Even the simplest operations require more extensive planning.
Had to go to the bank to deposit a check. The bank doesn’t open until 10am, so the timing worked out fine, as the mail with the check got in at 9:15. Got to the bank’s drive thru at 9:59 and there were already six cars in the three drive thru lanes, awaiting the opening bell.
As I sat third in line, with more cars arriving by the minute, it only then occurred to me that I’ll have a contact contamination risk via the banking cylinder that goes in the pneumatic tube. With at least two cars in front of me, passing the cylinder around like a pitcher of beer on St. Patty’s Day, not to mention where tellers have been, I’d have to be conscious of not touching my face after the transaction.
So I await my turn, kicking myself for not thinking to bring wipes with me for an immediate wipe down afterward.
My turn comes, bing bang boom, and I zoom off home, having to scratch the phantom itch on my nose the whole way.
Arriving home, I grab the spray cleaner and wipe down all the affected bits.
Mental note: maybe keep a pack of wipes in each car for these drive thru scenarios.
Only a month or so to go before we flatten the hell out of that curve…hopefully…..
Now full disclosure, my mom was, in her younger days– in my mind, a rather impetuous driver. One might say crazy or irresponsible but we see things very differently as children than we do as adults. I remember seeing my mom eating while driving, doing paperwork while driving, and most worryingly, race trains. At some of the train crossings back in the day, there were no guard posts that lowered. So you could see the train coming and mentally map out the time/speed distance and calculate if you were going to make it across the tracks before the train got there. Let’s just say mom usually calculated correctly and we won’t go into how I reacted when she attempted it. Mostly because the train always seemed to be coming on my side. So it was often an adventure. But again, the eyes of youth. On the side the train was aiming at.
One morning though, she was driving me to school. And to be fair, I don’t think the following was her fault. I don’t know the circumstances as I again, usually walked but this was to my high school. Still a long haul and for whatever reason, she was driving me when suddenly, a car coming the opposite way decided to make a left directly in front of us and WHAM.
A second later, I was sitting there in the passenger seat with my forearms crossed in front of my face, and when I lowered them, I assessed the situation. The windshield was smashed, mom was seemingly okay and I tried to open my door but it, like the entire front of the car, was accordioned. But hey, I was fine, she was fine. Mom got out her side and I followed. Adrenaline was flowing and I felt fine and I guess the old adage was true, any crash you can walk away from…
Then mom turned to look at me, a look of worry on her face and she said “oh, Rick.” That was an odd thing to say for her and quite sentimental in tone. Very unusual. And right on cue, blood started flowing down in front of my right eye from my forehead. So THAT’S why the windshield was smashed! Something hard hit it alright. My head.
Still, it only stung a bit. Adrenaline. Mouth hurt a bit too, because it partially knocked into the dash but thank god I’d gotten the braces taken off a few months earlier or that might have been horrific. What followed was my first experience with a local anesthetic and having a very nice Doctor (a specialist in fact) sew me up, while I think I may have rudely pointed out how funny looking he was while all doped up.
The aftermath of that: I think we started being vigilant about seat belt safety– well I did anyway. And in an effort to reduce the scarring on my forehead, as it healed, I had to apply this medication or salve or whatever it was for a couple weeks.
But it was blood red! That seems like a flaw in the presentation. While that stuff was on, it looked a fresh wound! After that, mom may have eased up on the road in general, I’m not sure. Probably not. Anyway…
23 years ago, Matthew Magnus Lundeen ushered forth into the world. He wasn’t exactly on time and was reluctant to come out. He’s been more punctual since.
My wife probably has a plethora of gems written down about the many little comments he made and stunts he pulled. But I don’t have that in front of me, so I’ll just go with the flow. Bits and pieces.
I could go into the many things he did when he was tiny, like at age 2, he hoisted a steak burrito from El Faro in one hand and started chomping on it. Or the months he paraded around the house in nothing but a diaper, holding a Batman plush doll and an empty gallon milk jug. Or his steadfast refusal to ever eat applesauce. But I’ll go current:
*He speaks Japanese to a degree, but he insists he isn’t fluent.
