I'll bold the ones that I've got now, and italicise the ones that I'm bidding on (if I can).

Year	Snake-Eyes Version	Year	Storm Shadow Version
1982	v1
1983	v1.5 (kung-fu grip)	1984	v1
1985	v2	1988	v2
1989	v3
1991	v4	1992	v3
1993	v5
1994	v6	1994	v4
1997	v7	1997	v5
1997	v8
2000	v9	2000	v6
2002	v10	2002	v7
2002	v11	2002	v8
2002	v12	2002	v9
2002	v13
2002	v14	2002	v10
2003	v15
2003	v16
2004	v17	2004	v11
2004	v18	2004	v12
2004	v19	2004	v15
2004	v20	2004	v14
2004	v21	2004	v16
2005	v22	2004	v13
2005	v23	2005	v17
2005	v24	2005	v18
2005	v25	2005	v19
2005	v26	2005	v20
2005	v27
2006	CLASSIFIED	2006	Tommy Arashikage
2007	v28	2007	v21
2007	v29	2007	v22
2008	v30	2007	v23
2008	v31	2008	v24
2008	v32	2008	v25
2008	v33	2008	Red Ninja Leader
2008	v34	2008	v26
2008	v35
2008	v36
2008	v37
2008	v38	2008	v27
2009	v39	2009	v29
2009	v40
2009	v41	2009	v30
2009	v42	2009	v31
2009	v43	2009	v32
2009	v44	2009	v33
2009	v45	2009	v34b
2009	v46	2009	v34a
2009	v47	2009	v35
2009	v48	2009	v36
2009	v49	2009	v37
2010	v50
2010	v51	2010	v38
2010	v52	2010	v39
2010	v53	2010	v40
2011	v54
2011	v55 [image courtesy www.generalsjoes.com]	2009	v28
2011	v56

For the horrifically uncool, "tabs" are "tabulature" which is musospeak for "numbers where your fat fingers should go on the strings and frets.

It's basically how I learned to play guitar.

So, frequently I hear something and want to learn to play it.  This is a beautiful way to learn how to play, I've learned, because just like piano lessons from Mrs. Chubbycheeks when I was 8, if the song sucks there's no inspiration to learn it.

Who wants to play shitty music?

Last song that really stuck in my head long enough for me to climb out of the car, go inside, and still somehow magically remember to look it up on Ultimate Guitar (the greatest guitaring website in the entire known Universe, including Uranus) was by Led Zeppelin.

Now, I only knew the opening guitar riff and a bit of the words, so Google had to help, but I found out it's not "Hey Lady" which is something that rude Mexicans yell at you to try and get your girlfriend to buy an overpriced bead necklace or hoodie made from donkey dung.

Nup, it's called "Over the Hills and Far Away" and I happily plugged that into Ultimate Guitar.

I found some tabs I liked (the ones with 3 or more stars on their rating) and clicked the link, breathless with the anticipation that can only come from being the next Robert Plant.

I got this:

This tablature has been made unavailable in your country at the request of the rights owner.

Excuse me?

Unavailable?

IN MY COUNTRY?

They may as well have said, "We're American Assholes so Fuck Everybody." because really, that's what it translates as, and I didn't even use Babelfish.

They also forgot that I am a Google Ninjatastic Pimpdaddy 5th Level of the Octagon, which means I had the "cached" version loaded up and the original content displaying on my browser RIGHT HERE IN MY FUCKING COUNTRY just fine, thank you very much Mr Asshole Rights Owner.

It copied, it printed, it looks just like all the other music in my "Geetar Moozak" folder here, surprisingly enough, and I sound just like Paige and Plant and all the rest of the musical wonderment that may fall out of your radio occasionally.

Go figure.

K, I totally lied, I sound nothing like Robert Plant, but that's because I have decent hair on my head and testicles.

ROCK.

This tablature has been made unavailable in your country at the request
of the rights owner.

Can I just get a Hellacious Yeah?

Right on.

