January 2013

Well, here we are in 2013 - new year indeed, but so far it's been more or less business as usual, apart from the recent deluge of snow here in the UK - last winter was much milder compared to this one, that's for sure.
I want to apologise for last month's blog, I was in a low place when I wrote it, thinking too much about stuff, which is a bad habit of mine. I won't lie though, I'm still worried about stuff, but I've tried my best to not dwell on it - those hurdles I'll have to deal with once I get to them.
January, of course, is my birthday month - turned 27 on the 7th, and so far it feels about the same. Then again, I say that pretty much every birthday. Me and my brother (who also turned 27 the same day) celebrated with our annual "Birthday Bowling" match at the Metrocentre - neither of us won, our friend Sean came from nowhere and took the match right at the death.
Bought a bit of music as well - the albums "www.pitchshifter.com" by Pitchshifter, "Dysfunction" by Staind, "Finelines" by My Vitriol and the much-awaited new album by Biffy Clyro, "Opposites" - however if I had to pick a favourite out of those, it would be "Finelines".
Aside from my birthday, another big thing happened for me this month - I booked my flights for this summer's trip to the US. They cost me £565, but it could have ended up more expensive than that. It'll be worth it though - I'll be flying out on June 23, and coming back on August 5. The next 5 months need to just fly by in a flash.

As always, here's a bit of artwork to end proceedings: 

"Cereal Killers: Nectar Nuggets" - my entry for TopperHay's art jam on deviantART.

Year's end

So another year's gone. 

It's safe to say that 2012 has been memorable for me, with plenty of ups and plenty of downs - with this being the first full year of me and my brother living in our own place there were times this year where things got too much, especially with the whole arrears situation at the start of the year, and of course my continued failure to find a job. Can't forget what seemed to be an endless deluge of rain for a month or two, either.

There's been good times too, though - the numerous times me and Chris hit the quasar at South Shields with friends; me getting out for my long hikes up the Deerness Valley Way and enjoying the sun and the countryside; hitting the beach at Tynemouth in the summer, plus watching the aerial action at the Sunderland Airshow. Can't forget about this year being the year that the Olympics were held in this country too, even though I didn't watch much of it.
However, for me this year has had one clear highlight - two awesome weeks at the end of May when my long-time friend Nicole from Connecticut in the US flew over to visit, just like I'd visited her the previous year. The weather was beautiful for those 2 weeks, and we made the most of it, seeing the sights and most of all being together - it was the push that made me realise that I needed her in my life as more than a friend.

I have to mention the festive season too - went to Christmas Eve mass with my grandma as I always do every year, it was a nice service, and it just felt like for that whole hour or so we were there that the outside world just disappeared.
Christmas Day was good too - I only asked for one present, but of course I ended up getting far more, from family, friends and Nicole. I also sent out quite a few presents and cards to family and friends. Me and my brother also had a nice quiet dinner, chat and telly at our grandma's house too.
Boxing Day was also good, spent the day at our grandma's house again, only this time a few of the rest of the family were there, along with a buffet, some music and a very animated game of Bop It - all in all, it was a good Christmas.

However I'm not going to sugarcoat anything, not even at this time of year. It's always the same, the festive season gets you feeling all warm and fuzzy and upbeat, only for the new year to come along and break it at the neck without any warning. 
I can't say that I'm really feeling very positive about 2013 - I have no job, the chances of getting one seem to get worse every year, with all the cuts the government are making plus the price of everything going up in April I'm worried about how I'm going to be able to afford the flat etc, not to mention the fact that I'm still hoping to fly back over to the US in the summer, and that stuff like that could wreck it and/or any other future plans I might have.
And then there are other things - stuff that's going on in my family that just really get me down, stuff that I'm not going to discuss here.

All the same - wherever you are, whatever you're doing, I wish everyone all the best for the New Year.

Snow Sam

With it being winter, and the festive season just about out of the way, I think it's time I said a bit about the backstory behind one of my many cartoon creations - I'll cover the rest at some point, but right now, I'm going to concentrate on my walking, talking snowman character Snow Sam. (tagline - "Move over Frosty, there's a new snowman in town")

A couple of things inspired this character - the first was when I walked into a post office in Durham in winter 2005, and saw a little snowman toy for sale, at a reduced price. Couldn't resist, so I snapped it up.