*When it comes to the most complicated Japanese names in anime, he rattles them off as easy as we might say John Smith.
*He’s always furiously writing, whether it’s reviews or fiction.
*He’s good in escape rooms.
*He’s a quick wit and funny, but humility prevents me saying who he got it from.
*He remembers the most obscure things we did from years and years earlier.
*He has good, honorable, loyal, solid friendships that have lasted years.
*He’s graduating college as a member of the Honor Society.
*He’s a kind person. A good person.
I can’t ask for more than that. Lin and I are both very proud of him.
A number of years ago, I happened upon the beginning of a run of X-Force from Marvel comics. The run went from 2010 to 2012, and after seeing some preview pages, and saw there were multiple back issues available digitally, I started scooping them up. Now even though the story by Rick Remender was very good, it was the art that elevated it to epic status. The art on the first four issues was by Jerome Opena and the colors by Dean White.
Opena is one of the most amazing artists I’ve ever seen. He delivers such power, depth and drama to his incredible storytelling, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen the like. In addition to a couple stretches on X-Force, Opena did the first few issues on an Avengers run shortly thereafter and once again, although Jonathan Hickman can deliver some big stories, no one can realize and elevate the material like Opena. He transforms anything he works on into a must see event.
Now, although I could just dive into just his pencils and stare at them all day, he is perhaps only 60% of this team. There are colorists, and then there are colorists. Sometimes, a colorist just adds color to a comic to add a little dimension. Sometimes they over do it and overwhelm an artist’s work. Sometimes they perfectly compliment the pencils and inks and make a superior product. And then you have Dean White. His color sensibilities, and painted highlights accentuate and further flesh out every scene. His color work is almost as important — maybe AS important in this transcendent experience as Opena’s contribution. The coloring is that good.
These two together on a book is pretty much my dream team of artists. They are both at the top of their profession and compliment each other perfectly. I’ve seen White’s coloring on lesser artists–they didn’t deserve him. Having seen Opena’s work without White, it’s still stellar, but not as good as with White. So, if you get the chance, I highly recommend taking a gander at the X-Force issues from 2010 and those first three Avengers issues from shortly thereafter.
And now, I’m just going to throw an assortment of work below from these two, plus a couple pages of just Opena’s pencils to see the differences. Enjoy.
At least, that’s what I thought back in the mid ’70’s when I lived in an apartment in Worth, Il. I was just me and my mom at that point and I spent a lot of time on my own. We had food but not much and sometimes I needed something a bit different than left over chop suey or pot roast. >shudder< I walked everywhere back then, as I was only 13 or 14. Walked to school, which was a mile away, dentist appt.’s, the drug store where they had some comics, my cousin’s house, all the same area, a mile away from the apartment. But a mile in the opposite direction was only one destination for me. Pepe’s. I think they charged .35 cents a taco or some ridiculously cheap price, so if I scraped up a little over a dollar, I could feast on three beef tacos. I had to make sure to grab extra hot sauce packets because their hot sauce really made the experience. So, a two mile round trip walk for three tacos. It was worth it.
