It's been a close to a month since I last updated my journal, I've been so bogged down with stuff (a little bit of Skyrim in there too but I let Professor Awesome borrow it since it isn't safe at my house) that I haven't had a lot of time for the internet or to make it back to Professor Awesome's house long enough for some art..

It was deer hunting season here in my part of Ohio last week. Me and one of my brothers went out hunting in hopes of killing a deer and making some deer jerky. I REALLY love deer jerky and it's hard to get a hold of and those who have it aren't always that willing to spare some. So on our first trip, we were outside only a few minutes just down by the old barn behind my house when suddenly a massive 6-point buck and several does come right out of the tree line on the edge of the field. We opened fire and I unloaded my rifle on them, surprised that they came out so close. And I missed every single shot. They ran, my brother didn't kill any of them either. Even if I did hit one, it jumped the fence into the neighbors property and ran off.

We went on another trip a few days later, this time going with some of the friends of a friend of my brother. I didn't know them very well but we loaded up in a truck and off we went into the woods, what they said was their property but I had a sneaking suspicion that probably wasn't the case. Me and my brother were sent a ways off into a huge ditch, having to belly crawl under bramble and thorns in the wee cold hours of the morning, toward a spot where the deer had taken a liking to. Our job was to drive the deer out toward the rest of the group. Sure enough, when we eventually got there we saw all the hallmarks of deer activity. Shortly after, the deer popped up and ran from us right in the direction of the rest of the group. I raised my rifle to take a shot at a particularly close one and BANG! Just as I was about to pull the trigger, one of the other hunters killed it. So once again, neither me nor my brother killed any deer and didn't have any meat to make some jerky out of. Kinda sucks though my brother says he'll try getting some extra jerky off the other hunters but I'm starting to be a little doubtful of that.

A large drama bomb went off at my house recently. My sister and her boyfriend has broken up and are now squabbling over custody for my nephew. She's officially moved back in and it's been nonstop dealing with her and her antics and she's trying to get me involved in it. It's nothing I want a part of and I don't like being asked to spy on her ex-boyfriend to see where he's at for her. It's one disgusting mess, he's supposedly addicted to pain pills and she found her kid getting into the pills with him passed out, she claims he's being manipulative and jealous of her going to college (at the expense of my dad), and that it's all his fault yada yada yada. On the same token, I know her to be extremely manipulative as well and getting everyone to do her work for her so she can shirk her responsibilities. She expects me and everyone else to drop whatever it is they are doing to fill in for her being a parent while she runs off. Turns out she had another guy she's been "friends" with waiting on the side and as soon as she breaks up with one, she hooks up with the new guy just a few days later and is already using him for gifts (a new camera for instance).

It's all one big shitstorm vortex dealing with her and her relationship problems. She's one of those folk who are 21+ and still think and act like they are a teenager without a care in the world and think everyone should take care of them. Have an accident baby? Let the grandparents take care of it. And then hearing her bitch and rant that her ex-boyfriend changed his Facebook status to single and then claiming "not that I care or anything" but still raising hell about it pissed me off something fierce on how immature and childish she is.

Every time I come home, it's always more stupid shit.

And then there is the mice infestation (which was caused by my sister and her former boyfriend when they lived here and now that she and my eldest brother are back, it's gotten worse). They all wonder why all the mice are in the house and getting into the food and cookware and such but don't realize it's their own damn fault. How? They live like they are two-year-old pigs who can't even pick up there own plates of food and scrape out what they don't eat into a trash can. They let it sit and rot and by now you can probably guess who plays house maid at the house when he isn't looking for a "real" job, doing artwork, or some sort of odd job that usually involves house repair. I come home and I find food that's been sitting out for over a week, my dad has such a defeatist attitude sometimes that he just shuts down and won't say a bad thing about it and my mom complains about it but won't say a negative thing to her man-baby drinking buddy of a son that is one of my brothers. Hell, he's just a few steps away from pissing himself because he's too lazy to get up and go to the bathroom. My sister's ex-boyfriend almost does that, he'd piss in bottles because he didn't want to get up. It's disgusting all this filth born out of sheer laziness.

So I suggested we get some mouse traps to help stem the mice problem. Not leaving food out is just too much work for some people though. My suggestion gets shot down because it's too much work as well and might be too messy even though I know for a fact that the stores in town sell traps that you don't even have to touch the dead mouse. I then propose that I get my air rifle and I start blastin' the shit out of them since everyone is complaining about them but doesn't want to do anything about it or have me do anything about it. Of course, no one likes that idea either so we'll just keep on feeding our "pet" mice. At least my my cat Zuko will kill a few when he feels like it. He doesn't eat them, just tortures them for fun and eventually kills them.

I'll probably be at my house for the rest of the week, helping my dad out with some of the house repairs. The kitchen wall is STILL torn out and it's December and it's getting cold. I've had to take drastic measures to convince my dad to finish what he started and buy whatever materials he still needs so we can get to work on it. I'm going to have to tear out another one of the walls in my bedroom (oh wait, my siblings that moved back in think that it belongs to one of them and have been squabbling over it all week still) to jump start this project so we don't freeze to death.

And with everything going on, my family still wonders why I leave for days on end and begs me to stay in this filth and incompetence. Once I do get some good employment that I can live off of, I doubt they'll be seeing me much at all after that. Maybe during the holidays but that's about it.

And that's what I've been dealing with this past week or so.

Time for some better news! I've managed to talk to Professor Awesome a few times and we worked over the phone on a few more things for Demordicai Diamonds, mainly focusing on the religion topic. We even came up with a few names here and there, some even geographical names. Considering that naming things is a huge weak spot for both us, we find it as a nice little accomplishment getting some good names to stick (I hate using "working title" names). We worked some more on where we are currently at with the story which is now even more ridiculously planned out ahead of the comic and discussed a little bit with how exactly we want the next few pages of the comic to go. We'll do the final scripting for DD59 in person next time I'm over at his house.

I did manage to do a few sketches at my house, a feat I haven't done in over a year. It isn't much though. I'm hoping I'll be back over at Professor Awesome's house next week, maybe even earlier if this new wall repair project doesn't take as long. Sorry if I've been relatively inactive for a little while, that should change next time I get back to Professor Awesome's house.