I’m Starting a Thor Podcast With Miles of X-Plain the X-Men!

Whoa! Uh, it’s a testament to how busy I’ve been that I’m announcing my new Thor podcast with Miles Stokes, THOR: The Lightning and the Storm, after it’s actually funded. Whoops. In my defense, one of the things I’ve been very busy with includes doing all of the social media for our IndieGogo!

Regular Jeepers readers know my favorite, favorite podcast is Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men–not just because I worked with and know the two geniuses behind it, and not just because I’ve guest hosted with Miles four times in the past two years. It is an amazingly informative and entertaining podcast that is a testament to the hard work and talent of Jay Edidin and Miles Stokes.

They’ve been working so hard, in fact, that they’ve earned a break: they’re taking a breather for three months. And during that time, Miles and I are doing our own limited-series podcast–a twelve-episode love letter to Walter Simonson’s epic 1980s run on The Mighty Thor! Here’s our video:

Check out our full IndieGogo campaign!

Simonson’s epic storytelling and dynamic art redefined both Thor and Marvel’s Norse mythology–making them bigger, more operatic, more dramatic, and more awesome than ever before. Plus, he introduced Beta Ray Bill and Frog Thor. It’s rightfully considered to be one of the best comic book sagas ever, period.

As I said above, our IndieGogo has already funded–yay! However, we’ve added a stretch goal: in addition to 12 episodes covering 48 issues of Thor, if we raise $1,000, we’ll unlock a bonus episode where we’ll talk about Balder the Brave #1-4, an incredible miniseries by Walter Simonson and Sal Buscema.

This bonus episode is in addition to the “zero issue” episode (covering the two fill-in issues during Simonson’s run) that will be available to all donors who contribute $5 or more. So really, if you pitch in $5 and we make it to $1,000 in the next two months (and we’re less than $150 away), you’ll actually get two extra episodes. What a deal!

So. Whether you’re a hardcore Thor scholar or you’d like to get some background before Thor: Ragnarok comes out in November, check out (and share!) our IndieGogo campaign, bookmark our Thor podcast blog, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.

Our first official episode debuts May 7–I will certainly update you. Within a week or two. Ha.

Eat Better on the Plane & Other Musings

Hello all! I’m so happy to be blogging today–I’ve been dying to post the snack boxes I put together for our plane ride to Massachusetts last week for Spring Break (Spring Break!).

Now when I say “eat better,” I don’t necessarily mean we ate healthier–that’s not usually my primary goal in life. However, I was tired of spending too much money on food that wasn’t that great and came in too much packaging. I knew that if I could find the time, I could make us homemade in-flight snack boxes that would be tastier, cheaper, and offer more food.

I took my inspiration from one snack box that I actually love: Alaska Airline’s fruit and cheese platter: a triangle of brie, Beecher’s Flagship cheese, Tillamook cheddar, grapes, apples, Partner’s crackers, and a Seattle Chocolates truffle.

I only have two problems with this delightful platter: one, it tends to sell out (and I tend to be in the cheap seats in the back of the plane), and I need more cheese (on my headstone: Here lies Elisabeth Allie. Needs more cheese.).

I started with our longtime lunch containers from EasyLunchboxes.com, which I bought five years ago and use constantly. The large, medium, and small compartments make it easy to pack a lot of different types of snacks without them getting gross.

Next, I hit the grocery store for supplies. Here’s where I went:

• The $5 and under box at my local supermarket’s cheese counter: here, I scored brie and some lovely estate gouda.
• The salad bar: this is a great way to get just what you need with minimal packaging. I packed one of their large containers with salami, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, chickpeas, and chicken.
• The bulk section: using my own containers, I gathered nuts, veggie chips, and yogurt-covered pretzels.
• I also picked up some Babybel cheese, tangerines, and Ritz crackers (all favorites in our house), as well as some braunschweiger.

Here they are!

My box! Clockwise from top left: a tangerine, Ritz crackers, mixed nuts, brie, salami, cherry tomatoes. I asked for a plastic knife from an airport restaurant, since I doubt I could have gotten a metal one through security!

Sarah’s box: tangerine, Cadbury mini eggs (so irresistible), chickpeas, chicken, braunschweiger, baby carrots, estate gouda.

Scott’s box: My husband is, horrifyingly enough, forgoing cheese. So we have veggie chips, Ritz crackers, salami, chickpeas, tangerine, mixed nuts, and baby carrots.

Sid’s box: Yogurt-covered pretzels (my son loves them), Ritz crackers, salami, mixed nuts, cherry tomatoes, tangerine, Babybel cheeses.

I put all the boxes in our sole remaining lunchbox cooler, popped them in our larger soft-sided cooler, and brought it on as a carry-on. Easy! When everyone got hungry, I passed out the boxes, and we were able to seal up the leftovers and minimal trash back in them to take them off the plane! Plus, portions were generous enough that we had leftover snacks to eat once we reached our destination, which was great!

So we spent a week in Ipswich, Massachusetts, visiting my in-laws. My brief notes (mostly food related):

The Clam Box has the very, very best fried clams I’ve ever had. Ipswich is known for its clams, and these were fresh and delicious. Look at them! Whole-belly fried clams are hard to come by in the Pacific Northwest, so I treasured my time with these.

The correct way to order coffee (or rather “a coffee”) at Dunkin’ Donuts: size, temperature, style. For example: a “medium cold coffee, black” is an iced black coffee, no sugar. A “medium hot coffee, regular” is a hot coffee with three cream, three sugar. I’m sure there are countless variations! And yes, we went to Dunkin’ Donuts with my in-laws for breakfast every single morning, where I got a “medium hot coffee, black” and a plain glazed donut. Yum.

The Ipswich Museum is delightful! They have a large collection of paintings by Arthur Wesley Dow, and their winter exhibit features a historically correct model train set that takes up an entire room and depicts Ipswich’s railroad in the 1800s. My son had a blast operating the trains and picking up cars! Also, one of the volunteers’ wives baked some incredible chocolate-chocolate chip-sea salt cookies that they gave out to visitors. Always back to the food with me!

It was a delightful trip, but I’m very happy to be home! More blogging soon, especially about a cool project that I have in the works that I am very excited about!