But I would often put myself through some trial or another for foods that I liked. A few years earlier, when we still lived in Oak Lawn, it was considered a huge treat to go to Jack in the Box. I loved the Jumbo Jack Burger but also their tacos. Another very distinct and wonderful taco recipe. Their tacos’ meat was almost sealed into a hard shell, so on the outer edges would be this crisp, hard, crunchy shell but when you got past the hard shell “moat” to the meat, the shell was softened and it was like hitting the mother-load of flavor. One time, I had to go to the dentist to have about ten teeth removed, mostly baby teeth I believe to make room for the new permanent ones coming in. Seems my mouth was too small and things were going sideways in there. Anyway, they extracted all ten or eleven teeth, so although I had the front four on top and bottom, I was missing most all of the sides and things were very tender. As a treat, my mom took me to Jack in the Box and of course, I had the tacos. Turns out, when tackling those hard, nasty, crunchy edges of taco shell, you really need those side teeth, not raw, newly exposed, bloody gums. Yeah. That was not pretty. Oh, but Christ, the soft meat was great when I got to it. Speaking of pain…
Moving forward again in time back to Worth, I think I was probably 15 (?) and I had braces. Each month, I had to hike over to the orthodontist to get them tightened up. Whenever this was done, the teeth would be *extremely* sensitive. The slightest pressure would be murderous for the next day. But here’s the thing. The diner across the street from the orthodontist had the greatest Italian cheeseburger ever. It was just the patty, marinara and mozzarella on a bun but that and a vanilla shake was pure heaven, so each and every appointment, I went there immediately after the appointment. No, I couldn’t go before the appointment because I had to do a good job of brushing my teeth before hand. And no, I didn’t want to come back another day because it was a mile walk and I was right there! So, I’d get my burger and of course, every bite into it was slow and tear-inducingly painful. It was so good, yet hurt so bad.
I’d love to say this is yet another look into what makes me tick but it’s becoming painfully obvious that I’m an idiot that loves the taste of food too much for my own good. Not much mystery there.
Should probably get this one out there before my mind completely blocks out the experience.
Middle of last August, I was at Northwestern for a week so they could collect my stem cells. This was so they could freeze them, and I don’t know, run them through a strainer of some sort–basically make sure they were fresh and healthy stem cells, to be re-transplanted into me a week or so later, right after Labor Day. The hospital was good enough to comp my stay at Worcester House, an apartment complex a couple blocks away from NW. A small, basic apartment room with a fridge for food and medicine, and two single beds. This was very nice of them to do, because otherwise, I would have had to travel back and forth every day, which would have been a big pain, especially for my wife, who was driving me. Linda brought me there on that Sunday night, so we could get the necessary early start the next day starting the collection week. All that being said, the place wasn’t the greatest.
Not particularly clean and worst of all, the single beds were hard mattresses, covered with plastic and a couple flimsy sheets. These were beds for the transient, the incontinent, the dying, the fairly messed up and, at times, bloody patients that stayed there. There was no malevolence in the design, just the way they had to prep the beds for … us.
Now, anyone keeping track back then will note some of the day to day photos I took of the time in the hotel room. Random visuals meant to interest, chill, and possibly concern you, but mostly give you an idea what I was dealing with at the time. Monday, we had to get up at 6am, walk to the hospital, get blood drawn, then off to the operating room, where they prepped me and inserted a six inch line into my neck, and down toward my heart. And so, once inserted, from my neck then sprung three cables to connect to various machines during the coming week. My collection was to start on Tuesday morning.
So, we went back to the Worcester House, and at the appointed time that night, I had to give myself four injections of Nupogen that would heighten my stem cell production. I would have to give myself four injections each night at a certain hour. I’d already been doing this at home for the past four nights, and had four more to go. In the end, I would end up giving myself 32 injections in different parts of my body. It is *every* bit as fun as it sounds.
Tuesday morning, we got up at 7am, walked to the hospital, they took blood, and then I’d be hooked into The Chair for 6 or 7 hours, listening to the chug chug chug of the collection machine. There was no disconnecting possible for the duration, so, I had a handy urinal at my disposal. They also offered a mobile toilet set up. I withheld. Linda would go walk the town and bring me back treats. A vanilla shake in the midst of a day like that was heavenly. Yes, she is a saint. After the very long day of being drained, looking at fat plastic bags of my collected stem cells, (looked a lot like marinara), we ambled back to the apartment complex. Grabbed something to eat (not marinara), gave myself injections, and off to bed.
Wednesday *night* was the point of this particular blog entry. Maybe it was the many bizarre, unfamiliar, somewhat painful and exhausting new elements in my daily schedule. Sleeping on the plastic bed was not great and the slightest movement meant you’d kick the sheets off and were laying on sticky, sweaty, plastic. The air conditioning would kick on loudly, as would the fridge, to startle me every 15 minutes, then deadly silence when they’d shut off. I also always sleep on my right, but the assortment of 6″ long plastic dreadlocks protruding from the right side of my neck made that problematic. I’ll also never get actual dreadlocks because of this incident, so hopefully that’ll put your mind at ease, if you were actually worrying about that.
