It's 4am here and I can't sleep. I have a knot in my stomach and a sick feeling in my heart over the news that voters in Maine passed Question 1 on the ballot, which repealed a law to allow same-sex couples to marry, albeit narrowly.

I want to scream my frustration and sadness over this. I want to rage against this latest (narrow) victory for intolerance, hate and ignorance.

Instead, all I feel inspired to do right now is share a personal story with anyone who cares to read it.

It's about the day I found God.

I was seventeen and had the opportunity to go on a short tour of Europe with a music group to play in various countries. We stopped in Paris where I had the pleasure to go to one of the largest, most majestic Catholic cathedrals I've ever seen. The name of the church eludes me after all these years, but I was eager to attend a mass because I was feeling spiritually confused. I was born and raised a Catholic but I was beginning to doubt the teachings of the church. "Rebellious" alternatives, like declaring myself agnostic or atheist, didn't seem to fit either. I even took a glance at the Church of Satan, but that's a story for another day.

In the end I attended this mass in France, but truth be told I wasn't really there. I was in my own head, knelt in prayer as I took in the pious majesty of my surroundings. I found myself doing something very cliche... looking up with my hands folded and asking for answers, albeit in my own head.

I said to myself, "I want to pray, but I don't know who to pray to any more. I want to believe in something, but I don't know what to believe in. The only thing I believe in is love."

And just like that, the answer came to me.
"God is love."

My heart swelled with joy. To this day I can't describe the happiness and relief I felt with this revelation. This was something I could grasp. This was something I could believe in. This was something I had been taught in my childhood and could easily take it with me all through the years. God, my God, is Love. Screw all the other teachings from all the other sources. God is Love is my religion, and I live that to this day.

I earnestly believe in God, though I don't refer to God as Him or Her. I can get behind a being who is full of unconditional love and compassion. I can easily worship a deity who loves all its creations equally. I can stand firmly behind the feeling in my heart that I received that day in the church because I feel it still in the presence of my family, my dearest friends, my beloved girlfriend and even from the readers of my webcomic who come and say such wonderful things to me, a total stranger, when I'm out at conventions. That is Love... unconditional and all-encompassing Love, and that is my God.

It saddens me greatly that not everyone sees God that way. It breaks my heart to see people standing up for hate and intolerance in God's name, claiming that God's love is not unconditional and all-encompassing. To deny others the right to express their love for one another in all its glory and uplifting wonder is, to me, a sin against the joy that God gave us.

I guess I'll just have to pray that some of that glorious Love will spread sooner than later, and all this needless hate will be nothing more than a regrettable memory one day.

Hmm. I just posted the link to this thing on the front page of DD.

I ought to start updating this thing again.

I'll start with a really, really catchy song that I can't get out of my head.



Enjoy.

There is nothing about this silly little video that doesn't make me happy.

XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio merged recently. As an XM subscriber I didn't know what to expect, but I kept an open and optimistic mind. I figured I'd be getting twice the programming for the price of one, or be able to choose which channels I wanted to keep or what-have-you.

The last few days of listening have been nothing short of horrible.

Most if not all of my favorite stations were cut from the roster and those that stayed have had their hosts completely replaced. The biggest crime of this merge being the drastic changes to XM's metal station, which was an absolute joy for me to listen to. The three hosts I'd come to love and listen to daily, Ward Cleaver, Katie Brutal and Coolguy, are all gone and have been replaced with hosts whose on-air persona and playlist selection make me want to say very bad things about them on the internet. I won't, however, because I'm going to do something far more effective than spew hate on the internet.

I'm going to cancel my XM Radio subscription because, as far as I'm concerned, this is not the same radio I've been listening to and loving for the past three years.

For a corporate satellite radio, XM didn't feel like anything remotely corporate. Hell, the metal station had promos that sounded something like "listen up, assholes! It's time for the new fucking metal!" Now I feel like my underground, brutal, blasphemous and fucking metal music has been replaced by a marketable metal atmosphere. No thank you.

This pretty much sums up everything I feel on the matter.

I are smart guy who can count good. Really. Turns out the performance of Brahms' A German Requiem is next weekend, not this weekend. Still, finances be damned, this is my favorite piece of classical music ever so I got my girlfriend and I tickets to see it. If anyone is in the area that night and you see some aging nerd getting his butt thrown out of Symphony Hall for throwing up the metal horns to Brahms, it's probably me.

Scamp is adorable, but I'm starting to realize the downside of owning a kitten. First of all, he's a baby and doesn't really know how to clean himself very well yet. This makes for wonderful surprises when he's just used the litter box. Second of all, he's a boy and as general rule, boys stink. We do. Ask anyone. Third, he doesn't know how to not use his claws. Alyssa has startled me with more than one "OW!" when Scamp is just stretching on her bare legs.

