Category Archives: Events

By the archive, it’s Intergalactic Nemesis: Twin Infinity!

Sunday afternoon gem and I saw The Intergalactic Nemesis: Twin Infinity at the Segerstrom Center. I saw the first two in 2013 (and wrote about them) and have been eagerly awaiting the third.

The Intergalactic Nemesis is a live-action graphic novel. The panes of the comic, minus the speech bubbles, are projected sequentially on a screen while three voice actors perform all the dialogue live. They’re accompanied by a Foley artist and pianist. The performers are all a little more than their roles as well because they use gestures and facial expressions even though it’s also conveyed through the graphic novel. It’s really fantastic. All three books of Intergalactic Nemesis have audio drama as well as live performances. The first two have graphic novels, while Twin Infinity’s graphic novel isn’t yet released. There’s also a podcast spinoff that’s getting released as a novel soon too.

Book One: Target Earth is available on YouTube. Maybe it’s be easier if you just checked it out. The YouTube videos were produced by KLRU-TV, Austin PBS. I enjoy seeing how the content is adapted into different mediums. While the YouTube videos are recordings of a live performance, it’s still a difference experience in that the video is segmented so you can see multiple things at once. It’s a cool solution.

After the show, I had the performers sign my ticket so I could put it in my ticket scrapbook with the tickets to the first two shows!

Before the show, they had some fun activities. At the Foley station, gem and I watched a short animated video to get an idea of what was happening and then made the sound effects while they recorded us. We used a wind machine, rain sticks, shoes on a board, and a thunder sheet. After we were recorded, they played the video back again, this time with our sound effects. Being a Foley artist must be really fun!

There was also a voice-acting booth with Jamieson K. Price. He’s a voice-actor with a long list of credits including some Blizzard titles. He was Ga’nar, known to Horde players as a rather important orc in Frostfire Ridge! gem and I took turns reading lines while Jamieson added altered our voices. He was really nice, and I had fun chatting with him. We even got the chance to talk to him after the show, too!

I haven’t yet listened to the audio drama version, but I’ll do that soon, and then I can check out the podcast! Each medium is a bit different, but they’re all excellent. I highly recommend The Intergalactic Nemesis!

Awesome weekend of tacos, moving, ice skating, and clowns

My weekend was pretty packed with awesomess, which is the right way to pack a weekend.

Friday night I had dinner with my mom and Pete. Pete made tacos, tostadas, and taquitos. It was super delicious.

Mom offered to bake me a cake because this was the first time I was seeing her since my birthday. I chose chocolate, and I chose right.

After dinner we watched The Devil Wears Prada. I’d never seen it, and I enjoyed it.

Saturday I helped Darnell and Alex move to a different apartment in the same building. Alex’s parents were there as well. It’s always nice to see everybody, especially when Henley is as cute as he is. I think he’ll enjoy having the new patio! He really seemed to enjoy playing with the water – scooping it out of one container and pouring it another or simply drinking from the dog’s water bowl, haha.

I was so busy that I expected to miss celebrating Pi Day, but Hal and Mary Margaret brought a peach pie. After moving that evil dresser, it was good to eat pie!

Saturday night was ice skating time! My friend’s wife lives in Canada, but she was visiting, and he decided to celebrate with some ice skating.

We were a little late getting there because we stopped at Pinoy Pinay. I would have taken pictures, but I jumped right into the food. Yum yum.

There was a small collection of ouchies in our group, but we had a great time. Or at least I had a great time! I assume we all did!

Afer working up an appetite ice skating for a couple hours with Sterling, Chrissy, gem, Kelly, and JT, we headed to Umaya Ramen.

I shared some mini-burgers and had a few beers.

Eventually we found the lounge in the other room and finished off the night with sake. It was a wonderful evening.

Sunday was mostly a relaxing day at home (full of chores too actually). However, it started with a clown show! I saw The π’s of March, starring Clown Collage. It was absolutely hysterical. I could try to explain how great it was to see Alex, I mean Fransuave, drink some Tobasco, freak out, desperately drink something to cool off his mouth, realize it was Fireball Whiskey, and freak out some more. Or I could try to explain how he did cat’s cradle with a woman in the audience, how funny it was when he basically bowed out, yielding the applause to her. Or how much awesome it was when he came back later, doing it with a big rope, and how funny it was when the girl screwed up when she tried to help with the rope. I could talk about how much I loved watching Babs try to bake a cake to LazyTown’s Cooking By The Book before she heard Lil Jon join the mashup. But, well, it’s probably not very funny to read my descriptions of it.

I did get pulled out of the audience again this time though! The clowns performed Julius Caesar, but as they’re mute, they needed people to be their voices. I got to read the lines of Julius Caesar, which degraded into “blah blah blah.” It was a lot of fun!

Later that day I ate some bibingka, wathced Netflix, worked on my ticket stub organizer, and relaxed.

And that was my weekend!

Elliott’s first birthday

Yesterday was Elliott’s first birthday party. Thanks for inviting me, Sayaka and Anthony! I know I had a great time, and it looked like he did too!

