I was trying to kill time towards the end of work yesterday, so I drew the following with one of our Hampton Inn ballpoint pens while standing at the front desk:

For something drawn quickly, in freehand, and with one of work’s free pens, it turned out pretty damn well. I mean, I’m happy with it. It looks how I wanted it to at least.

When I started actually teaching myself how to draw in early 2008, I wasn’t very fond of using physical materials (paper, pen, pencil) so I stuck with Wacom Tablets as my main tool for the comics and for learning a lot of basic drawing habits. I figured that drawing is drawing, whether its on the PC or on some sketch paper. To state it bluntly: it’s not. And that’s why I started doing Gleeful Nihilism… as a way to start with small stickfigure art, done with pen and paper, and move towards new stuff with that physical medium. Sometimes the comic is funny, sometimes its just an experiment, and sometimes its both… hopefully it falls in the last one more than it does the middle, but I’ve definitely enjoyed it a lot.

And my enjoyment with the physical medium has left me feeling, well, lackluster for the digital. I like my tablets. They’re fun, they get the job done, and it’s easier to fix mistakes… but getting the same thing done on it just doesn’t happen. And that’s probably the biggest reason why boozeathon4billion has suffered from a lack of updates lately; it’s just a pain to draw. I’m trying some new stuff, and hopefully I’ll find something I like soon (because I’m gonna start updating again this week)… but I dunno. Maybe I’ll just start sketching everything out with pen and paper, and finishing it with the tablets.

This is longer than I intended it to be, but that’s what tends to happen when I sit in front of a keyboard. Thanks for reading the blog and my comics. You’re time is very appreciated and I hope you get some enjoyment out of them. I know I do.

With the constant updates, tweets, and blogs about being able to see the end of the semester, finals week woes, and graduation worries, I think it’s about summertime. I guess I could rely on the tempterature to tell me stuff like that… but with global warming or cooling or whatever the hell they’re trying to call that crock of bullshit, I think I’d rather rely on a system that doesn’t fail: academia.

At the point of writing this, I’m a week or so behind on one comic, a day behind on the other, and haven’t had time to blog in a while thanks to, well, being busy. The current outlook for my life also looks about as hectic as ever. I have a wedding to attend in Texas this weekend, so I’ll be gone for 3-5 days (I’m not really sure, I’m just doing what they tell me, when they tell me). That means I only get 3 workdays this week, which will fuck up my next paycheck pretty nicely… then I work a full week, and spend that next weekend driving up to Lincoln to interview for a few jobs, check in with the apartment situation, and do some callbacks and submission of even more applications. 

Once May is finally over, I’ve got the month of June to ready myself and my belongings for the trek up to Nebraska in July. I imagine that will involve another trip up there in June, a lot of packing, several trips back to Leavenworth, and regular workweeks at the hotel. Sometime in early/mid July I’ll be movin to Nebraska to settle in, start working (or find a job asap), and get the apartment organized before my brother joins me in August.

So… this post is mainly to inform you that I will hopefully catch up on both comics very soon, that I hope to stay caught up (or at least updating close to the normal schedule) during the move, and that most of you will probably see even less of me (online and off) than usual. But, at least I write/draw a lot of stuff that goes online to keep you busy once you start missing me. So thoughtful, I know. It’s just part of who I am.

I really wish I was an eternal being who didn’t need any sleep whatsoever. I mean, don’t get me wrong, sleep rocks. I love sleeping… I do however hate waking up. And I hate not getting stuff done when I sleep for 14+ hours at a time. But the sleeping part rules.

Maybe what I’m saying is that I need to find/make more time for what I want to be doing. I love drawing so I have some comics and use a sketchbook to try out new stuff. I enjoy writing so I post poetry here and there, write comics, and occasionally do a story I can stand enough to consider showing to people. I love videogames, so I play them as much as I can, read blogs about them, follow the industry, and get excited about new technologies involved with gaming. I like eating, and thus I am fatter than I used to be (partly because I also hate sweating and thus exercise and me don’t get along well). I like socializing, but lately it takes so much energy to be “social” I just end up hiding away and hope no one will bug me. And I enjoy music, but since my wrist surgery, playing the guitar feels weird and I haven’t touched a piano in years.

If there were a way to make money doing a combo of all that stuff, I’d be golden. I’m sure there are numerous people doing all that stuff and making cash, I just need to figure out how to do it so I’m not wasting all my freetime on “hobbies” instead of sidejobs. If my hobbies could even just support themselves I’d be happy. Seriously… if my comics could pay for their own hosting, bandwidth, supplies, etc, I’d be so freakin happy I’d poop everywhere.

Here I am with too many hobbies and too little time. My brother, on the other hand, seems to have no dedicated hobbies and far too much time. Too bad we can’t just hand of some time for some hobbies.

Coming from a conservative Baptist church in middle America, a lot of traditional views were slammed into my head from an early age. Those views eventually came into question, and thrown under a philosophical lens, once I was in college and began actually thinking for myself… and honestly, the logic behind them still escapes me to this day (even after minoring in Christian Thought and Traditions).

Part of that ”confusion” comes from my more liberal beliefs and my adoration for process theology/philosophy. To sum up a few quick views about Jesus, on the day of his supposed resurrection, I’ll just say: that Jesus didn’t have to be supernatural in order to bring a revolution to the Jewish faith and bring about the rise of Christianity; that a virgin birth makes no real difference in the stories about him; that his death and resurrection could merely be allegories/metaphors or even stories made to give his “life” more purpose; and that his entire existence could be completely fabricated and still teach the same things as when someone believed he was completely real.

