Day 276: Donatello Has Chigger Bites

Have you ever had chigger bites? Have you ever heard of them? If not let me enlighten you.

Chiggers are almost microscopic insects from the mite family. As larva they live in grassy areas on the ends of tall grasses. When you brush against the grass they transfer to your clothes or skin and then the real fun starts. They excrete digestive enzymes to feed on skin cells, and once they've fed they detach and go through their remaining life stages harmless to humans. Unfortunately those digestive enzymes create redness, pimple-like heads or hives on the bites and intense itching. Because of the combination of causes--enzymes, allergic reaction/immune response & possible bacterial infection--no remedy works the same for everyone. There are about a million suggestions with how to deal with these bites, but there isn't one universal cure.

Now that you're up to speed on chiggers (not their real name, obviously) can you guess why I'm writing a blog post about them? Yes. I have them. All over my ankles, feet and legs. And it is miserable.

I was helping out on a film shoot this weekend in a park and I neglected to take proper precautions to ward of bug bites. After we got home a few hours later I started to feel my ankles itching and, sure enough, by the end of the night I had red bumps all over my legs. For me it's not so bad when I'm not moving, but as soon as I have to walk anywhere the combination of my socks, shoes and pant legs rubbing against the bites is unbearable.

I've tried a few different remedies, but none of them seem to work completely. I've only had chigger bites once before, but the thing that seemed to help was putting clear nail polish over them. People do that because they think the bugs have burrowed into your skin and are still there so by putting nail polish over the bites you're suffocating them. Really by the time you start itching they have most likely detached, but the nail polish seems to help by putting a protective layer over the bite to keep it from being constantly rubbed by clothing while they heal.

Maybe it seems like this is a bit of an overreaction, to take these small bites so seriously, but I can honestly say bug bites generally don't bother me. I get mosquito bites all the time during the summer and I have no problem ignoring them and they're usually gone within an hour, same thing with most other irritating insects, but chigger bites are on a whole other level. Do a Google search for them and see what other people say. If you've never had them consider yourself lucky. If you have then you know exactly what I mean.

The only comfort I can take in this experience is that they especially like places where your skin or clothing is tight or folded (ie. feet/ankles, knees, etc.) and I hear they can move into and bite much more sensitive areas than your legs, but that hasn't happened to me, thankfully.

Day 275: Donatello Goes Camping

It's been a little while since my last update. I've been mostly off the internet for over a week. Part of that was due to the fact that I was wrapped up in Mass Effect 2 for a week, but the other reason is because my wife and I went camping for a few days last week.

We had made plans to visit some family, but it ended up not working out so instead we decided to take a last minute camping trip for a couple of days at Garner State Park about three hours from where we live in Austin, TX. We also decided to bring our dog, Master Samwise the Brave since he's never been camping with us.

The park turned out to be really nice and because it was the middle of the week we had practically the whole place to ourselves. We got a spot right near the river so we were never more than a short walk away from the water.

The first night we were there we didn't have any food to cook for ourselves so we drove a few miles down the road towards a small town and we found an awesome bar called Buckhorn. There were only five other people in the bar when we got there including the owners. The woman behind the bar offered to make us some food and told us we just missed an amazing musician auditioning to play at the bar later in the week. As we were eating he decided to play some songs for us and it was amazing! We got a free private show and we did a little dancing. He really was good and it turned out to be a great bit of luck that we stopped in.

The next day there were a bunch of hiking paths throughout the park that we had access to. We were both amazed by how well Sam did on the trails. He is easily the clumsiest dog I have ever seen, but on the steep, rocky hiking trails he was like a freaking mountain goat! He did better than we did and by the end of the day he was beat. We tried to get him to swim a bit, but he wouldn't voluntarily go any deeper than his chest. I put him in a little further a couple of times, but he instantly turned and swam back to the shore.

The night before we left it stormed pretty bad, but we stayed nice and dry in our tent that we affectionately named "Tent Mansion" when we bought it for a camping trip to Marfa, TX last year with some friends. It fit two full sized air mattresses with room to spare in Marfa, and this time with just us and the dog it seemed even more huge.

