Dapper Day was here this weekend! I was the expo for about 15 minutes right before it closed due to traffic. Ugh! On the bright side, I won a free bow tie from xoelle through an Instragram repost contest and got to pick it up!
There was some stress as I waited in line to see if we could get tickets to Folly, the after party, while gem spent a good hour trying to park. Luckily, we did get inside the party. Folly had drinks, a live swing band, a keyboardist and bassist in another room, and lots of dancing upstairs at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen.
gem captured me enjoying my White Russian.
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, because I still wanted to share this photo of us in line.
Here’s another shot of us while we waited in line.
gem enjoyed the fireworks while wearing xoelle’s business card in her hair.
We were hoping to meet some other friends there, but no one came. However, we made some new friends. It was an awesome night anyways with drinks, lots of dancing, and great music. Super fun!
Spotify introduced the Discover Weekly playlist, giving users custom playlists of new music based on their usage. So far, it’s been pretty amazing for me. If you haven’t tried it yet, check Browse > Discover > Discover Weekly.
Checking my Last.fm reveals that in the last week, nine of my top ten played songs were from my Discover Weekly playlists from the last two weeks. Spotify’s algorithms seem spot on; they certainly know what I like. Discover Weekly is a single playlist that’s updated every Monday. Because I want to save them, I make a new playlist that’s a duplicate of my Discover Weekly. When the Discover Weekly is changed, I still have my duplicate.
One song it recommended was Obsessed With You by The Orion Experience. It recommended it to me two weeks ago with the introduction of Discover Weekly, and it’s now my 38th most played song ever according to Last.fm. That’s crazy. I guess I listened to it a lot. Whoops.
I’ve been looking for ways to discover new music, especially since there are some kinds of music that I enjoy but about which I don’t know much. This is a perfect way to discover new music! And in the interest of discovering new music, here’s a selection of tracks that I’ve enjoyed from my Discover Weekly playlist:
The Orion Experience – Obsessed With You
The Bird and the Bee – F-cking Boyfriend
I Fight Dragons – The Geeks Will Inherit The Earth
MisterWives – Twisted Tongue
Beautiful Small Machines – Counting Back To 1
Crayon Pop – Bar Bar Bar
Garfunkel and Oates – Gay Boyfriend
Morgan Laurence – Come On! Come On!
Dixie Flatline – Just Be Friends
Noah and the Whale – 5 Years Time
If you use Spotify and haven’t checked out your Discover Weekly playlist yet, you’re missing out every week you don’t take a look!
San Diego Comic-Con 2015 was super awesome! It was my first time cosplaying besides wearing my Aquabats costume one day last year, and it was really fun. My favorite part of these conventions has always been looking at the cosplayers and getting photos with them; it’s interesting to participate now. I attended with gem and Antonio as usual. I cosplayed an Aquabat, Professor Monty Corndog from the Aquabats, and Fix-It Felix, Jr. from Wreck-It Ralph while gem cosplayed Sadness from Inside Out, Woody from Toy Story, and Vanellope Von Schweetz from Wreck-It Ralph. Here are some of the cosplay highlights! Thursday I wore my Aquabats costume. It made the most sense because I was going to their concert later that night. The first photo I was asked to join was this one, shot by Kenneth Yeast. They were posing near me actually! The photographer took a photo of my business card and was nice enough to e-mail me the photos. From left to right, that’s me, @freeddc, @kaitlynfreed, and @lilbelle74 from Instagram. I’ve seen them on Instagram through Aquabats tags and concerts for a while, so it was especially cool to get photos with them.
This is @hollandtayloegedney (Instagram) who won an award this year for her Elsa cosplay. She was really nice, and it was fun talking to her.
After I posed with Finn and Fionna from Adventure Time, gem worked her Snapchat magic to turn them into Aquabats!Walkers can’t stand the might of an Aquabat.
I wouldn’t want to be hit with that hammer!
*boink* Ow, my head! Edit: When I first posted this, I didn’t even realize that was Dangerous Pixie!
I also met my favorite hero, Daredevil! Edit: This is Tony Rios, @EL_LOBO209
I got in some yoga too.
And a little more. On Friday I cosplayed Professor Monty Corndog from the Aquabats.
While in line for a panel, some Aquabats lined up behind me.
Woody (gem) and I posed with some minions too!
Clay Carmine of Gears of War chainsawed me in the neck! gem performed some Snapchat witchery again.
Professor Monty Corndog of the Aquabats meets Professor Utonium of the Powerpuff Girls!
