Cowboys Versus Astronauts

2009-05-13T19:07:00.000-07:00

http://lukadia.livejournal.com is Mother.

http://lukadia.livejournal.com is Father.

Rehoming

2009-05-13T07:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been debating back and forth about whether to stay on Blogger or go back to LJ.

Pro for Blogger: I like the interface a lot better. It's clean and orderly and laid out quite well, and I haven't been spammed yet. Also, it feels more grown-up in a vaguely undefined sort of way.

Cons: It has become too complicated to keep in touch with people. Not a lot of my LJ friends made the jump to the new format, so we put up an RSS feed for their friend lists. This created a redundancy I have never liked: I get two sets of comments on each entry, on-site and on the feed, and I can't get email notification of the feed comments, which means I don't always see them unless I check manually for new ones. The feed posts vanish into the ether after a certain amount of time, so there's no history to look back at later in case I want to refer back to a discussion. Also, I am nowhere near grown-up enough to be worried about my image, so who am I even kidding?

The last straw was placed on the camel's back last week, when Seebs upgraded my phone to a Sidekick (or as I like to call it, Buttkick, since that's what it does, along with booting me in the head to remind me of appointments and whatnot), and I can't use it to update Blogger because for some reason the "publish post" button is one of the many links the mobile does not under any circumstances seem to want to recognize as clickable. So I lost my first post (written in bed as I was falling asleep) to the void while dicking around with the Buttkick trying to make it click the link.

I can, however, post to LJ with the greatest of ease, which means I could blog from anywhere there's wireless service. No way I'm using both LJ and Blogger as personal accounts, because that's way too confusing for people to keep track of, and my goal has always been to simplify my internet haunts to a manageable handful.

So I think I'm heading back to LJ, at least for a while. I'm over there most of the time anyway for my community stuff. Will keep this one open in case I get blogger's remorse later, but I'll try and disallow comments to avoid spammers.

So I'm off to *unclean unclean* buy myself a paid account on LJ. Not sure yet if I'll leave the creepy halloween theme going, I've gotten rather fond of that wicked awesome skullspider gif.

Update

2009-05-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

Two more buckets of joy for your edification and amusement. And confusion, most likely. Sorry bout that, I'm going as fast as I can to get to the goodness.

When I breathe out, I can hear tiny high-pitched whistles from my throat. It sounds like tiny machinery's running down in there and all the machine elves are panicking. D:

Fat Guy on a Bike (WITH DOG) Goes to Lilydale Park

2009-05-08T14:21:00.000-07:00

A perfect day for trail biking, fossil digging and (if you happen to be a dog) wetlands splashing. We came home three hours later, both liberally caked in 450,000,000 year old clay. It was difficult to judge which of us was panting harder from the heat and exertion.

One thing to mention: this new bike sure has some excellent shock absorption. The trails up there are littered with broken bricks and quite frequently washed out, and I didn't crash once. It was the first time I'd gone out rockhounding since the accident, and the first time I'd gone trailbiking since childhood. I had almost forgotten how much I missed both. Going back soon, possibly with friends or as part of an organized group. If not, alone on bike (WITH DOOOOG), exploring like a mofo under a cloud of discombobulated no-see-ums.

Remind me to bring more water next time. I thought I was going to die out there before I found the waterfall and let myself get rained on for a few minutes. Sweet bliss.

Locks of Laissez-Faire

2009-05-05T10:35:00.000-07:00

Man, it never fails. I wore my hair down twice this month and both times strangers hit me up about Locks of Love. Fortunately neither one was pushy or irate this time, but it gets tiresome. I don't go up to people in the ATM line and ask them to toss their withdrawals in the March of Dimes jar, because it would be intrusive. Oh well, there are worse crosses to bear.

In other news, my bike is back from the shop, and it has a rearview mirror and ergonomic handgrips. Too cool.

Spring is the Kinky Season

2009-05-02T08:31:00.001-07:00

And in celebration of the hedonism that is our global heritage, I've got six new 1.5" buttons for sale.

Helplessly Shaking With Silent Laughter

2009-04-30T05:21:00.000-07:00

Musings on a Phlegm-Filled Evening

2009-04-29T19:26:00.001-07:00

You know, I was thinking today that I should try subsidizing my addictions with other addictions. Like trading commissions for geological cabinet specimens. I can't afford to add new stuff to my rock/fossil/gem collection, but I can afford to draw for hours every day. The question would be how to quantify the value of any particular specimen compared to the art, since both are very subjective. The same fossil that will sell for $6 on eBay will go for $100 at a metaphysical shop--it's all about the value the buyer assigns to each piece when it calls out to them.

Hmm. It is a pretty interesting idea, but I have such a particular taste in shinies that I would feel bad turning down offers. But really, I dislike money and the idea of trading with other rock fans does appeal to me. Maybe I should keep pursuing this. If nothing else, it would be funny as shit to try.

Meanwhile, Kagerou is migrating to www.kagerou.org as its permanent home. Adjust bookmarks as necessary, folks! Electric-Manga.com will not be going bye-bye, but Seebs has written a hell of a good piece of code for a webcomic browsing site and I've offered the domain for it. It's by fans, for fans. No aggregating comics, it's just like having a bookmark folder that you can send to friends, write and rank reviews, add your own discoveries and find similar strips to read. It'll also keep track of where you leave off in any given story. When beta testing is done and it goes live, I plan to erase my comic's hideously outdated link page and just post my electric-manga account page instead.

Tomorrow I need to make an appointment with the doctor. I am fairly sure my tonsils weren't this red-streaked and bumpy last time I looked. The cold appears to be going away this time, so there's something to be happy about. It's no fun being falling-down sick during an influenza panic.

update!

2009-04-29T02:15:00.000-07:00

Just one so far, but it's a milestone: the first 100% digital page of Kagerou. More on the way soon!

Gag Retch Blooga ANIMU Cough Cough

2009-04-27T15:31:00.000-07:00

Funimation just gets cooler and cooler. First they rescued One Piece from the rape dungeon of 4Kids Entertainment, now they've gone and solved the Fansub/Licensed Show problem.

Basically, there's a new Full Metal Alchemist series coming out. It's sort of a reboot that will follow the manga plot instead of the TV-only story of the previous series. Funimation said "Dood, let's let people watch the subs for free on our site every week after it airs in Japan!" and there was much rejoicing. Seriously, that is fucking cool of them. It caused a bit of a traffic problem on their site, but letting the episodes load before watching is a small price to pay for keeping current with the series AND supporting the official release.

Roy's new voice took a bit of getting used to, though. Not bad, just different.

The sickness continues. I coughed so hard I threw up three times yesterday, but luckily it was only a little bit and I was able to motor on. Lots of vertigo today.

The news is full of Swine Flu panic right now, which doesn't exactly make me feel better about sleeping 12 hours and waking up with vertigo. I spent the dizziest time curled up in the big chair downstairs, catching Golden Whales on Unlimited Adventure with a heating pad behind my neck. Life could be worse.

2009-04-25T07:15:00.001-07:00

Sick again. Three times in as many months! This time it's some kind of sinus/tonsil thing. Got a pressure headache too. My plans for the day include soup and napping.

Kagerou Cast Lineup - 3

2009-04-24T01:22:00.000-07:00

Still need to do Grims, Josh and a few other major ones--who have I forgotten?

Kagerou Cast Lineup - 2

2009-04-23T02:09:00.000-07:00

Eleven more!

More Katamari Imagery Than Is Strictly Necessary

2009-04-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

Deciding that taking apart the katamari of fail would be too difficult, I rolled a katamari of win instead.

First I called the rehabilitation services folks to set up a meeting with intake (this is vocational training, not the neck therapy stuff). Then I called my social worker to ask about appealing the cancellation of my benefits for February (forgot to pay a $4 premium) on the basis of the ADD making me forgetful. If I can get this sorted, I won't owe $300 worth of bills for that month, which is a very very good thing. Then I called my health plan about getting a new card. They told me I'm not officially on the plan until May and that's why there isn't a card already sent out. Which means I need to pay for this month's appointments and medications myself and then apply for reimbursement in May.

Then I called the organization that provides the health plan to ask about changing from UCare to Blue Plus when the plan is re-activated, and they told me that will have to be done through the worker as well. I'm waiting for her to return my call tomorrow. Then I called the bank about locking myself out of my online account and reset the password.

Then I called the pharmacy, got them to list the prices for the medicines I need to refill, and worked out a plan to fill only the urgent items. Generic Prozac is $16.99 for a month's supply of 20mg pills. My psychiatrist gave me a scrip for 40mg to see if it cuts the anxiety down a bit better, but doubling the dosage for some reason raises the price to over $80 per bottle. So the pharmacist told me to bring in the scrip anyway, and he'll fill it as two bottles of the 20mg instead, and I can just take several pills to get the same dosage. I did that. They also transferred my prescriptions from the Walgreens pharmacy, saving me the trouble.

Sometime during this flurry of doings, I read two articles on the topics of mindfulness and the science of late blooming that my shrink recommended to me, and took the magazine back to her office. It was closed, so I left the magazine in a box by her door where she keeps her business cards, called her up and left a message to let her know it was there.

I did this all before breakfast.

With that in mind, I drove to the grocery store and spent $7 on a big fat juicy sirloin steak, which I cut in half and shared with Rah. My half was bleeding copiously as I ate it, and it was fantastic. Sadly I mistook cinnamon for Old Bay seasoning and ended up having to spray it with tap water to get rid of it. Even then, it was oddly flavored in a not-so-awesome way along the edges.

But goddamn it, it was a bloody steak and that means it was automatically the best thing in the world. Also broccoli and the last of the steamed rice from last night. Nom.

After that I went to the other store, filled the prescriptions, and bought Rah some cookies. Thus ended my day.

I did not contact my lawyer about the bike information, which is bad as it's getting pretty urgent. I'll make that tomorrow's project instead. I think I did enough life fixing for today. The katamari of win is now 3 meters in diameter, almost large enough to roll up the katamari of fail that's been growing all month.

My life gets tangled in a hopeless ball of unpleasant tasks every now and then, but each time it happens, recovery is faster and less of a hassle, and the faltering takes less of my time and energy. Dr. D says it will keep getting easier with practice, so that's my plan.

As Brother Ali would say, "Keep your lip stiff. Keep your fist clenched. Sometimes you gotta kick your way through this bitch." That song has seen me through some tough times this past year, but things are getting better.

Once the chaos is settled a bit, I think I'll be taking a small number of commissions on a strictly trial basis. Just to see if I'm ready to get back to full-time arting yet.

In Case You're Wondering...

2009-04-22T12:56:00.000-07:00

Not my best work. I'll have to redraw Moko again when I'm not recording so I don't get stage fright and mess up.

Cintiq Progress and Art Post

2009-04-21T01:39:00.000-07:00

In order to learn to use the Cintiq to its maximum advantage, as well as mastering as the Painter 8 interface, I decided to begin from the leftmost character in the Kagerou lineup sketch from yesterday, and draw one person at a time from start to finish. The upside to all this practice is that I'll be left with a great piece of Kagerou character reference, plus the art itself will be visible proof of the speed at which I adapted my skills to the new format. So far I'm surprised and delighted by the speed of improvement. By the time I hit #33 (the Black Angel) I should have a fairly decent idea of what the fuck I'm doing.

Using layers is new to me. Hell, the last time I had Painter was the 2001 version. Getting used to these new options on this new tablet will take a long time, and I'm not good with huge changes. So I'm going to keep going down that line, experimenting, trying new tools, til I'm comfortable with the setup and ready to expand into new and interesting fields using what I've learned.

Switching Kagerou to a Painter comic is a possibility, depending on how the style would change. I'd like to keep the cel shaded anime thing going as much as possible, but I would be happy to sacrifice that for a more organic look if I could do it justice. If it sped up production I'd just about have to at this point :D

But before I go counting comicky coup, I need to learn the basics like a good little newbie. No "I'll learn as I go!" crap, only to find out after years and years that I was doing everything the hard way the whole time. Nope, this time I'm going to put in as much time as it takes to acclimatize to the tools, then unleash the fury of technology upon the cities of my enemy once I'm good and skilled.

