Yeah, so Return of the King won it all. Hooray. There’s no doubt that it deserved to win, but it’s nice to see a film that’s higher in concept than most typical Hollywood award-wining fair to take the top honors.

Early today I went to see my doctor about the pain in my wrist, Honestly, I really should have seen a doctor much earlier, but I was hoping that it would go away if I just took it easy for awhile. But it didn’t go away, it just kept getting worse. So I told him about it and showed him where the pain was. He took a look at my other wrist and noticed how different the two look. One bone sticks out a lot more on the right wrist. I never gave it much thought because it’s been like that for as long as I can remember, or at least I think it has, but apparently it’s not supposed to be like that! So, according to him, repetitive stress is most likely part of the equation here, but this pain could actually be the result of a previous injury that I don’t even know about. Something could be cracked in there!

So I went and got some x-rays done. I was told to hold one of those thick x-ray-proof pads over my crotch with my other hand. Hmm, that’s reassuring. I go back to the doctor in a week. Not quite sure what to think about this now. One way of thinking is that it’d be nice if the x-rays didn’t uncover any serious problem, but then again, a serious problem in there might explain everything, and I don’t want to be left out in the dark about this. However, if repairing the problem leaves me without the ability to draw for a long time, I won’t like that. I have bad thoughts about surgery and casts and the like. We’ll see how it turns out.

I think the toughest part about all of this is that the mind is getting sharper. I’ve got ideas, I’ve got goals and I know that I can do great things. There’s things that I want to try and do with my artwork, characters that I’d like to draw, techniques I want to experiment with, and so on. It’s just that it’s all out of my hands right now. Ok, well, it is in my hands, technically, err, one of my hands… arg, you know what I mean!

I’m having some fairly in-depth internal monologues about this whole thing. If I can’t draw anymore, then what else can I do with my life? And I’m seriously considering other possibilities if it comes down to it. Nothing specific, but just coming to grips with the very notion of doing something else. I hope I never have to make that choice, but if worse comes to worse and I do, then I think I’m mentally prepared to do so.

Sayonara.

Last week I went to 2 Toronto Raptors basketball games. I’ve been going to games for several years, ever since the Raptors’ first year, but it’s pretty rare for me to take in two games within a single week. Now, I’m not a sports fan by any means. I don’t watch hockey and, quite frankly, I’m sick and tired of having my national identity associated by the game. But I like to watch basketball. It’s very exciting and easy to get into.

But here’s the thing. Both of these games were losses for the home team. One of them, against the Spurs, was a heartbreaker after a close game that saw several injuries, and the other game I saw, against the Nets, was a complete blow out. Not really my idea of a good time. And now the team is on a losing streak. Great.

That got me thinking. NBA basketball is pretty much the only sport I’ll watch besides professional wrestling. Yeah, wrestling. Counters and reversals and high risk maneuvers, pier 6 brawls and technical grappling contests. I’ve been a fan for years and years. There’s nothing I like better than to watch a finely crafted wrestling match with a lot of buildup. I have a deep respect for those who follow their dreams and step between those ropes to put their bodies on the line for the enjoyment of the audience.

Some may scoff at this and say that wrestling, since it’s predetermined (or as some kill-joys like to say, “fake”), it is a less valid form of entertainment. Of course, these people are missing the point. I say that a good wrestling match, regardless of the outcome, is much more exciting than watching your home team loose in any “real” sport. Because it’s predetermined, in simple terms, the people involved can create a much more interesting final product to watch from an entertainment value perspective.

And yes, wrestling is a sport. To borrow a phrase from the great Mick Foley, if golf is a sport, then so is wrestling.

Now can you dig that, sucka?

Sayonara.

Sayonara.

Yes, I realize the irony of that title…

The overwhelming majority of hits that this website receives are coming from Google image search. That means that people are typing in their search terms, such as “Anime Samurai“, getting my site as one of the results, viewing the picture, and, more often then not, taking it for their own use, without actually reading the webpage or viewing the image in the proper context that I intended. And the result of this usually amounts to someone using the images on this website on their own websites, or in their web logs, or on message boards.

That sucks.

I’m not paying for all of this web space just so other people can exploit my property. I put time and hard work into adding all of the content found on this site, be it an original piece of artwork, screen capture from a DVD, or anything else you find here. All I want out of it all is for people to actually see what I have done, read what I have to say, know that I am the one who is presenting it, and tell me what they think. To bypass all of this and just take what they want for whatever reason is disgusting and immoral. It just lacks the very basics of human decency and conscience. These people are stealing my property and my bandwidth, and last time I checked, stealing is wrong.

If you want to look at any of the pictures on this website, you must look at them through this website. I don’t think that’s too much to ask, do you?

Though my web host has not been very helpful, I have spent the last week taking certain measures to protect my property, and I will be continuing to look into doing more.

Be fairly warned: If I catch anyone using my images on their website, message board, weblog, or whatever, I will not politely ask you to take them down. No, I will simply skip right ahead to the part where I horribly embarrass you and make your lives miserable. And don’t think for an instant that I won’t. I will.

Anyone got a problem with that? Just try and stop me.

Sayonara.

This website was down for a while yesterday. I’m not sure why, but things have seemed to be running a bit slow recently. It must be something on the servers’ end. Have patience, young Jedi.

Now, I’m not one to complain about the weather. I generally have a very high tolerance for both extreme heat and extreme cold. That all said, damn is it ever wintery out there! It has been just miserable, the worst I can remember a winter being in several years around here.

But that would not deter me, oh no. For today is a momentous day, and I was not about to let some snow and ice stand in my way, because today is the release date of Godzilla vs Megaguirus and Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters all out Attack on DVD. As a monster fan, I’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time, and now these films are in my possession at last. Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla is slated for a March release, and I’ll be picking that one up too. Perhaps someday I’ll do a review on these movies, like I did in my Godzilla 2000 article.

I’ve also recently gotten my hands on the Ultraman Tiga starter set, containing the first of four volumes of the show and a spiffy T-shirt in a collectors’ box. I’ve really been enjoying that, and it’s great to see a high quality release of this classic Japanese series for the North American market. It’s pretty expensive, but there’s 13 episodes in each volume, so there’s a lot of bang for your buck. Plus, it’s subtitled, which is what the fans wanted.

On a similar subject, I had been keeping my eye on Kaiju Big Battel for a few years now. It’s live action monster wrestling. What’s not to like about that? Well they finally have a DVD available, called Teribi Sento, and I used some Christmas money to buy it. It’s full of weird characters and lots of bizarre Japanese style humor that only a few people will find funny. I, of course, am one of those people. It’s an acquired taste, and there is some room for improvement on the production end, but it’s quite entertaining to see a giant sandwich fighting against a kung fu fighting can of soup. I also got a T-Shirt, some actual debris from one of their fights, and a whole bunch of stickers, pins, magnets, and other promotional items, which is very cool. Dr. Cube rules!

At the request of their tech support, my digital drawing tablet was shipped over to Wacom last week and has just arrived there. Hopefully they’ll be able to fix whatever it is that’s wrong with it without costing any money. I’m getting very anxious to start using it again.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some monster smackdown to watch.

Sayonara.