After we packed up it was a bit of a bummer to come back to the real world, but it was a pretty great mini-camping trip and I'd definitely like to go back to Garner State Park for another visit.

Day 273: The Turtles Visit Middle Earth

In my last post I mentioned, briefly, my love of Middle-earth and everything it encompasses. Today I'd like to expand a bit on that.

The reason it's been on my mind lately is that my wife, after reading The Hobbit several times in the past made up her mind to finally finish The Lord of the Rings. She's tried before, but never got past The Fellowship of the Ring, and as much of a fan as I am I can totally understand. Tolkien's writing is not everyone's cup of tea; he's very descriptive and his love of lengthy discussions far outweighs the amount of action in the story. But we both love Peter Jackson's film adaptations and the recent trailers for part one of The Hobbit have us very excited to see Martin Freeman as a young Bilbo. So in anticipation of re-entering the epic film version of Middle-earth she decided to finally finish the series, and she did complain about some parts being boring and Tolkien's uncanny ability to kill momentum but overall she really enjoyed it.

As for me? I love it all. The councils, the walking, the endless discussions of old legends, the songs (especially the songs!); all those things that make the books difficult or boring for most people are the things I love. I wasn't always this way, though. My love of Middle-earth is one that has been growing since I first read The Hobbit sometime around 4th Grade. Tolkien's writing is sometimes a bit weighty, especially for a child, but The Hobbit is much more accessible and I've always read things at a higher level than my age. I enjoyed it even if I didn't understand it all and then I moved on to The Lord of the Rings since I had them all in a convenient box set my aunt had given me.

At first I was really only interested in the story. There was so much needless trudging through forests and across plains and talking and singing (those fucking songs!). I remember distinctly giving up on the songs early on and just skipping over them when I first read the books. Or how about Tom Bombadil? What about that guy?

If you've read the books or were a big fan of the movies you likely know Tom Bombadil. Purists crucified Peter Jackson for his omission of the character, while other people were so happy to not have to listen to one of his stupid songs. Personally when I first read the books I hated Tom Bombadil, but now I love that guy! He's such a great character, but if you look at the story objectively he isn't really necessary and I think Peter Jackson did the right thing in leaving him out. I think I'll include a bit of him, though, as this is my blog.

Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!

Ring a dong! hop along! Fal lal the willow!

Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!

Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow,

Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.

None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master:

His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster.

Over time I continued to revisit the books and I began to get drawn more into the world rather than just the events of the story. I started to wonder about the Elves and where Sauron came from and all those things fantasy nerds wonder about. I started reading the songs and paying more attention to the smaller, seemingly insignificant details. Eventually I read The Silmarillion which was the most amazing thing that ever happened to someone wanting to know more about Middle-earth and its origins.

The Silmarillion is the Middle-earth bible, and not in the sense that it's a great reference book. It's the Middle-earth bible in the sense that it starts out with the creation and shaping of the world, and moves on through the tales of the ages from there. This is not something I would recommend to a casual fan of the series unless you're really really interested in Elvin genealogy.

So here I am, now (sort-of) an adult with a deep love of all things Middle-earth. I don't really have strong feelings about that world becoming "cool." I know a lot of people hate seeing things they love get popular and bastardized by the mainstream, but that's really never mattered much to me. I'm happy that more people have been exposed to what was my introduction to the fantasy genre, but I realize most people won't take it as far as I have. That's fine. Everyone else can move on and forget about the Hobbits and Ents; I'll continue to love Tolkien's world for my own reasons.

About the picture, it kind of looks like the Fellowship, except there were nine member of the Fellowship and only four Turtles. I just tried to represent the major races matching the personalities of the Turtles as much as possible. Leonardo is men, but in his case specifically a ranger. They're from an old blood-line of the first kings and much more noble than your average Joe. Donatello is an elf (even though that kinda looks like a Gondorian pattern on his vest). I don't really have a good reason for this except that I've always liked the elves. In hindsight he should have been a wizard. Magic is as close as you can get to technology in Middle-earth without being evil. Raph is a dwarf, of course. Red beard mixed with a love of fighting and quick temper? done. Michelangelo, I feel, best represents the Hobbits. Why fight when you can eat, drink, smoke and generally enjoy life to the fullest?