After laying in a chair all day, and not really being able to do much in the way of exercise, I just lay there wide awake those nights, but that was okay, because sleeping was worse. You know when you have a really bad nightmare, then you wake up and are relieved? You might even start laughing at how absurd the dream was?
My experience was quite different those particular nights. I had nightmares about intruders in the hotel room, people coming to strangle me, being vulnerable, not being able to move, being trapped. In the dream, I wanted to open my eyes but I couldn’t, I was helpless. The kind of panicked delirium dreams you have when you’re sick. But part of this horrible dream was being in that hotel room, in pain, on that miserable bed, with things growing out of my neck. And I would wake up to a reality which was just as bad as the nightmare.
So I lay there sweating and shaking. Trying to find the part where I was relieved to be awake. No such luck. I think that night, I experienced Night-Terrors for the first time. So THAT’S what that felt like. That sucked. I was scared, depressed, and I just wanted all this to be over with. Oh, and just to make this picture one notch more pathetic, I also had this twitch. Some semblance of the meds, the injections, and whatever else was coursing through my body was making me occasionally convulse. Great for sleeping. A sad, sweaty Borg on a plastic bed, convulsing, with tears running down his cheeks, fighting off Night-Terrors. Sorry ladies…. he’s taken.
Now, here’s the thing. It was 3am. Linda was in the other horrible single bed, asleep. She was leaving in the morning to go back to work Thursday and Friday. Sure, I could have waken her up and she’d be there for me. But sharing my immediate dilemma–it would have unnecessarily over-worried her the rest of the week, and might re-evaluate leaving me alone in that place. And I felt she had to get back to work. The school she works at is great, as are the people, and they’d been incredibly supportive and generous every step of the way. That being said, she’d already taken three days off that week and I had no idea how many *more* she might have to take in the future, so it was best she go back and most importantly, not worry about me any more than she was already. So I wasn’t going to wake her.
And really, those f****** beds were so horrible and small, she wouldn’t even have been able to lay with me and the dreads.
So there I lay, needing a distraction. Something to engage me and point my mind in a different direction. At 3:30 in the morning. So, I decided to compose an email to a friend of mine, Eric, on the east coast. An email that detailed my current position, situation and state of mind, and that sorry, my friend, you get the short straw listening to all this. An email so sad, dark and depressing that it might alarm some people but A) I think I couched it within the proper context of it being really just a very bad night and the email was some much needed therapy, and a distraction, B) Eric knows me well enough to get what I was doing, yet C) if I sent this to any *local* friend, it might have gotten back to Linda and worried her even more.
Writing the email worked pretty well. Talking about it, or writing about it did help. I think I felt a bit better that night afterward. Never got much sleep. There was much more thinking. See, whenever I’m in a bad scenario, and I’m feeling sorry for myself, I’m usually quick to *remind* myself that a lot of people have it worse than me. Whether it’s health, finances, etc., I’ve usually been luckier than most. Even there, in that lousy bed, with a shock of medical cables jutting from my carotid artery, shaking, sweating and swiping at imaginary dream demons, this was all a medical exercise to HELP me. Yes, I was miserable–and I didn’t yet know that the worst was yet to come the following month—but this was all for my benefit. A benefit denied to many others. Oh, and lest you think I’m overly noble, all this flowery pontificating is all well and good but that night, I probably wasn’t mentally chronicling the world’s underprivileged. I didn’t feel particularly lucky at that moment. Just mostly uncomfortable. I think at one point, I probably just thought “Someone’s probably worse off, right? Sure.” And also “My neck hurts.” And tried to stay off the plastic.
So Lin went home early Thursday morning. I just did what I had to the next two days, which were just as shitty, then she came back and got me Friday night and took me home.
You’ll be happy to know the twitching died down by year’s end. Bonus!
