17

A BLOG ABOUT A CHOG 

prepared entirely on my iPhone!

I was going to use the fact that I had been hospitalized as an excuse for the long gap between this post and the last one, but then I realized I've been out if the hospital for two and a half weeks. Then I realized my posts are ALWAYS far apart and I haven't met a single deadline I've set for myself. Then I realized no one is really bothered when my blog goes long periods of time without updates. I'm sure many a young man in my shoe, having just taken the other shoe off to dip his toes into the blogging water, would be discouraged by such a lack of reader enthusiasm, put his shoe back on (along with any other metaphorical clothing articles), and call it a day, waving "goodbye" to the world of blogging forever. Luckily for you, I'm not so easily defeated and, being on disability, I have a lot of free time.

Here I am goofing off because I thought I was just having a little trouble breathing.  I was not aware that my lung had already collapsed.  Knowing what I know now, I have no regrets.  This is a funny picture.

HEALTH UPDATE
(I promise I'll talk about chogs soon!)

I'm finally  starting to have active days again

I went back to the hospital because I had another pneumothorax (lung collapse).  Having been released from the hospital after being told I had a 50/50 chance of another pneumothorax, I was living in constant fear. I knew that at any second I may have to relive the scariest moments of my life. Fortunately, this time the doctors provided me with the procedure I should have had last time, which greatly reduces my chances of another collapse.

Despite the title, this isn't an issue of Ultimate Spider-Man. This series, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man followed Ultimate Spider-Man.  Some would argue that this series was even better than it's predecessor.  Being a big fan of the series, I own the fancy version with the shiny cover.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN
The hunt continues (as does the anticipation for something chog-related)

I knew from the beginning there would eventually be a wall to hit, I just didn't think it would come this close to the end. I have six more issues to go. I've picked all the nearby comic 'ssues clean. My plan is still the same. I could get the issues I need right away if I was willing to pay inflated prices online, but I'm not. I'll be attending New York Comic Con, though, so maybe I'll strike back issue gold there. I also have a few websites I routinely check for good deals, so hopefully by my next post I'll have a new issue to report on.

PenVINCIPals
My attempt to get published on the Invincible letters page
In my last post I showed you the design for my new custom Nike Invincibles. Now I'm happy to say I have them and they rock. I decided to write in to the creators of Invincible, show them my Invincible inspired sneakers, and hopefully be featured on their letters page. After a few minutes of writing my letter I started to feel like I was saying way too much and not getting to the point. I decided to look at a few letters from a recent letters page and see how others had started and how they had structured their letters. I opened the most recent issue and picked a random letter to read. I was only looking at the letter to help me structure my own, but something else got my attention. The writer was describing his new April 1st tradition, which was exactly like my own. Looking back it seems ridiculous that I had to look at the end of the letter to see that it was my own!  Here's the letter:

I couldn’t be happier that the letter I got printed included that awesome message about the bone marrow registry. It had been my dream to be immortalized in a comic book letters column, but having that happen with the addition of a message that represents what I believe to be my new purpose in life is indescribable.  Go to your local comic shop and pick up Invincible #103 and own a copy of my awesome letter!  If you can't find it I may be willing to part with one of my 10 copies. We'll see.

CHOGS

They aren't chickens, and they aren't frogs

Looking at this guy, I know there's not a whole lot to say about him, but look at this thing... what’s the point of having a blog if I don't include things like this when they come around?  I was lucky enough to be introduced to Chogs by a comic called "Chew" by John Layman and Rob Guillory.  Recently increasing demand from fans for some merchandise resulted in them Licensing Skelton Crew Studios to make some chogs.  Being a collector of toys that can't really be played with, I had to have one.
The ticket in the picture is for the fictional show "In the Kitchen with Chow Chu", a cooking show starring Tony Chu's(the main character) brother Chow.

BLOGGING ON iPHONE
Why I didn't prepare this post on my laptop.

The other day I spilt a drink on the keyboard of my laptop.  I turned it over and laid it on a towel and waited several hours before turning it over to see if it worked. About half the keys worked. I decided it would be best to wait a little longer, and then I almost immediately spilled an entire cup of coffee across the entire keyboard. It was saturated.

So for now I've got my iPhone and iPad, with my totally sci-fi keyboard (pictured below).

Because typing and posting pictures gets exhausting on a makeshift computer, the rest of the things I wanted to talk about will be summed up with one picture and one or two sentences each.

Here goes:

After finally checking out Adventure Time and loving it, I bought the first 6 issues.(An awesome panoramic scene can be built with the following covers: #1 4th print, #2. 3rd print, #3-6 2nd print.)

My new Nike Invincibles have lived up to their name so far, withstanding short walks through the house and several hours on wheelchair footrests.


This was drawn by an artist named Melody with whom my brother Tom shared a table.  She said she worked on the Simpsons.  Tom didn't bother to find out her last name but there is a Melody Severns on the Simpsons IMDB page so combined with the accuracy of the sketch I'd say her story holds up.


Olive Chu from "Chew" is usually drawn wearing t-shirts from threadless.com.  In this month's issue she wore a shirt depicting "lying cat" from the comic "Saga".  Threadless has tons of comic related t-shirts but none from Saga.


Here's an older shot of Olive wearing a shirt from threadless(http://www.threadless.com/product/751/The_Madness_of_Mission_6/tab,guys/style,shirt)


A Lego collector needs to find the classic Robin if he/she ever wants to complete the dynamic duo properly.


Mini Haribo bears are even better than the regular.


Throwback cereal boxes!!! I've only ever seen Cocoa Krispies with the monkey on the box.


Mark Waid is the writer of "Daredevil", and "The Indestructible Hulk".  In the current story arc he's brought his two properties together and as you can see chaos has ensued.


I come for Skottie Young's amazing artwork, but stay for the excessive punishments of the Nome King.


As a result of the excessive abuse of time travel in "Age of Ultron", the space time continuum has been damaged and pieces of Universes have spilled out into one another.  Most significantly, the Ultimate Universe got Galactus(For those who don't know Galactus, he's a giant god-like entity that roams the Universe and eats planets.)


Not even the chog wants to eat these gross new green skittles.


A small tribute to the greatest video game franchise of all time.


Working on my notebook for next year.  I know there's no Tuesday January 1 in 2014.  These are just test pages.


My parents got me this sweet traditional Irish Blackthorne cane for my birthday(Which is fast approaching).  I'm still mostly wheelchair bound, but I've been getting around the house a little easier with it, and with the cane in my arsenal, I'll be able to phase out the wheel chair a lot sooner.

OKAY.  Now that I've mentioned about 25% of what I wanted to talk about in this post, It's time to wrap things up.  Stay tuned for another great entry at some arbitrary point in time.