Can't Stop the Serenity Event

Today/Tonight I went to the 6th Annual Can't Stop the Serenity charity screening event. I attended the very first CSTS many years ago in Pasadena and have always wanted to attend another. Well I couldn't pass up this opportunity. If you don't know what CSTS is you can read more about it HERE But in short it's fans of Firefly/Serenity or Browncoats as we like to be called, raising money for Joss Whedon's favorite charity, Equality Now.

Tonight's screening was going to be extra special because Joss himself was going to be in attendance and doing a Q&A. They were also going to screening Doctor Horrible Sing Along Blog and brought Felicia Day to do a Q&A along with Joss.

View from my seat

The event started at 5pm down in Hollywood at the Harmony Gold Theater... I tried to get "reserve" seating but it sold out in a matter of hours. So I got general seating which meant I had to get there a bit earlier to get a decent seat. My friend Chris was there before me and when I got there around 4pm we got in line. We were pretty close to the front so I figured we'd get a decent seat. We were saving one seat for our friend Kim and my buddy Aaron showed up about a half hour later and joined us in line. Once we were let in we made out way into the theater and noticed that 2/3'd of the center seats had reserve numbers on them. So Chris, Aaron and I opted for the first center row that we could get. We were right in the middle of the theater towards the back. The theater was small so we had a nice view of the stage and the best view of screen. We had other friends Kim, Anne, Rachelle, Adam, Lisa and Katie who got reserve seats which were great for the stage as they were only a few feet away but to watch the movie they were the worse seats possible. So I was very happy with our seats.

While I was visiting my friends up at the very front the host Atom! was doing some mic tests and actually called me up to stage to sit in the seats and have a conversation with him in front of everyone. Luckily he also grabbed my friend Adam and shortly after my other buddy Michael. So I wasn't alone talking to this guy in front of everyone.

Photo courtesy of Adam

Around 6pm the program got started.. the first event was a gentleman named Shawn Tutt who preformed 3 "geeky" song, they were pretty good. They then went on do a few auctions and I was so tempted to through my hand up but I resisted. After that they showed us a short video about Equality Now which ended with Joss on screen. Then moment later the "real" Joss came out and spoke to the crowds for a few minutes about Equality Now. Then the founder of Equality Now came out and spoke for a few minutes before my friend Michael, who wrote and directed a fantastic Firefly fan film for charity called Browncoats : Redemption presented the head of Equality Now a check for $12,000. Then Can't Stop the Serenity creator presented the head of Equality Now a Golden Apple aka Griswalds (if you're a firefly fan you'll get the reference).

Photo courtesy of Katie

Once that was over we did one more auction and this is were I had to really restrain myself.. but I did. After that auction it was time for the panel so they brought out Joss Whedon, then Michale Fairman (Niska from Firefly) and Felicia Day. But it didn't stop.. there were more unannounced guests Jane Espenson (writers, Firefly, Buffy, and so much more), Tim Minear (writer/director/producer) and finally Nathan Fillion (Mal from Firefly). The crowds went crazy as all the guests sat down. They did about a 30 minute Q&A with the guests and by the time they were done it was 8pm and Serenity was about to start. The panel was so SHINY!!!!

My buddy Chris is new to Firefly so this was his first time seeing the movie.. also my friend Kim had never seen Serenity on a big screen so it was fun watching it with these guys. It was like experiencing it for the first time. After the movie ended, they did the raffle, which I purchased four tickets ($20). The last CSTS I was at I actually won a CSTS T-shirt signed by Joss Whedon... but atlas I did not win anything this time around.

Next up was Doctor Horrible Sing-A-Long Blog. Now this is something that I've only seen on the small screen. This was my first viewing on a big screen and it was AWESOME.. also this was the first time seeing it with a large audience of devoted fans so we all sang along with the songs and it was a blast.

The event ended around 11pm and my group of friends decided to grab some food at Mel's Diner. Being in Hollywood on a Saturday evening right in the middle of everything is not fun. Took about 20 minutes to go a few blocks to the diner but once we were there we found a table and slowly but surely 2/3'd of the diner were CSTS people... it was a great way to end a FANTASTIC evening.