 The snowman toy bought from the Post Office

As well as that, both the song and the character "Frosty the Snowman" had a hand in it as well - and while the sketch of the character was originally intended to just be a seasonal one-off, I found myself wanting to try out a comic strip with a walking, talking snowman, and it didn't take me long to give him a name - I chose "Snow Sam" because it sounded similar to "snowman".

  The very first picture of Snow Sam, from December 2005

Snow Sam was officially created on 15 December 2005, and his first comic was created on 16 December 2005. Keeping in mind Frosty the Snowman, I decided to make him a friendly and cheerful, yet sort of "anti-Frosty" character who likes to take a grounded yet humourous view of life as a snowman, and everyday things around him - he's never short of a witty remark or two.

Sam's not alone in his comics - in Snow Sam Comic #2 I introduced his clumsy, baseball cap-wearing fellow snowman friend Fred, followed by a more feathered friend in Comic #3, Rosco the Robin. Completing the cast was another snowman, the adventurous and portly George, who I introduced in Comic #6.

Another twist to the Snow Sam artwork and comics is that I mostly only draw and upload them at winter-time (with the odd exception), as the comic is meant to be set in my home country (UK), and of course we usually only get snow during the winter months (again, there have been exceptions), so that's the premise that the comic schedule is based on. It's also so I can have time to work on other comics and artwork, of course.

 The cast of "Snow Sam" (l to r): George, Rosco, Fred, Sam

So there you have it - all you need to know about Snow Sam. If you want to check out his comics and artwork, just point your cursor at one of the links below:

Snow Sam artwork: http://bluebottleflyer.deviantart.com/gallery/949436

Snow Sam comics:  http://bluebottleflyer.deviantart.com/gallery/556370 

Getting chilly

Aye, it really is getting chilly - it's that time of year when Autumn starts to change in Winter, everything gets colder and the heating bills get higher - but it is what it is.
On the jobs front - same old, same old. Many applications, but not one interview. Just got to keep trying though, as always.
Also, this month there were a couple of days where I just had that feeling of "why do I bother" - and it's just stupid little things that set it off, like someone not responding to a picture I made for them on deviantART. Like anytime I feel upset, it starts as one little thing and other little things build up, before it ends up being everything. It soon passes though, as it has.
On a brighter note, remember how I've mentioned leaks for the past couple of months? One leak has finally been fixed - the leak from the bathroom. The council finally decided to come and reseal the bath, as well as ripping out the part of the cracked front room ceiling and replacing it with new cement. No leaks since, and all it needs now is a good painting over. The leak under the sink is still dripping away though.
I've made a start on my Christmas shopping too...however, as it always does, it's coming along at a snail's pace, because I'm in the mindset that I can leave it till "2 weeks till Christmas", which I should know by now is not the way to go about it.
And last but not least, me and Nicole have been together - well, as together as we can be with 5000 miles and the Atlantic separating us - for just over 2 months now. Hopefully the next 7 months will fly by as much as this one has - can't wait for next June.

As always, I'll leave you with a bit of artwork - made this one for an art jam by a good DA friend of mine, Rich (FAC-AgentC on deviantART, go check out his artwork), mixing two things I like, which are cartoons and music:

   "Goof's Art Jam 2012: Musical Bugs"

Leaks, love and Halloween

OK, so I thought it was cold in September - scratch that, it's been colder this month. In fact, cold enough for an early snow shower, which thankfully cleared off as quick as it turned up.
Colder still is the trail of looking for a job - still no luck on that front I'm afraid. Also, I mentioned a lot of leaks in the last blog - they're back again. The leak under the sink has started again, which means I might have to get the washer hose replaced, until then there's a towel and a bowl to collect the leakage. As well as that, a crack's appeared in the ceiling of our front room, the part with the bathroom above it, because of shower water pouring behind the bath seal - the crack's been getting bigger for some time now, but the last straw was when, guess what, it started to leak water into the front room. That's since been remedied by sticking a towel on the seal to stop the water going down, but it still needs fixing properly, and I can bet my last tenner that the council won't fix it.
Anyhow, that's enough about that...in my last blog, I also mentioned that there was an announcement I wanted to make...

Well, here it is.

It's something that's been bubbling under for a long time, but I finally got the guts to make it happen. Nicole, my long-time friend from Connecticut and I are now an item, since September 28. It's been a while since I've been in a relationship, and this is without a doubt the first long distance relationship I've been in, but those aside, it's as simple as this: I love Nicole, she loves me, and neither past relationships or how far away we live from each other are going to get in the way.
So yeah, there it is.

