Ouch. Sorry you went through that late in life. I had chicken pox at age 5. I don't remember it, but I have scars. It was nearly a decade before the vaccine was invented.

There's a shingles vaccine, but it is
1. Expensive
2. Only done for people over 60 years old (sometimes 50) and
3. Only about 51% effective.


Shingles used to be an old person illness because it appears when the immune system weakens. But our generation has managed to mimic the effects of old age through the power of stress. :P

My kid brother had shingles a couple years ago.

And any adult with shingles is dangerous for the few who never had chicken pox. In adults and teens chicken pox can lead to pneumonia and encephalitis though the vaccine is 90% effective if taken within 3 days.

Shingles vaccine may only be 51% effective for avoiding the infection but does lesson the symptoms and length of the illness. Try working in a senior facility with all these shingles sufferers running around and you've never had chicken pox.

Don't touch anything. However as a kid I was closely exposed to chicken pox at least three times. Back in the 1970s when a kid got it concerned parents sent their kids over that child's house to hopefully get it and get it over with. Three separate occasions and I didn't get it.

Roll cars, detached retinas, falling down elevator shafts, diverticulitis, sure – but chicken pox? Nope.

Yikes.

I've been in a rolled car. Got just one tiny scratch from broken glass. I've had kidney stones, regularly get migraines, dry socket after my wisdom teeth removal, a knee that hyperextends, really bad lady cramps… Pain is a frequent companion. (Never broke a bone though.)

Honestly, I'd have gone to the doctor right away for antivirals if I realized earlier, but I've been on a false but more logical assumption that it was some kind of pest infestation or allergic reaction. Random rashes are incredibly common for me. I unconsciously scratch holes in my own legs at night because they itch (have done so for years). I break out any time I hold one of my pet rats too. When a rash shows up in a location on my torso where I have gotten rashes before, I don't instantly think I have a viral infection usually seen in seniors.

Hahaha! Oh chicken pox…
It was on the last day of my second sail training voyage on the STS Leeuwin.

This girl was hugging everyone. I remember thinking that her skin was unusually marked but didn't really think much of it. I just thought she had bad skin. She was Vietnamese and had dark gold skin so the marks didn't stand out too much. She had no other symptoms.

Days later I was curled up on the floor wanting to kill myself because the pain in my head was so severe, coughs racking my body with a rolling, aching pain from my toes to my scalp and my skin feeling like a burning, itching nightmare.

But during the weeks I spent in bed recovering I discovered George Fraser and his Flashman stories, Piers Anthony and Xanth, and developed a love for many songs that I heard over and over on the radio… mainly Spoonman by Sound Garden, Positive Bleeding by Urge Overkill, Senses Working Overtime by XTC. Every time they'd come on it would feel like an event to me. XD

Traveling will get you. My sister got legionaire's disease in Japan and a couple other nasty infections in Korea.

My dad had dysentery in Nepal. It was so bad, he was briefly comatose.

Of course, you can get all those things in your own country, but something about travel makes us a lax on the hygiene and health. (And different places have their own customs and practices for containing infection. We can take ours for granted.)

I'd love to go to Nepal :)

I think travel puts you in closer constant contact with others and unfamiliar pathogens.
There are a lot of things our bodies are used to dealing with every day: our own gut flora, fungi etc… Often families or whole groups of people are in balance with the same little biotic biome.

When outsiders come into contact with it though it can cause issues.
Or even when our own goes out of balance…

There's not much research on that field right now but it IS a factor.

Just think cruise ship. A whole bunch of different communities of people with their communities of pathogens are in one confined place. Someone's common germ will get into someone else's food and give them a bought of diarrhea, nausea and vomiting because that particular germ is an interloper and doesn't play well with the existing communities of germs.

The whole idea of population resistance to certain pathogens as in that book Guns, Germs and Steel comes from that. Travel not only broadens the mind, it broadens the immune system too. My wife has gotten it twice on ships, whereas I had to go ashore to get mine. Fortunately the incubation period was just enough so I didn't get sick until I got home. Turns out my doctor knew precisely what it was because he had gotten it the year before when visiting the same locale.

My latest Pinky TA page is giving me trouble. :(
No idea why, but all the foreground images are just proving to be a pain to colour! T_T

I may have sorted out my issues with the art but I'm too sleepy to do anything with it tonight.

Working on getting pre-approved for my first home loan. Didn't think it would be possible, but here we are. Adulting like a boss today.

Congratulations, UB! My fingers are crossed for you! That's very exciting!

There is only one week before Stringy and Mopy goes back into hiatus again.

This thread still says happy 2018.

So far in 2019 I have cooked and eaten a goose with the help of the amazing Mrs Scarf, and used the remains to make goose chow mein, which was all my fault. Life is making it progressively harder for me to find time to draw and yet, I'm looking forward to finishing my strip and approaching the next with renewed optimism. Picture this against the backdrop of the UK self immolating to the tune of Babylon's Burning by The Ruts.

What have you done so far and what do you hope to do in 2019?

Ironscarf wrote:
This thread still says happy 2018.

