It’s weird to be back to the regular old grind of school and pretending to be looking for an after-school job. I wish someone would pay me for that. Or better. I wish Jerry would pay me to look after his stupid truck, which I have to do all the time for free.

However, it is cool to know all about making biofuel and running a biodiesel vehicle. The conversion isn’t actually hard, because you can put biodiesel through a regular diesel engine. In fact, the guy who invented the engine, Rudolf Diesel, ran his original prototype off peanut oil.

Rumor has it that Diesel, the man, was killed by Big Oil to keep his engine from catching on, and after his death, the oil companies made a petroleum derivative, called it diesel fuel, and hushed the whole thing about biofuels up.

If you are switching the engine out of an old vehicle, the important thing is to convert your fuel lines and filters, too, because biofuel will react differently with them, as I recently discovered.

In terms of the fuel itself, there’s all this controversy right now, because people are saying that we’re in the middle of a food crisis, and turning crops and land that are needed to feed people into fuel for vehicles is not the solution.

But, uh, hello, who ever told you to use food crops to make biofuel? The way most people, like Jerry, have been doing it since the sixties, is by recycling used vegetable oil, of which there is tons and tons going to waste in landfills every year.

What Jerry did was go around Ring City and strike deals with restaurants that normally throw out a buttload of used cooking oil. Some of them let him pick it up for free, some of them charge like their deep fryers are crapping gold.

Either way, the whole point is to take something that would normally be waste and turn it into something useful again.

The idea is not to turn corn crops into fuel. That is totally insane. Oh, the media. You so crazy.

Anyway, once you’ve got your fuel, you just need a processor set up in your backyard so that you can clean and thin your dirty old vegetable oil and make it into fuel. This process is called transesterification. One of the best resources online for learning how to do this here.

Just be careful. You’re going to be working with flammable materials and fumes, so explosions are possible.

On a brighter note, you’ll be sending about 60% less CO2 into the air with your fuel, and you won’t be supporting Big Oil – one of the most destructive forces on the planet.

I went to bed last night depressed and thinking it was all for nothing. The story of the mess in the river came to nothing. I was going to have to start all over again. Then I woke up to Jerry screaming at me to come see the early news.

Turns out someone – a nameless informant – came forward and linked the dumped recycling directly to JoyTech!

Woot! Who’s your daddy?

It’s me, JoyWreck. I’m your daddy.

As if it wasn’t so obvious, but with this guy or whoever coming out and saying that he drove one of the dumping trucks, no one can deny it any more!

At least the media can’t. JoyTech certainly can. They released an official statement today saying they had no idea what was going on at the recycling plant.

They claim to have hired outside contractors who were trying to cut corners, and that this ‘tragedy’ was “completely outside the scope of their awareness until today.”

Yeah right. That’s the same thing they said about the whole water treatment scandal in 2006, AND about the huge waste management lawsuit against them in 2002.

Hey Global Improvement Company, maybe it’s time to stop hiring those “outside contractors.”

Anyway, obviously things aren’t so friendly between JoyTech and the Conurban Council now, because the Council made a special announcement on the news tonight that they’re putting together their own group of independent overseers to “monitor standards compliance” at the recycling center for the foreseeable future.

I have to admit that I was hoping for something a bit more spectacular, something along the lines of the entire company crumbling to dust and blowing away on a puff of breeze. But I’ll settle for SO BUSTED.

Not in my city, JoyTech. I’m watching you.

Because this post is all about me whining, I thought I’d include this tooned baby pic of yours truly. Hope it makes you laugh.

Still haven’t talked to Aurora, and I’m in a super pissed mood because since Saturday there’s been nothing – NOTHING – on the news or anywhere about the recycling in the Blood River.

And remember how yesterday I was saying that Aurora’s mom was being all nice and sorry for me?

Well, I know I’ve hit rock bottom on the pathetic scale because now Jerry’s being like that, too. But I can’t say I really mind because he’s usually such a jerk.