It will be tough, but I'm going to figure this shit out and make it my bitch. For one thing, it's redoubled my drive to better my skills. Also it's just plain fun to dick around with this awesome new toy. I've wanted a Cintiq since I was a kid and it was still science fiction, ever since that Supergirl movie where they would draw stuff in midair and make it come to life. Yum.

I spent all of today reprogramming the Cintiq's shortcut keys. My goal is to eliminate the need for a keyboard altogether by putting all the hotkeys on the tablet. This was doomed to failure since there are only ten buttons on the tablet itself, but then I discovered the Radial Menu and its amazing collapsing menu tree.

Now I've got every shortcut-able command in Painter mapped to the back-click button on the stylus, right down to turning the volume up or down on iTunes without touching the keys. For things that still need the keyboard, I use the XP Onscreen Keyboard.

Once that was done, I did it all over again for Corel Photo-Paint (which has different shortcut keys) and calibrated the monitor.

End result: ease of use is fucking unbelievable. My wrist is fucking killing me, but it's the ache I get from drawing for hours and hours, not the one I got every time I used the Graphire. No carpal pain or finger numbness after something like 12 hours of on-and-off drawing.

I do wish I'd gotten the larger tablet, but it would have meant waiting another year to save up the cash. I will be able to afford it much sooner if I use the 12" model to do commissions. Then I can trade up.

Other than the art, my life is in shambles. Forgot to pay a bill, now I owe $300 in medical expenses because I lost coverage. Lost my cell phone (found tonight at least), lost my medical card, ran out of medication and can't renew the scrip (which may explain the rest of my sudden fail, actually). Not sleeping well. Room's a mess. Housework is crazy backed up, and I haven't talked to my lawyer in months. I know it's going to bite me in the ass later, but I'm avoiding everything as much as possible. It's sort of congealed into a giant katamari of suck, and I don't negotiate with terrorists. The only thing I've done well all month is get my Etsy orders out on time.

But all of this is OK, because suck happens. The trick is to break the katamari of suck back down into small, manageable pieces so that it no longer has the power to intimidate. So tomorrow I'll pick a small task from the failbin and start by fixing it. Disability schmisability, I'm a powerhouse of radness. Because why? Because digital watercolor.

Update Tiem

2009-04-17T03:30:00.000-07:00

Six more pages of Kagerou! The story of what exactly the Gods did to Tcaolin to make her such a raging cunt approaches its thrilling conclusion.

Goddamn I am so excited. This new Cintiq gizmo is going to change everything. As soon as I learn to use it, anyway. There's a mess of programmable hotkeys on both sides, so I have to memorize where I put all the commands.

It rocks so goddamn much. I can't even believe it. I inked two pages right on the screen and it was EASY. I may even get crazy and start using layers sometime!

I also installed Painter 8, and found to my astonishment that it didn't corrupt the brush settings on Photo-PAINT. I can't wait to play with watercolors. Oohhhh this new toy is the best ever. And way more ergonomic. Gush gush.

Blow, Wind, BLOW!

2009-04-12T17:52:00.001-07:00

I'm happy because the anti-marriage fuckwits have pretty much run out of scare tactics and have begun to recycle gay themes such as the rainbow symbol and the cry of "You're taking away my rights."

This is not going to work. One by one, the dominoes are toppling. In fifty years the Gay Agenda will reign supreme in every land. Butt sex will be in every home, whether you like it or not. Dirty, dirty butt sex. Dicks and trannies will be on every advertising billboard. On the final day of this Sodom on earth, ropy jets of jizz will rain down from the heavens in a planet-drowning bukkake of death.

We call it "The Coming Storm" and it's going to fucking rock.

Snow Katamari Revisited

2009-04-11T23:53:00.001-07:00

The annotation function on YouTube is SUPER SWEET. Here's why:

I found this old video just now and re-uploaded it (had to put in different music because YouTube mutes unlicensed songs). I like it better now anyway.

Artist's Representation of the Cutest Thing In The Universe.

2009-04-11T13:25:00.000-07:00

Terminator 2: Low Budgement Day

2009-04-09T12:33:00.001-07:00

Cannot stop laughing.

how do you say 'Dora is drowning' in Spanish?

2009-04-01T13:20:00.000-07:00

Sent to me on DeviantArt:

This is the only acceptable use of YouTube pop-up text. Holy shit I'm still laughing.

BECAUSE SHE'S DROWNING.

Busy Busy Busy!

2009-04-01T03:42:00.000-07:00

Where did Luka go all week?

Here's

your

answer.

Not pictured: A huge bowl of buttons, a fat stack of prints and an Olympian pile of keychains, all made during con prep.

One more day until Detour, and somehow I feel like I'm just getting warmed up with this round sticker business. What a shame it's taken me this long to make proper Kagerou stickers and buttons. They seem so easy and fun to do now, and I can't help but notice what a difference the Concerta has made in my ability to handle the workload.

Speaking of which: Con prep? A BREEZE with medication. I am fairly optimistic that I may actually survive the weekend on planet conventia with my sanity intact this time. Oh, mind-altering chemicals, you are tops!

What The Deuce

2009-03-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

My right nostril was blocked, so I blew my nose. All seemed well for about a minute, and then the nostril began to make crunchy little "tick tick" noises even when I wasn't breathing. The ticking grew more persistent until suddenly blood came pouring out in a flood. I grabbed for a kleenex as I watched it splatter my nice clean shirt, but the bleeding ebbed almost instantly after the initial flood and I didn't end up needing it.

I can't help but wonder. Did very small terrorists just bomb my fucking sinuses?

Lucid Dreaming Again, Holy Cow

2009-03-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

Damn, it happened again! I was chasing a train through the city on my bike, trying to catch up with someone who was inside. The city was full of strange intersections and alleyways, tunnels and overpasses. I was going faster than a car, weaving in and out of traffic and always just behind the train.

The train went into a long and curving tunnel where I lost sight of it through a mass of gridlock that shut me out. I veered left towards the other end of the tunnel to cut the train off as it came out, and I knew I had to move fast and take some risks or I'd lose it for good.

I swerved around a guard rail over the edge of the overpass and soared downward. As my bike left the pavement, I looked down, and too late I realized how high up I had been. I was falling hundreds of feet onto the back of the emerging train. There was no way I could land and survive.

My entire body jolted with a spike of nightmare-adrenaline, and once again I felt my conscious mind intervene. "This is not real," I told myself, "And I'm not going to die this way." At that, my falling slowed to a stop. The tracks slowly rose up. I was moving the city, bringing the ground slowly up to meet my wheels, the way I had expected it to be when I first took the shortcut.

At the same time, I realized that if I kept controlling the action I was going to wake up. I was beginning to feel my body, lying on the bed, and I knew that if I moved so much as a finger it would break the spell and I would lose the dream. I tried halfheartedly to fly like a bird, but it didn't work because I had begun to question my abilities. Too much awareness, not enough fantasy. I was thinking about how best to balance the state in the future as I gradually released control of the dream and allowed it to continue.

I lost the train in the time it took me to touch down, but that didn't matter much. See, the whole chase was just a video game anyway, and I knew I would beat my score with no problem on my next try. Then it was all about swimming at a lake with the Captain, and a white and gentle dog the size of a bear was showing me a tiny kitten who was its dearest compantion. Its paw was so huge the kitten could have used it as a bed. I spent the rest of the dream looking at posters of bad anime fanart, and woke up sicker than yesterday, with my puppy curled up beside me on the bed.

Now for some analysis: So far, every time I've cut into a dream, it's been to stop a terrifying thing from happening. The jolt of full-body fear seems to be the signal, right back to the first one. So my question is: am I having more nightmares this month than I ever used to, or am I setting these terrible situations up as a trigger to the lucidity that has begun to increase? Hmm.

Every dream I have is linked to the previous one. I am aware of them as a series inside the dream, and I am comparing them with my normal logic and speed. In the dream, I am slowly learning new things about my ability to decide what happens around me, but my control is poor. Something in the conscious mind says "impossible" and I can't allow that to dictate what I do in fantasy. So my project for the next dream will be to address this issue, so I can set off better dreams before letting go of the action. I would definitely prefer to go back to normal dreaming once I've changed the terms, because it feels more free and exciting that way, but it would be cool if I could give myself abilities first and then let them play out on their own.

For one thing, think of the ideas I could have if I could set the stage in one of my story universes, and let my unconscious mind play with the parameters and go wherever. I did this once when I was 12 after some bedtime meditation, and it led to amazing fun.

BOOM

2009-03-26T08:20:00.000-07:00

Hear that? That's the sound of the Mythbusters team spontaneously ejaculating in their pants.

Galactica, woo!

2009-03-25T10:04:00.001-07:00

YAY Battlestar Galactica is finished and I didn't get horribly spoiled on the ending!

I liked it. Not sure if I liked *all* of it, but I give Galactica a pass for being really interesting even when it's not perfect. Also, I've developed such an incredible crush on Tricia Helfer that it's not even funny. She's not even my type, but... yowza.

Luka is a Plague Dog Again

2009-03-25T01:57:00.001-07:00

Dauuuuugh I'm sick again. Another cold. My shrink joked that I would fall ill because I showed up for my appointment soaking wet from nostrils to tiptoes thanks to an unexpected mid-bike-ride rainstorm, and I laughed. Oh, how I laughed.

I should have remembered that I had two ill roomies at home. I should not have challenged the gods.

The Captain, Seductive

2009-03-24T18:13:00.000-07:00

No you can't have my dinner you cozening hussy of a dog. Go back to sleep.

Lucid Dreams and Spring

2009-03-21T20:02:00.000-07:00

The other day I took the Captain out to pee and examined the lawn. Dead yellow grass as far as the eye could see. Seven hours later I was back out there looking at the same spot and the yard was full of two-inch green shoots. Also the crocuses had come through the leaf pile, and our front yard tree was covered in red bud casings. It happened that fast.

Also, I had another lucid dream, only this time it was easier. La Llorona was chasing me and my conscious mind kicked in. I thought about how I'd done this in the previous dream and felt honestly like I was cheating to do it again, but I pushed the thought aside and pulled rank again. Started to wake up and said "no, don't wake up, this has possibilities." Next thing I know I'm flying figure eights around La very confused Llorona, blowing raspberries like Peeves the Poltergeist and chanting "Nyeah nyeah nyeah! I'm dreaming and you're not!"

I've been having dreams for a while where I'm coherent enough to have not only surface thoughts, but also feelings and concerns and things that don't get vocalized. I even think about previous dreams and know they were dreams. Then when I wake up, it all makes sense--no dream-logic. But taking over the dream twice in one week? I wonder if that could be the Prozac.

HOW DO I SHOT MOVIE

2009-03-19T20:36:00.000-07:00

So, like, did Spiderman 2 suck on purpose or something?

Don't get me wrong, it was fun and cool as hell to watch. But with the possible exception of Meet the Feebles (and the jury is still out on whether that was actually intentional), I can't fathom how any single movie could be so unbelievably, laughably bad by accident.

All those comical NOOOOOOOOOO! moments, usually with unflatteringly hilarious facial contortions. And the CGI! The script! The acting!

Haha, just kidding, there wasn't any acting.

I give it two thumbs up for gratuitous damsel-in-distress upskirt shots and wanton destruction of property.

Let's Go Bugfuck Over Fucking Bugs

2009-03-19T04:04:00.000-07:00

OH HOLY FUCKING COWGOD YOU GUYS I HAVE WON THE LOONY LOTTERY TONIGHT

I have been noticing that shortly after I urinate, when I look down into the toilet bowl and a light source is directly above which illuminates the water, I notice something invisible in the water "kick about" as something on the surface makes mini waves shoot about in the bowl. I only noticed this after I urinated and not before. Most days I will find about 5 or 6 or more "waves" being shot about at about the same time which only makes me think it is parasites still alive thrashing about in the water.

