So RainFurrest has been cancelled. And I can't go to Furlandia because it conflicts with Crypticon, which I already had a booth at. I was considering Midwest Furfest, but it's in December which is the biggest season for my live caricature work and I can't afford to be out of town that month.

#sum it up:

NO FURRY CONS FOR ME THIS YEAR.

WerePuppy is sad.

Hey gang! Just wanted to let everyone know that I will be back in the dealer's den for RainFurrest this year--all four days! I will be selling books for Rabbit Valley, so there will be lots of comics and stuff at my table, including many of mine. AND I will, of course, also be doing sketches and badges and stuff, so please come by and say hi, give me hugs, and/or throw money at me! ^0^

I'm always excited to go to RF. I pretty much never get to see most of my furry brethren outside of this show, since I haven't really been able to get out of state for any other ones for a number of years. So I really look forward to this event all year! Anyway, I can't wait to see the whole bunch of you! I bet it's going to be an excellent show this year! Only a couple more weeks to go!

OK boys and girls--My plan at this point is to be there on Sunday. I will attempt to grab an artist's alley table, but in the event that doesn't happen, please look for me in the big common area with all the tables. I will attempt to find a place to sit and hang out and draw.

if I can get an artist alley spot, I will have some copies of Fast Boys Delivery Service and Rocketship Rodents for sale. I will also have some stuff in the art show.

Anyway, fingers crossed--but either way--I will be around the event on Sunday! Please come and find me! I will be accepting and giving out big Koala Snowmeow hugs!!

Looks like I may not be going to RainFurrest at all this year. Which really sucks. It's the ONE furry con I still go to, because it's local, but it now looks like even that isn't going to be an option this time. I might try to go for a day and get into the artist's alley, but other than that I guess I'm just out of the furry scene in 2014.

Sometimes, things REALLY suck. And NOT in the good way.

Hopefully I will return next year.

Sorry I've been out of touch so long. I feel VERY behind the times in the furry community! I've been having computer#a new system and just completely fell off the radar! But I am back!

Beware the bare bear with little hair!

So I just got "yelled" at and lost the watch of a fur for posting my cute little "Bronco 'Bama" sketch. That's OK. He's absolutely entitled to his wrong and bull-headed opinions, of course. ^0^ He made it plain that he despises Obama and believes him to be an evil socialist/communist murderer. I disagree. the socialist/communist label is ridiculous propaganda that goes back to McCarthy and is not only bullshit, but isn't even being used properly. As for him being a murderer, I would point out that Bush directly caused the deaths of THOUSANDS of people by prosecuting a completely unjustified and illegal war. And I don't just mean Iraqi deaths--I mean American soldiers. So that should make Bush a mass-murderer. So Obama being just a plain murderer should seem like an improvement.

Seriously though, I do support Obama and I do feel he's doing his best against almost insurmountable odds (partisan obstructionism) to fix the MASSIVE and disastrous mess left by his predecessor. Is he perfect? No. Could he do more for the things I personally care about? Probably. But I really feel he is doing what he believes to be best for the country as a whole, and not just for a privileged few. That is my opinion. This is my page and if I want to express my opinions on it, I will. I don't mind if people have different views than I do. I DO however mind them ranting at me and withdrawing in a huff on MY page because of a fairly innocuous drawing.

I'm not really angry about it, but it was a bit obnoxious and I always feel a bit hurt about such things. Anyway, I guess I'm just venting here. It doesn't really matter. And I know there are several other furs who might ditch me just for expressing the opinions I wrote here. Or, they might understand that I am a big, dumb, gay, liberal and am not going to change and just look at my drawings while ignoring my ignorant leanings.

Anyway, goodbye Mercius, where ever you are...

So RainFurrest 2012 has come and gone and it was a great deal of fun! (Although, as usual I mostly just sat at my table drawing stuff.) I didn't get to hang out as much this year because I couldn't afford a room so had to commute back and forth from Tacoma. One extra-curricular activity I DID indulge in this year was that I shoe-horned myself into the Variety Show! In spite of the fact that I haven't performed on stage before a live audience in something like 23#in spite of my general feelings of inadequacy over being chubby and old, I think it went well. I presented "Yakko's World", the Nations of the World song from#as an encore rattled out Tom Lerher's "The Elements Song". And I managed to get through them without tripping all over#way I did at the rehearsal. :p

Here's a video that someone made at the event and posted on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLtH-nmqR6M&feature=related

This video only has the Yakko's Wolrd section, and it's a lot clunkier than it seemed like it was to me when I was doing#there it is.