Elliott seemed to really enjoy his yellow cup. It was the first time I’d met him, and he’s super adorable.

The food was amazing – lechon, salad, hummus, bruschetta, pancit, cupcakes, pork buns, ice cream, and more. I was nice and full after my first plate, and then I ate a few more. They even let guests pack up food to go!

gem and Elliott had a good time playing with the balloons.

Elliott was so smart when he received this envelope. He fooled around with it until he realized it opened and then promptly went about getting the card out. Once he had it, he tried to give it to gem and me. Sayaka says he loves to share.

When they were trying to get him to eat/destroy his cake, Sayaka dipped her finger in the cake and offered it to him. It looked like he was starting to understand, and he dipped his finger in the cake. And then he offered it to Sayaka and Anthony. Such a good sharer!

Some adults played some weird pickle/slinky hybrid game. I don’t know.

And best of all, we went in the bounce house!

What an awesome party. Happy birthday, Elliott!

Mathematical Adventure Time mug!

Last week was gem’s birthday, and we went to Color Me Mine to celebrate, about which I also posted.

This weekend, I picked up my piece! It’s an Adventure Time mug featuring Finn!

Or is it an Adventure Time mug featuring Jake?

Oh my god, it’s both!

Totally mathematical, right?!

Credit where credit’s due. I got the idea from a reddit post by /u/Corrupt_Core who was posting photos of a mug painted for him by his friend /u/Just-Another-Teenage. Thanks for the fantastic idea! I know it’s a bit sloppy in places, but I’m really happy with it.

Happy birthday, gem!

Happy birthday, gem! We celebrated by painting at Color Me Mine! The woman who worked there even recognized gem because we spent her last birthday there. How cool is that? She even made something based on gem’s design because she liked it so much.

Woo, painting party!

I painted this mug. I hope it looks good when it’s fired. It’s Jake. You knew that, right? I hope so.

Wait, look at the other side! It’s Jake! Woo!

Full disclosure time! I stole this idea from /u/Corrupt_Core on Reddit.

We went to the Anaheim Packing District dinner, and this tip jar at the Kroft made me laugh.

I had a sandwich and the pot pie poutine. So good!

For dessert, I got a PopBar.

Eating made me happy and sad at the same time.

In the end, I was quite sad.

Anyways, happy birthday, gem! Yay!

Niki’s birthday

Yesterday was Niki’s birthday! At first she didn’t want to drink, but we convinced her. Chocolate syrup and peppermint schnapps tastes a lot like Thin Mints, you know.

Niki performed the traditional birthday rites of her people by anointing her feet.

No, she was actually just washing her feet in the sink.

Oh, that’s not any less weird? No, no it is not.

But she made a delicious pound cake…

…and a carrot cake! This is just the trimmings; I didn’t photograph the actual cake.

Highlights of the night include all of us playing board games, me kissing Collin’s head, Angel biting (or at least pressing her teeth against) Niki’s face, me biting Angel’s ear in retaliation, and Collin trying to bite Angel’s face in retaliation before Angel did it right back to him.

Not a bad night.

Action-packed Super Bowl Sunday

Sunday morning I went to Quail Hill for a hike!

gem used her nice camera while I took pictures with my phone.

It was a really beautiful day. We didn’t hike for very long, but it was nice to get out. The sky seemed especially blue against the greenery.

After our hike, Anela suggested tea. It was a great idea! Roasting Water was serving their drinks in cute glass bottles with corks. The tea was tasty, and I got to keep a neat bottle.

When we were finished with our tea, we headed to Boiling Crab for lunch. It’s a Super Bowl tradition. The plan is usually to eat during the Super Bowl to avoid the rush, but this year we went before the Super Bowl. It was still relatively empty. I didn’t take any photos, but it was delicious. You’ll have to trust me.

With food out of the way, I went to hang out my friend Aiya.

We also trapped this baby. Henley didn’t seem to mind.

Actually, I went to spend time with Alex, Darnell, and Henley, three of my very favorite people in the world. It was wonderful seeing them. Every day I get to spend with them is always one of my favorite days.

It was a excellent and action-packed day!

Scott Bradlee & Postmodern Jukebox

This weekend I saw Scott Bradlee & Postmodern Jukebox at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa. I’ve loved them since gem introduced me to them, so I was excited to see them. It was also great that this was the first show I’d seen in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall despite having seen many shows at the Segerstrom Center. I didn’t tell gem what we were seeing, and she got surprised that they were playing Scott Bradlee & Postmodern Jukebox from the speakers outside the concert hall. I acted surprised until the usher confirmed with us that we were there for Postmodern Jukebox, and then I think she was happy.

Scott Bradless & Postmodern Jukebox performs covers of modern, popular music in various other, older styles. Die Young in a “bluegrass / country western / saloon-style” is one of my favorites.

I’m also a fan of their motown cover of Shake It Off!

We had a half hour before the show started, so we took some photos inside the hall.

It was pretty!

Here’s gem with a swirly background.

We asked someone to take our photo. Trying to hide the program behind my back just made it look worse. Whoops.

