As I mentioned in an earlier rant- George Carlin said that the two American pastimes include eating and shopping. I believe I did enough to cover eating, so it's time to cover shopping. Oh man, how we here in America love to shop. If you wanna know why the economy's so bad, it's not the President and the war in Iraq, it's us maxing out our ten credit cards on crap we don't even really need in the first place. We all know that everyone's favorite place to do such is that shopping giant Walmart.

Why do Americans (and everyone else around the world for that matter) love old Wally World so much? Well, I guess you could say that it's cheaper than the competition which saves you a crap load of money. Just look at the lady in the commercial with the mini-van who said shopping at Walmart helped her save enough money to quit her job and take care of her kids. That's the American dream right? Thank you Walmart! I guess it's also convenient too. I mean they have EVERYTHING you'll ever need right and always have sweet and caring people there to assist you in finding that EVERYTHING you'll ever need.

So lets begin to pick these reasons apart and see if old Wally Farts is the wonderful store that we think it is. I mentioned above how much money you can save at Walmart right? Lets compare prices- a brand new video game at Best Buy or Gamestop is like $49.99 ($44.99 if you get used, it's still good), but at Walmart, it's a whopping $49.82, I just saved a whopping 17 cents. So how many video games and other things did that lady in the commercial buy to save enough money for her to quit a second job? Her husband must be a freaking millionaire. Lady probably didn't need a second job to begin with then. Now lets take a look at convenience. I walk in there seeing hundreds in people standing in the check out line, with only two out a total of twenty registers actually open. I guess that cuts convenience out of the equation. Guess Walmart isn't as nice as we once thought.

Unless you're as rich as Bill Gates, you may realize the obvious fact that we're having some tough times in this wonderful country of ours. Heck, just watch those damned commercials for freecreditreport.com (I always find myself singing those gay ass jingles, thanks for nothing!) and you'll know this country's screwed (especially with commercials like that being allowed on tv). Prices of everything are going up, but it started with that precious commodity oil first. I remember being a kid and thinking $.87 was a lot for a gallon, then I got a car. It was $2 or so by then, then $3, then even $4 a gallon. I was glad I had a crappy car that I bought off a college buddy that didn't use up much gas (even if nothing else on the car worked properly). Thankfully, we may have seen an end to that for now and gas is almost down to $2 a gallon here. It's funny how people see that and think it's the greatest thing in the world and rush to the pumps like there's no tomorrow. What's even more funny is the fact that no matter the price, someone will still buy gas like it's only a dollar a gallon again. "Let me get $5 on that red car out there" (pointing at one car out of like 10 half of which are red, and gas is $4 a gallon. I'm surprised that person could even make it back home. What's even more sad is the guy who gets a 24 case of Bud Light, a carton of Marlboros, $20 in scratch off tickets, and $10 in gas because "That's all he can afford in this tough economy and he doesn't know what he's gonna do". I'll tell him what to do, stop spending your money on useless crap and put it where it really needs to be going. I don't see anything wrong with smoking or drinking or even playing the lotto if that's your thing, but please don't see there and complain about the price of beer and cigs and complain about never winning on a lotto ticket when gas is actually a necessity. If gas prices are going down, why does everything else in this country still suck. I just read recently where McDonalds is thinking about taking away the dollar menu, poor fatties like myself everywhere will no longer be able to survive and have to resort to cannibalism. Why haven't we learned our lesson and tried making alternate fuel sources or stopped depending on other nations for our fuel and other commodities? That's to come in another rant.

I read a few recent news stories that make me realize just how messed not only the American justice system is, but how messed up it is all over the place. Here in South Carolina, a black dude beats a poor old white man to death with an axe handle and it's all caught on surveillance. This wasn't the first time the man had done something. Apparently, he had a wrap sheet a mile long and he just got out of prison in Virginia a week before this incident. Is it me, or should he have been put away long ago before this happened? Also, OJ is facing life in prison... for robbery. If you remember, this is the same man who escaped a murder charge and got off free. Now he's getting life for robbery? Sweet irony or just really messed up?

If you're like "that shows Americans are stupid" let me get into this next story. In Australia, a 7 year old kid jumps a fence at a famous zoo and bludgeons several lizards to death with a rock and feeds several more to a crocodile and even gets in the pit with the croc as he does it. This whole messed up incident with caught on tape and the kid showed no experssion on his face as he did it. He caused over $5,500 in damage to the zoo and the court lets him off free because "he was too young to know what he was doing". This is the same kind of behavior done by people like Ed Kemper and Jeffery Dahmer who went on to kill people. This kid will do the same thing and people will go like "gee, he seemed like such a nice kid, where could he have went wrong?" BAM! The evidence is right there when he was 7 years old and you did nothing about it.

Why can't be more like the Arabs and just cut off the hand of anyone who commits a first offense, you know it's highly unlikely a second offense will take place. But alas, we're too good here in this country to resort to "cruel and unusual punishment" and look where it gets us- nowhere but further down the spiral.