Those are just my beliefs about Jesus himself, the rest of my religious doctrine can be pretty clearly summed up by reading up on your Process Theology/Philosophy sometime… but to say the least, my very basic views on Jesus, God, the Trinity, the Apostles, and church doctrine are probably not what you would find in most Christian churches across the country (add to that the fact that I’m now agnostic, and you have a very interesting conversation with people of faith).

Part my move into agnosticism was based on how one percieves ancient writings. History, to the Jewish culture and most cultures of that time, wasn’t as much of a science as it is today. It was meant to teach a story, some of which was true, and some of which was “bulked up” to really give it a punch. The apocalyptic texts/writings of the day (eg: Daniel, Isaiah, Revalations, and more) are perfect examples of this sort of history telling and prophecy rolled into one. The events may or may not have happened in some instances, and the prophecies could detail a good number of things to come time and time again (both at the time and later, depending on who you talk to), but it tells a story and gives that story a very strong meaning which is clear to the reader.

That understanding of history explains away a lot of the differences between gospels, because they were written to different audiences. It explains why the prophecies of the Old Testament applied both to their own time, and the time of Jesus. They explain why some of the history, when compared to surrounding areas histories of the time,  just don’t seem to click and why some does. And it describes a lot of things that just seem sorta out of place when compared to other writings in the same bible or from the same time.

And after that huge introduction we come to one of the most frustrating things I have ever heard a Christian say, and one of the main reasons why I can’t go to church without cringing upon stepping in the door… that “we know where the remains of every other great religious leader are buried, but show me Jesus’ and then I’ll question my faith.”

It seems like a pretty safe thing to say… after all, if he indeed was killed and rose 3 days later, his remains wouldn’t be on this Earth because he ascended to heaven. But it would also be impossible to find his remains if he wasn’t buried where he was said to have been, or if his followers moved his remains, or if grave robbers moved them, or if he never even freaking existed in the first place. Sure, we have other accounts of Jesus as a person having lived around the time we think he did. But that doesn’t prove that the Bible is right. It only proves that the bible has been dilligently translated and protected by its followers. If anything, the lack of remains is just one big piece of evidence against the faith, not for it.

But, what about miracles!? Divine intervention!? Magical bullshit, illusions, and trickery!? I say, “eh, what about them?” As a skeptic, it would take someone performing a miracle in front of me to really push me to believe it is something more than just a freak accident where the laws of nature are bent and that it’s actually a case of divine intervention.

What about the fact he called himself the son of God!? Wouldn’t that destroy his moral teachings if he was just a regular dude!? It might make me reconsider some of them, but honestly, after 2000 years, they need to be looked at and thought about under a critical lens anyway. Do we throw stones at adulterers? Do we take slaves in war? Do we make women shut up in church and stay at home instead of going to work? No… no, we do not.

What about the significance of his death, burial, and ressurection!? Those events have significance because you want them to. Just like most things in your life, significance is decided by you. If god really wanted to shake things up, I doubt he’d have to send his kid down to do the dirty work. He’s performed pretty big miracles in the past, I don’t see why he had to put his kid through hell just to rewrite how we interact with him. Makes no sense.

I could go on and on and on… but there really isn’t one defense of the faith that can’t be dealt with by prescribing a good does of reason. Of course, if you choose to believe, you’re obviously welcome to do so and I won’t think any less of you for it. I just don’t, anymore, haven’t really gone into depth with a lot of you on why I don’t anymore… and thought, “hell, I’ve been baptised on/around Easter twice. Why not write this now.”

And, I figure that, as a Baptist, the “once saved, always saved” doctrine will cover me just in case the Bible is actually right. Thank god for the conservatives attempts to secure their own faith. Loopholes, ftew.

I love three day weekends… especially after working for 11 days with only one day to rest. Sure, I spent 20 hours sleeping on that one day off, which rocked, but it essentially means that I didn’t get to do anything else. So comics, drawing, gaming, etc were all offset for almost 2 weeks. Which is lame as hell. And what’s lamer? I get to do it again after this break. All this is caused by the bosses at work letting someone go after we finally had a full Front Desk staff again. Sure, they had a myriad of reasons to let the person go (eg: long distance calls from the desk, attitude issues, a complete zero out of ten on a test call, etc) but it screwed me over pretty badly. Oh well, if things go well I will hopefully have a better job and a more normal schedule after this summer.

So, how do I plan on spending my days off? Well, I have until Wednesday night… so I’m in LV with the family. I stayed up as long as I could Sunday to chill and play games. Once I woke up (around 330am today) I started in on Killzone for the ps2 and hope to beat it by Wednesday. That way I can start the sequel on the PSP and rock that out over the 11day work week. I’ll probably catch a few movies, play games with the family, get some multiplayer Wii or DS action going with Stevo and Jessi, maybe play some Quake Live with friends, and sleep a ton. That, to me, sounds like a pretty kickass weekend.

Oh, I should also make some comics and finish this sketch I’ve been kinda halfassing for the past week. I penciled the basics out last Tues and Wed. Started on the ink Saturday night. And should finish and post it online by the end of this weekend. I’ll also get some snapshots of the new puppy the family has (which is awesome, but sucks at the same time cause it means when I wake up like this, I’m confined to my room to starve). 

Anyway, back to killin stuff on the ps2. If you need me and I’m not at the lappy, feel free to text away. I have unlimited texts so I’m always happy to use that.