Day 272: Donatello's Birthday Party

Guess what? My birthday was a few days ago. Ordinarily I don't get too excited for my birthday. I don't hate getting older--most of the time I have to do mental calculations to remember exactly how old I am--I just feel a little uncomfortable with the amount of focus people put on me all of a sudden for one day. This is not to say I haven't enjoyed my birthdays. I've had some good times, last night included. I didn't have a party; we just met some friends for dinner. I got lots of cool Spider-Man and TMNT stuff including the new IDW Volume 1 collection of the original comics autographed by Kevin Eastman!

My wife took the theme of the night in a different, but equally nerdy direction (she threw me a TMNT party a few years ago; I'll get to it in a bit). Over the last few years she's really cultivated a love for baking and decorating things and she's gotten pretty damn good. One of my other (many) loves is Tolkien's Middle Earth. I love all of it, not just Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, but the entire world and all its lore.--

Before I start rambling about Middle Earth I'm going to stop here and promise to explore this in another post.

--My wife has read The Hobbit several times, just finished Lord of the Rings all the way through for the first time and we're both waaaay excited about the upcoming adaptation of The Hobbit. So this year, she made me a book cake. An awesome book cake that looks like it has real pages and... just look at this thing!

It's huge and awesome and, most importantly, delicious. I chose Strawberry cake without knowing what she was making, so she put a cream cheese layer. Get it? Strawberry's and Cream Cake. As in, "Do you remember the taste of strawberry's and cream, Mr. Frodo?" There are layers of meaning to this cake (as well as just regular layers).

So anyway, I drew this picture of Donatello (me) ready to blow out his candles on his birthday. I'm going off the assumption that the Turtles aren't really brothers in the genetic sense and so they celebrate different birthdays. The others aren't screaming in horror, they're singing "Happy Birthday" to him.

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Instead of writing a big long post about my birthday this year I thought I'd share a few pictures from my TMNT birthday from a few years ago.

 My sweet Donatello cake

Ninja Turtle cupcakes made by my good friend Crystal! The TMNT heads were ring party favors.

My friend graciously let me cut the cake with the broken hilt of Narsil. 

Apparently cutting cakes with a sword is a thing I do. I cut my Spider-Man groom's cake with a samurai sword.

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Here are a few pictures my mom gave me of when I was younger. Proof that I have always loved the turtles.

Me at 5 years-old. Note my coordinated outfit.

 My 6th birthday cake.

6 year-old me at some school carnival thing.

Clearly they didn't have a Donatello cut out.

Day 271: Donatello Pets a Stegosaurus

Did I mention last post how awesome Stegosauruses are? Because they are incredibly awesome. Clearly they are the best kind of dinosaur. I mean, just look at that guy! He's got awesome spikes on his tail for defense, but he's not a mean dino. Plus, check out those sweet plates. He was rockin' a full-body mohawk before mohawks were even a thing! Stegosauruses were the original punks. They probably got along with everyone too. They were probably like the cool guy at the party who feels comfortable talking to everyone and who everyone likes to talk to because he's got confidence. Stegos don't need your approval. They thrive on their own majesty so you can either get with their program and be a cool guy too or get eaten by a bunch of compys like the little baby your are.

You can keep your T-Rexes and Velociraptors (which weren't as scary as Jurassic Park made them seem, you guys); if you're lookin for me I'll be at the arcade kickin it with my pal, Stegosaurus, because Stegosauruses probably love video games.

Side note: When I drew this my wife commented on what a good drawing of a stegosaurus it was. She was unaware that I used to draw them almost as much as I used to draw Ninja Turtles, so that's where my skill comes from.

Day 176: Donatello Builds a Rocket at Applebee's

Last year we went on a trip to watch a shuttle launch with some friends. One of the friends we went with bought us all model rockets to launch while we're in town and tonight we all got together at a big corner table in Applebee's (where he works) and built our rockets. They turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.

