Saturday, April 13, 2013

Eh... Kind of Day

Didn't do much today.. worked on my MASH podcast and just kind of bummed around the house for most of the day. Only good thing that happen is that my buddy Robert come over around 10pm to crash as we planned to go to Magic Mountain tomorrow.

We kind of just hung out on my bed and watched some Simpsons and Robot Chicken before calling it a night a bit after 11. Looking forward to tomorrow...

Friday, April 12, 2013

Office Clean Up And A Few Shots

Today I wasn't feel so hot.. my friend Lydia who is visiting from Switzerland was going to Disneyland and she asked if I wanted to go and I said no.. I know I must be sick if I turn down a trip to Disneyland. My stomach and digestive system hasn't been feeling so hot the past week. So it was pretty much a low key kind of day. I spent the majority of the day cleaning up my office area. Packing up stuff that has accumulated over the past six months.

I started feeling better in the evening, which was good since my buddy Chris as having one of his weekly Google Hangouts and I found out that Google Hangout has an option for low bandwidth and if I select that, then I could actually do a video hangout. So I joined in and we were having fun when someone mentioned a drink and the next thing I knew everyone was drinking. By the end of the night I had had 14 shots of coconut rum and was feeling fine. I did lots of laughing, which amused everyone. And feel out of my chair a few times... I was tired by 11pm and called it a night. Let's just hope I don't wake up tomorrow with a horrible hangout... but if I do.. it was well worth it.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Geekyfanboy Productions New Logo

Today I had planned to get my next MASH podcast done and maybe even a Knights of the Guild podcast done. Or maybe write some more of my webseries.. but that didn't happen. My friend Matthew Brackney messaged me on Facebook and said that he had some idea for my Geekyfanboy Productions logo. I texted him a few days ago and told him vaguely what I was looking for and he said he was going to sketch some ideas out and get back to me.. well he did a bit more then that he actually finished several version of the logo.

He sent version 1 to me and it was 85% what I wanted.. I put in requested a few changes and a few minutes later he sent me version 2, it was closer but the glasses were still a bit off so I sent him a picture of glasses that I had in mind. Again only a few minutes later he sent me version 3 and the glasses looked great but I did ask if he could change the color from red to green as that's my favorite. Version 4 was sent and I realized that the green he used made it look like a Starbuck's logo. So I asked if he could make it a different color green.. maybe more olive color. Then I got version 5 and that was it. Both the simple logo and the, what I call, circle logo looked fantastic.
I put it out there for friends to check out and give me their thoughts. Most were positive and most liked the "simple" logo better. I got a lot of comments about the green circle logo looking like Starbuck's still. I asked him to go back to his original idea of red. He also made me white ones as well as a different B&@ with more white then black. And someone suggested to color the glasses on the simple logo so I asked him to make one in red and green...

So in a matter of an few hours I had nine fantastic logos for my company. I have plenty to choose from. I want to publicly (well in my blog) thank Matt for doing these for me. He's a professional artist and didn't charge me for his services. He did it out of the kindness of his heart... thanks buddy I love them.

Next step is to apply for a business license.

Later in the day my buddy Chris came online and we jumped on Lord of the Rings Online and went questing for a few hours. He's a busy guys so it's nice when we can slip away into Middle Earth and have some fun.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Working out, Editing and Buffy

Today I actually went out to the garage and worked out with some weights. It's been a few months since I've worked out and I don't really know why I decided to go out today but I did. I also did some cardio by jumping rope. Hopefully I can continue with workout thing.

I then went out to lunch at Chili's and on my way home I stopped by Vasquez Rocks for a great 45 minutes hike. I was feeling great. Had a good workout, then a nice lunch and now a great hike around Vasquez and it was so beautiful outside.

Got home and started working on my next MASH 4077 Podcast. I got about 1/2 of it done before I had to stop and head out to Robert's place for our weekly Buffy and Bros night.

Tonight we start season five... this is my favorite season of Buffy and I've been looking forward to sharing it with Robert. We started with "Buffy vs Dracula", Buffy faces the infamous Count Dracula, who had come to Sunnydale to meet her and make her one of his brides. Forgot this was the opening episode of season five, it's not one of my favorite episodes, the one highlight to this episode is Xander, who is hilarious.