Left Mel's around 1am, got home around 2am and went to bed at 3am... good times.

 

EDIT!!! Just found out that the gentleman who won the Firefrog (Firefly/Muppet Mash up) Poster ($450) actually donated it back so they could get more cast signatures and re-auction it off for even more money...  I said it before and I'll say it again.. Browncoats are amazing!!!

General Update on my Geeky Life

My Buddy Ken Todd Drew this for me.

Since my Dad has been ill I tend to get a lot more "how are you doing" questions. I normally say I'm fine but that's about it. So I've decided to give a little bit more of a in depth "how I am going" at this moment in time.

First of all just got off the phone with my Dad who had just had his second chemo on Wednesday and not going into great detail but he is feeling great. Tumors seem to shrinking, doctors are happy with his progress and he's in great spirits... so yay!!!

Work is horrible at the moment, lots of stress that could have been avoided if the EP's could just keep to my post schedule. Been some tense moments the past few weeks. Being a post production supervisor you expect stress especially towards the end of the shows run. But as I get older I've come to realize that I'm liking it less and less. Ive been in the entertainment industry for over 16 years and I've loved it about 90% of the time and hated it the other 10%. The past few years it's more like love 10% and hate 90%.  I have been really considering getting out of the industry but it's not so easy to give up my position. It would be tough to find a "starter" job and make the amount of money I make now. But with that said I don't need to make the same amount. As long as I make enough to cover my monthly expenses, which is still a hefty amount but I'd be happy with that.. but what job can I do. I've considered becoming a teacher for K - 2nd grades as I love kids, but as I get older that become less and less appealing. I also wouldn't mind opening some sort of "geeky" store, but that's always risky and you need a good amount of money to start off with.

Honestly my ideal job right now would be to podcast full time. I love to create, produce, edit and host podcasts and I think I'm really good at it. Only issue with doing that full time, is podcasting doesn't pay. Yes you can get advertisers for your podcasts and donations but that's not enough to keep me afloat every month, unless you can get some very large advertisers.

So when my current job ends in mid September I'll sit down and re-evaluate my situation and see if I can find an escape plan that will work for me and get me out of the entertainment industry or at least stop being a post production supervisor.

And speaking of podcasts, I currently have 2 in production, 2 in "start up " mode and another 3 or 4 waiting in the wings to get started. I love podcasing and have so many great ideas for new shows but not the time to devote to doing them. My Knights of the Guild podcast is going strong just passing 216,000 downloads after 2 years 5 months. My new MASH 4077 Podcast has been out since February and just passed 10,000 downloads. The two podcasts I have in the works, Epic Geek Out has been a tough start, came up with the idea last year and have had several false starts. It's still going to happen but might be a few months before it sees the light of day. My new idea which I had last week is called Confessions of a Fanboy and it's on the fast track. I'm hoping to get the first episode out mid July. I'm very excited for this one.  I have several calls out to some well known folks seeing if I can do "official" podcasts for them as well.. so lots going on in my podcast world.

As for my personal life, nothing really going on there. Harry is leaving for Austria on August 13th. Once he is gone I'll take a look around and see the situation.. I hate being alone but I have no plans to jump back into a relationship. In all my 40 years of living on this Earth I have lived alone for a total of 10 months. 0 - 18 with family, 18 - 33 with roommates and for a glorious 10 months between 33 - 34 I lived alone and then I met Harry and we've been living together since. So I am looking forward to living alone for a while. I'm not opposed to dating but I have no plans to start living with someone for the foreseeable future. No idea what the future holds but I'm looking forward to finding out.

I do plan on working out again. I did pretty good at the end of last year, I worked out for about 3 months and lost about 17 lbs, but then got sick in January which lasted for 3 months and when I started to feel better in April I had lost all motivation to work out again. But I know I need to get back on that horse so I plan to start working out again on Monday. I also started playing on a Quidditch team. If you know me you know I'm a HUGE Harry Potter fan so when I heard an LA team was being formed I couldn't help but join. It's a great workout but it does show me that I have a long way to go before I'm back in shape. So between working out again and Qudditch I hope to be a healthier me by the end of the year.  I'm hoping to lose 40 lbs, but for starters I'd be happy to get below 200 which mean I need to lose 13 lbs.

