Winds, Podcasts, Screeners and The Munsters

Woke up to rumbling on the back patio.. the wind was picking up and my deck furniture was being tossed around. When I got up most of my chairs on my deck were either lying on their side or blow completely off the deck. The wind was still gusting hard so painting was out of the question. This bummed me out because after yesterday miserable attempt at doing something I was determined to do better.

Since I couldn't paint I decided I would edit podcasts, get as many as I could done.. that way I could say this was a productive day. Well that didn't happen either :( Man I suck!!!

I did manage to be somewhat productive.. I worked on various things on my computer. Uploaded pictures to facebook, did some maintenance on my podcast. Took a number count for October and found that I had 27.910 download from across my five podcasts. Knights of the Guild had a really good beginning of the month (for some reason) and had 17,458 downloads for October, MASH 4077 has gone from 200 downloads a month to 8991 this month.. it's really doing well. Confessions of a Fanboy is slowly finding it's audience.. this month it had 423 downloads, My Gimpy Life had 769 this month and my Alien Nation The Newcomers Podcast is still struggling to find it's audience and had 269 downloads. I still have a few days and I'm hoping to hit 30,000 for the month of October.

I was very excited when UPS knocked on my door..  I got my very first DVD screener of the season, "Beasts of the Southern Wild" I personally have not heard of this movie but when I twitted about it, several folks said it was pretty good. I looked it up and watched the trailer.. it looks interesting and I look forward to checking it out.

I did manage to edit another MASH 4077 Podcast #43, we record six of these podcasts at a time and I normally wait until a day or two before they are due to be released to edit them. Well I'm trying to change that and edit as many as I can beforehand to save me stress and time in the long run. So far I have Nov 1st and 15th's episodes edited and ready to go.. yay me...

While I was finishing my MASH podcast I watched Bryan Fuller's new (should have been a series) Mockingbird Lane. It's a modern take on The Munsters which I loved as a kid. NBC ordered a pilot but didn't like it and didn't give it a green light for a series (boooo NBC). But I guess the pilot cost alot to make so they decided to air the pilot as a Halloween special.

I really enjoyed it. The SFX were pretty awesome for a TV series. Also it's from Bryan Fuller who did one of my all time favorite TV series Pushing Daisies and it kind of had that same unworldly feel.. I loved it. I think this series had alot of potential too bad NBC didn't see that. I am thankful to NBC for airing the pilot. 99.9% of the pilots that are made never see the light a day.

So today I was not as lazy as I was yesterday but I did a fair amount of TV watching but also did manage to be somewhat productive.

If the winds die down tomorrow.. I'm painting the back of my house for sure.. I don't care how well I fell or motivated.. it's getting done!!

Disappointing Day

Very disappointed in myself today. Got up not feeling hot but was determined to get alot done. I still have a ton of house stuff to do like finish painting the outside of my house, yard work, deck work and then a good cleaning and paint touch ups inside the house. I also have five podcasts that need new episodes, some come out as early at Nov 1st.  I have a sixth podcast that need to get started and it's so close. I'm working on my secret project (which feels like it has stalled a bit) and I'm trying to get my personal website update and working properly. So I have plenty to do.

But what did I today.. pretty much nothing. I sat on my ass and watch TV. Yes I do have a ton of TV recorded on my DVR and I do need to watch it or I'll have to start deleting it. But I always feel guilty being lazy and watching TV when I know there are things that I should be doing. TV is suppose to be when I have some downtime or need a break from working.

I did mange to edit my next MASH 4077 Podcast for about four hours and managed to finish it.. so today wasn't a total lose.. but still when I woke up I was so determined to get a few podcasts done and the painting of the back of my house completed.. I hate disappointing myself... maybe I'll do better tomorrow.

Mom, Robert & Buffy

Today I got up around 8am, checked my emails and such and ate some breakfast. I decided to watch some of my recorded TV and at 10:15 my mom called and asked if I was still coming down. Crap!!! I totally forgot that I had made plans to go down and visit her. I quickly jumped in the shower and got out of the house around 10:30am. My mom lives down in Newport which is about an hour and a half away. Traffic was good and I got to my mom's exactly in an hour and a half.

I haven't seen my mom in months. So it was nice to see her and actual get to spend some one and one time. We went out of lunch at a local Mexican restaurant, then drove over to Fashion Island as my mom needed to go shopping for presents for birthdays. Couldn't find what she wanted there so we went to another shopping area and found exactly what she was looking for. Afterwards we headed back to her place and watched some TV and talked for a few hours. It was a great visit.

Left my Mom's around 5:30, had dinner plans with my buddy Robert. Traffic was horrible but I did mange to get there in about an hour. This was our Buffy night. We haven't done a Buffy night in three weeks so we were way overdue. When I got there Robert and I walked over to Taco Bell for dinner. After dinner we headed back to his place and started our Buffy night.