I have a story about Storm Shadow that someday I'll write in the other blog. For now, I'm just using this page as a place to keep track of the Storm Shadows that I've got while getting a visual cue as to which one is which. While I love the yojoe.com site, they don't list all these badboys on one page, and instead you have to click on each version and wait 9 days for all the ads to load.

All images are courtesy of YoJoe.com and I thank them for letting me post them here even though I didn't ask.

Version	Year	Figure/Accessories
v1	1984
v2	1988
v3	1992
v4	1994
v5	1997
v6	2000
v7	2002
v8	2002
v9	2002
v10	2002
v11	2004
v12	2004
v13	2004
v14	2004
v15	2004
v16	2004
v17	2005
v18	2005
v19	2005
v20	2005		Tommy Arashikage	2006
v21	2007
v22	2007
v23	2007
v24	2008
v25	2008
v26	2008
v27	2008
v28	2009
v29	2009
v30	2009
v31	2009
v32	2009
v33	2009
v34a	2009
v34b	2009
v35	2009
v36	2009
v37	2009
v38	2010
v39	2010

When I was “in the system”, growing up with a public-school education in the US, I was taught to:

• Follow the rules.
• Stay inside the lines.
• Not be too “informal” or “too much”.

This type of teaching was drilled into me with a deeper and deeper intensity the further into my education I went.  By the time I was in one of the country’s top universities, I was terrified of letting any of my actual personality out for fear that I’d break some sort of rule and be forced out.

Turns out this absolute soul-languishing experience, combined with my own incidental inability to conform, gave me enough bad grades for long enough that they politely asked me to pursue my academic exploits elsewhere.  Preferably somewhere that wouldn’t lead me back to them.

For the first time in my adult life I had made a decision based on who I was.  It was a real lesson.

An art degree gave me fulfilment I hadn’t yet known, but corporate life made that but a fond memory.

Years on, and yet another job with too much corporate rammed up its ass, and I really started to wilt.  Not long after that, I was doing what I should’ve always been doing:

My Own Thing.

So I was launched into the world as my own entity.  My own business where I made all the decisions, where I was the only gatekeeper on what was put “out there” into the world.

About 4 minutes after I launched my first company website, I heard those words again.

“Too informal” and “too much”.

I had to politely remind that I’m me, this was my website, and I’d have on it whatever I damn well pleased.

I also had to remind, myself included, that if the deal-breaker with a potential client was the fact that I wrote like I talk, like I think and like I act, then I was probably far better off without that client in my life anyway.

Years later, and I’ve revised my business and its offerings to something a bit different, and another iteration of the website has happened.  About 4 minutes after this one launched, a friend once again politely snuck those words in there again.

“Too informal” and “too much”.

I made the point once again, with my foot planted a little firmer in front of me this time, that if people didn’t like how I said what I have to say, then they are doing me a favour by not including themselves in my life.

We're all just people.

Clients are still people, and it still costs me a little bit of my soul to have to interact with them when I strongly dislike them (or they, me).  What amount of money is worth your soul, even a little bit of it?  (hint: don’t answer that unless you’re my brother)

Wouldn’t you want people who like you, who you in turn like, to engage you and your services?  Wouldn’t you rather deal with people that you get along with, that sought you out and chose you over the others because you’re YOU and no one else?

Everyday people engage in something that feeds their soul.  They happily part with their hard-earned dough to go to movies and listen to music and read books that are all almost completely made up of someone’s personality.  Purely (usually) and honestly (they try to, I'm pretty sure), nearly 100% THEM is boxed up and put out there and people gobble it up because they like it.

Why should someone trying to sell a website be any different?  Or a laywer?  Or a funeral director?  Or an accountant?

Alright, maybe not an accountant.  Heh.

But still, why should you be any different when you’re putting yourself out there?  When you’re running your own company and you’re the one making all the decisions and you’re the one trying to sell yourself and your services to folks you don’t know… wouldn’t you rather just be you, and know that you’re successful because of that?

I suppose if you think about it, that’s success in and of itself.

I’ll never speak corporate again, on my business’s website or on a client’s behalf.  It may not be proven that it helps or hurts, but I sure don’t think it’s worth the risk.

