I don't know if this is a universal thing or not, but when you eat a Cool Ranch Dorito chip, do you sometimes lick the flavoring off of them before you bite into it? I do that. I don't know why. It's just this compulsion to suck the zesty spicy stuff off the chip, then bite into wet flavorless tortilla strip. It's like a shot of flavor, followed by a bland but crunchy chaser. And the relative bulk and heft of a Dorito allows for this process of moisturization. You couldn't do this with, say, a Ruffles potato chip. The thing would disentegrate in your mouth. Plus, I get a perverse joy out of sucking the thing dry, like a vampire draining its lifeblood, then devouring the emaciated treat, once taut and proud with flavor. Same with nachos. Don't you kinda like the ones that are sorta squishy and softened by the cheese, but still a little bit crunchy? It's like a transitional state between the hard tortilla chip and the soft tortilla wrap. I suspect they did a focus group study on this and that's how Taco Bell came up with that gordita thing, with the hard and soft taco shell in one package. Those marketing guys do their homework. These, my friends, are the sort of things I'm thinking when I got that deep, philosophical look on my face.

So I go to Little Tokyo in downtown and get me a $12 bag of green tea. First time ever I got the premium stash. The thing looks like a brick of weed and the cashier lady gave me this look like, "Ho HO, big spender! Woo woo." When I got home to try it out, I realized I had no strainer. I'd been slumming on Lipton style tea for so long I was ill equipped for the authentic shit. Green tea, as you all know, is hardcore ceremonial zen stuff for us Orientals. There's a whole ritual to it, gotta have the right mindset, the right posture, sound a gong, chant, shave your head, show humility and respect for the sacred herbal tea. So what do I do? I grab me one of them little plastic salsa containers from El Pollo Loco, punch some holes in it with a needle, and stick a fork through the side as a handle. I felt like MacGuyver. Surviving on my wits alone. But the holes were too small and too few so that when I poured the hot water it overflowed on me, spilling precious tea leaves into the cup. I was all, "Fuck! Shit! Goddamn holes!" So I go back to punching more holes, thinking, What the fuck am I doing? Why don't I just go buy a strainer? I just spent twelve damn dollars on tea, how expensive can a strainer be? But once I set my mind on something I just won't let go, so after several false starts, I perfect my makeshift homemade ghetto strainer, and have myself some piping hot gourmet ocha in what turned out to be an expletive-filled, profane, not at all sacred tea ceremony.

Back when I was a kid I could never figure out why my stomach hurt, not realizing that it was the jalapeno cheese nachos I had the day before. My attention span just wasn't developed enough to put those two things together. The peppers didn't even figure into my thinking--I mean, geez, it was yesterday, that's like forever ago, and as far as I knew the stomach ache was a brand new, completely separate development, a mysterious phenomenon that sprang spontaneously into being. It had the character of divine intervention, the pain taking on epic proportions, without beginning or end, and accordingly I'd get all moral about it. I thought I was being punished by some higher power for being bad. I'd be on the toilet doubled over in agony, apologizing to God for some unidentified transgression. I'd be there blubbering to myself, "Sorry, I won't do it again. Whatever it was I'm so sorry..." Now, decades later, having blossomed into a mature and magnificent powerhouse of rationality, when I get stomach aches, I'm like Sherlock Holmes, man. I break the shit down. What did I eat? Was it those falafels? Was the meat bad? Am I allergic to meat? Did the waiter spit in my food? Was he a terrorist unleashing a biological attack on my person? I'm like those forensic fuckers on CSI. Very methodical. Very analytical. Shit, now when I have religious experiences I immediately retrace my steps, try to track down what series of events led me to this euphoric spiritual illumination. I investigate, gather information, and hypothesize, in a cool and detached manner. It was probably those blueberry waffles. They were heavenly.

