June 28th, 2009
This weeks comic is called “Blood Drive”. A few months ago my son had a blood drive for the boy scouts and he asked my if I would donate blood. I had never given blood before because I remember when I was younger I had a little bit of blood taken from my finger with a very little pin prick and yup……you guessed it …….I nearly passed out. Over the years however, I’ve had blood taken from me many times for different medical tests and what not, so I figured how much different can giving blood actually be?! Needless to say I agreed to give up some of my much needed plasma for a good cause and I was accompanied by my daughter Megan. If you know her or have been reading this comic strip you know she has quite the personality (or attitude I’m not sure). She was quite the supportive girl, telling all the medical people how much of a wimp I was and to watch out because I was surely going to cry like a baby and/or pass out, really good for the ego let me tell you. Well I passed the little pin prick test with flying colors (meaning I did not pass out) but when I got to the actual giving of the blood, whoa was I surprised at the size of the needle!!! The blood drive must go on, I thought, so I proceeded as bravely as I could and everything was fine except for the fact that the person couldn’t find the big blue vein that runs very prominently up my arm and it felt like she was digging for &%$#@! gold!!! Finally, success and the blood was flowing. And flowing, and flowing, and flowing. I thought they were going to take everything I had for gods sake! Jeesh, it seemed like forever. It was helpful, however, to have Megan there by my side every few minutes asking those thoughtful questions of hers. “Are you going to cry now?”, “That looks like it hurts really bad, daddy!”, “If you pass out, I will be really embarrassed you know, so you’d better not!” After what seemed like hours, they finally drained what felt like 90% of my blood out of me, I got a free Red Sox tee shirt a snack and some juice and we were on our way.
All in all it was a really good experience (even though I’m kind of a wimp when it comes to this stuff) and I’ll definately give blood again, and if I can do it anyone can! So get out there the next time there is a local Blood Drive and give some for Pete’s sake. If your afraid, let me know, I’ll send along Miss Megan with you for some moral support.
Thanks for listening,
Chris
June 24th, 2009
I have been contacted recently by Billerica Access Television to see if I would be interested in creating, producing and tel
evising some sort of program for “Bric-a-Brats” comics. I’m not sure if it would be a “how it’s made” type of documentary show or what. I have to take some classes on video editing and production etc. etc. but the offer is there, we’ll just have to see what I can make of it!!!!
I wouldn’t mind hearing from some of you and fielding some suggestions, so let’s hear em’
June 6th, 2009
Let me just start by saying that I hate computers. There will be a temporary hiatus on the Bric-a-Brats comics due to an unscheduled computer CRASH! It seems that a very important widows file on my computer has somehow been corrupted. It was probably hanging around with the wrong crowd and turned to the dark side. Who knows maybe it got infected with that *&%#@! swine flu virus. Anyway, it seems that without this file the computer won’t even startup, so I did what every non computer savvy guy does when he has a computer problem…..I consulted the internet! It seems that thousands of people have the exact same problem that I do (at least I’m not alone) so I scan through the chat rooms and gather information, order recovery disks, tweek this and bios that and I find that it should take only minutes to re-install this simple little file and be on my way! But alas, nothing seems to work the way it’s described on-line ( I’m still trying to get a refund on that 5 minute beach body workout). So, I’m forced to utilize my children’s computer, which when I say is bare bones, I mean it does’nt even have a sound card yet! But at least I can check email, play club penguin and blog on this website, it just doesn’t have the capabilities of doing anything for the comic strip. I am bringing it in to see the “doctor” next week and hopefully we will be up and running in no time, but not to worry I feel the inspiration of a new comic strip a-brewin’.
Chris
May 10th, 2009
It seems card games as we know them have changed considerably from generation to generation. Gone are the days of old when the popular card games were Solitaire, Gin Rummey, Hearts, etc. These classic games have been replaced by games I can’t even pronounce or spell correctly, for that matter!! What the heck is a back-u-gan anyway?! Not to mention YU GI OH and Poke’mon sounds like someone had a bit too much too drink and is praying to the old porcelain god, if you know what I mean. At any rate we have to try to bridge the generation gap and… hey! “bridge” get it? card games, “bridge” the generation gap, bridge is a card game….oh never mind, I gonna go play online poker!
May 4th, 2009
I was recently asked why many of the comic strips center around the “Miss” Megan character and not so much on the Sam character. I usually try to balance the exposure of the three main characters, however, she is probably the easiest character (at this point) to write about. (Probably due to the fact that I have so much drama in my day to day life with the real Megan and inspiration for the character is readily accessible). For those of you who love the character of Sam (and I must say I am one of them) these next two strips (at least) are about him. I hope you enjoy them.
On a side note, some people have wrongly assumed that everything I show in the comic strips has happened in real life. I do get a majority of my inspiration from my family and the day to day drama that comes with them, however, since I’ve been doing this comic strip I’ve learned to really pay close attention to everything around me. I listen to other peoples stories and I observe people and things around me everywhere I go and when I get an idea it just gets filtered through my characters. So not everything you see has been said or done by the people the characters are based on. I also make up alot of what has been done recently simply by taking an idea and building on it based on what I think the “characters” might do. It’s really kinda cool, if you listen carefully to other peoples stories or pay close attention to your own family’s behavior, it’s amazing what you see if your looking for something comical. So watch out!!! I may be observing you somewhere, sometime and your actions may end up a bric-a-brats comic strip.
If you have an idea for a bric-a-brats comic strip, email your idea to me at chris@bricabrats.com and if I use your idea as is, or modify the concept for the strip, I’ll give you full creative credit and post your name on the website when the comic strip debuts.
April 15th, 2009
Good Evening everyone,
I just wanted to let you all know that I’ve updated the Bric-a-Brats comic strip archives this evening. It is not complete yet, but I’m one step closer. For those of you who are new to this site, I recently changed hosting companies and when this site went online I wasn’t quite ready, so I’ve been in catch up mode ever since. There have been approximately sixty comic strips posted online since we debuted in the spring of 2008 so check in from time to time and see what’s been updated and check out the entire history of the Bric-a-Brats.