Day 174: Donatello is Thinking With Portals

Over this Christmas vacation I got to play Portal 2. I loved everything about it and it's a great example of how a simple concept can spawn an amazing and engaging game.

Day 168: Donatello Rents... A Ford Fiesta?

As you probably know I was in an accident about two weeks ago. As of right now I still don't know what's going to happen to my car so I've been in a rental car since last Wednesday. The first car they gave me was a Nissan Versa, which wasn't too bad. It was pretty comparable to my car, but newer. The only problem was that it smelled like cigarette smoke on the inside. Since we'll be driving the rental to Phoenix for Christmas I called yesterday to change out the car.

When I got there the agent told me the only thing they had in that size was a Ford Fiesta. Mentally I made a "yuck" face, but whatever. It's just a car, and it's not like I'll be driving it forever. When he took me outside to inspect it I was surprised to see that Ford has made some changes to their Fiesta. It no longer looks like a piece of cheap shit. Actually, it doesn't look half-bad at all. Plus it's got better acceleration than the Versa did and a much bigger trunk. So far I've quite enjoyed driving the new improved Fiesta, even though it is bright yellow.

If you've been following this blog for any length of time you probably know that cars are one of the many things I'm not good at drawing with any sort of accuracy. I actually drew this picture while sitting in the Ford Fiesta, and it still doesn't really look much like the actual car at all. Here's a picture of what this thing really looks like.

The inside isn't too shabby. Nothing crazy, but it's nice. It has a USB port and an auxiliary jack which is nice. It even has fancy floor lighting in like 7 different colors. Last night while driving around my wife kept playing with the floor lighting and I had to tell her to knock it off. I told her we installed that switch so she could turn the lights on and off, not have a floor-light switch rave. She told me the colored floor lights are the "Fiesta" part of the car.

Day 166: Donatello Plays Keys

Playing keyboard or piano is a skill I really wish I had. I mean, I can fumble around a very little bit, but I can't really play. I can read music just barely, but I just never took the time to develop either skill to even a mediocre degree. I have a keyboard in my music room. I should really utilize it more and improve my skills. Bitches love skills.

Then I can play keys and be a little closer to the real Donatello.

Skip to 2:20 for the magic.

Day 165: LittleBigTurtles

Guess what? I have another video game post for you guys. I beat Modern Warfare 2, played online for like a day and then got bored. Now I'm back to a game that I bought a while ago and I kept put off playing: LittleBigPlanet 2.

Let me explain something about the LittleBigPlanet series. The games are comprised of over-the-top adorable characters called Sack Boys (or if you prefer the gender neutral, Sack Things) in a world made entirely of craft materials. It's all about using your imagination and creating whatever you can think of. You can play the story mode to collect new materials, build your own levels or play any of the millions of levels created by other users. The whole thing is very wholesome and cutesy and British so it's just oozing with cheekiness. And just so we're on the same page let me be very clear on this one thing:

I fucking love LittleBigPlanet.

I was totally on board for this adorable-train well before the first game was released. I got into the beta and loved every second of it and LittleBigPlanet is one of the few games I actually bought myself on the day it was released. I played the shit out of it, collected every prize/costume/sticker thing and I created my own level (it's a Hogwart's level and it's bitchin'). I even have my own character that I created for myself in the game. Part of the fun is collecting different materials and outfit pieces to customize your Sack Boy in a trillion different ways, but I created this character early on and have pretty much stuck with him ever since. I used him as my Facebook and Twitter profile pictures for a long time and it drives my wife crazy that I'm so attached to this guy. I call him the Dapper Lion and if you see him online say hi, cause he is me.

The Dapper Lion in all his... dapperness.

My good friend, Mandy, even crocheted me a Sack Boy with a Dapper Lion mask to go with it.

 I made a top hat later, but don't have a picture.

