1st D&D Campaign Comes To An End

Today I as determined to get out of this blah mood I've been in the past few days.  I did both my morning and evening 25 minute cardio workouts on my elliptical... so yay me.

I got up fairly early and went out and did a bit a yard work before it got to hot outside. But even at 8am it was still in the high 80's so that didn't last to long. I came back in and played a bit of LOTRO before finishing up my laundry that I started a few days ago. I worked on a bit more podcasting before getting ready to head out. Today was a special session of D&D. My buddy Anthony was visiting from Wisconsin so we moved the D&D session to today so he could join us. The session was also moved up an hour to 2:30pm.

I got to Will and Jen's around 2:15pm, soon it was a full house and we got going on our final leg of this adventure. This was one crazy last hurrah for this campaign. We found lots of cool treasures, fought several big bads and in the end there were no critically injured companions.. so it was a win win. It was a nice ending to this campaign. Some big things happened in tonight's session that will change the way my character Dash sees some of his fellow companions. I look forward to starting our second campaign in two weeks. Not sure if everyone who played in this campaign will continue to the second one but I for one plan to keep going. I'm having a blast playing Pathfinder D&D and I'm loving my Halfling Wizard Dashel Greenbottle

I got home pretty late around 11:30pm but as mentioned above I was determined to not miss my evening cardio work out. I went to bed just after midnight.

Another Blah Day

The blahness continued today.. along with the super high temps. My laziness was worst today then yesterday. It was a struggle do anything. I only managed to do one 30 minute cardio workout, I just couldn't bring myself to doing another one in the evening.

Today was pretty much a duplicate of yesterday. I would watch some TV, then do some touch painting inside the house, I'd play some LOTRO, then work on my webseries, wash dishes, watch more TV. Nothing to productive.

Of course I'm mad at myself for spending two days doing nothing when there is so much to be doing. Even if I couldn't get outside and paint, I have podcasts I can be working on. I guess I did do a little prep work for my upcoming Alien Nation recording as well a bit of editing for the next MASH 4077 Podcast, but not nearly as much as I would have liked.

It's crazy as I have these burst of energy and I get so much done one day and then crash the next day.  I can't afford many more of these "crash" days. I have way to much to get done and really no excuse as to why I can't do this stuff.

I know when I do get a job I'll look back at all this time off and really hate myself for not getting done. I've done it in the pass and you would think I would have learned from it as I hate feeling that way... I guess old habits are hard to break.

A Blah Kind of Day

Woke up today not feeling so hot.. I think I might have gotten a little to much sun yesterday. Felt very lethargic all day today. I did force myself to do my two 20 minute elliptical workouts. Regardless of how lethargic I feel I can't stop working out... but I have to say it was a struggle.

Didn't do much of anything today. It was way to hot to paint or do yard work outside (110+). So I pretty much stayed inside all day long. I watched a bit of TV, then would clean around the house, play some LOTRO, then wash some baseboards, I'd chat with friends online, then do some laundry.

By the end of the day I felt like I pretty much wasted my day away. I was not happy with how productive I was today. But I guess not all days can be winners.

MASH 4077 Podcast Episode 60

Download from itunes tinyurl.com/MASH4077itunes , listen on Stitcher Radio ow.ly/iZJIz or Listen, get direct download from our main website 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 3, Episode #12 - A Full Rich Day

60th Episode Overall
Directed by Gene Reynolds
Written by John D. Hess
Production code B311
Original air date December 3, 1974

Set during the Korean War in the 1950’s

Plot Summary: Hawkeye records a letter to his Dad telling him about the day. A Turkish soldier refuses to be treated because he wants to get back to the front. Another soldier wants his Sargent to be treated first and won't take no for an answer. A soldier from Luxembourg is misplaced.
Hope you enjoy it, Kenny

3000th Blog Post

So this is my 3000th blog post. I've been blogging since 2002 (wow 11 1/2 years), at first I would blog only really big events that happen in my life. It wasn't until 2006 when I started blogging more regularly and then 2008 I started blogging daily. I love blogging, it's part of my life.. it's become routine, like eating breakfast. I couldn't imagine my life without blogging. I'm not a great writer by any means and I don't think I have a particularly interesting life, but that doesn't stop me from blogging :) I know I don't have a huge readership but those that do read my blog, I thank you. Especially those who leave me comments from time to time. I enjoy reading them all.

