It's almost the full complement of those of us who produce the Dish every day. Conor, alas, is on the West Coast and couldn't make it for the photo. That's from left to right: Zoe holding Dusty, Chris beaming, Eddy posing, some clapped out old bear with glasses, and Patrick, a rampart of the Dish for so long. We don't have the staff and resources of a big magazine - although we now have more readers than most opinion journals online - but we make up for it in passion and a work-ethic that would make Max Weber proud.
Which is part of a plea to ask you to support us in the coming year by doing some of your Christmas shopping at the Dish. We've put together an array of merchandise from $5.95 to $50, and all of it of the highest quality.
First up, some good news. We heard your complaints about $50 T-shirts - although, believe me, the quality and uniqueness of these hand-printed shirts (you can see us modeling them above) really do pay for themselves they last you so long. You can still buy them here. But we asked the team Rogues Gallery to come up with some cheaper ones and here they are - with the price slashed in half to ... $24!
Yes, that hard-to-read one says "To See what Is In Front Of One's Nose Needs A Constant Struggle" - but you have to put one's nose very close to the shirt to read it. Maybe not the most inspired of sight-gags, but we enjoyed it. A bargain at $24! The beagle one is also a classic. For women's sizes in these unisex t-shirts, just drop the size one level. So for small, pick x-small. I'd like to thank Alex Carleton, the design genius behind Rogues Gallery - whose entire site is worth perusing - along with Sean Safford, Timmy Powers, and Justin Briand for their enormous help in making this happen - and their amazing creativity and panache. Here's that link again.