Let’s contrast and compare the stories of two different men. In two different decades, they had very different experiences when it came to jumping out of a plane.
RICK’S STORY: During the mid 1980’s, Rick was unattached in every way. No real job, or girlfriend, no direction, no urgency, no ties. The thought occurred to him somehow that he might try skydiving. The logic being that if something went wrong, no one was dependent on him, he had no debt and only a small portion of the populace would grieve, but they’d get over it. Really, if he was going to try this, now would be the best, perhaps only time.
DUGGLE’S STORY: it was the early 1970’s. In a storeroom deep within a television studio, a man sat alone in darkness. Still as unto a statue, he listened to all the various signs of life within the building. One level above, Marjorie had dropped a teabag on the floor…and then quickly scooped it up. “Ha ha, three second rule, Marjorie”, he chuckled. On the other side of the building in his office, Marty was zipping and unzipping a tote bag. But what was this? Bill seemed to be coming his way down the hall, carrying a slip of paper…heavier stock. A card? Coupon?
Bill entered the storeroom and approached Duggles, handed him a card detailing the opportunity for a free skydive experience via the studio. Duggles was intrigued. Rare was the experience he had not already conquered. In his relatively short time on this precious blue marble, he’d experienced, and dominated all earthly concerns but yes, YES, they were all of the Earth, Fire and Water. It was time he turned his inestimable attention to Air itself. Bill turned to leave but Duggles froze him in place with a gesture. “Make the arrangements, Bill.” said Duggles, paused…and then he said “You’re a good man, Bill.” Bill smiled his unfortunate smile and loped away to make the arrangements for the jump. Duggles turned back into the shadows, thinking thoughts…. beyond our scope.
NOW, Rick’s plan was mainly to get in, do the jump, and get it over with, as he was no daredevil. Basically, he wasn’t crazy about heights but he was going to see this through. He had dinner with his friend Linda the night before the jump, and detailed his plan. They’d had history but were presently just friends, officially, nothing more. “No attachments” was part of the reason Rick felt this was the time to jump out of a plane. When better? But at dinner that night, Linda seemed fairly certain that Rick would die the next day and when they said goodbye that night, whether it was the impending foretelling of doom or the margaritas, the kiss spoke of more than just friendship.
The next morning, Rick’s co-worker Robin picked him up and off they went. Robin was also interested in attempting a jump and he offered to drive. Upon arrival at the dive center though, everyone was immediately asked to sign a waiver stating the dive center would not be responsible if anything went wrong. Rick signed it but Robin did not, suddenly not trusting the whole situation, so he’d sit it out and just wait for Rick.
Rick’s main plan of going in, doing it and getting out, all without spending a ton of time thinking about it went to crap. In addition to dealing with the hangover from the margaritas, he had to sit through 3 hours of tests and prep for the jump, basically forcing him to THINK about it. THINK about everything. Make sure to keep the right position. Make sure to pull THIS cord, not THAT one. Land this way. Stay away from the lake. Stay away from the power lines. And most of all, he thought about Linda and after last night’s goodbye, how maybe he did have an attachment after all. He was definitely THINKING about all of this too much.
DUGGLES arrived at the dive center, –there were no waiver forms (it was the ’70’s), and waited, brooded impatiently as the instructor prattled on about “danger, power lines, drowning” blah blah blah, HE WANTED TO TASTE THE AIR, TO EAT ITS VERY SOUL!!!!!! The very air around him crackled with energy.
RICK’S class was nearly at an end and they were preparing to jump within the hour. At this point, Robin said he had to get back. This took Rick by surprise and was an extra added inconvenience as Robin was Rick’s ride there, but he perhaps never imagined the experience would take nearly this long. So Rick went back home with Robin, got his car, and immediately returned to the center, only to find out the jump had been rained out. Interesting. Rick had done a lot of thinking by this point and when they offered him the chance to come back the following week, he passed. He now had too much to lose. The End.