Enjoy! (Or endure...)

Anyway, this is the only furry con I've been able to do this year. Things have definitely been difficult since I lost my job a few months ago. (There's a story I need to tell on here at some point. It was REALLY surreal!) My goal right now is to find a new job, work on my comics and get things back to normal! BTW--if anyone knows of a job for an artist/designer/cartoonist in the Tacoma/Olympia or Seattle area, please let me know!

Cheers and hugs!

I just watched "A Single Man", the movie based on a novel by Christopher Isherwood about a middle-aged man in the late 50s/early 60s whose lover was killed in a car accident and he was having trouble dealing with it and had decided to kill himself. I know what you're thinking--"Yikes, what a depressing thing! Why would you watch something like that???" And you are absolutely right. I went for the journey, and along the way was unable not to examine my own life and choices and circumstances and now I want to take all the sleeping pills I can find. :P Fortunately, I haven't got any, so I'm safe.

But I did find the movie to be extremely moving and insightful about being a gay man still, to a certain degree, wedged into a straight world. Because even though our society has come a long way, and I have come out to most of the important people in my life and am essentially conducting myself as the lightly-loafered fellow that I am, I still feel bogged down by my life. But the new insight that I have because of the movie is that, in many ways--I still act like the straight guy I was pretending to be for so many years. I watched this character dealing with his feelings as well as other peoples' perception of him and how he worked so hard to be basically invisible and I still see a lot of that behavior in myself.

I've recently been trying to "date"...and it's freaking me out a little. I'm beginning to discover how little I really know about dealing with other people on an intimate level. I'm making serious mistakes right and left. I can see that I'm making them...sometimes. Often I don't see it until too late. Either way, I have no idea what to do about it! And to make matters worse, I am--as many people know--still officially married. Just celebrated our 25th Anniversary, in fact! I still live in the same house with her--even though she has her live-in boyfriend. In many ways, my life seems to be what it needs to be, and yet I am still living the life I was living when it was mostly a#how can it be right? And I'm not happy. But I can't just walk away from it all either. And if I did, it might even be horribly worse. Loner that I am, I don't do well alone. When I've been alone in my life, it's never been good. I'm a bit of a parasite in that way--I need another person. I can't seem to be whole by myself.

Some of the happiest times in my life...well, all of them, were when I was with someone else. Is it that way for everyone? Can anyone really be happy on their own? Is it just me? Why do I hate being alone, but seem to work so hard to screw up my relations with others so that I AM alone? Again, is it everyone? I seem to see that a lot. But is that what it really is? Or am I just misinterpreting things...putting my own motivations on other peoples' behavior?

Anyway, sorry this is a bit rambling and relentlessly emo. I just wanted to write this down somewhere. I'll come and look at it again tomorrow and see if it makes any sense or if it's just stupid. PLEASE feel free to ignore it.

Meanwhile, I can say one thing about the movie. It was beautiful. Artfully crafted. The young man he was being pursued by was indeed an amazingly lovely boy. And the moments between them made me want them to be together...intensely. But I can't entirely say I recommend it. The ending was a bit of a#me anyways. I assume it was that way in the book, so I guess I can't blame the filmmakers. It seemed to undermine the rest of the journey of self-discovery. But maybe that was the point. Too deep for this old koala, I guess. Better stay in the shallow end of the philosophical pool. But I guess it's good for me to put my raggedy soul through the occasional workout, so it doesn't become as decrepit as the rest of me...