He invited me out before school to watch him and his buddies practice parkour, which he hasn’t done since I quit it.

I used to be really into it when I was a little kid, and I’d always go and practice with them, but when they started to get on me about all this philosophy and crap that goes with it, I got bored and bailed.

I’ve never said much about Jerry here, so I should probably explain about this crazy guy that raised me.

He adopted me when he was really young. He was married to a woman a bit older than him, but she sketched out before I was even one year old.

Jerry says that when he was my age, he was a ‘radical,’ and I get the impression that him and his friends used to be some kind of group that protested nuclear power and that kind of thing. But for years now they’ve been ‘underground’ or ‘outside of the system’ for some reason.

It’s hard to talk to Jerry about stuff because he’s so suspicious and paranoid. And whenever I ask him about himself, he always says “you’re a normal kid,” really loudly, which I don’t know what that means or what it has to do with anything.

He’s been better lately. I thought he’d hate the idea of me being a superhero, but he’s been really cool about it, and even helping with stuff.

I think I might get back into parkour. I think it would be good for the kind of work I’m doing.

And what better way to finish than with a really AWESOME toon of me moping right now!

The past few days have been totally crazy. My garbage trail didn’t work out exactly how I expected it to, because JoyTech started cleaning it up as soon as I laid it down, but I did manage to make a big enough mess to get noticed, which was the whole point.

Some early morning joggers found where the trail started at the Ridge, and they picked their way down to the bend in the river where the biggest part of the mess gathered. I guess it was bad enough for them to make a scene to the Conurban Council, because by Friday morning, they had boats out dragging the bottom of the Blood.

Me and Jerry went down to check it out, and we found out that about five miles downriver, the real trouble started.

There was a beaver dam built partially across the river at that point, and a ton of plastic and other junk got caught up in it. I don’t think any beavers got hurt or anything, but it was a pretty ugly scene, and by then there were crowds all over the river and all these people looking horrified.

In Saturday’s Daily Ringer, the front page story confirmed that the “deluge of waste discover in the Blood River does appear to be comprised primarily of recyclable materials.” But of course, no one at the Ringer is pointing the finger. Yet.

Yesterday was pretty quiet. I was dying to talk to Aurora about the whole thing, but I guess she went away for the weekend with New Guy’s family or something???

That’s what her mom said when I tried to call her house, and she said it in that apologetic mom voice, like so you know they feel sorry for you? Yeah.

Anyway, at least I’ve got some time to play with Toon-FX, which I haven’t in a while. Check out this cool effect:

All pics toonified with Toon-Photo.

If you live in a big city, you know it’s pretty much impossible to get anyone to pay attention to anything. I could run up and down my street naked, screaming my head off, and people would just close their blinds and turn their TVs up a bit louder.

As of last night, that was basically how everyone was reacting to the rumors that were buzzing around about JoyTech dumping recycling in the Blood River. Unlike a real superhero, I can’t fly or throw a bus or do anything that will really get people’s attention, but I figure one thing I can do is make a crazy mess.

Once I have the truck fueled and some fuel lines changed to Jerry’s satisfaction, I’m back on track.

Here’s how it goes down.

I bring the net we were using with the donkey engine back out of retirement, and head out at about 1am. I go down to the bend in the Blood where I’ve been working, and start filling the net, this time manually instead of dragging the bank.

When I’m done, the net is so full it’s spilling over the sides of the bed and dragging behind the back of the truck, which is perfect.

The plan is to create a giant, nasty trail of mud-caked recycling, stretching from the recycling plant to JoyTech’s Blood River dumpsite.

I start the trail at the Ridge, by cutting a small hole in the bottom of the net and starting to drive. Luckily, there’s no one on River Road, and I’m only going to have to go through one big intersection between the Ridge and JoyTech.

I get about 1/3 of the way down the route I have planned before the net is empty. It looks like all the recycling has literally crawled out of the Blood River, and is on its way back to the center.

And now I’m back to the river bank, back to filling the net. It rained the night before, so by now I’m covered in red mud, but at least my heart isn’t pounding, like it is when I’m driving.