THE force of nature that was Duggles would not be denied. There were rain clouds in the distance, prompting the pilots and instructors to congregate and debate the merits of attempting the jump. They discussed and contemplated and conferred until a shadow loomed over them. “Excuse me,” he intoned, “but does the sky frighten you? I might mistake you for timid woodland creatures searching for nuts but you SEEM to be standing upright like men…. SO I SUGGEST YOU SECURE YOUR NUTS AND GET ME UP THERE TO FACE GOD.”
They immediately scattered into action.
The plane that carried them thundering through the sky was large, and powerful, much like Duggle’s spirit. He prepped for the jump. Looking out the open doorway though, the corners of his mouth turned downward. A mere 10,000 foot drop. This seemed like an insult. He made his way to the cockpit, and once there, kicked aside empty cans of Hamms and reached with the pilot. The Viet Nam vet arched an eyebrow as Duggles mouth whispered in his ear “Is this kindergarten or are we making a real jump out of this?” The pilot just plastered a type of grim reaper smile on his face, nodded, and pulled back on the wheel, sending them higher. As he turned to go, Duggles uttered “Fantastic, my man.”
The other jumpers started to advance on Duggles as he returned from the cockpit, demanding answers for the change in altitude. Duggles simply turned his head in their direction, freezing them in place with… The Steely Gaze.
The other jumpers could do naught but stare, and fall *into* that Gaze.
A Gaze that seemed to both comfort and disturb.
A Gaze that asked them what they wanted out of life and if they’d taken steps to grab it. Control it. Conquer it.
A Gaze that told them that they were going as high as this plane could take them. The hell with the physics. You would either wilt under that Gaze or feed on it. Duggles didn’t wait to see what the other jumpers would do. That was on them.
The pilot turned and gave Duggles the thumbs up and sure enough, the air was getting mighty thin. Getting close to ruffling some cosmic feathers now. The other jumpers gasped and struggled for air, panicking.
A calm settled over Duggles. His heartbeat slowed. There was nothing except him and the doorway…. a doorway of light and nothing.
Duggles dove through it.
At first, he curled up into a ball, a spinning sphere of rock hard, fetal mayhem, wanting to be reborn high above the earth. The chill he felt wore away as his speed increased. Soon, the oxygen was more plentiful. Then, and only then, did he break his fetal form, bursting forth from the upper atmospheric uterus, stretching and screaming into the Air itself, ripping at the clouds, demanding that gravity KEEP UP, DAMN YOU, as he hurtled toward the dirt. Fighting against the ever increasing pressure, Duggles slowly, painfully reached forward an outstretched hand….and suddenly silence. He spoke softly. “Gaia, my orb. My love, take me.”
AND WITH A CRACK OF THUNDER, AND DANCE OF LIGHTNING, DUGGLES DID FALL TOWARD THE QUIVERING, WET PLANET.
And when he got close…
He teased the ground with his presence, and when it looked like he’d splatter himself across the countryside, he mocked Mother Earth by pulling his shoot, a billowing climax in the sky.
Finally, his feet once again rested upon Terra. He took in his surroundings…. a field, perhaps half a mile away from target. Not bad.
He noticed movement in the distance. A dust trail marking new arrivals. Soon, shapes formed. A biker gang coming his way. Upon reaching him, they started circling, a wide berth but close enough to flash their colors. The 30 odd members of “The Apathetic Transgressors” went round and round, while Duggles seemingly took no notice, busy gathering in his spilt silk.
One biker broke formation, stopping directly in front of him. Duggles paid him no mind. The biker silenced his hog, stabbed the earth with the kickstand and dismounted, leaving his supple old lady lonely and straddling the sissy bar. The hairy giant stepped up to Duggles, bristling jaw thrust out defiantly, looking down at this intruder on his turf. Duggles finished gathering his parachute and looked first the name patch the behemoth wore “Moglongo”, and then directly up into his eyes. Moglongo started to speak. “You trespassin’, little m–” But Duggles had already balled up his fist full of silk, and hurled it like a honey baked ham, impacting the center of the bigger man’s face, obliterating what used to be his nose. Moglongo crumpled to the ground, emitting a small “queee” sound.