So, as the image I just posted indicates--my friend (and collaborator) Zan and I were included in the OUT100 issue of Out Magazine as two of the 100 people they decided had made a positive contribution to the GLBT community during the past year. This was for the anti-bullying comic book that we created called "The Power Within"--inspired by the rash of suicides of gay teens (and even older persons) who were being treated like crap by the ever-present jerks and bullies of the world.

it was a subject which I was very disturbed by and we wanted to address it with our 24 Hour Comic Day creation we started last year. We didn't finish it on the day, but later expended it and finished it and got funding throughhttps://Kickstarter.comto make it a reality! It came out really great and somehow it got the attention of the people at OUT.

The part of the story that has really affected me more than anything is that being in the magazine has inspired me to finally do something I have been putting off for over a decade. I came out to my parents.

I know, I know--why did I take so long? After all, as it turned out, both my mom and my adopted dad took the news well. They remain a bit confused as to why I am still married--which I have been now for 25 years--but all in all, it went better than I could have hoped! I mean, they were thrilled about the idea or anything. I don't think my mom is going to run out and join PFLAG. But they were OK with it. They both said that they love me and that I'm still their son and more importantly--they didn't try and talk me out of it, like it was just a choice I made to annoy people! They just accepted it. I guess I've been protecting them--and myself--from nothing.

So now, I'm not only OUT to the world, but I'm out to the people that really matter most.

Hi gang! I know I had originally said I would hold it open til midmight tonight, but it hasn't moved in a few days--so I think pretty much eveyone whose interested has already made a bid. Also, I haven't had much sleep lately and I'm about to completely crash, so I figured I'd just call it now.

*Ding!* ^0^

Anyway, the winning bid was for $500, and the winner will receive not only a piece of artwork, but a great deal of gratitude for seriously helping me out! I won't name him here because I'm not sure he wants to be public. Hopefully I will be able to display a little jpeg of the resulting artwork here.

But seriously, I want to thank all the people who made very generous bids for participating. I wish I could do a whole bunch of commissions right now and didn't just have to settle on only one.

Thank you again!!

So here's the deal--the WerePuppy needs cash! :P I am two weeks away from payday and am about to hit the wall! And the only thing I can hope to do about it is either sit on the roadside with a little cardboard sign that says "Will Draw Furry Art 4 Food" or I can float the idea of offering a commission on FA! But here's the thing--I'm really swamped, so I can really only take one right now. Which is why I'd like to try this: an auction of my services to the highest bidder, for a piece of hand-drawn and/or digitally painted piece, with one to three characters doing gods-know-what! (Pretty much whatever you want--as long as it's relatively legal!) How elaborate and how detailed depends on how much the final price is, of course--but I will do my best to make sure you are satisfied! mind you--for a high enough bid, anything might be possible!! LOL But I doubt I'll have to worry too much about that--but hey, feel free to prove me wrong!

Anyway, I will entertain bids (please send them privately as messages, not as replies to this) during this week, closing on Friday morning at 12:00am. I'll let the winner know Friday morning and will hopefully make arrangements with them over paypal or whatever...

If no one is interested, well, I'll know this isn't the way to do it in future. But for now--this Pup's soul is up for grabs!

**Additional as of Wednesday** The bidding currently stands at $500. Thank you everyone so much for participating!!

So today is the 25th anniversary of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger--and yes, I do remember where I was, and yes--I did see it happen live. On 9-11 I missed the first plane hit, but in '86 I was watching the launch on the news while trying to keep warm in the big warehouse space where my first job at Action Athletics was located. I'd gone in and turned on the furnace and the big, klunky console TV and saw it unfold. I remember the denial and the hope that somehow they had escaped or that they'd be recovered alive in an intact compartment... It really freaked me out. I empathized so completely with my imaginings of those final moments as they must have realized what was happening--especially since I had so often imagined myself aboard a space shuttle soaring off into space...

I think it was the beginning of the end of America's dreams of space travel. Suddenly the danger was too real. Now people don't feel like the space program is worthwhile#want it privatized so they don't have to pay for it, like it's just a business venture now and the scientific discovery and exploration and adventure don't really matter to us as a country. It was bad enough that we never went back to the moon after we "beat the Russians" to it, but now as the shuttle fleet is about to be permanently retired, it feels like we've come to the end of the era of dreaming of the stars...

Anyway, I remember the Challenger. I hope everyone else does too.