NO IT DOESN'T!
You must be high…
>_>


————

So far I have quit drawing for a while and devoted myself full time to making a white and cream 18th century style suit of clothes, all modelled around this cheap coat I bought online and have just finished modifying into a proper 18th century style coat!

Reorganization of cast members and original characters and actually managed to build a set for the Belle's Best Drunkduck awards after party scripts I wrote two months ago.

Outside of that it's been all damage control with house woes and my new car with very low mileage but concealing a terrible secret? Real life drama as I sort out evidence and watch every Lupin III movie and OVA ever made.

I hope it's not too expensive Bravo!
——————-

The comment sections on Youtube videos…
They're well known for being full of evil and idiocy, and that is true!
But they can also be good sometimes so I always go back and check… and come up against the same annoyingly idiotic things people post

The thing is though that they CAN be really good- when they're not filled with memes, whining, sycophancy towards the vid creator etc the GOOD comments are the ones hat shed more light on the subject of the video. I really appreciate those. It almost make the shut comments worth it.

ozoneocean wrote:

Ironscarf wrote:
This thread still says happy 2018.

NO IT DOESN'T!
You must be high…
>_>

There goes my New Year's resolution. The coat is looking quite impressive I must say.

I called a realtor to arrange a showing of the cutest most perfect house. And it was unavailable. Within two days of listing, and the same day I called it went under contract. -_-

So, Wednesday, I'm going to go look at a second choice home instead. It has a lot of good points and is in a neighboring county with lower tax rates. It's been on the market since September (asking price is too high, imo).

I got all my paperwork to the loan officer, so I hope to have a pre-approval letter soon.

Some temporary tattoos that I designed for the pole dancing studio where I teach. They were applied to people who visited our booth at DragCon

@fc- oh my gosh those are so awesome!! I love the black and white one at the bottom.

@kawaiidaigakusei that one was the one most frequently requested. It was designed to go around the biceps

My old intuos 3 is grinding to a halt. Managed a temporary fix but it won't last long and I'm determined to finish ADF before it dies. It's like trying to defuse a ticking time bomb without knowing when it's set to blow.

—

How much toast is too much toast?

House hunting sucks. I'm tired. Good houses are sold before I can see them. The others are nightmares. Some make me cry because they have so much potential but need tens of thousands of dollars of work.

And my loan approval has come to a dead stop. The bank can't verify my employment in the National Park Service because our government representatives are a pile of quarreling babies.

I lost my paternal grandfather yesterday afternoon, he was ninety-four years old. I have been coping by watching comedy shows because it is good to laugh, but then in the quiets of the night, I listen to Doris Day or Bing Crosby’s version of “Moonlight Bay”, a song he would sing to me when I was really, really young, and I let out a good cry.

—-

So earlier yesterday morning, I was supposed to go to Tijuana, when I first stepped out of bed, I read a text message from my friends asking if I could leave earlier. I looked outside and my dad had taken my car, so I asked my mom for a ride to the train station. When I arrived at the station, I found out there was a weekend schedule where trains only ran by the hour. I had missed the train. My mom told me to go home and eat breakfast, so I did and I was very upset. I decided that all those indirect road blockages really did not want me going to Tijuana that day. One hour after that was when my dad called saying that my grandfather was having difficulty breathing and three minutes later, we received a text that he had passed.

—

We were sailing along on Moonlight Bay
As we sang love's old sweet song on Moonlight Bay

My grandfather was a sweet man, a respectful gentleman. He knew how to dress in style. He would never leave the dining table if I was still there. We shared an interest in the same music and he came from a magical generation.

how do i upload the comic books i draw?

DONPICASIO1921 wrote:
how do i upload the comic books i draw?

Click on your profile pic and go to your profile. Then click the “create a comic” link:

https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/comics/create/

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
I lost my paternal grandfather yesterday afternoon, he was ninety-four years old. I have been coping by watching comedy shows because it is good to laugh, but then in the quiets of the night, I listen to Doris Day or Bing Crosby’s version of “Moonlight Bay”, a song he would sing to me when I was really, really young, and I let out a good cry.

—-

So earlier yesterday morning, I was supposed to go to Tijuana, when I first stepped out of bed, I read a text message from my friends asking if I could leave earlier. I looked outside and my dad had taken my car, so I asked my mom for a ride to the train station. When I arrived at the station, I found out there was a weekend schedule where trains only ran by the hour. I had missed the train. My mom told me to go home and eat breakfast, so I did and I was very upset. I decided that all those indirect road blockages really did not want me going to Tijuana that day. One hour after that was when my dad called saying that my grandfather was having difficulty breathing and three minutes later, we received a text that he had passed.

—

We were sailing along on Moonlight Bay
As we sang love's old sweet song on Moonlight Bay

My grandfather was a sweet man, a respectful gentleman. He knew how to dress in style. He would never leave the dining table if I was still there. We shared an interest in the same music and he came from a magical generation.

My condolences Kawaii!

Thank you, Oz!!

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
My grandfather was a sweet man, a respectful gentleman. He knew how to dress in style. He would never leave the dining table if I was still there. We shared an interest in the same music and he came from a magical generation.

He sounds like someone quite special, I'm sorry for your loss.

Can I get… uhhhhhhhhhhhhh