People often ask why I blog.. well there are several reasons why.. first, I blog to keep everyone (Friends and Family) up to date on my life. Second I like getting things off my chest. Thirdly because it's like having a personal dairy (though I don't get to personal in my posts) and finally and most importantly I love it. It brings me joy, I especially love going back in time and reading some of my older blogs posts and smiling at all the good times I've had.

Will I ever stop blogging.. nope.. even if I didn't have a single reader I would and will continue to blog until the day I'm not longer able to.  "My Life As A Geek" is here to stay.

Here's to 3000 and beyond!!

Painting & TV Night

Woke up early and immediately went outside and started painting. I continued with my trim, but the problem is, even my tallest ladder doesn't reach the peaks of my roof so this morning I had to get up on to the roof and hang over the side and try and paint the trim, it's not an easy task.

First of all it's hot already, in the high 80's and I'm laying on a black asphalt roof so it's boiling hot. I did take a towel up on the roof with me to help but my knees and elbows were just getting chewed up. I did manage to stay up there for two hours before having to come back down into the cool (AC'd) house. While I was in the house on a break, I had breakfast and then did my 25 minute workout on the elliptical.

While I was up on the roof I realized that I had to paint the chimney and a window out-cove that I totally forgot about. So when I went back up I painted those two items. Because there were windows I had to do a lot of taping off of the windows and that's always time consuming. I lasted an hour on the roof this time. The temps were now in the mid 90's and I felt dizzy, which isn't good since I'm high up on the roof top.  I came back in for an hour of cool down before going back up again and finishing up the chimney.

I debated on going back to the trim but it was so hot outside and it's so difficult to paint while hanging off the side of the house that I decided that six hours of painting was enough for the day.

I had to get ready to head out to my buddy Robert's place for TV night anyway. I took a much needed shower and at 3:30 I headed south.

For TV night we are continuing our Babylon 5 first time viewing. So far we are loving the series. Tonight we continue with Season 1, first episode of the night Ep 11 "Survivors" There is an explosion in one of the fighter bays just days before the president is to visit Babylon 5. A dying man implicates Garibaldi, which is just what the head of presidential security wants to hear, as she blames him for her father's death.

I enjoyed this episode, as I really like Garibaldi, but the women (head of security for the President) was such a bitch and she annoyed me every time she was on screen. I did love her run in's with Cmdr. Susan Ivanova, they were awesome. Even at the end when she apologized to Garibaldi (of course he accepts it) I was wishing for her death. But I guess that's a good thing that I felt so much hatred for this women.. good writing.

Next up was S1 Ep 12 "By Any Means Necessary" An accident in the docking bays starts a series of problems on Babylon 5, when a Narn freighter is destroyed and one of the workers is killed. The dock workers demand better conditions or they'll go on strike. And G'Kar has to get a replacement G'Quan-Eth plant for an important religious ceremony.

Another good episode, I like how this show can be related to real life situations. Unions workers are always going on strike for one thing or another. I like how the Captain found a loophole and everyone wins.. well except the Captain who now has made some powerful enemies, whom I'm sure will see later in the season. The B story was a lot of fun with G'Kar and Londo, there is so much history between these two races and we've only scratched the surface.

Now it's time for S1 Ep 13 "Signs and Portents" A Centauri noble comes to Babylon 5 to transport an important Centauri relic in Londo's possession back to the homeworld. And a mysterious man visits all the alien ambassadors asking them an unusual question.

