People's Choice Podcast Award Results

Well they announced the winners of the 2010 People's Choice Podcast Awards today. Knights of the Guild podcast (my podcast) was nominated in the Entertainment category and was the sixth category to be announced. It's funny my internet sucks here at my house and I was in the middle of getting ready to head out for a Xmas party so I had my friend Aaron keep me updated via texting on the winners. They were going through them fairly quick and when he texted me the fifth winner I jumped online to see if I could actually watch my category. I was surprised that my internet actually worked and the streaming feed actually held up and I was able to watch that category and see that the winner was The Fringe Podcast.

Yeah we lost, which is a bummer but as they say (and it's true) it was an honor to be nominated. Out of the thousands of podcasts submitted for Best Entertainment we were selected as one of the top 10. I knew our chances were slim but you still hope.. Guildies are the best and it's a fairly large community but in the end Fringe got more votes.

But on a positive note our podcast will always be known as "The People's Choice "Best Entertainment" Nominated Knights of the Guild Podcast" ... see there is that silver lining :)

DADT Repealed

Finally something good comes out of this government. The Don't Ask Don't Tell law for the US Military has been repealed after 17 years. Wasn't sure it was going to happen.. there were several false started to repeal it but in the end it happened today. It's good that it's gone (or will be gone) and GLBT military folks will be able to serve opening and proud if they wish and won't be kicked out because of it, but honestly if I was a gay man in the military I still wouldn't serve openly as there is still so much hate and bigotry towards being gay I would fear for my life from other service men. I'm happy they can serve openly but cautious.

Coach, Crowds and Christmas

Still have a few Christmas gifts to buy and this being our last weekend we had to brave the storm and head out. One of those gifts is a Coach wallet for my mom. Now I can't afford a Coach wallet from one of their many stores but I figured if I went to one of the outlets I should be able to buy one there at a discounted price. So I looked online and found that the closest outlet to us is in Camarillo which is about 70 miles south west of us and would take about an hour and a half to get there. So with wind and rain we started our trek to the Coach outlet store. When we get there it's PACKED!!! I mean the parking lot, there were cars everywhere and it was pouring outside and people running around, it was pretty crazy. We found the Coach store and started to look for a parking space, which was going to take a miracle. When we drove by the front of the store we saw that there were at least 100+ people standing outside in the rain waiting to get into the Coach store which was also packed.. I looked at Harry and said "think I'm going to call Mom and see if it's cool if she gets her Christmas present after Christmas" it would take an hour to find a parking spot and then stand in line for a few hours and then fight my way inside the store to find a wallet. He agreed and we abandon our mission and headed home. But before that we went to a local Denny's for some lunch. Now the blog should be over but it's not. On our way home a bout of nausea hit me. So much so that I fought my body from trowing up. There were several times when I almost asked Harry to pull over on the freeway. Luckily I made it home and the nausea ceased after a few hours.. not sure if it was Denny's or what but for a moment I thought I had food poisoning.

A Healthier Me - Day 124

Well I didn't work out Tuesday or Wednesday, but Tuesday I did go roller skating for a hour and since I haven't gone roller skating in over 15 years it was a huge workout.. was a really good cardio workout. So I really only skipped working out on Wednesday. Anyways back on track for now..

Today's Workout:

5 minutes jumping rope
30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical
4 sets of 10 on the curl arm for my biceps (45 lbs)
4 sets of 10 for shoulders (45 lbs)
4 sets of 10 on the front leg press (45 lbs)
4 sets of 10 on the free weight (110 lbs)

Things are so crazy and there seems to not be enough time in the day to do everything I need to do. I've gotten about seven hours sleep in the past 3 days and my working out unfortunately gets dropped if I run out of time or need a bit more sleep. I rather not workout a day than get sick as lack of sleep is really taking it's toll on my body. I know these are excuses but they are the truths.. still not 100% feeling well but I'm going to do my best to get back on track. Still hoping to get to 200 or below before the end of the year.

Gay = Bad?

Sorry guys this blog is going to be a bit of a rant. These two topic have been bothering me for a while and recently experience both of them again.. which leads me to blogging about it.

First.. "That's so Gay!!" or "That sounds Gay!!" the word Gay in that statement normally means stupid, ugly, weak, or some other derogatory thing. I hear kids say it all the time and even some of my friends have said it to my face.. of course I call them out and ask why they would say something like that and most times they say that they don't even think about it.. it's just a saying. I'm sure most people who do say it mean no ill will to the "gay" community, but it still doesn't make it right. When did Gay start to mean something derogatory? They use to say "Gay" back in the early years and it meant joyful or fun.. "A Gay Ol' time". People need to start thinking about what they say.. I understand that words are just words but you have to understand that when people compare who you are (gay) to being ugly, stupid, weak over and over again it can hurt. It's a form of hate and one that is prevalent in our society.