We then watched "Real Me", A day in the life of Buffy's sister Dawn is transcribed into her diary in her point of view. To Dawn, it's tough to live with a Slayer as an older sister. To Buffy, it's tough to live with a sister who's constantly getting in trouble—like when Harmony returns to town with a gang and kidnaps Dawn.This was a fantastic episode. I love that it started with Buffy having a little sister and it feels like it's always been that way. We the audience know it's hasn't been but it's never addressed in this episode as to what is happening.. you just accept it and go along for the ride. Like Tara I think Dawn was a fantastic addition to the Buffy gang.

Our third episode of the night was "The Replacement", When Xander takes a mystical hit from the demon Toth that was intended for Buffy, he wakes up to find a mysterious double living his life in his place -- and, frankly, doing a much better job of it. Another great Xander episode, I think this was Roberts favorite for the night.

And the final episode of the night was "Out Of My Mind", Buffy seeks help for Riley when she learns that the meds that the Initiative gave him are having a deteriorating effect. Meanwhile, Spike and Harmony kidnap one of the Initiative's doctors to try to get Spike's chip removed. Again not one of my favorite episodes but we are seeing the downfall of Buffy and Riley's relationship. We also get to see Gile's storyline with the magic shop continue. We also get the first signs of things to come with Joyce.

I can't wait for the next episode.. we find out all about Dawn and the reason she's is there.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Roller Coasters & Production Companies

Went to Magic Mountain today to pick up my season pass. A group of friends are going to be going this coming Sunday and I wanted to have my pass before then. I got there around 11am and it was dead, It took me about 20 minutes to get my season pass and once I had it I was about to leave when it him me.. well I'm already here and it's not busy I should try and get a ride or two in.

I quickly went to Tatsu, it's one of my favorites and has one of the most head rushing, nausea causing loops at the park. I've waited hours for this ride in the past.. but today it was about ten minutes. After riding it I was pumped but I realized that I didn't have anyone to share the experience with and that made me sad. I decided I would wait to ride with my friends on Sunday. Yeah it may be busier and we might not be able to ride everything but I'd rather ride a few rides with friends then all the rides by myself. Half of the fun of Magic Mountain is experiencing it with friends.

I grabbed some El Pollo for lunch before heading home.

Geekyfanboy Productions is reborn... Now I've had this production company since 2008 when I created my first podcast The Ready Room. It's pretty much has just been a title only. All my podcasts are stated to be a production of Geekyfanboy Productions. But today I decided to go to the next level with the company. I want it to actually be a real company. So my first step was creating a facebook page for it.. just to get word out about it. I then researches how to make it a legal company. I checked out Sole Proprietorship, LLC and Corporation. I think for my needs at the time I'm going to go with Sole Proprietorship, it's the simplest way to start a business. All that is require is a company name and a business license. So my next research went into finding out how to get a business licenses and again it's fairly easy.. I just have to go to a city building and fill out a form and pay some fees and it will be official... plan to do that in the coming weeks. 

Next is getting a business logo so I put the call out there for artist friends to see if I could get some help... I'll keep you updated.. I have a few bites.


Right now my company produces only things that I am working on, my long term goal with the company is to actually create, produce, edit podcasts, webseries, video blogs and anything social media related for others. I know this will take time, but I'm very happy with the small baby steps that I have taken today to make this dream a reality.

Going as far as I can go with Geekyfanboy Productions today I turned to working on a new episode of MASH 4077 Podcast. I imported video and all the raw audio.. I hope to start editing it tomorrow.

This was a very fun a productive day.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Wind Blows...

The past few days the winds up at my house have been crazy, but today they were extremely strong hitting gusts of 80 to 90 miles an hour. Around late afternoon I was working my computer and I heard a loud crash from the back of my house. I went outside to investigate and everything that was on my deck, chairs, tables, bags on cans and various other things were blown completely off the deck and were now all over my property. Only thing still sitting on the deck was my BBQ. I quickly ran around gathering things up and piling them in a corner of the deck hoping that all the weight we keep thing from blowing away. I'm sure I'm going to have to trek down my hill to recover some things.