As many of you have already guessed, I was away on my annual trip to Bohemian Grove, where the rich and powerful gather to plan the next course in world domination. I smoked a bowl with Bono and Arnie before the Cremation of Care, the ritual sacrifice to the Dark Lord Molech. Good times. Sinfest, of course, is a major player in the New World Order, disseminating encrypted messages, via webcomic, to the Secret Order of the Brotherhood of The Clandestine Society of The Black Skull of Illuminated Knowledge of Darkness. The layperson only gets the surface jokes, but there's a complex Da Vinci Code type thing going on, buried in the panels, embedded in the pixels, accessible only to initiates. If the punchlines in Sinfest are sometimes lame, that's only because you don't know the code. I assure you it's hilarious. It's so funny you don't even know. Sometimes the "cover" punchlines are deliberately lame to camouflage the fabulous inside jokes. It's all very technical. Alas, I've said too much already. Oh, and here's a coded message for all my fellow pledges of the Dark Brotherhood: The Ancient Astronaut has landed. Operation Snoopy Tits is a GO! Those in the know know what I'm talking about. Shouts to all my oppressor buddies. Go, World Domination!

You know how when you're having a bad day, and the very last straw, the thing that sends you over the edge is the littlest, most insignificant thing? Like your shoelaces getting untied or the remote running out of batteries or some stupid thing? As far as you're concerned it's the end of the world. You slump your shoulders in utter defeat and weep uncontrollably at how the universe hates you. You curse God, the sun, the stars, all that is holy and sacred, you condemn all civilization, the very existence of... existence, the atoms and molecules that have conspired to bring you to this place of ruin. You're the black sheep of the cosmos. A mistake of creation. Everyone else in the world singing in perfect harmony. Except YOU. An abortion of nature. Shoelaces untied. No power in the remote. Pathetic. Then in a flash you remember that one time long ago, the asshole who totally humiliated you in front of everyone. How they laughed and laughed. And it comes back to you. Your mission. Your purpose. To put that motherfucker in his place. Rejuvenated, you tie your damn shoelaces, get some fresh double A Duracels, and you plot your revenge.... One day... Oh yes... One sweet day...

Sometimes I think I'm just a spaceship operated by a tiny team of cellular adventurers. I imagine a microscopic Captain Kirk hunkered deep down inside me, commanding his crew of neurons and hormones to boldly go where no human spaceship has gone before. To the bathroom! I hear him announce. And it's a huge production, you know, going to the bathroom. Dilithium fuel crystals, warp factor 10, "I need more power, Scotty!"--all that jazz. After all, things can go wrong. Terribly wrong. The spout might malfunction and spray urine all over the place. You never know. It's fraught with peril. Every moment, every tiny motion, every move I make is an adventure. Whenever I trip or bump into something, the crew must get jostled about, flailing this way and that, holding on to some protoplasmic console for dear life. Oh noooooooo! AHHHHHHHHHh! Until the craft stabilizes and resumes a steady course. Sometimes I can even hear the little Kirk talking. "Stardate: 2006-07-31: Crew morale low. Haven't tapped any alien ass in ages. Must... Get... Extra.... Terrestrial... Action! Mr. Sulu, chart a course to Chicktron in the outer rim of the Pussy Galaxy! Engage!"

So I'm eating my pizza right, and I come down to the crust edge and there's no fucking cheese. What a ripoff! So I call the Pizza Hut Corporation and they took care of it. Now their pizza comes with cheese injected right into the crust so I'll never have to suffer the indignity of eating the last bit of crust without any cheesy goodness. Another time, I'm eating my tortilla chips, dipping them in salsa and having a right good time. Then in my haste to load up my mouth with crunchy tortilla strip laden with zesty picante sauce, I spill salsa on my brand new shirt. Unacceptable. So I call the Tostitos Corporation and they took care of it. Now they make tortilla chips that are shaped like cups to prevent such accidents. Damn skippy. Speaking of Skippy, I was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I got so annoyed having to open two separate jars. I'm a busy man. I got places to go. People to meet. Shit to DO. I can't be bothered opening one jar for jelly and another for peanut butter. So I called the Skippy people and they took care of it. Now they have jelly and peanut butter in one jar. God bless America. Dance, my little corporations! Dance!.

