Author Archives: TheUser
Love Goose
Natural History Museum
Crystal Cove
We went to Crystal Cove last week, which was very fun and beautiful. I thought I’d share some of my photos.
While looking at the tidepools, I only managed to fall once. That’s good, because my butt hurt for a few days after that.
Stairs might not be that fun to climb, but I always like photographing stairs. I don’t know why!
This looks like it should be in Myst. Is there a Crystal Cove age? Maybe there’s a page hidden there somewhere.
This photo was enhanced a bit, but I think it still looks pretty. You can view the rest of my photos from the trip here!
OC Fair 2012
A couple weeks ago, gem and I went to the OC Fair. It was a lot of fun as usual!
First, we ate. We started with BBQ’d mushrooms, bacon and cheese, which were delicious. Of course, I had to have some fried Oreos. This time we tried a new dessert – fried jalepeno and Baby Ruth served on a bed of churros. It was okay, but to be honest, the flavors didn’t blend all that well. The churros were delicious though!
I really liked the look of the photo booth. The fact that it was colorful, mentioned colors, and was a photo booth seemed begging to be photographed and made more intense. I should start taking photos of more photo booths!
Of course, we also listened to some live music and looked at the photography. I always enjoy the photography.
We ended our visit with the animals. There were a lot of cool animals we saw and pet, but the coolest might have been this llama that posed with gem!
Homemade Gloopy Products
Dear visitor from Groves, Texas who reached my blog by searching Google for “aquabats how to make gloopy products,”
You’re awesome. If you decide to make some homemade Gloopy products, please let me know.
Sincerely,
Peter
Christian Dasilva has a Posse Benefit Show
Last night was the “Christian Dasilva has a posse” benefit show. The Aquabats’ former tour manager, Christian Dasilva, passed away recently, and all proceeds from the show went to his family. While the Aquabats posted about it n the Super Show Facebook page, I probably wouldn’t have known about it if it wasn’t for a bit of a coincidence. On Friday, Toshiba had two food trucks at its Chili Cook-off. For the first time ever, I wore a t-shirt to work because I knew it was going to be hot and we were outside. It happened to be an Aquabats t-shirt, and the guy working the Longboard Ice Cream truck knew the Aquabats. Not only was he a friend of the band, he was a former roadie and has been in the Aquabats! Super Show! He told me about the show.
Shortly after we arrived at the Chain Reaction in Anaheim, we saw the Battle Tram pull into the parking lot! It’s a bit smaller than it is in the show…
That didn’t stop gem and me from posing with it though! How awesome is that?
First up was a grunge band from San Diego called The Makeup Sex. I hadn’t heard of them before, and they weren’t mentioned on any of the announcements about the show, so I didn’t know what to expect. Luckily they were pretty entertaining. Strangely, the OC Register’s slideshow featured a handful of photos of the singer and drummer, both, well, fat, sweaty guys (photo 18, for example), yet only included one picture of the attractive bass player (photo 19).
Scotty Professional took the stage while Starpool set up, performing an acoustic version of the Aquabat’s Martian Girl. I really enjoyed it. While I’m not familiar with him, nor had I been to the Chain Reaction before, I could tell that he really cared about Christian Dasilva. I’m glad I recorded his performance; I’ve already ripped the audio so I could listen to the song.
Next up was Starpool. I hadn’t heard of them before I looked them up in preparation of this show. As it turns out, Starpool consists of the former members of Save Ferris and one former member of No Doubt. They were incredibly awesome! Their music was sweet, wonderful ska, and their stage presence was superb. The singer definitely took control of the stage. I especially enjoyed their rendition of “Shout” with the singer jumping into the audience and leading us as we crouched low to the ground, a little bit softer now. More bands need sax, trumpet, and trombone!
I later sent Starpool a Facebook message, letting them know how much I enjoyed the show. I also had to let them know that I bought their album and EP after the show. Great stuff!
Then it was time for the Aquabats to take the stage! In this picture, you can see the M.C. Bat Commander on the left, Eagle “Bones” Falconhawk on guitar next to him further back, Crash McLarson next on bass, and, on the very edge, Ricky Fitness on drums. I don’t think I got any good pictures of Ricky Fitness or Bones really. Oh well.
Can you tell the Commander and Crash are good buddies? It sure looks like it to me! Of course, Crash is also gem’s big friend. He said yes at Comic-Con, you know.
Finally, here’s Jimmy the Robot, who plays the keyboard and sax, in front his keyboard. To his left is Crash. Jimmy grabbed by hand twice in the show! Swoon! The M.C. Bat Commander did once as well! Okay, I’ve seen them before and shaken all their hands, but it’s still fun!
When the show ended, the audience chanted “Where was the Captain,” and the Aquabats came back out to play Captain Hampton. Sadly, this took the place of Fashion Zombies and Burger Rain, which were written on the setlist. I really wanted to hear Burger Rain too!
When they played Pool Party, they threw pool toys in the audience like they’ve done previously. They also called all the young kids onto the stage. The Commander told them that the concession area in the back was the candy zone, and that they’d get free candy if they went over. He said that if the Chain Reaction didn’t want to pay for it, the Aquabats would. And how would the kids get there? Well, the Commander would throw them into the audience to crowd-surf to the back of course! They were all adorable. One very young boy, Jacob, even had a little mustache drawn on his lip like the M.C. Bat Commander!
It was a terrific show, and I had so much fun. I was pretty much soaking wet when I got home, and most of it was likely not my sweat. Those Aquabats fans with rashguards get pretty sweaty. I finally made it to sleep by 1:30, and I can definitely say I was sleepy today!