One of the more crazy things was the spa. I have a top for it but it's broken so it's being held down by four large concrete stone bricks. Well the wind was so bad that it actually lifted half of the lid and throw the stone about ten feet and they shattered on my ground.

Honestly the winds were so bad that I thought my house was going to get blown right off it's foundation and down the hill. But when the winds died down there was very little damage and I am very thankful for that.

PS.. how many of you know where the title of this blog post is from?

Tangled

I pride myself in being a fairly big Disney fan. But I had to admit that I haven't seen every Disney movie. Normally the big released I tend to see them in the theater but for some reason this one slipped by back in 2010. So when I saw it was playing on TV I recorded it on my DVR and it's been sitting there for over a month. Today I finally decided to sit down and watch Tangled. Here's a brief synopsis: The magically long-haired Rapunzel has spent her entire life in a tower, but now that a runaway thief has stumbled upon her, she is about to discover the world for the first time, and who she really is.

My Review: I LOVED it.. it's charming, funny and witty.. everything a Disney movie should be. It was great for kids and also fun for adults. I enjoyed the characters and cool action scenes. I had no idea that this was a musical, but I guess I should have guessed.. I mean it's Disney afterall. And I really enjoyed the songs.  The animation was classic Disney.. but I did read on wiki... "The film employed a unique artistic style by blending features of both computer-generated imagery (CGI) and traditional animation together, while utilizing non-photorealistic rendering to create the impression of a painting " which I found very interesting. I really enjoyed the "sidekick" characters, the chameleon and dog like horse. All in all a fantastic movie and one that I will for sure be buying on bluray. I give it a solid A

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Aliens, Dragons and Dinosaurs

Spent the first six hours of the day editing my next Alien Nation podcast. It's due to be released on April 10 which is only a few days away. I think this is the longest Alien Nation podcast we've done so far.. clocking in just over an hour. It went fairly smoothly, it's fun to listen to my brother and I banter back and forth.. we make a good podcasting duo. Adding the audio bites from the actual episode always takes the longest amount of time as I have to find bites that fit what we are saying and then in between each segment I like to play a scene from the episode. But in the end I'm very happy with this episode.
I made arrangements to hang out with my friend Dallas and finish up my character for our upcoming D&D game. I was about halfway done so it only took an hour or so to finish up. All I have to do now is write his back story and come up with a name... this should be fun.

My friend Jes (Dallas' roommate) texted late last night and asked if I wanted to go to a 30 minute musical, they have done spoofs on movies like Top Gun, Road house and Home Alone but tonight they were doing Jurassic Park. Since I was already going to be down there visiting Dallas I of course said yes.  We went out to dinner at The Habit ( a burger joint). I had never been to one so that was fun. Afterward Jes drove us into Hollywood to the theater. We met up with Jen who was also joining us. While we were sitting in the theater waiting for the musical to start I mentioned that I wanted to see Jurassic Park in 3D and Jen said.. why don't we go after the musical. Jes and I agreed.. we'd make it a Jurassic Park kind of night. I was a bit bummed as I wanted and planned to see it with my bud Robert but who says I can't see it twice.. I've seen Jurassic Park so many times already... what's one more time.

So for Jurassic Park the 30 minute musical, it was funny, fast and was a great homage to the original movie. I liked the songs and their take on characters and scenes. Some of the characters were dead on while others were combined, like the kids. The actor was dressed half like Tim and half like Lex.. it was pretty great. The rapping Raptors were fantastic. It was exactly what it promised to be. I look forward to seeing their next one.. it's going to be Independence Day.

We got out of the musical and headed directly to Citywalk. Got to the theater with 15 minutes to spare. Now I have seen Jurassic Park in the theater many times but Jes and Jen hadn't as they were to young then back then. So it was fun watching them experience the film for the first time on the big screen. It was also fun watching this movie just after watching a musical parody of it as scenes would come up and you'd think about the musical and laugh (or try and stifle a laugh since the scene in the movie wasn't that funny). The 3D was cool but I don't think it really enhanced the movie experience. This film was not filmed with 3D in mind, there were shots that could have been incredible if they were shooting it in 3D. But it was still fantastic seeing it on the big screen again.

Thanks Jes for the invite out and Thanks Jes and Jen for a fun evening of Jurassic Park.