Saturday, June 30, 2012

Friends and Musicals

So last night I saw Fellowship! The Musical and tonight I'm going to see Geeks! The Musical. Several friends who went with me last night to see Fellowship actually came back to my place to crash since they live in south in San Diego. Also Anne who was out here for a wedding crashed at my place because we were all going to see Geeks! tonight.

When I got up everyone was already up and ready for some breakfast. Anne made some eggs, I made the sausage and Nicki made some bagels. After lunch we decided to go for a hike. Both Nicki and Anne though they have been to my weekend parties they never stay long enough to go hiking... so today we were going to change that and go hiking at Vasquez Rocks. It was hot but super bad, it was also fairly early still. We had a great hike and it was fun showing two new people Vasquez.

After Vasquez we went back to my place to play some Cards Against Humanity. If you don't know this game it's a brand new and very awesome card game. We played for a few hours before we started to get hungry so we headed out to Chili's for some lunch. When we got back we still had a few more hours before the play so we continued our game of Cards Against Humanity. In the end Anne won, which makes her the worse human on the planet. :)

We got ready for the musical and headed down to Hollywood. Traffic is always funky, sometimes it takes a really long time and sometimes it takes no time at all. This was the latter as we got to the theater almost forty five minutes early. We hung out and chatted before the box office opened. We got into the theater about 7:20pm and got center, center seats.

I had seen the plan on it's first run a month or so back and really enjoyed it. This time around they have a few different actors and they tweaks the pacing and the movement of some of the songs. So it really did feel like I was watching a different play. And as I did before I really enjoyed it. As did Aaron, Anne and Nicki.

After the play we opted to try and find a place to eat but it was a Saturday night and traffic/parking was horrible so we called it a night. Anne and Nicki headed south back home while Aaron and I headed back to my place as he was going to stay the night again.

It was a fun day of friends, adventures and music.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Fellowship! The Musical

First what is Fellowship! It’s a hilarious musical parody of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic Lord of the Rings.
 I've wanted to see this musical for over six years.. since the first time I heard about it. And for one reason or another I've missed it. Well this time I was not going to miss it. I planned a group viewing a few months back and have had this marked on my calendar since then. I got to see the final play for this run. It was an 11pm show and the place was packed.

Joining me for this fun adventure was my bestie and fellow LOTR fanatic Josh, Nicki, Aaron, CJ and his friend. As I mentioned I got to the theater at 10:30 and Nicki was already there and we got in line. Right before they let us in CJ and his friend and Aaron arrived and joined us in line. We got decent seats about five rows from the front and in the middle. I was saving a seat for Josh, as he still hadn't arrived. 11pm came and went and still no sign from Josh. I had to give up his saved seat. Of course moments after I gave it up I get a text that he's parking. He came over to us with a sad face and I noticed that there was a seat in our same row at the very end. He asked the two guys who were sitting next to it if it was taken and they were kind enough to actually move down so Josh could sit in the seat next to me. The play started around 11:15.

As for the play.. from the opening song to the final number I was smiling from ear to ear. The music and songs are catchy, the acting incredible, the story fantastic and the interaction priceless. This was the last show and you could tell they were going to have fun with this one. Because they are all great improvers it was hard to tell what was actually suppose to happen or if they were making it up as they went along. You could tell these guys loved doing this play. It was one of the funniest shows I have seen in a long time. It was well worth the wait and I can't wait for it's to do another run so I can see it a few more times. I purchased a t-shirt and CD to help support them

Everyone in my group loved the play, afterwards several of us stayed after to talk to the cast and get pictures. The actors were very friendly and appreciative of their fans. They signed autographs and took pictures until ever person go what they wanted. You knew they were tired after doing two shows in a row and it was now past 2am but they stayed and had so much energy.. it was a pretty incredible experience.

As I was driving home I listened to the entire CD twice and sang along. It was a great way to end my evening.

Another Busy Day

Today was another busy day... it was the actual first day of shooting of the new TV series I'm working on. I was on set for some of the day.  Since I'm post I never really get to be on set during production but because post is slow and we want to make sure they are orgainizing and labeling all the tapes properly my boss wants me on set. Only issue with this is the shoot goes until 9pm and I'm seeing a play at 11pm in Hollywood.

So 9pm came and went and they were still filming.. I started to worry, I knew that if I didn't leave by 10pm that I wouldn't make it to Hollywood in time. My boss showed up around 9:15 to set and I was very happy to see him because if I had to leave he could stay and get the tapes in my place. Well after "playing" around with me, he kept saying that I'd have to stay.. he let me go around 9:45.

I made my way through Los Angeles and Hollywood and got to the theater around 10:30. I'll talk about the play in my next blog.

Needless to say my work days are getting busier.

Goodies in the Mail

Today when I got home I had several cool packages waiting for me. One was this print of a male fairy that I've admired for a few years. I've been on the search for a nice male fairy picture to frame but just couldn't find one that I liked.. the one I found is called Acorn and I found a decent size one 11x17. Can't wait to frame it.

The second was my halfling ears for the Hobbit costume for SDCC. My previous ears were a one time use but I've used them six or seven times but didn't want to take any more chances with them.. so I bought 3 sets of unpainted ears.

The third and fourth things were two large boxes, one with some controllers and cords and the other is an Xbox gaming console (well I have to sign for the package so it's at the post office and I'll pick it up on Saturday) My besties Chris got a new R2D2 Xbox and gave me his older one. I can't wait to hook it and my kinect up and buy some cool games as well as some workout games.

