Games, Lembas Bread & Friends

This weekend plans were so last minute. I considered opening this weekend up to all my friends and having a mini marathon/party but decided against that and thought it might be nice to just have the three/four guests and have a "chill" weekend. I made no plans, well other then food (what we were going to eat). So Jes and I got up early around 8ish and went to Denny's for breakfast. We then stopped by Vons to pick up some supplies for the Lembas Bread that we were making later in the day. While we were out my buddy Robert texted me that he was on his way up.

Jes and I got home and started to play Yatezee on my ipad when Robert arrived around 11am. He joined in for a few games until we switched over to Cards Against Humanity. If you don't know about CAH, it started off as a Kickstarter program and was fully funded and is not a huge hit card game.

Cards Against Humanity is a party game for horrible people. Here's a description from it's website (BTW this game is completely sold out already). Unlike most of the party games you've played before, Cards Against Humanity is as despicable and awkward as you and your friends. The game is simple. Each round, one player asks a question from a Black Card, and everyone else answers with their funniest White Card.

And man most the white cards are just horrible, which makes this game one of the best games I've played in a long time. Jes, Robert and I played for a few hours before Rupert joined us and we moved to the dining table. We then continued to play through the entire deck of cards, stopping only once to have lunch. We played for hours and it was some of the funnest moments the four of us have ever had.

Around 4pm we finally finished the entire deck and it was time to make Lembas Bread. Jes had made this for my Lord of the Rings marathon last year and it was a hit. So when she said she was coming over for the weekend and that we should make some I was all for it.

Robert and Rupert sat in the kitchen and watched as Jes and I prepared the bread. It was a lot of fun baking with Jes. We had the bread dough finished within a few minutes and then I watched Jes cut out the first batch and I did the second. Ten minutes later the bread was cooked and ready to be consumed. I had Mallorn Leaf that Jes had created for the previous bread so we wrapped a few up for friends.

After we cooked, the three of them Rupert, Robert and Jes (who slept & was on her phone) went into the TV room to watch the Kings game, while I went into my office to catch up on my blogging. Occasionally Robert or Jes would come in my office to hang during commercials. I didn't have to watch the game to know how the team was doing.

I also started dinner, we were having Lasagna and garlic bread. By the time dinner was done my fourth guest was done shooting and on her way over to my place. Kimi arrived just as we were finishing dinner and about to play Clue.

We ended the night with a few games a Clue before calling it a night around 11ish. That's fairly early for this group but the ladies had to be up at 5am for a shoot on Sunday.

So it was a fun, relaxing day hanging with friends.. couldn't ask for a better day.

Visiting Family

This morning was a great morning, had my best friend hanging with me, I made some pancakes for breakfast, we watched some TV, talked and finished our visit with playing some Wii (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows pt. 1). He had to get home and I had to go visit family today so we said our goodbyes around 1ish.. it was an FANTASTIC 26 hours.

I went to visit my dad and we went out of lunch. My brother and his family (including my Dad) are in my middle of moving so half of the family is at the old place and half is at the new place. After having lunch we headed over to the new house to see my sister-in-law Lora and my niece and nephew. I really wanted to see my nephew Kenobi as it's his third birthday today (though we are having a big party in three weeks). I hope him a pre-birthday party gift. I played a little baseball with him. What I didn't know is my Dad had plans to play poker. It took me two and a half hours to get down to their place (traffic was horrible) and then I only got to spent about an hour with them before I had to get my Dad back to the old house so he could catch is ride to the poker game.

Though it was cut short I did enjoy my time with my family. It's always nice getting to see them every few weeks.

Drove home and waited for my friend Jes to arrive. She was driving from up north to come visit me for the weekend and to do a shoot for Nerd Machine on Sunday. Another friend Kimi is also doing the shoot but she's doing it on Saturday and Sunday and will be crashing at my place Saturday night. Also my buddy Rupert and Robert didn't have any plans this weekend and asked if they could hang so this weekend had turned into a mini get together of some of the members of the Geek Mob.

Jes arrived around 10ish and we hung out until midnight chatting. Tomorrow should be a fun day.

Lord of the Rings Games

Two new Lord of the Rings games were announced with trailers at E3 today.. The Lego game looks fun as all of the Lego games are a blast.. but the trailer for LOTR: Guardians of Middle Earth looks EPIC!!! it looks like a cross between street fighter and LOTR. I mean the game looks like a lot of fun but I'd rather see more of the cinematic trailers.. they are pretty awesome.