Well, my laptop decided to kick off the new year by going spastic! Literally on New Year's Day it began to suddenly convert its visual display to a wild, colorful pattern of dashes. It looked like the screen was covered in plaid. Then after rebooting it, a window would pop up with the pronouncement, "VPU Recover has reset the graphics accelerator as it was no longer responding to graphics driver commands."

For a while it worked OK, but would occasionally be overcome with another fit of plaidness and have to be reset. But finally yesterday, it decided to stop working at all. When I restarted the computer, it would just cycle through the start-up sequence over and over, never quite able to bring itself to launch Windows--covered in tartan the whole time.

:P This is, of course, on top of the fact that my television dropped dead last week. Fortunately, we DO have another computer. And there IS a "communal" TV down in the media room. But all the major equipment in my personal space has gone fzzzzt. Maybe it's just trying to remind me that while the new year is looming bright and full of hope, entropy is never very far away...

To quote the new Doctor: "Yes...I am definitely Mr. Grumpy-face."

PS: I am being inducted as a member of the Council of Four Eyes at the CLAW Great and Grand Yearly Ceremony tonight. More to come on that later...

SO when I posted my "Matching Undies" pic, I mentioned an incident where they covered the whole picture with a lift-up sheet of paper. (They also did that to my Tycho Redtail drawing from one of the RSR covers. He has a bulge in the pic.) A friend of mine complained to them and they took the censoring papers off. It was an amusing incident. But one of the comments on the posting was made by Lionus who said:

"In their defense however, all the RainFurrest folks would need would be for some over-zealous victim-wanna-be to go to the local press or police screaming that their "little child" was emotionally scarred by outrageous displays by blatant PORNOGRAPHY at the con to screw up the con for everyone."

Which is a valid#a degree. He also pointed out that adolescent rebellion can be carried too far, etc.

But I had to make two point--one, this wasn't "pornography" because it was only sensual, not depicting actual sex...although, maybe that's only MY definition. LOL Also, as I replied to another post: I don't think rebelliousness is merely a function of adolescence. Some things NEED to be challenged. Personally, I think this country's morays and hypocrisies should be questioned constantly. For instance, I have comic books at home that I know for a fact kids--teens, I mean, not small children--read that are horrifically violent with gleeful images of people being ripped in half with cartoon abandon, but they would never dare show a dick. What does that say about our society? I'd rather let teens watch hard-core porn than some of the seriously violent movies out there. Like "The Passion of the Christ", for example, which I've heard described as practically a snuff film! PLEASE, watch "Shortbus" instead!

I mean, hell--Marvel published a miniseries of The Rawhide Kid in which he was portrayed as a silly gay stereotype, and even though it was completely free of ANY nudity or bad language or even a single kiss between men, they STILL put Mature Content labels on the covers! Completely outrageous--an absolute insult, because it implies that even the hint that a character is queer means that no children should be exposed to it--even if that character is completely non-sexual. So we're still a long way from gay equality in all media.

But that's another discussion. the point is that I think people in this country are TOO hung up about sexual issues. We glorify violence and demonize sex. I think it should be the other way around, if anything! This art show incident was just a silly, insignificant drop in a very HUGE reservoir of that warped kind of thinking. Oh sure--things are better in many ways, and ultimately it will all sort itself out. But Lionus brings up a good point--in many ways, we're still all held a little bit hostage by the pathetic prudish viewpoints of an overly conservative (at least in regards to sex) society.

#myself to the fandom. Not that my RL identity is much of a secret. In any case, I did this interview thingy for an art-show deal I'm doing tomorrow, and since Elliot put so much effort into making it, I figured I might as well share it with my furry friends! I look a bit like a beluga whale someone has trained to sit up and speak, but there it is. Anyway, it's only a couple of weeks until RainFurrest, and now any of you who watch this and then attend RF will recognize me when you see me in the dealer's den! ^0^ I'll be the chubby one...possibly in a fez.

OK, give it a look--but keep in mind one thing: You will never get that 6 minutes back. I don't do temporal refunds.

*Hugs and scritches and junk!*
da Pup

http://thesweetspotgallery.com/2010/09/mark-brill/

SO. I learned today that the Pastor who is planning to burn a Koran on 9/11 to "protest" ('cause that'll be a huge help) the attack nine years ago, works for a "church" called the "Dove World Outreach Center." I kid you not.

