So, this week brings two of the landmark events of the year together.

First and foremost, RhondaLady and I have been married for eight years as of today, June 30th. All told, we’ve been together for fourteen years. Yes, Methuselah catered our reception — and a number of you dear readers were there, getting drunk for nary a thin dime I might add. Good job, that’s what the booze was there for.

Second, my blushing bride will be another year older on Friday, July 4th. Yup, she’s a Yankee Doodle Dandy. Correction, she’s my Yankee Doodle Dandy. I don’t think she’s squeamish about her age, but discretion is the better part of valor, so I shant bring it up here. Ask her your own damned self.

I swear, I don’t know how she puts up with all of my crap. I’m not the easiest person to live and deal with on a daily basis, but I do the best I can to be the best person, and husband that I can. I love her dearly, and not just for not killing me yet. She’s the most wonderful person I know, and I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life without her.

RhondaLady my dear, I love you more than I could ever convey with words. For once, I am at a loss to express myself.

I do a fair amount of web surfing, and I have a meandering path of sites I read on a regular basis. I refer to them as My Dailies, even though I don’t catch them all every day. Of course all of you — my homies — get a few hits every day. I then have my news sites, comic sites, gaming & industry sites and my complete stranger sites.

The "complete stranger" sites are the ones I’ve stumbled across through one or more different avenues of links. I honestly couldn’t tell you how I found most of them. Internet journaling and blogging are not new concepts by any stretch of the imagination, but have been catching on more and more in recent months. It’s quite a phenomenon, and I’ll discuss this at a later time. These complete strangers most typically are bloggers. They’ve turned out to be fairly interesting people to read even, likely especially, never having met or even spoken to them. That, I think, is part of what makes them so interesting.

One of these strangers — Erika — is a young lady who is a very talented artist. She, along with a select and devoted crew of equally talented young folks, produce their own web comics. Not your mainstream knee-slapping sort of rag, but some well written, composed, drawn and inked independent comics. Good stuff, really. One day I noticed that she linked to her LiveJournal from the comic page and I decided to have a peek, being the natural voyeur that I am.

The first thing I discovered is a very close, tight-knit community of friends, amongst which was Erika. They are fiercely loyal and protective of each other, regardless of their respective geographic locations, color, race, creed or sexual orientation. Sounds a little familiar to me, considering who my audience is. They all share a love for producing art and comics for the sheer joy of doing it, and they genuinely support each other in this endeavor.

Recently, Erika announced to the world that she was gay, and madly in love. Really no surprise if you read her journal long enough. One problem. Really, the biggest problem as I understand it. Family. Her mom. Seems mommy dearest didn’t take too kindly to the news. Her mom instantly latched on to the idea that her only daughter was going through some college rebellion phase in her life.

In an effort to help her family understand and accept, and to help organize her own thoughts and feelings about her sexuality, Erica wrote a short essay. Incidentally, she’s turning the essay into a forty-page comic for the San Diego Comic-Con.

Please take a few minutes of your time and go read the essay HERE. I promise, you won’t miss the time.

Here on my blog, I may give the impression that I am a harsh, foul-mouthed angry kind o’ guy. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I’m just a regular person, subject to the slings and arrows that the world flings at everyone. I pride myself on trying to be the best person I can, judging those around me on their merit and worth, not on the color of their skin, and especially not on whom they choose to love and keep close.

The world is a rough place to live in, and friendship can make the road we travel a little easier to handle. Love can make that road smooth as glass. Love will make you float inches above that pothole-strewn path. If you are one of the fortunate ones in this world to find a companion to buoy you up, to make you laugh during the day, keep you warm at night and put up with your crap around the clock, I don’t care who it is. You can be a lovely he-she, he-he, she-she or it-it couple, it doesn’t matter. Bravo, I say. Congratulations! Mazel tov!

When I read Erika’s essay, I was extremely moved. Here was a person who was trying her damnedest to make her mother understand, to really see her for who she is, and rejoice in her happiness. She took great pains to illustrate the loving relationship, regardless of the mating, or rather the non-mating parts involved.

I won’t lie to you and say that I didn’t think of some of my good friends… how could I not. My path in this life has crossed, and will cross that of many interesting people. Incidentally, several of them are gay. Captain once paid me the greatest compliment. Upon observing my casual attitude around him, he asked me point blank "you really don’t have any problems around gay people, do you?" I was shocked. Should I have problems? I didn’t think it was anything so remarkable. Apparently it was, especially in the South.