Christian Dasilva’s Benefit Show Featuring Starpool and The Aquabats! – Chain Reaction – 7/23/12, Priscella Vega, Heard Mentality, OC Weekly Blogs
The Aquabats perform at the Christian Dasilva Benefit Concert at Chain Reaction in Anaheim on Monday, OrangeCounty.com
Comics
How could I be done talking about Comic-Con when I hadn’t actually talked about comics yet? A friend of mine that I met working at Barnes & Noble, Kyle, introduced me to Daredevil, the man without fear! He let me borrow a few different trade paperback collections starting with the one pictured above.
I had to own these for myself, and I had to own more too! I ended up purchasing Daredevil Visionaries: Frank MIller volume 2 ($24.95 list), Daredevil Born Again hardcover ($24.99 list), Daredevil Legends volume 3 – Daredevil The Man Without Fear ($16.95 list), and Elektra hardcover omnibus ($74.99 list). I paid $100 for all of them, which I think is pretty good.
I don’t really need to say anything about this, do I?
What’s that, some sort of tank? No (well, yes), it’s the Batmobile! They had a few different ones outside of SDCC, which was neat.
There was also a really cool panel, Unlocking Arkham: The Forensic Psychiatry of Batman’s Rogues’ Gallery. Forensic psychiatrists H. Eric Bender, M.D., Praveen Kambam, M.D., and Vasilis K. Pozios, M.D. discussed Arkham Asylum, comparing it to real mental health facilities. They also considered Arkham Aylum’s patients and examined whether they would actually be found not guilty by reason of insanity or guilty. It was pretty interesting. As you might guess, Arkham Asylum is much more of a prison than a mental health facility, and many of their “patients” should have been found guilty anyways.
And I think that wraps up my summary of Comic-Con!
John Scalzi
The most exciting part of Comic-Con was getting to meet my favorite author, John Scalzi. He was nice enough to pose with me for the photo shown above!
There were two panels featuring John as well as autographing. There was some confusion about the line, but the folks at the Tor booth did a great job. In fact, after hearing about what Tor has allowed John to do and how they’re selling their e-books DRM free now, I’m very happy with Tor.
Before signing at the Tor booth, comedy and musical duo Paul and Storm played a little song about George R. R. Martin. It was a fun way to start an autograph session. After the song, we were given free copies of Old Man’s War and then got to meet John!
gem had John sign her vinyl, which I posted about earlier, but I’ll show here as well. He signed in red on the hand. It looks like bloody knuckles!
I asked him to sign Old Man’s War, the first book in his fantastic series (soon to be a movie), and told him it was an honor to meet him. He said, “no, it’s an honor to meet you! In fact, I’m going to write that!” That was pretty cool!
I also asked him to sign Zoe’s Tale, the fourth novel in the series. Afterwards, I asked his wife Kristine and daughter Athena to sign as well. I felt excited to meet them too; it feels like I know so much about them from John Scalzi’s blog, the Whatever. They said yes, so now I have a family-autographed novel! It was shortly after the signing that I saw him walking away from the booth and asked for the photograph shown at the top.
To get good seats for the Spotlight on John Scalzi panel, we caught the end of the previous panel and then moved to the front. While waiting for the panel to begin, the audience ended up singing together. John came into the room and decided to help. He led us in a rendition of Don’t Stop Believing before showing us that it’s possible to turn any song into a B-52’s song.
The panel itself was a lot of fun. I managed to record the whole thing. I don’t think John would ever read this, but let me just say sorry anyways for sitting in the front row with a camera aimed at you for an hour. Honestly though, I’m sure he’s used to this.
My final encounter with John was the panel he moderated on comedy in science-fiction and fantasy. It was a very entertaining panel, and I left with an interest in some new books and authors! Again, I was sitting in the very front with a camcorder. It was the last day of Comic-Con, but we woke up early and lined up early to ensure good seats. It paid off!
It was such a pleasure to meet him. I hope someday I can do something awesome enough to get on his radar. It’s a longshot, but you never know!
SDCC 2012 Vinyl Toy
Instead of having each artist in whom gem was interested autograph a piece of his or her work, she had them all autograph a single vinyl toy. I think it was a fantastic idea, and I hope she continues to do this in the future.
You can see it from the front in the picture above. First, it was turned into Jake of Adventure Time by an artist at the Adventure Time booth with drawings on the face, belly button, and fingers (and butt and tail, but that’s shown later). The ears and forehead were customized by Simone Legno of Tokidoki. The Aquabats symbol in the center was drawn by band member Crash McLarson. Amusingly, he had to look at the shirt of the member sitting next to him to remember what it looked like – an ‘A’ with a circle! He must have just wanted to ensure it was perfect. Author John Scalzi autographed the right hand. It looks like bloody knuckles!
This is the autograph of the person who turned it into Jake.
Here’s a close-up shot of Simone Legno’s drawings and autograph. He’s the creator and artist of Tokidoki.
On the side of the head are the autographs of Aquabats members Ricky Fitness and Eagle “Bones” Falconhawk. On the arm is a doodle and autograph by Behemoth’s Dan Paladin. On the back is Aquabats member Crash McLarson’s autograph.
Here’s the back. In the center is a picture of Domo-kun and autograph by Domo-kun’s creator, Tsuneo Gōda. You can also see the tail and butt of Jake.
The back of the ear features a great self-portrait by the M.C. Bat Commander, leader of the Aquabats!
Lastly, here’s a doodle and autograph by Tom Fulp of Behemoth.
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