I'm in heavy client-recruitment mode lately. I'm looking for a little more financial security than eating decently. I'm not exactly accumulating wealth.

Moneymaking opportunities abound, like liquor stores just begging to get pushed over. But I thought I'd try myself a helping of this e-commerce. With the Deadly Sins page getting around 600 visitors per day, I figure I could offer designer cow turds for sale and find a handful of takers. The numbers will work in my favor. So I talked to Luke about maybe doing a design for a Deadly Sins t-shirt. I figured that in the worst case scenario, I'll run up some intangible credit card debt printing out some really cool-ass shirts which no one will buy. Meanwhile, I'll gain sufficient experience in e-commerce to pitch my services more aggressively to clients who want to sell shit over the web. One new website-design client would more than make up for the few shekels dropped on a failed t-shirt experiment. And I would have a handy supply of excess Christmas presents for friends and family.

So while Luke got cracking on the design, I've been setting the credit-card processing angle and devising these ridiculous spreadsheets that tell us our precise profit margin using several variables. They're a real education in product-based business, and I think they're fabulous. I called a printing company that does 4-color process for ridiculously cheap rates. I love them. I'm trying to interest them in a little bartering agreement -- I do their website, they print me up a mess o' free shirts. It's very exciting. But no fucking T-shirt Luke's doing his darndest, but we're still somewhere short of a design.

A couple weeks back, he indicated that things were crazy and that he'd be hard pressed to work it in. I told him I'd rather wait until he could fit it into his schedule, because Luke has done this kind of thing before and I earnestly believe he will produce a more awesome product than I would. But I'm having a hard time fighting the greedy desire to get that T-shirt printed and see if anyone will really buy it. I started in on a design of my own, figuring that we could always print up Luke's later and offer two lines of shirts. My design hinged on a picture of an extremely sanctimonious and pissed off individual, with the headline "Experts agree: You're a depraved sinner!" But I thought that might not be so popular with the general public.

Meanwhile, emails started coming in from people who wanted t-shirts. Oddly, several said they were attending "Seven Deadly Sins" themed parties and thought the shirt would be a nice accouterment. I had no idea that the deadly sins were such a good party topic.

I don't know why I'm foaming at the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth with anticipation of starting my humorous T-shirt empire. Maybe it's the money, although my elaborate spreadsheets confirm that selling shirts is no ticket to a higher tax bracket. I'm just insanely curious to find out if it actually works. You make this cool thing, you put it up for sale, and people buy it? It seems too simple. I'm so accustomed to providing services for money that the idea of furnishing tangible items is terribly exciting. It's like a glimmer of living in the real world again.