Again, here's where I'm at these days:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Gary-Blackwell-Jr/585703412

MySpace (yuck, Myspace): http://www.myspace.com/mcrgary - To say that I don't really bother much with this site anymore is an understatement - changes will be made to the profile/layout soon to reflect that.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/marvelous_weird

Tumblr: http://marvelouslyweird.tumblr.com

LastFM: http://www.last.fm/user/marvelous_weird

For those wondering - Nope, still no job yet. Plugging away, though.

Drayke's watching the Care Bears. Landon wants me to read him some books. Toodles, all!

It's been five weeks and I'm still unemployed.

Hopefully, unemployment will start paying out next week.

Not working is a blessing and a curse. The blessing, of course, is in the details of being at home with Drayke and Landon every day, of feeling more like this place we live is a home rather than someplace I crash out at the end of days, of being unconcerned with the 'rat race' banalities of it all ...

Of course, that's also a curse. Every day I'm at home, I see first hand how terrible things are financially. I talk to people on the phone about money owed, I flip through grocery store circulars to see how I can best spread small amounts of grocery money around , and I worry about how much one of my kids might suffer if something happens to either of them that requires the kind of medical attention normally reserved for folks with health insurance.

I hope I find new work soon. When I do, however, it just might indeed be both a happy and sad day.

... laid off.

**ba-duhm chish**

[01] Do you have the guts to answer these questions and re-post as The Controversial Survey?
If you're readin' it, I'm typin' it.

[02] Would you do meth if it was legalized?
No Means No.

[03] Abortion: for or against it?
I'm pro-choice. However, it does offend some of my personal sensibilities when you see girls/women using abortion as a means of 'birth control' because they were too lazy to educate themselves and take proper precautions beforehand.

[04] Do you think the world would fail with a female president?
I know this will rankle a lot of the "Battle of the Sexes" types, but I really don't see that there would be much of a difference between a female or male president at this point. The only difference I see would be that the first woman president would have a bit more pressure to deal with, being the first ever woman president and all. (If we were dealing with differences between an everyday woman and an everyday man, I'd agree that there are fundamental differences in thought proccesses ... However, I've found in my own personal dealings that politicians mostly have the same cut of their collective jib, whether male or female - thus nullifying any major differences between a male/female president.)

[05] Do you believe in the death penalty?
I certainly do.

[06] Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already?
Yes, indeed. I've been cracking jokes about how much cash flow the U.S. Government could bring in taxing "Marlboro 420's" since about 1999.

[07] Are you for or against premarital sex?
I'm all for it. I don't think sex gets taken seriously enough, but by the same token, this 'sex is for marriage' stuff is strictly religious based and I'm really not one to be so inclined to set my belief systems in religiously-based institutions

[08] Do you believe in God?
I believe that somewhere, there is a collective of people/spirits/beings that serve as an entity not unlike the concept of "God" (sorta like an ethereal and eternal version of that old TV show Herman's Head ... But as for God himself? I'll pass on that one, thanks.

[09] Do you think same sex marriage should be legalized?
FUCK. YES. Again, the concept of marriages taking place between men and women is a religiously based theme. (Shit, marriage itself is a religiously based bit that makes it 'OK' for men and women to co-habitate and begin procreating for the sake of a family, right?) Marriage shouldn't exist for the eyes of God. Marriage, if people believe in it, should exist as a show of love and devotion and nothing else.

[10] Do you think it's wrong that so many Hispanics are illegally moving to the USA?
No. I mean, how bad does it have to be in other parts of the world if people are fleeing to the hellhole that is the USA, of all places? When THIS an improvement, shit must be real bad elsewhere.

[11] A 12-year-old girl has a baby, should she keep it?
Can't answer the question without a background. I think there are a bazillion mitigating factors in this situation. However, I'll say that I don't agree that there should be a statute stating that she has to keep it or has to give it up for adoption/etc. This is sort of a case-by-case basis scenario.

[12] Should the alcohol age be lowered to eighteen?
If you can find yourself shipped off to take a bullet overseas, you should damn sure be able to sidle up at the corner bar and treat yourself to a Heineken.

