Animated bartender Moe Szyslak once remarked, "It's like my dad always said: Eventually, everybody gets shot." Similarly, it seems that eventually, everyone on deviantART gets tagged. Which makes sense, since you're supposed to tag eight other people after you get tagged. So if everyone actually does it, then after just seven iterations, you have 2,097,152 people getting tagged, plus all the people that got tagged on previous iterations, which probably adds up to every member of deviantART and then some.

So I got tagged by both *Eggplantm and ~spitzen. But even though I got tagged twice, I'm only doing this once, so I hope you guys don't mind.

When I tag you, here's whatcha do! (Copy the following text into your journal)

Post these rules
1. Each person tagged must post 8 random (hopefully interesting) facts about themselves
2. Tags should write a journal of these facts
3. At the end of the post 8 more bloggers are tagged and named
4. Go to their page and leave a comment telling them that they're tagged

(Okay, you can stop copying text now.)

And now, our feature presentation!

Eight random facts about myself:

1. I have a stomach of iron. I haven't thrown up since I was twelve. If you don't want to scroll down my user page and check how old I am, that means it's been 19 years since last I hurled. It was a bad school lunch Jamaican beef patty. I used to like Jamaican beef patties before that; I haven't eaten one since.

2. I was in the National Spelling Bee in 1990. Yeah, the one they show on ESPN nowadays. But I don't think it was televised back then. No, I didn't win. I was knocked out on the word "redivivus". It's one of those Latin adjectives that goes after the noun, like "emeritus". It means "returned to life", as in "the phoenix redivivus". And after all the ceremonies and stuff were over, we had to rush from Washington, DC back to New York the very next morning so I could make my Confirmation.

3. I've dabbled in video game design and programming throughout most of my life. I started several projects, but never finished any of them because they're just too much work for one person, and I can't afford to pay anyone to help me. You see that screenshot in my Webcam section? It's from Night Stalkers, one of my game projects. It's a lot like Final Fight, only the characters are anthro and all the fighting is done with weapons. If you really want to see it, you can download a work-in-progress version here: [link] But I can't guarantee that it'll run on newer versions of Windows. Also, don't use the Quick Save feature on the level editor. It's got a pretty serious bug that will overwrite the wrong file.

4. I like Hungry-Man chicken pot pies so much that when my local supermarket stopped carrying them, I started going to another supermarket that's well out of my way just to get them. Keep in mind that I don't have a car, so I have to walk, and I estimate it's well over a mile to this store. But no other CPP is acceptable to me anymore.

5. A couple of months ago, I actually learned the katakana just so I could try to read a Tekken 6 move sheet from Japan. They're not that hard to learn--it's the other types of Japanese characters that will kill you. The katakana are mostly used by the Japanese for transcribing words from other languages, usually English. Once you know them, it's sort of like reading English in code. It's weird. So, watch out, people who like writing katakana on their art for no apparent reason! I'll know if you're faking it! (Actually, I already have found a guy who was faking it, but I'm not going to embarrass him by calling him out.)

6. I can play the guitar, but not all that well. I can throw it into dropped-D tuning and bang out a few Helmet and Biohazard songs. That's what I do best. And I can play a few solos from Nirvana songs. They were my favorite band by far in high school. I don't play nearly as much now as I used to. My friend Matt and I formed a band in high school with a few other people we knew. Two other classmates of ours had formed an imaginary band which they called Torpid Liver. They had gotten the name from a Wendy's near our school. This particular Wendy's had its tables surfaced with formica on which was printed a pattern which featured old-time newspapers, and one of the papers had an ad for a remedy for torpid liver. Matt declared that all bands in our school would get their names from the tables at this Wendy's. So the next time we were there, we examined the tables and chose our band's name from an old ad for a children's clothing store called Lilliputian Bazaar. (This store actually still exists, but it's now called Best & Co.) Next we got the green light to play at our school's Winter Carnival. We were all set to go, but it snowed on the night of the carnival and it was cancelled. SNOW? ON THE NIGHT OF THE WINTER CARNIVAL? UNTHINKABLE!!! It didn't even snow that hard. We were told that we would get to play at some other school function, but it never happened. So in the end, Lilliputian Bazaar didn't play any more shows than Torpid Liver did.

7. I do impressions. Lots of 'em. Some are better than others, but I can do Comic Book Guy, Reverend Lovejoy, the aforementioned Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Monty Burns, Professor Frink, Dr. Hibbert, Lionel Hutz, Gil Gunderson, Duke Nukem, Beavis, Butt-head, Hank Hill, Barney the dinosaur (eek!), Vin Scully, Johnny Carson, and many more. Also, people keep telling me that I have a great voice for radio and that I should make a demo tape and send it around. But I keep thinking I'm just going to embarrass myself.

8. I look like a cross between Megadeth's Dave Mustaine and "Weird Al" Yankovic. Old-school Al, when he still wore the glasses. Actually, neither of those guys has any facial hair, so add a goatee onto your mental picture of me. Now, if only we could get Dave and Al to collaborate on a song somehow...

Here's who I'm tagging...



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For information on what the LQC project is, click here.

If you're curious as to whether I do commissions, I do not. Well, unless you're willing to pay me a ridiculous sum of money. I'm guessing you're not. The reasons I shy away from doing commissions are that I don't draw quickly enough to make it worth my while (it takes me, like, two weeks to draw a stick figure) and that I'd much rather receive a piece of art in return for art I do for someone else. This means that I am open to art trades. So if you want to do a trade, send me a note with your proposal and we will discuss. As for requests, I only take them if I love your idea so much that I absolutely have to draw it. The exception is the prize for my 3000th pageview. See above. Suggestions on how I can improve my art or my characters are always welcome.

LQC characters:

While you're here, take a look at my scraps! There's some pretty cool stuff in there--almost good enough to post as deviations, but I prefer not to post uncolored drawings in my gallery.

Other artists' drawings of my characters:

*Eggplantm drew me a great picture of Turja with his character Taurus (left) as a prize for winning a guessing game. I liked it so much that I commissioned him to draw Austra (center) and Sadie (right):

Also check out these two from ~Itchyscratchy:

On the left is a sweet-looking Sadie, and on the right is Lacerta with his character Beak Freak Geek. I've been meaning to draw one (or more) of his characters, but I just haven't found the time.

Finally, I commissioned *King-Cheetah to draw Sadie as well, and it's posted on Fur Affinity: [link]

What's really exciting is that he's thinking about re-doing it, so it might end up looking even better!

I am now looking to commission someone who's reasonably priced to draw Ambiri. Preferably someone who charges less than $50 (or takes art trades) and has experience with reptiles. Any suggestions? Leave a note or comment!