Here's the Lego Trailer...

Here's the Guardians of Middle Earth trailer...

Pic a Day in May (All)

If you've been following me you know I took a picture every day in May. I have a lot of fun with these. Some came to my easily and some took some effort to come up with. I tried to do more then just take a picture of me. I hope you enjoyed the pictures and I'm sure I'll be doing this again since I had so much fun with this. Here's all 31 of them.

Magic Mountain with Josh

My bestie Josh texted me yesterday and said that he was free on Thursday and part of Friday and if I wanted to hang out. Of course I jumped at the opportunity to hang out with him as I adore him and we see each other not very often. Magic Mountain popped into my head and I mentioned that I had a discounted ticket and he could get in for $25 bucks but it expires at the end of May (which is today). I then found another coupon for a free entry on a weekend but again it ended today... so the plan was set. He would come over and we'd do Magic Mountain.

He had planned to get here around 10am since the park opened at 10:30am but was running a big late so he didn't get here until a bit after 11am which meant we got to the park around Noon. The park was open until 8pm and we planned on staying the entire time. It's been a few years since he had been so Six Flags so there were several new roller coasters that he had never ridden, so I was excited.. I love going to theme parks with newbies.

We we got to the park we ran into our buddy Doug who works there.. that was fun.

Our first ride was Tatsu, it's one of my favorites and Josh had never been on it. The light wasn't bad and they had misters, oh BTW did I mention it was boiling outside. Anyways like I said they had misters but we were standing under tarts and it kept the sun off but kind of baked us. The mist had it very humid and we were sweating. A guy in front of us actually got a bloody nose. We stood in line for about 20 minutes before riding. Josh loved it. This ride as one of the coolest and scariest back loop ever.. so much fun.

After that we were hungry and went to get some lunch. I had chicken strips while Josh had a chicken sandwich. And with my discount instead of pay a cray amount of money for this food it was only slightly crazy.

After lunch we went to get in line for X2, a friend of Josh's said he really needed to do this one and that it was her favorite so he was looking forward to it. I have to say this is the shortest line for X that I have ever been in. We were in line for about half a hour before riding.. and again Josh loved it. X is probably my favorite ride at Six Flags.

Next up is Viper, this use to be one of the best roller coaster but now it's just old and very shaky. Still fun for what it is but the newer coasters are so much smoother.

Went over the hill and noticed that they got rid of Deja Vu and Cyclone and released it was a Falling Skies themed roller coaster called Apocalypse. So Josh and I road it for the first time. It's a wooden roller coaster so it very shaky but it fast and fun.

We did Gold Rush next which is one of the parks first roller coaster and is always fun for a nice simple ride.

We skipped The Riddler, as Josh is not a fan of the stand up coasters. So instead we headed to Green Lantern ride. This is a vertical roller coaster. I first rode this a few months back when Chris and I went and it's a fun ride. Towards the end of the ride as the car was pulling into the station our car continued to roll for another three times.. they actually had to manual stop the car... crazy ride.

Then we rode Batman The Ride, this has always been a favorite of mine. Next we Scream before we took a break and ate again. 

We did the classic Colossus before heading over to one of the smoothest and fast coaster Goliath. We got all the way up to the front when the ride broke down for about 15 minutes.

After Goliath we did another classic park ride Revolution (had the first loop), before ending out night with another ride on Tatsu. When we got off Tatsu we had seven minutes before the part closed so we ran up the stairs to Ninja and managed to get on the last car to run for the night.

Our fun fill day is over.. we had a fantastic time. We rode all but one of the major roller coasters. It was hot but manageable. We had loads of fun.. beside being at a theme park I got to spend the entire day with my best friend.. couldn't ask for anything more.

We got home around 9pm and Josh wasn't sure if he was going to stay or head home but after a sun draining day he opted to stay the night. So I made some dinner and we watched some TV before calling it a night and going to bed.

Pic A Day In May 30 & 31

So I only had two days left for my picture a day in May event. I was talking to my buddy Sebastian about trying to come up with an idea for Day 30.. he suggested that I take my reflection in a spoon or something.. I liked the idea but instead of a spoon I decided to do it in my bathroom mirror but I opened the medicine cabinet and viola there were multiple Kenny's.

For my final picture I knew I was going to go with a bow tie and a wave goodbye. So I found my bow tie from my prom (yes I still have my cumber bun and bow tie). I liked the shirtless look and I even did a foe hawk that you can't see in the picture. And that became my final picture for May.

