Yes, I have cousins.

With today being Febuary 29, I want to take this time to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my cousin Jackie. When I came home from my trip to Sedona, I was happy to learn that Jackie had spent the weekend down in Arizona. She grew tired of the fact that Salt Lake City didn't have a bit of sunshine for 15 days. Unfortunately for her, the skies were heavily overcast the entire time she was here. Being born on Leap Year always gave me the opportunity to pronounce seniority over her. Jackie always found such pronouncements amusing especially since she's my elder by 10 years.

During the 90's everyone in the family expected Jackie to get married and have children before she turned 30 like every other woman in our family. My father even made a bet with her. If she made it to age 30 without a ring on her finger or a child at home, my father would gladly pay her 500 dollars. Last year, Jackie turned 30 and my father had to pay up. My father, being the wise ass that he is, commented on how Jackie didn't really turn 30 since her birthday is Febuary 29th. Jackie only had to glare at my father for a few moments before he quietly handed over the 500 dollars.

My thoughts have been on my extended family recently. My aunt and her family all live in good old Salt Lake City, Utah. Ever since my grandfather passed away back in 1996, I have not been back to that city. Perhaps paying everyone a visit after all these years isn't a bad idea.

Brandon's new and improved webpage is all done. FINNENALALAH, by the way, is the name of the country in Brandon's novel, PiG. Brandon, to my knowledge, is the first person amongst my friends to actually write a full sized novel. His reason? "Because I've never written one before." With any luck, PiG will get edited and published. I've always been very proud of Brandon. Not only has he written a novel by age 23, but he's seen more of the world outside of this country than I may ever get to see in my lifetime.

So that's another blog down. 3 more to go.

SIGNS

Photoshop is a wonderful tool. With just a bit of clone stamping and the use of text it is possible to make a simple piece of humor.

Fix one problem and another one pops up. It's almost 5:00 in the morning and insomnia has come back to haunt yours truly.

Brain: A 2 hour "Fist of the Northstar" marathon? Fucking awesome! I love late night digital cable.

Body: What are you crazy? It's 3:00 AM! Shut off already, I'm fuckin beat.

Brain: Hey, it's not everyday we get to watch our good friend Kenshiro punch a villain so many times that it causes the villain's fucking skin to fly off.

Body: Oh good god! You know how stuff like that upsets my stomach. Just earlier today when our friends were describing the torture scenes in that new Jesus movie, I nearly tossed my cookies.

Brain: Oh you big pansy. Damn... I mean, lighten up. You're always complaining to me about this shit. "Waaah, that guy is cutting off his own tongue." "Waaah, that woman is getting her eye sliced open by a straight razor." Toughen up will ya? This is good entertainment!

Body: You're seriously messed up, man. I'm going to bed.

Oh, and I forgot to mention...

my progress on "Operation Rejoin the Human Race"

• Use my recent weight loss as an advantage to finally get fit again


• Bury the hatchets and get rid of grudges.


• Find employment and start looking for new goals to achieve


• Learn how to cook


• Get back into the world and meet new people

That's right. My hatchets are burried and my grudges have been put away. The past has been let go and all I want now is for everyone to be friends again.

The Real Friday Blues

Friday is here. Usually a person in my position wouldn't care at all since Friday is no different from any other day. The week has been long, and I've been spent the past month being extremely tense. When you're stressed out and worrysome, you don't notice how fast time is going by you. It's like walking in the middle of a freeway while cars zip on past you at 70 mph. Rather than attempt to write something profound, I think It's time I posted a picture

After scouring through the archives here, there's not much left except for Shark Ass.



In more ways than one I regret giving up visiting certain places on the internet. I gave up internet forums and other supreme wastes of time just to change up the daily routine. The interenet is full of strange and interesting people, many of which will take pictures of themselves nude and send them off to you. This particular girl, very proud of her backside, sent me a picture for a nice bit of photo-editing. Tired of my usual multi-layered zombie technique, I thought to do something simple yet terrifying.

REUNITING WITH AN OLD FRIEND



After waking up and performing my morning jog, the decision was finally made to get my old bicycle out of storage. Before I moved to Arizona, I was a quite the physically active fellow. Despite having humongous square rimmed glasses and hair so long it went down my back, I was in fact atheletic. In addition to practicing Shotokan Karate, I was an avid bike rider. Despite living nearly 8 miles away from my first high school, I woke up every morning at 6:15 to get to class on time. Back in Fresno, if you did not live at least 9 miles away from Clovis West High School then you could not ride the bus. You had to get to class all on your own. Knowing this, my parents purchased me a brand new bicycle to use for getting to and from school. Being 15 and having no car, this bike became a part of me.