Well I think I rambled on for long enough.. if you read it all.. congratulations and Thanks for caring about me.  I have my good and bad days but for the most part I'm a happy person trying to live my geeky life as best as I can. Thank you all for being part of it.

Transcript from Pottermore Press Conference

Here's the transcript from the press conference this morning.

JKR during press conference:

"Pottermore has been a really great way to give back to the Harry Potter readership, who made the books such a big success.  I am still receiving countless, a huge amount of mail - I thought it would really drop off by now. Stories, drawings, suggestions I write prequels, sequels, every week.

"This site is just a fantastic way for all that fan creativity to continue. It’s been an amazing experience for me to be able to be creative in this medium that didn’t exist back in 1990 when I had the idea for the books. And it will be a wonderful way to introduce the digital generation to the books.

"It’s just been a phenomenally exciting project. We’ve been working on it for a couple of years and I think it’s miraculous that so few clever fans twigged to what we were up to. A few did and they were really nice about not giving us away early. It’s just been a very exciting project to work on with a great team."

On Sorting:

"The Sorting was some of the best fun I’ve had on this project. I was writing the potter books for sixteen years and during that time I had just had this real sense of where people belonged, in what house they belonged. It was something I was unconsciously doing a lot of the time when I met people.

"So, developing these vast pool of questions that are randomly selected for a user - so you wont get the same questions as your friend necessarily - I thought it was quite important that people didn’t get to second guess what meant Gryffindor, for example. But the exciting thing for me is that if you’re not sorted into Gryffindor, if you’re sorted into one of the other three houses you will effectively get an extra quarter chapter because you will go off to your on common room. If you are sorted into Gryffindor you just follow Harry. But if you’re sorted into Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin, you go to your own common room, you meet your own prefect, who will tell you about famous people who were in your house and what the true nature of your house is.

"In the main narrative you only ever see the other houses through the eyes of the three, my three heroes. What I’m basically saying is that it’s not a terrible thing to be in Slytherin. And in fact I have always seen Gryffindor and Slytherin as the two closest houses. I think that Harry himself could have gone either way very easily. I don’t think it’s very guessable. Yo must be answering honestly. You just get one shot at this, it’s like a Mensa test, there’s no going back, you’ve got to do it properly the first time.

"We’ve tested this out. I tested it on my family and everyone was where I thought they would be, and when the team did it, you [to Tarek Nseri of TH_NK] said most people were in Ravenclaw. The only two people who were in Slytherin were dressed all in black. So it works."

Q: How did the idea come about, and how much new material is there?

"I would say that I have had more than half of the new material already written - and I’ve also generated some new content, particularly the introduction to the houses. That was a fun opportunity to go back, rethink how it might have been if Harry followed a different course. So I’ve generated quite a lot.

"[The idea] came out of a discussion between us, between Neil [Blair] and myself. We knew there was a big demand for the eBooks but I wanted - if it was going to be done I wanted it to be more than that. Obviously we’d had a lot of requests for all sorts of games and online interactive games and so forth. I wanted to pull it back to reading. I wanted to pull it back to the literary experience, the story experience, and this is what emerged from those discussions. So we started working on this seriously a couple of years ago."

Q: Will there ever be a printed encyclopedia?

"Will there ever be a book, I don’t know at the moment. The world has kind of outstripped me in the sense that back in 1998 I generated a lot more material than would ever be put in the books. It was simply ridiculous that anyone - to me at the time, I thought, who would ever want to know the significance of these types of wand woods? This was all in my head. So the only way I could imagine I could get that material out there was in the form of a printed book.

"Now, you can go and look and see what the significance of the wand wood once what you’ve got your wand. You have to read it all, but it’s such a rich experience to do it this way. 

"Will there ever be an encyclopedia? Possibly. I would say two things about the encyclopedia: firstly, I’ve always said and I stand by it, whenever I do do a printed encyclopedia I would like all the proceeds to go to charity. Back in 1998 I never dreamt I personally I would be in the position that I could set up a large charitable foundation and personally do things for charity, and I’ve done other charity books already.

