Here are two of my favorite beginnings of songs. the first 12 seconds of this Cryptopsy song blow me away every time :p and you’ve got to love Lord Worm on vocals…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iLmF_2q7KA

well, the other song I was going to post was “Involuntary Slaughter” from Suffocation’s Effigy of the Forgotten, but I couldn’t find any links to it… so find it yourself!

you could even use Paint to simply cut out the design you want, make the white background transparent, size it as you want, and drag it over a picture of your body.

Metal archives has them as black metal, so i’ll believe it :p

What gauge is the segment ring?
I have 6 gauge segment rings in my ears… for me, the hardest part was getting the piece out, I’m surprised the hard part is putting it back in for you. I don’t know how ordinary pliers would really help — unless I’m misinterpreting the question, it seems like the ring is already too small for the segment — so I would suggest finding a way to stretch out the ring a little bit. Other than that, with mine, I just put one end of the segment into its hole, with the other end still out a bit, and squeezed it with the ring until it popped in.

my earrings are at 6 (i have segment rings in). I haven’t taken these ones out in at least a year, so now that they’re totally seasoned at this gauge I’m not sure how fast they’d close up… i had a second piercing on each lobe at 6 gauge once, but I took those out and they closed right up; however, i didn’t have those in as long.

I did all my gauging myself without any problems. I bought 2 tapers, one that goes to maybe 10, and one that goes to 6. starting from about 14g I went straight to 10 and then to 6, but when i gauged them, I would be very gentle with the taper… push it in until it feels like it’s stretching, and then set the rubber stopper thing at that level for a couple hours/overnight, and then when that felt good stretch it some more, etc.
I’m not claiming that my way is a good idea, or that it would work for you, but it’s what i did.

How does putting on a shirt change who you are? Is your identity so wrapped up in some ink on your skin that if you cover it, you will lose your identity? Isn’t that kind of sad – shouldn’t your identity come from who you are on the inside?
I think you’re being really selfish to insist your way on this. It just seems so weak, “ohh the world is out to get me, I’m so persecuted for my tattoos, my inlaws don’t APPROVE of me what am I going to do?” Did you really think you could get tattoos without some people feeling uneasy about it, and do you really expect everyone else to change just to make you comfortable? I think a real man will make sacrifices to keep a good relationship with the inlaws, just for the sake of his wife and her sanity, not throw a pissy fit because he feels like some people don’t accept him 100%.

When I was dating my wife (girlfriend at the time), about 4 months into it her parents sat us down and told us that they don’t like how our relationship is going, that they think i’m a bad influence on her, that we’re too young, etc. and I think part of that was because I had long hair and earrings… but I had done nothing remotely hurtful to their daughter. Of course I was mad, and my relationship with them hasn’t always been awesome, but I tried to help them overcome their fears of me as much as possible rather than give up and hate them forever. And there have been more incidents along the way, but overall we all have a peaceful relationship now, and it’s not something we have to worry about. Not to say that I acted perfectly, because some of it was surely my fault.

Anyway, I know I’m new here and I’m being kind of harsh, so I apologize for that, but if we’re all about freedom of expression I might as well start now.