I wonder if anyone noticed I was gone...

Let's face it, we can't exactly ban guns now. I mean, have you seen some of the new designs? Too cool. Stamped metal and composites never looked so sexy.

Sadly, our society is still haunted by the spectre of the crossbow- and now is a better time than ever to ban it! I mean, how can we trust each other with such potentially deadly implements? Someone could get hurt! Won't someone think of the children?!

Write your congressman today. Preferably by e-mail. They need to practice their emoticons, particularly that kooky laughing one.

Howdy, folks. You may have noticed that I've been a bit inattentive to this DA account lately, and I wanted to assure you that this isn't because of you or me or any lack of material. Quite simply, I haven't been here much lately because of spyware.

I don't know if any other non-subscribers have had this problem here, but I've had some pretty insidious malware programs and Trojans to scrub out of my computer, all of which originate from the ads on this site. It's rather frustrating that a site I generally trust and have used for years is accepting advertising revenue from companies involved in this. The latest program came from a popup ad that didn't even give me the option to say 'no', and before I had a chance to even unplug the computer this creep had wiggled into my registry, sending out info to really shady advertising sites and constantly giving me popups. McAfee and SpybotSD were equally incapable of solving the problem for good, in spite of constant scans.

It didn't take me long to get rather annoyed at this, and if anyone else has had this problem they may wish to know that I was able to solve it by downloading a program called "Malwarebytes Anti-Malware", which did a remarkable job of quarantining and smashing this rather prolific little bug.

Regardless, it's a huge blow to my trust in DA. I simply don't want to come here as often for fear of being infected. While I'm here now I'm going to try and catch up on some correspondence, but I have to be wary.

Some of you may have noticed that my latest comic venture has been updating fairly frequently as of late, but at the expense of any pinup or concept artwork. Truth be told, I'd like to say that I've been devoting all my energy to the comic and that this is the reason I haven't done more art jams or paid attention to my other ideas, but it's not. The simple truth is that everything, I mean EVERYTHING I've drawn in my sketchbook on the side for the last month or so has been unacceptable crap, either abandoned halfway or totally erased.

I guess part of the problem is that a lot of the time I'm only giving a half-hearted effort on my own characters and projects, or that I'm embarking on these side projects without a clear image of what it is I want to do. It's times like these where I want to reach out and ask: Does anyone want to trade?

If anyone wants to do a character pinup exchange I'm willing to give it a go, or perhaps there's a character of mine that you want to see more of. However, as a furry fan and as a person deeply obsessed with my own character creations I can pretty well guess which you folks will choose, but let me know. I'll weigh my options and make a choice.

How will I make a choice? I'll level with ya- it's about artistic skill, innovation, and passion and if I share at least some of that about your character, you've got a good shot. I'd love to be the kind of person who would cordially accept a stick figure that took a lot of painstaking effort to make, but realistically every time I accept a trade from someone with lots of passion but a woeful lack of expertise I feel a bit shorted. It's shallow, it's damnable... but it's me.

In the end, though, it may simply come down to responses. If only one person responds to this with an agreement to trade, well, I'll still give it a go.

I can't really dice words here... I just got laid off. The silver lining to this is that I've gotten invaluable work experience in my professional field, but I really liked the job and I confess I'm totally blindsided. I'm not sure what'll happen next, but I've done what any person should do in a post-unemployment haze- apply for more work.

I've never been fired before, but at the same time I've never quit a job- it just seems that I'm a regular victim of economic circumstances.

How does this relate to you? Well, in the interim, it might finally be a good idea to set up a commission system and finally start mercenary illustration. I'll let you all know when I'm taking commissions once I talk to a few people about how to do it right.