"The other thing is, this is free. You don’t have to buy anything to access what you’ve seen today. You don’t have to pay to get the extra material, you don’t have to buy a single thing to go onto Pottermore

Q: You have been quoted about how difficult it was to say goodbye to Harry Potter. This is a way of causing you to be able to keep your boyfriend a little longer?

"It’s exactly like an ex-boyfriend. It is true to say that finishing writing Harry, I’ve only ever cried in that way and as much ever in my life when my mother died. I’ve never cried for a man as I cried for Harry Potter, ever. So, we’re not casually dating, as you can see, and have been for two years now and I’ve been keeping that quiet. 

"It is surprising how easily I slip in and out of that world. I’ll be completely honest when I came to write out notes or when I generated new material which I have done in places, I just thought this is extraordinary how easily I slip in and out of it, that’s been wonderful. But I do have closure with Harry, and I think it’s important to say that I have no plans to write another novel. This has been an amazing way of staying in touch with that part of my life, but I am pretty sure I am done on the novel front. But it was fun while it lasted."

Q [regarding Jo’s mail and whether this will reignite her post bag]

"I love the mail. Not all of the mail. I like 99% of the mail.

"The books, it’s impossible to overstate what Harry Potter was to me. It completely changed my life. Creatively, I’ve loved it. It will never happen again to me anyway. It will happen again to someone else, there’ll be another series of books that’s as big. I adore my readers. I love my readers. Any writer would like to think that they will continue to be read.

"I thought a question that would come earlier but that I am going to answer spontaneously now, is that print/ebook debate: It is my view you can’t hold back progress. EBooks are here, they are here to stay. Personally I love printed paper, but very very recently, later that a lot of people because I’m not very technologically adept, in fact it was this year for the first time that I downloaded eBooks. And it’s miraculous, for travel and for children particularly, to carry around a thousand books in your pocket on a small device is an extraordinary thing, so I feel great about taking harry potter into this new medium. But I still love a printed paper book; I think you can enjoy both."

Q: Did you come up with the name Pottermore?

"I did. I’m quite proud of that. We had a lot of discussions about that but that was me."

Q: Can you talk about your decision to go directly to the consumers? I imagine Apple and Amazon are not happy.

"Well I can’t speak for anyone else. The decision was  quite straightforward for me. Firstly It means that - I mean Harry Potter is obviously an international phenomenon and it means that we can now see that people everywhere are having the same experience at pretty much the same time. A large part of the fandom will be able to receive experience at exactly the same time, which was extremely appealing to me. 

"I’m phenomenally lucky in that I have the resources to do it myself and therefore I got to do it, I think, right. I think this is a fantastic and unique experience that I can afford in every sense. To take my time and find the right people - TH_NK have been extraordinary - to make this come alive. There was really no other way to do that, for the fans or for, than to just do it myself. Not everyone could do it, I appreciate that, but I think it was right for Harry Potter. It was right for Harry Potter because, Potter fandom was one of the first, I think ti’s fair to say, there was a massive online community and that was such fun for me as an author to be able to have direct contact with my fans, and I already had a direct presence online, I had my own web site already. So it didn’t feel like a massive onwards step. It was an extension of the already existing.

Q: Can you talk more about what new content is on the site and what some of your favorite parts were?

"I’ve mentioned - I think my favorite things are the Sorting, which I loved writing, I think if you get into the other three houses apart from Gryffindor, you do end up with an extra bit of that chapter in Philosopher’s Stone. That was great to write. And then the wands, I go into ridiculous detail about the wandwoods, and what the cores mean, and why it might have chosen you and every detail on wands and some of that I already had in long form and some of it I wrote anew. 

"The background on Professor McGonagall, I’ve had for years and years and years, and I think I always thought it would have somehow found its way into the story and it just never happened. Harry and Professor McGonagall just never had an interaction or a conversation where that would plausibly come out, so I was left with this life story of this character I liked so much and nowhere to put it. Now I’ve got somewhere to put it. That was so satisfying."

