Alien Nation: The Newcomers Podcast Ep 10

Download from itunes bit.ly/itunesAlienNation or Listen, get Direct Download Aliennationpodcast.com

Show Notes

Brothers Kenny and Michael Mittleider review and discuss a short lived but very socially aware TV series from the late 80's early 90's ALIEN NATION. Each podcast we will review a single episode in sequential order starting with the Pilot. Will give you our thoughts on the episode as well as some fun behind the scenes information.

Today we cover Season 1, Episode 10 - The Game

Directed by David Carson
Written by Craig Van Sickle & Steven Long Mitchell
Original air date November 20, 1989

Plot Summary: During the Day of Decent, George is confronted with his past as a slave on the spaceship, when it appears that an old Russian Roulette style game he was once forced to play has returned. Will George take revenge for his brother, who died being hit by a bolt of salt water while playing the game on the ship.

Hope you enjoy it,
Kenny

My Typical Day

My Daily Routine:

Wake up
Checked my email/twitter/facebook
Do some Yard Work
Checked my email/twitter/facebook
Watch TV
Checked my email/twitter/facebook 
Work on Podcasts
Checked my email/twitter/facebook 
Try and work out
Checked my email/twitter/facebook 
Minecraft
Checked my email/twitter/facebook 
Bedtime

Working Out, TV, Lunch, Podcast & Minecraft

Started today with working out, this was a full work out.. half hour on the elliptical and half hour working with weights. I haven't worked out in months and I hope this is the start of a routine. Only time will tell.

Did more yard work and tried to stay productive. I watched a bit of TV, still have a ton of it recorded on my DVR.

Had lunch plans with Dallas, this was my first one on one visit. I picked him up from his place and headed to the Sherman Oaks Galleria. Well first we planned to go to Islands in Encino but when we got there it was gone. Guess it's been a while since I've been there.. so we then opted for P.F. Chang's which was at the galleria.

Had a nice lunch with Dallas and got to know each other a little better. Afterwards we to a local store called Urban Home and checked out furniture, not sure why.. didn't plan to buy anything but it's always fun. Afterwards Dallas opted to walk home to get some exercise and I headed back up to my place.

Once back home and edited the next Confessions of a Fanboy, this time with fangirl Jen. Got that edited, converted and uploaded in about three hours.

Spent the rest of the night playing Minecraft.. roughly 3 hours until finally going to bed about midnight.

Please Consider Making a Donation

I love doing podcasts, maybe that's why I currently have five running and one in the works. Unfortunately at this time you can't really make any money off of podcasting so everything comes out of pocket to pay for URL, websites, equipment and such. Times have been rough for me lately, work wise and I'm finding it harder and harder to continue to support all these podcasts. I don't want to stop doing these as it's something that I'm very passionate about. So I'm turning to my listeners for some help.

I know times are hard for everyone right now but if you enjoy any of my Geekyfanboy Productions Podcasts "Knights of the Guild", "My Gimpy Life Podcast", "Confessions  of a Fanboy Podcast", "MASH 4077 Podcast" and "Alien Nation The Newcomer Podcast" please consider making a donation to help support these podcasts. If all my listeners donated a dollar a month I would have plenty of funds to continue running all these podcasts. So if it's $1 to $100 dollars it's all very much appreciated. I made it nice and easy (if you use Paypal).. all you have to do is click on the donate button and it will take you directly to my donation page.  Thank you for all the love and support I have gotten over the years with my podcasts. I truly have the best listeners/friends around and I hope to continue doing this for many years to come.

 

Confessions of a Fanboy #10

Download from Itunes: ow.ly/el9Kq or listen, get direct download ow.ly/el9Kr

It's time for the next installment of Confessions of a Fangirl... with Jen Ramirez. We discuss her fandom for Punk Rock Music.

Short Bio: Jen is 30 years old. Lover of music (particularly punk), gaming, and general geeky things. Currently, she's an I.T. technician. She still works at the same company she started working for as a File Clerk when she was 19.

If you want to confess your fanboy or fangirl-ism to me send me an email at ConfessionsofaFanboy@gmail.com

You can also follow the podcast on Twitter @FanboyPodcast, or follow the Host Kenny @Geekyfanboy. And my guest Jen can be found at @hxofficemonkey

Please go to our podcast page on Facebook and "Like" us.. just click HERE

Hope you enjoy,
Kenny

A Fun Sunday Hanging with Jen

Today started off where last night ended... more Minecraft. I was waiting for me friend Jen to arrive. She had planned to hang with me today. I only got about a half hour of play in before she arrived. I said goodbye to Chris and hello to Jen.. We talked for a bit, Jen and my conversations are never boring. For some reason she and I can talk about anything and be brutally honest and not be embarrassed. That's something that I have always loved about your relationship.