This episode got the most buzz when I tweeted about it. We got alot of "This is where is all begins" type of tweets. And I can only assume they are talking about this mysterious man and the "Shadow". We did get a glimpse of a ship that cut their the huge raiders ship like it was butter. Also we had Kosh confront this stranger and he tells him to leave, but then we later find out that Kosh was in medical looking to repair his EV suit, which makes us believe that he had a scuffle with the "mysterious guy". Oh and we had the aunt of the Centauri noble man predict the destruction of Babylon 5, she even showed the Captain her vision. So just little clues here and there at something bigger,  so I can't wait to see where this story line goes. 

Next was S1 Ep14 "TKO" Garibaldi is surprised when an old friend comes to Babylon 5 to fight in the mutai — a savage alien fighting arena. Meanwhile Ivanova has trouble dealing with her father's death.

My least favorite of the group that we watched tonight. Didn't really care about the whole martial arts main story.. I did enjoy the B story with Ivanova. We got to see a little more character growth from her. She's a very secretive character so it was nice to see this other side.

And our final episode of the night, S1 Ep 15 "Grail" A man comes to Babylon 5 asking the alien ambassadors for information that can help him with his quest to find the Holy Grail, while a Downbelow gangster gives security problems by mindwiping all who oppose him.

Another okay episode, this one had a lot more meaning then the previous one. This one was all about faith. It was a tad predictable but still enjoyable.

Another five great episodes of Babylon 5. Seems like we crossed a mark in the sand as folks keep telling us we're in for a fun ride now. I've been loving every episode up to now so  I can't wait to see what the future holds.

Before I left Robert's place I had him print out scripts for my new webseries. We will be rehearsing in a few weeks the first 5 episodes and I got to make sure I have enough copies for everyone.. can't wait hear my words come to life.

Just Another Day

Workouts continued, I've done 20 to 50 minutes elliptical cardio for the past 11 day straight... feeling great. Today was no different, did a 25 minute cardio on the elliptical this morning and another 25 minute cardio in the evening.

I continued to paint the trim around my house. I don't understand why this task is so difficult for me. I manage to do about an hour or so of painting and then I'm exhausted. This can't continue. I've been painting this house since March and that's just crazy. Time to finish.. tomorrow I'm going to focus on doing nothing but finishing up the trim work. Heat or not I have to get this done once and for all.

My friends Kim Evey and Felicia Day were featured in Produced By, it's the Producer's Guild of America magazine. You can read the article about new media HERE. What's double cool is that they used 5 of the photos that I took while on set on various seasons. I didn't get a credit but cool non-the-less.

I did a bit more star gazing before bed.. got to see a few meteors and one ran all the way across the sky and was so bright.. it was pretty amazing.

The Time Has Come...

The time has come.. I look for a job every morning, it's become routine. I get up, jump online, check my emails and then check a few job sites. Week after week, month after month I have found nothing or very few. Those that I do find I apply for but never heard back (I've applied for about four jobs in the past five months). while looking for work I normally look online for Post Production Supervisor, it's the job I've been doing for over 15 years, but since I haven't been able to find anything in my line of work, today I bit the bullet and started looking for Post Production Coordinator positions. This is a step below Post Production Supervisors and the pay is barely half of what I would make as a Supervisor.. but I can't afford to be out of work much longer. The threat of losing my house and car pushed me into taking a step down in my career. It sucks but it's something I have to do.

Workouts, Housework & Meteors

I manged to get in two elliptical workouts today, the morning one was 25 minutes and the evening one was 30 minutes.. gonna try and expand my morning one to a full hour next week. I haven't started weight training yet but I also plan to get back into that. For now Cardio is my priority.  Still struggling with eating better, my problem is I went grocery shopping the week before my doctors visit so I'm still eating the stuff I purchased. Since I'm without money these days I can't afford to waste any of my food.. even the bad stuff. I think once this food is gone and I go shopping again I'll make better choices.

