Oh Man, what a weekend! I headed up to see a buddy, well more of a brother, a couple hours away and crashed as his place for the weekend. You know you have a brother, or friend for life, when you can pick up where you left off, no matter how long, or what situation.

We vegged out all weekend, playing some poker, some good ol fashioned board games, and some DnD baby! All while drinking, and gut busting laughter. My bro had a guest room all set up for me, and my own bathroom. I felt like I was in a hotel. Also had the pleasure of meeting his new pups, two mini dachshund's Thor, and Loki, as well as my favorite Corgi - Odin. Love him to death. He took me to a hole in the wall place called Mutts which he claimed had the best burgers, and no lie, they were damn good, I ordered a side of fried pickles along with my burger, and they were the BEST fried pickles i've had.

Our weekend flew by way to fast. By the time I realized, it was time for me to hit the road back home. BUT, we have planned to do this way more often, I mean after all, DnD cannot be finished in a couple days. I had a blast, and I can't wait to do it again!

Had another tattoo session today, which started my journey of a full sleeve tattoo on my right arm. I'm going Norse/Viking, which will eventually focus around Fenrir, today was a simple norse pattern on my hand. I'm fucking stoked to see it's final form.

So as with the new tattoos, I'm having to take a short break on my Doodles, which I have been drawing up. Hoping to get a few added in a couple weeks. 'Cause next Friday, I'm taking a 3 Day vacation, and visiting a life long friend of mine who's about 2 hours away. I've Known this guy since 6th grade, and we've been causing havoc ever since. So this getaway is some good ol' fashion catching up, drinking, gambling, gaming, and laughing till we fart.

I usually don't get sentimental, I try to avoid it in fear of slipping into depression, but I've been drinking, and shit happens. So I decided I'd take a trip down memory lane in my head. I tend to live in the past rather than the present. Why? cause it was fucking better. But it was also a fucking mess. I grew up when things were fun, chaotic, and sad all rolled into one big middle fingered fuck you.

I grew up with the best music, and the the worst parents..the best drugs, the worst bullies. I suffered through the jocks in school, I went through the fights, the bad grades, the shitty teachers. All to come home to fighting, or drunk parents. High school was the worst, and best time of my life.

But through everything, music was always there. I went through a lot of music genres, Middle School was Booty Rap, 69 Boyz, Uncle AL, etc, Hitting High School, my musical preference changed to punk, NOFX, Pennywise, Blink 182, the list goes on. As continued High School, I went from punk to metal, but it was a weird time for metal, and I started out with Cannibal Corpse.

While that type of metal wasn't for everyone, and it sure as hell was different than listening to say NOFX. It resonated with my angst, my hatred for school, for the bullies, it just fit. I quickly moved away from Cannibal Corpse, and discovered Nu Metal, Limp Bizkit just hit the scene, it was a fucking game changer. Hearing the sound, those screams, the all out emotion in the lyrics, it raised the hair on my arms, and I knew from that moment, that's who I was. Metal has changed so much over the years for me. Metallica? no thanks, I'm not on that shitty bandwagon. Limp Bizkit paved the way for me.

As years went by, and Limp Bizkit became less relevant, Nu Bands came up(see what I did there?). A whole world opened up for me, A Day to Remember, Haste the Day. They all had this amazing sound, amazing lyrics, raw emotion. And it's just what I needed. I needed those lyrics to relate to. I needed that emotion to scream back at the world and say fuck you.

By this time, I had gotten sucked into WoW(World Of Warcraft). After a few years of playing WoW, I met a girl from California, a metalhead. She was the one who introduced me to As I Lay Dying, The hairs on my neck and arms raised as I listened to 'Reflection'. I immediately fell in love with the band, and her. All while I had a girlfriend already. I was lovestruck and I couldn't break it. It ruined my relationship with my girlfriend, my love for music, wow, and this other chick.

I broke it off with the chick from California, tried to fight for my relationship, only to find out she had met a guy on WoW. Karma's a bitch. But I wasn't ready to give up that easily. It took a few years, But I got her back, and made her my wife. We created a family. The girl from California, befriended my wife, and I've stayed friends with her as well.

What does any of this have to do with music? Well..everything. Music has always been there. I remember creating a flash video of photos of me and my girlfriend with background music from Yellowcard playing the song 'Only One' and sending it to her. It hit hard, and had a huge emotional impact for me. Till this day, listening to that song, brings tears, and memories of my fight for our relationship.

Today things are calm, chaotic, stable and unstable all at the same time, and I fucking love it. Why? Because music is the catalyst. It's fucked me over, It's saved me, It's sent me into depression and it dragged me back out.

After all that, I still listen to my old music, rarely find any new bands, because I'm happy with what I have now, that's not to say, I don't go looking. But I've found older music has that raw emotion, that I still crave. As I lay Dying still raises the hairs on my neck, Breakdown of Sanity still has me screaming thier lyrics in my car, and NOFX still brings out my teenage angst and my middle finger.

So to those of you who can relate, thanks for taking a trip down memory lane with me.

Added or rather re-added the Ai Art, these are all new gens, all the previous junk is gone. I went ahead and added a blur to every image, hovering over them will remove the blur. They are NOT NSFW, but I added the blur anyway just incase. I have a lot more gens to add, but that'll be another day.

Revemaped the layout, got rid of the pesky iframe.

Had a quick Doodle session today, I will say, pictures of these don't do it any justice, they look so much better in my sketchbook.

Finally! New Zen Doodle finished, my hand, wrist and neck hurt.

Got my new board today, I'm going cruising tomorrow. \m/

Still haven't finished my full page Doodles, taking a lot longer than I thought it would. But inbetween my Doodle breaks, I made some more buttons, cause I felt like GIF'ing it up.

Working on two, yes TWO, full page Zen Doodles, hope to have one finished by the end of the weekend. I might..might start working on a collection. After posting some of the old NFOs, it got my thinking that I may have some other old internet crap stored away on some old drive.

Renamed the Zen menu item to Zen Doodles, added first Zen Doodle, more to come.

Well damn, has it only been 4 months? 5..? Well however long it's been I'm here again, new mindset, new design. Let's see where this road takes us ;)