Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Well, I'm back of course… arrived here around noon today and haven't really been doing too much. My goal for the day is pretty minimal — just to catch up on the newsfeed (unlikely on account of bad weather), clear the bad submissions (low res images, webcam shots, etc.; done), and that sort of stuff… That is all done by bots, but they only run on my command so it wasn't getting done while I was gone. Tomorrow I'll do an experience update, add a new art gallery, and then add images most likely on Wednesday.

I've had a chance to upload a bunch of pictures from the trip (sorry it took so long, the satellite is not doing so well in the storms)… They're just quick posts; I didn't have time to pretty them up or clean them or anything like that so some may not be quite perfect, but maybe some are of interest to someone. Click the pix below to see them, and note that with the exceptions of the ones that are of Rachel or I they're public domain so feel free to do stuff with them if they're useful to you (and I'd be glad to share high-res versions if people need them):

Other than that, I think the folks who kept IAM running while I was gone deserve a thank you, those people being Jon, Mike, and Danielle. Definitely glad to have them watching out for us — I was super-paranoid that stuff was going to go horribly wrong, but it did get dealt with perfectly (minus one small hiccup). Good allies to have, right?

Take a look around baby, yeah my whole crews ugly
But we still got the most game, the most money
The most hoes, the most honeys, it's so funny
How you hate my fuckin' guts but at the same time love me
From the Lincoln to the gold to the lowrinding bike
I always catch you hatin' but you know that you like
What you see is what you get, nothing more, nothing less
I'm chillin' smokin' chronic while you're chokin' on stress

It was weird getting back into North America yesterday; among other things, not that I'm not a bit overweight, but being back among truly rampant obesity is a strange experience. I can't imagine how bizarre it is for people who've lived their whole lives in a country where there's no major fitness related health issues to come to Canada or America… And the other thing you really notice coming back into North America is rudeness.

Not only does one notice that adults look your tattoos up and down in a hostile manner, but kids are afraid, and clutch at their parents when they see you, rather than smiling and wondering and wanting to touch and see what you're made of. What a sad place this is that we've lost that innocence. People in the West don't seem to care what your tattoos mean to you — all they see is what they mean to them; whatever hateful stereotype their prejudices demand… That is, when I was in the Caribbean, people didn't want to just see the world through their own hatred — they wanted to know what you were about, what you believed, and why you expressed yourself the way you did.

Thanks to “progress”, I guess we've replaced curiosity with fear.