Graeme

I'll second the Macallan recommendation. The 10 Year Old Fine Oak is a great whisky, is reasonably priced, is easy to find, and will please most palates. If he's normally a Crown Royal drinker it's a really good introduction to single malts, and in my opinion better than other "introductory" ones like Glenfiddich or Glenmorangie. Another thing to note is that an older whisky isn't necessarily a better one. Age is going to smooth it out, but with some whiskies, especially the really smoky and peaty ones from the islands, I prefer them being a little rough around the edges. It's a matter of personal taste. Don't know much about bourbon, as @Pugilist said all we have in the house is a bottle of Bulleit which I like a lot. I tried George T. Stagg once and it was absolutely beautiful but well out of my price range for normal drinking. I think I paid $20 for a single measure of it...absolutely gorgeous stuff.

I've been really impressed with Tiny Miss Becca's tattoos for a while. I think the way that she designs tattoos is really clever because they're on the one hand really nicely rendered, but so efficiently designed.

It helps if you watch a Tattoo Age afterwards. Sort of helped with the traditional episode anyway. Okay, didn't help at all.

Shawn Porter posted this on his blog, and I hope he doesn't mind me reposting it here, but here's a video of Krystel Oreto talking about her tattoos being ripped off on the show and she talks a little bit about how that Jeremy Miller tattoo was also ripped off. She says she's talking with an attorney about taking legal action against the show. http://youtu.be/056kXT1JJis

I am not an expert on this, but Crystal Morey of Gomineko Books is. Japanese Tattoo Art Design Book Magazine Gomineko Japan If you need books on Japanese tattoos, design, and reference, she'll have it. She travels the convention circuit with books as well and is super friendly and helpful and the books she has are amazing.

The good news is that when you get enough tattoos, you're right back at having only one.

One chest panel is going to make you look lopsided. Gotta do the other side now.

I think if things end up meshing well on me, it will be more a matter of theme than one of style. When I choose a tattoo, and it doesn't matter if it's something that I've spent hours thinking about or something that I've spontaneously picked off a wall, it's going to be an image that appeals to me viscerally. I'm more and more realising as I get older that there are certain themes or tones, and I don't just mean in tattoos, but in books, music, art, movies, etc., that just kind of always work aesthetically for me and that I always find appealing. I don't have any Japanese-style tattoos on me yet, but when I do, it will be something like tigers or dragons or onis rather than peonies or koi because this is the sort of imagery that appeals to me on a gut level, and I think (we'll see as I get more covered though) that this will hopefully be enough to keep my tattoos from being a total random jumble of things. And if not, at least I've had some great experiences getting those tattoos.

For me, it's never really been a question of getting all my tattoos done by one person. As much as I love the look of the coherent body suit, that just isn't for me. I've also found that I'm not very good at having a "plan" for my tattoos and that there's a large amount of spontaneity there for me. For example, when I got that Ron Henry Wells skull on my inner bicep, I was planning on putting it on my leg somewhere but because during the summer/end of the summer when it's hot and humid at work my work boots tend to chafe my calves, I decided that it probably wasn't the best time to try to heal a tattoo on my leg...so it went on my arm and looks awesome.

I like all this stuff: SATURNALIA TEMPLE: CHRISTIAN MISTRESS: DEATHSPELL OMEGA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DAiFBx1UU0

Best of luck to Chris and all that, but it's kind of a bummer that he's moving to a private studio because I always really enjoy watching what he's tattooing when I'm at Saved. When I was getting tattooed by Hooper last week he finished up a bodysuit that he'd been working on for ten years. He was finishing the sleeves so I only saw the arms, but it was such beautiful work.

...when you see somebody dressed up as Luke Wilson's character in The Royal Tenenbaums for Halloween and you think that it's weird that they're wearing a Stewart Robson costume.

Mario Lemieux/Wayne Gretzky tribute tattoo, not sure what's hipstery about that.

You know when you see cars with bumper stickers from past election campaigns? Imagine that's your face instead.

There are pictures of live tattooed pigs there. I'm not even close to being vegan, but that's not cool.

I had muscle relaxants suggested to me by my tattoo artist for a big rib piece I'm starting next year. Because we have multiple sessions booked I was thinking of trying a session straight, the next with the muscle relaxants, and then judge from that what works best for me. Earlier in the week, while my wife was getting another session on her back, her artist suggested taking arnica pills a day or two before the session to reduce bruising. Has anybody ever tried this?

How about when the hair that was shaved grows back. I hate that shit.

That's on Rory Keating, right? I'd love to see it in person because the pictures I've seen are incredible. You'll have to keep us updated when you get it done.

Yup, all that right there. As an aside, "Zombie Boy" used to live in my neighborhood and I'd see him around all the time. I called him Skullface. I didn't see him for a while and I wondered what happened to him I kind of assumed that somebody who got his face tattooed to look like a skull probably wasn't planning on living to a ripe old age. Then he appeared in a Lady Gaga video and became a local celebrity. Glad to see he's doing well because he's apparently a nice guy.

So what they mean is that if you want to get a tattoo of two dolphins kissing in the shape of a heart that Ami James isn't going to do it.

I'll try to put together a good photo with the newest additions, it's hard to take a decent looking picture of it because it wraps around my arm, though here's a picture of it from Seth's blog from when it was first finished about a year ago: Seth Wood Tattoo - - - Updated - - - I have a couple of tattoos from Ron and, yes, his tattoos are amazing...like "holy fuck, I can't believe he did that" amazing, especially with some of the negative space tattoos, and he's all around a really awesome dude to get tattooed by. I highly recommend the experience.

Another, somewhat related, news story: HMV, banning tattoos on staff won't increase your sales | Business | The Guardian It's completely mental to think that prohibiting visible tattoos will do anything whatsoever to halt the decline of retail non-specialist record stores.

The details that Seth added: And the start of my sleeve, by Thomas Hooper:

I'll post some pictures when I'm back in Montreal because I don't know if I can do it on my phone but I got tattooed by Seth Wood and Thomas Hooper yesterday. Seth put some illustrations into a book he otherwise finished a year ago and now I have the world's smallest Baphomet tattoo. I also started on a raven sleeve with Thomas Hooper and it's shaping up great so far.

It would suck to be anybody watching or listening to that shit band.