Stephen – Page 4 – League of the Longbow

Extra! Extra! Read all About it!

Longbow presents The Fabulous Wenning Sisters with the debut of the hit song “Poly Platypus’

Believe it or not there’s actually a very interesting story behind this song. The Polytechnic Platypus was originally an idea by my good friend Ben “Banjo” Grewal. He conceived of the giant, purple, bipedal platypus as a mascot idea for Florida Polytechnic, the university we were both attending. I asked Ben if I could feature the platypus in a H.A.T.S. comic, he agreed and thus a parody was born.

The song is a parody of “Johnny Angel” as performed by Shelley Fabares on the Donna Reed show. It was performed in Ohio by my cousins Laura, Julie, and Sarah (also known as The Fabulous Wenning Sisters). The video also feature the superb acting talents of my Aunt Ann Garmann, her son Grant and my Mother. Clips from the original show were used in the video to tie the two together.

I hope you enjoyed the song please comment on the YouTube video and let my cousins know what you thought!

I Know I had Them Yesterday

Today Nicholas and Jonathan got up before me because Jonathan needed to attend a math test and he needed Nicholas to take him. When I got up I showered and got dressed, but when I went to put my shoes on I couldn’t find them. Ten minutes later they were still lost. You guessed it, Jonathan was wearing them. So I put on his shoes.

I ascertained later that Jonathan had put my shoes on by mistake, but I wouldn’t have blamed him if you had stolen them intentionally, his shoes are painful! So yes, I can last a day in my brother’s shoes. They’re just too tight.

It’s Math Time!

Not to say I’m a nerd, but this is my wall clock…

It’s pretty fun right?

A Holiday of Light

Happy Santa Lucia day! The 13th of December is widely celebrated in Sweden as the feast of the early Christian martyr, St. Lucy. It is celebrated with such vigor there probably because Sweden is so dang dark and the feast of St. Lucy celebrates the triumph of light over darkness. It is celebrated in remembrance of St. Lucy visiting the starving Christians in the catacombs wearing a wreath of candles on her head to illuminate her path so as to leave her hands free to carry as much food as possible.

Traditionally the oldest girl in Swedish families brings everyone breakfast in bed wearing a flaming wreath of candles (cool huh?). There are also special processions and prayers to go along with the celebration. We, however, are not Swedish so Anne does not have to wear a flaming headdress (not this year anyways). Instead we are celebrating the day as Germans celebrate everything…with food.

For breakfast this morning Mom made us a Santa Lucia Crown. A sweet bread with maraschino cherries and a powdered sugar glaze.

Mom found this recipe in a cookbook called “Cooking with the Saints” several years ago and it has been part of our family’s tradition ever since.

Happy Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!

I might have mentioned that there are a lot of feast days in December, but today is particularly special to us because Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of our family.

Today’s feast day celebrates the apparition of Our Lady to Juan Diego on Tepeyac Hill in Mexico. Juan Diego was an Aztec convert to Christianity and under Our Lady’s instructions he picked roses growing miraculously on the hill to bring to the bishop. He carried the roses in his tilma and when he emptied them out to show the bishop he saw that Our Lady had miraculously left her image on his tilma. The tilma with the miraculous image can still be seen at the Guadalupe Basilica. You can read the full story of The Virgin of Guadalupe here (and I encourage you to).

Our Lady of Guadalupe is extremely important to our family and, as I understand it, very important to the Mexican people. One of Dad’s Mexican friends said, “90% of Mexicans are Catholic, but 100% believe in our Lady of Guadalupe.”

A Bonus Blog Post

Congratulations reader you get a special blog post because December is so full of feast days that I lost track of one.

So happy feast of St. Juan Diego everyone!

He’s a Mutie!!!!

So we all know about the X-men comics and how most of the normal people in them for some insane reason want to kill the X-men and all other mutants (but not other superheroes…weird). Furthermore, everyone in this weird universe assumes any abnormality is due to being a mutant (and they’re usually right!). In light of this, I think if I were in the X-men universe I would probably get run out of town on a rail!

No, unfortunately I cannot shoot lasers out of my eyes and I am not invulnerable, I do not have metal claws and I am not covered in hair…well I guess I am, but only in the normal way (we’re all mammals right?), but I do have a couple of oddities. For instance, my left eye lid droops significantly, my right collar bone is bigger than my left, most of my bones have a point on them, my jaw was too small so all my teeth came in VERY badly (Mom had them fixed, but I kind of looked like a shark), and my lower jaw cannot extend past my upper jaw.

Now if normal humans in the X-men universe ever noticed even one of these traits they would raise a hue and cry and chase me from the town… or just kill me. Now some people might rise to these citizen’s defense claiming they only attack people who are clearly mutants, but I am not exaggerating. I read an eighties Marvel comic where a preteen boy threw one of his classmates. Said classmate jumped to the natural conclusion that the boy who threw him must be a mutant (he wasn’t) so he got a pistol to shoot the boy. Now I don’t know about you, but people threw me when I was a kid and it never even crossed my mind that they could have superpowers, but maybe I was wrong, maybe I’m the crazy one, maybe Phillip really is a mutant…

Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Boy there are a lot of celebrations in December (I think it’s because Europe is the birthplace of the church and unlike here in Florida, it gets really cold in Europe in December and you have to do something to fight of the depression of the freezing cold).

If you’re like me you find yourself thinking, “How could Christ be conceived on December 7th and born on the 25th?”

I know I’m a bad Catholic, because the Immaculate Conception celebrates the conception of Mary. This should be obvious. It’s the Immaculate Conception because we celebrate that Mary was conceived without sin (Christ was too, but we really celebrate that he was God and chose to be conceived as man).

There actually isn’t an elaborate tradition for the feast of the Immaculate Conception (which seems weird now that I think of it), but it is a Holy Day of Obligation, which means as a Catholic you are required to attend Mass. This is great, because, aside from the joys and glories of going to Mass, you also get a “Get out of School Free” card since it’s a required religious observance.

My College Diet Plan

Today I had a big test in Machine Learning (it’s a class about computer algorithms). The test was 25% of my grade so I studied hard, on an unrelated note there will be no new comic this week (just kidding). When the test was over I left feeling very good about it. I thought, “I’ll get a snack from the food court to celebrate.”

With junk food in mind I pulled out my wallet counted my money and calculated how many tanks of gas I could buy before I was flat again. I then put my wallet back in my pocket and ate a delicious lunch of pulled pork at home.

That’s right my fad diet is simple, be broke.

Now the skeptical reader may think, “but I have a steady job with money in the bank, I have money to spend.”

So do I. I have income, I have savings, but that doesn’t mean I want to blow it on junk food. More accurately I want to, but I can’t bring myself to.

I encourage you to follow the same procedure I do, before you buy food. Calculate your income and your expected expense. Be sure to include things like regular food, gas money, oil money, room and board, laundry detergent, dish soap, and other necessities. Once you know your income vs. expenses you should see if you have enough in reserve for emergencies. This amount will vary directly with your responsibilities (if you have more people depending on you you’ll want more money). Next look ahead, do you have money for Christmas gifts? What about birthdays? Do you own a car? a house? Do you want to? What if something happens to your home or car, can you replace them? What about books, phones and laptops? Are you married if not how much money do you want in the bank when you get married, if so better plan for another dependent.

If after all this you still feel like you can afford an unnecessary snack, donate to charity, you have way too much money.