Alright, it’s been a while! I know you missed me, so let me get to it. First off let me get some old news out that I haven’t had the time to share with you.
- My 4 year old is allergic to peanuts 🙁
He’s always had this thing against peanut butter. My wife and I shrugged it off as him just not liking it. He’s a picky kid, after all, so it was easy to pay no attention to it. But one day my wife gave him a peanut butter brownie from some 100 calorie snack pack, not telling him it had peanut butter. He took a bite and automatically knew what it was and gave it back. We finally asked him, “why don’t you like peanut butter?!” since my wife and I are both peanut butter freaks. He said because it makes his mouth hurt and it tastes spicy. Automatically a red flag went up. We always wanted to take him to an allergist but never had that last push to do it in fear that it’ll be a waste of money. A few hours later, when he broke out in hives all over his face, that was enough of a push for both of us.
Even after that incident we were still hesitant about the allergist. Thinking it could’ve been a fluke, the hives and eating the peanut butter in the same day. And it’s terrible to think like that but dammit, an allergist is effing expensive, especially with crappy insurance. You’d think it’s a test that everyone should be able to take for free since the information gathered from it could save someone’s life in the future. But nope, that just means they get to charge more for it.
Despite my gripes, I’m glad we did it because it confirmed he was, in fact, allergic to peanuts. Not only that, but also cashews, dust mites, and cats (glad we never gave into that urge to get a cat). It sucks so bad that peanuts is on that list though because I absolutely love them. And I’m pretty sure I lived off of peanut butter a good handful of times in my younger years. He’ll always have to be careful and so will we, keeping an eye out for allergy labels and whatnot. And he’ll never know the indescribable joy of a toasted peanut butter sandwich, but at least there won’t be any surprise and frantic trips to the ER.
Oh yeah, and because of his allergy, we were prescribed an epipen. Fuuuuuuuuun times, let me tell ya. If you’re unfamiliar, an epipen is a medical device used to autoinject a dose of adrenalin (Epinephrine) to keep someone from going into anaphylactic shock and possibly dying. Keyword: Dying. Remember the rule? If it saves your life, it’s going to cost you. An epipen, the miracle device that it is, is $200 each pen. And they come 2 in a pack because there’s a chance you may need more than one dose depending on the severity of the allergy. So thanks again to crappy insurance, we could only get 2 of the 4 pens we were prescribed. But even with that, we feel fortunate and safer knowing that if something were to happen, God forbid, we’d have them nearby.
Oh! And epipens expire after a year. Assclowns.
- On a much lighter note, my wife finally discovered coffee after her XX years of roaming the earth without knowing its pleasures. She’s starting slow with Frappés, which may be more syrup than anything depending on where you go, but a start is a start. I felt so proud of her, especially when she started to recommend the trips to Starbucks for her fix. It’s like I fell in love with her all over again. Up next: Iced Coffee!
- Maybe now that she’s drinking it, I could somehow talk her into this bad boy…
- On select days until August 10th, Barnes & Noble is celebrating pop culture with Get Pop-Cultured. I was lucky enough to find myself in a B&N the last day of the preview weekend. Once I saw the flyer and read all the awesome stuff they had planned for the coming weeks, I was completely happy with the thought of spending every one of those days in a Barnes & Noble.
- If you’re in the dark about it, you already missed out on Batman Day, DC Comics Spectacular, and a weekend where you were able to purchase exclusive Comic Convention Collectibles. But worry not! There are still plenty of days to take advantage of featuring the Ninja Turtles, Marvel Comics, And even
BFrozen, coming up this Friday! If any of this sounds exciting then I urge you to find your local store and start planning for all the awesomeness that will be going down these days!
- Fun Fact: My wife and I met at a Barnes & Noble.
- Speaking of Comic Convention Collectibles, I managed to get a hold of a few. Elsa from Frozen and Ghost from Game of Thrones. I have always wanted to go to San Diego Comic-Con (hell, any geek related convention), and one reason is for all the cool swag you leave with. As soon as I found out B&N was going to have exclusive Funko figures you could only get at #SDCC this year, I couldn’t help but get excited. I wish they were the exclusive Ghostbusters ones, but I can’t complain.
- However, I can complain about the insane prices on ebay for those exclusive Ghostbusters sets. I swear, they must be the same people who set the prices for allergists and epipens. Assclowns.
- My man-doll collecting is a recent thing. About a week ago, I fell subject to the drawing power that is collecting Funko Pop Vinyl figures. I’ve been eyeing these babies for a long, long time now, but never pulled the trigger on ever buying any. It was mainly because I never enjoyed the looks my wife gave me when I came to her with my desire to start buying them. They are so up my alley I can’t believe it took me so long to do it. I’m a complete and utter sucker for collecting things, and there are seemingly hundreds of these figures that I find compelling so I may be in trouble. I think what pushed me over the edge though was the Ghostbusters figures, namely, good ol’ Mr. Stay Puft. If you didn’t know, I am a Ghostbusters freak and the thought of having these adorable little figures hanging around my shelf makes me happy. Like I said, I’m a collector, sue me.
- I do wish I got into them a month or so ago. Hot Topic had an exclusive Stay Puft Marshmallow Man that looked a hundred times cooler than the regular one out now. Hopefully it comes back in stock at some point because I’d love to get a hold of it.
- Ok, enough about toys. Let’s talk about Legos! With the help of Seb, I finally put together my Back to the Future Lego set. It’s an awesome build and I’m so glad it was a Father’s Day gift. Like the classic dork I am, I documented most of it and am planning to make a post about it soon. So keep an eye out for that!
- Speaking of Seb, I’m considering taking him to see Guardians of the Galaxy this weekend. And by considering, I mean I’d buy a ticket right now if I knew the time we could make it. I’m proud that my geekiness is rubbing off on him. He is a huge fan of Marvel thanks largely to the Lego Marvel game, so I know he’d enjoy it. But I’m not sure how the movie will be for a 4 year old so I’ll wait and ask some friends who I’m sure will be going opening night.
- Guardians of the Galaxy has been all the rage lately and for good reason. It seems like it’s going to be an amazing 2 hour ride through their universe and I’m insanely excited to check it out for myself. The first time I ever heard about them was during the closing sequence of the Lego Marvel game. After that, when their movie was announced, I was happy to see I wasn’t the only one who had no idea who this group of heroes were. But now that we’re just a few days away, everyone who cares seems to be caught up and I can’t wait to hear how it is. I’m hoping it’s great because I wouldn’t mind Guardians of the Galaxy being the next big thing. The world can always use more heroes.
- Platform Junkies, one of the few gaming podcasts I currently keep up with, recently did a comic club show featuring Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1: Cosmic Avengers. I regret not picking it up and following along, especially since it’s been said that volume is a good primer for the movie. But I don’t think that’ll stop me from picking it up in the future. Especially if we don’t get to go this weekend. I’ve always wanted to get into comics since I’m such a lover of backstories and characters, so maybe this will be the one that finally does it.
And that be that. Tune in next week for possibly another HDUD. Like that? HDUD? I think I do. Maybe we’ll stick with that from now on when I’m talking about the Humpday Update.
So until then, adios.