Second .. "oh but I'm not Gay.."  people say it like being gay is a bad thing.. an example from today I saw a posting of a picture of this guy and a male friend with their arms over each other shoulder.. the caption said.. "My Best Mate.. I love him.. but not like that.. I'm not gay".  It's like he purposely wrote that to make sure everyone knew he wasn't gay.. just because he said he loved his best mate and was showing affection to him. I see and hear this time and time again. I'll be having a conversation with someone and make sure they finish off with..."but I'm not gay". I always ask them why they would say such a thing. Is it that big of a deal if you were gay or if people think you are gay? They make it sound as if being gay is a bad thing and they want to make sure everyone knows that they aren't this "bad" thing... I just don't get it... when did "Gay" get such a negative connotation in our society??

Sorry for the rant.. these things have been bothering me and I'm trying to get better and blogging about these things and not keep them bottled up. Thanks for reading.

Knights of the Guild Ep 23 pt.1

 

Show Notes:

Here it is Episode 23 part 1 of Knights of the Guild… Enjoy!!!

Today’s show features:

• * First up a classic Vorkism
• * We are recording this weeks podcast live in our studios.
• * We have some great Crew Interviews with Greg Aronowitz and his prop making crew, Brian, Mazen & Nick

• * We find out what the cast and crew are up too
• * Then Business Time
• * Then our Good byes

Thank you again for all your support, we do this podcast because we are fans and more importantly for the fans.
 

Kenny & Jenni

Other Important Links

• Knights of the Guild Feeds/Downloads http://knightsoftheguild.com
• Knights of the Guild Daily Blog http://knightsoftheguildpodcast.blogspot.com/

Being Extremely Shy

I am an extremely shy person, very introverted and have had some bad cases of social anxiety, I have been this way my entire life. I hated public speaking, I use to have panic attacks when I knew something was coming up and I had to get up in front of the class and speak. One incident really stands out in my mind. I was in 7th grade in Chemistry class and they were going down the aisle asking each person to answer a question. I was counting desks in front of me and then counting questions so I knew which one I had to answer and make sure I actually knew the answer, well that kept changing because if the person got it wrong they would ask the next person in the row.. so I kept panicking until I literally made myself go blind. I panicked so much that my body shut down and I lost my vision. So not only am I panicking that I won't be able to answer the question correctly and that I have to speak in front of the entire class I'm now panicking that I can't see anymore. I remember trying to calm myself down by taking deep breaths, and trying to control my anxiety. After a few minutes my vision came back and I did answer the question, right or wrong I don't remember. That's the worst social anxiety that I've ever had.

As I get older I learned better ways of controlling my social anxiety and shyness. But I'm still not comfortable in large crowds, parties or bars. I much rather be with a small group of friends. If you know me you'd say I'm not extremely shy but that's because I know you. If I know you I can have a perfectly good conversation, but in a room on strangers I will not say a word. I don't have a clue why I'm so shy it's not like I can't carry a conversation. If I sounds stupid do I really care what they think of me?

I really admire those people who can go up to anyone and start a conversation.

I know I do a podcast that thousands of people listen too but it's different when you're talking into a microphone in an empty room, then if I was talking to a room with a thousand people staring at me.  But I will say that podcasting has helped me with my social anxiety/shyness along with my blogging, video blogging, daily booth, twitter, facebook and other social media forums.

Social anxiety and Shyness will be something that I will struggle with the rest of my life, it's part of what makes Kenny, Kenny I guess.

Extra, Extra, Extra

Today I got up extremely early 5am to head into North Hollywood to be an extra in a webseries. My padawan Troy who went to the skate party with me the previous night actually came back to my place as he too was going to be an extra and my place is closer to North Hollywood then his. Before we headed out for set I gave Troy an early Christmas present. Troy lives in Los Alamitos and hasn't had a GPS for a while so he uses google and yahoo maps so he is constantly getting lost or missing turn offs and such so I got him a brand new GPS system. So before we headed into town I had him open it up so he could use it this morning and break it in.

We were running a bit late but manage to get out of the house around 5:45am. We drove separately as I had to go into work after the shoot while he was going to head back to my place because he was going to be an extra for the next day as well. It normally takes about 40 minutes to get to NoHo from our place  but with morning traffic about 50 minutes to an hour. Well I didn't realize 6am traffic is different then 9am traffic and it took about an hour and a half this morning. Our call time was 6:30am and they were going to start shooting at 7am. Well Troy got there about 6:50am and I got there around 7:05am because I had to stop for gas on the way.

