Last Friday was a mailbox bonanza day of the highest order.
First, a free hat from Saveur magazine for renewing my subscription. Extra nice because I have been growing my hair out from practically buzzcut short for like the past year (or two? I lost count), and I am finally at the point where enough sticks out the bottom of a baseball cap that I don't look like a melon-headed baldie. So I can actually wear the thing.
Next, and way better, was a super cute and very clever patch thingie from Animal Flowers Art Studio via Etsy. I ran across these little treasures completely by accident and just had to have one to sew onto the back of my motorcycle leathers. And as if that wasn't cool enough, Jodie, aka monster patch maker extraordinaire, tucked three of the cutest MOO cards ever into my package!

Thanks Jodie!

And then...
Did you know that Zazzle now has an answer to the MOO? Yes! (It HAD to be coming, right? And frankly I'm surprised it took so long.) They're called Profile Cards, and of course, in the interest of R and D, I HAD to order some. They got here within just a few days and I must say they're pretty darn neato. I'm not as crazy about the shape, which is slightly narrower and longer, a true half-sized business card, and the image isn't quite as crisp, but they offer several different varieties of card stock and many, many different fonts which I think is a big, big win.
For comparison purposes, I ordered the same image that I've had printed on MOO cards, and you can see the two examples below:


As a minus to MOO, the last batch of cards I got from them were less bright and the color slightly off. Not enough to make me want to bother with sending them back, but less wow than my previous boxes. As such, in this example, I think the Profile card looks better because the color is truer, but if you look closely you can tell that the clarity of the print is not quite there. It's dot-matrix-ey, whereas MOO is perfectly clear and photo quality. A minor complaint, but when we've all been indoctrinated into the tao of MOO, it's something that's hard not to notice.

Here's a peek at one of the many font options...me likey:

The Zazzle cards are purchased in packs of 20 and come pre-loaded into this handy plastic dispenser...not that you'd want to do without with your MOOPocket, because they fit in there just fine :)
Compared to their competition, I found the Zazzle card maker user interface to be way less slick. A little futzy even, but I guess that's one of the trade-offs for more choices. And they're slightly more expensive, ranging from between $6.95 and $8.95 depending on what card stock you choose. Zazzle is offering free shipping on your first pack until March 31st, but it looks like it'll be 1.99 after that, with discounts for multiple pack orders. And if skinny isn't your thing, you can get custom chubby cards from Zazzle, too!