It seems that the abortion issue recently covered here on TCWE has started some people talking, and that's a good thing. I've recieved four emails on the subject already, and I hope more are to follow. It's always an awesome thing when people express their opinions, which is what TCWE is all about. Here, with only minor editing to make one or two of the emails more readable, is what you have to say about abortion and what impact it has on you, the loyal TCWE reader:

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Anonymous writes:
Hell yeah I agree with Bob on abortion. A woman has a choice about what happens with her body and if she doesn't want a kid then abortion is the way to go, especially with rape babies. People that don't agree are too stupid to understand that some things just have to happen to keep peace in a person's life. Women have the right to their bodies and to choose what they do with their bodies, and no one has the right to tell them what to do.

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Amanda writes:
I am a Christian and was at one time pro-choice, and had an abortion when I was 15. I now live every day with the guilt from doing such a horrible thing, and sometimes become suicidal because of it. To think that I didn't give my baby a chance to live and grow and become a member of society brings tears to my eyes every time I think about it. I now have two children that I love dearly and have realised what a blessing a child is to a mother. I wish everyday that I could take it all back and take the responsibility for my own actions instead of taking the easy way out.

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Ted writes:
That video is bullshit. They don't do abortions like that anymore. It is a sterile, painless procedure that doesn't hurt the mother or the fetus, which is not a human being in any sense, it's just a fetus. You need to get your facts straight before you do a rebuttal on something that is as simple as an abortion.

Dennis replies:
I have to disagree with dude man who said it's painless for the mother. Sure, it may not hurt physically, but the mental scars left behind after an abortion are something that can never be healed. Also, to anyone who says "well, it's alright in certain cases". Those reasons that deem it "acceptable" cover less than 5% of abortions in most statistics. That means over 95% of abortions are done for meaningless reasons. Dennis rants for the win.

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Jessica writes:
Abortion is sick. I would never abort a child even if I wasn't ready to have one. The baby goes through so much pain and suffering during an abortion and it looks to me like nobody cares. I am not a Christian but I believe in letting a baby live. If I have a baby I won't abort it, I'll give it up for adoption so that someone can give it the life I can't.

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Jamie writes:
First, to Amanda who says she had an abortion when she was 15 and regrets it nearly to the point of suicide sometimes... now you have two lovely children and you consider suicide? And do you think you'd be living the same life with your beautiful children if you'd had kept one at 15? Not bloody likely. If you think about suicide because you had an abortion at 15 I dont have a lot of faith you'd have managed life without it.

I want to confirm it is a relatively physically painless procedure and indeed sterile, but there is risk. As for pain to the "fetus" (its not a fetus until 8 weeks, its an embryo), in the very early stages, no nerve endings or brain stem has developed and therefore no pain is possible. But those things develop quickly, by 30 days brain, brain stem, and nerves are begining to show. I agree less and less with having an abortion the more developed it is.

In the end it is a "choice", and if you can't live with the choice of abortion well then you really REALLY shouldnt get yourself knocked up. I personally see death and destruction all around, both in nature and by our neglegent actions, so if my life is going to get fucked up by having a baby i'm not ready to take care of (and thus fuck its life up), I dont really have a problem with stopping the progression of rapidly growing cells (its not a baby yet!). But I dont believe in killing people or babies so i dont agree with having an abortion two months or more into the pregnancy (that IS a baby, with nerve endings a brain and a beating heart). I say if you're irrisposible enough to get pregnant AND then do nothing about it for two months or more they should abort YOU.

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There you have it, your own views on abortion. I'm looking forward to hearing more of your opinions, so send them in right here and you might find yourself on the site!

Not many who know me are familiar with my awesome graphic skills. Back when I was in high school--junior year to be exact, so about 7-8 years ago now--I took my first graphics-related class. We spent some time learning the bare-bone basics of PhotoShop; photo-manipulation, etc. While it wasn't a very intensive study, I learned some of the things that ended up making me into the creative genius that I am today. The next year--senior year to be exact--I took a full-year graphics course that went deeper into the intricacies and capabilities of PS, and I ended up learning about things I didn't even know were there. I took this knowledge, and over the next several years, I fine-tuned and tinkered with my craft until I reached a point at which people actually started asking me to make graphics for them. In total, I've used four different versions of PhotoShop: PS6, PS7, CS, and CS2. I would love to get my hands on CS3, but money is a factor, and I ain't got it.

I started with basic pieces. Things like posters with celebrities, musicians, or fictional characters placed over a custom background. I worked my way up to buddy icons, web graphics and banners, full-sized wallpapers, etc. To this day, I do not do a whole lot of 3D fabrication, because A) it takes a long time, and B) it's not really my style.

So because I'm a conceited prick, I decided to showcase some of my work over the recent years. I will give my best attempt at chronological order, but I can guarantee nothing. To avoid H-scroll rape for you silly nubs still using anything below 1024x768, I will thumbnail the larger images.



