Spoofy Randomness

Chapter: – Year 1

  • Dr Pepper

    Dr Pepper

    First of all, let me make one thing clear: if you are not Muslim, DO NOT TRY THIS JOKE.  Alcohol is harām in Muslim faith, meaning that it is forbidden to drink it.  Moustafa and Aya were also drinking Dr Pepper when they pulled this one on Alaa (and obviously the Dr Pepper was not spiked).  It resulted in much hilarity.  It also led to the discovery that Dr Pepper is available at one grocery store!  We then had a hard time convincing Moustafa that root beer doesn’t have alcohol despite having beer in its name.

    Because Egypt is approximately 90% Muslim, this also means that it is difficult–but not impossible–to find alcohol here.  Most upper-class hotels do allow foreigners to come in for a drink, and there is one chain of stores (appropriately called Drinkies) allowed to sell it, but apparently not corkscrews to open the wine, oops.  I don’t drink much so it’s not a big inconvenience, but if you’re the type to enjoy a good brew with your dinner, you’re gonna be severely limited in your restaurant choices.  But hey, drunk driving isn’t really an issue here!  You just have to watch out for all of the normal drivers…

    Lots more people showing up in the comic!  I tried to show everyone who was at Thanksgiving.  I thought I had everyone, then I realized I didn’t draw myself.  Oh well.  Oddly, I have not shown many Egyptians in the comic.  That should be changing as I make more friends and attempt to learn more Arabic.  Emphasis on ‘attempt’.

  • Thanksgiving

    Thanksgiving

    Happy Thanksgiving!

    Kind of a nifty little mashup of the three comics–thankful for having the ability to bring back Spoofy Randomness as a brand!  And of course you can show how thankful you are that Spoofy Randomness is back by donating to the comic’s Patreon to support the comic through the holidays!

    Panel 1 is what was meant to be its own comic when the news was first announced that girls would be able to enroll in the BSA program.  I never had time to make it, so this works.  (Technically Sally can’t join for a couple more years, but the point stands.)  Also of note (I think I’ve mentioned before) is that events in SR: Scouting takes place before SR: Not on a Camel.  And yes, Sally has been part of a co-ed Scouting program before.

    Us Americans at AIA are planning on having our own little shindig (along with a few others) at my place to celebrate, which is nice.  And hey, Cliff FINALLY made it into a comic!  Amazed it took this long; he is my counterpart in the science department as well as teaching math.  And he’s from Texas, hence his Dallas Cowboys shirt.

    I don’t really have anything to say about Percy. He’s Percy. I am playing as him in the Ultra Moon game, though. He uses a Delibird with Splash. It’s been interesting.

  • Disco

    Disco

    I mentioned in a previous commentary about the water heater. Working on grading and I am IN THE ZONE, when all of a sudden loud banging and popping comes from my bathroom.  I go in, and the entire top of the water heater pops off and boiling hot water starts gushing out.  Of course, the shutoff is BEHIND the boiling water.  Finally get everything shut off and call Ahmed from the school (he handles all the apartment stuff).  However, it took a week (and poor Ahmed calling daily) to get a new water heater–the school wound up buying one and then took the cost out of the rent–which meant that I had a week of cold showers.  UGH.

    Souq is definitely an oddity.  It has a lot, but a lot of it is novelty versions of essential things.  My first experience was when I couldn’t find, of all things, a drain plug for my sink.  I found one…with a little hand coming out of the drain.  Hey, it works.  And now I have a shower head with alternating LED lights.

    Apparently now it’s tradition for expat teachers to draw themselves naked for the first time in their comic? Two counts as tradition, right?

    And yay, Meagan’s back in the comic! She should show up more.  We have been able to use Google Hangouts almost every week, which has been nice, and of course we talk fairly non-stop (when we’re both awake at the same time) on WhatsApp.  Yay technology!

  • Siwa Part 2: Surfin’ Safari

    Siwa Part 2: Surfin’ Safari

    Second Siwa comic! Yeah, a desert safari was not what I imagined. Less admiring the scenery, more hoping we don’t flip over it. It was fun though! Like an extreme roller coaster without the usual physics keeping you safe.

    …My mother isn’t gonna like that explanation, is she? But yes, lots of fun, although I was still overcoming a bit of motion sickness from the bus ride and this didn’t exactly ease it.