I should add I am two weeks in taking Humaworm tablets and feel I have seriously angered them. Any ideas ?

An aquatic battallion of pee-worms doing the backstroke in your loo water? And they've brought their invisibility cloaks!? The invasion has begun! Better not flush, or they'll swim all the way to the sewage plant and THEN YOU'LL BE SORRY SOMEHOW

But oh my god. That's nothing, check out this chick's complaint.

There's something in my sinus cavity. what do i do?!?!?!? I can feel it squirming when I push on my soft palate with my finger and its AWFUL..i drooled and had nightmares all last night.

Advice would be wonderful right now

My advice: Stop snorting worm eggs. They won't get you high. But don't listen to me, I've never even had my colon detoxed. Experts agree that the correct answer is:

I'd put some salt water in a nettie pot, or use a dropper bottle to put salt water in my nose and wash out my sinus cavities. I'd put lots and lots of salt water through my nose.

You could also put a few drops of food grade Hydrogen Peroxide in some distilled water and use that as nose drops, to try and kill it before it comes out, but be forewarned: the HP burns really bad and it might make the worm wiggle around even more.

The thought of a live worm draining down the back of the throat or coming out the nose is pretty scary. I feel for you. That sounds scary enough to send most people to the emergency room. I'd probably blow my nose a lot, see if I couldn't get it to come out that way first.

The ER? For worms biting your head from the inside? Pshaw, there's a lemon and syrup cleanse for that. Plus it doubles as an enema (before OR after you drink it) and you can even recycle the foil packet into a hat.

Back to tweaker-chan and her squishy sinus morgellons of death:

I suspect they are attracted to my soft palate because I have been chewing gum lately to curb sugar cravings. I poked on one of them hard enough to get him to leave and I honestly felt him go down my neck. I believe they are free swimmers. He is just really irritating and he's causing a lot of sinus congestion/pressure because he's in such a tight spot. It's more annoying than anything and I hope he's not biting anything important!

WILL INJECTING MYSELF WITH ORGANIC RAT FECES MAKE THE WORM GO AWAY BEFORE HE CAN GNAW THROUGH A TONSIL AND STEAL MY GUM? STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT AFTER THESE MESSAGES FROM OUR SPONSOR!

I'm also having really awful depression and mood swings and its hard to see things that are far away. I'm soooo scared that they're in my head causing trouble and everytime I take my parastat I get horrible panic attacks. I am three weeks into my cleanse and I think they're awfully desperate. Should I continue the program if I believe they're in my head? Has anyone else had this problem? I though they might just be in the cavity right above my mouth but I have pain in the back and top of my head and I just don't know what to do with myself.

THE HERBAL REMEDY I BOUGHT FROM SOME GUY ON THE STREET CORNER IS GIVING ME SEVERE REACTIONS, SHOULD I STOP TAKING IT OR WILL THE WORMS BIDE THEIR TIME UNTIL I PUT THE PIPE DOWN AND THEN BEGIN THEIR BLOODY REVOLUTION? And oh god she's still going oh god oh god it gets even worse aaaaghhh

I thought he was going to come out my nose at the grocery store..he blocked my estachian tubes for a while. but oh well, I'm just glad he's not sitting on my soft palate anymore, though it sucks he's in my head still. that soft palate sure hurts when it gets bit.

5HAT WHAT wh555555555555555
ERROR CANN5OT SNARK5555555555555555555555
BEGINNING DUMP TO PHYSICAL MEMORY

I passed some weird mucous just now and I showed my boyfriend...he brought in his four year old neice to inspect it and she matter-of-factly said, "maybe it's poop!

Maybe it's ALL poop.

How many fibers did you have come out?

5555555555oh look, there's the morgellons. Did I call it or did I call it?

I dug a black rock from under the skin of my leg once. It just gets weirder and weirder. I think there's something going on in the big scheme of things that is making this stuff happen to us.

YES IT'S CALLED DELUSIONAL PARASITOSIS ALSO TRY NOT EXFOLIATING WITH DRIVEWAY GRAVEL SOMETIME

maybe I'll lure them away with some candy before I do it so they don't go rotting away on my eyeball or something.

PEDOBEAR LET THOSE CHILDREN OUT OF YOUR HEAD THEY AREN'T EVEN YOUR KIDS JESUS CHRIST

I'm just going to do every cleanse that I may benefit from and I'm positive it will work eventually. I went through a time where I just knew it couldn't get any worse, and I always get out of it somehow. I can't wait to be myself again!

TRY A THORAZINE CLEANSE55555555555

555^
ERROR DETECTING DRIVE C:/
ABORT, RETRY, FAIL_

bird is the word. papa oom mow mow.

2009-03-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

What's the name of the Midwestern bird whose call sounds like "DO WHAAAT? DO WHAAAT? DO WHAAAT? ... BOUNCY BOUNCY BOUNCY!"?

Because that bird is the shit.

In Babylon

2009-03-16T18:15:00.001-07:00

It is so fucking weird to find Planet P's music on YouTube. Weird and awesome.

I grew up on his stuff... hell, I still play the Pink World album through from start to finish a couple of times a year, and it never disappoints. Pink World was my only friend when I lived in Missouri. I had a walkman and I'd play the album every single morning on the two-hour backwoods bus ride. There was also Floyd and Kraftwerk, Men Without Hats and Hawkwind, but this was not their standout era.

When I listen to that album, I remember one-lane mountain roads that crept past layers of flat morning mist that buried the Ozark mountains for miles. I remember the horrible cornhusker's lotion the driver used to bathe in before work each day, the rotten smell of the seat covers, diesel fuel. Sitting alone in the back of the bus, so every bump in the road gave my brains a stir. Somehow, the memories are never bleak and miserable. That era in my life was pretty black. The worst things that ever happened to me all took place in Missouri, but Planet P only brings back the good stuff.

I also remember deciding to be a comic artist because I wanted to tell stories. Planet P did it all solo for Pink World, and while the music itself didn't age well (turns out synthesizers taste better in moderation), for me it was always all about the story. And wanting to tell my own.

It's really cool to know he's still making music, telling epic album-length stories, mostly solo. I'm rooting for him. The Go Out Dancing project reminds me (favorably) of Roger Waters in one of his apocalyptic moods. I haven't gotten to know Levittown yet, but so far I'm digging the hell out of it. Waiting for the right time to play it to death with my full attention so I can digest the lyrics.

I HERD U LIEK BACKSTORY

2009-03-16T07:14:00.000-07:00

Six pages. Six epic pages. One of them took three days, and I am pretty sure you'll be able to tell which one that is without any hints. Have fun!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2009-03-15T21:30:00.000-07:00

Two years later and I'm actually proud it happened. Humans are so weird.

You can be so completely attached to another person that the notion of letting them go under any circumstances is beyond the pale. Choosing such a heartless abadonment and then being happy about it? That's just unthinkable. What are you, some kind of monster? You'd have to be crazy to blah blah blah.

So yeah, we broke up. And yeah, it hurt like hell for a year. For most of that year I literally grieved. I pined and obsessed. It was all through my dreams, where I could--and did--cry. I raged, I blamed him, I told myself I had to work up the courage to go back because I felt I couldn't take the loneliness for one more second. I felt like it was a moral failure on my part that I never quite got pathetic enough to go back on my knees and make him forgive me for bringing out his rage and contempt by being flawed and human.

I'd done it before, but this time my stubborn pride wouldn't let me make things better. I didn't want to pretend I was wrong or sorry when I wasn't, just so I could have the old relationship back. In my eyes, this made me the bad guy. Petty. Had to have my way. So arrogant I'd betray a friend rather than lie to them and make them like me again, etc. etc. But I had drawn a line: if he didn't come back, I could not chase him.

Too many times before, I'd done just that, and I always felt so diminished afterward. Pigheaded as he was, he never would have returned or apologized first. I could do it, and I saw myself as a martyr because I did. Yay for me, I had the courage to take the blame I often felt was undeserved, and my prize was having him like me again.

So fucking disordered, but I needed it. And you know, he always wondered why I hate love songs and chick flicks so much. Well, basically it's because everyone hates having that black mirror shoved in their face. I think I just can't stand watching people celebrate the same kind of twisted codependence I secretly suffered. I have just enough insight to recognize dysfunction, but as for applying it to my own life? Still working on that. Lots of denial in there to cut through first.

And time went by. Slowly I began to realize that what I labeled as obstinacy and pride were actually protecting me from allowing my poor sense of boundaries and ragingcodependence to keep me in a bad situation. Nothing would have changed if I went back. It would be a huge fuck-you to my sense of self-preservation. Another fit of martyrdom would have been killing the first healthy impulse I'd had in ages--to not fix everything at my own expense. Deep down, I knew this from the start, but I tried pretty hard to bury it in layers of obfuscatory bullshit, and for a while it worked.

By the time the anger and obsession began to fade, I started to see how emotionally unhealthy things were. I had never realized just how much the relationship had warped when I wasn't paying attention. It was rusted through. Nothing held it together now but my determination to keep it alive at all costs. That was when the grieving stopped and I began to move on.

Starting a few months ago, I realized that, far from missing the way things were, I was actually celebrating its end. I was relieved! For the first time, I thanked my stubbornness instead of being ashamed of it. That petty little line in the sand that I drew in anger had finally put an end to a relationship that ought to have died naturally many years before.

Kids, they don't know any better. Kids think friends are always forever and that every love is the only true love they'll ever have. Kids don't recognize the signs when the time comes to stick a fork in a relationship. I missed this stage of development when I was growing up, and that has led to years of animosity and dysfunction. The people involved grew up and went their separate ways in life, and our friendship began chafing as it ceased to grow along with us.

The resulting swan song droned on, unheard and unheeded by either of us, until what should have been the happiest memories of my life were polluted by the regret and resentment of the latter years. That makes me sad.

So many grudges and self-censorships, trying to be a different person from the one I was, just so someone else would like me. All because I was in love with someone who didn't exist anymore. Oh, the depression, the recriminations. The self-loathing. Why wasn't I good enough? Why did he change? Woh, woh, woh.

Imagine my surprise when I realized that this, all of this, was normal. Normal and okay. A vital part of being human. Imagine my relief. It's not about finding company in misery, it's about finally connecting to a major component of interpersonal relations.

So kids, when you're in a relationship and things change, don't be scared to change with them. When the skin you're in gets too tight and starts to itch, try shedding it. Spend your whole life terrified that your guts will spill out because there's nothing left to hold them in, and you'll never get to see what's actually underneath. For me, it turned out to be a much thicker skin, and it fits pretty good.

OH NOES ABUSE

2009-03-15T19:08:00.001-07:00

I have a dream. Someday, I really want to doodle on a dog. Can I draw on whiskers? Can I make him look like a panda? I've asked many times to draw on the pets of my friends, but nobody ever lets me. "Get your own dog to draw on," they say. Are they crazy? I wouldn't want a wierd-looking dog like that.

- Eiichiro Oda

SRL KILLER IN THE MAKING U GAIZ. OR POSSIBLY KICKIN RAD MANGA ARTIST BUT ANYWAY WAAAAANK

Anime Explo

2009-03-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

Anime Expo's alley will be opening for pre-reg on the 31st, but they released the paperwork this afternoon. Leafing through the announcements I noticed that staff have doubled the price for a traditional-sized table from $50 to $100, in addition to the $50 registration fee that you must pay before you can even apply for the alley spot. They also put in about a hundred more tables, which fits my personal definition of "oversaturation."

I thought to myself, yeah but still... and then I stopped to consider the cost of travel and expenses, the hassle of tax registration, the fact that I don't like SoCal very much. Mulling all of that over gave me a nasty feeling that my AX 09 plans had just fallen through with a resounding "meh."

BUT FUCK THAT NOISE, WHO'S UP FOR DETOUR NEXT MONTH?

Why, you're only a sort of thing in his dream!

