14A2: The sequel to 14A

This isn't the post I promised you, where I talk about a couple comic trips that came close to ending my hunt.  You'll have to wait patiently for that one.  It'll be called post #15 and it will mark the return of editor Scott Allison.  I promise to try my hardest to make it interesting but I can only say it might be interesting if you've found any of my previous posts interesting.  It's okay if you don't, because I know you're all reading.  I've passed 1000 views, so that's tantamount to about 56 per post and that's good enough for me.  You should be proud to be riding first class on what's been referred to as "an internet phenomenon" (by me).

First thing I wanta discuss is what I should have mentioned in my last post.  I claimed that I was filling you in on what was going on in my real life, and while I did give some info, I left out a lot.  I sometimes forget that I'm living a very irregular life right now and some people might find this interesting.  I'm gonna put little labels to make it easier for you to skim through my life to the things you like to read about.

Read about my family gathering on Easter and my awesome aunts, uncles, and cousins!

First off, what do they call the relation between myself and the child of one of my cousins?  Is there a word?  Someone said second couin, but that doesn't make sense to me.  What about that cousin's husband, or the husband's kids from a previous mother?  What do I call them?  Does that have a title?!  But enough of that and onto my Easter Sunday.  I went to a family gathering.  I haven't been to a family gathering in years because there are so many small children, and unfortunately I'm loaded with immunosuppressants(to prevent my body from rejecting the stem cells).  This year I was no less immunosuppressed, but I've been living this way for too long.  I wanted to see my family before they forgot who I was.  I didn't ask my doctor for permission to go.  I just took extra precautions(gloves, mask, constant purelling, no xoxo, and no holding babies.  It was worth it.  The bet thing that happened is my Aunt let me in on a secret that basically changed my life.  When wearing oxygen tubes, the backs of your ears, where they hang from, get a lot of friction and the skin gets raw, swollen, and painful.  She noticed my red ears and told me about some little gr  y foam things that the oxygen company can send for free if you ask them.  Yes, you have to ask for these things.  You wouldn't know, because no one tells you, but luckily I have my Aunt Susan.  Everything else went well too.  I didn't get sick(er), I saw the young cousins who I've been sending comic books to and I got to see their reactions to getting a new stack of comics.  From that I got exactly what I had hoped for.  It's so cool to see these books that cost me almost nothing brighten up their day so much.  I hope they don't grow out of it any time soon, but if my friends and I are any indication, it comes back when you're about 27.

Left: Legend of the Spider-Clan..this series is really popular with the little dude.  What kid doesn't love Spider-Man?  I had ordered it just to check out the Skottie Young art, I had no idea I'd be giving it away, but I really expected this one just to be a filler.  Now he's got me hunting for the missing issues of the series.

Right: Perhapanauts: My cousin is a really unique little girl, and so far, she seems to love the Perhapanauts the most.  She also told me she really likes Takio, which makes me feel really bad because I got her the book and the first three issues and I'm starting to wonder if Brian Michael Bendis has abandoned it.  At least they're still making Perhapanauts.

Read about the new addition to my family, coming soon!  But if they do grow out of it, I'll be fine because I'm gonna be an Uncle soon.  My brother Tom and his Wife Lindsay are having a baby and I've already started blowing money on him.  

Of course when the plushes came in the mail, I found a tag that said ages 5+.  It's disappointing, but I guess it's because of the plastic eyes.  The baby should be able to play with them if he stays supervised.

 I wish they would be living a little closer so I could easily see Tom the 6th(or is it 7th?  I should know that) grow up,  But maybe I'll end up moving to Philly.  It all depends on when I can get out of this hole I'm stuck in.  

Read about my lung problems!
Here's the news on that.  I just finished the first part of a drug trial with a drug that has helped others' lung problems that resulted from graft vs. host disease.  The problem is we know I have GVHD, we know I have lung problems, but we don't know if the lung problems are related to the GVHD.  I do know that my lungs have gotten slightly better, so hopefully that will continue, and if this temporary break from the drug hurts my breathing, I'll know that it was probably the drug that helped me.  If this trial fails, they have another drug planned, and if that doesn't work there's a last resort: lung transplant.  The lung transplant scares the hell out of me, but I've been told it will completely fix the issue, so at least I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  For now, my therapist has advised me to start figuring out how I'm gonna get this last class out of the way so I finally get my bachelor's degree.

Read about my Academic Future!