I did some more trim painting around the house and yard work, but not nearly as much as I wanted to today. Hopefully tomorrow I can get more done.

I finished my night by laying out on my back deck around midnight and watched for meteors, tonight was suppose to be the peak of the meteor shower. I was only out there for about a half hour and only saw a handful of shooting stars, I was so tired, so I called it a night.

Robert, Millers and Pilgrim

Robert and I were up by 9am and laid in bed chatting, we have some of our best conversations either just before we go to bed or when we are walking up. Will and Becca left my place around 9:30am. Robert was going to hang out with me the entire day.. yay!!!

We got up, showered and I made us some breakfast. We've been watching alot of The Big Bang Theory as it's one of my favorites and Robert hasn't seen many of them.

We headed out to Hollywood for a screening of We're The Millers. This was another of my PGA (Producer's Guild of America) screenings. We were seeing it at the same theater we saw the Pacific Rim screening. The previews to We're the Millers look funny, but I'm not one for stupid/raunchy comedy like The Hangover, but I do like smart/raunchy comedy like Bridesmaids.. so I went into this screening hoping for the best. Side not we actually had the writer of the film watching it with us.. talk about pressure :)

Here's a quick synopsis: A veteran pot dealer creates a fake family as part of his plan to move a huge shipment of weed into the U.S. from Mexico.

Here's my review, I really enjoyed it, it was a fun adventure, there were some cringe worthy moments, some laugh out loud, oh my god they just didn't do that moments. But what I think makes this different from the other typical raunchy comedies is this one had heart. It had a very sweet story mixed in with the comedy. Dad was a drug dealer, Mom was a stripper, daughter a homeless runaway and the son a lonely geek. These were four lonely people just looking for love and the happen to find it in each other. I even teared up towards the end. When it was over I turned to Robert (who loved it as well) and said.. wow I was not expecting this movie to have so much heart.  I would see this again in the theater and will probably buy it when it comes out on blu-ray. One of the best moments was during the credits as they show some very funny bloopers but the final one with the four main characters in the RV and they turn on the radio and in the movie TLC's Waterfalls is played and they sing along, well in this version the theme song from Friends is played unbeknown to Jennifer Aniston and then everyone starts singing it.. the look on Jennifer's face was priceless. You could tell from the bloopers that these guys had a blast making this movie and that made the movie all that much better. I give We're The Millers a nice big B+

After the movie Robert and I went and picked up some lunch/dinner before heading back to my place. Once back at the house Robert helped me figure out how to redeem a LOTRO code that I won on Twitter.  I answered one of their trivia questions and won a new title for my characters "The Wise".  He also helped me picked some new features for my D&D character Dash as he has leveled up. Thanks bud for your help.

We finished our night with Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. I have always wanted to see this movie but never got around to watching it. Since Anthony left his copy here at my place and Robert found out that I had not seen it yet we watched it. Here's a quick synopsis if you have never heard of it: Scott Pilgrim plays in a band which aspires to success. He dates Knives Chau, a high-school girl five years younger, and he hasn't recovered from being dumped by his former girlfriend, now a success with her own band. When Scott falls for Ramona Flowers, he has trouble breaking up with Knives and tries to romance Ramona. As if juggling two women wasn't enough, Ramona comes with baggage: seven ex-lovers, with each of whom Scott must do battle to the death in order to win Ramona.

So I remember the previews and knew I was in for some eye candy. The way this movie is shot is so unique and cool. I loved every minute of it. I loved the characters, the effects were amazing, and the cinematography was just incredible. I do admit that I didn't quite understand what "world" they were living in. And I know the movie is based off of a comic book series. But honestly that would be my only complaint. I wish they would have established where this all took place.. I mean other then Canada. Is it an alternate universe? Robert said that this is better established in the comics.. so I may have to give those a read. but overall that didn't take away my enjoyment of the movie. I give Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World a solid B

After the movie Robert headed home and did my 25 minute elliptical workout. Before finishing my night as usual with a little LOTRO play.