He was my friend, how could I have a problem with him? He wasn’t hurting me, or anyone I cared for. Nope, he didn’t have any puppy torturing equipment. No apparent weapons of mass destruction and a trigger. He occasionally fed me… hell, if you feed me every now and again, you’ve got a friend for life. What was the big deal? That whole loving, kissing, fucking other men thing? And? He wasn’t trying to fuck me, so it never bothered me. We respected each other as human beings, and that’s all that mattered.

It’s a shame that most of this "civilized society" we live is way too wrapped up in externals. It’s all about what’s in your head and heart that matters. If the planet were fueled by a little more mutual respect and common courtesy, we’d be a hell of a lot better off. I might not even curse as much. Nah, not likely.

Surround yourself with good friends — good people — and love ’em all. Those good people are a treasure greater than gold or diamonds. If you can find someone you can really Love, with the capital "L" and all, more power to you. Sure, you may bicker and fight now and again, but you’ll always get under the skin of someone you’re that close to. Just think of the "make-up" sex you’ll have.

Wanna talk about this blog? Head on over to the forum.

There’s been some sawdust in the air at the old DmentiA estate this weekend. I’ve got a few new additions to the site.

First, I’ve added the capacity to selectively enable comments for my blog entries — just check out the upper right hand corner of this message. When I started out, I wasn’t concerned with comments as I was writing for my own entertainment. Time has passed, and more of our extended family have web pages, blogs and comments. I find that I’m writing for a larger audience than I started out with, and I want the capacity to get feedback from you folks on certain things, without the necessity for people to have to send email.

That still leaves another problem. Entire conversations are being held in blog comments and they inevitably get cycled down the page as new blog entries are added, the thread lost or dropped, no more to be said. It makes it hard to have a really good discussion. The happy medium is to link a blog entry to a forum, which is an environment better suited for that sort of thing. That is also an option that I have now.

The second new addition to the family is the Cam Portal that I so recently talked about. The first phase is to get the folks interested in participating to contact me for details. I’ll tell you this much: it involves a camera of some sort and the capacity to store a picture in a web accessible area (i.e. a web page). I think we can have a lot of fun with this.

Ok, I’ve been twiddling with this idea since before Mardi Gras, and I think the timing might be right.

The blog/journal thing has become quite popular with the world today. We’ve got quite a good web presence established within our twisted little community alone. We use our blogs for a lot of things – to speak our minds, make announcements, show off, congratulate others, etc, but more than anything else, we are using them to keep in touch with each other. Entire conversations have been held in comment sections. It’s a good way to let the rest of the people you care about know what’s a-happening, if they are interested in knowing. It’s time to take the communications to the next level.

A camera portal.

Most all of us have some form of digital imaging device, whether it be a digital camera, webcam or what have you. What I’d like to do is set up a page where anyone who cares to participate can display an image that can dynamically be changed at their leisure. The images would be stored on your own web space, and would be required to fit within a pre-defined resolution. Once established, it should be maintenance free.

Here’s a good example of what I’m looking to do.

Let me know what y’all think of this – if you’re interested, any suggestions, etc. We have a lot of clever people in our community, I’d like to see this come to life and be a very cool thing indeed. I’ll propose a few things to my resident genius Raul – no Thirteen, not your Raul – and see what he has to say on the subject.

What has become of the world these days? Everyone has become politically correct. Overly sensitive to others feelings. Tippie-toeing around so as to not anger anyone. Eliminating perfectly good words and phrases from their vocabularies for the sake of politeness.

Why? Why bother? I mean, it’s all a sham. It’s a false front as a means to an end. It’s the most damnable form of dishonesty to lie to someone to their face, and that is exactly what you’re doing when you put on the sickly sweet "nice guy" persona. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be polite to people in general – I advocate that, but you shouldn’t suppress your inherent personality because Bob’s wife Freda doesn’t like people "who joke around a lot."

Being politically correct means using appropriate words and phrases which are engineered so as not to offend the subject of discussion, or possibly the other members in the discussion. For example, terms like African American piss me off. Are you African or American? You can’t be both, so pick one and cruise off to the appropriate locale. If you’re a voting, tax-paying, freedom loving denizen of this cohesive bundle of "States" primarily located within this northern continent… you’re a fucking American, and I don’t really give a heap of shit what color your skin is or where you originally came from. If you moved to this country and successfully navigated the Naturalization process, you’re an American. Period. If your ancestors came across on a boat – by hook, crook or free will, and your family has been here for generations, you’re an American. Period. Don’t like it? Hit the road, Jack. Anything else is just a diluted form of racism with a happy, shiny face put on it. I don’t truck with racism – on either side of the fence. I believe that everyone should have the chance to hate others for valid, genuine reasons. Racism is a cop-out.

