Cheeseblarg's 2016 Nerd-Out

In addition to reading a bunch of books, last year (but incidentally not finishing the reading challenge... after Tracey's coma, I got a little distracted, to say the least-- but I did finish most of it), I also found a whole bunch of new nerd things to be obsessed with.

It's amazing when you are spending every day in bed, in pain, how much nerdy joy can bloom in your heart.

SUPERNATURAL

I basically started watching this so I could understand the million memes that show up on my Tumblr and Facebook timelines, and I highly recommend it if you are into monster and demon folklore... or if you're into hot guys. It works for that, too.
Supernatural is the story of two brothers who hunt monsters of lore (you know, werewolves, vampires, ghosts, chupacabras, etc), crossing the country on various quests in a Chevy Impala, with a bitchin' old rock soundtrack. Seriously, I think they spend at least as much on song rights as they do on production quality, which is pretty good. There is way more to the plot than that, and it gets quite interesting (though there is a lull in the beginning of season 6... just push on through, it really is worth it, I think). The greatest thing about it is that the show nods to so many of my favorite nerd things. There are Ghostbusters references galore, and all sorts of 80s references, which are so much fun, and there are some good jump scares to boot.

STEVEN UNIVERSE

I know it is weird since I draw comics and such, but I don't really love cartoons. It is hard for me to make myself watch them, but again, all of my good friends were obsessed with Stephen Universe, so I figured I would check it out, and then I watched all of the episodes in a few days. They are just 15 minutes each, so it is easy to fit some in when you have a moment... or a few days.
Steven is a pre-teen boy who lives in a seaside town with three alien warriors, called Crystal Gems, who have tasked themselves with protecting the Earth from anything that might threaten humans. His dad, Greg, a former small-time rock star, runs the local carwash and every once in a while checks in on his son, divulging more about his mother, Rose Quartz.
The show is different than any other kids (or adult) show I've ever seen. There are some great songs that you'll want to download (if you're anything like me), and some really poignant social commentary that doesn't feel like it is being shoved down your throat. Most excitingly, it is really inclusive. There are fat characters (who are loved and amazingly not the butt of every joke), and gay characters, and characters of all different colors and creeds.  Really, Steven and the Crystal Gems are just the kind of people that you want to be friends with.

My favorite song!

DEADPOOL

If you've seen the movie and have been paying attention to my sense of humor, you should already understand this love. If not, Deadpool is a wise-cracking, foul-mouthed anti-hero who regularly breaks the 4th wall (i,e, talks to the audience). Major crush. See the movie if you're into funny gory action movies, but don't bring your kids, please.

Hanukkah 2013: 6th Night- Meth, Just Meth.

On the sixth night of Hanukkah, your Cheeseblarg gives to you:

A bag of meth from Heisenberg 

It is damned near impossible to make rock candy in Montana... or maybe it's just my house, which seems to have been partially built on top of an Indian Burial Ground. One of the bedrooms and the kitchen are always about 20 degrees cooler than the rest of the house (which obviously means it is haunted, right?). Rock candy making doesn't do well when it is 50 degrees. Not much evaporation happening at that temperature. I don't know how all the meth makers here do it!

I actually tried twice to make it (rock candy, not meth), carefully following directions each time. The first time, I got a thick blue syrup that did nothing (until this Thursday when I moved it out of the kitchen so I could cook for Thanksgiving). The other try started out as a blue syrup but then turned into a glass of semi solid sugar in a couple hours. I have no idea what the hell that was about, again, since I carefully followed directions. It is still sitting on a shelf in our hallway. I have no idea what to do with it, and frankly, I am a bit scared of it. I'm still contemplating taking pictures/videos of it to share on the facebook fan page.

Today, my husband finally bought me some rock candy from a store and suggested I paint it blue because I have been freaking out about my rock candy not forming for about a month. Since finally moving it to a shelf right above a heat registered worked, I now get to eat a quarter pound of store bought rock candy. Yea! It's a Hanukkah miracle!

This is the title, bitch!