The conversation turned to Chris and my secret project which she is a part of and the creative juices started to flow.  For the next few hours we discussed "things" about the project. She had some great input and insight.

Around 1pm we took a break and went to El Pollo Loco to eat some lunch. Once back we skyped chatted with Chris and the three of us brainstormed about the secret project (I can't wait until i can share this with everyone). We spent a few hours going over things.

Jen came to visit but she was also answering the "request for help" with my house. So she and I went out back and pulled weeds for a half hour. She realized my frustration, after you spend a half hour out there on your hands and knees and your tired then you look back at what you did and it looks as though you've barely done anything. 

We came inside for a break and we sat down to record a Confessions of a Fanboy/girl. It was an interesting conversation because she is a fangirl of punk rock music. I should have the podcast edited and uploaded early this week. After the podcast we planned to go back out to the yard and finish pulling weeds in this section of property but instead we talked for the next two hours. We talked about everything and it was fantastic. Around 7:30pm I was getting hungry so I made some spaghetti for dinner. Jen wasn't hungry so I ate while we watched LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out. She loved it. It was now a little after 8 and she was going to call it a night and head back home to Anaheim. I appreciate her driving all the way up here to help me out.

After she left I watched Once Upon A Time S2 Episode 2 with my bestie Chris. Wow what an amazing episode. This series continues to amaze me and it is by far my favorite new series on TV right now. So it was a great ending to a fantastic day.

Thanks Jen for visiting today, for great conversations, for helping with the yard work, for your contribution to our "secret project", for recording a Confessions podcast with me and of course for your friendship, which means the world to me.

The Ups & Downs of Saturday

Today my buddy Adam was coming over for the weekend to work. Many find my place a retreat from the world and he really needed to focus. I spent the morning cleaning up the house. I've been cleaning all week long but this was dusting, vacuuming and such. Around 10:30 I got a text from him letting me know that he wasn't feeling so hot and was going to rest and not be up today. I was bummed as I was looking forward to hanging with him but understood his situation. Later in the day I texted him and asked if he was going to come up on Sunday and he said that once he felt better he actually got into a groove and thought it would be better to just stay home.

So with Adam not coming over, I took a break for household duties and watched four episodes of Lost Girl. I have 10 eps from Season Two on my DVR. Once you start watching it's so hard to stop. I did manage to pull myself away after four. Which leaves six to go.

I got an email from my friend America asking for me to participate in "something". I can't officially announce it yet but when I can you know I will. I of course said yes as it sounds super fun. So stay tuned for more information on that.

I tweeted and facebooked a request for more guests for my Confessions of a Fanboy podcast. I really let this podcast fall by the waste side. So today I decided to step it up and put the request out there. I'll set up interview skype calls this week and get a backlog of guests recordings so I can go back to releasing an episode a month. 

Was suppose to go to dinner with my buddy Christopher and his sister, unfortunately his sister got food poisoning a few days ago and still wasn't feeling to hot so it was cancelled... which left my night open and my buddy Chris filled it with 3 and a half hours of Minecraft (that game is so addictive).

I wasn't as productive today as I would have liked to have been and I think being alone for the week (since I'm jobless) started me down that "funk" path I was in when I was out of work for nine months. I really need to not go down that road again. Wasn't a happy place and I don't wish to visit it again. I can say by the end of the night and having played Minecraft with Chris my spirits were lifted and I did go bed feeling better. Let's hope I stop the funk before it starts.

My Podcasts

So I took a break from all my household chores and wanted to see how much time I have put into my podcasts. Some are going strong, some have stalled a bit and some haven't even gotten started.

Podcast #1 - Knights of the Guild Podcast was started on February 15th 2009. I've released 120 Podcasts, Companioncasts, mincasts and microcasts. Last one released on August 12, 2012. Releasing new episodes has kind of been a bit sporadic.. yeah I'm a bit behind on this one. I have gone back and forth on weather or not I should continue this one. I was on the set of season six and do plan to do companioncasts for that season but still need to get quite a few interviews from the cast before those can happen. Unlike S4 and S5 these companioncasts will not be out a day or two after the episodes. I'm thinking I'll start releasing them sometime in November. After season six companioncasts are over I'll reassess the podcast and see if it has any more life left in it. Though it has had big numbers in the past, up to 40,000 downloads in a month the listening audience has dwindled down to about 3000 a month (which btw is still a pretty good number). So I'm not sure what the future hold for this podcast.. guess that kind of depends on what happens to The Guild after Season six.. only time will tell.