We should also stop coddling the "sensitive" people in this world. Sometimes, folks just need to be told the ugly truths about themselves and the world around them. Knowing the truth allows us to change things as we see fit, if we see fit. If you’re too scared to tell your buddy that he has atrocious body odor and that he would do well to have a bath more frequently and some industrial strength deodorant might be a nice idea, he’ll never know. Then, he’ll go through life known as "that stank guy", or "Gorilla Pit", and that would be cruel. Especially since you came up with those names for him yourself.

Suppressing your emotions so you don’t upset others is another lie a lot of people live. What about yourself? If you’re all pissed off, you should at least be able to express it, shouldn’t you? I don’t mean throwing Buicks around like the Hulk or anything, but at least let it be known that you’re not a happy camper. If you’re ecstatic about something, let it out! You shouldn’t have worry if those with less or nothing to celebrate are going to feel like a smaller person because of it… hell most of those folks will cheer you along just to see someone happy, if not themselves.

If you try to go through this life trying not to make anyone angry, you’re doomed to fail. The object is to piss off as few people as you can, but deal with the ones you do in a straightforward fashion when you do. You don’t have to go out of your way to rile anyone up – well, not all the time – but it’s going to happen anyway. Folks are also going to make you very, very angry too at some time or another. Own it. Deal with it. Move on if you can, but be honest with yourself about it when it comes down.

Here are a few details about myself some of might or might not know. I’m pretty straightforward and easy to read. If I’m happy, you know it. If I’m depressed, you know it. If I’m angry, you r-e-a-l-l-y know it.

I’m a mellow guy who is always quick to help in times of need. I’m a smartass, with a sharp tongue. I love words. I am in love with the English language, every last syllable of it. I am especially enamored with the naughty, sinful words you’re not supposed to use in mixed company or in front of priests, children and other small mammals. I really groove on the combination of complex structures that evoke strong emotional responses… any emotion.

Here is where I have the most trouble with the so-called "polite society" we live in. We have such a rich vocabulary at our disposal, and yet we’re being told that there are certain words we shouldn’t say in the presence of some people, or at all. There are special words we must say in special circumstances. This isn’t a freedom of speech issue. It is not so much a matter of censoring words as it is censuring thought.

Why shouldn’t we use the oft condemned words of cursing? They are as much a part of our language as any other colloquialism deemed acceptable in everyday speech. What? Someone might get offended? Only if they let it offend them – it’s all in their minds. I know lots of people who are put off by the C word. They can’t even bring themselves to say it. Here, I’ll say it for them. Cunt. Cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt. It’s a lovely word. You know where you stand when someone says "cunt". It’s gritty and has a handful of connotations all of which allow you to clearly express yourself.

What I don’t get is these same people who shun the C word will gladly, even giddily use other naughty words like "fuck" and "dick". Let me demonstrate something:

"I rubbed my dick on her cunt, then I fucked her."

What makes the middle of that sentence any worse than the beginning or the end? Granted, the whole thing licks… er, lacks finesse, but it gets it’s point across in an execution style, elementary school dropout sort of way. Isn’t that what language is all about? Communication? Exchanging ideas?

Why limit yourself or others to a cattle-call of acceptable words and phrases, or worse yet, ban select ones that universally evoke a strong emotional response with their simplicity and straightforwardness. I can respect the man who can successfully convey a thought with a contrived, conservative and simple statement as easily as a spontaneous, convoluted and polluted one. I know folks who wield curses as precisely as DaVinci could wield a brush. It’s a beautiful thing.

It all boils down to this:

Say what you mean and mean what you say.

Words can destroy countries and tear down mountains. They can kill, maim and rend. They can also heal, bring together and mend. They make the weak strong, and lovers fall in. They are magical things, but are only as strong as the thoughts behind them. That’s the crux. It’s not the words that do the damage, so why twist, emasculate, or mute them?

Our collective skins are not so thin that we can’t deal with a little straight-shooting. If they are, then we need to build calluses on our souls to protect us a little better. Let’s drop this entire political correctness pretense and get down to the business of communicating.

Cunts!