I'm working on a screenplay for a disaster movie where the greenhouse effect kills off the entire human race except hard core drug addicts. Turns out, their chronic narcotics consumption has inoculated them against the peculiarities of the new toxic enviroment, thus making them the sole survivors of the planetary holocaust. Junkies Inherit The Earth, I'll call it. Starring Keith Richards and Kate Moss. Crackheads, tweakers, coke fiends, speed freaks, pill poppers, stoners, freebasers, dope fiends, acid freaks, tooters, speedballers, shroomers, bingers, and geekers all emerge from hiding to breathe in delicious swaths of poisonous air, as they make their way into suburbs and business districts, stepping over corpses of "healthy" people along the way. After the looting and mass rioting dies down, Keith Richards defeats Kate Moss in a multi-substance ingest-athon, and proclaims himself King of the Drug People. He forms a new government with a two party system of "Uppers" and "Downers," drafts a Constitution guaranteeing "life, liberty, and bloody DRUGS, mate!" Eventually some people develop dangerous habits like moderation and exercise, for which they are demonized, incarcerated and shamed into rehabilitation.

Finally on my own! I am so stoked. After six years of people telling me how awful my website design was, I finally got around to doing something about it. It was pretty ghetto, I admit, but it did have that certain amateur porn site charm to it. I kinda liked the raggedy makeshift vibe about it. Mark my words: You'll look back on those muddled html pages with wistful fondness. Those were the days, you'll say. You'll sit back in your rocking chair and tell the grandkids: I was there before Sinfest got all fancy and legit. I was there at the beginning with his shitty little webpage made out of stones and dirt, back when there was no fancy schmancy search feature. Back in the day we had to slog through his fucked up archives for HOURS to find one strip that probably wasn't that funny anyway. And the bastard never returned a damn e-mail, posted on his own forum, or even once acknowledged another human being. It was great. But hey, all things must come to pass. And to all endings there is a new beginning. So here's to new beginnings. Thank you all so much for your continued support. xoxo

Many of you have already heard the bad news and have passed on your condolences, for which I am truly grateful. It's been a dark time around here, the mood often pitch black with despair. Yes. Once again I have been snubbed by People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People List. I know. I'm just as incredulous as you. Every year I campaign so hard for inclusion in this prestigious tome and every year, nada. Nothing. Zip. I do crunches. I apply skin lotion like, almost every day. I pluck my nose hairs, brush my teeth, exfoliate my pores. What more must I DO?? Seriously. My breath is minty fresh. My armpits are fragrant. I smell fabulous. Go on, smell me. I got herbal organic cucumber mango flavor junk all over my skin. I'm a fucking tropical paradise. Toucans fly out of my ass, I'm so tropical. Sigh. Maybe it's an inner beauty thing. Maybe I need to let the inner light shine on through. Like being compassionate to others and shit like that. I don't know. Maybe I just need better hair products. Whatever, I don't even care anymore. It's just a silly magazine. Who cares? I'm so over it. I had my "Magnum" look all ready for the photo shoot, too. Damn. Life's so unfair.

I'm thinking about starting a religion which is the exact same as Christianity, same book, same story, same rituals. Heaven, hell, sin, salvation, all that good stuff. The only difference would be that instead of the name "Jesus" I would insert the word "Dude." And instead of God it would be "Voltron." Otherwise everything else is in tact. So you got Dude of Nazareth and Voltron Our Father in Heaven. Has a certain ring to it, don't it? I can imagine a Sunday sermon about Dude in the desert being tempted by Satan. What did Dude do? He resisted! Yay! Way to go, Dude! And Genesis would read: In the beginning there was Voltron. Voltron made the earth and the heavens and on the sixth day the Lord Our Voltron created man in his own image. When he saw that it was good, Voltron rested. Moses, of course, would be known as "Beavis." I think it has potential. The Church of Dude. And Voltron. We could play team basketball against the Subgenius people and the Flying Spaghetti Monster Cult. We could form our own league. Winner gets dominion over all existence.

