thanks!

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Helen Palmer writes:

I think this is the only way I am going to manage to get my mug.

A bit like Jonathan, I’ve moved from the UK to Spain, so there will be no hope of receiving it!

Hey ho!

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Kim Duke writes:

You have to love how British boy used a magical combination of humor and guilt to get his MUG! ( I can tease him as I am one of the sales experts on his site)

Thanks for the chuckle- now I’m off to make my OWN mug!

Kim

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Kathy,

Wanted you to know that we’re considering re-designing our EzineArticles mug mailing project and I brought our team back to this page to read your comments.

Bottom line: Trying to find a way to increase the chances that the mug will arrive unbroken.

Happy Holidays

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Kathy Ostman-Magnusen writes:

Good luck on your new efforts, making things better than they were before, isn’t that always the goal? That’s why EzineArticles shines.

Kathy

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Alyice writes:

I don’t think I ever said thanks for the mug. So…drum roll…THANK YOU!

I actually love my mug. It’s huge, sturdy, and of good quality–just like this directory.

And it reminds me to keep marketing those articles!

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