First up was the season 2, two-parter season finale The Becoming part 1 & 2. One of the best season finales of any series. So heartbreaking but so good. After those two episodes we moved on to season 3 with the premiere episode Anne. Now this isn't a favorite of mine but Season 3 has some fantastic episodes in it and I can't wait for Robert to see what's ahead.

Got home around 10:30pm, watched some Simpsons and then went to bed.

Geek-a-Thon - Tuesday

Didn't get to bed until about 3am.. it was a long 16 hour day yesterday at the Geek-a-thon but I couldn't wait to get back over there for the final day. I woke up around 11am, got ready and left my place around noon. I wanted to get there in time for the viewing of Doctor Who. Lucky for me, as usual they started late and were running long. And my buddy Steve was in the chat room asking questions to delay them from starting the episode. I actually got there just as they were finishing up the background on Doctor Who.

I got there and a few of the guys from the Anime section were leaving.. Doctor Who was next with Gabe (who was the Who expert). Also joining the group was John who had been there Sunday and Monday. He had never seen Who either. So we started with Blink and April seemed to like it. It's tough to tell as she's interacting with the internet chat room alot and the audio is turned down. I'm not really sure she's getting the full effect of these shows.. but she seems to be retaining information as we would quiz her on previous stuff and she knew most of the answers.

More and more people arrived as we switched over to Girl in the Fireplace, one of my personal favorites. What was a great side effect is that John really enjoyed Who and is no planning on going back and watching from the beginning (reboot)... so that's awesome.

April's mom stopped by with some lunch (pulled pork sandwiches) which were the best.

Our final movie was Willow (one of my all time favorite fantasies), this was voted on by donors who gave $25 or more. They could choose from (Original) Planet of the Apes, Willow, The Last Starfighter, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Star Trek - Wrath of Khan or Galaxy Quest. All good movies but I'm happy they choose Willow. I figured April would hate this but she actually was enjoying it.

A surprise guest arrived as we started Willow, TV's David Blue (as we liked to introduce him as), he's a very cool TV star, most notable know for playing Eli on Stargate Universe. I got to meet him when he did one of the Guild Xmas commercial specials a few years ago. I didn't get to talk to him much when he was on set of The Guild so it was nice to be able to chat a little bit with him here. We talked about Star Wars, Willow and various other geeky things. He just got an Ipad but didn't bring it so he was checking out mine. I was logged into the chat room and watching the feed, he asked if I minded it he chatted with folks.. I said.. OMG.. the guys in the chat room would love that. So under my user name he chatted with the gang and they seemed to really enjoy it. I had several people comment about my comments and say, wow.. that was funny or yeah you're right. But I hadn't a clue what they were talking about as it wasn't me.. it was David :)

More people arrived as the Geek-a-thon was in it's last hours... During the last hour Brad Wyman, who works at Indiegogo stopped by and was a ball of energy. Willow was still playing but know one was really paying attention, we were now focusing on getting the donation numbers up before we went off the air. The last hour was on big whirlwind, we auctioned off a few things, Dove did some magic was had jugglers.. it was pretty crazy and when it was over donations were at $6550. That is more then 65% of their goal which is unheard of getting that much money in only 60 hours.

So the Geek-a-Thon was a success as it did raise quite a bit of money for their movie... but did April find any geeky thing that she enjoyed? Yes, out of all the things she watched/played she enjoyed Magic The Gathering card game, Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who and maybe Firefly. I think if she goes back and watches these again without the distraction of the tele-a-thon I think she can really enjoy some of them.

All in all it was a great experience. I got to meet some fantastic new friends both online and at the geek-a-thon. I got to participate in something that has never been done before and it was a huge success. I spent a total of 16 hours on Monday and 8 hours on Tuesday for a total of 24 hours of this 60 hour marathon.. not bad for someone who was only schedule for 3 hours on Tuesday :)

Thanks to everyone you watched, donated and encouraged us.. I had a totally geeky blast.

You can still donate and help get this movie funded. http://www.indiegogo.com/geekify and read up more about this movie here. http://themakingofcmd.blogspot.com/

You can check out more pictures HERE

Geek-a-Thon - Monday

My friend America Young emailed me a few weeks ago and asked if I wanted to be part of this Geek-a-Thon that was happening on Sunday Oct 21st thru Tuesday Oct 23rd. I of course say yes, it sounded like a blast.