So I'm at the laundromat, right, and I'm waiting for my clothes to dry as I scan the room, and look at all these dryers, so many clothes went into them, so many people used them. Suddenly I felt sorry for them. These poor dryers, nobody appreciates them. Not really. People just throw their clothes in, drop a couple of quarters and ignore them. They must feel so used and unacknowledged. So I turned to my dryer and silently said, "Um.. Number 6, how's it going?" It roared on, round and round, doing its thing. I just stood and watched, pressed my hand up against the glass to feel the warmth, when this Latin babe pulls up with her cart and starts putting her underwear and frilly lingerie in the dryer next to mine. Now I don't know if it was the lacy undergarments or the heat from the dryer or what, but right then and there I pop a boner. Naturally I start frantically digging in my pockets to conceal the bulge, tried thinking about Jabba the Hut or Rush Limbaugh or diahrrea, anything to halt the sudden surge of erotic energy welling up inside me. Luckily, an obnoxious family came in making a huge ruckus, snapping at their fat kids, which successfully deflated my libido. Close call. It was at that moment when I realized the purpose of ugly people: Inconvenient erection stoppers.

On death. Death is a funny thing. It's like magic. We're here. Then poof. We're gone. Imagine what it was like for the first organism to experience death. The amoeba. He must've been like, "Oh shit! Oh shit! I'm... fading away! What the hell is this sensation!? Aaauughhh! Oh Amoeba God, make it stop!" And then, after a fierce protoplasmic death rattle, it's gone. Poof. Magic. Maybe his amoeba buddies gave him a proper burial, dressed him up in a little black outfit and placed him in a tiny casket. Actually, no. They all must've been freaked out. It was the First Death Of Anything Ever. They were probably like, "Dude, what happened to Fred?" as they watched his lifeless single-cell body float off in the primordial ooze, nary a trace of the jubilance and zest for life he once displayed. Maybe they thought it was cool. Maybe they were like, "Wow. Check out Fred. He's all frozen! That's so weird! I want to be dead too! I want to be dead like Fred!" Fred probably started the whole Goth thing. In his wake, he inspired countless other single-cell organisms to be sullen depressives, moping around, wearing little amoeba boots with huge buckles on them, putting on too much mascara and singing Nine Inch Nails songs. So it's all Fred's fault. Fred the Amoeba: Inventor of Goth.

On subliminal messages. So I'm debating this girl on morality and she says, "It's all relative," which has the subliminal effect of making me feel like a relative, like I've known her all my life, and then she goes on about "dogmatic views" and I start scratching myself like a dog and then she mentions "catalyst for social change," and now I feel like a cat and I start grooming my hair and acting all aloof, and she says "purity and perfection are not the purpose," and it sounds like she's purring cuz all the "prrr" words and I figure she's just speaking my language because I'm a cat and all, and then she throws out something about the "horrors of the world" and this makes me feel like a whore and I start preening and posing and then she starts on about Eastern philosophy and "renunciation" and this makes me feel like a nun on Easter Sunday and I start behaving all saintly and pious and by the time it's my turn to speak I have no idea who I am and in fact am having serious identity issues, so I just agree with everything she said and run straight to the self help section of a nearby Borders.

A Day in the life of Tatsuya Ishida. So I go to the 7-11 down the street and it's like 3 in the morning, nobody there, just the way I like it. I gather up a couple of drumstick icecreams, the ones with the flat swirly top. I'm into these because they put a block of chocolate at the bottom of the cone to stop the leakage. Brilliant. I support that kind of dessert technology. Anyway, I also get some Sour Cream & Onion Lay's Potato Chips, a V-8 Berry Juice thing and I'm good to go. The Indian dude rings me up, when this Armenian cat walks in and he asks for a condom. Suddenly I feel embarrassed. I actually go, "tee hee." Like a damn schoolgirl. I mean, I'm there with a bunch of junk food and this guy is purchasing a sex device. He sure as shit ain't marveling at the innovations in ice cream technology. He's thinking about getting laid. He's thinking about getting compensated. And me, I'm standing there holding my bag of goodies, as if I'm hoping to win the Golden Ticket to the Chocolate Factory... My God, what happened? When did The Dream go so horribly wrong? Sigh. But at least my drumsticks won't leak.