-Warning: This episode contains material that may be disturbing. Parental discretion is advised.-

Just another word of warning, this journal entry is long, uses complex words usually with more than two syllables, and I don’t use words like “fer-shizzle” or end words with “-illa” or anything silly like that. So feel free to skip over this little gem!

Yup, I’ve crossed the threshold of middle age! It is ALL downhill from here! I am now THIRTY YEARS OLD. (dammit) Okay, maybe it came off a little too dramatic with the ‘almost time to say goodbye’ line (kept y’all reading though, didn’t it?) but in all reality, how much longer will all this last?? One decade ago, I picked up the pen and paper once again and fired up the Art Hand after years of inactivity and got involved with DA, VCL, SA, FA, and MySpace… in that order. So now that I’ve breached my third decade how much longer will this go on before furry art and anime becomes childish and trite? How much longer before I’m too old to be walking around the comic conventions? A large majority of the Watchers here and DA are on average 5 years younger. Those who I watched, admired and learned from way back when I started this, have grown out of it, quit drawing as a hobby and moved on with their lives. So, how long before it’s my time??
I wonder this because even while watching cartoons with my kids, including some of the cartoons I had watched when I was their age, and basically said to myself “what the Hell is going on in this cartoon?” I’m pretty sure I USED to understand and follow along but this reminds me of me as a child trying to explain a cartoon to my late Grandfather and how he didn’t get why it was funny. These days I catch myself more and more often using phrases like “when I was your age…” “back when we were kids…” and my personal favorite “things were so much different when we were younger” with my kids. My daughter is quick to remind me that was ‘back in the late 1900s…’ I can’t climb out of bed without sounding like a bowl of Rice Krispies!

I was a US Marine, a vacuum cleaner salesman, an assistant at a funeral home, a tire buster, a truck driver, a security guard, a site coordinator. I was in three serious relationships, two of which ended with disastrous results. I’m a father to two kids. At one time I owned a 2000 Celica and a 98 Kawasaki Ninja and now I drive a 97 Malibu that’s been on a donut tire for the past month.
I’ve just summed up my past ten years in 76 words! Let’s leave out the smoking, the drinking, the liver problems (honestly, I should invent a Breathalyzer for the keyboard. It won’t log on unless you blow less than a .05!) I can only hope my eulogy has more material, and not just words like ‘fucktard’ lol. I could go for the words ‘nappy’ just for shits and giggles, ROFLMAOSHMFMBIAIFTHISOMLI!!!!*
Recently, I had got myself a set of military issue jungle-boots, just because they last YEARS in comparison to the boots you can get at WalMart. After a couple of days trying to break them in I was thinking to myself, ‘y’know, with 4 DIs screaming in my face all the time, I don’t remember these jungles being so brutal on the feets…’ Have I really gotten that soft??? Or is it more of a reflection on us as a whole? My latest goal is to get myself a bike just to motivate my 8 year old son into bothering to try to ride his bike instead of fall down over and over until he gets all bloody and we give in and put it away (we KNOW he can push the pedals… and that’s where my latest rant begins, so feel free to change the channel!



After I learned that the Easter Eggs had gone bad, I merely had to tune into FOXNews in order to induce vomiting. All I have to say is WOW….
An optometrist can somehow convince a woman that her eye exam will go much better if she was topless…
A woman can convince several people- yes, not one but several people- were convinced to pay thousands of dollars for a satellite to monitor their health…
An argument against bio-fuels states that using corn and wheat and other plants for fuel and oil alternatives it will cause starvation in other parts of the world. I can tell you there USED to be a BP corn field across the street but Halliburton bought out the land to put in an oil well…
At a local school some kids brought fire crackers to school. The bomb squad was brought out and a big fiasco was made over black cats (no, that’s not meant to be racist). The ISD was almost sued by the parents because the teachers couldn’t prevent this ‘terrorist-like attack’ on the kids… yeah…
A growing trend for Marriage is the bride no longer looks forward to the Honeymoon but the Divorce. 88% look forward to the settlement money, alimony or child support. Seems that money is indeed a factor but not that he makes too little or the debt is just excruciating, but instead there’s a growing mind set of “I deserve a chunk of that.’
As pessimistic as I normally am, part of me does not want to think that the news broadcasters had Cho’s manifesto but kept quiet just to see what happened and get a head start on the breaking news. It wouldn’t surprise me however. I’m sure that if Bush actually came out and said, “Guess what I did!” there’d be people out there who’d say, ‘ehh, it was for the good of the country.’ Really, where would we run to??
I can’t wait to see what other words will be deemed inappropriate and destructive to our society and children. Back in the day, “Ho” was either a typo or a gardening tool, now it has been reduced to the “H-word” so I wanna see what’s next. I mean my wife had to resort to the Internet to look up the definition of “SKEET” and even THAT was incorrect! (hello, context clues!) Seriously, we have a radio co-host here in Texas who’s been nicknamed “The Grand Dragon” and nobody protests (in fact, at appearances he’s usually surrounded by black guys buying him drinks!). At the same time another radio station played a request for the people at VA Tech
“Shot through the heart, but you’re too late,
“You give love a bad name..”
Nobody sued nobody.

Yup, gone are the good ol’ days… now, people won’t lift a finger unless they can somehow profit off of it. There are those who wouldn’t call their own family unless it involved some money owed and there are those who donate to charity yet claim double on their taxes are the same ones who signs a deal with their kids to get the lawn mowed in exchange for some money or more game time.
Sure, I already sound like an old bitter fogey, but I think I am just bewildered at how the world has changed and yet throughout history, how it stays the same. If a few floods and rainstorms can bring out the worst in people, just imagine what’ll happen when the polar ice caps melt. I mean Ancient Rome was a pretty advanced society until the Dark Ages and then it was like starting all over from scratch to be a barely civilized society. There were probably thousands of lost civilizations we’ve never even heard of, maybe even before the dinosaurs-maybe even with electricity and running water, but our strange need to smash each other into the ground is so prevalent that everything we stood for back then was lost. Almost seems silly the way we put such unimportant things like Anna Nicole’s baby’s father and what Britney’s doing at the top of our lists and yet things like being able to think for ourselves and take care of one another is just a chore. I picture space aliens looking down at us and saying, “well, the Cro-Magnons may have ate each other but they sure were a lot more peaceful than THIS bunch…” (omg, a Roman Catholic referenced Evolution! This guy’s SPRINTING into Hell!) So far I think the only thing that marks our technological advancement over the past 20 years is our method of watching/downloading porn. But in the long run, none of this stuff matters, the iPod, the Digital Camera, the artwork, the custom Harley, the gun collection, the manuscripts… even grave markers. Hell, a few hundred centuries from now, you and I might have turned into oil and the next society is fighting wars over us, lol!

As a parting shot, I may not ever understand women even if I live past 35. And that’s a big IF! (enjoy me while I last!) Well, let’s not assume too much… let’s see what happens this next decade!
Stay tuned!





In case you were wondering…
Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off So Hard My Fecal Matter Becomes Impacted And I’m Forced To Have Invasive Surgery On My Lower Intestine


But I’m sure you already knew that!