Unfortunately, by the time I get the net filled again, it’s almost 5am, and I can see the light of dawn beginning to creep up over the horizon, lighting up the smoke coming from the JoyTech plant across the river.

That means this is gonna have to be the last load. It’s going to have to stretch the rest of the distance.

I smear mud over Jerry’s license plate and start driving, pretty fast this time, because the garbage has to stretch.

As I get closer to JoyTech, I’m freaking out. I can tell that I’m freaking out because I keep seeing the guys in riot gear out of the corners of my vision, but there’s no one there, the streets are deserted.

I’m not seeing things when I turn onto the street with the recycling center and there’s a high chain-link fence that’s gone up around the facility, and thugs in riot gear walking around the perimeter.

Suddenly, it’s super hot behind my mask, and for some reason, all I can think about is ripping it off so I can breathe.

I try to force my brain to work properly, and now I’m gunning the stupid slow motor, and in the time it takes me to argue with myself about the whole surreal scene, I’m up in front of the gate, pulling a u-turn that sends the recycling left in the net, and all the mud stuck to the net, spraying out across the boulevard in front of the centre.

And then I’m burning rubber getting out of there but, oh shit, a couple of the thugs have actually GRABBED ON TO THE DRAGGING NET!!! It is over for me.

Except that luckily, my life is not actually an action movie, and I’m only driving for a couple of seconds before the net pulls of the bed of the truck and I leave the whole mess in my dust.

No one is chasing me, but I drive downtown and then back towards my neighborhood in circles anyway. And again I ditch the truck at buddy’s wrecking yard.

I walk the rest of the way home and fall into bed. I’ve never been so tired in my whole life but suddenly Jerry’s hollering at me to pick up the phone, and then I’m hearing Aurora’s voice screaming that I gotta come see this, the most incredible thing, she’s talking about the vigilante recycler, and I fall asleep with her voice in my ear.

All pics toonified with Toon-Photo.

I can’t dump the recycling back at the JoyTech center anymore, but I have to prove that the report Aurora wrote for the Righter was true.

She showed up at my place crying last night, because she got in major trouble with Mr. Rodriguez, our principle, for launching the Righter with such a controversial story.

That, and she got in a fight with New Guy about it. He said the story about JoyTech dumping recycling into Blood River was a big lie. And one thing you should never, ever do is call Aurora a liar.

I told her I was sorry that she got in trouble for trying to help me, because she NEVER gets in trouble for anything, but that just made her madder, and she got all ‘it’s not about you, not everything is about you,’ and she was shouting and she kicked a hole in my bedroom wall, and then she looked surprised and next thing she’s hugging me and crying and saying she’s the one who’s sorry.

Girls are the most confusing thing on the planet.

So she’s squeezing me and crying all over me, and I wanted to tell her that I was the vigilante recycler at that moment so bad the words almost came bursting out of my mouth, but I thought about every time a girl discovered Batman or Spiderman’s secret identity, and I forced myself to shut up.

I couldn’t help Aurora by spilling my guts, so I gave her some of Jerry’s anti-stress cookies and put her in front of the TV. We watched an Indiana Jones marathon until she crashed out, using my shoulder for a pillow. It reminded me of times when things were better between us. In your face, stupid New Guy.

After Walter Donovan drinks out of the wrong chalice and crumbles into dust in The Last Crusade, I eased myself off the coach, covered Aurora with a blanket, because I’m a real gentleman like that, and went to see if I could sneak off with Jerry’s truck one last time.

No such luck. That sneaky old bastard was waiting for me, and he says the truck’s not going anywhere without a full tank. Which, if you’ve ever worked with biodiesel, you know is a pain in the ass load of work.

I’ve got a plan for breaking this recycling thing wide, but I didn’t get to do it last night.

Sorry about the lack of updates over the last few days. I decided to get out of town for the weekend, do some camping, and hide my freaked-out head.