Obviously as I type this, it's almost Halloween, the spooky season. To be honest, in recent years I've found that I prefer the spooky season to another certain festive time of year *coughChristmascough*, despite the fact that it too is also heavily commercialised. I guess it's just because it's darker. 
I've only ever dressed up for Halloween once, and that was as Dracula - but this year I'm going to dress up for it again, well, sort of - you may or may not get to see a pic and video of me all zombified.

As always, I'll leave you with some artwork - and here's a sort of creature you'd normally run away from - but not this fella:

  Bartholomew, a not-so-scary bat

PS: As I type this, the tropical storm Sandy is currently causing chaos in the northeastern US - hope everyone I know over there stays safe. 

Wake me up when September ends

And there goes Summer...hello there Autumn, you seem to come by a lot quicker these days.
Aye, the warm weather (what we got of it) has gone, to be replaced by Arctic temperatures, falling leaves, and more rain, which of course means more heating on. That's the way it goes of course.
As I mentioned last month, I've had to start a "Work Programme", which I've been referred to by the jobcentre - basically, a local training place is going to help me look for work, I have to attend a short session with them every fortnight where they go over what I've been doing to look for work, they give me advice and if there's any jobs suitable they'll put me forward for it. Unlike the jobcentre though, they don't pressure you, which is a lot better. And there's no having to sit around in a classroom for 6 hours a day like in the past.
There's been a word that has kept popping up this last month - and that word is leaks. Aye, there was not one, but three different leaks in me and my brother's flat - first, our toilet, it wouldn't stop flushing because the stopcock was busted; second, the washer pipe under the sink which soaked everything that was kept under there; and last, rainwater dripping from a nasty damp patch in our kitchen, and that was thanks to the two days of constant heavy rain in the last week of this month. The first two leaks got sorted out, the third has stopped, but we really need to get that damp patch fixed up.
Only other thing to note is that I've pre-ordered the new Biffy Clyro album - as some of you probably know, I'm a huge Biffy fan, and I'm looking forward to the new album. With the way music is these days it's good to know there is still some music out there still worth listening to.
Actually, I told a lie...there is one other big thing I'd like to tell you - but I'm not going to say anything - yet.

I'll leave you with some artwork, as always:

My two dragon characters, Fyfe & Sparkplug.

Some summer

And, that's summer over for another year - but to be honest, it felt like it barely even started. This summer, to me, felt different than summers past weather-wise, because of all the rain we've had here. Now I'm no stranger to summer rain, but it feels like this year it was worse than usual. That's not to say that there weren't any warm days at all, but they were few and far-between.
Also, the mood felt different, because of me going somewhere on holiday around summertime in the past few years - this was the first summer since 2008 that I didn't go anywhere (a day trip to Tynemouth doesn't count), and I missed doing so. Really hope next summer will be a different story.
On that note, it's about time I spilled some beans - when Nicole was over here with me back in May, she told me that there was an opportunity for a temp job in her neck of the woods, a chance for me to live and work in the US for a few months. I was all for it until I read about getting a visa in order to go do that - far too much hassle, far too much expense. And would they really give me a visa once they saw that I was unemployed? It just wouldn't be worth it sadly.
I mentioned previously about possibly ending up on a brain-dead training programme, courtesy of the jobcentre - I have been referred to what's called the "Work Programme", which means a sort of agency called Avanta are going to work with me for the next 2 years to try and "help" me get a job. By "help", I mean they're probably just gonna shove me on every training course and work placement under the sun for the next 2 years just to keep me out the road and make the jobcentre's unemployment figures look better than what they actually are. Same old story, just repackaged.
On a better note, this month I also took the plunge and bought a new laptop - it was a last minute thing, the laptop in question is a Lenovo IBM ThinkPad, with Windows XP and dual core, selling for only £145. Bargain, and it was a much-needed replacement for my Sony Vaio, which has started to slow down and switch itself off when overheated. So far the new laptop is blowing the old one out of the water performance-wise.

Last but not least, here's some artwork, and instead of a clichéd beach scene, here's some heavy metal spiders:

"Araknid: Heavy Metal Spiders" - what you get when you mix two things I like, music and cartoon characters.

See you in September.