Breaking Despicable? I guess this minion found someone despicable to follow. When I asked for a picture, Jesse said “yeah, bitch.”
And here I am with the Aquabats! Professor Monty Corndog is much more obscure than just the Aquabats costume, so I knew no one would really recognize it. Luckily the Bat Commander said, “Professor Monty Corndog… is that you?” It was so worth it to get this photo with them!
My final cosplay was Fix-It Felix, Jr. from Wreck-It Ralph, which I did on Saturday and Sunday.
More Snapchat voodoo from gem. I really love this.
Here I’m fixing up this kart. Awesome Mario Kart cosplays!
I also fixed this adorable Companion Cube while posing with her and Chell.
Speaking of adorable, isn’t this Maleficent just the cutest? I think this was my favorite cosplay of the con. My heart kind of wants to explode.
I high-fived Fix-It Felicia!
Later I got in a wrestling match.
I even tried to fix the Flash right in the head!
I wasn’t in costume for these, but I saw some cool cosplays while I eating dinner too.
Feed me, Seymour! Feed me all night long! Check out that Audrey II!
I couldn’t resist a photo with the Globo-Gym Purple Cobras!
gem even did yoga with Dhalsim!
The Aquabats concert was amazing. Here they performed a cover of The Pixies’ Where Is My Mind. They also showed a video they’re going to pitch to TV execs to try to get The Aquabats! Super Show! picked up. It showed the MCBC begging a cloaked wizard to help. He reveals himself to be Jack Black, absorbs the Commander’s powers, and transforms into an Aquabat. He agrees to help and talks about how we’re all Aquabats before using his magic to transform a bunch of celebrities into Aquabats, including Weird Al Yankovic, Tony Hawk, and more. It was very cool.
They even signed my set list!
I also met this guy who isn’t wearing a costume because he’s a regular guy. It couldn’t be the Bat Commander. The Bat Commander doesn’t wear normal shirts like that. He was really nice, and he talked with me about getting more involved with the Aquabats. It probably helped that gem gave him a bunch of snacks! And speaking of gem giving snacks, she gave care packages to other people, such as Todd from Toddland. He was super cool. Technically gem got his number!
We saw Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half. Her panel was moderated by Felicia Day, and it was super great. gem gave Allie some cookies and snacks, and Allie was very appreciative and nice. They hugged and took a photo together. We also saw a panel about Jhonen Vasquez, creator of Invader Zim. He was very down to Earth and discussed how scary it is that some people identify with parts of his crazy comics.
We ran the Walking Dead Experience, and I did it in my Aquabats costume. It was really fun.
We arrived in Petco Park as survivors, and someone escorted us inside, claiming it’s safe. Of course, walkers showed up, and we had to run. They’re all played by volunteers who couldn’t really hurt us, but I got into it and definitely ran hard and dodged walkers. Eventually we met a second group of survivors who weren’t as friendly. They killed our leader when they found out we didn’t have supplies. Our talks were cut short when walkers approached, and we all had to run again. At the end, they decided to cull the weak. They chose someone from our group to kill, and it ended up being Antonio. They had him kneel as they raised a club to kill him. Luckily for him, walkers arrived once more, and we ran for it. Antonio said that as the walkers arrived, someone (presumably staff) lifted him to ensure he didn’t get trampled. It was so much fun!
Let’s see… what else. We ran into Bryan Lackey, a fantastic trumpet player. I know him from Skapeche Mode and Failed to Victory. He was really friendly and stopped to chat with us for a while before taking a photo and friending us on Facebook!
We also went to an art exhibit called Super Video Game Land by Anthony Bulcao at the Mission Brewery. He paints scenes from video games and is really talented! He had two painting from Spaceship Warlock, an old adventure game I loved as a kid. I was most excited for those two. He said he wasn’t confident about including them, and that I was the only person who talked to him about them. I’m glad I did!
I also participated (badly) in a kazoo and ukulele play-along, met Rikki Simons, voice of Gir (and more) from Invader Zim, played games at the Nintendo Lounge, and sang along with gem while she played Martian Girl in a line. Such an awesome weekend!
I know they’re not going to read this, but thanks to all the people who asked for photos and appreciated my cosplay – the Aquabats group photo, the jedi, the dude with the swords, and the three or four other people who liked my Aquabats costume, and the Nintendo employee, Quailman, the little Captain America, Ariel (who was excited and wanted a photo after I asked her first), and the other 14 or so people, especially the little kids, who liked my Fix-It Felix, Jr. It made me very happy!