This is a "Friends Only" splash that I made for my LiveJournal a few years back. It's quite obviously inspired by Final Fantasy VII, and it was one of the very first pieces I ever did with custom brushes. A very basic piece, I still like it. I don't consider it one of my best works, but by no means am I embarrassed to show it to you here today.
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This is a simple little photomanip that I did while I was in tech school. It's nothing too earth-shattering, but for some reason I've always liked it. I totally could've defeated Sauron's armies without the help of a bunch of ghosts.
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This is a piece I did when I entered a "re-design the American flag" contest a couple years ago. Extremely basic piece, not much aside from photomanip going on here, but I still like it.
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This is a piece I created when I wanted a grungy MySpace background. It's fairly basic as well, with lots of brush work. I still think it looks decent, though I no longer use it. Click for full size, of course.
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This one is probably the first piece I ever did while using brushes. I don't consider it to be a great work, but it's something of a milestone in my portfolio, so I consider it important. "Triple B" is an old internet handle I got when I was a sophomore in high school.
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Heh. This is a shrunken version of an old banner I did for a previous incarnation of TCWE. You can't fuck with Mr. T, fool.
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And the full version. Pretty simple stuff, I guess. The one thing I still really like about these is the background. It looks like chiseled obsidian to me. Reminds me of the Tower of Orthanc a little bit.
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This one's a logo for one of the many incarnations of WrestleRot, a site dedicated to wrestling "news". I still really like this logo, though it is a bit rough around the edges (literally). I was incredibly proud of this one when I came up with it.
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A banner I did for another previous incarnation of WrestleRot. This one is one that hasn't exactly stood the test of time, though I don't consider it bad by any means. The background is cool, but I feel like this one's too busy with all the cutouts.
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This is something I did as kind of a job interview with an old colleague of mine who started his own graphic design business. He basically asked me to re-create one of his previous works, and this is what I came up with. I think it's a very good piece, design-wise.
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This is a background/wallpaper I created from scratch for use on my MySpace and/or my Windows desktop. I've loved this piece since I first created it. I think there are a lot of little intricacies in there that might be a little difficult to notice to an untrained eye. I consider this one of my favorite works.
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This was an early attempt at a professional-looking logo. I made this one to use as a custom spray in Day of Defeat: Source. "FiveAgainst1" is another handle of mine, and Each time I capped someone's ass with my Garand, I'd spray this sumbitch right next to their corpse. Psych tactics, lol.
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Similar deal with this one. I made it for use as a signature image on an internet forum. I still like this one a lot, though I don't use it anymore.
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This was my first (and last) attempt at tribal design fabrication. It's a simple little thing, but I still think it looks kinda cool.
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This is a very early attempt at a LiveJournal background from back when I first started using brushes. I don't really care for this one anymore, though it was the first time I attempted realistic blood in a piece.

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This is one of the pair of backgrounds I made for my LiveJournal layout a few years back. The subject in this one is just a custom swirly...thing...that I made from scratch. I still like these two.
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The second of the pair. This one features the Pearl Jam logo from the "Riot Act" days, way back in late 2002.
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This is just a little poster of sorts that I made for Pearl Jam's 2005 tour of Canada. It's not perfect, but there are some elements there that I still really like to this day.
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This is a MySpace background/Windows desktop wallpaper I whipped up back before I saw Pearl Jam in Boston on their 2006 World Tour. I'm stlll pretty proud of this one, as the "from scratch" portions of this piece are pretty damn good.
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This is a wallpaper/MySpace background I made not too long ago using some flame effects on a starry-sky-ish background. The entire thing is from scratch other than the lettering, of course. I still kinda like this one, though it doesn't get much use these days.
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This is a little banner I made for my good buddy and yours, Sir Wallie. "Gorex" is an old handle of his, and "Paying the Dues" is the name of the column he used to write. He was thinking of bringing it back for a bit, but he chickened out, because he didn't want ol' Triple B to embarrass his ass again like I did back in the old days. That said, I really like this piece. There are some awesome effects going on here, with a kickass background to boot.
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This is the banner for what was to be my new column, entitled "The Hardway". I never actually ended up writing it, because of writer's block. Can't force creativity, you know. Anyway, this is one of my all time favorite pieces, by far. I'd say this ranks in the top 3.
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This is a background I made just over a year ago for use on my MySpace. I just winged it with this one, and I ended up with something that reminds me of the old Monday Night Raw graphics, mixed with The Matrix I guess. You'll notice I used this one as the background on the "Paying the Dues" banner. Very sharp, if I do say so.
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This is my current MySpace background. I figured I'd make one that I can stick with for a while, instead of changing it every few weeks. I whipped this one up a couple months ago, and I figured it would be a good idea to come up with one that reflected me, my interests, and my personality. Nothing terribly complex here, just some basic photo manipulation, but I think it looks pretty good.
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And to see my most recent piece, you need only take a gander at the top of this very website. I made that one a couple nights ago, and I think it's positively fuckawesome. That's the idea behind every great artist, right? Keep improving with every work? I think it's a solid approach, anyway.

I hope you enjoyed beholding my greatness. That's about all I've got for now. Stay tuned, and feel free to get in touch with me via e-mail if you want to criticize/compliment/whatever.

For now, I only have one question:

Just how awesome am I?

The answer: