Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Super Jayhawk's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, May 15th, 2008
7:14 pm	A Landmark Decision Congratulations to the California State Supreme Court for realizing that civil rights and equal protection under the law apply to everyone, no matter who you love. The decision will likely be as significant as the 1967 US Supreme Court decision striking down laws banning interracial marriage. Back then, most people felt that it shouldn't be allowed, but today nobody gives it a second look. The same will happen over time. (Incidentally, the ban on interracial marriage was overturned two years before I was born-- good thing too, otherwise my own parents' marriage would have been considered illegal). The best part is going to be watching all the ultraconservative pundits go into a foaming frenzy over the decision. If Falwell and Thurmond hadn't already croaked, they probably both would have today. Yup, just would keeled over. I'm sure that the religious firebrands will make all kinds of pronouncements that this is a sign of The Apocalypse and that the end is nigh, and that Divine Retribution is at hand. Will be lots of fun to watch. What happens in California happens to propagate to the rest of the country after a few years-- we'll see what happens. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 10th, 2008
1:54 am	The Quest for Final Four Glory - Saturday at the Final Four Watch Party (First part of the story-- I'm way behind and trying to catch up with all the madness) This last Friday night I had a hard choice to make. I could go to a party with friends and just drink and watch the game, or I could run off to San Francisco to appear as Super Jayhawk in a rough-and-tumble looking Irish Tavern, where I didn't know anyone there, with no changing or heads-off space to speak of, and possibly no parking. Not to mention the fact that I generally avoid going to San Francisco like the plague since it's impossible to get around or through that city, much the less park. So after carefully weighing my options, I decided to do the insane thing and go for it. In my quest to be Super Jayhawk, and after waiting two years for the new suit, there was no turning back. I sent my regrets to my friends hosting the party down near home and drove up on Friday night to scope things out to figure out parking, where I would change, how to get there, etc. I didn't get there till 9:30pm and it took me about an hour to get everything figured out and talk to the bar people, and I didn't get home till 11:30pm to even start packing up all the things I would need to pull this off. It took me till 4:30am to get packed, showered, and get to bed, and it was painful getting up only four and a half hours later. I had to make sure everything was loaded-- I brought both the original Super Jayhawk and the new one, all the fursuit gig gear, cold packs, ice chests, fans, chairs, tarps, just like we were doing a fursuit gig.. since it was. terraluna_bat came over about noon and we met up with ultragor in San Bruno, who had just dropped minnieme4rl off at SFO for her flight. We arrived at San Francisco's Lombard Street Garage, managed to back both vehicles into a somewhat secluded spot to change, had a bite at Mel's, and then went after our quest for Final Four Glory. ( The Quest For Final Four Glory, Part 1 ) Much thanks to Ultra-Gor and Terraluna for spotting for me and helping me get through the whole thing, I couldn't have done it without them, especially since we changed in the parking garage and went to a way-crowded bar! Saturday was awesome, and an epic game against North Carolina, and a great appearance by the Bird in Spandex, but it was only the warmup for what was to come on Monday..... Current Mood: exhausted Current Music: I'm a Jayhawk (KU Fight Song) (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 5th, 2008
12:47 am	OK... We're doing this! The Jayhawks are playing the big showdown game of their lives tomorrow, against North Carolina, in the Final Four. Everything they've worked up to for the season. No, wait, the last FIVE seasons, comes to a head tomorrow night in San Antonio. After careful consideration and advice from my friends, I will be cheering them on in full Super Jayhawk regalia at Kelley's Tavern at 3231 Fillmore (at Fillmore and Lombard Streets) in San Francisco. No, I don't like even visiting San Francisco in general, but my Jayhawks need me, and it's time to answer the call, put on the tights and become Super Jayhawk! And so the decision is made. I'm going to go for all the marbles, unless I have to go with plan B. Ever since I was about four years old and my Dad took me to the Jayhawk games as a pre-kindergartener, I would watch the Jayhawk mascot. I can't tell you anything about what went on in the games then, but I know every frame of video that the mascot was doing. Thirty-four years later, I have worked relentlessly (some would say obsessively) towards getting the most awesome Jayhawk costume I could ever have, and run with a bunch of crazy freelance mascots for a nearly a decade, among other things, to learn their Jedi ways, their magic and their command of the Mascot's Force. And to, of course, help them with what they were trying to do in their mission to entertain and make countless kids happy. I just hope I'm ready. This has been at least 20 years in the making, if not more. It's kind of scary to be a dog who's been chasing cars for over half his life and suddenly catches one, without having a clue with what to do. (and if I'm in doubt while running around in costume... I will ask myself "What Would Yippee Do?" and he shall guide me. "Lo, for though I walk through the shadow of NCAA Tournament Sudden Death...") If you'd like to join us, come by around 2-4 PM at Kelley's or give me a call. I will be suiting up after that. terraluna_bat and ultragor have valiantly volunteered to be my wingmen. (Get it? Wingmen! HAA!) But seriously. We march in to seek nothing less than Final Four Glory. Win or lose, I will be Super Jayhawk, and my heart bleeds crimson and blue. I wouldn't have it any other way. So if you do want to join us, the uber-secret parking garage that's the closest parking to the bar is the Lombard Street Garage, at 2055 Lombard Street, San Francisco. The trick you have to know (click here) is that you have to go to Lombard and Webster, head South on Webster for like 40 feet, and then take a right turn into the one-way Moulton Street, where the uber-secret on-ramp to the Lombard Street Parking Garage is. Even after driving the mighty HawkMobile 4-5 times past the area, I still couldn't find the entrance, I had to park insanely far away and walk to the bar and ask the Kelley's Tavern bartenders where it was. So I will see you there, if you are with me! And if you can't be there, wish me luck! I'm excited, kinda scared, and highly disoriented from how fast this is all happening, but I have to do it. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't. Current Mood: determined Current Music: The KU Fight Song (13 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
11:17 am	And now, for my first commissoned full-page art of Super Jayhawk in 17 years... That's right, other than a couple of badges and some impromptu drawings given as gifts (thanks to nerfcoyote and others), I haven't commissioned a full-page piece of artwork featuring Super Jayhawk since I came across the artist who did the original drawing in 1991. This might seem amazing, especially since I've gone to like 20+ cons now, all with dealer rooms full of artists. Largely this is because I'm so fricken' busy at cons that I never make it into the dealer room, and even when I do have time to make it in, I don't find the artist that would match what I'm looking for. Which is too bad, because Super Jayhawk is right out of the comic books. (Or Champions!, at least) At Pawpet MegaPlex 2008, I was determined to actually (a) make it into a dealer room for the first time in 4 years, and (b) get a new full-page drawing of Super Jayhawk in over four times that long. I walked through the dealer room for an hour, looking at everyone's portfolios to see who would be the best fit for bringing Super Jayhawk to life. And then I found what I was looking for! So without any further ado, here's the commission done by the amazing artist gen, with Super Jayhawk taking flight in a classic "Superman Returns" pose. She did an awesome job, and pulled off the whole thing in one day at the con! Thanks Gen! This one made my whole con! (not to mention the photoshoots!) 17 years is too long to wait! I'm going to have to go get more drawings done... anyone have recommendations for artists that can pull off the superhero look? (I can see now why some furs get addicted to art) Current Mood: thrilled (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
8:28 pm	The Kansas Jayhawks are going to the Final Four! (No April Fooling, either!) YAAAAAAAAAAAY! Finally, the Jayhawks have made it to the hallowed ground, the top tier of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, the Final Four, for the first time since 2003. Congratulations to Coach Self and the team for showing what they were capable of and getting rid of the early-exit curse that the Jayhawks have suffered from in the last few years! Now I have to find somewhere to watch the upcoming semifinal championship game on Saturday evening-- wonder if I should show up in Super Jayhawk to a sports bar (hosting KU Alumni), like Croc did for the Gators in last year's tournament?  Wonder if I could get some people interested in that... It might be better for me to be in costume during this game, because I will have to deal with.... ( Final Four Musings and Coach Roy ) And so now, five or fifteen years later, depending on how you look at it, the showdown looms. It's going to be Bill Self's Jayhawks vs. Roy Williams' Tar Heels, in what promises to be an iconic game for the ages. I love Roy and I appreciate all he did for the Jayhawks in the fifteen years that he was there for us, second only to Phog Allen in terms of wins and duration of stay, but on Saturday he will just be another opposing coach to me and I'll root for the Jayhawks to show Roy just how far that the Jayhawks have come since he left. I am a Jayhawk, like my father before me. (and Mom too). Much as I respect Carolina and feel about Roy, I will be pulling hard for the Jayhawks to send Roy back home to Chapel Hill empty-handed.  GO JAYHAWKS! (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
1:38 pm	Going to Megaplex! 20 Years ago, when I was a poor KU student, I watched everyone else in the dorm head out to spring break. There would be all kinds of trips advertised to Florida, Cancun, South Padre Island, or wherever. I never got to go to Spring Break, instead having to spend an entire week in Chicago, my least-favorite city in the whole country, with my parents. When I managed to move out of the dorm and get a place of my own, I just hung around Lawrence and watched the bustling college town be empty for a week, while everyone else went to Daytona. But now, twenty years later... it's MY turn! (Thanks to Ultra-Gor and his mad Paintshop Pro skills for the background!) This is a first for me on a number of fronts... first time that I've ever gone anywhere during spring break season, much less during the NCAA Tournament (more on that later). And also the first time I've flown to a con since the disastrous 2003 season, where my fursuit box got crushed by the O'Hare Luggage Muncher Machine both going to and coming back from MFF. So if you're looking for me around Megaplex, I'll be the one in full spandex, or in my blue suit. I'm kinda hard to miss, but some people have managed. And BTW, if you see a guy in bright red and blue with yellow shoes, I'm NOT Jimmy Chin. People keep mistaking me for somebody with much, much more talent. (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 24th, 2008
7:36 pm	So maybe owners really are like their dogs... Took this quiz, and got this result on the first try, without even trying to game the answers. The dog in the picture looks a lot like Nugget, even sitting funny off-center like he always did. He would have never left a milk-bone that long in his mouth though, it would have been gone in 3 seconds. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
6:28 pm	The war, five years later So here we are, five years after BushCo and his cronies started a stupid, pointless and illegal war in Iraq and decided to invade Baghdad. I said it was a bad idea then and now the rest of the country and world has gotten to find out what a profoundly bad idea it was. Oh, we would be greeted as liberators. Oh, we have to do it to stop those WMDs. Oh, they were behind 9/11. Oh, if we don't fight them there we'll have to fight them here. All a pack of lies. We were led into a 21st Century version of Vietnam despite the domestic and international outcry, and the invasion and occupation was a horrible mess and a complete debacle from the start. We've turned Iraq from a country that had no terrorism to the most Dangerous Place on Earth, a breeding ground for terrorists to train against American forces. We've turned the entire nation into a battle zone between three warring tribes, none of which respect or accept the rule of the quisling government that we've set up there. Now we have over 4000 troops dead, and 30,000 wounded, and God knows how many dead and wounded Iraqis. We have alienated our allies and shown rogue nations that if you don't want to get invaded, you better get real nukes fast. Our reputation and standing in the world have suffered immensely in the last five years, and we have squandered every bit of good will offered to us after 9/11. It will take generations to rebuild that, and even longer to repay the bill (especially at $1 BILLION a day to run the war) and already has cost half a TRILLION dollars. Imagine what the US could have done with that kind of money. Not only will we be stuck with the bill, but so will our grandkids. So, on this fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, I'd like to take the opportunity to dedicate an old Bob Dylan Classic to the architects that got us in this mess : Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, Powell and Rice. While this song was originally written for Vietnam, it still rings just as true today as it did during our last pointless war of occupation led on false pretenses. (and no, this ain't going under a cut tag-- not today). You tell 'em, Bob. Masters of War Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build the big bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks You that never done nothin' But build to destroy You play with my world Like it's your little toy You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain You fasten the triggers For the others to fire Then you set back and watch When the death count gets higher You hide in your mansion As young people's blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in the mud You've thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world For threatening my baby Unborn and unnamed You ain't worth the blood That runs in your veins How much do I know To talk out of turn You might say that I'm young You might say I'm unlearned But there's one thing I know Though I'm younger than you Even Jesus would never Forgive what you do Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand o'er your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music Current Mood: Outraged Current Music: Take a guess (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 14th, 2008
11:03 am	Vote for Big Jay! The EA Sports NCAA Football '09 Mascot Challenge is on now, so vote for Big Jay! Voting closes today, Friday March 14! (Whoever you vote for... don't vote for the ugly purple cat-looking thing with just a mascot head and football pants! Geez, you think he could afford to buy the rest of his body now instead of snagging gear from the football team!) GO JAYHAWKS! Current Music: The KU Fight Song (21 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
11:47 pm	A Quarter Century Online Twenty-five years ago, on March 4, 1983, I entered the online world for the very first time. I'd used modems for a few years before when my dad would let me use his teletype and log into the VAX at his work a few years beforehand, but this was a whole different deal. This was calling a BBS, a place where you could actually talk to someone. (Someone besides the operator of the mainframe, anyway). The same model as my first modem (that wasn't built into a teletype), an acoustic Novation CAT (Courtesy of Wikipedia) ( Getting online, for the first time, a quarter century ago... ) The tones and hiss of the modem mating dance have gone the way of the Victrola now, but the world of cyberspace only gets bigger with each passing year. I only hope I can keep up with all the changes, as they've already been mind-blowing and have introduced me to more people than my parents' generation could even comprehend. Here's to the next 25 years! (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 24th, 2008
10:39 pm	Too outrageous not to comment on this.... This happened right before FC 2008, so I didn't get a chance to catch up on it until now-- Apparently some addle-brained Missouri lawmaker wants open season on Jayhawks by introducing a bill in the Mizery Legislature to make the Kansas Jayhawk the official game bird of that state, declaring it the official avian to be hunted. I was amazed that anyone could be so cluelessly stupid as to pull a stunt like that, but then I realized the lawmaker in question is a Mizzou graduate, twice over. Geez, can't they work on fixing their state and educational system rather than being a bunch of mini-Quantrills? Silly Tigers! Basketball wins are for Jayhawks! (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 7th, 2008
7:01 pm	Birthday Season First off, I want to say Happy Birthday to 3catsjackson, 55seddel, chairoraccoon, crocodile, flipperanubi, redmonika, smashwolf, uckticoonox, ysengrin, and my good friend Brad, who got me into LJ in the first place, back in 2002. With all the birthdays going on in such a short time I regret I won't be able to keep up with them all, especially with the work and family stuff going on right now that's taking a lot of my time. If I don't see you on your birthday, I still wish you all well and happy birthday, it's just hard for me to keep up with everything going on in the post-FC birthday follies. (Especially as I'm going on vacation next week). (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, February 2nd, 2008
3:19 am	Ok now, a question for those of you that saw Furry Night Live 2008........ For those of you that are interested in helping us with feedback for FNL... Does anyone have any comments, good bad or otherwise, about what you thought about the Furry Night Live 2008 Show that we worked on... other than the same objections about "Dick In A Box? There were 19 other acts, and we'd like to know what you thought about those too. If you are up for it, please post them to furrynightlive) Thanks! -SJ (26 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 31st, 2008