All very exciting "ations" and I find myself thinking about each this warm and windy morning.  The baby's gotten up at his usual 5:30 AM (5:28 to be exact and it should be known that he's never more than 8 minutes off despite how late we keep him up or when we feed him) and I find myself unusually awake.  And thinking about the past few weeks/months.

I get these cartoons emailed to me.  They're one-frame bits of awesome that are hard to describe other than to say this Irish-American fella is named Hugh, used to scribble on napkins and matchbooks for fun in bars while he sold his soul for The Man, and now he just draws these for a living.

The first one that really got me this week was this one:

I'd just spent the entire previous day trying to successfully integrate some web code that is probably not only above my (former) pay grade, but something that only an idiot would take on willingly.

Just to go powernerd on you for a bit, I've got a PHP script, running off of a CRON job, that pulls people's Google Analytics data via the Google Analytics API, then matches the on-page visitor statistics with a screenshot of the page that's generated dynamically from a Windows-based executable running on a Linux machine and emails you a dynamically-generated PDF.  All of this is a really, really nerdy way of saying, "you get your web stats emailed to you with pretty pictures and easy-to-understand graphs."

It's pretty slick.  It's something that I don't think anyone is doing.  I'M doing it.  And I'm doing it because I think it's cool, I think people need it, and I want to make the web a better place.  I'll spend over 100 hours on this by the time it's ready and I haven't even thought about what to charge for it (if at all?).

Looking at our feeble bank account balance and wondering for the 437th time if it's really worth subjecting my family to poverty merely to subject them to my constant presence at home, I wasn't feeling so hot.  Then this email popped in, with the cartoon above in it, and I felt instantly lighter, more capable.  Real.

I Cannot

Only a day or so later, I was having one of those moments you have when your kids are on School Holidays and have done that annoying thing that you hate with the burning intensity of a thousand white-hot suns and they've done it for the 863rd time in 4 days and you're trying your best to channel Bob Ross and his Happy Trees and you're counting backward from 10 while breathing deeply because you know, deep in your core, that you can't treat people as if they're you any more.

Yeah, one of those moments.

Not a "Parental Crisis" or any silly bullshit like that, just a moment where I was genuinely wondering where I was going wrong in my parenting that I couldn't get my goddam kid to just STOP doing that thing that I hate.

But the breathing helps, and the counting helps, and the Trying to Be a Better Man sure helps, so when you're at the end of it, you're left wondering what influence you DO have.

Then this pops in:

From this email, which may or may not have been Steve Jobs-inspired (though that really doesn't matter), and I realised that all the greatest teachers I ever had in my life never told me to do a damn thing, they simply suggested ways of doing something and let me think my way through the rest.

I reckon that's about the best I can do for my children.

Oh, and kick the footy around the park and tell poo jokes and make the best pancakes in the entire universe.

Life is Short

Friday hit and wife and I had just survived probably one of the best endings to a School Holiday our children could've had given our financial situation and I was feeling just a little bit good about myself and the idea of saying "hell with it" and just doing something in life because it was good to do it.

These words aren't new, they aren't even terribly quote-worthy, but they are all 100% beautifully true.

Life is short, so live it the best that you can.  If that means quitting your job and eschewing that hideous beast known as "rush hour traffic" in favour of squealing 8-year olds in too-big bowling shoes, then DO IT.

For all the issues, problems, obstacles and shitstorms that the lack of finances brings, I've never regretted my life choices for one single, solitary second.

And I'll bet you a dollar I never will.

But dammit, that's a pretty damn stupid reason not to say something, especially if it's a really GOOD something.  I'm all for being original, but I'm all for following your heart too.  Sometimes, they're the same, but not always.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

- Steve Jobs, Stanford commencement speech, June 2005

I had a friend once, somebody that I liked and only saw every couple of years, somebody that was somebody else's friend and therefore I always questioned our friendship a bit.  As in, "do they really like me, or just feel obliged?"

This friend put together a list of great quotes once with everything from Ani Difranco to "Land Before Time" and I was enjoying them until I got to one that said:

Trust your gut.  Think of all the times you've been in trouble in your life.  If you hadn't listened to it, you'd be dead.  Let your head act as advisor to your heart and your gut.  Do that, and you'll be alright.