So, LittleBigPlanet was one of my favorite games of all time, and then a second one came out and... I didn't get it. I don't remember why I didn't buy it at the release. I remember wanting to, but I waited and bought it used some time later. Even then I played it very little for some reason. I think in my mind LittleBigPlanet is a big time commitment because I really want to finish the story-mode, get all the prizes and use those things to create some new levels I've been thinking of. That's a lot of work and inevitably I found other games to play that were less time intensive or that I was more excited to play right then. I had grown comfortable with LittleBigPlanet and I took it for granted. That was up until about a week ago.

I finished Modern Warfare 2 (or at least what I wanted to get out of it) and I thought, "Hmm... maybe now is a good time to get back into LittleBigPlanet 2." Since then I've been finding little snippets of time to play whenever I can. I'm reliving all the fun I had with the first one and I'm glad I came back to it. I don't know what I was thinking before. LittleBigPlanet is not time-intensive. It's perfect for killing 5 or 10 minutes on some user created content, or spending a whole day bulding your own creations. That's one of the things I love about the game; it can be whatever you want it to be.

Anyway, I'll stop gushing about this game even though I really do love it. And in case you're wondering I do have a Ninja Turtle costume for my Sack Boy. I have the ability to make all of the Turtles, but the only one I have saved is Donatello. The color's a bit off because I took the photo of my TV. It's not my design, but it looks pretty good.

Day 160: Ninja Turtles Are Easily Bored by First Person Shooters (Probably)

Some of you may have realized by now that I'm a big gamer. I'm a gamer in the sense that I love playing video games, not in the sense that I do it all the time. I rarely (if ever) buy myself video games anymore since I mostly don't have time to play them. One game can usually last me a while, especially since I've grown a greater appreciation for RPG's over the last few years.

Lately I've had more time to play and this means I've been going through games quite a bit faster. I got inFamous 2 for my birthday and played through it twice (once good and once evil), I borrowed Dragon Age II from a friend and played through it twice (once as a rouge, once as a warrior), I even went back through God of War and God of War 2 for like the 5th time each to finish getting all the Playstation trophies.

The latest game I played was Modern Warfare 2. I know a new one just came out, but I am perpetually behind the curve on games despite my love of them. Anyway, Modern Warfare 3 came out and my friend Shaun said, "Hey, you can borrow number 2 and get your skills up for when you get number 3." I'm doubtful if I'll ever actually own Modern Warfare 3 and let me explain why.

I play First Person Shooters entirely wrong.

I don't mean to suggest that I'm especially bad at them. Actually, to be honest I can be pretty decent most of the time when I'm playing the game the way it was designed to be played. The "the way it was designed to be played" part is what always gets me.

I am a sucker for a great story-line in a game. I love cinematics and well written dialogue and I love characters you can relate to or at least empathize with, so my first order of business is always to play through the campaign mode before ever setting foot online. Unfortunately FPS games (at least the Call of Duty/Battlefield variety) are not designed for gamers like me. The current generation of FPS games focuses extremely heavily on the online multiplayer aspect and usually only include a story-mode for something to do if the server goes down. I know plenty of people who play nothing but Modern Warfare and have never touched the single-player campaign. I guess that's cool, but that's not what I enjoy in gaming. To me the multi-player is a fun distraction occasionally, but I get bored of it very quickly.

It's because I get bored that I tend to play these games in an unorthodox style. I find it difficult to care too much about my Kill/Death ratio or how many head shots I've gotten with a particular weapon. Most of the time I just try to stab everyone because it seems much more satisfying. Anyone can shoot someone from half-way across the map with a super-powered scope, but it takes some real skill (or just a blatant disregard for your own safety) to run around a level dispatching enemies with only a combat knife. Often this leaves me at the bottom of the leader board, but it's way more entertaining for me (and Shaun).

On top of that I need something to do besides just killing other players for the sake of increasing my rank. I need a goal to achieve and getting a red dot sight or an increase in bullet damage isn't exactly what I'm looking for. I probably spent more time playing Call of Duty: Black Ops online than any other shooter in recent memory. You wanna know why? The gamer cards.

