UFC 129 picks

Here are my semi-regular picks and my nonsense for picking who I pick.

Welterweight bout: Sean Pierson vs. Jake Ellenberger - I'm picking Ellenberger here, he's beaten Mike Pyle and came close to beating Carlos Condit and has just faced the stiffer competition.

Welterweight bout: Nate Diaz vs. Rory MacDonald - This is a tough bout for Diaz, MacDonald was a touted prospect and took Carlos Condit the distance (almost), so we know he's tough. He's not noted as a big wrestler though, so with that I give the boxing and jiu-jitsu edge to Diaz. I love watching Diaz fight so this should be a good one.

Lightweight bout: Mark Bocek vs. Ben Henderson - Ben Henderson put son enjoyable fights and he was a favorite of mine in the WEC. Bocek is a skilled jiu-jitsu guy but Ben has proved he is almost impossible to submit. This is a toss-up for me, but I'll go with Henderson.

So far I have picked all the American guys. That will change, trust me.

Light Heavyweight bout: Randy Couture vs. Lyoto Machida - Randy wins if he gets Machida against the cage or on the ground, Lyoto takes it if it's a striking match. I think Lyoto is too quick and elusive for Randy and I think he picks Randy apart. Machida is my pick.

Light Heavyweight bout: Vladimir Matyushenko vs. Jason Brilz - I honestly do not care.

Featherweight Championship bout: José Aldo (c) vs. Mark Hominick - Aldo is a beast. Beast! He wins via TKO. Maybe round 2.

Welterweight Championship bout: Georges St-Pierre (c) vs. Jake Shields - I don't think there is a welterweight on the planet that can beat GSP and I should know, I always pick against him. Not this time though, GSP wins on the feet, scrambling out from under Jake's take downs and picking him apart like he did Koschek.

Updates

I have pages being posted Monday through Friday right now, feel free to check it out and please feel free to leave some comments, I'd love to have some intelligent discussion going on.

Mon, Wed & Fri - Robot 6, part of Comicbookresources.com runs ICARUS, currently we are just over halfway of issue #1, then we'll roll right into #2. Even if you have already read the book, comments and thoughts are always appreciated.

Tues & Thurs - My run on the popular webcomic Jesus Christ: In the Name of The Gun continues. I'm about 9 pages from wrapping this one up, I'm well ahead of the pages that are being posted and I feel like I am finally hitting my stride. Sadly I am hitting that stride towards the end. It's not too offensive in my opinion, but may bother you if you religious. It's more of an adventure comic, it just happens to have Jesus, Ernest Hemingway, Gary Busey, Albert Einstein & Winston Churchill traveling through time, fighting archangels and dictators.

After I wrap that up I'm continuing work on ICARUS and I'll be doing a one-shot called FAILSAFE at the start of the summer. More on that later.

Upcoming appearances -

May 7th, Free Comic Book Day at Atomic Comics in Chandler, AZ
Memorial Day Weekend - Phoenix Comic-Con
June 24th - 26th - ACE Comic Expo, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Cha-cha-cha-changes

I'm starting to make some changes lately that I hope will positively affect my life. First and foremost is that I am on a diet for the first time in my life. I always thought as I was gaining weight that it was just a phase and at some point I would go back to my normal size. I realized in February of 2010 that this was NOT the case and I had to do something about it. I went to the gym pretty regularly for about 9 months last year, but never really saw a significant weight loss, no more than 10 pounds or so, and that's because I never adjusted my diet.

Last week I made a decision to cut out all fried food, soda, sweets and almost all carbs. I'm not eating any potato, rice or pasta until I get back down to my goal weight. I'm not working out anymore, but I hope to start doing it again soon. One other change I made that I hope will have some health benefits is that I ditched my chair and am now standing at my desk/drafting table. It'll take some getting used to, but it's better for me in the long run. I was used to sitting in front of pages and my computer for up to 10, 12 hours a day sometimes. It's been 6 days on the diet, only 2 with the standing and I'm down almost 5 pounds. I don't think that trend will continue at that pace, but it's better than anything else I have done in the past several years.

On the comic's front, I am close to wrapping up Jesus Christ: In the Name of the Gun V2. It's the longest project I have ever worked on and will clock in around 115 pages when I am all done. I should wrap that up beginning of next month. After that I hope to work on a one-shot for Black Label Comics. No other work lined up this year but I hope to nail something down soon. I also plan to try and make a noticeable difference in my work when I start my next project. I hope to bring a little more excitement to my pages. ICARUS will continue to be plugged away at. I'm still shocked more people have not picked up the .99 download, but it's something that I'll need to work on. ICARUS is still being serialized over at Robot6 so if you check it out over there, I would appreciate any feedback you may have being left in the comments section. Here's some art to look at, as a small reward for reading my gibberish. Some random panels from Icarus #2.