Do ya think that perhaps insulting and denigrating every Muslim on earth (not just the extremists) is perhaps just slightly going against the ostensible endeavor of a religious PEACE organization????? Mind you--I could care less whether every Koran in the world is shredded, as long as all the Bibles go with them! But I have a real problem with this dickhead purposely trying to incite incidents of violence. Thanks SOOOOO much for doing your best to make sure that we can NEVER live in peace with people of differing faiths.

Do we get to go back to persecuting Jews? Oh, and them gay people are getting too uppity! After all, they are evil abominations by their very existence--the BIBLE says so. And WITCHES! Somebody's gotta do something about all the damn WITCHES! And scientists! HOLY FUCK!!!! They keep trying to push logic and reason and intelligence on everybody like it's a right or something!!!

I say again, the sooner we get rid of all religions, the better off we'll all be--if only because we won't have assholes like Bush TRYING to help Armageddon along.

Quote of the day:

Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.
-Jon Stewart

So on September 11 of this year, my "art" will be featured at a local (Seattle) art venue--the Satori Loft, as part of an on-going on-line art gallery (The Sweet Spot Gallery) intended to introduce artists to their art community. To that end, Elliot Trotter, the founder of my secret society, C.L.A.W., no less, came into my "studio"...OK, art#interviewed me on camera for, like, two hours! It wasn't as horrible an experience as I imagined. Elliot's a really nice guy and he made it fairly painless. I can only hope he is a truly skilled editor and can make a fairly usefull short video out of all the narcissistic gobbledegook I dredged up for his VERY nice Panisonic movie camera.

I even wore my CLAW fez for part of it. He really liked my furry work--I even showed him my "Porn Stars" painting and a couple of the "Rocketship Rodent" books and he wasn't freaked out at all! But as this is going on-line under my RL name, I didn't really include any of that in the video. Mostly what will be featured and discussed will be my commercial work.

Anyway, it was an interesting and sort of bracing experience. Made me feel like a "real" artist there for a bit. Maybe life would have been more like that if I had followed my dreams instead of becoming a hack staff artist for the last 25 years. Who knows, I might have been doing these types of self-promoting and indulgently narcissistic vids every other week! Maybe I could have even become famous so I couldn't go shopping because of all the girls wanting to pose for me, or get together with me for nefasrious purposes!

Yeesh! Maybe this way is best... i prefer furry fandom with guys wanting to get together with me for nefarious purposes! LOL

#Friday night Rabbit Valley produced a podcast--part of their "Live from the Hop Inn" series--in front of a live audience at Rocky Mountain Fur Con in Denver. I was not there, of course, but someone very close to my heart was! I don't mean Trejaan, my furry best bud and writing partner on many of my comics and a guy I just generally love--although he WAS there. I don't mean Kurst, the bouncy yote Spooo Presents publisher of those same comics--although he was there too. I don't mean Andrew and Sean Rabbitt, the owners of Rabbit Valley and publisher/distributors of the afore mentioned comics, though they too were there (obviously, since it's their podcast.) I don't even mean 2, the Ranting Gryphon, who, although I can't really claim him as a close friend, knows who I am and also makes me a bit weak in the knees because he's haaaawt--even though,2 too, was there.

No, I am speaking of none other than the spectre of PROFESSOR CHRONOFUR himself! A "dramatic" reading (the term is definitely loosely applied here) of the first appearance of my favorite Timefur was inflicted on the attendees of the live podcast at RMFC. You may find it at the Rabbit Valley website (and a link directly to the podcast is provided below) and it is quite an interesting half an hour of your life you'll never get back. I recomend everyone within the realm of furrydom check it out. BTW--2 himself portrays the Professor in this tortured reenactment.

http://fox.rabbitvalley.com/podcast.....p_Inn_210.html

My sister's birthday was yesterday. She's 6 years younger than me and we haven't been as close as I'd like because of weird family drama from several years back involving my wife and my mom and sister falling out...horribly--long story.

