I've ignored you for too long, personal blog.

EDIT: jeez, wrote this back in October and never published it. But it gives you a good sense of where my head has been the last few months. Take a look at it if you will.

It's going to be rambly...

The life of a toymaker/movie maker/anything that takes extensive planning is a strange one.

You are forever in "not now." Literally today, I'm waiting to be able to show you the new Robo Force toy that's been in the works since (first concept drawing) October 2012 - and discussed a couple of months before that, while waiting for the first shot (first figure out of finalized tooling) of a brand-new product I haven't announced anywhere yet, while waiting for the next order of Mordles arriving next month (including my most-wanted Mordle color!) while the next sale for club members happens this Sunday while I get ready for a convention this Sunday while waiting for a call from the printer about the final piece of the club kits while brainstorming out REDACTED to answer some questions about the Mordles and the first roughs of Mordles Comic #2 (with the panel I've been waiting to see since I wrote the rough outline months ago)...
in addition to waiting for THAT PAGE of the new Robo Force comic to pop into my inbox...
while looking at the plan for the rest of the year and deciding if I have the balls to really do THAT colorway on the Mordles... #godtookthedevil

The movies are no different. Months getting financing together. Months securing name actors. Months filming the picture. Editing stage. Waiting for distributor answers. Finalizing things they need. Waiting for the actual release. Waiting for money to come in.
Again, this week - finalize legal dox for some aspects of the movie. Saw "final" director's cut of APOCALYPSE KISS, a movie that probably won't see release until 2014 - by which we'll be filming a new movie. Then the making-of piece pops into my inbox - I'm featured in it somewhat. A call about a completely different project comes in...

While all of these things have been happening, we're in TWENTY THIRTEEEN. I didn't look ahead years ago and say, "man, I bet 2013 will be the ultra shits when it gets here." And it's not, exactly.
But on a level I haven't experienced much before, it's the greatest year and the worst year in parallel streams. Toy company releases product/film a new project which is a quantum leap over the last one/work with a number of people that I'd always dreamed of working with (Doughty! Groman! Atkins! Kaufman!)...at the same time, the spectre of death and disease has been hovering around my circle - multiple people with cancer. Suicides impacting my friends (one just yesterday, another unconscionable loss that will never be explained) and in turn, me. Catastrophic financial failure in the lives of a few buddies. Personal issues of the highest levels that don't seem to have a lot of great resolutions possible. A feeling that a giant clock is turning, the sounds of it growing loud in my ears, counting down to...?

I think about what the point of a blog is. Is it for me, or other people? Many blogs are essentially an online journal - but now many people can read your thoughts. Does it tell others that they are not alone. That we all have problems.
The last few days have been tinged with nerd anger, debate, fury, horror, and any other reaction you could think of regarding Masters of the Universe figures. I'm not going to be one to say it isn't important. It IS important. There's a tendency to marginalize others because we CAN'T STOP BEING COMPARATIVE. "C'mon bro, toys aren't important bro." You're TELLING me something, again. It plagues our entire society. "No, YOU are wrong. THIS is what you are feeling." So you play the game, you hit the people back, and then "C'mon bro. They're just toys." We've lost something essential.
Then again, maybe it is all manipulation. We know in the back of our minds that everything is a manipulation. Humans weren't meant to be sitting in cubicals dying inside as the poison of ignorance smashes into their frontal lobes at the speed of hate speech. A bunch of animals fought their internal programming and made up rituals that go against what their entire selves tell them to do. We were hunters, and now we hunt paperwork. When you look behind the curtain because of unhappiness and you see the machinery running the show, how do you go back to life when you know the secrets?