Podcast #2 - MASH 4077 Podcast was started on February 3, 2011. I've released 45 episodes so far, 40 regular episodes and 5 Swampcast episodes. This is co-hosted by my buddies Al and Meds. This podcast comes out on the 1st and 15th of every month like clockwork. The audience for this podcast continues to grow as MASH fans find out that there is a podcast for their favorite TV show. We went from 200 downloads a month when we first started to 4000 - 6000 downloads a month now.  There is no end in site for this podcast. I very much enjoy recording this one with my co-hosts and the listeners seemed to be really enjoying it. We are doing one episode per podcast twice a month. There are 251 episodes of MASH, if we continue to release 2 month we still have about 8.7 years of podcasts ahead of us. This is a keeper.

Podcast #3 - Confessions of a Fanboy Podcast was started on August 8th, 2011. I've released 10 episodes so far. I wanted to start this podcast for the "every" fanboy/girl. A place for them to talk about their love for one particular thing, geeky, sporty, music. The audience for this podcast has been small and I expect will continue to be small. I can get as low as 70 downloads a month to 400 downloads in a month, but the average is about 200 a month. This is more my fun podcast, were I can geek out with fellow fanboys/fangirls. The last Confessions was released on June 14th, 2012. There isn't a lack of Fanboys or Fangirls to interview.. it's more a lack of time for me to sit down and record podcasts with these folks. I've really let this one go. When I started this podcast I figured I could release an episode once a month but the release schedule has been quite sporadic, but hopefully I'll be able to get back on track again with this podcast. I really do enjoy doing this one. And edit wise it's the easiest to edit. Stay tuned for more Confessions of a Fanboy/girl.

Podcast #4 - Alien Nation The Newcomer Podcast was started on January 9, 2012. I've released 10 episodes so far. My co-host is my brother Michael. This podcast comes out once a month on the 10th of every month (or close to it). Both my brother and I are huge fans of Alien Nation and I've been wanting to do a podcast with my brother for a while so this choice of topic seemed natural, especially since there aren't any other Alien Nation podcasts out there.This podcast has struggled to find an audience. We started out with very low numbers and it's has steadily gotten bigger. We're currently up to about 250 downloads a month, at this point I was hoping for more but as long as we continue to grow I'm happy. I enjoy doing this podcast with my brother.. we always have a ton of fun. We record one episode per podcast. This series only lasted one season (22 episodes) and had 5 TV movies along with a dozen novels and comic books. We plan on reviewing everything and figure we have a good three years or so for this podcast.

Podcast #5 - My Gimpy Life Podcast was started on July 17, 2012. I've released 8 episodes so far, including regular podcasts, companioncasts, & promo. I started this podcast for my friend Teal and her new webseries with the same title My Gimpy Life. When I first started all I had planned to do was companioncasts for each episode and maybe a intro podcast and a season wrap podcast. But after talking to Teal we agree to try and release a podcast a month, in hopes that there will be a season two and I can continue to do companioncasts for those as well. Will see where this podcast goes. Right now I'm just having some fun with my friend Teal.

Podcast #6 - The Geek Roundtable Podcast has not launched yet. This started as Epic Geek Out Podcast with a different co-host back in October of 2010. It now has a new name, a new co-host Charles and a slightly tweaked format. This is the podcast that I've been wanting to do since I started podcasting. All my podcasts are for very "specific " topics and I've always wanted to do a more "general" geek podcast and this is it.  It's been six months since Charles and I revived this idea and still no podcast. The way this podcast is structured makes it difficult to just record with Charles.. we plan to do a roundtable on geeky topic which means we have 2 to 3 additional guest hosts. Trying to get everyone's schedule to line up has been difficult. But I am determined to get this podcast off the ground before the end of the year.

Needless to say that this hobby has turned into a full time job.. just wish it paid better :) I'd love to be a full time podcaster and make a living at it but at this moment in time that's just not possible. Who knows may one day it will happen. Thank you to all who download and listen to my various podcasts. I appreciate all the love and support I get from each and everyone of you.