I've been unable to take the class for the same reasons I can't go to work.. my immune systems crap, I an't drive because of the pain meds, and Rhode Island College is amazingly disorganized.  Furthermore, I'm having trouble with the type of course this is.  It's an internship.  I can't really do an internship unless I find one that I can do at home.. so it looks like I'm going to talk to someone important at RIC and keep going up the totem pole until I find a solution.  My therapist and I discussed my plans to finish school and then go back for a masters, and my plans to get myself on some kind of ADHD drug.  But when my therapist and I aren't talking about school and getting ahold of drugs, we talk about our common interest, comic books.  Strangely enough, I told him about my new Lego hobby today, and he had plenty to say about Lego collecting.

Read about my therapist and I talking comic books and Legos

Today, impressively, when I brought up comic books, the good doctor produced from his desk a card that listed the dates of upcoming small-time comic cons.  These comic cons are different than the big ones full of celebrities, costplayers, high profile creators, and sich.  These are the legendary ones that comic collectors drool over because of the apparent improved odds of finding treasures in the boxes.  Searcing comic bins at big name cons or comic book stores will generally bring you s few good books, but these are just big white boxes filled with random old comics.  I've been dying to go to one ever since I saw them described on "comic book men".  Okay so like I said, I also recently got into(or back into, every kid loved these things) Legos.  I saw a couple Marvel super hero minifigures.  I knew Lego made quite a few things from different fictional worlds I loved.. Marvel, DC, Star Wars, and I had recently been impressed by smart business they had done by creating their own TV series, Lego Ninjago, and then merchandising from that.  When I was a kid, Lego was already the best thing when it came to versatility.  It promotes creativity.  The more sets and new minifigures they produce, the more tools a kid can have to mess around with and create what's in his head.  I took a trip to the Lego store, with my Dad, of course, and I discovered the blind lego minifig bag.  I'm no stranger to blind boxes from different designer toy companies I've collected in the past, so I was really appy to find out Lego was doing this with their lines of minifigures, which are Lego men and women that represent tons of different people from history, pop culture, industry, public service, outer space, etc.  I'm in love with these things, and right now I'm working on finding more efficient ways of getting my hands on them.  The gentlemen at the lego store was very helpful.. he had developed the ability to feel the bag and identify what figure was inide in about 3 seconds.  He accurately found the man in a chicken suit that I was asking for.  Here's a few of my favorite guys:

So at this point I've managed to get off to a nice start.  I bought a few minifigs to start.. the first one being "Iron Fist".  Then when I visited the Lego store I couldn't help but try one of the new "architecture" sets.  I started building this thing, and it all came back to me.  The sound of the pieces as you rustle through them, the satisfying snaps, the glorious moment when two seperately built massive parts need to be put together.  It's awesome, but I quickly realized that the set I had chosen was not enough.  It only took a night to finish.  I wanted more.  This time I decided to take the opportunity of having both my brothers and several friends coming over during the course of the next week while my parents are on a cruise, and I ordered a ridiculously large architecture set.  It's the Tower Bridge which crosses the River Thames in London.  I wish I could have been patriotic and bought the white house, but it's a shamefully small set, by comparison at least.  The White House has 561 Lego pieces.  The Imperial Hotel has 1,188 pieces.  The Robie House has 2,276.  But this week, starting on Friday, I'll be working with 4,295 pieces.  Here's what it looks like so far:

Comic Books

If you're a weekly comic book reader, you're already doing everything right.  Every wednesday you get to go down to the shop and pick up your pull list.  If you aren't reading comics, you gotta ask yourself why not.  Feel free to ask me for some recommendations.  If you like art, some of the greatest modern artists are in the comic industry.  If you like great literature, it's there.  Yeah, there are plently of nonsense comics that live up to every bit of the negative stereotyping.. and I love that stuff too, but it's not for everybody.  What I want to get across here is that there is in fact at least one comic for everybody.  I've seen a few people convert because of "Saga", so that might be worth checking out., otherwise, keep looking.  There's great stuff out there.

Today a lot of great stuff came out but the big book on my list was "Li'l Gotham".  It was originally digital only, but now it's coming out in comic form, which I'm really happy about because I have no iea how permanent the ownership rights to a digital comic.  I want every issue of this series because the art is so cool.  I'm glad that DC puts so much into their all ages comics, but art like this belongs in one of their big selling titles  Here's a sample:

And let me finish by posting this awesome ad I found for a product I will most definitely be buying.
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