    Kristen also recommended the camping trip, which Carole was planning for the night Sarah and I were planning on heading back.  Thankfully, we were able to reschedule it to the night before we left.  That was amazing, sleeping out under the stars.  You can’t really see stars in Alex, and I decided to sleep with my glasses on.  This meant when I woke up in the middle of the night, I woke up to seeing all the stars–wow.

    Comic ran late because on the way back, picked up a nasty cold that stuck with me for almost two weeks. I think this will be the last Siwa comic, but we did lots more exploring, including up ‘Death Mountain’ and around all the shops.  Not many comic-worthy events, though.

  • Siwa, Part 1: BUSted

    Siwa, Part 1: BUSted

    The first of the Siwa comics! Decided I wanted to do something with my fall break besides work, and had been recommended by a friend (Kristen) who did her Fulbright in Cairo to go to Siwa. Then I found out Carole and Sarah were going and boom, it all worked. And Carole was a HUGE help in helping us line up activities and figuring out where to go.

    I have had not good experiences with buses. When I was detasseling in college, I had a similar legroom problem on the school buses we took to and from the field and wound up having to wear a knee brace for two months. I also decided to take a bus to St. Paul instead of driving to be on stage crew (there were some last minute decisions involving Doane College saying they would pay for gas and excuse my classes, then withdrawing at the last minute). Similar situation of traveling at night, and slept about as much, as in very little.  (This also happened at that time.)

    And for those of you who think I may be exaggerating for the sake of comedy…

    Luckily, a shorter person was kind enough to switch seats. Eight hours like that would not have been good.

  • Mysteeerious…!

    Mysteeerious…!

    It’s kind of Halloween-themed this week!

    Shout out to Bamboo! The sweetest little Indonesian lady runs it, and they have the best spring rolls ANYWHERE. And yes, they have a little Christmas tree up. I don’t know why. Coincidentally, two more months until Christmas. Didn’t plan it that way, but cool.

    Cameos of Joe, who has helped me figure out a lot of tricks to living here, and my boab Saheed (a boab is like a doorman, but also looks after the building, runs errands, etc).

    I don’t know if not meeting your landlord/lady is normally a thing; I’ve only rented one apartment before, and the school handles most of this one, so…  I just find it a little odd.  I’m sure she is a wonderful lady and not planning on taking over Kafr Abdo…I think…

    Everyone seems to keep their shutters closed on their windows.  I mean, yeah, it blocks sunlight to reduce AC usage during the hot months, and I close mine when I’m gone and at night because I’m on the ground floor (while I’m in a good part of town, I still don’t want to invite thieves), but I love daylight and this just blows my mind.

    The water heater thing may come up in a later comic, so I’ll hold off on that story for now.  If you’re following my Twitter feed, you’ve seen a bit of it. It is now day five since I’ve had a hot shower. @#$%&. Here’s hoping there’s not a similar post next week.

    Edit: fixed speech bubble in panel 1

  • Grounded

    Grounded

    Ref: Curse the British Influence

    In which I try to redeem myself a little bit in drawing Sarah less like a man. The previous comic was a little rushed; much happier with this one. Hopefully she is too. Short hair is hard!

    In my defense, the minced/ground beef in the nearby market is in a package, so I couldn’t SEE it.  It wasn’t until Sarah and I went to Carrefour (Egypt’s version of Walmart/Tesco) that I realized this and gave her a chance to laugh at me.  There are other food items I couldn’t (and still can’t) find, but this one was particularly infuriating because I KNEW it had to be a thing because hamburgers are EVERYWHERE.

  • Eid

    Eid

    Wikipedia reference: Eid al-Adha

    A lot of foreigners are repulsed by this ‘savage’ holiday as at first glance it does appear to be on the brutal side, but once you take the time to learn about it, it is quite fascinating, respectful, and very steeped in religious tradition, representing Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son and God providing him a goat instead. And then there is feasting!  In the days leading up to it, there are lots of animals in the streets for sale, including camels (I did not ride one). I tried to avoid mentioning to Meagan WHY I saw a camel; I was successful for about a week and then she figured it out. Haven’t seen any camels since, SO THERE.

    I did want to go out and wander the streets during this to start to experience the culture (Eid was 1-2 Sept, so I actually got the USA’s Labor Day off!), but I was still fighting jet lag and slept in.  I’ll probably miss it next year too, as it will be earlier and probably before I get back from the States.