BTS Pixs & Minecraft Scare

Finally had a free moment to post some pictures from past events. I posted a bunch of pictures that I took while on set of Season 1 of My Gimpy Life. I was on set half the days and got some good BTS stuff. You can check them out HERE.  I also posted some pictures from a shoot that was done at my house. Gamer Girl, Country Boy music video. That was a lot of fun and you can see some BTS pictures HERE. Still have a bunch of photos from my time on the set of The Guild S2 - S6 that I'll be posting at some point.

Put a tweet out there for some help with fixing up my house. Got a few people to help me out. The big weekend is Oct 13/14 as I'll be painting my house. I did manage to get one person to agree to help.. Thanks Rupert. Hope others can join in to make the job go by much faster.

Continued to go out and work on my yard. First attempt lasted about 20 minutes and my second attempt lasted 30 minutes. Still working on the space in between my house and garage and it's really starting to look good. Still got lots to go.

Finished my night off with 3 1/2 hours of Minecraft with my buddy Chris. Not a fan of the monster mode as I have mentioned in previous blogs but tonight it was super creepy. Chris called it a night around 11pm (12am his time) but I wanted to put in another hour or so. I actually sealed myself up in my "hobbit" hole that I am creating and went down to my deepest room when suddenly this long black shimmery thing was hiding in corner.. scared me half to death. I quickly ran upstairs to my top room and sealed the entire room off. That was the end of my Minecraft play for the night. 

Living alone in the middle of nowhere where it's pitch black and quiet as can be and just having the life scared out of you doesn't make for a pleasant evening of sleep.

Yard Work, TV, Minecraft & Buffy

Project "Sell My House" continues once again with Yard work first thing in the morning. Luckily for me it's cooling down so when I do go out it's a bit cooler. Today we actually had a nice breeze so I was able to be a bit more yard work done today then yesterday. I have almost every weed pulled from between my house and the garage. I also used my newly stringed weed wacker to take out the weeds on the left side of my drive way. Still lots to go but I'm making progress.

Continue to take breaks and try and catch up on some of my recorded TV. I also did a few hours on Minecraft with my bestie Chris. I play on his server and today we moved to another part of the world and started completely over. We also have monster mode on.. not a big fan of that. I enjoy the game for the building of things.. not the fighting of monsters.

I replaced the toilet seat in my guest bathroom. It's now the proper size. Can mark that off my list of things to do.

And for the evening I drove out to Mar Vista to hang out with my buddy Robert. It's our Buffy Rewatch night. We first picked up some Taco Bell for dinner.. then continued our Buffy viewing. We are still on Season 2 and started with  "Passion". That's one of the best of Season 2, in my opinion. Next was "Killed by Death" which was okay, then we watched  "I Only Have Eyes For You", a good episode and what is crazy one of the guest stars in this episode actually responded to my tweet.. .pretty awesome. And finally to finish off the night we watched "Go Fish". Not a favorite of mine but not horrible. So that ended our Buffy and Bros night.

Didn't stay the night like I normally do as I'm not working in town and traffic would be much easier at night then in the morning.. so we said our goodbyes and I headed home.

Yard Work, TV and a BroDate with Will

Project " Sell My House" continues.. woke up this morning and managed to get a half hour of  yard work in and finished cleaning my kitchen. I tired really hard to be productive all day yesterday. I avoided the TV the entire day. Today I wasn't so lucky. I have a ton of TV recorded on my DVR so today I decided to take a break from being productive and watch some of my recorded TV.

Around 5pm I headed out to Lowes to pick up a replacement toilet seat (I mentioned this a few months ago that I purchased the wrong size for my guest room). Well now that I'm selling the house I wanted to get the proper size so I did. I also picked up some replacement string for my weed whacker. But the main reason that I left the house was to head out and have dinner with my buddy Will.

I haven't seen him since my birthday weekend as he's been super busy with his job but he did manage to pull himself away for a few hours and meet me at Gordan Biersch for dinner. We had a great dinner.. lasted almost 3 hours. We talked about everything under the sun. He even slapped me across the face, twice, in the middle of the restaurant (long story). It was a great night. We finally said our goodbyes around 11:30pm.. I headed home and he headed back to work. That boy works to hard sometimes. But it was a great visit and I can't wait to hang with him again soon... love you buddy.