Not very superhero-like, I know, but I figured it was a good idea to disappear until the heat died down a little.

I took my car because it’s probably the last time I’ll drive it before I sell its gas-guzzling ass.

I thought when I got my license and the car a couple of years ago that my life was complete. Then, I could never have guessed where I’d be right now.

Camping was alright. I hiked to the base of Mount Tar, where Jerry used to take me when I was little.

I spent all Saturday getting up the mountainside, only to find a condo development going up to the west, and to the north, a really spectacular view of some heavily deforested land!

Not the landscape I remembered.

I did see about eight eagles circling the mountain around me, which was amazing. I never knew they flew in groups. Apparently, it’s called a convocation of eagles when they all fly together like that.

If you’re life ever seems crazy or overwhelming, I highly recommend climbing a mountain.

Seeing the eagles made me feel really optimistic, because eagles used to be endangered. In the 1950s, there were less than 1000 left in all of the US. But we stopped hunting and poisoning them with DDT, and now there are over 100, 000 across the country, and they’re off the endangered species list.

I figured that kind of means that even when things are really bad, it is possible to fix the problem, and make the future better, instead of worse.

And believe it or not, things kept getting better from there. I thought I might come home to a mess, but when I got back yesterday, Jerry was all cool, and he said Aurora had dropped something off for me.

It turned out to be a copy of the school paper, except we don’t have a school paper, or we didn’t, until yesterday.

Aurora started it, I guess, because her name is on the front page under editor-in-chief, and all the photos are toonified, and who else would do that?

It’s called the Ring High Righter. And the very first front-page headline:

VIGILANTE RECYCLER EXPOSES JOYTECH BLOOD RIVER DUMP!

I guess on Friday, when I was mysteriously absent, some JoyTech thugs showed up at school asking a bunch of questions about the ‘vigilante recycler.’

Aurora asked them if it was true that the recycling was actually being dumped in the river, and they dragged her off and questioned her the whole day!

I haven’t talked to her yet, but the scene must have been bad enough to get her to start a school paper, and report the whole thing on the front page!

I don’t know if anyone will take the report seriously yet, but I’ve had a stupid grin on my face ever since I saw it. Did I ever mention that Aurora is the most perfect, wonderful person on the planet?

Yeah. She is. She’s perfect, and anything can be fixed.

FYI: All the images in this post were toonified using Toon-Photo…

Home safe. Just barely. I had to ditch Jerry’s truck and hide out around the school for five hours before the coast was clear to move. And I’m not crazy, because from the roof of the gym, I could see them in their fake riot gear cop suits combing the neighborhood.

Bad, bad, bad. Because that means they know what area I live in. I don’t even want to imagine what Jerry would do if he caught on to some JoyTech thugs sneaking around the house.

Last night was another sleepless night. Not as successful as previous nights.

I started out at the recycling plant to make sure there wasn’t any unusual activity, like extra security or anything. Then I followed the trucks to the river, and while they were busy, I started bagging garbage.

There’s so much down there, it’s unbelievable. And the water near the banks has started to take on this weird, oily look, like all these toxins are leaching into the water, or something.

Anyway, I got a lot done, because I couldn’t start returning the junk until the truckers were home safe in their beds.

By the time the trucks stopped coming, it was after 1 am. When I took my first load to the plant, it was completely dead, dark, nobody around, I swear, and no cameras, at least not visible ones.

Second load, same thing. I was racing, though. I didn’t have long til dawn, but I’d bagged a lot of recycling while the JoyTech trucks were dumping.

On the third load, I roll up like usual with my headlights off, just in case, and I jump out of the cab, and the next thing I know these guys in riot gear and facemasks are coming OUT of the pile of garbage I made.

At first I thought it must be the cops, but these guys were all silent, they didn’t shout anything at me, and they didn’t have flashlights or anything. Then, instead of running at me, this one guy puts his finger to the mouth of the mask - shhhhh.

I knew then that they were definitely not cops.