They had chalkboard speech bubbles and the OFf Center Festival backdrop for photographs. I think it was supposed to be for feedback.

gem decided to do a knock, knock joke. We ran low on time, but this is what we did!

Here they are performing! They were super entertaining! Besides great music, there were some burlesque dancers and even retro, radio advertisements. For example, we learned about the newspaper feature for finding good, conservative men – Tinder – as well as a service to experience horseless carriages with semi-professionals – Uber!

I didn’t recognize every song, but I knew many of them; there were a huge variety of styles too. The tambourine man went crazy with energy, and I totally loved him for it. In my photo, you can see man in a white shirt reaching toward the stage. He seemed totally into it, constantly reaching up at them. At one point the tambourine man invited him onto the stage and gave him a tambourine. Pretty cool!

Scott Bradlee & Postmodern Jukebox ended the night with Shake It Off!

After the show, we went back to finish our knock, knock joke.

Let’s end this post with their rendition of Call Me Maybe!

Hello, 2015

Last year was a pretty fun year. I was pulled on stage during a clown show, went stand-up paddleboarding, and went wakeboarding. I attended Katie and Matt’s wedding. I started doing yoga this summer and have stuck with it consistently. I switched to a bodyweight workout routine and have been doing that regularly. San Diego Comic-Con was a lot of fun, and for the first time, the roles were reversed; people asked me for pictures. (I was in my Aquabats costume.)

I attended a ton of concerts, including but not limited to Reel Big Fish, The Maxies, The Originalites, The Aquabats, Koo Koo Kangaroo, GOGO13, Half Past Two, Sugar Stems, The Interrupters, The Holophonics, The Skatalites, Suburban Legends, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, Los SuperSpies, and so many more. I watched a bunch of improv, mostly at ImprovCity and Spectacles. I attended some Risk! Live. I went to a Teenage Mutant Pizza Party and the Scott Pilgrim Picture Show with CinemAttack! There was Dapper Day, Walking with Dinosaurs, a Civil War reenactment, The Great Gatsby party, the OC Fair, and LA Kiss. There was some Yadi Presents burlesque, a performance of Wizard of Oz, Chicago, Big River – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Man of La Mancha, and other performances. Lots of fun stuff.

Edit: Oh, man, how can I forget the Tall Ships Festival or being a guest on the Twisted Nether Blogcast?!

Work continues to go well. I cleaned out my closet. And yes, that’s worth mentioning. I attended Henley’s first birthday party and gave him a big smile with his present. I finished off Mists of Pandaria and started Warlords of Draenor. Sorry, but a little video games had to leak into this too. I got my backlog (my list of games, books, movies, etc.) that were purchased but never finished down to 340, which is pretty good. When I started counting in April, I had 471 items that needed to be beat/watched/read. I got rear-ended while driving for the first time. That’s not really much of an accomplishment, but I handled it at least. It was my 10-year high school reunion a few months back, and that was a lot of fun. I also cooked a bunch – stuffed bell peppers, pizzas, calzones, salads, salami wraps, pork chops, steaks, a cake, lemon bars, brownies, and more delicious things. I, a straight man, went out for a drink with a man I met on a dating site. I got stung by way too many bees.

It was a cool year.

2015 started with a party with close friends. Just a minute or two into the year I got to witness a friend propose to his girlfriend.

We’re off to a good start.

Ska Luau V!

Last night was the fifth annual Ska Luau at the House of Blues Anaheim, and it was an awesome show! I was ready to go with a new (or at least never worn to a concert) Half Past Two shirt, and despite it being 42 degrees outside, it was nice inside!

The show opened with the Magnolia Polynesian Dance Troupe. They did dances from a bunch of a different countries and had both men and women, but I didn’t record very much.

The first band to perform was Failed to Victory. I’ve seen them before, and they’re great.

I’d never heard Skadonna, but they were really fun. You might guess that they perform Madonna covers. I’ll admit, the songs that I didn’t know weren’t as cool, but I really enjoyed hearing the covers.

Los SuperSpies graced us with their debut! Not all of their songs were new to me though. Here they’re playing The World is New. If you’re a fan of Save Ferris or Starpool, you’ll probably become a fan of Los SuperSpies too!

Half Past Two is one of my favorite bands, so it was awesome that they performed as well.

Hey, look what I just found.

Sorry, that has nothing to do with the Ska Luau, but it came up as a recommended video at the end of the one I recorded. I didn’t know they covered this, and I like Vampire Weekend.

Back to the Ska Luau! Here some friends joined Half Past Two on stage.

Suburban Legends! Another one of my favorite bands! I love their awesome choreography (and music of course).

This little guy was rocking out too! Well, honestly, he was mostly napping. But his parents were enjoying the show.

There might have been a surfing contest too. Competition is fierce when a prized pineapple is on the line.

It was such a terrific show with a truly amazing line up. Spending the 30th with excellent ska and the 31st, tonight, with friends is a great way to end 2014.

And the best way to end a night of ska is carne asada fries. My diet was upset, but my taste buds were happy.

Aloha!