I liked that one, though it was eerily familiar.  Then I figured out why.

It's mine.

The Lesson is a Simple One.

And I don't know how many other places say it, and I don't know how many other times you've read it, and I don't know how many times I saw it and heard it and watched it and felt compelled by it and ignored it anyway.

Live your own life as exactly who you are.

That's it.  Shit, even "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" managed to have George Carlin telling us to "be excellent to each other."

There's simple messages everywhere, most are epically awesometastic, and we just need to pluck up our goddam courage and adhere to them.

Or better yet.  Do one of the best things you could ever do for your own life.

Write your own.

Good luck.

Pretty much par-for-course, all the Big Bills come at once, but you know what?  The kids actually LIKE baked beans on toast.  Screw you Poverty!  We still think you taste good!

Aside from being poor, we're also moving.  WHOO!

No.  No "WHOO".  Well, not really.  It's another house owned by doc-in-law, right here in our li'l suburb, and it became open.  Sort of shotgun-styles, we decided to throw away 75% of our shit and move 8 blocks away to a cleaner and easier-to-manage house.

Finding which 75% to ditch?  Yes, that IS the hard part.  Moving the other 25% when you've got a very sociable and cuddly baby ain't easy either.

But I digest.

I had a birthday too, and it may actually be the best f*cking birthday I've ever had.

Well, it's up there anyway.

Other stuff happened too, and wife took pics, as she does.

Let's go through the those, shall we?

(Some are from the awesomeness that is my phone, taken with the decided lack of awesomeness that is my eye)

Something in wifeage's genetics makes gorgeous children.  GORGEOUS.

I love this look.  This is a classic, and will surely be busted out on the projector set up at his 18th birthday.

Probably the happiest kid I have ever seen.

First try with proper solids, wifeage boiled him a potato and we put it in his li'l smushy mesh holder thingo.  I've clearly been working on armour/swords in the shed and the smell probably didn't add much to his culinary experience, but he ate it all happily.

Video of him eating from a spoon for the first time.  I'm thinking the apple that was mixed in with the sweet potato was probably a bit much.

He played so hard.

So hard he fawwed asweep.

He does this a lot too.  Just being such a Little Dude wears him right out.

From the top of the stairs in our chalet in Balingup, Princess Snow White Barbierella is posing for mum.  Probably prompted with something along the lines of, "No, cuter.  CUTER.  There."

"Where the hell are my hat and sunnies... put 'em here somewhere... *grumble grumble*"

"Daddy!  Get outta my house, loser!"

*laughs* "Did you get that from a TV show?"

"No, from your desk!"

Our li'l Picasa.  She had some story about a spider out for a walk on a sunny, partly cloudy, day, but I forgot to remember it.  What I did remember was that it was unbearably cute.

Hard to read, but she's written "Princess" on this one and made a girl with earrings and a sparkly crown.  Only 1 in 5 of these are self-portraits too.

Reading on her Leappad thingo for her brother.  She's still really into the idea that he thinks she's so damn awesome.

Book Week ended with a "Dress as your favourite character" day.  Hard to see, but I carved him that wand myself, and wifeage ruined a pair of sunnies for those specs.

Gwen Tennyson (from Ben 10) was much easier.  But I can say that because I didn't do her hair, haha.

For the Biggest Birthday Surprise of ALL, I was spirited away to the hills outside of Perth.  Some hastily made arrangements for babysitting (original deal fell through) later and we went a short 20 minutes to a place called "Hidden Valley".

We roll up and I'm stoked by all the nature everywhere.  Nothing like trees and solitude for a birthday, I tells ya.  I figured we were going away by wifeage packing overnight stuff, but I kind of thought a Motel 6 or something.

I never dreamed it would be something like this place.

We rock up and the one-room joint is amazing.  It's like it's built for couples who want to get away from the kids and just lay around nekkid.  Wife says, "hurry up and put that robe on, we're late."

Hmmm... late for nekkidness?  What could await me?