That's just about everything interesting out of me for now.

I have vowed to remain frugal this month for previously stated reasons.
There are, however, a few great temptations this month seriously testing my willpower.

I present to you my temptations:

- The pumpkin ales and oktoberfest beers have been released. Oh, sweet nectar of the gods.

- Rock Band 2 was just released. Oh dear lord, I must rawk out to Mastodon.

- Metallica's new album was just released, and every song I've heard from it makes me bang my head like I'm a teenager again.

- The Boston Symphony Orchestra is performing Brahms' A German Requiem this weekend, which is without a doubt one of my favorite pieces of classical music.

- I heard that Amon Amarth's brutal new album will be released at the end of this month, and if I want to see them when they come around to the Worcester Palladium in October I should probably get my tickets early... like this month.

I am the plaything of the Gods of Timing.

September is, traditionally, a tough month for me, and this happens for a number of reasons. In the past, September has been the time when I'm moving in to a new apartment and there's major readjustment. Such is not the case this year, thankfully, as I'm staying in my apartment for another year. Last year was especially rough because I was single again and moving back to Boston, and on top of my own readjustment there were moving costs and kitty readjustment. There's also some kitty adjustment this September, but Scamp is effing adorable and Rascal seems to have taken to him nicely... even if he doesn't want to play with his new big sister all that much yet.

But on top of all this, September is my traditional financial freak-out. This is usually the case because people are moving in to new apartments, settling in to new schools for the year and other "it's September" things, so it's understandable that folks are on a budget. I, myself, usually see a slow September for these reasons and can rationalize this accordingly. And even if September is slow I have AnimeUSA next month, Nekocon in November (at least I'm pretty sure) and I just accepted my invitation to Anime St. Louis in March.

Yes. The rational side of me knows that this happens every single September.

I, however, am a completely irrational person who treated himself to a brand new HD television and a new kitten (yes, I bought Scamp from a local pet store), so with a slow September comes a thought process that sounds a little something like this:

"OHMYGODI'MGOINGTOLOSEALLOFMYMONEYANDI'MGOINGTOHAVETOGIVEUPWEBCOMICSANDEVERYONEWILLLAUGHATMEFORBEINGAFAILUREANDAJOKEANDNOBODYWILLBUYMYSHIRTSANDBOOKSEVERAGAINANDOHMYGODWHYDIDIJUSTBUYMYSELFAPIZZAICAN'TAFFORDAPIZZAANDOHMYGODIAMTHEWORSTGUYEVERWHYGODWHY?!!"

If there's one bright side to my total irrational freak-out, it's that my girlfriend is equally irrational and prone to freak-outs. She, after quitting her job that was causing her much undeserved stress, is on the job search. This can, and will, send even the most rational person into a mental tail-spin. So together we've been sharing a few moments this month that sound kind of like this:

"OHMYGODWE'REGONNASTARVEANDDIE!"

If nothing else, it's nice to be able to cling to someone while you're freaking out.

I'm back from my vacation in Maine and although it is nice to be reunited with my comic books, video games, internet and rascally kitty, I already miss it.

Back to work for me.

It should come with little surprise to anyone that I am, in fact, a moron who cannot count correctly.

I thought I had my vacation days straight. I thought I had to do two comics every day this week in order to produce enough to cover my absence while I'm in Maine. I thought wrong and forgot to include two whole days. Most people would take this as good news. "I have two more days of vacation? That's awesome!" My reaction was somewhat different. "Oh hell."

Long story short, I have to do three color strips today and two tomorrow in order to have the comic update like I said it would. I could cheat and post "Labor Day filler" but I've posted so much filler this month, thanks to conventions and last-minute trips, that I honestly don't feel comfortable doing that any more.

There's a very good chance I won't be sleeping too much tonight and tomorrow night.

Sometimes, when it's ridiculously late and you find yourself unable to sleep, you find the strangest things on YouTube. Strange, brutal, and wonderful.

If only Sesame Street was actually like this when I was a kid, it would explain so much about me now.

Oh well.

Now I go to bed.

Ah-one and ah-two...

It has been many, many, MANY months since I've posted in this thing, so I figured I'd restart things once again and let y'all know how I've been in convenient "catch-up list" format.

*****

- Getting ready for two of the biggest and most fun conventions of the year. Connecticon and Otakon are going to exhaust the crap out of me.

- I dyed my hair black and I think it looks pretty metal.

- Downloaded Samurai Shodown for my Wii and forgot how fucking hard that game used to be (fuck you, Hanzo).