I started watching Breaking Bad on Netflix, finally, during my birthday trip last week. I admit, I was being a wiener not wanting to watch it, because shows/movies about drugs annoy me, but when I heard that everyone was super stoked with the ending (which none of you will spoil for me, under threat of needle felting urethras), I figured I should stop being such a butthole and just watch it. After one episode, I was totally hooked... like a meth head.

So, I got home and my husband wants me to wait and watch the show with him. Or rewatch... since he has seen at least 3 seasons, perhaps more, which I have not, but there are two problems:

a.) He keeps spoiling shit seconds before it happens, as in, "Oh yeah, I remember, this is where the monkey takes all the meth.*"

b.) He also suffers from TV induced narcolepsy, so he keeps falling asleep 3/4 into each episode we watch and then I can't watch 10 in a row, and it is really frustrating.**

*As far as I know, there is no monkey using meth in the series, I just tried to make up something that doesn't seem like it will happen... if I have spoiled a meth monkey plot unwittingly, I am sorry.

** Perhaps we should get him some meth so I can watch as much as I'd like in a day (That was a joke, DEA, please don't come here, I make jokes for a living).

Shiny

Sometimes you just have to mash up two shows that have nothing to do with each other, because they are both awesome and it fits.

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

Following "The Following"?

                            It's a raven. This is a clever tie in to the Poe theme  source.

How many of you are watching The Following?

It is a show about a serial killer who gets a cult following while in prison who carry on his work for him.

I started watching it with the first episode, excited for it after all the promos, and my immediate thought was TRUST NO ONE. ABSOLUTELY NO ONE.  At this point, all I can be relatively sure of is that Kevin Bacon's character, Ryan Hardy, is not part of "The Following." Not even sure about the wife. Certain that young FBI guy is a follower and that I am supposed to think he is, then think he isn't. Seriously, I SUSPECT EVERYONE!!!

        Nope. Don't trust you at all.    source.

Is his 10 year old kid in on it? Maybe?! Who's to say? I wouldn't hand him a pistol, or a letter opener. If they had a dog, I would be wary of it also.

This all stems from me being right about 90% of the bad people in the first episode. I get one bit of confirmation and I can't be dissuaded (not to be confused with dissueded, which would be what Nazis did to Jews in the holocaust). (I know a parenthetical should not be a whole a paragraph on its own but I would like to apologize for that pun. It was really bad. In my defense, there is no defense, but I'm Jewish so I am really only being insensitive to myself, and every other Jew ever, that is, if anyone actually gets it -I digress).

I don't actually know how much I really like the show. I mean I do, but it's a little slow paced, because really, I just want them to show killings and then reveal each episode that another person I knew was a follower is in fact one, which they do. I am also predicting that this will happen each episode until they finally reveal that OMG EXPERT ON THE SERIAL KILLER THAT THE SHOW IS ABOUT IS ALSO A FOLLOWER... no shit Sherlock. But I imagine it would be more exciting if I were watching episodes in rapid succession instead of waiting a week, at which time I have forgotten the series exists all together. So if you haven't seen it yet, you might want to wait until it comes out on Netflix or something and then show binge.

        EVERYONE. EVERYONE IS!!!    source.

It is good though, but predictable to me, because I have predicted that almost everyone is bad. And my confirmation bias doesn't count it when people are good because we still have possibly umpty-clutch  seasons before everyone on earth is dead by the hands of Joe Carroll's followers and by then I can shrug and say, "Oh, I guess the kid wasn't in on it."

Hanukkah 2012: 6th Night- Dr. Whonukkah

Happy 6th Night of Hanukkah!

Tonight, your present is a Dalek Menorah!

CELEBRATE! CELEBRATE! CELEBRATE! CELEBRATE! CELEBRATE! CELEBRATE!

CELEBRATE! CELEBRATE! CELEBRATE!CELEBRATE! CELEBRATE! 

CELEBRATE! CELEBRATE! CELEBRATE!

American Horror Story: Chibi Asylum

A new season of American Horror Story has begun, and I want it to be Wednesday EVERYDAY!