The gamer cards are stupid; another throw-away feature added for some slight variety in a game about shooting people in the face, but it was literally the only thing that kept me playing. In order to add another layer you have to reach a certain level. In order to buy a new design to use you have to have enough cash to purchase it. I spent hours upon hours online working toward a single goal and once my gamer card was completed to my satisfaction I stopped playing entirely. I hadn't touched almost any of the gun or game achievements, but that didn't matter to me. All that mattered was my gamer card, because FPS games are not designed for me.

Here's a picture of my pride and joy.

Day 159: Donatello and Raphael Are Incredibly Funny on the Internet

So my friend Shaun and I spend a lot of time online during the day. We also happen to have a fairly similar sense of humor. What this means to us is that we crack each other up all day long on the internet. What this means to all of our friends is they are likely to have a Facebook post highjacked or have their Twitter feeds overrun with tweets from us. I apologize to anyone who's every suffered at our hilarious hands, but we enjoy it too much to stop now.

Day 158: Donatello Talks to Insurance Companies All Day Long

This is mostly what I did yesterday and some of today. I expect I'll spend a lot more time doing this in the coming days (weeks) as well. Now before everyone freaks out (privately, of course, because I so rarely get comments on this blog) I'm not mad at the insurance companies. They're just doing their job, which is to pay as little as they can. It's my job to makes sure I've got everything straight and negotiate the best deal for me and I fully intend to. So, yeah. Bring it, bitches.

Day 157: Somebody Smashed the Fuck Out of Donatello's Car

First of all, in the picture it kind of looks like Donatello is crying, but that's really more of a face-palm gesture. Secondly, this is an autobiographical picture. Last night someone smashed into the back of my car while my wife and I were in it.

We came to a stop on the highway as is customary when a traffic light turns red and the cars in front of you stop. The BMW behind us also came to a stop following the general guidelines of driving in traffic. Unfortunately the truck behind the BMW couldn't decide until the last possible second whether he should stop or just keep on going and hope that all of the cars ahead of him were mere illusions.

I had just enough time before I heard the squealing tires to say to my wife, "We're OK, everyone's stopped." Then I heard a smash. Then I had just enough time to look in the rearview mirror and say, "Oh shit!" before our car was hit from behind.

Somehow miraculously we didn't hit the people in front of us. I was able to move my car off the road, but not much farther because the fender was bent down into my tire. My car as well as the BMW had to be towed from the scene, but the person that started this whole adventure was able to drive away after we all exchanged information. Awesome.

I called 911 immediately after moving my car so the police came and reports were filed. Luckily for us we even had two witnesses stay and give reports to the police.

I've already been on the phone with my insurance and the truck driver's insurance and I anticipate many more hours of exciting phone conversations in my very near future. The big question now is, what will we be driving to Phoenix for Christmas now that my car's back end is smashed to bits? I'll let you know when we solve this mystery.

No one was injured by the way, aside from some muscle stiffness and soreness. You know, just in case you were curious.

Day 156: Bo Staffacopter

So what you want about physics, but I feel that this theory is sound and if anyone could pull it off it would be Donatello.

Day 152: St. Nicholas and Black Pete Battle For the Holidays!

Every year on December 6th I wake up to find candy and small gifts in my shoes. I forget about it every year, but it still happens. Supposedly St. Nicholas leaves the gifts on St. Nicholas Day (December 5th or 6th depending on your cultural background), but I think that's a lie. I believe that my wife actually does it, because the real St. Nicholas only leaves candy if you're good and I know I'm never good enough to get two Toblerone bars and about $3.50 in chocolate coins. This year I got a little extra surprise when I woke up early to go to work, went to empty the candy out of my shoes and I found our entryway, and my shoes, swarming with ants.

Every year when it starts to get cold we start having ant problems in our apartments. It doesn't seem to follow any rhyme or reason because they just pop up randomly and not always around food products. In this case I thought it was the candy, but as I pulled each piece out and inspected it before putting it in a plastic bag I only found a few ants on the chocolate. Most of the ants seemed content to run around like crazy on the cold tile or hide in my shoes. Anyway, I sprayed ant killer in the entryway, threw my shoes out and called the apartment office to get the pest guys to come spray for us. I hate ants.