Here are the details of why they are doing this.. America and her producing partner April Wade are making a movie called The Concessionaires Must Die. http://themakingofcmd.blogspot.com/ They are crowd source funding this with Indiegogo. http://www.indiegogo.com/geekify To kick off the fundraiser they planned on doing this geek-a-thon (live-a-thon as it came to be known). See America is a full fledged Geek.. April on the other hand is not.. she's never read a comic, watched any Sci fi or Fantasy movies/TV. And worst of all she's never seen Star Wars. So her friend America is exposing her watch 60 hours of geeky things. We are not trying to convert her we are just trying to show her the various things in the geek culture.  

You can check out the schedule of events HERE I watched a bit here and there on Sunday, to see what it was going to be like and it was very addictive. I was asked to join them on Monday at 11am for the viewing of Firefly. I was honored to be asked to introduce April to Firefly as it's one of my favorites.  I arrived early around 10am and they were still watching Star Trek Insurrection (another favorite of mine). I got to meet April for the first time as well as Dean who was introducing Star Trek to April... both were awesome. Dean had never seen Firefly so he stuck around and watch it with us. Also an unexpected guest arrived Jason Charles Miller joined us.

Even more people arrived as we were watching Firefly; Eric and Juan who were here to teach April Magic the Gathering which was happening after Firefly. Then Tennyson who was here to teach April Table Top RPG which was happening later in the day and Greta who was here simply for support (and to bring yummy in and out). John also came back as well, he was here yesterday for Star Wars. It was a full house as we continued (slowly) through the schedule. Various others came and went throughout the day.

After Firefly April and America played a game of Magic The Gathering before our game of Muggle Quidditch. We couldn't play a game (as planned) as we didn't have any equipment so instead I explained the game to everyone and showed picture of previous tournaments. It was fun to see every one's reaction realizing that this is an legitimate sport and growing.

After that it was time for BattleStar Galactica (new version). We watched a few episodes and of everything that April had watched so far she enjoyed this the most.

We then moved on to a Table Top RPG that Tennyson created himself called SkyChasers (you can read more HERE) It took us about two hours to create our characters but that's just the nature of this geek-a-thon.. it was a very slow process. I enjoyed this RPG so much that I pushed us to at least play a little bit with our characters, which was did and it was a blast (I think April hated this the most). I can't wait until this game is out there for all to play.

After that we called it a night, slowly the crowd of people started leaving. I debated on staying the night as I really thought about coming back tomorrow. But in the end I knew I needed some sleep so I drove home.

I don't think I mentioned this but the live viewing audience was fantastic. After a while you forget that you are on camera and that the viewers can see and hear everything you do. By the time day two ended they were already at 50% of their goal.

You can still donate and help get this movie funded. http://www.indiegogo.com/geekify and read up more about this movie here. http://themakingofcmd.blogspot.com/

Lunch with Friends & Magic

Jes and I debated on what to do today, she was willing to help me paint more but I didn't want her visit to be nothing but painting and to be honest I needed a break so instead we decided to get a group together and have lunch. I couldn't keep Jes all to myself for the weekend. I know The Geek Mob loves Jes just as much so we decided to make sure everyone who was able to, got to hang with her.

We set up a time of 1pm and were to meet at the Sherman Oaks Galleria. We weren't sure where we would be having lunch, there were several options to choose from. When Jes and I got there around 12:30. Rupert, Dallas and Brett were already there sitting at a table. We joined them and about fifteen minutes later Robert showed up.

We were still waiting for Luis and Anthony but I had gotten messages from both that they were running late, so we opted to grab some lunch and have them join us when they arrived. We decided to have lunch at Fuddruckers since it's easier to order individually and we had so many people. We found some tables in the back and bunched them together.

We ordered our food and waited. Everyone was having a good time chatting and making fun of the people announcing the names for this orders as you couldn't understand them half the time. We all finally got our orders and started to eat when Luis arrived. He ordered and joined us. Then Anthony and his girlfriend Lauryn showed up and ordered as well.

We sat and chatted for a few hours, at 3pm we had to say our goodbyes as I had to get Jes back to my place as she wanted to head out by 4pm so she could get home by 10pm. That's what we did. Said goodbye to Jes and tried to motivate myself to go back outside and finish painting the back of the house... but that's didn't happen.. instead I played around with my "Geekyfanboy.com" website. It's half done and I would love to finish it but I'm not that great at word press and after a few hours I was just frustrated and gave up on it (for now). It was close to eight and this was Sunday and I had a bro date with my buddy Chris to watch Once Upon A Time.

Once again Once Upon A Time was fantastic. I'm loving where season two is going, I'm excited about the new "bad" guys and how the old "bad" guys are kind of trying to "be good". Not that I think it will last. Tonight's episode was about Rupel and any Rupel story is a good story.. he's one of the most interesting and complicated characters. And as always it was fun watching it with my best friend a 1000 mile apart.