So… A few days ago I got one of those things. You know, those things. Sometimes people on television have them. What are they called? Oh yeah: A cold. A few days ago I got a cold. It kinda sucks.

And while this is far from the worst I’ve had (I remember one last year with a bunch of coughing that lasted for a month or something) it has led to me being quite listless and foggy-brained all weekend. More so than usual even. And I’ve got used tissues everywhere that probably I should pick up. Pretty much the number one advantage of living alone is that used tissues can wait.

I did buy another one of these boxes of tissues, though. Who are those guys? Who are those guys still?

Of some interest, perhaps, is the fact that there is a new television show on some channel or another based off of the Walking Dead comic book. That book has entertained me for years, so I checked out the show and I was not disappointed. I’ve been a fan of zombie movies since childhood but I do admit that even before the modern enpopularizing of the undead hordes there were plenty of bad zombie movies and since then that has not changed. Because of that I am happy to actually see an ongoing show about them, which I don’t think has ever been done, and it seems to be done well. I’d probably be even happier if those two things were true about a show that wasn’t retelling a story I am already familiar with, but hey, at least licensing deals are good for the people who make the comics. They deserve a reward for having done their thing well.

And the title is correct. I just finished a bowl of cereal. Hooray.

So, last Sunday and Monday I had a sore throat. Tuesday and Wednesday I had a runny nose and sneezing. Thursday was a fever. Friday was a cough. Saturday it all seems to be mostly cleared up I just have to blow my nose now and then. While I am not pleased to have been sick, I have to thank the whole thing for really only throwing one symptom at me at a time. Much more manageable.

Unrelated to that, on Friday I saw something. You know when a dandelion goes all white, in the stage where it’s seeds all go white or whatever that is called (A quick glance at Wikipedia leads me to believe it may be called a parachute ball), well anyway, I saw appeared to be one of these parachute balls rolling around the Superstore parking lot. Like, the seeds weren’t coming off or anything, the whole thing was just rolling. And I don’t even think I’ve seen dandelions spring up yet this year, yet go to seed, so I assume this one has been rolling around since last year. Just chilling. Literally, because of Winter. Annnnyyyway… It… seemed more interesting when I saw it than when I was describing it.

Anyway, I’m working on a Sunday for the second week in a row. That is what I’m blaming my lack of getting things done on today.

The joke is that I didn’t post anything on April Fools Day, I guess.

I got poisoned, though! Well, not really, but on Thursday I ate one of these little yogurt parfaits that the Superstore sells and the blueberries tasted a bit off, but because I wanted to get to the oatmeal beneath them, I just kept right on eatin’. After I woke up later Thursday I had a terrible taste in my mouth and a bit of general queasiness and such. I figure I probably shouldn’t have eaten those blueberries. Blueberries are delicious when they are fresh, but not worth it when they aren’t. Fact. I’m still in love with the parfaits, though. I’ll stick with the strawberry for now.

So, I bought a book a few weeks back (Trouble With Lichen, by John Whyndam) and was like sixty or more pages into it when I realized that thirty pages were missing. In a row. And it isn’t a clean tear, either. There is enough of the pages left in that I can make out whole words in some instances. That is the sort of thing that I should have caught before I bought it, but I guess it does explain why I got it for a dollar and it was marked “as is”. Ah, well.

Haiku!

Can’t stop the bum rush.
Don’t even bother to try.
You just can’t stop it.

So, for as long as I can remember, the newspaper that employs me would make its cover page black and white on Good Friday. You know, like they are mourning Jesus’s death an’ all ’at. This year they did not. This proves the newspaper is now Satanist. Proves it.

A year or two ago I bought a box of tissues solely because it had superheroes on the box. At the time I didn’t need them, I just liked that it had superheroes so I bought it. Hopefully revealing that weakness won’t lead to manufacturers of products like corkscrews and ladles adding heroes in the hopes of getting my sales. But anyway, I mostly forgot about them until this holiday season when I got something of a cold. Now needing the tissues and keeping the box by my side for several days I got to thinking about them once more, and now I must bring that thinking to the Internet.

There they are. They are out on patrol perhaps, notice a big monster and proceed to stop its rampage. That’s superheroes for you. I’ve no doubt that these guys are inspired by the Invincibles. They’re definitely a family.

First thought, I would say they are Environmentally friendly heroes. The green costumes. The slimy monster who eats trees and windmills (!!). The fact the tissue paper they sell was made of recycled materials. It all adds up. Perhaps they’re not like the Planeteers who only fight enviro-crime, but they certainly lean that way.

Individually:

• The little girl can fly and create some manner of, what appears to soap, which she throws at the monster. Perhaps she can create other things to throw and was just choosing something appropriate to the situation? The fact she keeps the pollution monster as a pet shows that she’s an idealist. Even that evil beast, she feels, could be redeemed with a little love.
• The boy, probably a young teenager has elastic powers. The way he raises an eyebrow before grappling the creature’s leg tells me that he is something of a jokester. But he is no loner. You can tell he likes being part of this family. Probably because they are superheroes and that’s awesome.
• Mom can fly and shoot some sort of energy from her hands. Either it’s a cleansing beam in accordance with the posited environmental theme, and this is why the pollution monsters shrinks, or it is just a straight-up shrink beam. Either way, that’s our finishing move for this skirmish.
• Now, the father is interesting. I have no doubt that his frame holds superhuman strength and probably nigh invulnerability. But what impresses me most is that he stays out of the fight. A coward? No, I suspect he knows that punching that thing’s face off is just going to make a mess and his family is more than capable without him. These guys have clearly done this before.

So that’s them. We don’t know their names or anything else about them. I have to wonder, though, did the person hired by No Name brand to create these heroes and decorate a box of tissues with them put more thought into them than went into the story. Is this a case of fictional characters who have been thought out more than their medium gives them a chance to show? Could their creator have given them names and origins or were they but a moment’s work and then forgotten. Were they a labor of love or a mercenary way to spend a day drawing?
Either way, this post is a monument to these forgotten heroes. We salute you! You’re still better than Aquaman.

I AM PROBABLY THE FIRST PERSON TO TALK ABOUT THESE GUYS ON THE INTERNET. I WIN.

My cold is totally better now.

I’ve managed to get Swimmer’s Ear. What the chunks? Homeboy can’t even swim! And yet here I spent the last day and a half with what feels like a tablespoon full of fluid in by my anvil and hammer and other tiny bone.

Apart from the fact that it occasionally gets painful (as I tried to sleep last morning for example) the primary problem with Swimmer’s Ear is that it blocks sounds like an earplug and that has the effect of amplifying inside-head noises like crunching or swallowing or that constant swearing voice that we all try so hard to block out.

Anyway, I can officially state that I’m not a fan of Swimmer’s Ear. You’re all amazed to hear it.

Haiku!

Duck language is hard.
Too many words sound the same.
Ducks should learn English.

I looked up the other tiny bone. It’s the stirrup. No wonder I didn’t remember that. Back when they taught me about the earbones, I probably had no idea what a stirrup was, so it didn’t stick in my mind the way the others did. They really should have taught me about stirrups first. I now officially hate the Canadian school system.