Here we are:

Now with more jolly fat blue birds flying around his arm!

No photos as yet; a lot of the new tattoo isn't linework (just gunmetal/bluish color directly injected) so it doesn't look like anything except ugly purple welts.

Originally, the plan was to have a bunch of leaves and blossoms from the tree flowing down and around the arm. However, I had been thinking that it wouldn't look as good as I thought it would, and i said that a couple birds might be nice.

He said, "okay," and started drawing on me with a ball point pen. After a while, he's done, and there are these happy looking birds. And he says, "I'm thinking blue, with red bellies."

Totally awesome. Given the way the tree already looks, he could have gone with something like crows or ravens - and then the tattoo would be about Autumn, or death, or something sinister. Instead, by using blue birds, it's a total 180, and is about springtime and potential.

And I really like that.

They're very vibrant and happy looking. I am very pleased.

I have appointment for tattoo part 2 in a couple hours. Again, oddly nervous. Not worried about pain or anything; just have a vague restlessness.

I have to head out for a wake/memorial service this afternoon. There is a request not to wear black clothing, but my wardrobe is either a) black or b) brightly colored blues, browns, and mustards.

The tattoo has healed completely. I'm still keeping it out of the sun somewhat, which is harder than one thinks given my penchant for sitting in the sun and delight at crisping to a tobacco brown.

Lots of people I know get big tattoos and then suffer in agony for two weeks worth of heavy itching and thick-ass scabs. However, I've come to the conclusion that I'm the fucking Wolverine, as I heal up in about 2 days, maybe 3, with little-to-no itching. I think it's a side effect of my hyper metabolism that lets me draw sustenance from such edibles as bricks and leather and prevents me from gaining fat even if my diet consists only of noodles, cheese, cake, and beer.

My dreams have been. . . disturbing. Aside from the "zombies murdered my parents and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" nightmare I had the other day, they've been invariably bad.

Last night, I dreamed that I was back in art school, which was taking place in this submerged hideout, and the teachers were all plotting to take over the world by infecting people with some sort of mutative virus from an alien planet. I was working against them in secret, with my brother, but they had infected him. At one point, I was punished by the leader for failing to perform my villainy to the best of my abilities (I was stonewalling), and they smeared me with this goop that caused my hair to fall out in patches, though some was left in places.

I complained about it - "At least let me shave my head; I have this meeting to go to" and he said, "Don't worry about your appearance; people don't care much about how burn victims look" and then he set me on fire.

Good times.

Something wonky happened with my IMAP server and I've not been able to figure out what. It crapped a load of donkey poop into all sorts of index files - at least me and my dad were affected - which totally made Thunderbird behave super wonky. Showing mail that wasn't there, hiding mail that was, etc. Further, this seems to have totally reset it's "junk memory" so I now have a shit-ton of spam showing in my inbox all the time and it's only got close to a 30% success rate (where before it was up to about 90% or so).

I'm completely idle with my clients. This usually doesn't bode well.

I've been learning all sorts of Johnny Cash tracks along with some other old-school folk stuff. Tuesday, Mike and I spent about half an hour writing an arrangement for Somewhere Over the Rainbow, which was a lot of fun. It's a sappy little song but I enjoy playing it. I like playing religious folk music, even though it's not my faith: there's just something about it that works for me.

Of course, I have the "Stormbringer" of guitars, so it tries to corrupt even the most harmless ditty into something metal. I'd read in a review about the Omen 6 that it was a "metal" guitar, and I didn't really understand what the guy was saying at the time, but now I do. It likes to add crunch to everything.

Work on Steam Front is slow. My issues are that I'm at a couple nexus points in the code base, and solving the problems posed there are non-trivial (or they are trivial to solve in the short term but will not be a viable solution in the long term). Since I'm a born procrastinator, I punt on those things and try to find other stuff to work on. . . and then hit another blocker. It doesn't help that this is, at best, a quarter time deal.

( Coding Nerdity )

My copy of The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass showed up yesterday afternoon and I was able to spend some time playing it last night.

( Game Nerdity )

Tattoo part one: two point five hours: the bulk of the cherry tree, the leaves around it, and most of the blossoms.






Part two will be a series of leaves and blossoms spiraling down and around my arm, plus anything else that needs to be done on the tree (adding some color, for instance, or a negative space moon behind it).

The cherry blossoms are actually multi-colored: white, pink, red, and a bit of yellow. Unfortunately, the seeping blood tends to turn everything red.

My big tattoo appointment is this afternoon. I am oddly nervous about it.

Well, I'm committed. I have an appointment at the tattoo parlor and I've given them a chunk of cash.

So, the guy who did my other tattoos moved to Vegas like, a million years ago. And I have an idea of what I want for a tattoo, and it's pretty much not changed for two years or so.

It's a big work. A cherry tree across most of my back, with wind swirling that causes the blossoms to fly off and then swirl down around my right arm.

So I need an artist.

If anyone has any recommendations, I'd love to hear them.