2009-03-14T06:55:00.001-07:00

What kind of evil asshole would name a pair of cuddly baby white tigers "Ben Wa" and "Taboo?" That's right. MY kind of evil asshole.

Also, Goodbye Zoloft, goodbye tremor, hello Prozac!

Last night I had one of those dreams where I'm being chased by assassins with axes. Axes! They cornered me and I couldn't find a weapon to hold them off. Just a car antenna, which I yanked free and found to be utterly useless. They closed in to chop me to death, and the nightmare panic started to take over. I realized that it was too late to escape, that I was REALLY going to die, and it was going to hurt. Just before the slaughter began, I realized: Fuck that. This is a dream and I make the rules, so starting right now I am pulling rank. I regret to inform you that I will not be experiencing the unpleasantness and horror of being murdered by ax-wielding assassins at this time. Instead, I will know kung fu, and my attackers will suddenly suck ass at fighting.

And that's how it came to pass that I killed the shit out of all four of them armed with only a ripped-off car antenna.

After the massacre, I led my KICKIN' RAD NEW FRIENDS the Straw Hat pirates to safety on a gorgeous tropical beach and tried explaining my epiphany to them. I told them how I had realized earlier that I was dreaming. I told them none of this was really happening.

They just looked at me in total confusion and tried to make awkward small talk to change the subject. I realized that, because they were figments, they had no fucking clue what I was even talking about and it might even be making them feel uncomfortable to discuss the subject. So I quit bashing my fist into the poor dented fourth wall, and curled up to sleep next to my nakama on warm white beach sand. The wind was warm and carried the sound of the waves to the beach and we watched the full moon rise in an indigo sky from under our temporary canopy tent. It was wonderful.

Then I woke up with a dog's butt in my face.

(But Do You Know Who's Listening?)

2009-03-13T19:41:00.000-07:00

Vienna Teng's Whatever You Want is my current favorite song ever. We cannot has embedding for the file, but it's totally worth a middle-click.

I love it when people sing about shit that's actually interesting. Revenge, activism, screwing over Le Homme, and of course the timeless question of "Who does the prostitutes' laundry?" Teng rarely disappoints. I'm always thinking "Good god, woman, can you please just write ONE bad lyric sometime so I won't feel like hanging myself from the shower head every time I crank out a half-decent filk song about Mary Sues?

The Venture Bros. Still Rocks

2009-03-11T19:41:00.000-07:00

I can't tell you how many times I've re-watched this episode, just for this classic Walking Eye bit. And the bathroom subplot, of course. (Just don't ask me why the uploader put "yaoi" in the title).

Season 3 is about to come out on DVD. Joy! I haven't seen any of the new episodes yet but I smell a marathon coming on as soon as I get my hot little hands on the set.

A Cautionary Tale

2009-03-11T00:23:00.000-07:00

At first I didn't think I'd like this song, but it turned out to be a real gut-puncher.

Antidote to the Late Winter Funk

2009-03-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

EDAR (Everyone Deserves A Roof) is a 501(c)(3) charity that provides unique mobile shelters to those living on the streets all around us. Each EDAR is a four-wheeled mobile unit which carries belongings and facilitates recycling during the day and which unfolds into a special, framed tent-like sleeping enclosure with a bed at night.

Fucking awesome.

Update

2009-03-05T03:29:00.000-08:00

Two pages! Oh goddamn am I ever pleased with myself right now.

Now I get to go to bed and sleep as much as I want. Joy! Boring, boring joy!

Lifedump

2009-03-03T20:33:00.001-08:00

I finally got the Captain a new collar. This one's traffic-reflective so he'll be more visible at night. I also got him a proper harness for bike-runs, and am going to attach reflective tape to it as well. Then I'll go to the hardware store this week and buy tiny reflectors and make buttons out of them, which I'll wear on the back of my biking jacket. I already have a flasher on my bike and a blinking pendant shaped like a bone for the Captain, but you can never be too visible.

The bike's brakes were getting loose so I took it to the shop where I got it. The owner came out, looked it over and told me to bring it in anytime for a full going-over with adjustments, because some of the factory settings aren't quite to his liking. He showed me how to tighten the handbrake in the meantime (modern bikes have such weird interfaces! I didn't need a screwdriver) and when I asked how much for the tune-up, he said they wouldn't charge a thing. Fucking amazing. I'll be getting the handlebars adjusted if there's any more wiggle room, and if not, I'll need to buy a longer set so I can sit completely upright to save my neck and wrists. Then I'll buy a rearview mirror and get it installed on the handlebars. It's good times.

Still working on the comic, still dragging ass. I haven't gotten much sleep lately so I'm slow and easily bored. Today was therapy and we had a really long, really thought-provoking session talking about codependency and boundaries. Also about my need to get my life started and gain some independence (especially financially) so I can feel like more of an adult.

It's really weird climbing out of the pit I'm in. And not all that painful, at least not yet. We're doing good work. Starting to establish a rapport. I guess I got lucky on that one--no one I know has ever liked their first therapist, and I adore mine.

I've been listening to the Adam Carolla podcast since he lost his morning show and decided to continue doing the job for free out of his basement. He's such a belligerent dick, but I love him. I miss the old Loveline, before Scrappy Doo (aka Stryker) took over and David Allen Grier was barred from returning as a guest. I don't agree with all of the Loveline advice (they are completely ignorant and judgmental about gender dysphoria, for example) but most of the time it's dead-on. I've been listening to the archive of 2004 for the past month or so while I play One Piece and collect my non-thinks.

Spring is coming. I need to get out more, and take a bunch of photos with this awesome camera before everything turns soggy and brown.

Pictures of snowman sex acts to follow.

I Hate The News, Part 665 1/2

2009-03-03T11:31:00.000-08:00

I know raging against American popular media for being distorted and dysfunctional is like pissing in a sea of piss, but it really fucking burns to see how they're treating this pop star domestic violence thing. The guy beats his girlfriend so badly she's hospitalized, and a week later they're back together and she's forgiven him. So of course the news headlines are all about their "reunion" and how they're patching things up after the argument.

Stop it. That is not what this is about. Don't take an abuse cycle in progress and spin it into a happy ending. Maybe it's intrusive and impolite to call this what it is, but sometimes reality needs to be ugly. I feel like an enabler just seeing the magazine covers in the checkout line.

I love your big dick. Desu.

2009-03-02T02:30:00.000-08:00

My iPod's battery was dying, so I put some gay anime porn on it. No problems since then. Coincidence? I think not.

The weird thing is that when I converted the video to .mp4, the audio track got corrupted. Instead of the dialogue and occasional yelps of joy it was intended to have, there was only the main character saying lines like "I love your big dick" and "Put it in my butt" over and over again, with various inflections and squelchy sound effects. For 30 minutes. And no, it didn't loop.

My conclusion? It's a subliminal "Learn Japanese the Easy Way!" program for pervs.

Luka's Adventures in Laundry and Dog Torture

2009-03-01T21:46:00.001-08:00

Poor doggy. It's shocky-collar retraining time, and that is not a good time to be a Captain.

The last time I made him wear the collar was in the fall because I noticed him starting to dare the borders of the kitchen and found a few scattered wrappers around the trash can after leaving him alone. After that, the UFO unit that sends the signal to beep the collar stopped working properly.

He's been getting more and more bold regarding the no-fly zone for about a month, and today he got into the kitchen and cleaned out the cat food twice. That was that--I took the UFO apart with a screwdriver and messed with the connections until I got it to work again. He heard the faint test-beeps from out in the hallway, and I could hear him bolting for the stairs. So much for the element of surprise.

Unfortunately, dogs are fairly skilled at pattern recognition, so he has figured out that the collar is involved with the terrible torment that befalls him when he trespasses. It takes a while to de-condition himself, but I don't want him to figure out that taking the collar off means party time. Two ways around this: make sure there is a beep of punishment when he's not wearing the collar at certain points, and leave the collar on but turn off the power so that it doesn't warn him. Either way he'll stop associating the beep with the collar, resulting in a win condition for me.

The prongs shouldn't be in constant contact with his skin because it could cause pressure sores, so to take the latter approach I'll need to wrap the collar with something soft and comfortable. The former approach will require me to catch him in the act while I'm holding the collar (or a tape player with the collar noise recorded onto it).

In the end, it's worth it. The kitchen border keeps Maya-cat safe in her basement domain (she is bitterly racist against all Captain-dogs) and the Captain can't choke on anything he scavenges from the counters or the trash with his ever-so-industrious nose for mischief.

It's a work in progress, this cohabitation with other life forms. At least he's being really nice to Molly-cat. She has no fear of him whatsoever. I've seen her taunt the poor fellow into a barking frenzy from her comfy perch just over the blue do-not-cross line. Today I was petting her with one hand and feeding the Captain snacks with the other, and she was actually purring in between those tiny little grunts that mean Molly is being shown affection. Strange girl, that one.

In non-dog news, the dryer was not working the other day, so I had three loads of wet laundry to deal with. I found a roll of twine and made a quickie clothesline all over the basement by crisscrossing all the support beams. The towels ended up really stiff and still had pet hair on them, but my clothes are plenty soft enough to wear and hanging it all up wasn't all that difficult. I decided to try and make a habit of it.

So I bought 60 feet of clothesline for $2 at Walgreens, cut it into several lengths, and did the thing properly. On laundry day it's going to be like hiking through the jungle down there, only instead of bats and biter-snakes, you'll get attacked by soggy skivvies. The basement is so arid that things dry fast. I'll still need to tumble the towels a bit to remove the pet hair and soften them up a bit, but that's no problem.

(Blame Netflix for sending me An Inconvenient Truth when I was feeling particularly hippy-minded. I couldn't even finish it so I just swore to be less wasteful and sent the DVD back.)

Last thing I'll need to do is make sure I strung the lines high enough to avoid beheading anyone in the dark. Seebs is the tallest one here so I'll test it out on him first.

Working Jet Pack Lasts For Hours

2009-02-28T17:06:00.001-08:00

I need one and I need to use it to cross Lake Superior and I need it now.

I Have Too Many Nipples, Send Help ASAP!

2009-02-28T13:49:00.000-08:00

A couple of nights ago I was listening to Loveline and they had a caller in her early twenties who had only just discovered that she had an extra nipple. I scoffed. Oh, how I scoffed.

And then today I found one on ME.

How can this be? I'm 28! I don't even want the boobs I've got!

I always knew it was there, but I thought it was just a weird raised extra-sensitive mole. It was only when I was reading about the phenomenon on Google that I realized my mole was along the classical mammalian booby line and investigated more closely. At that point it finally hit me that the damn thing looks exactly like a miniature tittyswitch. It even has a partial aureola! How did I miss that?

Then came denial. This is not my beautiful radio dial tuned to 69.1, the Pleasure Station! Then anger. What wretched god of whimsy glued this misguided little endcap on there, and why couldn't they have put another one in on the other side for symmetry?

At this point I skipped depression because that's boring and landed straight on exhuberant acceptance. What novelty! What fun! Shall I pierce it? Shall I put ice on it and see if it gets hard? Cover it with a sticker for modesty in the event of tank top malfunction? Take photos and post them to the internet so my enemies can mock me to my very dying hour? Oh, I'm so excited by all these new possibilities!

Superfluous Nipple, you're the best toy ever.

Art Post

2009-02-28T04:53:00.000-08:00

This sucker kept me up all night and blew my carefully cultivated schedule to little bitty bits, but I am so immensely pleased by the product of my mania that basically I refuse to feel bad about it :)

Who's a Wuzzums?

2009-02-28T02:40:00.000-08:00

YOU'RE A WUZZUMS.

Runaway Jury Review

2009-02-27T00:37:00.000-08:00

Runaway Jury was a pretty good movie, but I was disappointed by the switch from tobacco to gun control as the central plot. The book worked because the lawsuit was interesting and based on real-life tobacco industry litigation . In the movie, they gutted and replaced the hot topic with a flimsy case involving a single company gleefully selling guns to criminals, with a wicked corporate lawyer as villain. You could have written the resulting courtroom drama with zero knowledge of legal procedure, and that's really not a big draw for Grisham fans. They made a flimsy case and I didn't appreciate the emotional appeal (schmaltzy music and footage of children playing safely in a gun-free utopia, hurray!).

