Autism, Diabetes, and Grand Rapids
Issue #22: I have nothing for you here
I found this image on Facebook earlier today and wanted to share it on the page. Autism is a condition that is near and dear to my heart and I felt like this image was spot on. I do not consider autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) a disease or a disorder at all for that matter. People with ASD are just different than people without it. Different is good right? This image speaks volumes of truth.
So what’s been going on this week?
This past weekend, the offspring and I took a short afternoon trip to Grand Rapids to goof around a bit. We first went to a Mediterranean restaurant called Parsley. It was good. I had a gyro and they were not hungry so they had a smoothie. We have been to these place before when we visited my sister-in-law here a few years ago. After that, we visited what was, for all intents and purposes, the original purpose of our visit, a comic book shop called Vault of Midnight. It is a cool shop. It has a very large selection of graphic novels and trade paperbacks (which was mostly what I looked through). See the reading stuff section below for what I bought there. Our last stop in downtown Grand Rapids was a coffee shop called Madcap Coffee. This is another place we had visited during our trip a few years ago. I remember liking it quite a bit back then. This time, while it was good, it was a little different. For one, they don’t carry sweeteners other than pure cane sugar anymore (I’m almost positive that they used to). So when I return to Madcap, I will need to remember to carry my travel Stevia with me.
And now you might be wondering to yourself, why does he carry Stevia around with him? Well, you see, I am diabetic so I don’t eat things that have sugar in them. That is unless you count fruit which contains “good” sugar if that makes any sense. I’m not a doctor or nutrionist so I can’t explain. If you’re interested, look it up on the Google. Anyway, when I go somewhere where I know I will be drinking coffee, I generally try to remember beforehand to carry Stevia with me because there are a lot of places out there that don’t carry it. Most restaurants and coffee joints carry artificial sweeteners like Sweet and Low or its generics (the pink packages), Equal or its generics (the blue packages). Some even carry Splenda or its generics (the yellow packages). Unfortunately, these are all artificial sweeteners and can spike a person’s blood sugar. Stevia, which is actually the name of the plant its derived from (there are several different brands that make it), it a natural sweetener that does not spike blood sugar and has been identified as the best sweetener for diabetics. So there you have it. I try to remember to carry Stevia around with me in case we go to place where I could wind up drinking coffee. I carry several packages in both my car and my wife’s car.
I know the next question you might be asking is why bother putting any sweetener in my coffee? The answer is that I like a little bit of sweetener in my coffee and if you have a problem with that, I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life. Good day sir.
Rogue One Radio
On this week’s episode, we continued our MCU retrospective series. This week, we were joined by Megan (aka Nerdy Variant) to discuss the Doctor Strange films. Somewhere along the lines we got sidetracked (not so “strange” to this show) and started talking about cheesecake. We played some tunes from The Amplifier Heads, These Fast Times, and Ten Foot Pole! You can check out the episode on YouTube here:
This week, my pull list consisted of Star Wars #26. Aside from that comic, however, I did wind up purchasing some other fairly new stuff.
First was 20th Century Men #1. This was put out by Image Comics. I read the synopsis and it looked interesting. Second was Batman: One Bad Day: The Riddler #1. Next was Sword of Azrael: Dark Knight of the Soul #1. I’m a fairly big fan of the Azrael character. After buying this one, it turns out that this is reprint of a story that originaly appeared in Batman: Urban Legends #8-10. It will lead into a new Azrael miniseries that started this month. On that note, my next purchase was Sword of Azrael #1 (the first issues of said miniseries). My last purchase was Batman White Knight Presents: Red Hood #1. I enjoy the White Knight series and I’m interested in what Sean Murphy does for a Red Hood solo comic.
While at Vault of Midnight over the weekend, I bought them a book called [insert book name here] and bought myself a few things. I bought Saga: Compendium One, a graphic novel adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughter-House Five, the new Daredevil #1, and The Mandalorian #1.
I also read volume 1 of Crossover. I’ve been meaning to read that one for a while now and finally got around to it. Unfortunately, I think my expectations were a little high on this one. I wrote a short review of it on Goodreads here.
I wasn’t sure what to put here because I’ve been listening to a lot of different stuff this week. Mostly because I’ve been trying to catch up on all of the 2022 new released that I hadn’t gotten around to listening to before. So, I went to my trusty friend Last.fm to find out what I’ve been listening to the most. It appears that I’ve been listening to the new Goo Goo Dolls album, Chaos in Bloom, quite a bit this week. But since the Goo Goo Dolls already took a spot on a track of the week a few week ago in my Adventures in the Mitten State issue, I felt it was more fair to give a little love to another album I’ve been listening to a lot this week.
This week’s track of the week comes from the London, UK band Ex-Void. They put out an album this past March called Bigger Than Before. Check out the track of the week on their Bandcamp page here:
Have a great week kids and remember to BE MORE KIND!