Knox and I have stolen a page from the geniuses over at Grantland today and started a new series for TV Asylum called Mailbag. It’s exactly what it sounds like – an opportunity for our readers to ask TV-related questions and for us to answer them in the most subjective and dogmatic way we know how.

A few of today’s questions: What is the evolutionary successor of LOST? Is the Roku worth it (don’t you miss live news)? Why no love for 24 or Prison Break on the site? What shows do you watch but are too embarrassed to tell anyone?

Head on over to check it out.

And if you have a question for the mailbag, you can submit it here.

I had an incredible time at the Killer Tribes Conference this past weekend in Nashville. Beautiful city, great speakers, and I loved finally being able to meet some of the people that I’ve been interacting with online for the past few years.

I was going to try to recap the weekend, but I thought it might be better to hear some takeaways from the creator of the event himself, Mr. Bryan Allain. Here are a few of his thoughts.

(By the way, you do know that Bryan works 50 hours a week at another job, don’t you? He put this whole thing together in his spare time. Unbelievable.)

Did you go to the Killer Tribes Conference? What was your favorite part?

Photo courtesy of jonahbonahhandmade.

Last week on TV Asylum, Knox McCoy and I engaged in a debate over one of America’s more controversial issues. Defense spending, you ask? Education reform? The role of government? No, no and no. Think bigger. It’s the question we all ask ourselves as we lay in bed at night, unable to sleep – is Rob Lowe a good actor?

I want to share the debate with you here for a couple reasons: 1) I want to expose you to the kind of important issues we’re tackling over on TV Asylum, and 2) I thought you might have some feelings of your own on the subject.

Here’s how it started:

Tyler: Hey man. Would you say Rob Lowe is a great actor, or the best actor?

Knox: You mean the achilles heel of Parks and Rec, Rob Lowe? That guy is the embarassing third nipple on an otherwise perfect show. If I hear him say “Literally” or “Ann Perkins” again, I’m going to commit sepuku with a spork. I know I mentioned this, but wasn’t he in the Drew Peterson Lifetime movie? That’s the actor equivalent of eating out of the trash at a bowling alley. You can’t respect someone who does stuff like that. You can like  them, but you can’t take  them serious. I feel like there’s no telling what’s going on in that guy’s head. He could be brilliant or he could legitimately think that Sarah Palin and Tina Fey are the same person. The sky is the limit with him but in the worst way possible.

I’m totally serious and open-minded right now: what good work has he done lately? I ask because I *literally* cannot think of anything.

Tyler: Look, it’s not Rob’s fault that the (brilliant) writers of Parks and Rec have laced his every sentence with the word “literally” (a decision that I fully support, by the way). He’s just bringing the douchiness of Chris Traeger to life in the most perfect way possible. And a wise man once said, “For every Cosby Show, there’s a Ghost Dad.” Or maybe it was “For every Growing Pains, there’s a whatever-it-is-that-Kirk-Cameron-is-doing-now.” Point is, everyone has their Drew Peterson movie. But passing judgement on Rob Lowe before you’ve seen him play Sam Seaborn in The West Wing is borderline criminal.

Knox: Ok that’s true. I haven’t seen him in West Wing. But beyond West Wing, is there anything? Go look at his IMDB page. I looked at it for a few minutes and woke up with a splitting headache. It’s a treasure trove of obscure movies / TV shows and it’s a TON of them. Like things I’ve never even heard of. It’s so confusing. Did you know he was in the Perfect Strangers movie? Did you know there WAS a Perfect Strangers movie? Is the Perfect Strangers movie about the TV show or just coincidentally named? I’M ASKING BECAUSE I’M SO CONFUSED…

This is merely the beginning. To read the rest of the debate, head on over to TV Asylum.

But while you’re here…

What/who else do you think Knox and I should debate?

I’ve written a lot about t-shirts before, but when I was talking to my friends over at AMB3R about what can/should go into creating an excellent t-shirt, I was reminded of all of the wretched camp shirts I’ve donned (and, sadly, helped design) over the years.

Are you in charge of creating the shirt this year for an event, camp or retreat? Well, here are 10 guaranteed ways to ruin it. If you do any (and I mean any) of these, you may as well have the order shipped directly to the thrift store. That’s where they’re all ending up anyway.

+ Include every single detail of the event. Is the shirt front really the appropriate place to advertise the exhaustive list of trip details?

+ Choose the cotton/burlap blend. If a blind person could mistake your shirt for a pair of Carhartts, you’ve chosen the wrong blend.

+ Spell something in a non-traditional way. Calling the event “X-treme” or replacing “S”s with “Z”s will result in me not even trying it on.

+ Christianize a logo on it. Changing “Mountain Dew” to “Meant to Die” isn’t having the intended effect, I promise. Enough already.

+ Choose the criminally deep V-neck. Listen, you trendy zealot. It takes a certain body type to pull off the deep V. Most of us look like we’re borrowing our wife’s latest Anthropologie purchase.

+ Include more than four people in the decision-making process. Nothing like having to get Neil from accounting to give his stamp of approval on a shirt concept for a middle school event.

+ Put a bird on it. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

+ Have “that high school kid with a Mac” design it. What about his parents buying him a nice computer makes him qualified to create something?

+ Or (gasp) design it yourself. There’s only one outcome here and it’s Papyrus on a pocket tee. We’ve all seen it a million times.

Seriously, don’t do that last one. Don’t do any of these. Hire someone who specializes in this, namely AMB3R. They design and print fashion-inspired, custom t-shirts that align with retail trends and are based on your deadline and budget.

Any other ways to ruin a t-shirt that you’ve witnessed/experienced?