With such a meh Big Bad, the whole cat and mouse game just doesn't hang together as well. It was a damn shame, because that part of the story was riveting and really wanted a grander payoff.

I guess with all the media fascination with school shootings in the past decade, they thought it would be more intense and topical than taking yet another swing at Big Tobacco's all too boring sociopathy. At least I got a page inked during the film. And hey, the book's still on the shelf. As Stephen King once said, "they can't change a word." But don't get me started on the mondo ass rapings he's had to endure with his fiction. I'd be here all night and it's bedtime.

Holy Snowly

2009-02-26T16:34:00.000-08:00

That freakish thunderstorm earlier today dumped 6 to 8 inches of snow on my town in one hour. An hour. The car was clean from the garage when I drove to the appointment, and when I saw it on my way out I could only tell which one it was by where I'd parked. I had to rock-and-gas it in three separate intersections to get it over the higher drifts, but it performed damned well for such a tiny vehicle.

Visibility in the storm was about 10-20 feet tops. All I could see was other drivers' headlights, and even then it was tricky to navigate. I'm glad I know these roads like the back of my fappin' hand, because it meant I only missed the rehab clinic entrance three times as I coasted past it doing 5mph. Fuck yeah I love Minnesota. Days like this are why I moved here.

Now I eat steamed rice with a scrambled egg and some tofu. Nommmmmmmm.

Thundersnow Returns!

2009-02-26T10:47:00.000-08:00

Booms from this intense thunderstorm keep shaking my office chair. Oh yeah, and it's snowing so hard I can barely see across the street. Spring already?

First appointment at the sports rehab center today because of [content redacted]. I have my fingers crossed that they can help me out.

I am inking the next pages of my comic today. I can barely contain my excitement over the huge plot revelations I had the other day. It's still hard for me to believe a short side project could have evolved into something this complex with so little effort. Like it was already in my head, waiting for me to uncover it a bit at a time. I know it'll never be on par with the Great American Novel, but I'm pretty comfy with what I've got.

Even More Lip Service For The Captain

2009-02-25T13:40:00.000-08:00

Check out my dog's awesome regenerative powers:

The vitiligo appears to be slowly repigmenting. I've been noticing little freckles on his muzzle all winter long, but it wasn't til I compared the first and latest photos that the real scope of the change became apparent. He might get all the color back at this rate *hope hope*. He's such a handsome color without the Joker paint look.

WHO LOVESES THE CAPTAIN? I LOVESES THE CAPTAIN!

Wise Beard Man Arrested For Protesting Scientology (1)

2009-02-25T10:54:00.000-08:00

Months after a cult member defaced a protester's car, then restrained and assaulted the protester in a fake "citizen's arrest" when he approached to intervene, the Gold Base public property controversy continues to smolder.

Observe as Mark Lowell is arrested for "blocking the driveway" by standing on the city-owned easement. Fellow activists are then instructed by police to relocate their protesting to a residential zone down the block, which would be breaking the law.

Mark Bunker/Mark Lowell Arrested at Gold Base from Angry Gay Pope on Vimeo.

The video showing Bunker's beard being arrested will follow as soon as it's posted. I keep thinking, it must be great to have so much power that you can forbid people to walk past your property. Too bad about the whole "eternal damnation" thing, though.

Update!

2009-02-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

Three pages this time. Coloring the whole thing took a lot longer than expected, but the results look awful purdy so it's okay.

I love getting to expand on the uberplot of this monster. The edges of the endgame story have started to emerge in a material form after years of frantically boinging around inside my brain, and that makes me very happy indeed.

Cat Lovers Could Probably Read This

2009-02-17T17:42:00.000-08:00

YAY! The cat abusing shitheels have been charged and both cats have been removed permanently from the home. A third cat who was abused in another video was taken from a friend's house as well. They're not injured too badly and are expected to be available for adoption this week.

Meanwhile pizzas, taxis, hookers, hearses, death threats and religious material continue to be sent in mass quantities to the home of said shitheels. Oh Anonymous.

Sauce here.

Cat Lovers, Don't Read This Either

2009-02-16T16:11:00.000-08:00

I have to applaud Anonymous for taking time out of their busy schedule of being fucking awesome to be even more fucking awesome this week.

Those teen boys who posted videos on YouTube of themselves torturing the family cat have been identified and reported by eagle-eyed internet detectives, and Dusty the kitty was promptly removed from the home and placed under the care of a veterinarian. The mother of the boys involved reports that she plans to ground both of them from riding on their dirt bikes for a short period of time as punishment for their adolescent shenanigans. Ouch.

No word yet on whether the family of these precious little sociopaths is grieving for the loss of their beloved Dusty, but if so, it won't be feeling the emptinesss for long. Pizzas, Craiglist hookers and death threats are being sent to the house in floods by well-wishers from all over the internet to fill the gap in their hearts.

Happy VD!

2009-02-14T13:11:00.000-08:00

Hilda is my Valentine. This year, every year.

Frustration!

2009-02-12T01:16:00.000-08:00

This is the best image macro I have ever seen.

Vienna Teng

2009-02-07T16:13:00.000-08:00

God DAMN I love this woman's music.

me and my baby on a february holiday
'cause we got the news
yeah, we got the news
500 miles and we're gonna make it all the way
we've got nothing to lose
we've got nothing to lose

it's been 10 years waiting
but it's better late than the never
we've been told before
we can't wait one minute more

oh, me and my baby driving down
to a hilly seaside town in the rainfall
oh, me and my baby stand in line
you've never seen a sight so fine
as the love that's gonna shine
at city hall

me and my baby've been through
a lot of good and bad
learned to kiss the sky
made our mommas cry
I've seen a lot of friends
after giving it all they had
lay down and die
lay down and die

10 years into it
here's our window
at the vegas drive-thru chapel
it ain't too much
for 'em all to handle

oh, me and my baby driving down
to a hilly seaside town in the rainfall
oh, me and my baby stand in line
you've never seen a sight so fine
as the love that's gonna shine
at city hall

outside, they're handing out
donuts and pizza pies
for the folks in pairs in the folding chairs
my baby's lookin' so damned pretty
with those anxious eyes
rain-speckled hair
and my ring to wear

10 years waiting for this moment of fate
when we say the words and sign our names
if they take it away again someday
this beautiful thing won't change

oh, me and my baby driving down
to a hilly seaside town in the rainfall
oh, me and my baby stand in line
you've never seen a sight so fine
as the love that's gonna shine

oh, me and my baby driving down
to a hilly seaside town in the rainfall
oh, me and my baby stand in line
you've never seen a sight so fine
as the love that's gonna shine
at city hall

New Pages!?

2009-02-02T15:37:00.000-08:00

Three on-time updates in a row! It's like I'm on fire or something.

PS: OH GOD I REALLY AM ON FIRE OH GOD OH GOD OH IT BURNS SHOULD I GO TO THE DOCTORRRRRR

I HATE DOGS

2009-01-28T16:10:00.000-08:00

Fuck. The Captain just killed my external drive. I wasn't in the room, but from the subtle clues he left all over the floor, it looks like he got under my desk, became entangled in my computer cables, and ran for his life. The drive was five feet away from my desk on the floor when I found it.

The drive powers up but all it does is make a buzzy noise every three seconds or so. No letter drive comes up when I hook it up. Fuck fuck fuck.

I have no idea how much is gone, but it's not as bad as it could have been. Back when the backup program went haywire, Seebs was able to get all the data off and move it to a spare he had lying around. I still hadn't finished checking to make sure the files were all copied back to my drive, so much is still intact. But it gets worse. I just moved 11 gigs of new stuff to the external drive this week to make room on my PC. I can't remember what I moved, but it was good stuff and I deleted it all right afterwards.

Fuck.

Fake edit: The beeping noise stopped, but still no connection. The suck of today is so spectacular that it has given me a headache. And it started out so good, too. I was getting things done, processing orders, cleaning out my email, and then bam. Fail after fail after fail with a big old rotten hard drive cherry on top.

Shoot me now.

Can I Borrow Your Dagger For A Sec?

2009-01-28T13:16:00.000-08:00

Phobia be damned! I've just had my first haircut since grade school. Five inches gone, gone into the night. Practically bald now!

It was scary, but the deed had to be done. The scraggle-monster got into the ends and it went bad, so I lopped it off with a ~~chainsaw~~ pair of office scissors. Before, it was just past my knees, and now it only goes to mid-thigh. GASP! I could join the Marines!

On the bright side, I bet I could ride my bike with it down and not fear being scalped by the back wheel. That's something to look forward to.

It ended up lopsided so Rah evened it out for me, taking off a bit more while she was at it. Then I gave her a trim of her own to repay. It wasn't that bad a job for my first attempt at a haircut on another human being. Not completely even, but she can't see that so it's all good. I wisely didn't tell her about the bald spot. Muahaha. Let her find out on her own. As for me, I'm away laughing on a fast camel.

The house has declared victory in the war against split ends.

Adventures In Fang Repair

2009-01-26T16:32:00.000-08:00

Fillings a-go-go!

I didn't get lost on the way to the dentist's office this time, and the actual appointment took about twenty minutes from start to finish. The modern anaesthetic needle didn't hurt nearly as bad as the giant spikes they used to use when I was a kid, and the assistant brought me a mirror so I could see the drilled holes before they got filled in. it was kind of awesome. The fillings themselves are tooth-colored and I'm hoping I can get the amalgam ones that have fallen apart removed and replaced with similar ones on Unka Sam's dime.

The whole drive home I played with my dead lip. Even now I can't feel my face from temple to chin.

This calm adventure has been brought to you by Zoloft, makers of "Holy shit, I was able to leave the house alone!" and other fine products.

Update!

2009-01-26T11:54:00.000-08:00

Two updates in two weeks? What is this madness?

The Burden of Fame

2009-01-25T18:13:00.001-08:00

A year ago I made a snarky post about some truly wretched and self-absorbed E!D!G!Y! teen artwork on Deviantart. Over time, that post somehow ended up high on the list of Google results for a self-injury related search string, and now that old entry is getting heaps of anonymous comments.

So far not one of these newbies has bothered to comment on the entry itself. Overnight the comments just became a forum to share their issues with the usual poorly concealed self-admiration. Mid-conversation, even, like they all migrated at once during a thread somewhere else.

It's like somebody's copy-pasting Harry Potter hurt-comfort fanfic in my blog, complete with self insert characters who listen to Evanescence and think suffering is just so romantic.

Of course I'm fucking with them. It's like a law of physics. Gravity pulls, objects in motion tend to remain in motion, and Luka hungers for the blood of Mary Sue. I added a shit ton of attention whore macros to the entry, and put a trigger warning at the very end just in case.

God bless you, blink tag. You get a lot of shit in this world, but you might just have saved me some eyerolling.

Pep Talk

2009-01-25T11:26:00.000-08:00

I have a plan for this upcoming summer, but I don't know how to put it into action.

Basically, I want to travel the country on a rockhounding tour. I plan to visit Oregon, possibly Arkansas, the North Shore of Superior and Thunder Bay up in Canada. If I can get my shit together by then, I can contact folks with private mines who take guests and learn how they do their stuff.

Maybe I'll meet some other hounds who know good collecting spots and stay with them as well. I may hit rock shows and talk to the people who work them. Ask how they got into their line of work and take notes and advice. They give it freely to others who have the bug, I already know that much. I wonder if people in the rock business take apprentices or interns. At the very least, I can join the Minnesota rock club and go on field trips.

One thing that's for sure is that I'll never break into this business if I don't get out there and do it. And I know I can do it. For all that I feel like I'm completely adrift and incompetent, all I have to do is look back to 2004 and see what I did with conventions despite having clue zero. Despite being WAY more messed up than I am now (god bless you, therapy and the soothing affects of maturity), I made plans. I bit my lip and jumped into the chaos and it all worked out beautifully. I think of the hours of travel and the hard work and it makes me nostalgic as fuck.