So, anyway, about this picture. It's St. Nicholas being a total dick to Donatello and throwing candy at him real sarcastically like, "Yeah, you were real good this year. Here's your candy." Meanwhile Black Pete (Skeeter from Doug according to Shaun) is sneaking up behind Donatello to throw him in a sack so they can take him back to Spain and torture him.

What? You don't know Black Pete? He's St. Nicholas' helper. Look it up. He's a favorite (and pretty goddamned racist) character from the St. Nicholas legend, most popular in the Netherlands. Do a Google search for him. The only pictures you'll find are a bunch of white Europeans in black face. Some stories say he's black because of the soot from the chimneys, but that's a damn lie. His clothes don't seem to be affected and I know those dirty chimneys didn't put that red lipstick on him.

Really I guess it's a well-meaning character that was a product of it's time, but still, Black Pete is like the Christmas version of those crows from Dumbo. Anyway, he steals kids who are bad so I guess that makes him like a border-line pedophile too, probably.

Day 149: Donatello on XKCD

*This is part 1 of 3 in my Web Comics series.

One of my favorite things on the internet are web comics. I'm a big fan of the comic medium, but I don't really read comic books regularly. It can be prohibitively expensive to keep up with them, and there are so many out there it's hard to know what to read. Most of the comics that my wife and I do read are ones that we've borrowed from friends. That's why I love web comics so much. They're free, (usually) update pretty regularly and a lot of them are as good, if not better, than most of what's in print right now.

The internet allows people to post their own material without first running it through a gauntlet of producers and editors who might change it into something they think people want. While that's not always a good thing occasionally it leaves you with something amazing that you never would have seen in a comic book store.

I really only follow four web comics regularly so I've decided to do a post about three of them (the fourth is kind of a tie-in).

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First is XKCD. It's deceptively simple, mostly a bunch of stick figures having conversations, but if you spend any amount of time reading it you'll realize it's anything but. Three times a week Randall Munroe posts a new strip usually dealing with anything from math, language, physics, all other manner of science, or more math. This comic is often so over most people's heads that there is actually a separate website dedicated to explaining the jokes in the XKCD strips called Explain XKCD. It may seem like a waste of time to read a comic that you rarely understand, but the jokes are funny and when there is one that you understand without assistance it makes you feel a little bit smug.

I love the simple structure of the stick figure comic strips, but occasionally readers are treated to something insanely more in-depth like this chart of money, this chart of radiation levels (in response to the Japanese nuclear site meltdown after the tsunami), this map of online communities, or, my favorite, this time line of movie character interactions.

Of all the Turtles I figured Donatello would be the most comfortable in this highly academic setting so I put him at a computer (another common setting for the comic) talking to the standard stick figure. In case you can't read my chicken-scratch handwriting he's saying "Math, math, math, physics, space, computers, math, language."

Click here for my Axe Cop post.
Click here for my Dr. McNinja post.

Day 148: Donatello Occupies the Internet

-------------------****DISCLAIMER****-------------------

This blog post is not a political statement and has nothing at all to do with the Occupy Wall Street or associated Occupy movements. I don't give a shit about your political views and although I occasionally touch on more serious things in this blog, this is most definitely not one of those times. I don't care if you agree, disagree or want to firebomb the whole country for making you listen to coverage about it. This post is about me and a friend making a joke. That is all.

-------------------****END DISCLAIMER****-------------------

From time to time (read: all the time) my friend, Shaun, and I tend to start a joke on Facebook or Twitter and just run with it for our own entertainment. Today we started a conversation with our friend Mandy that turned into something completely ridiculous and we took it probably too far, but it was hilarious to us.

As you may know from previous mentions Mandy runs a blog called Chocolate & Cream Cake, and it's filled with lots of nerdy, crafty and, often, girly things. I quite enjoy reading it and she's got a pretty decent sized readership. She's usually my go to friend for blog related questions and all things grammar.

