f86sabjf wrote: ...Dont really care what anybody else thinks...
That seems to be the general concensus among most of the tattooed folks I know (a bunch of 'em). Considering that, I think that for the OP to ask the board if he should or should not get one indicates he does care what people think, and should hold off getting one until he is more sure in his own heart and mind.
Grtechguy wrote: I'm 30, tattoo free, but am considering this:
The letter "T" ?
Just kidding.
I have a tatoo from when I was in the US Navy.
You WILL regret any tattoo sooner or later. Styles and tastes change.
How many of you have the same car you got right out of high school? If you did wouldn't you be bored silly with it if you had to drive it day in and day out and couldn't drive anything else?
The same clothes? The same shoes? The same hair style? Nothing stays fresh forever.
An article I read recently said Tattoo removal was a much higher grossing business than putting the tattoos on in the first place.
I have two, have had them for up to six years, am getting ready to get the next one. The next one will be approximately $500, and adorn the vicinity of a scar that I have had for over 17 years. The scar will be there for the rest of my life, might as well scar it up some more. Then, I will begin to have my removed organs tattooed back on. If someone else does not like them, to bad for them. I did not pay good money for someone else to enjoy them, I paid good money for ME to enjoy them. Had I wanted other people to enjoy art, I would have bought artwork for a local museum.
I never even thought about getting one untill I met my wife who has many. I got a thorned heart with a black rose and her name in the middle of it. It symbolizes loving her is a sometimes painful and difficult experince but one that has unique beauty to it. I didn't get that untill a year after we had been married. So I guess I'm appart of that wait and see group that has something that has meaing.
My future plans is a sleeve adorning different aspects of my life and picking the meaning is a very long and drawn out process. One of which will be an Eagle Globe and Anchor from my time in the Marines. I'm glad I didn't rush and get one of those while I was in like so many of my contempoaries. It seemed cliche while I was in, but it carries more meaning to me now seeing how much the experince helped form me.
And one final tid bit, one of my wife's tatoos is for a best friend of her's that died suddenly. It is very beautiful and very well detailed. Unfortunately no one ever explained to her what a tramp stamp is and she got it on her lower back. LOL.
carguy123 wrote: The same hair style? Nothing stays fresh forever.
Actually I got my hairstyle in high school and haven't changed it since. Except a little shorter and "thinner".
Seems like a waste of perfectly good track day admission fees to me.
ddavidv wrote: Seems like a waste of perfectly good track day admission fees to me.
+1. I've always figured that if I ever want a tattoo, it will be simple. And in that case, I can draw it on with a sharpee and continue drawing it every few days.
But I do think that when I turn about 80, I am going to get one. Haven't decided what yet, but I still have 60 years for that.
carguy123 wrote: You WILL regret any tattoo sooner or later.
Oh, come on now. 
That statement paints with a very broad brush. I can't see the future, so I'll make a note of your prediction and let you know how it works out. 
carguy123 wrote: An article I read recently said Tattoo removal was a much higher grossing business than putting the tattoos on in the first place.
I suspect this has more to do with material costs and competition than demand. There are dozens of tattoo studios in any city of substantial size, and relatively few tattoo removal operations active. I don't need a business degree to figure out where the profit margin will be greater.
People are usually more desperate to remove a tat than get one, and I bet you need to be a dermatologist to play with lasers on peoples skin, oh yeah HI guys, I miss you all and can't wait till this crap is over. Getting 2 tats when I'm home on leave, wedding band, and my wife as a pinup girl 
I don't think it's lame. If you want one and you are doing it for yourself then that's about as cool as a tattoo gets. If you have your own design that makes it even cooler, even if you have to get someone else to draw it for you to take, it's still your own design.
I have a couple, and don't regret any of them (yet). I think you'd know going in whether or not something has the potential for later regret status. All those poor bastards with "Jefferson Airplane forever" tats raise your hands.
The only rules I adhere to are:
It's forever. Remember that.
See rule number 1
No letters of any kind. Ever. Never. I simply will not expose myself to the chance of having a permanent typo applied to my skin. No way, no how. Also, font tastes change so rapidly that any lettering would look like ass pretty quick.