- Cannibal Holocaust was the first and only horror movie to actually offend me to the point of being unable to watch the rest of it. When you actually kill live animals on film for "shock entertainment" you offend an animal-loving Mookie. I didn't even get to the cannibal parts of the movie.

- I normally think Joss Whedon is a bit overrated, but I found Dr. Horrible to be very entertaining.

- Watching Popeye cartoons for three straight days will give you an undeniable urge to consume all the spinach you see.

- To the new guy writing the Superman comics: when the comic is called "Superman," it may be a good idea to put him in more than three fucking pages of the book. I don't give a shit about Atlas.

- Heath Ledger's performance of The Joker was nothing short of immortal.

- Wall-E was so sweet.

- The fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons reads more like a video-game manual than a roleplaying game book. I will reserve judgment on the game itself when I finally get a chance to play it... although it's already lost points with me for not including Bards and Half-Orcs.

- I could not be more proud of Brian Clevinger for his success with Atomic Robo and Hawk & Ananth with their recent deal with Dark Horse Comics... but I must admit with guilt that their success has forced me to look closely at my own work in comparison and seriously doubt if I'll ever achieve up to their level.

- I have decided to take a dangerous plunge into being social again. I've been dating a tall geeky blonde who's built like a blood elf, only not as boobtacular, for a few months now and things have been going well. So, y'know, go me. :)

- Deep Ellum on Cambridge Street in Allston, MA is my favorite bar in the whole city. I do love me some beer.

- The vacation storyarc I've been doing over at Dominic Deegan is the breath of fresh air I've needed creatively for years. Dominic and I are both feeling rejuvenated.

- I'm relieved to know that in the event of premature ejaculation, The Joy of Sex record comes equipped with... BIG JIM SLADE.

*****

So yeah. That's what I've been up to. With any luck I'll finally get back into the swing of things in regards to posting about my own life around here. Whee.

That's all from me for now.
Rock on, and the capital of Nebraska is Lincoln.

Oh baby.
Oooooh baby oh baby oh baby.

I just bought my tickets to see...

Dimmu
fucking
Borgir!

The show isn't until next month, so that gives me just enough time to invest in face paint, spiky boots, scar a pentagram onto my chest, find a crucifix to wear upside down and train my voice to scream "HAIL SATAN!" without losing it. Oh man. Am I geeking out a little? Probably, but that's what geeks do.

This is going to be so metal.

This post is entirely geeky and completely irrelevant to anything, well, important. I do have something all thoughtful and introspective I could post about, but I don't feel like getting deep right now.

First off, thanks to you folks who gave me tons of cool stuff on GAIA Online. Baron Mookie and Evil Mookie look really killer (and by "killer" I mean "adorable") thanks to you, and all the nice comments you've left on my profiles are much appreciated. Now all I have to do is get the ambition to get the ridiculous amounts of gold to get all the new items on my ambitious wish list.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl is a really, really fun game and it's dangerously close to owning my soul. I've never owned a Smash Bros. game myself, so I would always go over to my buddies' apartment and play there. I used to consider myself a faithful Zelda/Sheik player, but Nintendo had to go and play on my love of anything angelic, so now Pit and I are becoming very good friends. He's so damn wingy!

It's still taking mountains of restraint to wait until after ANIME BOSTON to buy an XBox360 so I can also buy Rock Band. Playing it all weekend at NEO NOHCON certainly didn't help this whole "restraint" thing. Nng.

Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, The All-New Atom, Nova and Atomic Robo are the best comics I'm reading right now. They're everything I love about comics... outlandish adventure, fantastic locales, super-science, aliens, magic, monsters... this is the stuff I want to escape into when I open a comic book! Highly recommended reading from yours truly. Superman, of course, remains my hero.

Now all I hafta do is come up with a money-making scheme to get my five thousand gold on World of Warcraft because I am impatient and hate grinding... at least in terms of gaming.
Giggidy-giggidy.

Good gravy. It's been months since I've posted in this thing. I should really get back in the habit. That being said, here are some quick little tidbits of what's been going on with me lately. At least the marginally interesting stuff.

- Heading to NEO NOHCON this weekend. I'm excited to go and I'll be selling special shirts to benefit the charity that the con is involved with. Should be a good time.

- I'm still waiting for a few friends to confirm they're coming with me... but with any luck I'll be going to see Dimmu Borgir at the Worcester Palladium next month. I fully expect to come back from that show screaming "Hail Satan!" provided I have a voice left to scream it with.

- I am exercising mountains of willpower and restraint to wait until after Anime Boston to buy myself an XBox360 and Rock Band. I've put this off as long as I can, but the launch sequence has been initiated.

