A day and a half later:

Ringing ears are no longer appreciated. Whether related or not, I've been feeling strange sensations from between my shoulder blades up to the base of my neck, and this plus the squishing where my head meets my neck gives me unpleasant swells of nausea. Since waking.

Upon visiting a pulmonary specialist a week ago, I have, once again, been diagnosed with being asthmatic. Only. Which increasingly had become less reassuring with previous and consecutive visits to the health clinic, but has finally put me at ease of mind. The downside is that I am pretty much susceptible to (or at least, in the past five months, which seems indicative of years to come) having my asthma triggered by bullshit.

This may strictly pertain to having spent time living in the city, but it's not the first city I've lived in full of exhaust fumes. And apparently I am allergic to much more than I have ever possibly imagined. Unsurprisingly. Either way, a good dosage of budesonide corticosteroid has me gag/phlegm/gasp/wheeze free. Since the day I started taking it. Considering that it's been nigh impossible for me to breathe like a normal person the past five months, this means a lot to me. I definitely do not take the act of breathing for granted.

It also means I can run around as much as possible. Being on-and-off, heavily-winded sick for five months can really turn muscle into cushion. I exaggerate, but barely.

Last night was toiling at the stove for a shot at real red beans and rice (+++++). I feel like I should have taken the celery and bell pepper out after frying and returning them closer to the end of the cooking time; they pretty much mushed into the sauce. But the flavor was great, and the texture otherwise excellent.

This morning? "Blueberry Boy Bait"/blueberry coffee cake (+++++). It tastes great, but I am never going to use two sticks of butter again. I light and airy crumb; it was "light" but more like an oily, airy sponge. Blah.

A-and Beginner's Bread, which worked up in a cinch but came out a little dense (+++++). This was entirely my fault, though, because I wasn't checking in on it when it rose. It's a lot warmer in my sister's apartment (especially with the gas stove/oven) than I'm accustomed to for baking yeast-included recipes, so the dough rose at a phenomenal rate. The crumb's stretched to hell and back, but it managed to maintain a healthy crust and decent texture. It's pretty plain bread, though, and you can make at least two loaves out of one packet of yeast, so I don't think I'll be likely to make it again any time soon, not without finagling with the ingredients.

After spending so many hours in the kitchen, I'm about ready to eat leftovers and lie down.

Electric Live

Twenty hours later and I still hear the residual ringing in my ear.

The Japanther show was awesome. Except for the obnoxious violent/superdrunk-moshing assholes of both sexes.

Also, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is an excellent book with ripping, violent style. Refreshing, after all this other reading I've been slogging through.

Goddamn the world is scary place

And quietly, almost under the radar due to cost, human hands hungry for godlike powers, tinkered away at pets. Look at the design. It's as slick as a Crate and Barrel catalogue.

Now, now. It is interesting that something like this could have stemmed from the mind of a person allergic to animals who'd longed for a pet as a child, but some of these things...well. I am a firm believer that people should not try to control the workings of nature on a basic level. Killing off something in the name of survival is one thing, be it organism or virus. But, y'know. Trying to control the weather, or messing around with DNA. Bad business. Not our business. It doesn't serve a real purpose, just a selfish one; it doesn't further our survival. As much as I enjoy the documentaries on the Discovery Channel on how scientists have found what bits of genetic information can bring back dinosaur attributes in birds (giving them teeth, scales, etc), it doesn't have any purpose other than to serve our curiosity.

Anyway. Non-allergenic pets. Great idea, as an idea, but expenses aside, c'mon. Don't we have better things to do with our time, more important issues affecting society than the need for a pet? I'm quite allergic to just about everything, but still. I'm not going to bend everyone to my will. Jesus, why do humans want to play god so badly?

They don't go into heavy detail, but it's all genetic modification. I mean, they were listed as one of the Best Inventions of 2006 by TIME magazine.

And you can even order a TITAN Family Protection Dog online! (It's a German Shepherd, by the way.) $85,000, guys. Only! Don't worry, they have finance options.

Don't forget the Ashera GD, which is a cross of domestic and wild cats for that leopard-like 30 lb cat.