Only one of those awesometastic couple's massage thingos.  I've never even imagined being one of those couples that gets a massage together as usually we're either giving them to each other or too poor to afford more than one.  This was most awesome.

Then, back to the lovenest to get into the hot tub and drink some wine.  Then to the shops for a steak, which we grilled outside... then back in the hot tub!

Next morning, the folks've left an egg/bacon breakfast platter in the tiny fridge.  Oh Sweet Jeebus it was awesome.  Sure, cook it yourself, but hey, that's how we actually prefer it.

SO relaxing.  SO spoiled.  SO nice.  I really, Really, REALLY didn't want to leave.

Wifeage actually candidly captured me staring wistfully at the fire, moments before we had to check out.  It's amazing times like that, that actually make you rethink your own fertility.

I keed.  I LOVE my children.  But still, it was wonderful to get away from it all, even if only for a night.

So, back to reality...

And MOVING.

YOINKERS.

We actually had to list out the "Pros" and "Cons" before we decided anything.  The "Pros" easily won out, but it's still extremely STRESSFUL moving house.

Even though this is doc-in-law's old house, and we've spent so many days and nights there that we didn't really need an orientation.  But still, it's good to get your bearings.

Here's me and Boo imagining where the Big Screen TV will go.  We're also imagining owning one.  We're also imagining possessing enough money at one time to be able to afford to own one.  We eventually stopped imagining things and had Jadey stick a flower behind our ears.

Oh yeah!  The kids went to their first professional hockey game too!  We've got the Perth Thunder here now, and while they're in their first, probationary, season (next year they'll be full-fledged Australian Ice Hockey League), they're still freakin' awesome.

A while back, I offered them website help in exchange for tickets and merchandise and stuff, and they were only too happy to comply, giving me tickets for the whole family and advertising space (half-page) in their weekend program.

Then, they beat the pants off of the 2nd best team in the league.  Well done boys.

The kids loved it, they ran around like maniacs and we all froze our bullocks off.  It was AWESOME.

I even got to take the li'l Boo the next night, though we all wished mummy's back was good enough for her to come with.

This is my youngest son.  My baby boy.  My last baby.  Because he is the last, we're going to take lots and lots of pictures of him.

Also, because he's absolutely GORGEOUS.

Seriously, that's the best-looking baby I've ever seen, and I'm not just saying that because I'm his daddy.

Okay sure, I might be a bit biased, but still.

Fascinated by Mr Caterpillar.  Anything with boggly eyes gets engaged in animated conversation.  It's hilarious.

Happiest.  Kid.  Ever.

To this day, he has yet to really cry.  You know how some babies go on a bit, maybe even after you feed/sleep/stop pinching them?  This one doesn't.  EVER.  Amazing.

I love this picture too, because my other great love took it while I was out and one of my other great loves is in the background.

That's all for now folks.  I hope your ice stays cool and your guitars keep smiling.

Me and the nerds sometimes hear murmurings about being featured in the Thisthing or the Thatthing, but when a li'l gal and her cameraman came out to training one day, we dressed in our finest, as we always do.

Then, she put together THIS.

Paul, Bill and Cheryl all interview really well.  Bill and GoodScott get a chance to fight a bit for the camera and the two groups clashing shows nice shots of Sam and Andrew right in front and then GoodScott slicing up our ol' Roman Tom.

They got some sort of long-distance, candid shot of me getting armoured up with the help of Juanita, and all I can think is that the different coloured codpiece really makes my junk look impressive.  Camera adds 10 pounds.  That fella around the 2:00 mark that's facedown and seems to be muttering something about the compressed nerve in his spine?  Yeah, that's me too.

Great video though, really proud to be in such a kickass piece from such a great club.

K, done gushing now about my awesome nerds and swords and such.

Smooches.

Bear in mind that it's usually NOT a good idea to reply as it only confirms your email with a giant stencilled stamp reading "SUCKER", but I figure if I'm getting this crap anyway, I may as well have some fun with it.

And by "fun" I mean "always include the suggestion that they forcibly sodomise themselves with various objects".