At 15 years old, I was a stocky fellow. Riding my bike to school (uphill... BOTH WAYS!) gave me humongous legs and calves. In fact, the first positive comment I ever received from a girl was that I had attractive legs. Unfortunately it was my glasses and my hair that kept everyone else away. Luckily for all of you readers out there, no picture of me from that time period exists.

I moved away from Fresno. Said goodbye to all my old friends and promised to keep in touch with them via the internet. After landing here in Arizona I realized that outdoor physical activity was a bit more difficult due to the heat. Worse yet, I ended up living in an area very far away from the high school I transfered to. Because of this, the bike went in storage. There it sat for 9 years.

My good friend John Roland has heard me talk about this bike for too long. For quite some time now, he's been on my case to get the bike out of the shed in backyard and get it refurbished. Well Mr. Roland, the bike is out of the shed. Oddly enough, the tires are just fine and only needed a little bit of air. Granted much still needs to be done. The bike is in dire need of a washing along with some grease added to the chain. Despite all that, the bike is out of storage and it is rideable.

Bike: WHAT THE? What are you doing? I was sleeping damnit!

Me: Come on old friend, don't you remember me? We used to be best buds!

Bike: Yeah, and then you shoved me in a tool shed for 9 years. Great friend you are!

Me: Hey man, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have neglected you like that. I'll get you fixed up so we can go out riding with John this weekend.

Bike: I don't know... this just seems like some half assed attempt to "change up" your life.

Me: Hey now... anything that breaks up the daily routine is good right? Now come on old buddy, chin up.

Bike: Alright, alright. Just do me a favor and tell that busted ass old honda of your it can kiss my rear reflector.

Me: Will do my friend. Will do.


Now a small note to my friend Brandon. Brandon, I've been finishing the template for your new blog. It wont be long now, sorry I got a little side tracked.

Say hello to my friend from the VISIBILE HUMAN PROJECT



Also, check out this SUPER COOL VIDEO

Last night I was invited out to Barnes & Noble by my friends Nick and Brian. I got a call at around 9:00 from Brian, which surprised me since not only did he seem dead tired he also had a considerable amount of school work to do. Upon exiting my car in the parking lot of B&N, I heard a voice behind me say "EXCUSE ME SIR."

I turned around to find a rather disheveled african american man in a thick blue sports jacket. "Don't worry, I'm not going to shoot you!"

I always love hearing that expression, especially since I almost always carry some kind of edged weapon. Perhaps growing up in Fresno, CA has made me somewhat fearless of people I see out in the streets. Especially in a place like Ahwatukee. The man approached me and told me a story about how DPS impounded his car and that he needed some extra cash to get it back. He said he needed his car back so he could get to Tucson. Seeing as how no one in their right mind would ever lie about having to go to Tucson (no one ever really wants to go there), I did not think it would be a bad idea to help this man out. I reached into my pocket and pulled out what little cash I had in my wallet . 2 dollars (I need a job) is all. Upon handing it over and saying "Good luck," I was greeted with a big toothy smile.

"Thank you! You're one of the nicest people I've talked to in this neighborhood. What gives? Why is everyone an asshole and why aren't there any black people around here? Goddamn!"

'This is Awhatukee my friend. This place is full of stuck up assholes with no compassion for anyone.'

"Well thank you again for your help. I can tell you're not originally from here."

'Nah, I'm originally from San Diego. I moved around from place to place when I was a kid and by some odd force I managed to get stuck here.'

This part of the conversation made me realize that I've been here in Awhatukee for way too long. Sure I lived in Tucson for 3 1/2 years, but the issue about Ahwatukee and most of Phoenix remains the same. This place, this city, is not for young people like me. This is the place where seniors go to retire and 30 somethings go to buy their cheap mini-mansions. This is a city for lives that are on the decline. Despite being one of the hottest areas in this Country, my little patch of Arizona could easily be described as being a very cold and unfriendly place to live.