Luckily and kind of expected they were running late as well as it was sprinkling and we were shooting outside. I think we finally got started at 8am and did the scene for 2 hours.

It was loads of fun, I love being an extra... there really is no acting required.. they point and say go here, hold this, do that and you do it. It was great to see some of my old Guildie gang. Working with these guys always puts a smile on my face. It was some good times.. can't wait to see the final product.

Skating, Lazertag and Broken Legs

Tonight was my friends Marissa's 18th birthday. Our mutual friends Greg and Sheri went all out for this party. She had always joked about having a skate party. Well these guys rented out a skate park out in Northridge and through her a surprise party. The place was awesome, pizza, hot dogs, pretzels, churro and soda was at the plenty. Flashing light up glasses, glow bands and beads were given out. Belle and Arial also showed up to do balloon animals and hats and face painting. They also had what they called Lazertag but I wasn't too impressed with that. Marissa was extremely surprised and excited.

10 minutes into the party one of Greg's friends fell while skating and broke his leg. For the next 15 minute he laid on the floor waiting for an ambulance to come get him. Most people stopped skating but they did open part of the rink for those who wanted to continue. A few minutes after they took the guy away on a stretcher another guy went down and at first we thought he broke his ankle but he just sprained it really bad. But after that everything else went smoothly. We skated, ate junk food, got balloon animals made and played some lazertag. It only lasted two hours which felt like it just flew buy and at the end we had cake and sang Happy Birthday. 

Other then a few tumbles, it was a fun night, I hadn't skated in over 15 years but did pretty good (I never fell). It was great to see alot of Guildie faces, folks I haven't seen since season 4 ended. And it's always fun to hang out with my Padawan Troy. All in all a great night.

Looks Aren't Everything

First let me say these aren't random thoughts.. something will happen in my daily life and gets me thinking. So I decided to try and put my thoughts into words and blog about it... blogging is a great way to get things off my chest.  This isn't the first and won't be the last of these kinds of blogs.

I've struggled my entire teenage and adult life with they way I looked. I am short, a little over 5"3' and I've always had an issue with it. I was made fun of as a kid and before I was out of the closet I had difficulty getting a date with girls because most woman (not all) don't like short men . Besides being short I'm stocky as I like to call it. I top just over 200lbs and doctors tell me that I'm obese, according to their medical standards. So I'm a short stocky obese male. Beauty/Handsome are subjective to each person but there are what the general populace would consider beautiful or handsome and I wouldn't consider myself either

It's funny as you get older you realize there is more to life then the way you look. It's unfortunate that it can take years and years to reach that point. I think once I came out at 27 things changed and I started to look at myself differently. Luckily for me the guys I liked weren't into tall, dark and handsome, they looked beyond that and saw the beauty within. I accepted that I was going to be short all my life, there really wasn't anything I could do to change that. I also accepted that I am stocky.. I'll always be stocky, even when I lose weight I'll still be broad shouldered and stocky.. it's just the way my body was built.  As for being handsome, I've accepted that isn't in the cards for me. If someone doesn't like me for the way I look then they are not worth my time anyways.

It's taken years but I'm finally happy with myself, I like the person I have become.

A Healthier Me - Day 121

So I FAILED at the end of last week. I didn't work out on Thursday or Friday as planned. I can use the excuse of being tired (as I was on Thursday) but there really is no excuse. I just couldn't motivate myself to get up super early to workout or workout when I got home late at night from work.  But that's behind me.. got up early today and got out there.

Since it's Monday I weight myself this morning 205.5

Today's Workout:

1 hour of cardio on the elliptical
5 minutes jump roping

So a result of not working out those two days and eating crappy last week I gained 1.5 lbs. I'm really starting to doubt I'm going to be at or below 200 by the end of the year. I'm kind of disappointed in myself as it was a very doable goal and my lack of self control when it comes to eating is my downfall. I mean I still have a few weeks but unless I change my eating habits dramatically I'm not going to lose 5.5 lbs in two weeks. But this is only a minor set back, I'm not going to let this discourage me. I'll double my efforts on working out daily and really focus on eating better.

I did start with a new cardio workout.. I bought a jump rope this past weekend and gave it a whirl.. man does it get your heart racing but I was only able to do 5 minutes before my ankles were screaming for me to stop. I'm sure I'll build on that time as I continue to do it but it's a nice alternative to the elliptical.

Christmas Shopping

Today Harry and I went out for about four hours and went Christmas shopping. We hit Michale's ,Target, Best Buy, Barnes and Noble and Ross. I also purchased more stuff online when I got home. I actually bought a lot of stuff online this year. More this year then any other year. I'd say we are about 75% done with your shopping. Luckily we have one more weekend to finish.