03.02.08
happy belated birthday to this site, and to me: zeroboutique.com was launched on my birthday, february 2nd, 6 long years ago. but it will actually have been 10 years as of this october since i started selling t-shirts online through my first site, zero23.com. i never would have guessed that i would have lasted even this long. but my customers, you folks, have been good to me and i've been very lucky to have worked with some extremely talented people. there have been a lot of ups and downs and overall it's definitely been worth it. but times have changed and so have i, and while i love printing t-shirts and will continue to do so, i am an absolute wreck at trying to manage a company. especially one which involves a lot of shipping, customer support, and time. i guess time is the big factor- i just turned 38 and i'm kind of starting to see life through different eyes. how much time do i have left? and how much of that time do i want to spend doing online mailorders? the answer comes pretty quickly and easily: none. i don't want to spend one more minute of my life dealing with it. i'm not good at it, and with time in fact seem to get progressively worse, not better, at it.

and so i have decided to cease selling my t-shirts online. from now on this site will only be a showcase for the line as it exists and has existed for the last 10 years. but think of it more as an art gallery than a museum: i'm going to continue to print new designs and post them on this site, and you're still able to reserve, comment on or vote for any prints shown- you just won't be able to purchase them here. however i am and will be actively seeking wholesale orders and so i'm hoping that an online retailer jumps on a great opportunity and that you'll be able to get zbq shirts at a web site near you very soon. and just think- you won't have to wait forever for them!! i'm actually kind of excited about it.

i would like to once and for all thank all of my extremely patient customers, many of whom were repeat customers despite my consistently lousy service. you made this thing what it is.

this wasn't the only hard decision i made this month: after a 4 month leave of absence from the post office i finally reached the difficult decision to quit once and for all. it was a "piss or get off the pot" kind of situation, and as much as i would have loved to get back to making some decent money, i had to listen to my body. after 4 months of rest, i was still waking up in pain every day, still unable to do much more than walk a few blocks before becoming uncomfortably sore and fatigued, still getting the same pains and numbness in my legs, hips, knees and back. in short, i knew that at the outside i wouldn't last more than a week back on the streets, especially this time of year. so it was a hard decision, but one which was really the only one i could have made.

can i be frank though? just for a minute? that job was living hell and not worth any amount of money. if i die penniless i will still not live to regret leaving that place. fuck canada post.

which begs the question: what next? well, what have you got?

01.01.08
happy new year everybody. the visualiser has reverted back to a gallery of shirt designs- you can no longer order shirts from it, although you can still reserve shirts for future print runs, vote on your favorites and add comments up the yin yang. if you want to order shirts we are having a sale on the in stock page, wysiwyg.

here's to a great 08. peace out.