So I jumped back in the truck – thanking God I kept the motor running – and I drove straight at them. I don’t know what I would have done if they didn’t get out of the way, but they did, and it didn’t seem like they were going to chase me, so I stupidly drove like crazy back to my neighborhood, and ditched Jerry’s truck out at his buddy’s wrecking yard.

I figure I’ll head home on foot, but about a block away from the yard – and it’s dead silent predawn – I hear this static. Crackling. And all of a sudden, right in my ear, a voice, whispering.

That’s when I ran like hell. Off the street, through backyards mostly. I wasn’t even thinking, so it was a fluke I ended up at school, and I thought I lost them, but I took the fire escape up to the gym roof anyway, and two minutes later I see six of these JoyTech guys run by, stop, and mill around just past the fire escape like so.

How the hell did they find me? How the hell were they following me that far back?

This is me, sighing heavily, inside having a heart attack.

The rest you already know.

Another night hauling trash out of Blood River.

Didn’t sleep. I was a zombie all day at school, but through the haze, I could hear people talking. They had heard about the garbage piles in front of the recycling center, but everyone thought it was just random.

Random. Two nights in a row.

Of course.

The Daily Ringer called it “a test of JoyTech’s ability to handle high-volume drops.”

They did call the anonymous source of the garbage a “vigilante recycler,” which makes me feel a bit better. Weird thing is, I’m not actually depressed that no one sees what’s going on yet. I kind of figured this would take more than a couple nights of work.

Plus I’m totally sleep-deprived. During free period, I actually pulled my mask out of my backpack and put it on. What could I have been thinking when I did that. I was standing by myself by the bleachers, and Aurora was a little ways away, talking with New Guy and a bunch of people.

Only Aurora saw me, but she took a pic, tooned it, and emailed it to me. Which is saying what?

Anyway, point is, I slept a bit since then, not feeling so crazy. Back to the trenches tonight. It’s Wednesday, which means JoyTech will probably be dumping at the Ridge, at the same time that I’m cleaning up their mess a mile downriver.

Ha.

What did you do this weekend, Nemo?

Oh, not much. Just exposed the corrupt and fraudulent recycling schemes of an evil corporation.

Really? How on EARTH did you accomplish that?

Simple. I returned their garbage to them.

I started on Friday with a vague plan: I was gonna get all the garbage out of the Blood River. Then I was gonna take it back to the JoyTech recycling plant, and leave it in a big pile on their front lawn.

Friday. The plan was to use a tractor borrowed from a friend of Jerry’s to drag the riverbank at the bend where all the trash was accumulating.

Getting the tractor down to the river, though, proved to be a total effin’ disaster.

Now I have to get a part-time job to pay for tractor repair. Like I don’t have my hands full already.

Saturday. Me and Jerry spent all day rigging up this winch system that’s kind of like a mini donkey engine, but runs on biofuel. The idea was to cast a net into the river, and drag out loads of garbage that the donkey would pull up the bank.

But when we went down to scout the best path for the net, we found all these dead fish on the bank that had gotten caught in plastic bags and other junk. And then we realized that we’d be dragging fish out of the river along with the recycling.

I called the operation off, and Jerry got all pissed. He took the donkey and left me to walk home. I tried to ride a sweet bike I found amongst the junk, but it was a bit small. Here’s a tooned-up glamour shot.

Sunday. Faced with the reality that I’m not one of those superheroes with cool technology that solves all my problems. I buy industrial garbage bags. I steal the truck that Jerry’s also been converting over to biofuel. As soon as it gets dark, I head down to the river and I start filling bags.

The bags go in the truck. The truck goes to the recycling plant. The bags get emptied on the front lawn. Long. Slow. Excruciating. But ten hours later, I’ve got a decent pile of garbage. Over my head, like. And as the sun starts to come up this morning, I see that all the tin and plastic and cardboard and other unspeakable junk is streaked, stained with the red mud of the Blood River.

Incriminating much?

(I woulda got this up yesterday but I got Jerry to call me in sick and I slept all day.)