I should update about my health "crisis," such as it is.

Considering how bacteria-laden public schools can be, I really don't get sick all that often... but I woke up on Wednesday at around one in the morning with an intense, twisting pain in my stomach. It was unbelievably bad and I didn't get any sleep that night, opting instead to curl up in a ball on the couch and watch reruns Roseanne through squinted eyes.

I didn't go into school on Wednesday. Instead I spent the day vacillating between throwing up, sleeping, and being miserable. My abdomen still hurt and I wasn't able to eat a thing all day. I decided to take another day off and schedule a doctor's appointment on Thursday.

After doing some armchair diagnosis via WebMD (that most venerable of medical scare-mongers) I was worried that I had appendicitis. I don't think I was being paranoid, since all my symptoms seemed to fit appendicitis before I investigated, but as it turned out, the doctor thought the same thing. I spent most of Thursday in the hospital getting poked and prodded and catscanned to the ultimate conclusion of having a case of mesenteric lymphadenitis... or enflamed lymph nodes in the abdomen.

I would not wish the pain that I had on Wednesday and Thursday on my worst enemy, but by Friday the big problem was less the pain and more that I hadn't eaten in two and a half days! I made a try to go back to work on Friday only to find that I couldn't in any way, shape, or form make it through eight hours of school. I came home and slept all day.

Anyhow, I'm just about back to my normal self, and ready to get back to posting comics, starting tomorrow. In the meantime, if you want to click over to my website and see the ONE chalkboard drawing I managed to find time for this week.

Sorry folks, I have some kind of stomach bug. Back on track tomorrow, hopefully.

To be clear, this is such quick project in terms of turnaround, I let the kids write whatever they want. Our next creative writing assignment is a bit more demanding of originality… but I think there’s value in letting students dwell on the types of stories that they love and seeing HOW the types of stories they love from movies and video games fit with the stuff we’ve been learning in class (plot curve, characterization, etc.)

I'm going to start solely posting some content over on my WordPress account; I feel like the URL is easier for folks to find, so I'd like to get my numbers up there... although I have to say, I'm pretty darn pleased with them as of now.

Anyway, click here if you'd like to see some of my chalkboard photo posts for this past week.

Five things that always make me laugh

5. The Late Night with Conan O'Brian talk show segment where he interviews Melrose Place alum Courtney Thorne Smith. Norm MacDonald was the first guest of the episode, and he spends most of the interview with Smith interrupting, slyly making fun of her, and generally being fucking hilarious.


Norm MacDonald, in general is pretty amazing.

4. This exchange from The Simpsons episode "Marge vs. the Monorail, when Homer is trapped on an out of control monorail and Marge brings help:

Marge: Homer, there's a man here who thinks he can help you.
Homer: Batman?
Marge: No, he's a scientist.
Homer: Batman's a scientist.
Marge: It's NOT Batman!

3. Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

2. The Calvin & Hobbes story where Calvin tries to fix the drippy faucet and ends up flooding his upstairs bathroom. Specifically, the comic where he nonchalantly starts looking for buckets while singing to himself. Kills me every time. I remember the first time I read it; I was like nine years old and my parents taken us out to eat at The Ground Round.

1. Without fail, the bloopers on the second season DVD of The Office. Specifically, where Ricky Gervias bites his lower lip and points to his groin. "Who knows? In a few years, keep your head down... you'll be in the hot seat." I'm embedding that gem right here; I don't know if you'll get a lot out of it if you haven't watched the UK Office... but then again, if you haven't watched the UK Office, there's something deficient in your television consumption habits and you really need to rectify the situation immediately. Consider this a firm kick in the ass.


Comic Collection Recently Traded for on Swaptree

Spider-Man Legends: Todd MacFarlane, Volume 2
I was a big fan of MacFarlane's Spider-Man as a kid; it took the bold step of presenting a stylized to the extreme Spider-Man at a time when everything I was looking at in superhero comics felt very flat. Considering how fun and crazy superheroes can be, there were a lot of bland, bland, bland artists drawing comics when I was growing up. That's not to say there aren't really awful pages in here... you can find half-baked layouts all over the place. There's one with Peter Parker talking to Aunt May on the phone that made my head hurt when I saw it. Still, the team on this book really did capture something visceral here. In general, comic art on genre books seems better to me now than it did 15 years ago... but it's also a hell of a lot less exciting.

