Wednesday, November 25:
It’s my birthday weekend 
! I started it off by having to go in to work (not by choice mind you). Since Carlos and Lynne wouldn’t be seeing me for the holiday weekend I got my gifts early 
. From Lynne I received the Biohazard 5 Official Art Works book (known as Resident Evil 5 here in the states). The book is entirely in Japanese, but who gives a rat’s ass?! The art work, character designs, concept art for monsters, area designs, every page in that book is a visual feast for the eyes and a twisted imagination such as mine 
. Suffice to say I had to do one of my victory jigs 
, and no there will be no video footage of that jig posted here 
. Here are a few pics of the book:
Next up is Carlos. He bestowed upon me a small pile of books of various genres ranging from funny to instructional: Applegeeks Vol. 1: Freshman Year, Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics, Empowered Volume 1 and Apple: Volume 2.
All right here’s a synopsis of each book and some pics:
Applegeeks Vol. 1: Freshman Year is a collection of the first two years of the Applegeeks web comic. The art is great and the stories are hilarious 
. I fell in love with this site when I first got my graphic design job and I continue to read it to this day.
Empowered Vol. 1: Okay here’s the deal, I find this book hilarious and a bit touching. It’s about a ne’er do well heroine called Empowered. She wages the good fight for truth, justice and all that shit, but there’s a problem:
SHE SUCKS AT IT!
Emp’s powers reside and rely on her costume, if her costume is intact so are her powers, if the costume gets ripped her powers begin to wane and ebb. Her costume gets ripped at the damn near slightest provocation. She constantly goes into battle and usually immediately gets taken hostage by the corny villain(s) and trussed up in some bondage pose due to her costume getting ripped up during the initial struggle. Now if you just skim through the book you’ll be treated to images of a woman constantly tied up in skimpy apparel 
, but if you actually read the book you’ll get insights on the character, her insecurities, her dreams, her personality. Slowly but surely, Emp becomes and interesting character who begins come into her own, throw in a couple of friends that that she meets throughout the first volume and you’ve got yourself an exceptional read.
Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics: I’ve been told, many a time, that I’m good at faking perspective in my drawings. while that’s all fine and dandy I am not adverse to learning the proper way to render objects in proper, visual perspective. I can’t wait to sit down with this one 
.
Apple Vol. 1: Best described as an art/comic book. This book is INSANE 
!!! The book features illustrations and short comic stories from various Korean artists. The book stokes the flames of my imagination, makes me curse my own lack of artistic skill 
, yet inspires me to keep drawing! The book was such a treat that I wanted to get volume 1 but that dream was shot down when Carlos informed me that it was out of print and stores that did have it were selling it for about $500.00 
! Someday soon, I hope they’ll reprint it and charge the regular price.
All in all it was a good day, friends, gifts and getting out of work at 2:30PM. No complaints 
.
Thursday, November 26:
HAPPY TURKEY DAY !!! Time to eat and grow large with food 
.
Friday, November 27:
Ran some errands and chilled out 
.
Saturday, November 28th:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!
Went to see Ninja Assassin 
with Monique, her daughter Janiah and my goddaughter Taquasha. After that I was taken to lunch at Sapporos (at least I hope that’s how you spell it) there I had two orders of gyoza and the Sapporo Special Ramen bowl, ahhh, pure bliss. I walked back to the subway my belly feeling sloshy and full, or as we say in St. Croix: “Belly full, banah glad.” I dropped Taquasha at her house and received Birthday Cards from my other goddaughters: Latonya, Sylvia and Destiny. Monique and Janiah also gave me some gifts: the first three volumes of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster !
It was a great weekend for me overall, I’m content, I had a superb birthday, great friends, a great movie, excellent food and awesome gifts. Now I just have to wake up Monday morning and go to work 
. Thanks for reading y’all. Peace.
. Latonya showed her gifts to her mother and Shawana. That led to a discussion about the gifts I bought. Shawana thought I stole her gift idea for a camera that she was going to give Latonya for Christmas, and that I was trying to show her up 
. I let her know that she never told me she had plans to get a camera for Latonya and that I got the idea for the gifts from Latonya’s Christmas list.
I bit down and swallowed my urge to chew her out, turned away from her and asked Nancy where the bus stop was. She did me one better, Nancy asked her brother Buster to drop me home!
. Anyway I was totally up by then so I decided to go online and check my email. I got another call at 9:20 am, it was my godchild, Sylvia. She wanted to know if I was okay. I asked her what she meant by that. She said I looked sad after Shawana yelled at me yesterday. I explained to her that I was okay, that Shawana didn’t yell at me and I thanked her for her concern. I then reminded her that it was my birthday (So sue me! I rarely get gifts on my birthday the least I can get is a “Happy Birthday” from everyone 
!). She wished me happy birthday and I returned to my computer. Thirty minutes later I got a call from godchild, Destiny, she wished me happy birthday also. Then my friend Lisa called, we both have the same birthday so we wished each other a happy b-day. An hour later I showered, got dressed and headed to Queens for my friend Lynne’s after Thanksgiving get-together. I got there at around 12 pm. Only problem was I got there 6 hours early. Lynne wished me a happy birthday, gave me some birthday lemon cookies and a gift: The Megaman Zero Official Complete Works Art Book! Fucking awesome 
.
. The sight and smell of food nauseated me. Since 12 pm and for the rest of the day I ate nothing, watched Samurai Champloo, Wall-E and Kung-Fu Panda with the other guests, talked to my mom and dad over the phone and ran to the bathroom to throw up: twice. I left Lynne’s at around 11 pm feeling drained and nauseous 
.
. I promised Latonya that for her 13th birthday I’d take her out for the day and we do what she wants. Officially Sylvia was supposed to go with us, but she had an all day appointment to keep so she was a no go. Nancy dropped Latonya off at my place, we then jumped on the train and headed to Union Square where we went to see the new Disney movie Bolt in digital 3D. Good movie, not great, but entertaining and the digital 3D was a sight to behold. It didn’t bother my eyes at all as all 3D movies have done in the past. During the movie Latonya offered me some popcorn. I was hesitant but decided to be strong and put my stomach to the test. Well, not only did I not throw up after eating the popcorn, I found out that the earlier queasiness was actually hunger (I hadn’t eaten since 1 pm Thursday afternoon). That pop corn tasted like God himself popped it just for me. I had some more and decided to save room for when the two of us ate later. After Bolt we had an hour wait before our second movie excursion uptown. So to kill time we stopped at my workplace and I got her some new themes and games for her R4DS card for her Nintendo DS. She was really happy for that. After that we hopped the train again and headed to another theater, this one on 34th and 8th Ave to see Madagascar 2. Good movie, not as funny as the first but still entertaining. Once the movie was over we hiked up to Times Square and got some food at Applebee’s. By the time we got there I was STARVING