Greetings, friends. If you didn’t catch the announcement on Twitter, our Chalkboard Beer Mug was recently named to the Entrepreneur Magazine Indie Merchant Gift Guide. We were honored to join 11 other handmade gifts that were selected from hundreds of entries, and now it’s time to decide which is the best. If you’ve got a spare moment, we’d greatly appreciate your vote. Thanks in advance and happy holidays!

The Chalkboard Beer Mug

Vote Here!

Back in February, we introduced you to Kevin Cotter and his hilariously awesome blog My Ex-Wife’s Wedding Dress. After going through a divorce, Kevin devised a list of 101 cynical creative uses for his ex’s wedding dress that she had left behind (like this, this and this). Since then, his story has gone national and even landed him a book deal. Today, we’re hooking up two of our readers with copies of said book. To enter, just leave a comment below with what your creative use for the dress would be.

Kevin’s story begins (as most marriages do) in happier times. That happiness lasted until July 5th, 2009, when his wife of 12 years announced she was leaving. From the book cover – When she left, she had no interest in grabbing her wedding dress on the way out. “What am I going to do with it?” he asked. “Whatever the f**k you want,” she replied. After careful consideration, Kevin did what any newly divorced man would do with his ex-wife’s wedding dress: He made it into a cape, an oven mitt, a shower curtain and then decided to document his experience in a blog.

I’ve gotten to know Kevin over the last year, and believe his story to be truly unique. His book adds to the lore of his tale and actually brings his story full circle. If you haven’t visited his blog or seen any of the dress uses, I highly recommend picking up a copy on Amazon.

Dress use #50: snow camouflage

Dress use #49: MC Hammer Pants

Dress use #52: scarecrow

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Want a copy of Kevin’s book? Simply leave a comment below with what your use would be for the wedding dress. On Friday (10/28), we’ll randomly select two winners and send them each a copy of the book!

Today we are proud to unveil the cover for our upcoming book: Be the Man: The Man Registry Guide for Grooms. The book is now available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and will be released on December 6th in stores and on e-readers. Stay tuned for more updates and giveaways as the release date approaches!

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We want your opinion. What do you think of the cover? Like it? Or do you think it’ll end up being used as a dartboard? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!

Windy City Grooms: on October 20th, take a break from complaining about the Bears’ offensive line and join us at John Allan’s for the first ever Groom Service Show. This show, designed with the male in mind, will feature some of Chicago’s top groom-friendly wedding vendors. The guest speaker will be none other than our own co-founder Chris Easter. He’ll be there to provide some sage groom advice direct from his upcoming groom book: “Be the Man.”

Vendors in attendance will be: Cage + Aquarium, Carasco Photography, Erickson Design, Haberdash Men’s Shop, Nicholas Joseph Custom Suits & Tuxedos, Rodan & Fields, ShutterBooth, Smoque BBQ, SQN Events, theBrideScoop, TipsyCake, Topiarius, Truffle Truffle & W Hotels. Additionally, Dan Bernstein of WSCR-AM, 670 “The Score” will be on hand for a special appearance.

To get a special ticket price of $10, use the code TMR when buying tickets. We hope to see you there!

The glorious day has finally arrived! Say goodbye to those boring Saturday afternoons because college football season is back. The action kicks off tonight with UNLV/Wisconsin on ESPN.

We’ve teamed up with our friends over at Effing Gear to offer up our conference and national champion predictions. Check out our picks and be sure to leave a comment with your guess at this year’s national champion. We’ll award one lucky commenter with his or her choice of any Effing Gear t-shirt offered on The Man Registry. (more info below).

BCS Conference Champion Predictions

SEC – Alabama Crimson Tide (11-1)

Big 10 – Nebraska Cornhuskers (10-2)

Big 12 – Oklahoma Sooners (12-0)

Pac 12 – Stanford Cardinal (10-2)

ACC -Florida State Seminoles (10-2)

Big East – West Virginia Mountaineers (9-3)

National Championship Game

Oklahoma over Alabama

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Austin Effing Texas T-Shirt

Now for the fun part. Leave a comment below with your national championship prediction (Team A over Team B). At the end of the day on Friday (9/2/11), we’ll select one entry at random and that person will win their choice of any Effing Gear t-shirt that we offer.

Effing Gear is an ingeniously awesome new company that offers a college-inspired, playful clothing line that puts an emphasis on fun. We recently partnered with them to carry their line of campus tees. The winner of our giveaway will receive the Effing shirt of their choice from one of the following schools/teams: Iowa State, Texas, LSU, Mizzou, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Colorado, TCU, Kansas State, Syracuse and Baylor. Good luck!