Selling My House

Some of you may know that I'm planning on selling my house. Harry and I purchased it three year ago and made it our dream house. Harry put down a large down payment and I'm unable to payout his portion of it so I have to sell it.

Harry and I broke up over a year and a half ago but I had to wait three years before I could sell the house because of contract restrictions. Anyways the three years are up and it's time to sell so I can give Harry back his money.

I love this house and it has so many great memories but it is far from friends and family and though I do like being isolated I get lonely alot. The internet is crap out here and I can't wait until I can get high speed again (and netflix).. it's been far too long.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done before I can put the house up for sale. I mean I can sale it as is but I want to maximize every dollar and get the best price possible and if that means I have to put a few dollars in to make it look nicer then so be it. I plan to paint the outside of the house, there is lots of chipped paint. I plan to sand down the back porch and re-stain it. My buddy Chris already took down the decrepit railing. The 2 1/2 arches of land is the toughest part. There are overgrown weeds everywhere and it's a constant battle to keep everything in check.

Besides those three huge things I have a few paint touch ups inside and need to give the inside a really good cleaning. I hope to take the month of October off (now that I'm out of work) and focus on doing all these fixes so I can list the property starting sometime in November.

I know that this property is unique and will take some special people to want it. I'm not kidding myself I know it could be a matter of days or years before I sell the place. Once it is sold I plan to move back to the valley area.. depending on how much we get for the house I may buy myself a townhouse.

So starting today I begin project "Sell My House". I did about two hours of yard work and to be honest it doesn't look like I did much,  but I noticed the difference. It was so hot outside (over 100) that two hours almost killed me. So I moved inside and did a bit of cleaning around house.

Once I got bored with cleaning I worked on several podcasts and played Minecraft for about 3 hours. I haven't played in a few months but man that game just sucks you in and the time flies when your in that world.

I'll keep everyone updated on my progress and if you are local and would like to help me out, I would really appreciate it. If you do want to help contact me and I'll let you know when a good time would be. Not only will you get my appreciation but I'll feed you lunch and/or dinner... can't pass that up.

My Gimpy Life Podcast #6

Download from iTunes ow.ly/e8Buw or Listen, get direct download from mygimpylifepodcast.com

Now that My Gimpy Life season one series has come to an end. There will be no more companioncasts, but that doesn't mean the podcast is over... far from it.

Teal and I recorded a podcast about a month ago and I've been so busy that I haven't had time to edited it.. so I spent three hours today doing so and here it is.

This is the first of many episodes where I sit down with the creator Teal Sherer as we talk about her thoughts on the overall season. Teal also answers some questions for Gimpy fans. We love to hear your thought in future podcasts or if you have any questions for Teal. Please email me an audio comment or written email to MyGimpyLifePodcast@gmail.com

thanks & enjoy,
Kenny

MASH 4077 Podcast Episode #40

Download from itunes http://tinyurl.com/MASH4077itunes or listen/direct download http://MASH4077Podcast.com

Show Notes

Kenny Mittleider from Knights of the Guild, Alien Nation: The Newcomers Podcast & Confessions of a Fanboy Podcast, Simon Meddings from Waffle On Podcast, & Al Kessel from Tales from the Mouse House, Fast Forward & Just Because Podcast discuss one of the most successful and longest running television series in history.. M*A*S*H

Today we cover Season 2, Episode #16 - Henry in Love
40th Episode Overall
Directed by Don Weis
Written by Larry Gelbart, Laurence Marks
Production code K416
Original air date January 5, 1974

Set during the Korean War in the 1950’s

Plot Summary: Henry returns from a week in Tokyo, to announce that he is in love with a 20-year old girl called Nancy Sue Parker. She arrives for the weekend, and Henry shows her off. Nancy comes on to Hawkeye while Henry is in surgery. Henry is reminded of his wife back home when Radar places a call for him, and he realises it's his wife he loves.

Hope you enjoy it, Kenny

Podcasts and TV

Today was all about Podcasting and Catching up on TV. First thing I did this morning was watch MASH S2 episodes 17 to 22. I was recording the next six episodes of my MASH podcast and I had yet to watch the episodes. I mean I've seen all the episodes but it's nice to watch them a few days before to refresh your memory. So I did four episodes before I took a break and watched the mid season finale of Doctor Who. I was going to watch it with my bestie Chris. We both held off watching it until we both had time to watch together, though I'm in Cali and he's in Montana.. we make it work.