They also try to promote their spaying and neutering of their "products" as a hand in preventing overpopulation. A thinly veiled attempt to distract us from the fact that they don't want everyone to really be able to own a pet, just buy one from them for outrageous prices for all the genetic bullshit. Otherwise, why not just let us breed them?

I get the hunch that to also cover their asses from possible and maybe even predicted backfiring in the future, they lack any printed material on their work. Much, much easier to erase a whole website, right?

I'm sure we all know one day that Build-a-Baby's will be the rage, beyond even what Gattaca envisions. I will be able to have blue-eyed, red haired babies with muscles of steel and hypersensitive hearing. Joyous.

Novocaine for the Soul

I found out a friend of mine shot himself in the head a few days ago.

I haven't wrapped my head around it. Mostly I want to know what weighed so heavily on him that he would do it...I can think of a few things leading up to it, but still...not him. It's pretty shocking, disquieting, sad. I haven't found tears. He's on the other side of the continent, it seems so far removed.

I've been to so many family funerals...this is the first time a friend of mine's died. I haven't worked out that he'll never be again. No chance of ever seeing him again, or talking to him, or running around.

That's it. No more Karl.

Some Great Comics (and otherwise)

More comic reading. I blaze through three or four the day I come back from the library with them. So of course I'm going to review them. Starting with the worst.

Heaven, LLC by Wayne Chinsang and Dave Crosland
You could say this is entertaining on a pretty base level. As indicated by the title, Heaven is a company where God is CEO, and a host of religious icons (the holy spirit, Satan, John the Baptist) are its board. God goes missing, "all Hell breaks loose," etc. All the gags are played off of the cynicism of today's society—I mean, the whole comic pretty much rides the wave of ridiculing religion by putting it in our modern environment, so really, I only finished it because I started it. No joke you haven't heard before.

Strangehaven, the trade paperback series (1–3) by Dave Gibbons
I bought the first volume many years back, and after first reading it didn't think much of it. But like most great sci-fi/mystery comics (I'm thinking especially The Silent Invasion, here, by Michael Cherkas and Larry Hancock), I needed to reread it to appreciate all the implications in the story. This is probably just a personal thing, the need to reread it.
Either way, this series pans out remarkably well, neither forcing cliffhangers between every scene, nor dragging out an encounter too long to bore the reader. Just enough time in each scene to get the sense of foreboding, raise questions, keep us interested. The third TP definitely lacked a little in the revelations had, but there are very few writers (and I'm referring to the good writers) that can make the end of a mystery as good as the suspense prior. I'm looking forward to the fourth book.

TEKKONKINKREET: Black & White by Taiyo Matsumoto
I saw the anime before finding this tome in the library, but it is every bit just as good as the movie. The biggest contrast, I think, isn't even in the storytelling—of course the anime had to pare it down to fit into a feature-length film, but kept the flavor—it's the artwork. The style in this book is amazing, thick black lines on white and heavily detailed. I especially love this book (and the movie) because it portrays a full, heavy story of intricate relationships without focusing on the easy fall-back of romance. There is, briefly, one woman in the comic of any consequence, but this is a story about the kind of deep love you have where romance and infatuation have no place. No sissy read, either.

The Left Bank Gang by Jason
I've read Sshhhh! and Hey, Wait..., which were both simple and excellent in evoking a certain mood. My favorite thing about Jason is his ability to easily replace one form with another; in Hey, Wait... stilts take the place of cars (though the character gets his father's permission to "drive" the car into the garage). In The Left Bank Gang, not only is the story centered around Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda, and Ezra Pound...they are comic book artists instead of authors. There's some great commentary they make on other "comic book artists" (Tolstoy is one of them), and the struggle to make money on comics. And then there's the actual plot, which is great...this is a story best read and not gibbered about. By both those who love comics and literature alike.

I'm out of comics. Time to exchange.

Jon Reads

Considering I have been on the rocky road of recovery as far as drawing again is concerned, I have to post what little I've done today. Jon is reading. Shhhhh...

Gag me with a credit card and put me on layaway

A girl on Muni last night sitting behind us with her friend, on her phone:

"Oh wait, that's the party? Do I have to be invited?"

...

"Well, yeah. I know, I know Jaxton's going. ...Can you get me in?"

...

"A birthday party? ...Who is she? ...Well, can I just buy her a present or something?"