KOTG is Back!!

Download from itunes bit.ly/KotGCast or Listen and Direct Download bit.ly/2CrYxk

After a four months hiatus I have decided to revive my Knights of the Guild podcast. I got a little burnt out on this podcast after doing season five companioncasts. I lost a host and changed the format hoping this would peak my interest in this show but it didn't. I started up other podcasts and found what I as missing in KOTG so it just sat there. I still have quite a few interviews saved up from Season Five as well as a companioncast for The Guild's newest video "I'm the One That's Cool"

I thought about just letting it go, maybe do one more podcast with Jenni and inform everyone that this would be the last. But being away from it for so long has really made me miss it. I'm still a huge diehard Guild fan, always will be. I've gathered quite a following because of The Guild and have meet some of my best friends because of it..  so I couldn't let it go. I'm slowly picking the reigns back up. I worked all day on Episode 40. It's not following any format from a previous show. Because the webseries The Guild is in limbo between Season Five and a possible Season Six there isn't much going on so each show will be different or very similar to the previous one, depending on what I have to share with you guys. There will be lots of interviews (previously recorded) as well as new ones (I hope).

Like I said I spent the day working on Episode 40 which is all about Kristin our Costume Designer / Wardrobe. She had so much information to share that I had to cut the interview into two. So part two of Kristin's interview will be in episode 41.

I'm not going to set a date for when new episodes will be released. I'm hoping to get at least two a month out. And again I can change my mind tomorrow about the format and release schedule. I'm trying to have a much less structured format for this show.. will see how it goes... let me know what you think.

A Fun Day

Today was a jammed packed with fun kind of day. My friend Sebastian and his girlfriend Amanda came over last night to have a "get out of the city and relax day". So I got up around 8ish and made some breakfast for everyone. We hung out and chatted for a few hours before sitting down to watch Beauty and Beast on Bluray. I've had this movie ever since it came out on bluray but never watched it. It was pretty great and I loved the extra song/scene (Human Again).

After that Sebastian and I headed out to my garage to check out my toy collection, specifically my Star Trek toys as he is a HUGE Star Trek fan. We spent the next hour or so reliving his childhood because he actually played with these Star Trek toys that I had just purchased and kept in their packaging. It was fun showing him things that he knew about but never saw in person or played with over 15 years ago. We got through about 2/3'ds of my toys before we got hungry. We did agree that we were going to get together in the next few weeks and really catalogue and organize all my toys (something I've been wanting to do for years) So that should be fun to really see what I own and how much it's all worth.

For lunch we decided to go to Applebees in Palmdale and since it was such a beautiful day I decided to take my top off of my Jeep (something I haven't done in a while). And Sebastian is thinking of getting a Jeep (yeah I tried to talk him out of it ) So I let him drive up and back. He loved it and it just reinforced his idea of getting one for himself. Had a nice lunch before coming home and trying to watch Wall E since both Sebastian and Amanda had never seen it. We only got about 20 minutes in before the heat and food started to take hold and both became sleepy. So we opted to go to a walk to wake up.

It was a nice quick walk (Sebastian has a bad knee that started to act up), when we got back it was around 6pm and they started to pack up and load up their car. Their relaxing day with me had come to an end. It was loads of fun, I love hosting friends who want to just come up to my place and relax. We both benefit from it. They get away from the city and I get some company.. it's a win win :)

After they left it dawned on me that I had plans with Robert to watch Serenity, it's our final viewing of our Firefly/Serenity marathon. I was suppose to be there at 7:30 but got off a bit later at 6:30 so I arrived around 7:45, which isn't that bad.. figured I'd be there by 8.

We ordered pizza and wings and began Serenity. It so much fun watching this movie with a newbie. He gasped, laughed and was piss off with Joss in all the right places. It was a great way to end our Firefly/Serenity marathon. Next up for Robert and I .. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Seven seasons of Awesome.. with 144 episodes and we watch 3 a week it will take us 48 weeks to watch them all... so that's 11 months.. it's gonna be fun.

Pic a Day in May #28 & #29

Well this is slowly coming to an end. I've had a blast taking pictures of my every day in May. Here are the latest two. One on the left is for May 28th and the one on the right is for May 29th. The 28th as a last minute one. It was towards the end of the day and I had no idea what I was going to do for the picture, I was thinking back if I had done anything with Harry Potter and noticed that I didn't. So I grabbed my Quaffle and took off my shirt to share how much I love Harry Potter.