Q: How much is there?

"Oh god, I don’t know. Lots. There’s lots. 18,000 words at launch but I’m adding to it. I’m still digging up boxes and I will write more as well as we hit subsequent books. In fact I’ve already given material on the other six books. We’ve been working on this for about two years so this has been int the works quite a long time."

Q: Can I ask about Quidditch?"I don’t think I’ve given all the stuff on Quidditch yet. Men always ask me about Quidditch because the number of, and I love geeky people so I do not say this in a pejorative way, but the number of geeky men who have come up to me to argue with me about Quidditch - I’d be a lot richer if I had a quid for every one. They just think it’s illogical. But it’s not illogical and I had a speech by Dumbledore in the first book that never made it in explaining why Quidditch is not illogical, so at some point I will put that on the site. Thank you for reminding me."

Pottermore Press Conference

Here's a short snippet from the Press conference about Pottermore. Jo gives a few more details about Pottermore.

Pottermore

I'm so excited for this.. can't wait to see what she has in store for us Harry Potter fans.

From Press Release:

For this groundbreaking collaborative project, J.K. Rowling has written extensive new material about the characters, places and objects in the much-loved stories, which will inform, inspire and entertain readers as they journey through the storylines of the books.  Pottermore will later incorporate an online shop where people can purchase exclusively the long-awaited Harry Potter eBooks, in partnership with J.K. Rowling’s publishers worldwide, and is ultimately intended to become an online reading experience, extending the relevance of Harry Potter to new generations of readers, while still appealing to existing fans.  As the Pottermore Shop develops, it is intended that it should include further products designed specifically for Harry Potter fans, offering a potential outlet for Sony products and services related to Pottermore.  In keeping with Harry Potter’s international appeal, the site will launch in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish, with more languages to follow.

In the new website, the storyline will be brought to life with sumptuous newly-commissioned illustrations and interactive ‘Moments’ through which you can navigate, starting with the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s (Sorcerer’s) Stone. On entering, you choose a magic username and begin your experience.  As you move through the chapters, you can read and share exclusive writing from J.K. Rowling, and, just as Harry joins Hogwarts, so can you. You visit Diagon Alley, get sorted into a house, cast spells and mix potions to help your house compete for the House Cup.   

At a press conference at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Rowling revealed some key features of the website. In an announcement which will thrill fans, she described how she has brought to life both the Sorting Hat and Ollivanders experiences from her books for the first time on Pottermore, by revealing the questions asked by the Sorting Hat - which places newcomers into their Hogwarts houses according to their characteristics -  and the magic behind the Wand Chooser – which finds the right wand for each user from over 33,000 possible combinations. She also revealed glimpses of the new information she has provided on some of the best-loved characters.

J.K. Rowling’s announcement on YouTube and sony.com today revealed that Pottermore (along with the Pottermore Shop) will be open to all users in October 2011.  From today, 23rd June, fans can submit their email addresses on Pottermore.com in order to be contacted by the site following the opening of registration on 31st July, Harry’s birthday.  Also on that date, an online challenge will be launched, whereby the first million people to complete their registration will gain early entry into the website, and help put final touches to the experience. 

