I made this animation to amuse my young nephew. As a minor, his identity must be protected.

How could it be any more obvious to visitors to that this site exists for no other reason than to serve my basest desire for fame, approval, and hate mail? Does anything about the site suggest that it was designed as some sort of public service? Yet I still get a healthy dose of email, ranging from chiding to outright hostile, because I chose to illustrate the sin of Pride with a comparison between vacuous literary upstart John Grisham and Nobelian uber-scribe William Faulkner. It's not just irate lovers of sub-mediocre airport novels attacking my taste; there's an increasing flow of parental letters expressing their personal disappointment in my choice to turn this perfectly nice Seven Deadly Sins Homepage into such a mess of opinions.

They're right, of course. Not that the page bears any particular responsibility to be a servant of the public's need for easily-researchable term papers... but I admit it's a bait-and-switch operation. Most people stumble in here looking for some information, or settling a bar bet, or looking to strip some easy quotes for that high school essay. I've always hoped that a few would come across the Tales of Sin and Virtue and form something like a regular readership. A sin community, perhaps. Meanwhile, scores of earnest information-hungry visitors wrote to tell me that the homepage was pretty useless. It was worse than that, actually: I'd thrown in a completely fictional biblical quote that doubtless found its way into high school and college essays around the nation. But in my gig as a website designer, the Seven Deadly Sins Homepage is more than just a place to vent -- it's a line on the resume. Over two thousand hits every week! Featured in the Telegraph of London, and Entertainment Weekly online's 50 Greatest Lists of All Time! Supports its own administrative costs through online sales! And so forth. Will I have to nail up a respectable-looking patina over the slummy foundations of the site to impress the visiting dignitaries? Or stay true to my roots?

As a consultant, I watch a significant amount of daytime television. And like most people, I'm inexplicably drawn to the shows which I find the most ethically bankrupt: tell-all talk shows in which guests push the envelope of human pathology by detonating personal bombshells packed with razor-sharp shrapnel of intimate detail.

We all know the American Dream is dead -- who really believes that hard work and dedication are enough to guarantee financial success? But anyone, no matter how humble their beginnings, can be famous, if they have a crazy enough story to tell. Fame is the new currency, there for the taking for those willing to abase themselves. Naturally, I want a piece of that action. If the Seven Deadly Sins Homepage has changed, or better yet, ruined your life, I think we might have a Jerry Springer story. Write me with the deets and I'll the producers to see of they're interested. Better still, send me the sordid story of your deepest, ugliest secret, and I may make you famous on this very page! Preferential treatment is offered to those who attach photos of the depraved acts in question. Together, we'll build this online community one sick tale at a time.