My fear of burning out on what I love to do should not hold me back either. I have never been as enthusiastic about going to conventions as I feel about fossil and crystal hunting, but I still like them just fine.

There is nothing to be afraid of. I have a charmed life and I have support. If it blows up in my face, I have a hilarious blog entry to share with the world so you can all taste the schadenfreude. If it all works out, I will have knocked down a huge portion of the wall between myself and a Genuine Sense Of Meaning In Life. I know what I want and it's all about dirt and sweat and sunshine. It's what I've always wanted, and only now that I'm older and starting to define myself as a person can I admit it. I've begun to understand that I, Luka Delaney, have a genuine Passion and can follow it. All these years spinning my wheels and it was right there, but I never thought for a moment I could seriously do it. It never even occurred. I'm slow like that.

I love art, I love writing. I'm well aware that my talents in the creative field will not win me any great status in life, and I'm OK with that because I do my shit well enough to satisfy me and get my ideas across, and that's awesome. I'm always getting better, always learning, always impressing myself in new ways. But I don't want to attach pressure to these things, and that lack of fire holds me back from turning art or writing into a genuine Career. I love creative stuff, but I NEED to explore my world. These things can co-exist. I know what I'm doing. Admitting that my largest drive lies elsewhere won't make me give up on my art, like I used to think it would. Why quit doing something I love just because it isn't my entire universe? That kind of flawed all-or-nothing thinking holds me back way too much in life as it is.

What I need is my own permission.

All of this makes me excited as hell. And worried. Most of all, it makes me insanely, giddily optimistic. I can realize all of this if I work hard. I need to train, plan, save and scheme. No excuses, just jump the hell in and watch the results.

I've driven through all but three states in this nation and I can read a map. I can't get lost, I won't be murdered, the planet won't throw me off. There are no excuses left, only problems to be solved so I can move on. No fucking way am I wasting another year sitting on my fat ass, feeding my life to a glowing screen so I can watch other people live my dreams and continually sigh "If only!"

You all have my permission to quote this entry back at me if I get discouraged or whiny or angsty later. I have a habit of shying away from big plans when they start to feel tawdry, once the glow of euphoria wears off and I start to second-guess myself. Right now I have clarity, and no matter how discouraged I get later, I won't be able to take it back. Can't even fuck with what's already been said on the internet.

"They say my reputation precedes me
I don't know the meaning of off season, I ain't taking it easy
Ain't taking a day off, never had an off night
Never been laid off, I live on the job site

It all pays off though when I squint in the spotlight
And see your lips are moving to the true shit that I write
And we gon' be alright every night of my life
It's my night cause I view the future like it's hindsight

I ain't waiting, I'm patiently persevering
I see greatness in the person in the mirror very clearly
And that's why I take this seriously
Baby come near to me and truly, truly hear me."

So basically, I want to be like Brother Ali when I grow up.

(Well get to it, dork!)

Ha Ha Ha, I Made You Eat Your Parents!

2009-01-24T22:26:00.000-08:00

Legendary anti-Scientology advocate Arnie Lerma has finally spilled the beans on that infamous Big News he's been sitting on for half a year, and boy howdy was it worth the wait!

See, a while back Mr. Lerma got in touch with a sympathetic health food store owner in Clearwater. This fellow supplies local Scientologists with a supplement drink that's supposed to boost their mood and help them pass their whackadoo e-emeter interrogation sessions. When they fail, they must subsequently pay to retake the session, over and over again, until they get a "floating needle" on the quackmachine and pass. Their anxiety supplies the cult of Scientology with plenty of money for suing critics and paying off the occasional coroner.

As it turns out, Mr. Lerma and the health food store owner see eye to eye on many things, and between them is born a wonderful idea. Mr. Lerma suggests the addition of a new ingredient to the magic brew: Lithium Orotate. A relative to the Lithium that keeps people with severe bipolar disorder from spontaneously combusting on subway trains, Lithium Orotate is available at any health food store as a "natural" alternative for hippies with the blues. In El Paso, Texas, it's in the groundwater, and the local crime and mental illness rates are famously low for a city of that size.

Anyway, long story short, the new ingredient is swapped in and life goes on as normal.

But what was the end result of these pharmaceutical shenanigans, you might ask? I'll let Mr. Lerma himself sum it up:

"...it turns out to have a fantastic side effect - a little bit of this stuff will give someone who needs it a FLOATING NEEDLE!!!

So they can FLOAT THROUGH THEIR SECURITY CHECKS!!!

Which is EXACTLY the result it had!

And Flag's income crashed."

Hee hee hee. Psych drugs to the rescue again.

January 23

2009-01-23T20:39:00.000-08:00

Made it through another year without my mother.

Aside from some truly weird and morbid dreams about her corpse showing up in various disturbing places (and sometimes in various disturbing pieces), the second year wasn't so bad. Definitely better than the first one was, by a longshot. That first year kinda sucked monkey dicks, and I'd heard that the second could be even worse. But nah, it's just getting better.

I am very glad to be getting some peace. Her death coming after a decades-long slow motion suicide plunge might have made things easier--I was already braced for it when it came. The years of dreading the inevitable end were much worse than the real thing. At least now I'm free of the waiting, and she's free of the everything else that sucked for her.

Last night I had another tower nightmare. I have these a lot, and I hate them. Usually they involve having to go to the top of a very high building, against my better judgment, then trying to get back down again when the building begins to sway and distort and fall over. Ever since I started having them, the leaning tower of Pisa gives me cold chills.

Sometimes in these dreams, I'm clinging to rickety fire stairs outside the building. Other times I'm inside, lost on the 78th floor. Occasionally I try to take an elevator only to plunge to the bottom with that horrible sinking sensation in my belly, or I get hauled back to the top and have to get out and start all over again. Last night's was one of the latter.

If you're really into dream interpretation from a Freudian standpoint, I gues you could blame this theme on a repressed fear of teh cock, but it's not. I'm just very afraid of tall buildings. Five stories or more makes me very uncomfortable, but I can handle it. 10 or more means I will try not to go inside. Fifty or more stories and I need to drink alcohol to stop the panic, even if my room's only on the 25th. Conventions in big cities always fuck me up because of this. You just know that sucker is going to come down right on top of you. If you're, you know, me.

Meanwhile in real life, functionality is restored to my brain. Life goes well. I'm currently tired as fuck from the day's errands, but it's a good tired. An honest tired, earned with productivity and sweat. I'll spend tomorrow working on the comic so I can update on or before Monday.

Ah, Monday. A nice arbitrary day for a nice arbitrary change of schedule. You may have noticed that Saturdays appear to be cursed lately. Oh wait, that's just me sucking. Ho ho.

Chore Wars

2009-01-21T22:12:00.000-08:00

Fuck yeah, my Chore Wars ranger hit Level 2.

This website is the absolute best thing ever. I had planned to make up something like this, an RPG-style planner website where you frame your to-do list as a series of quests, and gain exp for doing chores. Turns out somebody else has done it already, and way better than I would have managed.

Rah, Jesse and I formed a party yesterday and created about 20 different custom adventures. They cover everything from changing the litter box to updating Kagerou. We also plugged in a ton of zany shit as items you can win for clearing the adventure. I got a puppy, an empty condom box and 225 gold pieces for two days' worth of work. Rich beyond the dreams of avarice!

I used the empty condom box already, but it didn't give me any stat bonuses :(

I am particularly pleased with the way this system logs your cleared quests. Now I can keep track of how often I do the laundry. Also, it is insanely fun to compete with the other roomies to see who can get the most done. I caught myself doing another load of dishes before bed last night just to claim the 10 XP and bragging rights. Inking my comic gave me 40 points and put me in the lead.

Your move, dickfaces.

Anyway. Bedtime for me since it's past midnight and I'm being good for my therapist and obeying the clock.

Try that site out though, seriously, it's rad.

Nice Critic, Again

2009-01-20T22:32:00.000-08:00

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Who did this? Who knows my secret? You'll swing for this!

HURR DURR

2009-01-20T19:57:00.000-08:00

So back in mid-July, I noticed a user called HelenaRothStock on DA who was taking photos of other people's artwork and posting them as stock images on her DA account.

She caught my eye with a journal rant about people who were stealing her art, which is always such a fucking giveaway. Anyone who flips out like that inevitably has 99% ripped art on display, it's like some kind of law. I also saw lots of comments graciously giving other artists permission to manipulate the artwork in her photos for their own pieces. She was posting her way through the entire Tarot of Casanova series, with each one bearing the irritating and (for DA, at least) ubiquitous "don't steal my work" whine underneath.

1. Credit me for my work at (LINK)

2. Send a link by note to my normal account (LINK) (the avatars look the same but its two seperate accounts.

3. No pieces are to be used in prints unless you ask me first by note. I don't bite.

What balls! Anyway, I went and found the tarot deck she was ganking from, and submitted a violation report including links to that deck on amazon.com, which featured sample images showing several identical cards to the ripped "stock" pieces. I pointed the identical images out and even linked to the artist's website where they were posted, in case the staffer who handled the report suffered from more than the usual DA moderator brain damage. Months went by after I sent off the report, hearing nothing back. By and by I forgot about the whole thing.

And then tonight I opened my DA notes, and was greeted by this message:

Your Art theft (General) Violation Report on 400 was reviewed by a member of the staff and action was taken, marking the report as Need Information.

Additionally, the following comment was provided:

Not enough information was provided in the report for any review or decision to be made.

-- deviantART Staff

Elvis Christ. Six months to look at the report and they can't spare two seconds to read the damn thing? Whatever salary these nimrods make working for DA, they're overpaid.

2009-01-20T09:06:00.000-08:00

This Seems A Little Bit Passive-Aggressive!

2009-01-19T20:07:00.001-08:00

General note: the people who use this website should be dragged out into the streets and shot.

Oh shitbiscuits, I said that wrong. Allow me to rephrase.

Perhaps if the people who seem to use this website could be dragged out into the streets and shot, the environment would be better for everybody involved. And that would be super.

Seriously, what's with the flaccid language? You're using the internet to tell Cousin Billy that his cock hairs keep showing up in the salad bar and that his breath smells like a cat's asshole. Will the use of pussy uncertain terminology magically render the sentiment inoffensive?

No sir, I don't like it. Give me a website that sends people anonymous notes like "I'm going to hire Andre the Giant to butt-fuck your Grandma to death if you don't stop quoting Eddie Izzard" and maybe I'll participate.

Oh wait, no I won't, because I value communication and honesty a little bit more than I fear confronting a friend.

Two More Pages!

2009-01-19T12:07:00.000-08:00

Did somebody just say "BRAAAAAAAAAAIIIIINS?" I think I heard somebody say "BRAAAAAAAAAAIIIIINS!"

WRRRYYY

2009-01-16T06:46:00.000-08:00

So who else got rickrolled by Nancy Pelosi?

End Of An Era

2009-01-15T16:52:00.000-08:00

So here we are, in the final days of George W. Bush's presidency. As you probably know, we've disagreed over the years on various trifling matters, but he's the leader of the free world and I am a patriot who loves this fine country. As such, I must do my part as an artist to express what I'm feeling, with appropriate dignity and the respect befitting this most solemn of occasions.

I do not wish to impose my plugins upon your tender ears, so I instead would ask that you imagine Yakkety Sax is playing as the background music for this post. Thank you, and God bless the USA.

"Operation Slickpubes" Operative Arrested

2009-01-15T11:22:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time in the faraway land of Lulzia, a severely retarded member of Anonymous volunteered to have his body slathered with Vaseline in the name of Project Chanology. His partners in crime contributed wads of donated pubic hair and toenail clippings to the slippery brew. Once his preparations were complete, the intrepid space monkey frolicked through a Scientology building to share his wonderful blessings with the Org's many grateful employees.

Several days later, epic legalities ensued.

Who Needs Fingers Anyway?

