Why "The Tick"?

And so it begins....

We got a newer, much faster computer and now with that new speed and fewer internet headaches my wife Daleen has rediscovered the internet. Well, she discovered all the fun stuff on it such as Facebook, blogging, etc. To be honest, I don't like computers. I work at a computer chip factory and spend all day working on my computer and when I get home, I use all that mighty new computing power to play solitaire.

Anyhow..... She has discovered that a lot of our friends have blogs. I have been reading the Powhatan Community Church blog and really like it, and now I have started reading a lot of other blogs and I think I too am hooked. Not so much with sharing what we have going on, but it looks like a great way to decompress a little which is what I really need. So, here we are with a new blog I have affectionately titled "The Tick". Life in our home is generally fairly ordinary, with some very un-ordinary moments thrown in. I'm hoping to capture both here.

So why "The Tick"? I would like to say it is because I thought about Daleen's nightstand clock which I can hear at night and know every tick is a moment in time I am not going to get back and somehow I need to live life to the fullest. But what came to me when thinking of a name is the comic book character, "The Tick". For those who don' t know, The Tick is a deeply flawed superhero. He really wants to do good, but he always screws up the delivery and somehow saves the day, usually by accident. I think I can often identify with this. To further illustrate this is a description from the Tick's article on Wikipedia (Beth B. will like his "Drama Power"): "The Tick is a surreal parody of superheroes. He is high-spirited, frequently obtuse, and prone to quipping odd, dim remarks and "inspirational" speeches filled with bizarre metaphors. His superpowers are nigh-invulnerability, which allows him to crash and bang about without injury (though not necessarily without pain); super strength; and something referred to as "drama power," or basically a tendency for the Tick's powers to increase as the situation becomes more dramatic. He is known for his nonsensical battle cry, "Spoooooon!," which he decided upon one day while eating breakfast (specifically, the cereal Drama Flakes). In the comic book, the Tick got a job at the Weekly World Planet newspaper. He works in the same office as Clark Oppenheimer who is also a superhero called the Caped Wonder. He has all the typical Superman powers including: X-ray vision, super strength, invulnerability, flight, heat-vision, and super hearing. Clark Oppenheimer looks down on the Tick as a lower form of super-hero with limited powers."

The Tick even hangs out with flawed people who are smarter than him and help him with his issues, which I also like. The Wikipedia article goes on by explaining, "Like many superheroes, The Tick has a sidekick: a rather plump former accountant named Arthur, who wears a white moth suit that allows him to fly, although he is often mistaken for a bunny due to the long ear-like antennae of his costume and the fact that his wings are often folded up. The Tick is impulsive, and Arthur serves as a sort of conscience; he also figures out the schemes of villains and formulates plans to stop them. Arthur's "battle cry" (so to speak) is "Not in the face! Not in the face!". In all of his incarnations, The Tick is surrounded by a cast of equally absurd heroes and villains, many of them parodies of popular comic book characters and character types. Few of the "superheroes" in the Tick mythos have powers that would measure up to those of DC or Marvel characters, but their foes are often equally silly and/or weak. "

Thanks for reading that lengthy explanation. I hope to have a lot of fun with this and can produce something you will want to read and keep up with.