Attention Shoppers!!!   In the unlikely event you find yourself actually carefully scanning racks of Valentine’s Day Cards in a store that carries the Recycled Paper Greetings line, you might very well find the card on the left that is my first photo-based design (type on actual card much smaller, just enlarged here for sake of legibility).

This card tested really big last year, but I’ve yet to see it in a retail environment. If by chance you do, PLEASE feel free to take a photo with your cell phone or other digital device and email me. I’ll send you some “goodies” in return.

My fingers are metaphorically crossed that this design does well in the market place, as pathetically, even though gainfully employed, I’m still digging myself out of the dark and dismal past three economic years.

Of course my so-called “gainful employment” may very well end when my contract runs out the end of March and I’m as the English say, “Made redundant.” NOTHING like feeling worthless and expendable... I dunno, if I’m to believe David Lynch, perhaps Transcendental Meditation is the answer:

...if you visit that unified field twice a day, every day begins to feel like Saturday morning with your favorite breakfast, it’s sunny, and you’ve got the whole weekend ahead with all your projects that you’re looking forward to doing.

The other “answer” is for you all to buy multiple pieces of original cartoon artwork from this site. Sort of a joke, although you are encouraged to click on these black and white cartoons to see them enlarged and read more about them. In fact clicking on one these cartoons will result in you being able to SEE A PICTURE OF ME NAKED! (Not a joke).

And typing of the joke/not joke... I’ll leave you with a bit from Kurt Vonnegut’s “A Man Without a Country: A Memoir of Life in George W Bush’s America“ which I really should just break down and buy instead of just re-reading the original online columns from “In These Times” and extracts from “The Guardian”:

...I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I’m kidding.

For instance, join the National Guard or the Marines and teach democracy. I’m kidding.

We are about to be attacked by al-Qaida. Wave flags if you have them. That always seems to scare them away. I'm kidding.

If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding.

Yes, that last line might be construed as somewhat homophobic if you’re overly sensitive, but I’m willing to cut Mr. Vonnegut some slack, under the guise of the “joke”.

In sincere hope, that January for you has been better than this last week of January for me. I’m not joking,