 More details from http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org

• Pottermore is an interactive new Web site and reading experience with more than 18,000 new words from J.K. Rowling: Much more to come.
• JKR behind the scenes filming the video picture. 
• An online experience to read, interact with and share the Harry Potter stories. Exclusive writing from J.K. Rowling and more.
• Pottermore will feature infromation J.K. Rowling has been "hoarding" for years about Harry Potter.
• Pottermore will be the exclusive place to purchase the digital audio books and, at last, eBooks of the Harry Potter series.
• Pottermore was developed in association with the leading digital company, @th_nktweets
• Pottermore was also created in partnership with @sony!
• One million fans will get access to a beta on July 31, Harry's birthday. It will be open for all in October 2011.
• The launch of Pottermore will have more than 18,000 words from J.K. Rowling, but that is only a third of what she has written so far.
• J.K. Rowling said this morning that there is a lot more content to come for the Pottermore site, and she will develop it as it grows.
• This morning J.K. Rowling said that she and Harry have a "casual relationship," instead of the serious kind they once had.
• "I've never cried over a man as much as I've cried over Harry." - JKR 
• The idea came from a conv. with her agent about how to help Harry live on in today's digital age.
• JKR downloaded eBooks for the 1st time this year and loved it - "a thousand books in your pocket" - tho she loves paper.
• You will follow the story, get sorted into a house and get a wand (one of 33,000 possible combinations) - all crafted by JKR.
• JKR is excited to include a long backstory on McGonagall - her childhood, ministry career, early heartbreak...
• A lot of the Pottermore team is Hufflepuff, which JKR said is what "you want in a team - they're workers!"
• JKR said if you're not sorted into Gryffindor you get even more exclusive content about your house.
• Chamber of Secrets story to debut in 2012. 
• Also shown this morning, there will be info on Minerva McGonagall's long friendship with Dumbledore
• A physical encyclopedia may come one day, JKR said, but she is not positive.
• Also mentioned that Vernon ad Petunia met at work, backstory also on Pottermore.
• JKR on Pottermore: "I've worked with the most incredible team at TH_NK to make it come alive."

SwampCast #3 - Listener Feedback

Download from itunes http://tinyurl.com/MASH4077itunes listen/direct download http://bit.ly/eXCRxT

Here is another SwampCast... #3, a SwampCast is a non-regular show.. meaning we will not be reviewing an episode in this podcast. These SwampCasts will come out now and then and cover "cast" interview, or listener feedback or anything else that we want to share with the listeners that doesn't fit into our regular show review episodes.

Our third SwampCast once again covers Listener Feedback. We also go over our trivia and answers from episodes 5 - 9 and give one lucky listener a MASH 4077 T-shirt.

Hope you enjoy it,
Kenny, Meds, & Al

Find Us on the Web:
Main website - http://MASH4077Podcast.com
Twitter - @MASH4077Podcast
Facebook Fan Page - http://www.facebook.com/MASH4077Podcast
MASH 4077 Podcast Blog - http://www.MASH4077Podcast.blogspot.com
Email Us - MASH4077Podcast@Gmail.com

© Geekyfanboy Productions

Editing a Podcast

Tonight after work I went home and worked on the next MASH SwampCast #3. We had gotten quite a bit of listener feedback and I really wanted to get another swampcast out. I recorded my audio on Sunday night and Meds and Al emailed me their audio last week. I spent my lunch hour editing up my audio so when I got home all I had to do was upload the three files and cut them together. But of course things never go as planned. One of the comments that we had gotten was actually a question and I forgot to get Meds to answer it. So Al who had read the question answer it and then I quickly recorded an answer so I could cut it in. I also had to still record the trivia and answer section and announce the winner so I did that was well. By the time everything was recorded and edited all together it was close to 1AM and I was exhausted so I did manage to export the file but that's as far as it got. I'll finish converting it tomorrow and get it uploaded before I go into work.

Father's Day

Days like today are special but now with my Dad being so ill they are even more special. Because you never know if this will be the last father's day we get to spend with him. Though he wasn't feeling great I still went down to visit. I knew we were going to be able to go out to lunch and a movie but I just wanted to hang out and talk. My brother and I have decided that when he is feeling better were going to take him to Las Vegas and give him a significant amount of money to just have fun and gamble away.. that will be his Father's Day and Birthday present for this year. So I spent about 2 hours with him, went grocery shopping for him and then hung out with my brother, sister-in-law and nephew another few hours before heading home. Like I said I knew we weren't going to be able to do much but just spending time with each other was good enough for me.

In recent years I've come to realize that it's easy to take family/friends for granted. You're parents are always there for you, you can't imagine them never being there but as I get older I come to realize that they won't always be around. I won't be able to just pick a phone and call them or drive down and visit them. And honestly that is how I'm starting to think about everyone in my life. Who's to say when a person's time on this planet is over. I mean we assume we have a good 80 years but many people don't.

Gotta keep telling myself to love and cherish those around you while you can.. tomorrow may never come.