Hobbit Wigs & Star Trek Pants

I got up today fairly early though I didn't get to bed until after 2am. I needed to find a new and better Hobbit wig as well as stock up on some new make up for my Hobbit ears. Like before I went to Namies down in North Hollywood (went to the same place last year).

First stop was the wig shop, last year I couldn't find anything there but this year I explained to the sales girl what I needed and to my surprise she was also going to comic con with her boyfriend who is a huge nerd. Anyways, we tried out a few things, unlike last year I was willing to pay more for real human hair. On our third try we manage to find a decent color looking wig, it was a bit longer but had some curls. We figured this one would be best to get and since it's real human hair we could treat it like real hair meaning it could be cleaned, cut and curled. The best part is that it was only $100 which is cheap for real human hair. And also since I'm a member of the PGA (Producer's Guild of America) and get a 10% discount..

After the wig shop I went over to the special effort store to buy some sponges, spirit gum and some new make up that matched my coloring more. After looking around for about 20 minutes I found everything I needed and checked out.

Now I have everything for my Hobbit outfit and I'm ready for con. Next stop was Target and Kohl's looking for black pants for my Star Trek outfit. But the trip was futile, I couldn't find any kind of black pants that weren't dress slacks. Since I already have black dress pants I didn't see any reason to get anymore.


Spent the rest of the day working on several of my podcasts.

Stuck in Santa Monica

After my bro-date with my buddy Robert I headed home.. it's something like 1am in the morning and I completely forget they are doing freeway work on the 405 in this area.. I spent the next hour driving around looking for an on ramp to the freeway.. sitting in long line of cars trying to get on the freeway. It was crazy. I worked all day then did dinner and a movie so I was up at 6am and it's now 1am of the following day and I was so tired... I just wanted to get home. As I mentioned I finally got on the freeway an hour later and home an hour after that... wasn't the best way to end the night and the only good thing is that I didn't have to get up at 7am the next morning for work as it's a Saturday. But this is my last weekend before comic con and I have so much stuff to do.

Bro-Date with Robert (Dinner & Brave)

Tonight after work I headed over to my bestie Robert. We planned to grab some dinner and then see Brave. I've been wanting to see this movie since it came out a few weeks ago but just haven't had the time.

Got to Century City Mall, which is where we were meeting. Found Robert up in the food court area and we grabbed some Panda Express. It was nice just sitting there having dinner and chatting with Robert. Though we chat via IM all day long everyday it's still nice to sit down face to face and talk.

After dinner we headed over to he AMC to watch Brave. Robert thought we wouldn't have an issue getting a good seat since the movie has been out for a few weeks.. but I knew better.. it was a Friday and Brave is a family film. I was right the place was packed but we did manage to get some decent seats in the middle but all the way over on the right side. I normally don't like sitting on the sides but with this theater it wasn't so bad.

Now for my review of "Brave"

First some details, Brave, set in the highlands of 10th century Scotland, a skilled archer named Merida defies an age-old custom, causing chaos in her kingdom. After consulting a witch for help, her family becomes cursed and Merida is forced to undo the spell herself before it is too late.

Let me say that this isn't my favorite Pixar movie but it's far from my least favorite. I love the setting and cinematography is incredible. The scenery is just BEAUTIFUL!!! I'm a huge fan of the whole Celtic/Scottish culture. This is a really good mother / daughter story. But not being a mother or a daughter I could still identify with the main character. I loved Merida's spunkiness and attitude. Her father and brothers were fantastic and were defiantly the comedy relief of the movie.  Over all I'd give this movie a B

Bilbo Exclusive

Today I got word that Bridge Direct will be producing The Hobbit figures... YAY!!!! I haven't been actively collecting figures for years but The Hobbit is going to get me back into it. And to top it off, there is going to be an exclusive figure, "Invisible Bilbo", that will only be available at San Diego Comic Con. It's going to be available at two booth Gentle Giant and Entertainment Earth. My new goal for SDCC is to be there Wednesday night for preview night and get me my exclusive Hobbit figure.

Settling In To The New Job

Three weeks in and I'm starting to settle in to the new gig. They are in the middle of shooting episodes for the new series I'm working on. I've been to set a few days and it looks pretty great. Things here in post are moving along nicely.. nothing too crazy.. yet. I'm liking my co-workers which is always a big plus. My boss is great and I have one of the best AE's that I've ever had. I know I can leave things in her hands and not worry that something will go wrong.. I had that at my last job and it helps so much.

Besides work stuff.. I'm getting things ready for SDCC this year. It just hit me today that I still have my hotel booking that I did last year. But since I'm staying at the Guildie townhouse I need to cancel it. Only took a few minutes but my reservation has been cancelled. Can't wait to Comic Con this year.

4th of July with Family

Didn't really have any plans for the fourth of July, I did get the day off from work, which was nice. But I did get a call from my mom a few days ago letting me know that she was going to have a BBQ and watch the boat show. Since I didn't have anything to do and I haven't seen my mom in months, figure it was a good time to visit.