This was the last episode that would feature the Ponds as his companions. We've known since this season began that they were leaving in this episode. But we didn't know what to expect. Were they going to kill them off or have them just forget or what. I have to say I was not disappointed. I also cried like a baby several times, especially at the very end. It was a very bitter sweet ending for the Ponds.

After Who I watched the premiere of Star Wars The Clone Wars season five. It was a good start to the season. I didn't think it was an OMG amazing episode but it was good. I'm looking forward to my weekly dose of Star Wars for the next few months.

Then I finished watching the remaining two episodes of MASH right before I jumped online to record a further six episodes of my MASH 4077 Podcast. Meds and Al, my co-hosts joined me and though we had some major skype issues I think the shows turned out pretty well. It's going to take some creative editing but that's not uncommon for this podcast.

After I finished the podcasts I ran out to grab a bite to eat. When I got back I watched some more TV. This time I watched an episode of Hot Set. It's a new Syfy competition show with production designers. My friends Greg Aronowitz and Red 5 were featured as one of the competitors and they actually won $10,000. Besides Greg being my friend his set/concept was leaps and bounds better then his competitor. It's a fun show.. I'll continue to watch.

And finally it was time for the second season premiere of Once Upon A Time. This IS my favorite tv show on right now. I watched it with my bestie Chris since we use to watch it together before he moved to Montana. So now we watch it together and text back and forth. And like with Who it was a blast watching it with him. We'd texted each other with questions or OMG or reactions to what just happen. It's amazing how close you can feel to someone when you're watching the same thing 1000 miles apart. Loved, loved, loved the opening of season two. Interesting twist and I can't wait to see how this season plays out.

So it was a full day of podcasting and TV.. good times where had.

Secret Projects, Workouts, Xanadu & Family

Woke up this morning and the first thing I did was apply for unemployment. I don't know if I have any left after my nine month stint with it last time but it never hurts to see if I can get any more assistance. I don't know how long I'll be out of work this time around. I have funds to help keep me afloat for the next two months. But there is gonna be a lot of belt tightening.

After that I was in the mood to work out. I haven't worked out in months and months but for some reason I felt like getting out there. I only did 20 minutes on the elliptical before the heat got to me and had to stop. It's a start.. not a great one but a start. I hope to continue to work out and finally get in shape.

Was visiting the family today. Haven't seen them in about three weeks which is far to long to be away. On my drive I started talking to my bestie Chris about our "secret project" and missed my exit, then again a half hour later I almost missed another exit. So instead of taking the 210 east I jumped on the 5 south and then the 60 north east before finally getting back on track to the 71, then 91. That little mistake added an additional hour to my commute and instead of a 2 hour drive it turned into a 3 hour drive. It all wasn't bad as I did get to talk to Chris the entire time and work on a project that he and I are so excited about.

Finally got to see the family and they were having a BBQ with friends. Soon as I walked in my niece got one look at me she started to scream bloody murder (she hates me). Kenobi was being shy for some reason so I didn't get to spend any time with him either. My brother showed me his finished Star Wars Toy room.. it was pretty EPIC.. I had some BBQ hamburgers and then took my dad out shopping. We went to Target because I was looking for the new Ultra Edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows parts 1 & 2 Blurays. They were an exclusive at Target. While there I got some socks, the HP blurays, along with Avengers bluray and a cool E.T. shirt. Unknown to me my Dad was paying for all this as he said it was for my birthday...yay!!

Got back to Mike's place and the party was in full swing. I hung out for another hour before saying goodbye as I had to meet my buddy Christopher in LA to see a play. I left at 5:15 with plans to meet Christopher for dinner before the play. Unfortunately traffic was horrendous so I had to cancel dinner and was hoping I would make it to the theater in time. I did get there by 7ish, found an El Pollo Loco and grabbed a quick bite before meeting up with my buddy at 7:30pm.

We were going to see the stage play Xanadu. I love the movie and both Christopher and I saw a version of the play 10 years ago. Chris had gotten preferred seating which was fantastic. For the next two hours we laughed, cheered and sung along to one of my favorite musicals as a kid. It was a great night.

Play was over we said our goodbyes and I headed home. It was a full day of crazy fun. Time for bed.

LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out

Just watched the second LEGO Star Wars special. LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out and it was AWESOME!!! These shows are so poorly promoted that I had no idea this was even created until listening to a Forcecast podcast a few weeks ago. And even then there was no airdate. Suddenly the day before it aired I caught wind of it... lucky for me.