8:20 pm	Missed the con (or maybe it just felt that way) Before I get into specifics of how my FC 2008 was, I just wanted to say sorry to all those that I didn't get a chance to hang out with or that I had to run off with only a brief hi. I spent pretty much the entire con hauling stuff, working on Furry Night Live, hauling for and setting up the parties I was madly trying to organize, cleaning up after said parties, and trying to get all the details for our skits and movies put together (and burn lots of DVDs and CDs for FNL, too). I felt like I pretty much hid in the hotel room the whole con, and I didn't even leave the DoubleTree building itself for five days. I had four things to submit to Furry Night Live, (Under The Same Sky, the animated dragon opening, the Godzilla Project, and Snow White and the Seven Samurai), two new fursuits I never got to do much of a walkaround in, was too exhausted to even enter in the masquerade, didn't have time to go to anything I wasn't directly working on, missed the fursuit parade due to the FNL Rehearsal issues, and missed the Patron Lunch that I paid extra for (also due to the FNL Rehearsal scheduling fiasco). [Thanks to Minnie for bringing me a take-out box from the lunch] I crashed really hard on Monday and had to spent a good deal of it lying down in the room after being so tired. I wanted to go to dinner with people, but they had already left, and I had to get help to even pack up all the gear that we had brought. I wasn't better until Tuesday afternoon when I went around the DoubleTree looking for any remnants of the con or people that I could just hang with after six solid days of sheer ass-busting work, but nearly everyone was gone. So for those of you that I missed or didn't get a chance to say hi to, my apologies that I missed out on the opportunity. If you want to catch up with me, my AIM UID is superjayhawkks. I hope to catch people later in the year, or at FC 2009, when I plan to have more time. (and won't be trying to work on eight major projects at the same con) Current Mood: bummed (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
12:46 am	OMG the one one week mark before FC! So now we're rapidly coming up on triple-OMG weekend. The weekend of Jan 5-6 was OMG! Weekend. The next weekend of Jan. 12-13 was OMG OMG!! weekend. This next weekend, the last weekend before FC, is OMG OMG OMG!!! weekend. I don't know if I'm ready for the stresses of even the weekend, much the less the con itself. ( The really big shoo at Furry Night Live 2008 Coming soon! ) Ever since we started doing acts in the Masquerade/Furry Night Live at FC, we've pushed the envelope and tried to do a big-time show (or even a Mr. Big Project) to push the art further along and show what's possible and what would rock the house. I hope that going to film and doing things on location (and with the right editing) will bring it to the next level. It's going to be one helluva show, and I think we're going to break into the world of furry movies with this one. You just gotta be there. I hope you'll all join me at Furry Night Live 2008. I hope to make it an event that people talk about where they were when it happened years from now. I want it to rock the house that much. Those of you in the audience at FC 2008's Furry Night Live will see that happen. (18 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 24th, 2007
2:19 am	A Return To The Land of the Jayhawks Christmas is always a pretty involved time, this year even more so for me. A few days ago, I got on a plane (something I don't do much of since 2001) to revisit Kansas, the land of the Jayhawks. The place of my birth, and my childhood, my college days and most of my twenties. The place where I ran off for college and became Super Jayhawk. And the place I tearfully left 11 years ago to build a new life in California, and have only been back a few times since. ( Read more... ) (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 24th, 2007