I have a crush on Evan Peters, who played Tate last season, and who plays Kit this season, and I have figured out that I might be more perverted than I thought, since reading all the pre-show hype, I was most excited about seeing him being caned, and the show has not disappointed.

That face is part and parcel to my ridiculous, inappropriate crush.

Anyway, beyond me lusting after a boy who was born when I was in the 6th grade, the show is just really entertaining. So much so that I have created my own version of it, for my own entertainment and hopefully for the entertainment of others. I didn't really think of anything to say about this when I started drawing, so uh, TADA??

I encourage you to make it larger to enjoy the details, and feel free to share it. 

I also realize that if you don't watch the show, you aren't getting a damned thing out of this post (other than a hearty recommendation to watch the show), and I feel bad, so um...

Here is a failed concept that I drew.  My Little Llamas, not unlike My Little Ponies, only probably smellier, and named after snack food.

The Reality of Reality Shows

I've come to the conclusion that if I ever find myself on a reality show, this will be my speech for the interview room:

     interview room courtesy of DXstock 

Yes, apparently the reality show I am in takes place in a partially demolished building in Russia. It's probably a reality cooking show or something with magical ponies.

I don't necessarily think I would actually lose said magical pony cooking show, because, I'm pretty awesome, I just don't want to have people at home rolling their eyes at me, as I do, with the usual competition chatter:

• I didn't come here to lose.
• I'm the best and I came here to prove it!
• Failure ISN'T an option!

I'm more realistic than that.  I think failure is always an option, or well, a very possible outcome. You may not CHOOSE to fail, but you seriously need to understand that the odds are pretty much pushing you that way and it is better to choose to fail than to have failure thrust upon you, by, say, falling off a cliff and breaking every bone in your body on TV. Yeah, I'd rather choose to fail less painfully in that case.

and of course the shirt is for sale! 

Queen of the Nerds

I'm supposed to be writing a Secret Cupid Valentine Exchange Round-up because it went really well, but unfortunately, I received The Big Bang Theory on DVD for Valentine's day from my friend Vez, so I have no desire to do anything but fall in love with fictional nerds who will also ignore me and, on occasion, make me cry.  It is like single life all over again.
I must say, I'm proud of myself for understanding so many of the jokes (and not just laughing because they said something I didn't understand at all, which is what I imagine a lot of people do). I am disappointed that they referred to giving electric shocks as "negative reinforcement" when talking about operant conditioning. Any psychology nerds out there will understand my ire. Everyone else will just continue to call me nit-picky and say that I am too serious, but what the hell is the purpose of giving things names if we are just going to call psychological techniques anything we damned well please?!  Also, unrelated to the show, don't get me started on schizophrenia being stupidly and incorrectly mistaken for multiple personality disorders in popular culture. Seriously, cringe-worthy.



So, I'm going to do the round up tomorrow, most likely, and in the meantime, back to my imaginary nerd harem.

It was taking way too long, attempting to draw convincing comic versions of the cast. I don't have the patience while I am jonesing to watch more.

Super (Nom) Bowl

This is REALLY how I view the Super Bowl every year.  I don't hate football, but I do love eating ridiculous foods that I only feel justified in making a few times a year, as well as watching funny commercials. I am more than willing to put up with the football part of the event to reap the joy of these two SUPER bonuses.

Each year I look forward to finding out who is in the Super Bowl, though I don't watch any other games, JUST so I can figure out what kind of food I will get to make (as I make my spread match the cities of the playing teams).  This year it is pizza dip (as well as a few other New Yorkish Dips from the same site) and Lobster Rolls (made with 2 sad little lobster tails 'cause they were on sale and we needed to budget for the month) and Shrimp Skewers.

And now I am going to finish cooking it all and then eat it, while watching commercials to see which company wins this year.

These Boots Were Made for Walking... Dead

Look, "The Walking Dead," I like you, or at least I want to like you, but fer real... I am going to have to start rooting for the zombies soon if you don't stop with making the humans complete freaking idiots.

