Pugilist

Holy shit. Much love and good thoughts to all of you and your friends and families who were affected by this; the continued stories of devastation are breaking my heart.

Hey @Scott R and @ian - can't y'all at least pretend to trash talk each other or something?

Welcome from a fellow tattooed prof! Would love to hear more about your research.

Laphroaig is my favourite scotch ever--it is my go-to "comfort" drink--but as it's one of the smoky ones it definitely isn't for everybody. But if you like the taste of smokiness, then it is probably the most accessible of that kind of scotch, and I love it to pieces and can't wait til I bring a barrel back from the UK when I am there next week.

Just girly enough for me! :) love it.

If y'all have never bought a single malt scotch (i.e. a fancy scotch) I definitely would recommend something like Macallan as a good place to start. The first bottle of bourbon we bought was Bulleit, which is delicious and one of the ones I was recommended as someone just getting into it, but I am sure the bourbon connoisseurs may have more advice! Am I right in remembering that you live in Ontario? If so, a good LCBO should have staff that can help you choose too!

Do you know what he likes in his liquor? When it comes to good single-malt scotches, I often recommend Macallan as a good "starter" scotch for folks who don't know the different varieties that well; it is smooth and delicious and guaranteed to please all tastes. If you know what you/he likes, there are obviously tons of other options! My favourite single malts are the Islay ones as I love peaty and smokey whiskies. Other folks hate that. It's very personal! (Disclaimer: all my whisky knowledge is really about Scotch, but we are trying to learn more about Bourbon in this here household lately, as it is so sweet and delicious!)

Hahaha @Graeme and I have often remarked on this problem of having no voice of reason in a tattoo-obsessed marriage. We just egg each other on.

Yeah, this is not going to end with another chest panel. Start saving! :)

In a kind of roundabout response to your question, @Our Endless Days , I have often remarked that something I am learning as a tattoo enthusiast is how to look at and appreciate someone's work without, you know, NEEDING to get something from them. I feel like with instagram and other online resources, we can all get very kid in a candy store, and I personally don't have the time/energy/cash/space on my body to run out and get work from every single tattooer that I love. So I am learning to say, "So and so is amazing, but I will probably never get anything from them, and that's ok." Haha. (It helps being married to another tattoo nerd because I can live vicariously through him and it's like we have twice the space to work with. That sounds creepy, doesn't it?) My own ongoing work is a combo of stuff from one person and one-offs from others. I am trying not to overthink it. I neither feel like I want to settle on one artist for everything, nor do I need to go nuts and fit as many awesome artists as possible on my skin (hence my discussion of letting go of all the possibilities above). I find myself returning to the artist I return to because I just connect with her work so profoundly that half the time I have a tattoo idea, it is obvious to me that she is the person to go to for it. But then when I want something else, I've been glad to mix it up a bit. Something I find tough is that I am very sentimental by nature, and I have been lucky enough to have been tattooed exclusively by super nice, fun, awesome and talented people, so I get kind of bummed when I have a really great experience with someone who I likely won't get work from again. (For example, I got an awesome tattoo from Marie Sena at the Montreal convention in September, and I looooove the tattoo, love her work, and she was so nice and fun to get tattooed by. But she is very far away and so I am only likely to be able to get more work from her when she's here for conventions in the future, so who knows! But it was such a good experience that I want more!)

The storm is not supposed to get up to Montreal, but we just bought a kilo of bacon just in case. Just kidding, we would've bought a kilo of bacon anyway. Stay safe, folks!

@slayer9019 : buns of steel

Loved all three tattoos they did in this episode, but Valerie's pan kind of blew my mind! Going back to the UK next week for the first time since I lived there 5 years ago and watching this awakened a real nostalgia that helped get me excited.

Watching this video was simultaneously fascinating, and made my stomach churn.

That's totally gorgeous, @Reyeslv ! You must be so stoked.

Oh man, I just got an iPhone for the first time a few weeks ago, and I have been taking tons of photos, but predictably, they're mostly of my cats and dog. Because why photograph anything else? :) I'm attaching some of my recent faves. I have been doing some travelling in the past month though, so I do have a few photos snapped in Cleveland and New York, such as the cool ship below.

Love his face and the waves! Truly an awesome first tattoo.

I can't speak authoritatively to the claims re: shitty spots in this thread as I'm not that covered, but working on a mini-backpiece (ends around my hips), I have been surprised how much I find the hips/upper butt far, far, far (far!) worse than my ribs. And I haven't even felt any real butt action (pun intended).

I am the kind of asshole partner who, while my loving husband aquaphors my back as gently as he possibly can, moans "I can't wait until you see what this feels like for yourselfffffffffff." (He is starting a back piece next year.) Sore ribs make me mean.

Having had another session on my back a couple of days ago, I hereby submit this perhaps controversial claim for your consideration: Applying aquaphor to freshly tattooed, sore as hell ribs feels worse than having said ribs tattooed. BAM.

As we watched this last night, and tried to avoid punching the TV in annoyance, I commented to @Graeme that the problem is that that grating-as-fuck moron Kay Kutta (sp? Who cares) is actually kind of right; he admits openly that it's a "game" and has little to do with who is actually skilled or talented. Only he is totally down with that reality, while the rest of us think it's depressing as hell. Luckily, we countered our being bummed out by that fucking traditional episode (the only highlight of which was watching Richard Stell try to murder people with his eyes) by watching the new tattoo age, which cleaned some of the dirt off.

The tattoo crazies

There's something so fun about travelling to get tattooed in terms of how much of an "event" you get to make out of it, huh? @CultExciter we're going to Saved, where we have both been tattooed before. I'm continuing work on my back and Graeme is getting a bunch of shit done that I'll let him talk or not talk about.

Doug Hardy! Beyond being an awesome tattooer, I thought you should know that I "like" every single one of your cat photos on instagram. :)

Honestly, it has been a hellish couple of weeks in terms of work and insane schedules and blah blah blah but @Graeme and I are going on a tattoo road trip to New York this weekend and that is totally, totally, getting both of us through the week. Tattoo anticipation is a great coping mechanism during times of stress! :)