Sorry, Not Here Right Now

I have been away for awhile. My class load this semester consists of completing my community nutrition internship, Nutrition: Quantity Food Purchasing, and Culinary Techniques II. Lots of things happened in the last month, but not much I feel comfortable sharing in the not-anonymity of the internet. I am going to propose that my go to blog-topic when I haven't much to write about will be things I like to read.

Let's start with webcomics.

It is an interesting medium, as even more so than print comics, it is highly fluid and influenced by audience participation in the form of comments, forum posts, and fan works. In a comic that updates, weekly or even daily, an artist/writer can get immediate feedback and adjust the story accordingly. Some have even successfully put their work into print. Scott Kurtz, the author of PvP, has written a lot about the subject, in addition to the subject of  making comics a successful business.

Currently I have bookmarked over 100 webcomics. Some have finished, and the creators moved on to other projects, some fizzled out and haven't updated in months or years without any peep from the creators. For a lot of them, I slowly drifted to more sporadic checking so that I may consume bigger chunks at a time. Others I stopped checking daily because my constant attention was not necessary for me to understand the story, as is the case in a lot of my bookmarked humor and slapstick type comics. Come to think of it, I blame a lot of losing time to my hobbies to having to devote more and more to school and upkeep of my household, as it is difficult to read webcomics on my phone or iPad at either work or school without seeming obvious. Plus there is the additional quantifier in that I like to sit and immerse myself in the work when I'm reading. It is easier to browse Pinterest, or play a short mobile app game than try to engage in a few pages of story. That could also explain why my DVR and online streaming queues are so long and unwatched. However, I probably could make time if I put some effort in. It worked for including an exercise routine into my week, so why not?

I'm thinking to link a few webcomic type things at a time whenever I feel like blogging, but don't feel like I have anything to entertain the internet with. These are some such comics I find are pretty awesome:

Gunnerkrigg Court Nature vs tech + boarding school full of mythological references and robots.
Skin Deep If mythological and folkloric figures had chosen to hide among normal humans. Story takes place in the modern American Midwest.
Trying Human If aliens (think 1950s aliens) conducted research and were trying to hide among humans. Also, how it is difficult to talk about weird experiences with normal people.
xkcd Funny comics about math, science, and engineering. The alt-text is always good, too.
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things One artist's crusade to maintain the classic manly muscly hero image from action stories by referencing a lot of video games and pop culture.
Girls with Slingshots The shenanigans of two women and their group of friends. Also a talking cactus and many sex jokes.

In View, a Humble, Vaudevillian Villain

Today we had to write about the tensions leading up to the American Revolution, which involved a lot of reference to the "consent of the people to be governed."

The founding fathers firmly believed in the innate right of the people to consent to authority's power to rule them, and that if that power is abused, then it is the people's right to change or destroy that government. This idea, laid out in the Declaration of Independence, contrasted greatly with Great Britain, who believed that the government knew better than the people how to do its job, and those darn upstart colonies should heed to their betters.

This line of thinking led me to contemplating other instances of revolution throughout history, such as those that occurred in France, South America, and Africa. Then I started thinking about V for Vendetta, and how that movie would present all this ideology in a more palatable format than having to write from the point of view of a 1770s citizen of the colonies. Then I started trying to recite that alliterative speech Hugo Weaving makes (in my head, lecture was still happening), and, realizing where my thoughts had gone, had to check myself for levels of literary geekery. Seeing how many allusionary buttons I own that make literature jokes, I can only conclude that yes, I have unusually high amounts of lit nerd. Now I'm wondering how V would teach British history...