I mean, yes, they are in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, they are a little stressed, I get that, but I cannot continue to spend the rest of the series yelling "OMG STFU you IDIOT!!!!" at my television.  Zombies=STFU. They just do. When things want to eat your flesh and/or brains, that is not the time for obnoxious whimpering or squealing or crying. It is time for absolute stillness and silence.

You're going to need to cover blood pressure pills for me if this continues.

American Cooking Horror Story

I just got back from three weeks of being away from a TV, which of course means hours of watching TV to catch up on things I missed.

Most of it was cooking shows.  I have a bit of an obsession with them.  Anything that has to do with cooking and reality, I'm there.  I may not continue watching all of them, but I pretty much want to see each new show, at least once.  I just like learning new cooking techniques, and watching people being abused (when they submit themselves to it out of greed or desire for fame... I do not condone other abuse, just so you know).

I must say, though it is old news, I was really disappointed with "Extreme Chef" on Food Network.  I thought the title had such potential, but then when no one was shot/stab and forced to make 5 star meals to get medical treatment, I totally lost interest.



But it wasn't all trashy cooking shows.  After hearing so much about it, I had to check out the pilot episode of FX's "American Horror Story."

If you've not watched it, here is a teaser video:

 And here is an artist's rendition of me watching this show:

And of course, I cannot wait for the second season of "The Walking Dead" premiering on Sunday. Big surprise there?


And thank you to those who are sharing my link and making pledges to my Cheeseblarg Takes Manhattan project.  Even a dollar helps.  Every time you pledge or share (or contact said Late Night show telling them how awesome I am) you are helping me fulfill a life long dream... and again, there are rewards for helping!

Cheeseblarg Takes Manhattan

So, you know how I am awesome and everyone loves me and thinks I'm great?  This now extends to a certain, equally awesome, red-headed late night host... or well, maybe his staff of art/marketing people who he never talks to, but damn it, someone thinks I rule, and they're right.

I got an email Thursday morning letting me know that my piece from the post "Be Cool, My Llamas" was chosen to be shown in an official art show in NYC from the 24th of October until the 3rd of November at the Time Warner Center in New York City. And then I had to wrestle with my computer AND a printer (and you should know how I feel about printers) to get the stuff turned in, since it needed to be in by the next day, and because I am super eager (read:desperate) I may have actually injured myself getting it all in within two hours of getting the email (again, I blame it on the printer wrestling, which should be some sort of official sport).


So, I should have my VERY FIRST show in NEW YORK CITY at the end of this month, which is one of my life goals. Unfortunately, since I have an income of $25 a month (yeah, totally not kidding) I should be missing my very first art showing in New York City.

I think at this point there are only two viable solutions (since robbing a bank or something similar is not viable- I'm too nice for prison):

Either that late night show that is going to be showing my art should take pity on me and fly me out there,
OR
Someone should sponsor me to get me to New York for the show.

Reasons to send me to NYC:

RSS readers, there is a video here. Please visit the actual blarg to view a special message from me! 

I am not responsible for alcohol poisoning or liver failure if a drinking game is made regarding the amount of times I say UM in my video. I'm an artist/writer, not an on air talent. =P

So, let's make it happen. Just think of the wealth of art and hilarious posts that you could contribute to!

See more info on funding this project and the rewards you get for helping here at Kickstarter.com, where the pledges have already started to roll in!

Please, feel free to share this on your blog. It really could help!

You are awarded THREE random facts about me!

Accepting a lovely award from Gweenbrick- the "I dig your blog" award:

Which apparently we are illustrating in a Halloween theme because I can't thing "digging" without grave robbing.... and who puts dead bodies in graves without coffins? Nazi, and me, apparently.

And of course, three random fact about me.

I'm supposed to choose other people but I am not going to.  So there. It's not that I don't dig any blogs... it is that I can't be arsed to figure out who to pick who hasn't already been picked. But hey, go look at my blog roll and see who I read. I like them all or I wouldn't be reading them.

Why my house is now clean.

