Happy Birthday Me!

Well, I've made it this far. Twenty-eight years and all I've got to show for it is this silly little blog. March 31, 1981 12:07 AM: my exact moment of birth. The witching hour, what an eerie moment to pick to be born. You'd think I'd be more discreet than that. It's no wonder I have this latent dark side brooding within me. Being born at such a late hour is to blame, right?

In case you can't tell, these pictures are from my birthday party. My mom's parents and my cousins all came to celebrate the inauguration of my twenty-eighth year. We had boat-loads of kid-friendly fun which mainly consisted of running in circles and waving our hands in the ear like crazed little Macauley Culkens (guess the movie), watching Spongebob and eating far too much cheescake and soy ice cream (c'est tellement delicieux). Of course, it was so good to see my grandparents (By some miracle of nature at twenty-eight, i still have both sets of them. Go figure). Of course, they put both trick candles and sparklers on my cheesecake. I was so confused and intimidated by all that tricky illumination. I didn't know whether to douse the cake in my half-full glass of water or run away screaming. Those candles were determined not to go out without a fight. In the end, the cadre of cousins, nephews and my niece took care of it with blowing galore (and even some spitting). Those candles didn't know what hit 'em.


I just heard coyotes howling in my backyard. Maybe they were trying to mimic the police sirens that were echoing through the night air, or maybe they just thought they were other coyote howls. They sound just like you think they would. I imagined the typical image of the coyote howling on the cliff silloutted by the larger-than-life moon. It's pretty cool that my parents live in a place that has coyotes. It just makes it that much more exotic.

Rummaging Through My Forgotten Past

You'll never believe what I've found stored for the past geological age in the drawers of my desk, lurking in the deep shadows of my past (hmmm, that sounds much darker than I really meant it to). On it's own, these pictures are in no way threatening, sinister or deceptive (unless you interpret them likewise. This would place the fault squarely on your shoulders reflecting in no way upon my most innocent of intentions.) They do make for great fodder for those of you out there considering kidnapping/ransom or blackmail in the near future (although the fact that these pictures are already available to anyone with an internet connection does somewhat foil these plans--somewhat). Don't let it deter you though, keep that chin up champ.

This is Mittens. Mittens was one of my best friends back in 1989 (from whence this picture came). We had all kinds of fun together, too. (I get the feeling that he was generally ignored at the home of my neighbors. Now that I think about it, their dog was kind of the devil, too; I don't think they were very good with pets.) I was 8 years old at the time, plaid was OBVIOUSLY all the rage, as were my Nike kicks, and green was (and remains to this day) my favorite color. When my neighbors moved away, I heard that Mittens ran away from their new house. I never heard what happened in the end, but I always secretly wished that he missed me and was trying to find his way back here. I never saw Mittens again. That made me sad.

This is Friskers. We got him from our music teacher when I was in elementary school. If I remember correctly, he adopted us shortly after the Mittens years. Friskers LOVED it when my mom would get home from the grocery store. The pile of empty grocery bags was like a cavernous kitty maze; pure fun. It was like the cat version of a great party, only there were no other people, just lots of plastic bags. Ok so maybe that was a bad comparison. Friskers met his end one day rather suddenly, but I'd rather not dwell on that. He was a loving and eccentric cat (aren't they all?), and he certainly loved lying in closed-in spaces.


This is Jay the Stray. He just graduated from the school of cuteness (with honors). I think I was in 5th grade when I found him. Biking home from my friend Nick's house on the other side of the neighborhood, I noticed him just wandering around in the grass. As was my nature, we hung out for a bit. It must've been because I didn't shoot him with pellets that he decided to follow me home (he had 20-something pellets lodged in his skin. Let's not discuss what I'd do to the individuals responsible for such neglect). I can still remember riding down the hill to my house and glancing at him behind me just trotting along happily. Once we got home, we sat in the backyard, and I convinced my neighbor to feed him some of her dog food. Jay's currently in the running for sweetest dog ever. To this day, maybe a decade later, I still occasionally dream about him. If I ever get another dog, he'll/she'll have to be like Jay. It would only be fair.


This is the last page of a comic that I made back in 1993. Back then I was really into all things superhero, oh and ninjas, too. Anything that I could even remotely relate to Japan was just so exotic (and therefore the coolest by proxy). Being the budding 12 year-old comic book artist that I was, I fashioned characters out of regular household items--gone horribly awry! The Nail, Machine Master: these are all characters that any 12 year old boy could easily invent by rummaging through the house on a typical summer day. If you'd like to see more of the exciting adventures of Phantom X, it's too bad for you; they're limited editions, and only I have access to them. So sorry. If you play your cards right, one day I'll clue you into the story line.