Subject: Google Listing

Dear,

Hope you are well. I was surfing through your website “www.jexanalytics.com” and Saw your website is not on top rankings for most of your keywords pertaining to your domain so I was wondering if you would be interested in getting Search engine optimization done for your website.

Ethical SEO leads to Better Traffic leading to higher Sales.

We follow all ethical and proprietary techniques to get your website on top.

Let me know if you would like me to mail you more details or schedule a call. We'll be pleased to serve you.

I look forward to your feedback

Yours sincerely,
Astha
Marketing Manager

See, this shit is really funny because at this time I was in the SEO game and I was "on top rankings".  My reply:

Dear,
I’m probably going to want to schedule a call with you guys.
I mean, otherwise, I’ll never be able to find out where you live so I can come by and forcibly sodomise you with a length of knotted rope.

Cheers,
Judd Exley
Managing Director
Jex Analytics

They wrote back!  GOLD.

Subject: RE: Google Listing

Hi Judd,
We are located in the NCR region of New Delhi , India. Therefore your afternoon time would best suit us.
Let me know when you want to schedule a call.
Regards,
Raghav Khurana
Sales Manager

To which I answered (gigglingly):

Hi Raghav,
I’ll need an address for you guys, so I can stop by and forcibly sodomise you with a length of knotted rope (see my original email).

Cheers!
Judd Exley
Managing Director
Jex Analytics

And again!  They're missing something in the language translation methinks:

Hi Judd,
Our contact details are mentioned on our website .The URL is www.d2stechnologies.com
Let me know when you want to schedule a call.
Regards,
Raghav Khurana
Sales Manager

Not getting it.  I felt sorta bad, thinking some poor schlep in Delhi is wondering when he's going to hit it big, so I sent this:

Hey Raghav,
While I am having the BEST time repeatedly emailing you and discussing forcibly sodomising you with a length of knotted rope (which I’m doubting you even understand as a concept, more on that later), I thought it best to let you know that I’ve turned you guys in to the following websites:

• http://www.fw2.com/fws/rec5.html
• http://www.ehow.com/how_2003328_report-spammers-isp.html
• http://www.spamcop.net/
• http://www.spamarchive.org/

As well as sending your email address and other relevant contact details to Google and Yahoo’s Abuse Departments.  Thanks so much for sending through all of your contact information, as it’s going to be so much easier for them to flag you and stop your incessant spamming (and really, really shitty marketing attempt) emails.  I mean really, why do you fuckwads insist on spelling things like “Web Desiging”?  It’s insulting to the people that really are trying to make a living at it, even if they’re shittier than you (and that’s not easy!).

In regards to the forcible sodomisation, I’ll break it down for you.  Because you persist in bothering me, anyone really, with emails, threats of phone calls and other nonsense, I am suggesting you take some thick rope, tie some knots in it, and put it up your ass.  Yes, in your rectum.  Right up there.

Now, that may not sound that bad, but imagine rope like cattle rope, or the wire-reinforced stuff that haytrucks use to tie their stuff down.  That’s about 2-inches thick and very rough on the hands, so imagine how it’ll feel being stuffed into your pucker...  And then yanked out!  Oh dear.  I’m afraid that would be quite uncomfortable and would probably do some long-lasting damage.

Also, in regards to that, I’ve taken your email (and your friend Rishi’s there) and have signed you up to some sodomy newsletters, forums and some other interesting sites that deal with putting things in your bottom.  You guys seem so interested in it, I thought I’d help you out with that.

While I don’t wish death on you spamming fuckshitweasels, I do wish you’d just stop, so please treat this email as the nicest and most humorous way of asking you to do so.

Cheers!
Judd Exley
Managing Director
Jex Analytics

I knew it would happen, but I haven't heard back since.  [Sad Face]

Feel free to copy this tactic with other suggestions (if you're not down for the whole rectum thing but still want to see some damage) such as:

• Dousing themselves in flammable liquids.
• Covering themselves in some sort of yummy substance and laying down on anthills or rodent-infested nests.
• Stripping naked and running through busy traffic.
• Grasping their keyboard in both hands and moving it quickly and repeated into their own face.
• Watching "Glee"!

Enjoy!