As scary as it is to say my intention was to blog next when I had some completed work to show. I have projects in the works which I have been working on, which have taken several revisions to get done, and now some actual money making projects that need my attention have distracted me. But I did want to say that today I celebrated Dominion Day by watching The Dears who played at the harbourfront ( Jess insisted I add a U) with fireworks going on in the background which I must say was pretty cool. Playing old and new stuff from their new album in case you were curious..

I'll probably now blog more regularly .. until I become distracted again...

I sorta updated my site today, but it doesn't have the aforementioned picture I wanted to have on the front. I tried and tried  to paint, but to no avail. It hasn't turned out very well so I believe I shall try again, but perhaps without paint. Also my site has some odd quirks I need to fix because I'm dumbass. It also has a cool new feature in my contact section..

In other news, I had my parents over for drinks the other day with Vicky the snoop. I also tried yoga for the first time, and I was told I was very flexible. I guess that makes me very zen and centered now... Ohm!!!!!!!

Today, in a moment of vulnerability in my everlasting pursuit for new illustration projects. I saw a scam seeking a few potato chip characters for some vague potato chip company. Asking for four characters for their potato chip company and if they like it they will pay you. Perhaps I was stupid and naive, but before my warning lights lit up, I did the sketches for the potato chip characters, but fortunately I did not embarrass myself so much that I sent them in.

I have in the past resisted similar things where I have not sent work to someone who is unwilling to make up some small contract, and I know if they aren't willing to pay some money upfront they probably won't at all. A lot of other times they try to dangle a carrot in front of you with “big projects” “down the road” but I'm totally unwilling to let myself to get burned. Yet for that it seems people want to undervalue me in ways that would not happen in non creative industries. Where people expect you to invest time and ideas on something they might not even use with no guarantee of compensation where potentially not even using or worse potentially being stolen from. I even discussed it with my neighbor upstairs on apparently this sort of shadiness happens in the music business too

I do however have the characters available for all to see; Firstly, a Dudley Do Rightesque potato chip standing upon an obviously inferior potato chip. Secondly, I couldn't get my mind away from the idea that the life of a potato chip is forever living in fear of being eaten so here is a potato praying for its life. Then a potato being tortured by some potato chip making machine. Finally, a partially eaten potato chip apparently in shock... I just love that one's teeth..

Have no fears I will have my site ready shortly because I have been a little inspired today...

I was going to reveal my info that will be released tomorrow, but I essentially told everyone today anyway. But let the record show that you heard it here first from ME that Gerrard Kennedy will reveal his running for leader of the Federal Liberal Party tomorrow.

I got a weird spice-burn on my tongue from eating too much bhusu today. I also recently discoverd the pleasures of poppa dums thanks to Jess.

Well I have been working on my website and it should be up in its newest incarnation soon, and hopefully it should look a bit cooler and maybe a little more professional. Also I'll have some new drawings/sketchings up there for all to see... including a  drawing that was inspired by my youth that I talked about ages ago on my main page.. Ooooo!

As of today, I had a meeting about the story/series of stories that my landlord and I shall be working on which is really exciting news...

And now for something completely different, I saw in my comic book guy's book of pop culture something that looks vaguely familiar.... hmm I wouldn't mind a radioative man heroclix figure

I ate hot cross buns on friday, and I was told by my mother that some people believed if you ate hot cross buns cooked on good friday it should cure any disease. Apparently, people used to save their buns. including when it was raw and stale that in the slim case they catch a cold that by eating hot cross buns it may cure them of their afflication. I think by the amount of hot cross buns I've eaten today I should be exempt of acquiring any sickness that is possible to obtain... I think by that logic I shouldn't be drunk anymore, jesus, c'mon!! I also wonder why the easter rabbit arbitrarily distributes its  chocolate covered eggs on easterr while  wading through my self hatred and loathing that nothing would ever happen to me my landlord called me up asking me to work on the mechanical goat story with him soo that's good news... and I'l drink to that! *hic*

I got a letter the other day from Canada Post with the signature of who received my hard drive from  Western Digital, how's that for a speedy delivery?

My Roman campaign has begun anew since I have a hard drive again. Using the Scipii again I have Carthage,Sicily,some of Greece and Rhodes and now I move towards Asia Minor. I have just taken the town of Sardis, which lies in western Anatolia (modern Turkey) not far from the Aegean Sea from the people of Pontus. A huge Egyptian army who out of nowhere have decided to lay siege to my newly acquired town. In a foolhardy attempt to counter the siege a nearby army of mine attacked them, and they were joined by another however smaller army of Pontus who was behind them probably to get their town back.

What do you see?
 Egyptians to the front of me and Pontus to the left of me! You may be able to see my smaller army trying to break through Egypt's lines in the rear. I couldn't send any troops from the main body to back them up because of Pontus barreling down on my flank. Egypt kept just sending back enough troops to tie them up. When they sent some chariots at them it really roughed them up.

I thought this battle was really neat, with its three-sided nature, and it was probably one of the longest ones I've had in this game (taking nearly an hour). The Egyptians won, but it was a very Pyrrhic victory, with this as the final breakdown of the casualties I doubt they'll be able to take the town;

                        Men Deployed     Kills             Men Remaining

Scipii                 1303                 1381                     367
Egypt                 1290                    812                     379
Pontus             363                     105                        83

do you care? Probably not, but I think it was a cool battle and perhaps it is a preamble to the alcohol strewn Risk battle that is to come this weekend?