There are two types of people who watch the show Hoarders- those who start cleaning their houses before the show is even over. . . and hoarders.

I Double Dare Ya!

As a kid, I was obsessed with Double Dare, and when I say “as a kid,” I mean,  I was in high school and was WAY too old  to be interested in the show. In particular, it was Family Double Dare that caught my interest, because I figured, if I were able to get on the show, somehow, my family would  be sure to be the biggest winners of all time.

Well, no, not actually.  As long as we never had to do a physical challenge where my mom and I were involved, we would have been the biggest winners of all time.

If you are unaware of the format of the game show “Double Dare” it worked thusly:

You were asked general trivia questions and you could either answer if you knew it, OR if you thought the other family were a bunch of morons, you could DARE them to answer the question, and then of course, they wouldn’t know because they were knuckle-dragging idiots, and they would DOUBLE DARE you back and then you would get four times as much money for knowing the correct answer.

If for some reason, someone in your family didn’t know the answer, which pretty much wouldn’t have happened in my family because, between the four of us, we would have known EVERYTHING because we are all trivia GENIUSES, you could take a “physical challenge.”  And that is where it would have totally screwed us.

Both my sister and my dad are sporty types.  My dad grew up in a family full of boys, the smallest of whom was 6 foot tall, and they were all athletes.  Two of my uncles were professional athletes, in fact.  As I have mentioned before, we lived with our grandparents, the makers of this hoard of hulking jocks,  for a year, and my sister was taught to play football by my uncle Mike, the college all-star professional NFL quarterback.  I, on the other hand, had a penchant for crying when injured, or frustrated, or looked at, so I did a lot of jump roping while everyone else practiced valuable physical skills.  The one skill I did manage to foster was catching, probably to avoid being hit in the face with footballs, but that’s about it.
My mom, apparently, was kept in a cage like veal while growing up because while she is smart and funny and a creative cook, she is about as uncoordinated as they come.

So, we could have answered any question, but when it came to “physical challenges,” which included things like flipping rubber pancakes across a stage onto a tray your parent was holding, using a giant spatula,  while blindfolded and then dowsing them in “maple syrup” or filling a bowl with green slime to a certain fullness using only your head that has a bucket strapped to it, before 25 seconds is up,  it mostly likely would have ended with death and destruction.

And then there was the Obstacle Course at the end.  The winning family (read: MINE, obv.) would go through a course of 8 different stations, alternating family members, where you had to collect (and in many cases, find) an orange flag from each in a total of  60 seconds.  And again, my sister and dad would have done great, though at 6’4” my dad might have had some trouble getting through some of the obstacles.  And I might have done okay (I had serious fantasies about the sundae slide, in which I would conquer it with my mouth… though I was sure it was most likely not edible, it LOOKED like a big sundae.  Hell, I would still like to dig through a giant pool-sized sundae in pursuit of an orange flag) but I had my doubts that my mom would have gotten through her share of the obstacles and we never would have won a 13 inch TV or a Panasonic VCR or a Conair Hair Dryer.

My family doing the obstacle course would have been NOTHING like this, at all

And there was also the fact that I was about 5 years too old to be on the show. But otherwise, biggest winners EVER!

Brilliant Idea #2 - Night Light Channel

I have another brilliant idea.

As I have discussed previously, reading makes me tired.  And as I have also discussed previously, I sometimes suffer from insomnia.  So when watching a movie while insomniacked doesn't produce the desired result of putting me to sleep, I turn to reading an actual book.
The problem is, my husband DOESN'T suffer from insomnia, and while I can get away with watching TV while he is asleep, I cannot turn on a light to read as that has the effect of waking him up and making him look at me meanly which makes me sad, which makes me less likely to get to sleep.

As it is, I often end up reading by the combined light of my laptop screen and the ambient light of the television on mute, but I am regularly thwarted by darkening scenes and rapidly flickering light levels (For the record, Saturday Night Fever, terrible to read by, as is any horror movie, ever.  Cooking shows seem best as they don't have much reason to dim the lights). But here is wherein my idea blossoms.