[13] Should the war in Iraq be called off?
At this point, who knows? Withdrawing immediately and completely just fucks everything up way worse on all sides. I don't think we ever should have been there in the first place, but I also refuse to claim that everything will be honkey-dorey and peachy-keen if we just withdraw completely right on.

[14] Assisted suicide is illegal: do you agree that it should be?
Nope. I can always grab a gun or a knife or a bottle of pills to do it myself if I really want to, only I'm not a medical professional - so it might be messy, or unnecessarily prolonged or painful - hell, I may even screw the whole thing up and not die. Given a solid medical reason for the desire to die, I don't see why anyone shouldn't be able to make that decision for themself.

[15] Do you believe in spanking your children?
Yes.

[16] Would you burn an American flag for a million dollars?
Probably not. I'm not Mr. Patriot George Bush Lover or anything like that, but I do have a healthy respect for the flag and American History and all.

[17] Who do you think would make a better president? McCain or Obama?
Obama. I just have this awful feeling that McCain as prez would make him a marionette with the party pulling his strings to get the desired actions out of him. After the last eight years, I just don't see how following those paths for another four years will do anything good for this country.

[18] Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
Not really. I'm never really all that afraid of anything at all that others say/think, to be honest.

... "Take a picture of yourself right now - don't fix your hair, or pose, or anything else. Just grab the nearest camera device and snap a shot of yourself as you are."

I said, "OK, I will."

Gnawing on plastic knives is an office hobby of mine.

... but only to share some tunes.

Check out http://marvelouslyweird.muxtape.com, yo.

Of course, I'm still over-posting at http://marvelouslyweird.tumblr.com, as well.

Sitting at my computer is kinda rough right now, as I'm currently looking at my 60-something male neighbor in the kitchen grinding and basically dry-humping one of his cohabitants in his kitchen. Mine eyes hath been scarred, so I'm putting the blinds down.

Ugh.

EDIT EDIT ADDED STUFF:

Pulling the blinds and pouring a beer helped erase the vile images of simulated old people sex from my retinas, and I remembered I had a few more things of note:

1) Neuterationing complete. I'm shooting blanks now!

2) Kid pics, heh:

Landon (Popeye?) wants to be a fireman.

Drayke has moved on to considering a stint as an astronaut.

Dear LiveJournal,

I like you. I really do. We've been together a long time now, and I've got a great backlog of memories to call up through you. I like to read from my friends list and comment on the musings of others. Unfortunately, however, I feel that you've become a clumsy, tiresome method of expressing my thoughts.

It's not you, LiveJournal. It's me. I've changed and become the kind of guy who wants to quickly and efficiently post a handful of things all individually at various points of the day, not just all in one big glob of a post that never ends up being written because - well, because I have to save everything to post at once and then I just don't wind up with the time to scribble it all down.

On a conventional business level, LiveJournal, I'd like to continue my relationship with you. I'd like to browse my archives and read my friends list and make comments, and generally continue on with the more passive aspects of my relationship with you. What I won't be doing, however, LiveJournal, is posting much here.

You see, LiveJournal, I met a new friend called tumblr. I can't say that tumblr is any better or worse than you, LiveJournal, but this new friend of mine does allow me to post so many things so much easier and faster that I can't help but be swayed. Also, there are no comments with tumblr. You can 'follow' selected tumblogs and have others follow you, but there are no friends lists or anything. All in all, it feels more free, fun, honest and with far less strings attached.

We're still friends, LiveJournal. I'm just going to be baring my weirdness elsewhere now in shorter, more concentrated bursts -- and due to the ease of things, probably with more pictures, as well.

http://marvelouslyweird.tumblr.com/

Yup. Marvelously Weird. Mark it down, folks. The content's been there on a pretty regular basis since late last week.

So long and thanks for all the fish, LiveJournal! I'll be back to check my friends list later today!

