8-bit Allergy Fighter

Chronic Geek isn't just a silly name for my blog, as I've written about from time to time I have a number of long-term health problems that greatly impact my life. Managing my health is a full-time job and my love of gaming, comic books, sci-fi and the like helps me as a distraction and sanity saver. I've also found a lot of welcoming and understanding in the geeky community.

Over the past two years one of my health problems that had formerly been under control went wild! My allergies amped up and began really altering my life. Without insurance I had worried that I was just going to suffer, but thankfully I found a clinic that charges according to income. Huzzah! Then I found out that my seasonal allergies had branched out into Oral Allergy Syndrome. This can strike any adult with allergies, at any time, and causes us to become allergic to foods that are related to our pollen problems. Great, I thought, I already have Celiac Disease and had thought I was getting off lightly with all the gluten-free foods available now, as compared to sixteen years ago when I found out... Well, jokes on me as I found I was allergic to potatoes, corn, apples, and even avocados, among other things.

As my allergies have grown worse I have made changes to try to combat them. I moved to a new apartment surrounded by cement and that helped a bit. I bought a special vacuum, tried various new prescriptions, and kept the AC running all the time (poor environment, I'm sorry!).

Finally, I was able to afford some other things to try to help my allergies. Today, I received a Vogmask in the mail. Wow!

This 8-bit beauty is amazing. As you can see it's almost too big for my face, but luckily it just fits. Not only is the pattern great, but I also love that it's black since I'm fairly gothy in my style. The top of the nose seam has a soft wire inside of it that you can pinch together to fit it to your face. This is brilliant and completely comfortable. One of the reasons why I bought this mask was that every review stated that it didn't fog up glasses. I don't use contacts, so it was important to me to find something that wouldn't impede my vision. Well, I can report that it DID NOT fog up my glasses. What a relief! I was worried about spending the money and getting something that didn't work, but I'm very pleased with this thing.

Like a total dork I went outside to model it and test it out. I can tell you that as soon as I put it on I felt a complete difference in air quality. It was amazing. I never want to take it off. However, these are not washable and it will need to be replaced at some point when it becomes clogged with pollen. Given that I live near a huge freakin' forest that will probably be within months. We'll see. They do make a washable, organic cotton variety that I may try next, but it's not very Goth looking.. ;P

Even outside in the almost 90 degree Fahrenheit weather it was still comfortable and so much easier to breathe!

I plan to take this out hiking sometime this weekend and see how it does surrounded by plants, most of which I'm allergic to. (I'm not kidding).

So, that's the Vogmask. You can check it out on Amazon here.

Etsy Awesomeness

I have been meaning for months to post the awesome work of an Etsy artist and her shop, Jhoeymonster which includes a variety of crafts including tiny, perfect cross stitch pieces featuring some 8-bit stars.

I bought a Tiny Boo Cross Stitch from her this past summer and I have it up on my fridge, but I am planning on putting it along with some patches on the perfect geek bag, once I find such a bag.

So cute!

Recently I also bought and received two pieces from Neisse on Etsy. Each is the anime version of an awesome character, in this case Codex from "The Guild" and Leela from "Futurama". It was hard to part with the Leela, but I gave her to one of my friends who loves Futurama (remember the Bender that I helped build, it was with her!).

Codex and Leela are so adorable as anime characters!

I set up Bender to surprise my friend when she came over.

Here's Leela's new home. Look at all the purple. Perfect!

8-bit with Perler Beads

Anyone who frequents video game blogs has probably seen the 8-bit bead sprites made with a variety of medium including perler beads.

I will confess I have never used perler beads before, but I really wanted to try it out.

The first two creations are below. The heart turned out a bit better because it was the second run and I got a better hang of how much pressure to use when ironing the beads together. Irons and I are not friends...















Cut Man may seem like an odd choice for a first time spriter, but we were limited by the shape of the then available perler boards and the bead colours. I have now been able to track down a larger square perler board and more beads, so I am planning on making some larger sprites.

Let me warn you...having cats around makes this a much more difficult task. ;P