It was a good week for goodies in the mail.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Running Around

Today was a pretty crazy workday. They were doing rehearsal for tomorrows shot day. I went to set to meet the camera folks since they will be the ones shooting the show and dealing with post the most. I won't bore you with the details but I went back and fourth six times taking things over to them and them not working and having to fix them, we tested footage to see if we could import into the avid. Finally on my final run over there I had planned to leave from there to head home, as it was 7pm. I got to set, gave them a fixed hard drive and then went back to my jeep. I got an email from one of the EP's (Executive Producer) on the show. He asked if I was still on set. I turned back around and headed back in. After walk around for 10 minutes I finally found the control room and the EP. He had questions about green screen, I haven't worked alot with green screens but I did my best to answer his questions. 45 minutes later I'm back in my jeep and heading home.

Tonight after work I was suppose to originally hang out with my cousin who I haven't seen in over 20 years, he was in CA for work and up near my area. Well those plans fell through and I had a back up plan. I was suppose to go the movies with Robert and Rupert to see Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. But even before my workday was extended I decided that I didn't want to go out.

Every night this week I have done something with friends. Don't get me wrong I LOVE doing stuff with my friends but normally I get up at 7am, go to work from 8am to 7pm, then hang with friends until 10ish, get home around 11:30 and bed by midnight and the day starts all over again. Tonight I wanted to get home at a decent time and just relax, which is just what I did. It was a nice relaxing night. Watched a bit a TV and called it a night around 10:30.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Work, Friends & Tribute

Today went by very quickly,  productions offices (where my temp off is) are closing down. They are starting to shot at the end of the week and everyone in production is moving over to the shooting location. This means I'll have to find another home until post is up and running (Tuesday of next week). So I spent the day prepping tape labels and camera logs for the upcoming shoot, emails galore getting production on the same page as post. Lot's of prep work that will hopefully help when we start getting footage on the back end.

After work like I have all week I went to a friends to hang out. Tonight I visited Sebastian and his girlfriend Amanda. I had planned to run over to Del Taco and grab some dinner but when I got to their place Amanda had made some spaghetti and italian sausage for dinner so I join them.

One of my favorite writers/director and all around creative person Nora Ephron passed away yesterday. So in honor of her we watched one of my top 5 favorite romantic comedies "Sleepless in Seattle". It was a great way to honor this great woman.

Geek Mecca

In two weeks I'll be with 150,000 other geeks celebrating our uniqueness and love for all things geeky. This will be my ninth year attending San Diego Comic Con. I watched it grow from 40,000 to 150,000. When I first started going I could get into all the panels and get all the swag. Now I'm lucky if I can get into any panels as I don't want to wait in line for hours to get in. I also use to get tons of cool swag, but again now you have to be in lines for hours to get anything.

Honestly my reasons for going have changed over the years. I did go early on to see the panels and the stars. But now it's more about hanging out with "online" and real life friends. Last year I cos played for the first time and totally fell in love with it and I'm really looking forward to doing it again this year. Besides my Hobbit outfit, a group of us will be dressing up in our Star Trek outfits and hitting the floor.

Another big event (at least for me) is seeing and hanging with one of my best friends.. Chris. I haven't seen him in a few months and miss him like crazy. I'm really looking forward to spending five days with him and the rest of my Geek Mob geeking out.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Buffy & Bros Continue...

Another quiet day at work, other then a few emails and such nothing much to report from there. I was more excited about the evening. I was getting together with one of my best friends Robert and continuing our Buffy viewing party. This is his first time, but a rewatch for me. We normally watch a 3 or 4 episodes but tonight we only did 2 episodes and wound up talking alot. We did season 1 episode 7 titled "Angel" and season 1 episode 8 titled "I Robot, You Jane", I really enjoyed both of these episodes.. one explains more about Angel and who he is and the other introduces Ms. Calendar. It's always great hanging with Robert want watching TV/movies but I really enjoy having our long conversations.

The only downside to the evening was coming home and the construction happening on the 14 freeway and it took me about 30 minutes to go 2 miles. Normally I'm okay with this but when your extremely tired it's not a good thing, but I did manage to get home by midnight.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Monday, Monday

So I start my second week at this new gig, things are moving along, they actually start shooting towards the end of the week so things will start to pick up when we start getting footage. So I pretty much worked on setting up post, emailed a few crew members and over just all still preparing for post.

One thing I was looking forward to was my dinner with my bestie Will. I haven't seen him in a few weeks and was really missing him. We planned to meet up at his place and then go to a local spot near his place called Pitfire Grill. We then spent the next hour and a half catching up on each other life and just enjoying one's company. I did cut it short at 10pm as I still had an hour drive home and now that I'm working I tend to go to bed around 11:30. It was a great visit and I hope we get to hang out again soon.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Disneyland... NOT!!

I had plans to attend Disneyland to celebrate my friend Jessica's birthday today but with my dislocated finger and waking up not feeling so hot (stomach issues) I decided to not make the two hour trek to the happiest place on Earth. Instead I planned to try and get more things done around the house.

That didn't quite go as planned, between trips to the bathroom and resting on my recliner watching TV I did manage to get some housekeepig done for my Geekyfanboy Productions podcast company. Built excel sheets, combined all podcast into one form. I caught up with my blog posting and cleaned up some of my computer craziness.

A big part of my day was sitting at my computer and watching some new programs/webseries on The Nerdist Channel. I've watched alot of stuff on Felicia Day's you tube channel Geek and Sundry, but this was the first time watching another you tube channel and I have to say I really enjoyed it. I watched All Star Celebrity Bowling, Magic Meltdown and Just Cos, all were very fun and entertaining but my favorite was the bowling.

The other big thing that I accomplished was editing the very first episode of My Gimpy Life Podcast. It's episode 0 and just an introduction to what to expect from the companioncast. Don't know when I'll be posting it but it will be posted a few weeks before the first episode (at least that's the plan).

So it would have been great to go to Disneyland and hang out with friends I did have a fairly productive day today.