I also can't help but think that the glossy paper used in this collection really hurts the artwork. Maybe this is just a personal preference.

Green Lantern Corps: Recharge
I was a reader of Green Lantern during the Kyle Rayner years, so I'm pretty unfamiliar with the Green Lantern Corps beyond its basic concept. I thought I might be into this collection as it has the Corps but also includes my GL of choice as a main character. As it turns out, while GLC is a quality book with a couple of fun visuals and concepts, it's just not for me. I find it wonderfully strange how hugely the current incarnation of Green Lantern depends on the eighteen or so pages of the character that Alan Moore wrote in the Eighties. One of the "heavies" in this trade is the bounty hunter from "Mogo Doesn't Socialize." He's hardly a fan favorite... but I guess the Moore connection means something.

Essential Tomb of Dracula V.1
I really really loved this collection. I think Marvel did something interesting with its monster comics in the 1970's in that they took the trouble to make the monsters into characters. In most of the monster comics I've seen previous to these books, the monsters are usually just mindless motivators of plot... but Marvel actually seemed to go through the trouble of giving them a reason for being. I'm looking forward to hunting down the rest of the Tomb of Dracula books and possible the Frankenstein comics as well.

The Joker
I have to hand it to DC- they seem to have some really bone-headed notions when it comes to their trades and hardcover collections, but I think it was pretty smart that they had The Joker out in bookstores right around the time that The Dark Knight was burning through movie theaters a few years ago. You could make the case for this being a sequel to the movie in its realistic portrayal of the Batman rogues gallery. I really loved the book.

........

In what has to be one of the lamer "controversies" in recent months, some fans of comedian Chris Farley are up in arms about this new DirecTV ad that recreates a scene from Farley's hit movie Tommy Boy with inserting newly filmed reaction shots of David Spade to Tommy's "fat guy in a little coat" scene. I guess people are saying that it's disrespectful to the guy to reappropriate his image in such a way after his tragic death. I wish I could say I'm of two minds about this because I'm not a huge fan of either the idea of re-animating dead celebrities to shill in commercials OR the DirecTV ads (which I just find to be lame) but COME ON!

I don't know Chris Farley beyond his body of work and the things I've read about him in articles and books about Saturday Night Live, but man oh man, I'm guessing that he wouldn't have a problem in the world with being the center of attention again, over ten years after this death. To say nothing of the fact that this is the type of guy who (if Tom Shales' tell-all Live from New York is to be believed) would take a dump on a windowsill for a laugh... I doubt he'd be concerned with anything so "disrespectful" as a thirty-second commercial reliving his best movie.

Luckily, his co-actor in the scene and his family came out and said they were A-OK with the spot quickly after the tempest in a teapot erupted online.

With beginning school in August and only starting to post strips in September, the comic won’t reflect Halloween for a few weeks… but I didn’t want to let the holiday pass by without posting this great drawing that S, one of my students, did in his notebook. I really dig it.



I love all the little details that he threw in!

The last few days have been a little downbeat, so I’m glad to end the week on a happy note.

I need to put a mention in on this one more time before November: Donors Choose is having a pledge drive whereby if they can inspire 5,000 individual donations to school projects, they will release $100,000 dollars in funds to teachers. Check out my Donor Page, if you would. I currently have two projects awaiting funding. Both are for additional reading resources for my classroom; one (which is SOSUPERCLOSE to being fully funded) would benefit students who are severely below high school reading levels, the other designed for nearly on-level readers.

If you have the means, please consider helping. DC will not count the amount of money you donate toward this drive, only the number of people. If you donated $5 dollars, that would count as ONE donor and put us closer to the big bucks. There's only four more days left in the drive, and every bit helps.

I don’t know if this is strictly about teaching, but it was so singularly strange that I couldn’t not do a comic about it. My deductive reasoning skills have constructed the following scenario: A person (most probably a man, amirite ladies?) didn’t use deodorant on the day he borrowed that laptop. Somehow S/he (most probably he) kept touching his armpits. He would then take the armpit soaked fingers and type something on the laptop, thus transferring the rank from his body to the MacBook.


Elementary, my dear Watson.