The morning got off to a rocky start as my stomach wasn't doing so hot and I wanted to leave by 9am in order to get to my mom's by 11am.. well I didn't get out to the door until 10:30ish. Luckily there was no traffic for 2/3's of the trip and I did mange to get to my mom's around 12:15pm.

Also joining the BBQ besides my Mom and Chuck, were my brother Michael, sister-in-law Lora, nephew Kenobi, and niece Molly. My aunt Joyce, uncle Marty, cousin Matt and his friend Chris. Also my Grandma.

We had a nice BBQ, watched the cool boat parade in the harbor and there was this cool guy with one of those awesome rocket water jet packs so he was floating above the water.. it was pretty cool. Lora took some video and posted it to Facebook.. you can see it HERE. Also several of the family members when out boating on the water. We spent the last four hours playing Cards Against Humanity. Played with my brother, sister-in-law, aunt, uncle, cousin and his friend. This was all of their first time and they all seemed to love it. I wasn't sure how some of the cards would go over but everyone laughed so much and we all had a great time.

We all called it a night around 6ish and I got back on the road. I haven't gone food shopping in two weeks since I've been putting in alot of hour with this new job but I had no more food in the house so I stopped by the store to pick up some yummies before heading home. I got home around 8:30pm, was going to try and do some editing of some podcasts but instead I ate dinner and just watched TV for an hour before calling it a night and hitting the hay.

All in all it was a fun Fourth of July (though I didn't actually see any Fireworks)

San Diego Comic Con Panel Schedule

Every year I got though all the SDCC scheduling and create an excel sheet with all the panels/shows I would like to see during the con. The past few years I have created this chart but never attend anything that I have planned. Normally because there are super long lines and take hours to get through and you might make it into your panel. Doing panels these days require you to do nothing but stand in line all day. My time at comic con is valuable, yes I would love to see the stars and listen to the panels but seeing friends and dressing up is more important to me now.

But regardless I created another excel sheet that I will more then likely not follow. There are few panels that I'm going to do my best to get in, but again it the wait to over three hours I won't sacrifice my time for the panel.

Setting Up My Office

Well I don't actually have an office (first time being without one) but I do have a desk in a cubical so me being the geek that I am..  I had to geekify my desk so I brought a few things from home. Mostly action figures that I had opened. Angel of Death from Hellboy 2, some TNG figures, Harry Potter, Sauron from LOTR, a Yoda quote (plaque), Cylon, a Tribble (with sound), a few cool looking Borgs and of course Star Wars figures.

I also put up some pictures of friends and family to keep me company. When you come to my desk you know a geeky occupies it.. and it's just the way I like it.

Who-Coincidence

Like I mentioned yesterday in my blog.. I came across these tissue boxes with letters on them, while at Target in Riverside. Someone spelled out "Doctor Who" and I took a picture and posted on Twitter.

My buddy Adam replied with a comment "Are you at the Target in San Jose" because another friend of his posted a picture of the same tissue boxes with letters on them but this time they spelled out "Bad Wolf" which, if you're a Who fan know that plays a significant role in the early seasons of Who.

What are odds that two different people living a few hundred miles always from each other happen to spell out Doctor Who/Bad Wolf out of tissue boxes at Target. Just a cool coincidence or is the Doctor trying to tell us something....

Family, Podcast & An Unexpected Bestie

Today I headed over to my family's place out in Riverside. The main reason was to record some Alien Nation podcasts with my brother as this would be the only time I'd be able to do that and one is due to be released on the 10th. But on this trip I also got to have lunch with my Dad and spend some quality time with my nephew Kenobi. My niece Molly is still too little to do much but I enjoy getting to see her. I also enjoy chatting with my sister-in-law Lora.

My brother's family recently moved to a new house along with dad. For lunch my dad and I went to a new Chinese place hoping the food would be as good as my favorite Chinese food place in Corona. It was not, it's wasn't bad but it wasn't anywhere near as yummy as Hong Kong. Afterwards my dad needed some things from Target so we went shopping. While at Target I saw these tissue boxes with letters on the side of them and I was surprised to see that someone spelled out Doctor Who with them. Of course me being a geek I had to take a picture and post it for all to see.

Got back to my brothers and he and I started our viewing of Alien Nation. We usually watch an episode and then record the podcast while it's fresh in our minds. I was hoping to get three podcasts recorded but because of family and other factors we were only able to record two. These two podcasts, I felt, were some of our best, great episodes which lead to great discussions.

After podcasting he and I went out to El Pollo Loco to grab dinner for everyone. After eating I headed for home.

While driving home I got a text from my bestie Josh asking if I was working. I said no just on my way home from visiting family. He mentioned that he was just getting out of Magic Mountain and said it would be weird not to stop by and see me since he's never this close to where I live. I told him I was about a half hour away from my place and that I would meet him there. He was about 10 minutes ahead of me but we got to my place around 11ish. We both had to work the next morning but it had been a while since we just hung out and we both missed each other very much. We hung out and chatted until about 2am. He found out that he didn't need to be to work until 11am and since I was working late that night I could go in later as well. So we didn't mind staying up late and enjoying each others company. It was a great way to end a really fun and productive day.