2009-01-15T06:06:00.000-08:00

Today would be a perfect day to throw a pan of boiling water into the air and watch it instantly vaporize into a cloud of snow. Maybe I could record a video and put the controversy to rest for good.

...Nah. Too cold.

Off With Their Heads!

2009-01-14T07:40:00.000-08:00

I have such a hard-on for rapture fans and their wacky predictions about how the End Times will go down. This one is somewhat unusual in that it actually made me cackle out loud:

The world will be practicing ritual magic (using both sex and drugs as sources of "power"). As it is believed that the "Shrunken Head" of your enemies has great power, these Christian "heads" will be highly prized and coveted for their magical "properties" to make your spells come true.

"And the world will not repent of their thefts and murders." What greater crime could be committed than to Kill (behead) Christians and steal their material possessions (clothing, shoes, jewelry, cars, homes, entertainment centers etc as well as the THEFT of their Vital Organs and their very heads to be shrunken and sold!.

From here.

I dunno about you guys, but I'm reserving a whole family of true believers. It'll probably wipe out my Cintiq Fund, but what's the point of saving up for a high-end graphics tablet anyway, if the world is about to end? Webcomics come and go like wisps of mist on an October morning, but stylish bookends made from the shrunken heads of the faithful? Those are forever.

Slight Setback Snowballing Into Suck, Subverted Swiftly

2009-01-10T01:32:00.000-08:00

Feeling much better now. Still painful to do art because of the position it puts my body in, but I'm getting as much inking done as I can in little bursts, and trying to adjust my posture when I work on the computer.

I have these AWESOMETASTIC shoe inserts that were custom-molded from my very own foots. I've been breaking them in and enjoying the strange sensation of arch support. My podiatrist assures me that proper support will stop my toes from going numb when I jog or walk very fast. That's fantastic, because the pain distracts me from hitting my Zone, and frustration leaves me less willing to move my big fat ass, leading to depression and even further reduction of energy.

My schedule flipped again, for the first time in months. At the same time, my desire to get exercise, do housework and get my comic done utterly tanked. I've been flipping it back for the past four days or so, and everything's been kind of smeary and bright through a film of exhaustion. I couldn't sleep more than four hours at a time, and four hours after waking up I'd be drowsy and stupid again. My interest in cooking was reduced and I'd find myself standing in the kitchen in the middle of a blood sugar crash, staring helplessly at the ingredients and wondering exactly how I keep myself alive when nothing in there looks like food. So I'd eat sugary stuff that was ready-made, and then wonder why I felt like shit a few hours later, and eat more sugary stuff that was ready-made to drive away the headaches. It was a way to live, I guess.

Last night I put off sleep til 5. I spent the time playing 1500 Rupees worth of 5-Rupee Rollgoal on Twilight Princess. Then I slept, praying I could make it a full 8 hours. I had restful sleep until 1:30 this morning, and woke up feeling sparkly and alive again, with the urge to go for a night walk under the full moon blazing in my head. This after over a week of complete torpor and timeless confusion.

I had a big breakfast (1/3 of a frozen pizza instead of something home-cooked, but baby steps, you know?) and took my meds to bring on competent ADHD focus. I've been inking and answering emails since then and feeling generally energized.

The fact that this has only happened once since the onset of medication makes me feel very hopeful. Backsliding is to be expected, and compared to my previous situation of constant pendulum-swinging insanity, the setback I am getting over now wasn't such of a much anyway.

I'm reading tons of audiobooks while I go about my day. I made it through Christine, Gerald's Game and most of Insomnia just while playing Zelda. I think I spent 200 hours on that fucking game during my wacky spell, but I beat it the other day. I even whooped the Cave of Ordeals' ass! Hint: Stand on the ledge and drop bombs on the unseen cluster of Darknuts below, two or three at a time. Armor will shoot across the room on a regular basis, and after about 60 bombs, you should have at least two of them throwing away their heavy gear and going ninja. You'll still need to dodge their weapons from up there, but it levels the field nicely and is pretty fucking hilarious.

I found all 60 poe souls. There were 2 left and I was going insane, printing out all the location guides and crossing the completed ones off one by one until I was down to a list of 14 or so that I couldn't remember getting, but every single one of them was a wash. After three long and miserable days of this (during which I DREAMED about the little fuckers) I finally noticed that one of the areas marked as "already cleared" mentioned a hidden grotto between some trees and two poes inside. The tree configuration didn't sound familiar, and sure enough there they were. It was close to another dig spot and I guess I just conflated the two. WOWFASCINATINGLUKA.

Four great things about Twilight Princess:

1. Midna is the most adorable thing on the entire planet. I've been doodling little Midnas all day. I love her little fang, the pot-belly and shrunken legs. And her hair-hand. Holy crap, the hair-hand. She reminds me a lot of my early sketches of Cho, who was more feral and about the same size as Midna. Eventually Cho became much more humanoid-looking, but the personalities are still similar.

2. Link is a genuinely awesome hero. I actually bought the "farm boy hero" archetype for the first time playing this game. Something about how humble and determined he is, coupled with a certain lack of angst and spiky hair.

3. Twilight Princess managed to creep me out way more than Silent Hill ever did. Three words: NOT TAKE MIRROR!!!!!!

4. My ultimate OTP is now Yeto and Yeta. Even though they discuss eating Link right in front of him if he's in wolf form, and even though Yeta kicked my ass 9 times out of 10 at snowboarding, I forgive them. Because yeti wuv. Yeti wuv.

That's about it for now. I've got a bunch of comic to do and a dog who desperately needs exercise after my several-day hiatus from the real world. Better go get to it!

Scientology, You Suck So Much Ass

2009-01-02T20:24:00.000-08:00

John Travolta's son just died because of a seizure. I think it needs to be mentioned that Travolta's church, the Cult of Scientology, strictly forbids its members to take medication for epilepsy-related conditions. Or any conditions, actually. Poor kid.

I'm not saying anything so dramatic as "the cult killed Jett," but their harmful treatments for life-threatening illnesses do cause death, and have done so many times already.

Did Jett's parents secretly obtain treatment for their son's condition, against the explicit teachings of L. Ron Hubbard? If so, how can John continue to publicly support and represent an organization that seeks to do away with the entire medical industry and replace it with LRH tech, while in private reaping that same industry's benefits for himself?

Rest assured the cult won't be shedding any tears over the death of Jett. He had what family friends have described as completely untreated autism (his parents wave it away as Kawasaki Syndrome, but I've seen photos and the kid was a toe-walker). In the cult of his parents, that disability made Jett a "degraded being" and therefore better off dead. They rarely took him out in public, and the only therapy he recieved for his impairment was an herbal detox straight from L Ron's big book of quack remedies. You bet your sweet ass that pisses me off.

There are thousands of children and adults in the cult whose life-threatening conditions go without treatment. Some of them are younger and more helpless than Jett was. I really hope Travolta will withdraw his support of Scientology now that he has seen first-hand that LRH tech does not work. Jett was not healed by vitamins. He was not elevated above his degraded beinghood.

And he's not the only one.

I pray the Travolta family does some serious thinking about the other children of Scientologists who suffer on a daily basis and even die because their parents truly believe that vitamins and e-meters cure everything. As a prominent member of the cult and as a father of a child with disabilities, Travolta is trusted by these parents. They look to him for an example.

So be a good example, John. Don't be the moonbat hypocrite who spouts a dangerous anti-medicine credo that kills people's sons. Don't step across the grave of your child with that Scientology banner held high. Turn to the people who can still be saved and use your influence to rescue as many as you can.

Edit: Then again, the brainwashing dickweeds probably have him in session as we speak to ensure that this very thing doesn't happen. Bad for business, don't you know.

Assholes.

2009 And All Is Well

2009-01-02T00:58:00.000-08:00

Fuuuck. I made it through 48 levels of the Cave of Ordeals, and then got fucked in the eyesocket by three pissed-off beefcakes in armor in the last room. They beat my ass so hard my poop will probably come out sniveling for a month.

I guess I'm glad it wasn't a puny enemy getting off a lucky shot from my blind side, because I honestly think I would have shot myself.

This game has been consuming my brains for the past week. My daily schedule currently consists of Twilight Princess, plus occasional breaks from the game in which I sleep, brush my teeth and fart around with house chores and errands. I guess I just need the recharge.

In other news, I believe the meds are kicking in. I was looking up at the stars on my walk with the Captain tonight, and I got to thinking about the spinning of the planet and the way we just sort of cling to its surface and magically don't fly off. For the first time since I was five years old, contemplating the fact that we spend our lives clinging to a spinning ball of rock and politics as it hurtles through space at holyfuck MPH didn't give me a panic attack. In fact I had a hard time feeling anxious about it at all.

I actually felt a little awed, and that was just plain strange. Usually if I make the mistake of thinking about this stuff when I'm outside at night, I never get to the awe stage because I start shaking and have to go back indoors until the vertigo goes away. So yay me, and also yay the stars.

I'm thinking about going back to LiveJournal. I've fallen out of touch with a whole bunch of people I used to talk to all the time when I was on LJ. Lots of folks never made the jump to Blogger or the local feed account. Dunno what will happen to this site if I do go back, but frankly I'm getting lonely. Hmm.

Art Post!

2008-12-27T19:25:00.000-08:00

Goodness but I'm in a 3-D mood lately.

WIP: Bust of Queen Tcaolin

I'm really happy with how my first bust came out. Beginner's luck maybe.

Petrified Mermaid

And of course, more crystal porn. I've got some serious plans for this geosculpture technique.

Fairy Wings

2008-12-23T00:29:00.000-08:00

When it dried all the way the crystals were whiter, but the effect is actually much nicer. I'm told if I leave the solution alone and don't touch it at all they'll be clearer in future.

Need to find a source for insect specimens. I have Plans.

I'm thinking about spending some of my carefully hoarded savings on rocks. It's all I really want for X-Mas and I've been ever so good this year. I reckon it depends on whether I can talk myself into it considering how broke I am. Do I want that Cintiq as bad as I thought I did before I got that 30% coupon in the mail for ZRS Fossils? Aye, there's the rub.

Updating In A Winter Wonderland

2008-12-20T23:55:00.001-08:00

Finally got off my ass and finished the next pages. It wasn't as hard as I imagined, getting back into the groove. I hate losing momentum because suddenly every hour of coloring feels like an hour instead of five minutes, and I'm tempted to take breaks way more often than my wrist requires. Such a slacker.

This bitch-ass virus is still kicking my ass, but at least I've got most of my energy back. It adds more oomph to my morning coughing fits, but shoveling a foot of fine powdery snow off the front walk wasn't the thrill-ride of the century that it normally is. Alas.

It snowed like an albino suicide bomber all day today. I wish I could go sledding or something, but apparently I have actual work to do. And no sled. Instead, I will read Calvin & Hobbes in the comfy chair, and that will be just as much fun without the unsettling extremity damage of frostbite.

Tomorrow is expected to be between -15 and 0 degrees at the highest. I can already tell this winter is going to rock.

Weather or Not II

2008-12-18T18:37:00.001-08:00

OH GOD OH GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE

Well played, Disney.

2008-12-18T14:16:00.000-08:00

I wonder if anyone else who watched Tinker Bell has noticed a reference to the controversial deleted Fantasia character Sunflower.

Much as I dislike the corporation's historical mishandling of race and gender issues, I am still enough of an optimist to interpret giving a dignified black female character a sunflower theme as a baby step forward for Disney. I could just be seeing a link that isn't there, but I hope it is.

Also I really dig Iridessa. She friggin' makes rainbows, plus she's hotter than all two of the other Disney animated heroines of color put together!

(Well no, I exaggerate. Nothing is hotter than two women put together, if you get my drift. AND I THINK YOU DO.)

More Medical Fun

2008-12-11T22:15:00.000-08:00

The other day I spent 3 hours driving around in blowing snow with maybe 200 feet of visibility in order to find the dentist who takes Medicaid. Mapquest fucked me right in the sigmoid colon and then turned around and didn't pay. You know how sometimes numbered streets also have names? Yeah. They gave the street's name but not its number, and the signs showed the number but not the name. Also, "Highway 5" is not the same thing as "County Road 5" except that it actually is.