In other news, I've been sending out a litany of resumes to places including Aboveground Art Supplies, some Art Gallery, and Games Workshop etc... maybe somewhere will get back to me...maybe

I updated the picture of the Beaver you can go back and look and I also updated Bujidai from Blood and Salsa. I also got a letter from I Wanna Blog today which you can read:

Now that I have time to write you, here I am in sunny Tombarberstan. The jungle is oppressively hot and dry, and the mosquitoes are the worst. Today, I am 20 miles NE of DMZ, my squad took a chopper beyond the front lines, they say the mission is battlefield interdiction of the enemies supply lines, but I think it is something more but I don't know what. The dreams I have are not dreams they are nightmares, I wake up in a cold sweat shaking like a leaf. The sarge is a little too excited to start fighting but I'm only 3 months old and I'm too young to die. Seems like only yesterday when we both went out to get that delicious Turkish style Pizza at Pizza-Pide, anyway it is my turn to be on point, hopefully I'll get home soon.

There has been murmurs of war, it is March named after the God of War Mars, but I Wanna Blog is not afraid, this blog is the Sparta to Tom's Diary's Athens. I now tell my blog who now goes to the frontlines to come home "with its shield or upon it"-- returning victorious or borne upon it as a corpse!

Remember my hard drive? The primary weapon of I Wanna Blog has only JUST been received by Western Digital I think that the fact that Canada Post is retarded and the blockade imposed by Tom's Diary are both to blame. But this island in cyberspace off the coast of Guetterman.com will get its hard drive back via submarine shortly.

Although I Wanna Blog may not blog on a daily basis like some other blogs we know, but only here can you get to see what I believe to be the future icon used by Guetterman's Heroclix League ...

In an attempt to save my soul I tried to return the money, but apparently the teller I had was on lunch break and another teller couldn't find the check so she said she would call me back when the error making teller gets in.

I just cashed that check from yesterday, and I believe the teller made an error and added a zero to the end of it. My thoughts are should I just return the money knowing they'll catch the error. My anger at that guy and admitedly my greed wants me to hold onto it until someone notices the error. I don't intend to go and spend it all, but I think I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and maybe nobody will notice

Yesterday, the first half of my first day was pretty nice, the other employee was very friendly trying to teach me the ropes of working in the store. Feeling I was pretty familiar with most of the products in the store I was comfortable approaching the customers helping them, answering questions, sometimes suggesting additional or alternate products to get without being too obtrusive or pushy. While the wife of the owner was around she was very nice, and in a lull she had me complete a jigsaw puzzle that was being put on display. Things were promising.

At around 2pm the wife had to leave, the owner who was upstairs preparing another toy/hobby store he was opening. He then started to flip out at his wife for not having an invoice for him and asked her what the hell was wrong with her. I asked him how he was, because it looked like it he was having a bad day, he told me what I believe to be his his motto that everyday was a bad day. Later, I asked the other employee if he was always so uptight, he told me that he was that you just have to get used to it. He also said there has been a number of other people that they've gone through because they couldn't handle the boss which came to be no surprise.

Everything he said was extremely important to be done with the utmost urgency regardless of what I was doing at the time including talking and/or helping customers. His recommended method of salesmanship was for me to descend on customers at their arrival and continually hound them. Sometimes if I was asked something he would run over and ask me how I directed them. His tasks for me were constantly inconsistent at one point he would ask me to greet customers, and then the next he would berate me for not wandering the store keeping an eye on them. His paranoia of being robbed was a tad overboard, I was to constantly keep watch of people including when there was only a single old lady browsing through the board games. I was also apparently too inept to get out the keys and open the glass display case to pull out the cars. Actually one point he considered letting me do that, but then he abruptly muttered he would do it himself.

Even customers witnessed and were targets of his anger, when one lady I was helping opened a jar that had a little confetti like material spilled on the floor, he came over and flipped out asking who had made the mess, I said I didn't know and was going to shortly clean it up. Later, the lady thanked me for redirecting his anger away from her. One man came in asking where he could get keys cut, I didn't know where he could go. The owner overheard this, and lost his temper saying it was a toy store asking why he was here. He at one point he also cursed right in the presence of toddlers about the dust on the packaging of some figurines.

At the end of the day he complained about the lack of sales and asked me to be 'more aggressive and make him more money'. Considering this is just a sample of the antics of the owner by this point as I was leaving I had essentially decided no amount of money is worth this abuse.

I went into the store this morning and noticed a policeman looking over the baby toys section. I proceeded to to the cash register and said how I'd like to talk to the owner of the store and he retaliated by saying he wanted talked to me anyway. He proceeded to get out his calculator beginning to work out how much he owed me, I then pulled out the pay stub that Jess helped me create and pointed out the CPP, EI, including the measly vacation pay, in which he puffed up in some last ditch effort to exert his authority over me, raising his voice to say, “ Vacation pay? This is my store and you don't tell me how to run my store”. By this point the policeman was watching the conversation, and I calmly replied, “Well if you'd like I could involve the labor board” and then turned to the cop who gave me a smile, he subsequently shut his mouth and wrote out the check. He handed me the check and said to have a good day and then I turned and left.

*sigh*

All I remember is walking into the store and I think someone from behind me hit me with a club, and everything went black... I think I heard laughing though...  I woke up with a lump on my head, naked in a room full of strangers, I assume they were other "applicants". The room smelled of rust, blood and sweat, where I could see the walls it was caked in blood. A distorted voice said, "only one of you can be hired", I think a guy kicked me, or punched me, in any case the room went berserk... thats when all I saw was red..  When I came to I was panting and sore on a pile of bodies when a strange woman entered and told me I was worthy to work for Hobby and Toys...