    Most foreigners here come from cities, and so there tends to be an impression that foreigners aren’t used to seeing such things, so they have the (mostly accurate) idea that foreigners would not feel comfortable with this. I come from a hunting family and spent a lot of my life in rural Nebraska, plus I’ve taught dissections. I’m good!

    Got to add Sarah and Katie to the cast list! They are also new teachers here, in the PYP (Primary Years Programme). And there ARE other Americans (contrary to what I was told).  Cliff is another American who also started at AIA this year; he’s my partner in crime in the science lab.

    This comic got delayed by several things, including a 4 TB external hard drive biting the dust (third one in four months; I’m never buying Seagate again) and discovering that Windstream was still charging me for internet back home despite telling them three times to cancel it. That gets a lot harder to deal with, both in hours and method of contact, when abroad. (Plus Windstream in general is hard to deal with, ugh.)

  • Home Sweet Home

    Home Sweet Home

    Apologies to whomever from the school who picked me up at the airport; I have no idea who you were.  I was kinda out of it.  But yeah, this was my reaction to my apartment.  It was a bit of an overexaggeration, but I was expecting a quite small one-bedroom apartment and this place is not much smaller than the first floor of my old house, and it’s the smallest apartment in the building. So yeah, bigger than I expected. Fancy entrances are also a thing here. I think that’s pretty awesome. It shows that the owners have pride in the building and whatnot.

    Sherif makes his first appearance! I won’t say too much more about him because I know he’s going to show up later, but he gets awesome points for showing me around the next day even when I was still coming off of the panic episode and was not feeling well at all.

    And yeah, no box springs, so when I first sat on the bed there was an audible THUD. I did wind up sleeping on the couch the first few nights, but that was more because there was air flow in the living room than the bed itself. Once I bought a fan, I can sleep surprisingly well on that bed despite its solidness.

    I meant to invert Panel 2; for some reason when I was drawing it I was convinced I had the side of the car and road correct. NOPE. And then I forgot to invert it. Although to be fair, the van driving on the wrong side of the road isn’t too unrealistic… The black and yellow car is a taxi; they are VERY noticeable!

  • Off I Go!

    Off I Go!

    Hey look, we’re almost to comics actually in Egypt! Those will FINALLY start next week.

    In the days leading up to my departure, I naturally tried to cram in as much time with friends and family as I could.  FYI, in Panel 1, we’re playing the Widow’s Walk expansion of Betrayal at House on the Hill.  You get a random scenario each time you play.  It’s pretty awesome, and often ridiculous.  That same day, I also wound up trying to assemble all the monsters to accurately put on the Monster Mash.  And yes, Joshua is who Jorocks was originally modeled after (although I took steps to separate the two, including giving Jorocks a beard…which then Joshua promptly grew).

    Meagan also gets all the awesome points (as usual).  I am a decent packer, but she spent a significant chunk of her life when she worked for ΑΦΩ traveling and is thus a WHIZ at packing, and she did it willingly!  This help was greatly appreciated!

    Now, a bit of REAL TALK. This comic was scripted before I left, and reality hit a lot harder than this comic shows.  If you are a teacher looking to teach abroad (or really, anyone looking to move far away), I highly recommend talking to your doctor about getting some anti-anxiety medicine before you leave.  I did not, and didn’t think anything of it as I was surprisingly calm leading into my departure.  And then I was sitting in the airport in Istanbul and unexpectedly had a full-blown panic attack, to the point where I needed medical attention. (Thankfully, I had an 8 hour layover, so I had the two and a half hours to spare for that without missing my flight.)  I was still coming off of that when I got to my apartment in Egypt, and it turns out that one of the only medicines you CAN’T buy over the counter is most anti-anxiety meds.  Luckily, after a couple tries and some help, I was able to get some medicine, and after a few days the anxiety wore off and I haven’t had any problems since (and no more meds needed!).  But yeah, talking to your doctor about some preventative medicine is a good idea.

    On a lighter note, there’s a Firefly reference hidden in the comic somewhere.

    Last Saturday’s sketchbook was the last I have queued up, but if you want to see more on a regular basis, don’t forget to subscribe to Patreon! If I can raise $20/month, you will get weekly sketchbooks!