I love this damn thing.

I’ve finally started to earn a semi-decent living, and I thought maybe the smartest thing to do would be to start buying things. I’m very practical in that way. So my idea was that I should start spending a ton of money on t-shirts. But where to begin? I feel like I know a lot of people who work in web design and graphic design who are super into t-shirts and always have cool looking t-shirts and things. But you can’t ask people where they get their t-shirts, or else you’ll both be wearing the same t-shirt, and as my friend John Zentgraf used to say, “Matching shirts spells geek.”

I had to do some serious investigating in my search for t-shirts. Even so, I feel that I am just on the very cusp of the cool t-shirt world. There is much left to explore, but I will give you a few places to get started, because that is the kind of person I am.

The first site I found was Tcritic.com. Dude posts every day on a new t-shirt. This site led me to etsy.com, where I bought this dope Bill Murray T, and Beautiful Decay, where I picked up a couple of other cool shirts. A few days later I found T Junction, a site listing t-shirt sales. Okay, so that’s not much. Four sites. But hopefully it’s enough to get you started, should you have any interest in following me down the path of conspicuous consumption.

I discovered that I’m pretty picky when it comes to t-shirts. I’ve learned a few difficult lessons. Number one is that t-shirts from Threadless suck. I went on a shopping spree when I first discovered Threadless, and I’m done. All of the shirts I have from Threadless fit weird and have annoying iron-ons on them that look kind of cheap and crappy after awhile. Number two difficult lesson is that shirts that are designed to make people laugh are universally lame. There are an awful lot of t-shirt companies that exist primarily to serve this m.o. like The Tee Party, Cotton Factory, and Vintage Vantage, to name a few that I just found after about 20 seconds of research. I refuse to wear a punchline on my shirt. Unless it’s a giant picture of Bill Murray, of course.

And now you know! Go forth and consume!

… as does living on the West Coast. As of yesterday morning, I had given up on my search for the elusive Nintendo Wii. Just for kicks, though, I checked the Amazon message boards at 11:30 last night … and lo and behold, someone posted a link saying that Wiis were on sale at Target online. I had to buy the bundle, which was more expensive than just the Wii itself, but it comes with an extra controller and a memory card, both of which I will eventually need to buy, and Madden 2007, which I probably never would have bought on my own but I’m sure I will get many hours of enjoyment out of. Supposedly it is being shipped tomorrow. I will cross my fingers and hope it comes through. Yes, I am a total raving geek.

The sad ending to this story is that I had pledged to buy one for my brother-in-law, Mark, if I found one. Unfortunately, it was late at night, and I couldn’t be sure that Mark would have wanted the expensive bundle. I have failed you, Mark, and for that I am sorry. Please do not take it out on my sister and the kids.

My friend Matt recently started selling his alphabet paintings online and at a few stores in New England. The picture below is from a set he made for his living room. He does an excellent job and at $50 for a big picture, it’s a steal. Buy some for your friends and family right here.