joe randel's art dump

Four years ago today I had to put my beloved Beagle Pheobe down. She had invertible disk disease which basically means that the disks in her spine where breaking apart and getting lodged in her spinal column. She was in an incredible amount of pain and it was awful to watch and the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

I still miss her very much. I have her ashes at home on our shelf because I couldn’t bare to have her buried and me not be able to visit her. Some day when I’m ready I’ll let her ashes go, but not just yet.

My daughter knows about Pheobe and how she’s Daddy’s special doggie. She wouldn’t remember Pheebs since she was only 5 months when Pheebs passed, but she usually says she misses her and askes where she went. We tell her that Pheobe lives up in the sky so today we wrote a letter to Pheebs and drew her a picture then got a helium balloon and tied the papers to it and let them go.

It was very special.

We miss you Pheobes.

We always will.

I loves me some Iron Chef.

The original Japanese series… not the lame American version.

I remember a friend back in 2000 telling me about this crazy cooking show from Japan where the chefs cook things in only one hour. I though it sounded cool and decided to check it out on the Food Network.

Man was I hooked.

I never saw anything like this before. The over the top recipes with truffles, octopus’, giant lobsters, swallows nests, cuttle fish where just awesome! I don’t think I’d ever eat any of those dishes but it was so much fun to watch.

Then the Food Network took the show off the air.

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

bastards…

But thanks to the internet I’ve now down loaded about 170 episodes of 303(ish). It’s like30 some gigs that I have to try and organize in to chronological order. And I’ll do it too… I did it to my Mythbusters episodes ^_^ My goal is to try and get them all but I don’t think it’ll be possible plus I need to organize the ones I have first before I gather more.

Oh, and who’s my favorite Iron Chef? It’s Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi, the szechwan sage of course ^_^

If you haven’t seen the Iron Chef before, I highly recommend you check it out. ^_^

After some hunting around I found my boxes of Magic cards. I don’t have too much. Two long boxes full, that’s it and they’re mostly crappy older cards. Not like cards of today where everything that comes out has some sort of ability. Crazy @_@ They’re just sitting in my basement doing nothing so why not dump them like I did my comics and put some moneys in my pocket. But before I do that maybe I’ll have another few games.

I decide to make a quick deck up and play with the guys at work since it would seem that more the a few have decided to play at lunch time. I looked at my cards and quickly discovered that I haven’t done anything with them in 10 years! I only have a vague idea of how to put a deck together now. I run though my blue and black cards, throwing together a deck in 15 min before I go to bed. Then next day I sat and played with the others and it was fun. I didn’t sit there and think “ahhh… this is great!” I remember more of high school and the arguments that the game caused. *Sigh* That and there’s this other thing…

See… I’m a geek. I play video games, I’m an artist that makes video games, and I draw erotic cartoons. BIG GEEK (and perv ^_^)! But I never feel geeky. I’ve learned to keep my geek in check. It only comes out when it’s appropriate. But when I play Magic… I feel uber geeky. So geeky that I’m almost to embarrassed play. *shame* I guess that Magic completely takes me back to high school when being a geek didn’t really get you anywhere and so I tried to hide my inner geek.

Ehrm…! Back to the games at lunch… I lost, maybe I’ll try and refine my deck a bit and see if I can play a better game tomorrow. If I can’t shake the bad feelings then I’ll probably dump them.

god… I’m such a geek.

Funny that I feel that drawing smut is less geeky then playing Magic ^_^

Today I gathered up all my comic books and took them down to the local comic shop at lunch.  It wasn’t a lot of comics.  Just a short box with about 60 or 70 in it.  Mostly Image comics from High School like Spawn, Savage Dragon, W.I.L.D. Cats, WetWorks with some Sandman mixed in for variety.  I was expecting to get about $20 bucks but the guy offered me $45 for everything.  I was happy with the price so I agreed and walked out.

I’m sure he’ll price everything a lot higher to turn a buck but I don’t care.  He has to wait for a buyer for those comics while I have his money in my pocket now.  Plus they where just sitting in my basement in a Rubermaid container doing nothing.  I realized that I was never going to look at them again.  So I might as well sell them and buy something that I’d like to have rather then forgotten comics in the basement.

This kind of thing is actually a big deal for me.  I’m a bit of a pack rat and put emotional attachment to a lot of things I own for no real reason.  It just makes me happy owning it (or saving something) and having it in my basement tucked away.  But I’m trying to put an end to that and only keep things that I really want and not things that I think will make me happy or things to fill a void or a loss.

It’s hard but I’m very proud of myself today.

Next I’ll dump my Magic the Gathering cards ^_^

Well first is was the DS and it’s semi erotic (although cute character design) witch touching game Doki Doki Shipan (and it’s sequel) but now it looks like the Wii is getting a little action.

hot scrubbing action here

and here

The game is called “Osouji Sentai Clean Kuri—n Ki-pa- ” or “Cleaning Squadron Clean Keeper” and just from fist looks at it, in has the player washing and scrubbing stars off of the girls in the game via the waggle stick, aka: Wii-mote.  Why?  Who knows.  The art looks a bit meh.  I’ve seen better, but at the same time I’ve seen much worse.  Other then that not much is known about the game that I could find.

What’s really funny is that these kinds of games are coming out on Nintendo systems!  SHOCKING!  I actually applaud these decisions.  Sex isn’t bad or evil, it’s healthy.  More healthy then gunning down your friend in any one of countless FPS’s out there.  Of course there are sexy materials that the young ones shouldn’t get a hold of.  I’ll stand behind that, but sex it’s self isn’t wrong in my books as long as it’s presented tastefully.

So I say YAY to Nintendo for allowing games of this kind in to your library.  It’s this kind of game news that keeps me smiling. ^_^

artist edit – Here’s some more Doki Doki 2 screens as well ^_^ 

Okay, I’m back now.

Did I miss anything?

^_^

So I’m going to jump on my soap box here and rant about the amount of stuff people give my kids.

STOP GIVING MY KIDS STUFF!!!

If you have kids you’ll probably know what I’m talking about.  You go and visit your friends and family during a holiday and usually everyone has a gift of some sort for your kid(s).  This is not necessary. Stop it.  I’m serious.

I came home on Sunday with a van full of toys and chocolate for my kids.  My kids ages are 1 and 4.  They don’t need a gift every time they see a relative, and yet every time we go down we come home with more crap.  My 1 year old (or 4 year old for that matter) doesn’t need a whole chocolate bunny, cream eggs, and a huge chocolate pig on top of the toys they usually get.  It makes me so mad that I’ve begun to hate the holidays.  My wife feels the same way and we’ve even been asking family to stop buying stuff for our kids.  Has it worked?

No dice.

So we’ve started to donate the toys they get.  We’ll usually keep one and then donate the rest (they can never remember all of them anyway).  It’s the only way we can keep on top of it all.  As for the candy, I take a huge selection of it to work and share with my co-workers.

So here’s a tip for everyone out there.  If you’re going to buy a gift for a child that isn’t yours.  Use your brain and call the parents and see if the child NEEDS anything or if you have an idea for a gift run it by them first.  That way you’ll be sure that your gift will be appreciated when received.

Other then that my weekend was okay.  I didn’t die but I did get very sore from playing too much Wii boxing one night.  I ate tons of greek food and took photo’s for my step mothers CD covers.

How was your weekend?