12:24 pm	Jayhawks and Tigers and Bowls, OMG! The KU-MU football game at the end of the year in recent years is something that most people don't notice. Both teams by then have already knocked themselves out of any bowl contention other than a Consolation Bowl somewhere you'd never heard of, at best. So at the time when the TV networks talked the KU AD Lew Perkins into moving it to Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium at the beginning of the season, it didn't seem like all that big of a deal. Of course that's before we knew what would happen with the football season so far. Never did I think that the football Kansas Jayhawks would go 11-0 and be ranked No. 2 in the nation, with MU ranked No. 3 at 10-1. The last time that KU was this good was 1899, when the rivalry with Missouri was still pretty new and most people still rode in horse-and-buggy. Normally the game that doesn't mean anything means everything, as it stands to shake up the BCS Standings big-time and determine the conference champion of the Big 12 North, and possibly who gets to the National Champion in football. Wow. The Jayhawks and the Tigers, for those of you that don't know, have likely the bitterest and second-longest football rivalry, called "The Border War" going back to the Civil War and the "Bleeding Kansas" era of the state's history. Both the Kansas Jayhawk and the Missouri Tiger are born out of this Civil war between two states back in the 1860's, and you can still see the rivalry (and the divisions) played out in Kansas City, which straddles both states (making it two Kansas Cities) This is played out in many sporting events between Kansas and Missouri ever since, but none more than the football game. Especially this one. I expect this game will be one for the ages. I'll be on ABC-7 at 5 PM today watching! Current Music: The KU Fight Song (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 2nd, 2007
3:33 am	The FOOTBALL Jayhawks are 8-0! Much as I love and hold dear my alma mater of The University of Kansas, I was told at an early age to not expect much from the football team. My dad would take me to KU football games in the early 70's and I would watch him just get mad as the game progressed and we would leave before the end of the third quarter. I was too young to understand what was going on, but looking at the win/loss records, I can piece it together. A decade and a half later, during my time as a young Jayhawk student in the late 80's/early 90's, if the Jayhawks won more than 3-5 games in a season, that was doing pretty well. I lived through the infamous Valesente years where I think there were two wins in two years. It was insanely hot, the game would go badly, and my dear Jayhawks would get blown out by margins of twenty to seventy. Worse yet, you couldn't even buy beer in the stands to console yourself! (at least I got to watch the Jayhawk mascot though) So you just learned to not expect that much success from football, and look forward to basketball season, where the Jayhawks dominated. (and by then we'd learned the art of smuggling in schnapps and vodka in squirt bottles) So as a die-hard KU fan, I salute the Football Jayhawks that have brought the team to an incomprehensible 8-0 record so far this season. The last time the Jayhawks did this well was 1908, and my Great-Grandfather was 4. Not bad for a "basketball school"! May all of the young and crazy football Jayhawks in this year's team fly all the way to the Orange Bowl, and take their place among the greats in Jayhawk football history! Current Music: The KU Fight Song ("I'm a Jayhawk") (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
9:36 pm	Fursuit Excursion to San Francisco's Chinatown and Japantown, this coming Saturday November 3! (Cross-posted to furcon and furrynightlive) Hi everyone, On Saturday November 3 (this coming Saturday), We will be invading San Francisco's Chinatown with fursuiters to go shopping for clothing, props and to mess with the locals on Saturday afternoon, and then we'll head to Japantown afterwards. Want to see if a kimono or a hat fits your fursuit? Wear it into the store and try it on! Having a local place to get themed stuff for Further Confusion 2008 is just something we've gotta take advantage of. If you're interested in joining us for our run to San Francisco this coming Saturday, drop me a line at superjay (at) hawkcave (dot) com and I'll send out the details. If you're local to the Bay Area but can't make it this weekend, make sure to drop by and check the place out, it's a great resource for getting stuff in theme for FC 2008! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 12th, 2007
1:04 pm	We're Men! (MANLY men!) We're Men in Tights! (TIGHT tights!) After missing a good chunk of Renaissance faire Season this year for a variety of mishaps and conflicting events, we're finally going to catch the last day of Northern Faire on Sunday... Hope the weather holds up. We're right at the point where it's cool enough to fursuit at Faire, but the season is almost over now. Sir Robin of Foxley at Faire : Northern 2004 Northern 2005 Calaveras 2006 Tulare 2006  Dragons at Faire! Tulare 2006 SF Faire 2005 Vacaville 2007 Even more dragons! Anyone want to join our band of Merry Men on Sunday? Current Mood: Straight, just very merry Current Music: Robin Hood : Men In Tights Soundtrack (yes, I have the CD) (13 Comments |Comment on this)