- I'd seen it and heard about it around conventions for years, but I finally succumbed to trying out GAIA Online. It helped that my friend Alyssa had already made a little avatar for me. Who knew that I'd enjoy a silly little anime avatar dress-up "game?" If there are any other Gaians reading this, feel free to say hi to Baron Mookie or Evil Mookie... and feel free to get me the ridiculously expensive items on my wishlist. Hee hee.

- I've gotten the itch to expand my horizons creatively. I love doing Dominic Deegan but my brain has been hopping around as of late. So I wrote the first issue of a comic book idea that's been banging around my head for the past few months. It's only a first draft but I'm relatively happy with the way it turned out. Now if only I could get around to doing the first draft of issue two...

- I need to get new website design ideas to Hawk! What the fratz am I waiting for?! AUGH!

- Rascal remains a very aptly named cat. At this very moment she's eating a cardboard box... and now she's looking at my feet. Hungrily.

And that's everything marginally interesting going on with me that I feel like sharing on the internet right now. With any luck this silly post will get me back into the habit of updating this thing.

I posted this in its entirety on the SPWUG blog site, but this is just too cool a story to not post here as well.

*****

I was planning to write a post concerning the holidays and other festive things, but something really weird just happened to me and I decided this was way more interesting. At least I hope it is.

The other day I was walking to the supermarket when I felt something in my boot, poking me on the foot. When I got home I fished around inside my boots and found nothing. The next day I felt nothing, even as I trudged through the mall while Christmas shopping. I got home and took off my boots. Nothing.

As I was putting on my boots this morning I felt something poke me in the foot again. This time I immediately reached inside and pulled out the last thing in the world I ever expected to be in there.

It was a Green Lantern ring.

For a split second I didn’t register the fact that it was too small for my hand, or that it was made completely out of cheap plastic, or that it looked like something you’d find at the bottom of a cereal box. All that crossed my mind in that split second were three words… “It’s about time!”

I still don’t know how this little thing managed to get into my boot and evade detection for two straight days. All I know is that for one tiny second I thought I was finally getting something I’ve always wanted for Christmas.

Superpowers.

Dethklok's Dethalbum is fucking metal.

Nightwish's Dark Passion Play blows me away a little more each time I listen to it.

I was able to find a copy this beautiful song by Nightwish's pianist and bassist, and it gets me every time.

And now, to top it all off, it's snowing.

I'm all smiles today.

You know what my cure for a case of the blues is?
Metal.

And my happiness is in the form of my Metalocalypse DVD.
*snuggles*

Now go forth.
GO FORTH AND DIE!

*snuggles again*

It's amazing how twenty minutes can really muck up your entire day.
That happened to me this weekend, and it's the reason why there was no Sunday strip up at Dominic Deegan.

Basically here's what happened... when my ladyfriend and I moved to Texas we put a lot of our stuff in my parents' basement. When we went our separate ways, I took my stuff out of that basement. She hadn't had a chance to fetch her stuff until, well, this weekend.

I built it up in my head. Big time. We'd been corresponding somewhat via e-mail but hadn't seen nor spoken to each other since we split up. She expressed worries of awkwardness and such, and so did I. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was more than a little nervous.

I think it was the anti-climax of it all that affected me the most.

The whole endeavor was over in around twenty minutes or so. We fetched her stuff, loaded it into her friend's car, exchanged some pleasantries and that was it. It was, admittedly, really nice to see her again, but the whole thing felt oddly transactional. There wasn't a lot of eye contact made, either. She got teary-eyed as she was leaving, and I got a little choked up after she left.

I couldn't get a single ounce of work done either before or after those twenty minutes.
I was, for lack of a better term, a lump in a serious blah.

Where things go from here is anyone's guess. I honestly hope we can remain friends.

I'm getting the itch for new music, although dumping a bunch of money into getting Volume 1 reprinted should keep me from doing so. Regardless, here's some musical stylings that have piqued my interest.

"Amaranth" by Nightwish.
I'm not sure how I feel about the new singer. It's not that she's bad. I think she's actually got a lovely voice. I'm just so accustomed to Tarja's vocals. Ah well. I'll hafta hear another song before I decide whether or not I want the album. Good song, though.

"The Serpentine Offering" by Dimmu Borgir.
Dimmu fucking Borgir, man! I like to occasionally indulge in some black/death metal, but this is the only band I'd go out of my way to support. How can you go wrong when you're backed by a full freaking orchestra? And who says classical music can't kick some ass? Not to mention I find this particular video rather entertaining.

"Built to Resist" by Grip Inc.
All I could find was a (pretty cool looking) AMV that featured this reall cool song. I've been trying to find a copy of this song everywhere but to no avail. Ah well. I'll just have to watch this AMV to enjoy it.

Am I a YouTube junkie?
Little bit, yeah.