For the 29th I had lots of different choices. Friends Sebastian and Amanda were here I could have taken one with them, I was also going to my buddies Roberts to watch Serenity and could have taken one there, but as I was driving through my little town with my jeep top down and it was so beautiful outside I decided to take one of just me in my jeep crusing along. I took several to try and get a better background but since  I was late and I didn't have time to stop and compose the picture you get what you get.

An Outsider on the Inside

I've always been an outsider and never really part of any group. Not to say I don't get along with everyone. In high school I could mingle with the jocks or the tough crowd or nerds but I wasn't part of any of their cliques. As I got older I would become part of a group but only be on the fringe of that group so if I wasn't around they wouldn't think of me when they did things together.

It's how it's been for my entire life. Well that all changed a year ago when I meet a group of people volunteering to be extras for The Guild season five. Within the 150 extras a small group of us, about 6 or so really hit it off. One of those people was Chris, whom I now consider one of my best friends. When the filming was over and we all parted ways, several of these friends live pretty far away and in order to see them I created this movie marathon day. I would have these folks who came from a long distance, stay a weekend and we would watch a certain group of movies. It started with Indiana Jones and grew from there. I didn't intend for these to be a regular thing or for them to even be an entire weekend. But since folks came from so far away it didn't make sense to have them drive down for one day (some of their commutes was up to 6 hours) so instead those few, who came long distances, would just crash at my place and leave in the morning. Well that lead to everyone staying over and instead of leaving in the morning we planned events like watching more movies and hiking on Sundays and thus the current movie marathon weekend was born.

 

Why am I telling you this story.. because I went from being an outsider to all the groups that I associated with to being the center of this group (The Geek Mob), the person in charge, the one that, if without, this group would not exist. It's a strange feeling not only being inside the inner circle but to actually be the "leader" of the inner circle. I've never had this and it's harder then it looks from an "outsiders" view. Our small group of friends grew as the movie marathons continued. I would invite other friends who were not part of the guild of extras as well as other guild extras that I really didn't know but seemed nice. Soon our group of 6 or so, grew to over 35.

There were now layers to this group. You have the inner circle, those are friends who became some of the most important people in my life. Then you have the layer just outside the inner circle, I like to call it the outer inner circle, these are close friends who's friendship I cherish. And finally the outer circle (which is normally where I am), these are those friends who you enjoy hanging out with but don't see outside these events.

It's strange because after being an outsider for so long I now understand these layers and why they exist. No one likes to be on the outside looking in. No one likes to not feel like they are part of the group. But it's impossible to have everyone in the inner circle. Sometimes it's personalities, those who I consider inside my inner circle have very similar personalities to me, we like the same things, we have the same temperament and just click. It's tough because I know what it's like on the outside and wouldn't wish that feeling on anyone.

But there are levels to friendships, you have best friends, close friends, friends and acquaintances. Those are similar to the circles of our group. Not everyone can be my best friend.

I never thought in a million years that I would be the starting point of a group, but it's happened and I couldn't ask for a better group of friends.

SuperHeroes and Shawarma

Today I drove out to Van Nuys to hang out with a bunch of Guildies. Brian organized a viewing of Avengers and then out to lunch/dinner for some Shawarma.

This was my second viewing of Avengers and I was really wanting to see this again since I saw it opening weekend. About 15 people showed up, I knew about half of them. We said in the two center rows and chatted a bit before the previews started.

As you know from my previous blog about Avengers I love this movie. It's the perfect "superhero" type movie and it was just and great the second time around.

Picture a Day in May #27

After the movie the majority of us when down into Sherman Oaks to Pita City to grab some lunch/dinner. Now if you've seen Avengers then you should know what Shawarma is.. and if you live in the North America and stayed until the very end of Avengers you actually got to see some Shawarma. Now for those who don't know what it is.. it's a meat (chicken, beef or lamb) with spices and cooked a certain way. It's severed in a wrap or in a pita.

Not everyone got a Shawarma but since we just got done seeing Avengers and the whole point of going to Pita City was to get a Shawarma I got a chicken one and it was pretty good.

Several folks who didn't go to the movie joined us for dinner. After dinner we walked over to Cold Stone and some got ice cream as the rest of us just stood outside and talked for a few hours. The party started to break up around 9pm and we said our goodbyes and made our way home.

It was so much fun seeing Avengers and then eating Shawarma with a bunch of guildies.. I'm so happy that I went.