I loved the first LEGO special LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace, they are fun Star Wars goodness and this one was the same. The first one took place during the prequel era and the latest one takes place during the original saga era. So this one had Luke, Leia and Han. Though the first on had Han as well but he was a kid. Lot's and lots of laughs. I wish this was a regular TV series, but if they keep surprising us with specials every now and then that would cool.. they just need to promote these better. Check out the trailer below.

Suddenly Unempolyed Again!!

Today at 4pm the executive producer of the current show I am working on gathered everyone together to announce that the show is going dark (meaning being shut down). Which meant as of that moment I was out of a job.

Now let me back track a few days.. On Monday my supervisor asked me to go for a walk (meaning he wanted to talk to me). He said that I should get my resume in order as there are rumblings of this show being shut down. He wasn't sure when or if it would happen but he wanted to give me a heads up. So I've been kind of waiting for this to happen all week. Then today at around 2pm he asked to go for a walk again and he told me it was happening today.

Firstly the show did not get cancelled, the creative people behind the show and the network couldn't see eye to eye on how they wanted this show to play out. We've been working on this show for three months and have yet to finish a single episode and in fact are far from finishing a single episode. The production company was hemorrhaging money and needed it to stop. Their best course of action was to let everyone go. Work on re-tooling the show so that the network is happy and then start up post again. This could be weeks, months or years.

I'm actually happy to be done with this show and I think this is exactly what should have happen. Am I upset that I'm jobless again.. of course. No one ever likes to be jobless, but the 4 hour commute (there and back) was killing me and the stress of not getting cuts out on time was horrible.

I had a great three months with them and me being me I saved up a little bit of fund to survive a few months if needed. So I'm good, at least for now. Gonna take this opportunity to clean up my house (going to be selling soon) and catch up on editing some podcasts. Just because I'm out of work doesn't mean I can be lazy... okay maybe I can be lazy a day or two :)

Happy 25th Anniversary ST:TNG

25 years ago today Star Trek The Next Generation premiered (September 28, 1987). There were mixed reviews from fans who saw this new Enterprise with no Kick or Spock as a wanna be Star Trek. Who knew that this series would go on to be the fan's number one Star Trek series. 

I am a Star Wars fan, I saw the original Star Wars when I was 7 years old and it molded me into the geek that I am today. I do remember watching the older TOS (The Original Series) on TV and enjoying it but it didn't grab me like Star Wars did. I had heard they were going to relaunch Star Trek and saw the commercials for this new series. But because I wasn't a huge fan of the original Star Trek I missed the first few episodes of this new series. I began watching around episode five or six and all it took was one episode and I was hooked. Unfortunately back in the day we couldn't go to the internet to find missed episodes, so I had to wait months until they repeated the first five over the summer.

I was devouring anything and everything Star Trek. I became an instant fan thanks to TNG. I remember just sitting there and being glued to my TV each week. I had never seen any science fiction program like this before on TV. Every week I got to go on a cool adventure to some far off alien world. I would record these on my VCR and watch the episodes over and over until I wore out the VHS tapes.

TNG actually made me appreciate TOS and the movies even more. I instantly bonded with Picard, Data, Riker, LaForge, Troi, Crusher, Worf, Yar and Wesley.  They became part of my geeky family and I looked forward to seeing them every week.

And though 3 more series followed Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Star Trek Voyager and Star Trek Enterprise. Star Trek The Next Generation will always hold a special place in my heart for opening my eyes to this fantastic universe.

My Poem - Magic

I use to write lot of poetry in the 20's.  I thought it might be fun to share some of it on my blog. So I'll be posting various poems that I wrote over the years. Some deal with looking for love, some deal with being a father, some I wrote for friends. and some dealt with being alone. Each one was written from the heart and says alot about me as a young man during a very trying time of my life.

I thought I would start with one of my love poems, it wasn't written to anyone in particular. I was still in the closet, confused and alone. I desperately wanted to find that one person who could make my life complete. This is what I imagined true love to be like.

MAGIC

It was written in the stars way up above,

That you and I were destine to fall in love.

Right from the start you stole my heart,
I knew right there we would never part.

When I dream at night all my thoughts are of you,
But to live the rest of my life with you in a dream come true.

You have a hold of my heart and all I feel is amore,
It’s an unbelievable feeling that I have never felt before.

When I touch your sweet face and hold your soft hand,
Life can’t get any better, any better for one man.