Also, going 35 on the interstate is for stupids.

At the end of it all, I got my teeth cleaned and the dentist told me I need fillings. Either I developed three cavities in six months or the last guy missed them on my previous visit. Ah well, I can always use more needles in my gums.

Then today I saw the podiatrist about my arch pain and toe numbness when walking. He said I have good arches but they don't have much support, and slapped some wet plaster socks on my feet to make orthotic inserts. They'll come in the mail next week and then I have to break them in over a week or so. It sounds a bit draconian but whatevs, as long as I can look forward to someday being able to jog and walk without my shins catching fire I'll be a happy guy and suffer minor annoyances.

Next week I see a nurse-practitioner who has allergies training about my eye. I've been getting a firespot in the exact same place every other day for a week or more. Feels like grit is caught under the lid, but there isn't anything there. What really causes the sensation is chemosis--the conjunctiva swelling up in a bright red lump like an itchy, burning nipple on my freakin' eyeball. No idea what causes it but I have had it happen before when I lived in my sister's backyard party house. Dusty place, maybe that's the connection? We shall see.

I inked the pages today and went on to pencil another one. Why not? I'm slacking at the computer so I might as well catch up with pen and paper. I don't like how the art came out (forced my way through a block and it shows) but probably a bit of digital touching up will at least bring it up to standards. I can't worry too much about it because in the end it's only 2 out of 700+ pages, which brings the grand total of pages I can't stand to admit to drawing in my comic to 4. I'm a picky motherfucker, so that's actually not a bad track record at all.

The Zoloft seems to make me sleepy, but I need extra rest anyway. This cold is still kicking my ass. I've gone into the "dry hacking" phase, and it's so uncomfortable I've begun to almost long for those long nights where I would wake up with my entire body cocooned beneath a brittle crust of leaking snot. Fuck, but that's grim.

First Eyeroll of the Day

2008-12-11T08:34:00.000-08:00

Hahaha, oh god. All the main characters in the Avatar movie are going to be played by white people. Because there just aren't enough roles available already for young attractive caucasians.

Well done, Hollywood, well done. The internet will run on this wank for at least a year.

Wake Up

2008-12-10T07:57:00.000-08:00

I had been putting my life on hold.

I was a terrible student. People said I was smart, told me I was going to be somebody, urged me to live up to my potential, but I skipped school as often as I could get away with starting from the seventh grade. I didn't do my homework, which stacked up. I started missing crucial stuff in math class, earned a reputation as the weird kid, made enemies and alienated potential friends. I fell behind. I gave up. I dropped out.

Then college happened, and for one semester I felt like I was really going to accomplish my goal of getting a degree and leaving my shitty life behind. My anxiety got in the way--I didn't have a pen, but I couldn't bring myself to approach the nice girl sitting next to me and ask to borrow one of hers. I didn't have a study partner because I was terrified of strangers. The professor had a thick Korean accent and his descriptions of Venn diagrams would have gone right over my math-deficient head anyway. I skipped all study groups to avoid talking to people. I flunked the class, gave up on college and switched to part-time at a different school. I used my scholarship to take Japanese and Composition instead. Then I "took a semester off" because I finally realized I was having too many issues to focus on schoolwork.

For the next five years, I maintained a holding pattern. Work on the comic, do the art, hide in the bedroom, shelve the books. My only social communication was with my few friends or the people I helped at work. We moved out of the apartment where my Mom and I had weathered 9/11, and I retreated into my one-room hovel in my sister's backyard, shrugged off the lack of running water and heat, wondered if I might be autistic, came out as transgendered, dissociated and ranted on the internet and injured myself for kicks. I remember it as good times but it was really kind of pathetic. All alone in a little party house with my bad music and the undefined substances crusted into the carpet. Chest strapped flat, nails through my ears while my right eyeball flared up red and swollen every day from the layers of dust I swam through. Family drama alienated me from all relatives except my Mom. I kept in touch with the world outside through my modem.

I started going to cons. Met Seebs, Rah and Jesse for the first time at Anime Central 2004. I had been planning to stay with Rah, but when we all started talking at the tables it was nakama at first sight and we stayed in the same hotel room for the rest of the weekend. I didn't buy my next $80 bus ticket to Canada; instead Jess and Seebs brought me home from the convention to stay at their place in Saint Paul. They extended pseudopods and replaced my plans to go back to Nebraska with the urge to go native, which I did. Told my Mom I wasn't coming home except to pack my shit. She was sad, but my brother was getting out and she wanted to live with him anyway. I gleefully jettisoned my home life and never looked back. I didn't call her enough. I still feel sad that I didn't call her enough, but I just forgot. I knew I'd regret it very soon but I forgot.

Then Mom died. I went back to Nebraska to be with her during the end, got sick, came home, went back but I was too late. She died the night before I returned, and I was on the phone as it happened. The funerals weren't bad. She was polyfaithful so there were two, plus the wake where I wore an offensive T-Shirt to piss off the relatives who didn't like me anyway. My brother and I made up and I gave him a wad of money from comic fan donations to pay the funeral director for one pitiful box of ashes with a side of shitty attitude.

Now I had no connection to my past. Now I've been kissing-close to death and I realized I was wasting my life. Everything I felt was now under scrutiny as suspected bullshit. Two months later I had a petty disagreement with my childhood friend and he dumped me. I couldn't muster the willpower to apologize first like I always did, and because he never learned how to apologize at all we ended up never speaking again. One more piece of my old life fell away. Rain moved to North Carolina a few months after that, and I got depressed. I adopted a dog to force myself out of my head and being responsible for him got me through the worst of the sadness. Dogs and cats do their best to cure the blues by being small and pettable and needy, and in return we make sure their bellies stay full. It's a good trade.

The household moved to a small town where the atmosphere is much more laid-back. There are two colleges here, and I started thinking about going back to school. Thinking I didn't have what it takes to be a student, I was too old, too dumb, too anxious.

Then the accident happened, and I guess almost dying must have knocked some sense into me. Suddenly I was making plans instead of daydreaming about them. Small plans at first--see a dentist, find a good vet in town--and then larger ones followed from that. I got a therapist and a psychiatrist because I was overwhelmed, instead of hiding in my room and hoping the world would forget about me. The therapist hooked me up with health care and pointed me at assistance programs. Things became possible.

I re-established contact with my Dad, and we're slowly getting to know each other again. I really love the guy, but we've got to tread lightly for a while at least. I've always hated the idea of wasting my life, but now I feel more like there's something I can do about it. Medication helps with a lot of this, but some of it was just plain good luck.

So where am I now? Making plans. Establishing normal living activities like schedules and chores. Learning to work with the ADHD meds, and I've just started Zoloft for the social anxiety and OCD. I'm creating a new routine to replace the flawed one that was more of a prison than a refuge. There is comfort in routine, and just lately mine's been changing quite a bit and creativity has taken a backseat to the real world. I figure it's now or never--I either ride this wave or spend more years in the holding pattern. I'm impatient to get back to the old habits that I enjoy--comics and writing being the two major ones--but so far they haven't found where they fit in my new life. Creativity is kind of like a cat that will curl up in your lap if you stay put, but if you move around too much it gets pissed and wanders off for a while. Luckily creativity and cats are also sort of stupid, and will eventually come back for another try.

Hopefully within the next month or so I'll wake up with that cat back on my lap so I don't have to go chase it down like I've been doing. My comic is about to go awesome places and I'm getting annoyed by how slowly it's unfolding compared to the four-pages-a-week powerhouse of yesteryear.

Things go well at home. The Captain's nose is turning pink at the base. I still haven't mailed off the buttons for the folks who donated to get his vitiligo diagnosed, but I've got all the info here and will be getting to it as soon as I can. This damn cold isn't helping much, but it's slowly getting better.

Also, I've begun to think about college again. Scary stuff, but why not? "Too old" is bullshit anyway. I feel certain I'd make a better student in my 30s than I ever was in my teens.

That's it for now. Musings on a quiet Wednesday morning while the sky is gray and the snow is a few layers thicker than it was last time I blogged. Hope you're all well.

Someone Didn't Do The Reading

2008-12-03T03:28:00.001-08:00

Noted white supremacist forum StormFront has a thread about how left wing, race-mixing liberals who run the US school system no longer teach Helen Keller in schools because she's white.

I notice that they failed completely to mention the other leading cause of Keller being glossed over in history books for children: she was a radical socialist. She campaigned for women's suffrage, gave speeches at labor strikes and anti-war protests, fought for race equality, wrote a bunch of books pointing out how the only reason she was able to overcome her considerable disabilities was that she was white and privileged, oh yeah and helped create the ACLU and the NAACP.

...

Yeeeeaaaaah, somehow I don't think StormFront thought this whole mascot plan all the way through.

It's The Reason For The Season

2008-12-02T16:12:00.000-08:00

I don't think I should be allowed to play with computers when I'm sick.

Meanwhile, the ARG I was posting about the other day has blossomed nicely and I've gotten my first-ever email from a character. I feel special!

And hurty. Goddamn it, me, recover already!

This Is My Milwaukee

2008-12-01T03:39:00.000-08:00

Ho damn I'm sick. Head pounding, dizzy, eyes and body aching. I'm weak and out of breath over little things like climbing the stairs or bending over, and my tonsils are so swollen that when I try to swallow they get in the way and sort of squish around painfully. Pleasant.

After the first half-hour of being awake, I feel better, but after a while I get drowsy and the symptoms come back, so I go back to sleep. Very vivid dreams, mostly of the disturbing variety, but I'm OK with that.

With what little of my time remains to me after sleeping and whimpering, I am following an ARG. It's the second time in my life I've come across one when it was just getting started, and the first time (I Love Bees) I didn't know what it was and wandered off long before any of the good stuff showed up.

If you're into this stuff, here's the website that starts it off, and here's a thread where clues and possible leads are being posted.

Six Things

2008-11-30T05:45:00.000-08:00

1. Gosh, wouldn't it be nice if somebody just stapled Jenny McCarthy to a ceiling somewhere and left her? It would be terrible if she starved to death up there, yeah, but... no, wait. Actually I'm pretty okay with that.

2. I played too fucking much Mario Kart today. I see blue shells when I close my eyes. Why, why did I wake up so utterly spazzy? I fucked off and played video games all day despite my total commitment to getting the comic done. It can't have anything to do with the 13-hour holiday get-together shopping/more shopping/dishes/cleaning/entertaining/table breakdown/dishes again/cleaning again marathon yesterday, could it?

3. On second thought, maybe I should go play some more Mario Kart.

4. Took dog for bike run in the sleet, which changed to flurries as we returned home. An hour later the light outside changed and I went to look out a window, and sure enough--snow! My brakes were not happy with the wet. Time to get them adjusted again.

5. Blew my sleep schedule again. I blame the 5 hour nap after I chowed down on turkey leftovers in a bid to help clear the fridge. Tryptophan, take me away!

6. Scribbling with Chapstick on the backs of my dry cracked hands, rubbing it in, then wiping it all off with a towel has completely stopped the itching, and the gaping wounds have begun to scab over. Plus, waterproof hands.

Scientologists To The Rescue!

2008-11-28T07:49:00.000-08:00

As if pushing aside trained aid workers and trauma counselors to recruit and 'detoxify' shellshocked Katrina and 9/11 survivors wasn't brazen enough...

Scientology announces plans to flood the blood-spattered streets of Mumbai with self-improvement pamphlets. Because nothing says "We will get through this together" like a catalog.

"Gee, L. Ron, I think I left my wallet in my other pants. Along with most of my leg."

Ganksthieving Again!

2008-11-27T07:20:00.000-08:00

We're having our celebration on Friday this year. Leslie & Misha, do you reckon you'd be free to come down and nom some gooshy foods with us? We can drink to 500 years of subjugation and genocide, and also there will be pie.