ANYway, we got to chatting about old times and stuff and finally I mentioned that at some point I'd like to be able to have her and the kids be able to visit my house--which has never happened because of the afore-mentioned drama, but that we'd need to sit and have a talk first, because there are just "things you need to know."

Well, she pressed me and asked if perhaps it pertained to my "living situation"...and I said yes. And she said, "I'm on you Facebook list--I'm not stupid, you know." And so I laughed and said: "Alright--here it is. I'm gay." She wasn't surprised--since she had mostly worked it out on her own via my less than subtle remarks on FB, and amazingly to me, she was completely OK about it. Now I knew that of ANY of my family, she'd be the one least likely to freak, but her easy and complete acceptance was very touching. It's only taken me the entire 12 years since I worked it out for myself to get around to telling her. :P Obviously, I needn't have waited so long. But it was incredibly amazing to be able to just TELL her after all the years of hiding it from them all.

Now Mom and my dads...that's a whole other fireworks factory.

Happy Everyone Draw Muhammad Day!

I was going to draw a fursuit and post it on the site as "Muhammad Fursuiting", but I don't know if I'll have time. I appreciate what Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris was trying to say when she started this whole thing, though, because I absolutely believe in complete freedom of expression.

In other words--I should be able to draw basically ANYTHING I want--just like I should be allowed to VIEW anything I want, without censorship. I really think censorship should only occur when it's actually protecting someone's personal rights. Fur instance--snuff films or shit like that. Creating the image of something like that out of one's imagination is one thing--actually, any Hollywood slasher movie is an "imaginary" snuff film--but actually violating a person's basic human rights (by killing them) to make a snuff film is evil and wrong. So a person should be allowed to draw or write about or imagine whatever they like--even when I disagree with it, as long as they don't actually abuse another person to "create" the image or thought.

As far as Mo goes--I think the moratorium against depicting their Prophet is crap. I think their Prophet is crap, just like I believe most EVERY organized religious icon to be crap. But if they believe their Prophet should not be depicted, fine--THEY shouldn't depict him. But they have absolutely no right whatsoever to tell anyone else they CAN'T depict him either. Just like Christians don't have the "right" to tell me I have to live by their dogmatic "laws".

The Muslim community wants to make out that this "Draw Muhammad" thing is racist--but in fact, race has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it. It's ALL about censorship and fanatical religious ideals being shoved down the throats of people who don't accept them. They also call it disrespectful--and I have to agree there. But frankly, the violence and threats leveled by the radical elements of their faith have lost them the consideration of any legitimate respect. (The same goes for Christians, btw.)

Another one bites the dust. I just heard that Frank Frazetta, a grand master of fantasy art and comics died at the age of 82. Here's a link to a news article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/a.....ta.html?src=mv

(For any of you young pups who doesn't know who Frank Frazetta is, please check out the article.)

Although I admit that I originally did not appreciate Frazetta's work properly, preferring the work of Boris Vallejo because of it's tighter, more photo-realistic quality, I have really learned to love Frazetta's more impressionistic style. It has so much passion and life to it, were some more realistic painters tend to feel more stilted and posed.

Also, I would like to point out that my own Rocketship Rodents work--especially in the area of costuming--is actually based much more on Frazetta's John Carter of Mars and Buck Rogers designs than on the movie serials. After all, his art was packed with scantily clad--or sometimes entirely UN-clad warriors and princesses, whereas the 30s and 40s movie and TV serials tended to be far more conservative in dress.

Anyway, I have several Frazetta books myself, and I encourage everyone to go on-line (or better yet, to bookstores, as his art looks MUCH better on the printed page than it does in digital scans) and check out his beautiful, atmospheric and downright sexy paintings for yourselves!

G'bye Frank--thanks for the legacy!

#am the COOLEST human being in the universe! Well, I felt like it for a little while anyway--right after I got to meet Leonard Nimoy! WooHoo! Yes, I know--several hundred other people met him too and he wouldn't remember me from a hole in the wall, but that's not the point!

The POINT is--I got to speak to him and shake his hand and say all the stupid fanboy things one says to one's childhood hero at a time like that! THAT's what is important!