... we'll be making more of the Autism Awareness pins (or, as Drayke's called them today, the "I love Drayke" pins, heh) over the rest of the week and the weekend, most likely, so if anyone's interested in having one/wearing one/etc, feel free to drop a comment here or send your mailing address to derfsucks at gmail dot com. Our design has changed a bit - the round The Wife finished this afternoon are just the puzzle pieces without ribbons, but I'm sure we'll be switching back and forth on that as we do more. Drayke's also taken it upon himself to seal a lot of them with kisses as the Drayke Seal of Approval. We've got a small cache of padded envelopes at the house, so it's really not a big deal to get some of these bad boys out.

Here's to a great Wednesday night for everyone reading!

... and April is Autism Awareness Month. As most/all of you should know by now, my four-year-old son Drayke was diagnosed as autistic in December of 2007. Anyone who has met him/spoken with him can state that while he is indeed quirky and a bit strange sometimes (though I prefer the term 'marvelously weird'), he is also one of the most loving, caring, intelligent children the world could ever care to meet. I consider myself utterly blissed out and blessed to have a child who experiences the world just a little differently than the rest of us, because it constantly reminds my wife and I (as well as his little brother Landon) how much fun and wonder there will always be in the world, no matter who a person is or how many years they've been around.

Wife got a rad idea to make some homemade Autism Awareness pins for the month to help spread the word and, hopefully, get people interested in learning more about the very diverse condition tabbed as autism, as well as neighboring conditions such as Asperger's Syndrome. CNN is running autism-themed programming for a full 24 hours today in honor of World Autism Awareness Day, and I've found a good amount of stories about families learning how to best handle diagnoses of autism pervading the media in the past week or so.

Anyways, we had some issues with glue not holding well last night, so we've gotta get a hot glue gun today to finish the rest of the batch - but here's the pin my wife made for me last night:

As always, click on the pic for a bigger image. The piece represents the 'puzzling' nature of autism, as not much is known about causes of the condition - also, while some cases of autism are similar, it would be above and beyond rare for cases to be identical, making those who are autistic similar to puzzle pieces in that respect. The bright colors (we made red, yellow, blue and green pieces) represent the bright nature and charisma that individuals with autism show - and man alive, that's certainly the case with Drayke.

Well, if you read this, thanks a lot! This afternoon I'll try to drop some links about where to look for information on autism/Asperger's, etc - for now, though, I've got work to do. Toodles, all!

Watching Revenge of the Nerds on HBO at 10:00 p.m. on a Monday night is awesome - especially when it was my wife's idea to leave it on.

Click the pic for a bigger version. Drayke took a book with a picture of a jar of jellybeans so that he could show the Easter Bunny an exact picture of what he wanted in his basket on Sunday. Landon just kept cuddling and hugging the Bunny, heh.

This is where I show off my usually furrowed away political side.

Denver Short on Funds for Democratic National Convention
Mayor Hickenlooper thinks extended nomination process has distracted potential donors

Y'argh. We're no better than Detroit.

The subject matter of this is the title of a song I still really like by the 80's Canadian metal (hair metal? rock?) band Kick Axe -- c'mon, leighton, I know you remember them. They were no Helix, but they were rad all the same. Anyways, I admittedly like the tunes "Dreamin' About You" and "Vices" much better, but those song titles wouldn't fit the subject of this entry.

Actually, the correct title would be "Alive and Neutered" but no one to my knowledge sings a song by that title, heh. Things were painless last week and I don't think I actually ever even qualified as uncomfortable (unless one counts the frozen produce I kept in my lap for a few days - that was a bit chilly, heh). I did, however, pick up an AWFUL cold that managed to keep me out of work this Monday, as well - basically giving me what amounted to a six-day weekend from work. Well, I couldn't really play with the kids or do anything around the house, so it wasn't much of a weekend, but still, I had great downtime and rest. Somehow, though, I still came back to work exhausted. Stupid life has to be so draining all the time ... Gah.

I think folks on my friends list should write me one interesting thing about themselves/their weekend/their past week or whatever in the comments of this page, simply so I can grasp at some conversational topics while I'm shoveling through work and trying to organize the disturbing number of misplaced files on my work Mac.

Derf hath survived doth neuterationing.

Not **nearly** as uncomfortable/painful as I'd drawn conclusions too, but I'm still supposed to be on 'don't do anything' detail for a few days.

Life is good.