Me and this man walked into Barnes and Noble continuing our conversation. Apparrently he was traveling out to Tucson all the way from Boston. He asked me what I was doing in life. I unfortunately had to tell him that I wasn't sure anymore.

"Well things could be worse. You could be out in the middle of some parking lot asking people for spare change. You may not always end up where you want, but sometimes you are where you are. All you can do is try and hope for the best."

After that comment, I wished him luck and shook his hand. He made his way to the restroom and that was the last I saw of him. He never gave me his name. Whether or not his story about his car or having to go Tucson was true meant meant very little to me. What mattered was that I may have helped someone out ever so slightly while gaining an interesting conversation in return.

Today I had an interesting conversation with my body.

Me: Hello there, body.

My body: Hi there, David. How's it going?

Me: Not good.

My body: Not good? Why not good?

Me: When I weighed you this morning the scale said you were only 161 lbs. Why did the scale say you were only 161 lbs?

My body: Err.... umm.... hey don't look at me! You're the one in control here!

Me: The mere fact that I'm having a conversation with my body should make it clear that I'm in no way capable of controlling anything.

My body: True. I don't know what to tell you, man. I don't feel malnourished. We've been to the doctor twice already and he couldn't find anything wrong with us. This is clearly your responsibility.

Me: I've been feeding you just fine. With the exception of one week back in December, very little has changed about our diet.

My body: Hey, you're the one who wanted us to be thin again. Why so glum? I mean, if I feel fine... then that means you're the one not feeling well. How do you feel?

Me: I feel like I'm disappearing.

THOSE INTERVIEWS WERE TERRIBLE.

THIS POST IS NOW ABOUT BILL COSBY & FRACTALS

Time again for more pictures. Gather 'round, children. Here is a photoshop I made a while back for something awful. You no doubt figured that out based on the nice something awful tag on the bottom. This may have been posted already. If this picture is a repeat send me a message and I'll hopefully put up something that hasn't been seen yet.

This picture was interesting, because at the time Google's image search was only coming up with small & shitty pictures of our friend, Max Headroom. There was one picture of good old max that was of decent quality and size, but unfortunately the image was in grayscale. This means I had to color the damn thing myself. It's not perfect, but I feel I did a decent enough job.

Alright, time to post a picture. I haven't posted a picture in over a week. Here's a photoshop I did for someone, a college student somewhere out East. All these people live out in the Eastern end of the U.S. I never get requests from anyone I know. The girl is interesting. She likes to make things out of balloons. Not just the regular balloon animal, but she makes clothing out of balloons. Once she even made a Marge Simpson costume out of nothing but yellow paint for her skin, green balloons for the dress and lots of blue balloons for the hair. Did I say interesting, I meant to say was, "what an odd duck."

All I got in my email box was a picture of a girl with the caption "spill my guts." She was holding a knife in her hand and standing in front of a wall in her dorm room. Seeing as how I was lazy and didn't want to clone stamp off her tank top for a full texture lazyer, the decision to leave it on was not a difficult one to make.

I had some scans from Anatomica Encylcopedia of pictures that depicted a wax sculpture of a fetus still in the womb. So hey... why not?

**click on picture for full size**

As far as my pictures go, I always have one or two little details that are worthy of being proud of. For me, the best part of this image is the blood detail on her left hand (No, not the hand holding the knife. I said HER left hand).

FUCK THAT NOISE

As some of you probably know, I did not go to Sedona on Saturday. The weather report showed an 80% chance of rain with low temperatures at 30 degrees. So that's a big NO. As far as the score goes between me and Sedona it is as follows.

Me: 1 Sedona: 1

We're even now. Another battle will come, but much later from now. I decided to spend the day implementing a new operation. Operation: Rejoin the Human Race. More on that in future posts, all you need to know is that the operation has begun.

BACK TO SEDONA

That's right boy's and girls. Tomorrow I return to Sedona for another fun camping trip of freezing cold rain, cooky inner dialogues, and snooty cafe's. Instead of 4 of us, pretty much the whole gang will be there minus one or two people. This time I'm going to be EXTRA prepared and I'll be taking with me a nice homebaked loaf of delicious multi-grain bread. Unfortunately it would seem that there will be plenty of rain for Saturday and Sunday. Anyone reading this who's going should really think about getting a tarp, plastic bags, and a little shovel to help dig a trench around the camp site. Ahh... weather forecasts. Forecasting the weather is a lot like playing poker, except mother nature deals you a new hand every fifteen minutes.