There is a feeling inside that will never go away,
A bonding of souls that will always remain.

Love at first sight has always been a myth,
Until I meet you I could not resist.

Your eyes are so beautiful and your voice is so sweet,
My life if full of joy and all I can do is weep.

I'm thankful everyday, everyday I spend with you,
For what is life without love, the love shared by two.

KM8/20/96

Jeep Woes, Glasses, Hobbitses & Buffy

Today I headed over to Jiffy Lube first thing in the morning. Yesterday when I got in my car to head to work I noticed that there was this liquid inside the wheel well of my back driver side tire. At first I thought it was water but when I touched it I noticed that it was some sort of lubricant. A few weeks back I took my jeep in to Jiffy Lube and they serviced my rear differentials so I thought maybe a tube or something came loose. After checking they couldn't find anything wrong and have no idea where that fluid came from. Since I'm not a big car person I have to take their word.  Guess will have to wait and see. I've been wanting to get a new car for a while now (something with better gas mileage) and I think the time is now.

On my way into work I stopped by Lencrafters as my new glasses were ready. I was in and out in no time and now have these new geeky glasses and I love them. I hated the progressive lenses so I asked for bi-focals.. man this is going to take some time getting use to.

Work moved along a nice pace.. wasn't too crazy or stressful. While at work I got word that the new Hobbit figures were now up for pre-sale. At first I went to Amazon and started adding them to my cart. I have several gift cards I could use. But being the good consumer that I am I checked to see if they were up for pre-sale anywhere else for a better price and came across Toys R Us. And there prices were $2 to $5 cheaper. So I ordered everything they had... They have released 13 figures so far, but one of the figures pre-sale was already sold out. So I would up getting only 12 of the 13.  I'll need to find that one somewhere else. So I spent about $200 on Hobbit figures and I can't wait until they are shipped out. Talked to my brother and he offered to pay half of that for my Birthday present... woo hooo.

My night ended by going over to my buddy Robert's place for our weekly Buffy Rewatch.  I got out of work a bit early so we were able to watch four episodes tonight. We also tried something new for dinner Chinese.. it's wasn't bad.. we started with S2 "Surprise" which changed everything between Buffy and Angel. Next was "Innocence" part 2 of the Angel goes bad story. Third was "Phases" were we find out that Oz is a werewolf and to end the night we watched "Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered" which I think was a great episode to end on. I've never seen Robert laugh so much at an episode of Buffy. As per usual I crashed at his place. We stayed up another hour or so chatting before finally calling it a night.  All in all a good day.

Dinner with a Long Lost Friend

Tonight after work I made plans to have dinner with my buddy Christopher, He's a friend I've known for over 10 years. He was one of my first "gay" friends after I came out. We actually went out on a date but came to realize that we were better friends. Anyways our friendship has been kind of on and off as of late. Nothing really came between us, we were both busy and never could find the time to hang out. The past few years we would see each other every few months and swear that we won't let another three months pass us by without seeing each other but then three months would pass by and we make the same commitment. Well it's been another three months and we finally got to have dinner tonight. We meet up at CPK (California Pizza Kitchen). We spent the next few hours catching up on each other's lives. We even talked about our friendship and not seeing each other as much as we'd like. He hasn't been doing so well lately and I feel bad as if I let him down. I got caught up in my own life with podcasting, work and "my geek mob" friends I let the few friends I had prior fall by the waste side and I am sorry for that. I must try harder to keep in contact with all my friends. Even if it's just a quick text or email. Lucky for me I'll be seeing Christopher this Saturday as we are doing to see a stage play of Xanadu... can't wait.

Goodbye Chris, Hello Robert

Woke up this morning, got ready for work and a half hour before I left I woke up Chris so I could spend my last half hour hanging with him. I was going to be taking him to the airport but last night Jen contacted him and said she would drive over and pick him up and take him to the airport. So we just hung out in the morning, watching some TV and talking about the weekend. I was suppose to leave at 8:30 but instead left closer to 9am as I didn't want to say goodbye.

I don't know if it's me getting use to saying goodbye to him or the fact that I know will be seeing him again soon but saying goodbye to Chris no longer brings tears to my eyes. So I said my goodbye got in my jeep and headed to work.

Work was work but instead of going home tonight as planned I went over to my buddies Robert's place. He was in the middle of a situation and needed a friend and I was happily that friend. We had Italian for dinner and just sat around his apartment chatting. I ended the night by crashing at his place.