It may only be interesting to me--but I got to see the man who IS Spock up close and I TOUCHED him and for just a second I was 12 years old again. Sure it cost me 60 bucks, but I'll probably never get the chance to see him in person again, so it was totally worth it! I mean--I GOT TO TOUCH SPOCK!

Yes, I know I'm a hopeless geek. ^-0-^ Vulcan Koala.

At the "Open Swim" Meeting of myhttps://C.L.A.W.group, we had a little drawing competition (something we've done twice now) and surprisingly, I actually won the thing! Mind you--it's pretty informal, we each draw something based on the theme, over the course of an hour and then everyone who participated gets three poker chips. We all put a chip on the three pieces we like best and the one that gets the most votes wins. I think I won by 1 chip.

ANYWAY--the reason I mention this at all is that the first prize on this occasion was an unopened copy of Illustrator CS2, which I was all excited about#I got it home and realized that it was a Mac version and my computers at home are PCs. *sigh*

So I was wondering if anyone out there has a similar problem in reverse. Maybe we could trade. ^0^

After a SERIOUSLY crappy year last year and a lot of confusion and soul searching about my priorities (artistically and financially speaking) I have decided that I need to take a new approach to my professional as well as my furry life as an artist, cartoonist and illustrator. I REALLY want to make this year (actually the whole freakin' decade) a significantly better one than I just went through. So I will be posting new parameters about commissions soon as well as, hopefully, setting up a new business-y type furry website. BUT first, I need to deal with a few outstanding projects still hanging over my head--most of which I just simply allowed to get away from me because of my poor management skills.

That said--I need your help. I know I have several outstanding commissions and things out there, some of which I have lost track of or let slide for various personal reasons. I want to make good on the things I owe before I get into starting my new artistic furry life. #I owe you art, please write to me at werepup[at]hotmail.com and remind me about it. I need names, a small description to help jog my brain and actual addresses and other contact info. I had all of this stuff written down at one time, but so much of it has gotten lost or is buried in files (boxes) somewhere that I need help to get a list of things together. I want to get all this stuff finished and to the poor furs who have waited gods-know-how-long!

Please send me word privately. I don't want to pile it all up in a public forum. Last thing I need is EVERYBODY knowing what a crappy manager I have been! :P

Anyway, please help--you know who you#I know who most of you are, but I need a final and comprehensive list to follow.

Thanks and hugs!
^0^

Has anyone read some of the testimony coming out of the Prop 8 trial? I was listening to a gay podcast I frequent and they mentioned the name William Tam and quoted some of his "expert" testimony--much of which centered around his conclusion from all his years of study that gays are 12 times more likely to be pedophiles and that allowing gays to marry would lead to opening the floodgates for pedophilia, bestiality, and would cause a whole generation of children to be interested in turning gay. And that gay marriage should not be considered a civil right.

Turns out this guy is also associated with a group called "American Return to God Prayer Movement". Gee--what a huge fucking shock. Another evangelical dickhead trying to shoehorn his personal religious attitudes and beliefs into law. He's another fucking bigot inventing "facts and figures" to bolster his desire to preclude heathens from being allowed basic civil rights.

In fact I saw a news item about the Prop 8 trail the other day and looked at some of the comments on the message boards and was absolutely stunned by the number of vicious, hate-filled diatribes about how evil and depraved gay people#using religion as their reason. (Ironically, a few days later, some of these SAME people were posting to the message boards about how ignorant and out of touch the Vatican was to deride Avatar as being wrong for putting "worship of nature" above any concept of God. I guess they forgot how ignorant and out of touch they were in their previous posts.)

I am sick and tired of these two-faced hypocrites using a God and a Bible I basically consider to be mythology to tell me how I'm allowed to live my fucking life. They literally can't even PROVE anything they believe--or even agree amongst themselves about what they believe, but I'M supposed to adhere to their ideals for society, no matter how evil they are! AAARRRRRGGGH! THIS is why I have raging hypertension!

But at least the big corporations can now spent an unlimited amount of money to specifically finance any candidate they want...that's obviously not a horrific idea. Right?

Seriously, if Palin is elected in 2012 I swear I will move to Canada and write this idiot-packed country off as a lost cause. If that actually happens, and it very well could, that's exactly what this country will be.