Shaun also runs a blog, Where's My Pell Check?, about working in the financial aid field, and as you know I run this blog. Our blogs combined don't meet Mandy's number of hits for a week and we like to joke about it from time to time. When Mandy posted a tweet about a problem editing her blog I had to respond. Here's an abbreviated collection of the Twitter conversation the three of us had. My picture for today was an image I tweeted to Mandy after Shaun send her his first picture.

Read it top to bottom, left image first. The embedded images can be found below, numbered 1-4

 

#1

#2

#3

#4

So, yeah, Shaun and I started a fake occupy movement based around Mandy's blog (or a weekly feature: Nerd News) and then snuck over to her apartment at 11 O'clock at night and staged a protest. We were very quiet so as not to alert Mandy or her husband that we were there and my wife took pictures which she later posted in an album on her facebook. These pictures don't show it, but we even brought sleeping bags and pretended to be camped out in front of Mandy's door. It was all very funny to everyone involved.

There you have it. The complete story of the Occupy Nerd News movement.

Day 143: Donatello Has an Allergic Reaction

We were driving to my grandparents house for Thanksgiving with my Dad's side of the family today when all of a sudden my ears started to feel really hot and itchy. My wife looked at me and said my face was getting really red and splotchy and she asked if I felt OK. Aside from feeling hot and itchy I felt alright, but I knew I was having an allergic reaction to something.

Austin is known for giving people allergies. I'm lucky, I don't suffer from almost any seasonal allergies, but maybe three times since I've moved here I've broken out in hives or red splotches for no reason. After we stopped at the store and I took some Benadryl I was fine within an hour, but we couldn't ever figure out what caused it in the first place. I didn't eat or do anything out of the ordinary. It wasn't life threatening by any means, but it was weird and uncomfortable at worst.

Day 139: Donatello is a Master Plumber

That's it. I'm done trying to come close to evening out the scales for the number of times I feature each Turtle in their own picture. Everyone that visits is going to have to come to grips with the fact that Donatello is going to get the lion's share of the posts. He is my avatar in the Ninja Turtle world and anything I post in regards to something I did in real life is probably going to feature him. So just deal with it, Donatello haters.

Moving on, I am not actually a master plumber, despite the title of this post (I just typed "turtle" instead of "title." This blog is affecting my muscle memory in strange ways). However, I did fix my mom's toilet after work last night. I replaced a leaky water supply valve and hose and adjusted the float so it wouldn't keep running constantly. If you've ever done much toilet repair you'll recognize that these are not especially difficult things to fix, but if you haven't I sound like a real bad ass, like I should go work for Roto Rooter and then I can get my own show about paranormal investigations! This idea is sounding better and better.

OK, so maybe I'm not the best handy-man-fix-it-guy, but I think I do fine with small projects around the house. Way better than I ever imagined I would when I was younger and had no interest in these kinds of things. I can hang things (shelves/pictures/bigger pictures), fix brakes (to a limited degree) and build the best IKEA furniture you've ever seen. I hear so many people bitch about IKEA and their instructions with no words; that's the whole point! It's so simple. They give you pictures. If yours doesn't look exactly like the one in the picture then you're doing it wrong. Maybe I have more patience than most people with it, who knows, but I actually enjoy building IKEA furniture. It's like doing a puzzle. A puzzle that you can put shit on when you're done. A puzzle that makes your house look like grown-ups live there because it's got furniture now. A puzzle that can really bring a room together. Like a really nice underwater marine-life puzzle with a school of dolphins in the center.

I told my wife the other night that my priorities have changed since I was younger. If you had told me when I was 15 that when I grew up I would be dreaming of a nice house with a big garage, a full tool box and home improvement projects I would have laughed and told you to get out of the way, you're blocking Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. I guess things change and it helps that I'm a bit frugal when it comes to fixing things. We're in an apartment now so it's not much of an issue, but if something breaks and I have to pay to have it fixed you can damn well bet I'll be on the internet trying to teach myself before I call in a professional. Thankfully my wife comes from a largely do-it-yourself family and usually indulges me. You can't learn if you don't try, right?

Alright, I'm done bragging about my extremely basic home repair skills. I'm gonna go build an IKEA bookshelf to take the edge off.