Duggles looked around. No one else was making any threatening moves. Some nodding approval in his direction. He mounted his new bike with his new old lady on it. Both felt good as they started up and turned around.
The earth was still spinning. He had things to do.
The End.
(Although both stories are true, one is slightly exaggerated a bit.)
Another series I’ve been hittin’ pretty hard is Comic Tropes, with host Chris Piers. Now, honestly, there is a huge amount of crap on YouTube regarding comics. Many channels tout announcements, analysis and reviews about comic based movies, tv shows and comics and ultimately, they have very little to nothing to say. That old saw about 75% of everything being crap? Yep, holds true here as well. But Comic Tropes is a different animal. In it, Piers highlights certain comic creators and their tropes– certain things they will do over and over again in most stories, be it writers or artists. He also looks at past trends, high profile stories of the past, the industry, everything, kind of a hodge-podge but always connected to comics. He spotlights the Fantastic, the good, the bad, and the laughably bad.
But Chris Piers is a different type of host. First, he seems to be a friendly, even handed, well spoken, intelligent and diplomatic comic fan. He respects others opinions, while pointing out why he likes or dislikes certain things. Also, as a YouTube channel host, it’s what he doesn’t do. There’s a gimmick that so many aspiring YouTube celebrities subscribe to: in an effort to keep the dialog fast paced, they edit out every nanosecond between lines of dialog, trying to make it seem more manic and well, smarter (?), I guess, but it gets annoying to me. Chris doesn’t do that.
He speaks his peace and speaks it well. He often opens with a quick comedic greeting, then kicks into the titles and off he goes. He occasionally gets a bit silly but not ridiculously so. He just has fun. It’s quite refreshing to see someone who’s positive on the ‘net, yet when he does get critical, it’s very measured and reasonable. It’s *really* damn refreshing.
The average running time on the episodes average about 20 minutes, meaning, especially now, if you’ve got an evening to kill at home (!), there’s plenty of his content to sample. I believe he’s done over 200 eps on YouTube and evidently, he has a lot of live streams taped where you can watch him draw while people can comment, which I have yet to check out. He also has a Patreon account. If you like some discussion and well thought out analysis on comics from all eras, genres, creators, etc., I highly recommend the channel.
Theresa, unbeknownst to me, started learning Swedish a while back. Kudos to her! So when the next family reunion happens, she can join in the Swedish speaking portion of the discussions.
There are never Swedish speaking portions of the discussions.
A couple sections of the family know a bit of it but by and large, we’ve let the language die in our family and this saddens me. My grandparents, especially my grandfather, knew some Swedish but I don’t think he ever taught it to my mom, because she never taught it to me. I guess he figured he was in America so he spoke English, period. Ah well.
Theresa has been learning the language from an app called DuoLingo. I hope I’m spelling it right but it’s apparently a much better learning tool than Rosetta Stone. RS starts you out with objects and small sentences. I imagine they have their reasons but when I was trying to learn some Greek for our trip back in ’07, it gave me nothing helpful like “hello” or “good morning” or “For the love of god, where’s the bathroom?”. I actually got more useful phrases and information in only 15 minutes from our next door neighbors who are Greek, than I did after two months of intensive study with Rosetta Stone.
It’s a free app and I’m tempted. But then the question is, which one do I go for? I could go for Swedish, so I can converse with Theresa and maybe other family members. I could go with Japanese and converse with Matthew, since he’s taken like four years of it. I could go back to Spanish, since I took two years of it in high school and I enjoyed it. I could go with Italian, as it’s a beautiful language and some day, maybe we might go back there for another trip. OR they also offer Klingon, which, I’ve gotta say is very tempting and sounds fun. They even have Esperanto, the universal language, which I don’t think anyone uses. Or do they? Not even considering that one.
So, where do I go with this? Some would definitely be easier than others.
Decisions, decisions. Which of the five?
Swedish, Italian, Japanese, Spanish or Klingon? Can’t decide.
Alright, I’ll try all five.
How hard can that be? Plus, I have little patience with myself. Or most other things.
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