Finally, referring back to Joe's constructive suggestions, my first ink was applied by my best friend's wife's stepdad, who was one of the finest tattoo artists in the Daytona area. While he was doing it, I asked him if there was anything he hated doing. He said "Well, I flat out won't do anything with racist overtones, but if I have to do one more berkeleying Taz, I'll blow my head off." Several years later he punched his own ticket in precisely that manner. Now, he had some clinical issues, and his condition had become more severe at the time of his passing, but I often wonder whether it was just one Taz too many that pushed him over the edge.
jg
About the Chinese lettering... how do you know, I mean really berkeleying know that the tattoo that you are about to get actually means "peace" or "love" or "apathy", and doesn't instead mean "I'm gay" or "berkeley You" or "Communism Forever"? Unless, of course, you have an actual Chinese speaker (and reader) translate it for you? I wonder how many times this has happened to people?
And by the way, the monkeys on the guy's stomach tattoo is hilarious.
confuZion3, that very thing with the Asian letters happens all the time. The "artists" get some flash from wherever, and whoever made the flash looked up a literal translation for something like "peace and love" and copied those letters down. Some dork (or future dork) gets the tat and while walking through Chinatown somewhere people just start laughing their asses off because the literal translation means something like "butt berkeley me for calmness."
And JG, at my wife's school, a group of her classmates went and got "Texas Chiropractic College" and the school logo tatooed on their legs. On one of them, the "artist" slipped with the stencil and put it back on. His tat said "Texas Chiropractactic College."
I've thought about the laser thing. I can lease a special optimized laser for tatoo removal for between three and five large a month. Purchase price is about fifty large+. You charge like a bill to two bills a treatment, takes like six-eight treatments to remove a tat, all prepaid cash/check/credit card, no insurance. You need a M.D. license to run the business, see the patients, and depending on your state, you can hire/supervise someone to run the machine or do it yourself, and you may need to take a seminar on it first, which you'll want to do anyway. I see a large business in removing tramp stamps in 10-20 years. If someone wants to go into the tatoo removal business and has the fifty large to invest in getting it off the ground, I got the license. PM me.
Otherwise, I'm with Jay_W.
I'll be 46 in December. Got my first a few weeks ago. In memory of my mom. I'm happy I did it.
If you want one, get one, you have to live with it. They are very much a personal choice.
On the other hand I have never seen anything that I want a cartoon of placed on my body for the rest of my life.
I want a reversed shift pattern tattooed on to my right palm.
EvanB wrote: I think it's really cool. Unless it is barbed wire around your arm...
Put tribal in there. Nothing says 'tribal' like a 24 year old white guy from the Midwest.....
The Chinese script I can understand from a religious/philosophical or martial arts standpoint.
aussiesmg wrote: On the other hand I have never seen anything that I want a cartoon of placed on my body for the rest of my life.
I keep thinking about how in 50 or 60 years there will be all these old ladies in rest homes with tramp stamps.
I have had multiple dreams where I have had tattoos (very weird dreams at that). In fact on several occasions I have tried to draw them as soon as I wake up but they are very complicated, in a simplistic kind of way.
In one my entire arm was covered wrist to shoulder in a sleeve that was just some ancient text (can't remember which just know I've seen it before). Kinda made me wonder what it said. In another my entire back was covered.
My girl friend is talking about getting a tat, a music note of some sort. Music is a big part of her life and it will be small.
I have a friend who got a tattoo of a cartoon girl in a polka dotted dress on her leg. On the side of her calf, to be exact. She got it three years ago. She doesn't remember getting it or why she picked that one.
...
She doesn't like it either. 
I want to get a tattoo of myself, all over my body, only taller.
Don't do it just because it's trendy. And don't ever put someone's name on unless it's your parent or child.
That being said, my g/f (she's 25, and tatoos are not the taboo for her generation that it was for mine) has a nice one of her son's name spelled out in a spider web.
I'm 47, and seriously considering getting two of my old Corner Worker patches (the old Atlanta Region "circle of flags" with our region symbol in the center, and the old SCCA "wire wheel") done on my shoulders, since that's where we all wore the patches on our uniforms.
That group of people (Atl Reg F&C, 86 to the early 00s) were absolutely the best group of people I've ever had the good fortune to meet. For something like that, I could imagine having a permanent `reminder'.
That being said, I suppose similar feelings are why so many young folks put gang signs on their bodies...
wherethefmi wrote: Getting 2 tats when I'm home on leave, wedding band, and my wife as a pinup girl
That whole no Porn while your over there is really getting to you, eh?
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