I think that there should be a cable channel called "The Night Light Channel" and it should just be steady bright white light.  It could support itself by having ads for books or magazines on the bottom, but they would need meet a standard that would not change the luminance much.

And of course, it does not only have to be used as a reading light, but it could be used to look for your bra while trying to quietly escape a stranger's house after a one night stand, or to light a child's room so that they can be sure there are no zombies sneaking up on them, or to check your alarm clock when you wake up at 4 am and can't be sure if you set it to 7 am or 7 pm.

Perhaps this is something that Amazon.com should look into, to go along with their Kindle, since it isn't backlit.  That way, people can use their  awesome product with ease while giving them an extra place to advertise their OTHER products.

BOOYAH!  Why have I not been hired as a supreme idea-haver extraordinaire yet?

(Because you give away all your ideas on your blarg, my husband says...)

These are a few more of my favorite things!

I received this award from Mollie at OK in UK a bit ago (check another off my list of goals, though, I am glad to accept many more... many more... who would like to be my award coordinator intern?)

And it was supposed to come with the caveat of listing 10 of your favorite things, but that was waved for me since I am clearly too famous and important to play by the rules (which is not at all true, but I am a bit of a bastard and the point is, I was planning on doing these anyway, and it was convenient, though it took me a couple weeks to motivate myself to actually do my illustrations... otherwise, I may have taken the out and looked like the jerk I really am... which you now know I am from reading this... shit.).

So, my 10 favorite things in the following categories:


Food:

Bacon

Color:

The color of your eyelids when you close you eyes and turn your face to the sun on a warm day.

Sound:

A tie between

Get sound effects & royalty free music at AudioMicro.

The sound of a ratchet

and 

The call of a mourning dove

Smell:

Dank Mud *scratch and sniff* 

(I kid, leave your poor monitor alone!)

Cleaning Product:

Mr. Clean Magic Eraser- still...

80's Cartoon about underwater creatures:

The Snorks

Flavor of Pudding:

Butterscotch... mmmm.

Letter to write in cursive:

That's an L.

Kind of cheese (suggested by Bonnie at the FB fanpage):

Gouda... or Butterkase, which is really plain looking and not very fun to draw.

And finally, my favorite video game:

Na na na na na na na na na na, Katamari Damacy!

And... If you wanted to answer your favorites in these categories (with illustrations) on your blog, I will happily come and look at them if you direct me to the post! 

Thanks again, Mollie... and I look forward to working with you voluntary unpaid award coordinator, whoever you might be! 

Be Cool, My Llamas!

Around midnight, back in 1996, I went down to my friend, Norweiner's, single room in the basement of our dorm at the University of Florida.  After hanging out for a little while, she told me she had to turn on the TV, which was strange since Norweiner was the non-tv-watching type.   I'd never heard of Conan O'Brien before that night, but watching a giant wagon full of whiny business men being dragged through the studio and around 30 Rockefeller was enough to get me hooked. I've been watching him since.

As so, I pay him the highest honor I can bestow upon someone.  I give you, Conan O'Brien as a llama (with doodley background):

You can't see it but he it totally wearing jeggings.

Clonerator 3000

During my childhood, we moved around a lot.  I started school in California, moved to Arizona, then to Florida in 2nd grade.  I went to two different elementary schools, a magnet school that was an hour away for middle school, and a different magnet school for high school. That should explain why it is that it wasn't until college, again, that I realized that people look pretty much the same when they are kids as they do when they're adults. College was a big time for discoveries for me.

I realize now, that everyone else knows this, but I had never seen anyone consistently while they were growing up and it wasn't until I ran into a kid from my 2nd grade class in college, who looked exactly the same only taller and with facial hair, that it clicked.  My only frame of reference for aging before that moment was movies and TV. Well, and my sister, but maybe it was just really good casting.  Okay, fine, I have no explanation.

I have a solution though; I think this confusion could be avoided for other people if we just had actors keep a collection of clones of themselves at different ages, just in case their movie requires a scene that flashes back to childhood.