Do not doubt that there will be plenty of funny stories to read about for the next week. Also, about 4 bottles of the potion,"blue life" has been acquired for the lovely Cecilia. They will be sent out on monday.

Your days are numbered my little list.

Time to re-evaluate some goals.

1. Build web server with John


2. Create new lay out for blog and other blogs


3. Create post about the wonders of drinking black lemonade (under construction as I type this all out)


4. Create MAME box of own design.


5. Learn to how cook Agedashi Tofu for a pot luck


6. Sit in and use Dan McCleary's fabled computer chair


7. Defeat "Ghosts and Goblins" on the NES.


8. Finish and perfect my upcomming zombie tribute to DeChirico


9. Rewatch all the good movies from the past 2 years with Sara when she returns.


10. Study for and pass the GMAT with flying colors


11. Obtain MCSE certification


12. Get a job.


13. Go hiking in Havasupai


14. Go back to school

The items placed in bold are about to get scratched out. After studying vigorously for the past month, I think I'm ready to kick the snot out of the GMAT. Additionally I'm almost done redesigning or retooling a lot of the blogs. They barely look any different but the code is much cleaner.

Hey all, you might notice a few changes around here. The layout looks the same but the code is tons cleaner and the site no longer loads like shit.

HOORAY!

ADDICTED TO LOVE

I found this fun little article from the Economist off a link from slashdot.

http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=2424049

This paragraph provided me with the most amusement.

• The results were surprising. For a start, a relatively small area of the human brain is active in love, compared with that involved in, say, ordinary friendship. "It is fascinating to reflect", the pair conclude, "that the face that launched a thousand ships should have done so through such a limited expanse of cortex." The second surprise was that the brain areas active in love are different from the areas activated in other emotional states, such as fear and anger. Parts of the brain that are love-bitten include the one responsible for gut feelings, and the ones which generate the euphoria induced by drugs such as cocaine. So the brains of people deeply in love do not look like those of people experiencing strong emotions, but instead like those of people snorting coke. Love, in other words, uses the neural mechanisms that are activated during the process of addiction. "We are literally addicted to love," Dr Young observes. Like the prairie voles.

No wonder my nose bleeds whenever I watch a romantic comedy.

So who's going to be the first to sell "love morphine: to get over a break up or just feel like you're in love"?

Spending most of the day in the Hayden Library. Gonna learn me some new webdesign techniques. I managed to redesign JOEY'S SITE so it's not a total eye sore like it was before. I meant to make a huge Singles Awareness Day update for Chimera Eyes, but since I'm not home it's going to be a while before that goes up.

The hike was nice, and for the first time in 8 years I got to be on top of South Mountain. I see a lot of people making Valentine's Day style posts for their blogs. Some silly, some profound, some just poems stolen from someone else. Me, I'm not a poet and in fact I'm a bit of an uncharismatic bore. It seems that even the most profound statements out there about love can be broken down to these simple statements.

"Love is nice. I love someone very much. When they love me back, it makes me happy."

Add to that some descriptions about how an organ designed to pump blood is the source of all emotion. Balderdash! Everyone knows that true love can only come from the liver!

I've been alone every year on Valentine's Day for my entire life. This year is no different. ;) For a long time now I've been told "You'll find someone! I can't imagine someone like you being lonely for all this time!" Seems like I manage to prove them all wrong each and every year.

Rather than dwell on this fact, I'd rather spend the day conditioning my mind and my body. Despite losing tons of weight off my body, I'm still very out of shape. My mind has grown stale over the past few weeks. The mind needs to keep fresh with new ideas and challenges.

NOW IT'S TIME FOR AN APOLOGY

I'd like to take this time to formally apologize for posting a really nasty animated picture on Monday. Despite having complete control over the content of this site, I should consider those who read this page more than I have. I apologize to anyone I have offended. I promise you all that you will no longer see any animated images of women getting their eyeballs sliced open with razor blades, men cutting off their own tongues with a wakazashi, or anything remotely similar. If I do post such content, it will be linked and prefaced with a warning. Once again, I'm very sorry if I offended anyone. What I did was out of poor taste and that's why I replaced the image with one of Batman beating the living hell out of a shark eating his leg.

A MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

Stranded in home.

No place for me to be and no place for me to go.

Please send help.

-D