Last week I was attending a conference in the Bay Area, so I went a few days early to visit friends! I stayed with Katie and Matt, hung out with Marc as well, coincidentally saw some Southern California friends, and attended the Lithium Network Conference. I had a great time!
Lithium is all about social: they’re the providers of Toshiba’s forum as well as Lithium Social Web, the web application that I use that pulls the forum, Facebook, and Twitter into one screen.
Friday
I flew in Friday night after some delays. Matt and Katie picked me up from San Francisco International, and we headed back to their place in Fremont after a quick stop for some tasty In-N-Out. It was late, so we mostly talked, and Matt and I played games.
Saturday
Saturday was the action-packed day! Marc came over, and then we visited Matt’s university, San Jose State University, where we failed to return library books and failed to see a flight simulator. We tried at least. Luckily, San Jose is also filled with delicious foods.
At SmokeEaters I ate some delicious wings, onion rings, fries, and a beer. This was the start of a bad day for my stomach.
I was kind of excited to see a banner for Fanime. I don’t know. I’m sorry.
After our unhealthy lunch, we stopped at Psycho Donuts. Just look how good they look! Yes, yes, yes!
We walked past a place called Iguanas just because I wanted to take a picture of their sign. Burritozilla! I want to eat Burritozilla!
When we got back to Katie and Matt’s, we tried some of the donuts. Another bad stomach decision, but a great decision for my taste buds. The top-left one was the Cookie Monster donut. Reminds me of Afters Ice Cream! 🙂
We made some White Russians, watched some YouTube videos, listened to Spotify, and talked. The White Russians were the final bad decision for my stomach, haha.
Matt found this playlist on Spotify – 2000’s Rock by Scott Sweatman. It’s… kind of great. It caused a lot of nostalgia, but at the same time, I can tell why I don’t listen to this music anymore. It was pretty perfect.
This might sound uneventful, but it was a pretty important evening. I had a lot of fun with them. Marc’s friend even came over as well.
Sunday
gem was in te Bay Area to go rafting with a group of friends, which included one other person I knew – Vivian. Marc came over again, and then he drove us to Berkeley to meet with them.
We decided to meet at Sather Tower, a bell and clock tower, commonly called The Campanile.
You could hear the music from a pretty good distance.
I liked the bears at the base.
After realizing you could go up the tower for a nominal fee, we had to check it out.
I wish this photo offered a better sense of scale. The bells could totally crush a person.
gem, Katie, and Matt!
Here’s where the musician sits to play the carillon, which is the bell system.
Here’s the view.
And here’s a group of photos of a lot of us.
Here’s gem, Marc, Katie, Matt, and myself. I was trying to spread the Half Past Two, So Cal ska love to the Bay Area.
We stopped at Sheng Kee Bakery, where I tried some of Vivian’s tea eggs – basically eggs boiled in tea rather than water. Delicious! Then it was off to Sliver Pizzeria. Each day of the week they feature a different pizza, but that’s it. That means that each day they only have a single kind of pizza. On Sunday, it was roasted potatoes, roasted onions, mozzarella, jalapeño jack cheese, Italian parsley, oregano, thyme, and olive oil. I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I did. It was great! I’m going to need to try to make something like this some time.
Over lunch, someone I had just met that day asked me what I did for a living. I said, “I work for Toshiba…”
He replied with “hey, that’s my line!”
I’m paraphrasing, but he works for Toshiba as well, although he works for a different Toshiba company. Small world! And speaking of small worlds, another person was going to take the BART back to Fremont, so Marc just gave him a ride too.
It was cool seeing the university as well as the city. The city was pretty interesting. I can understand how it gets the reputation it has, because the people clearly cared a lot more about the environment and helping each other than I’m used to seeing in Orange County.
Once we got home, we had a quiet evening mostly of watching TV and chatting. I got some work done as well, and we watched American Ninja Warrior. It’s a cool show pitting athletes against insane obstacle courses that require a great deal of strength, agility, and balance.
Katie made an amazing fish dinner that made my stomach feel much better. It was super good!
Monday
I started Monday morning by working before Matt drove me to the BART station.
When I got into San Francisco, I took a picture of the building outside the Powell Street station like I always do.
This was the view from my hotel room. Not amazing, but I like that Scalzi always posts photos of his view, so I like doing it too. I stayed at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis, which was right next to Saint Patrick’s Chuch, where Patrick and Caroline got married. Pretty cool!
Anela gave me some recommendations of things to do. Some of them I’d done previously, and some, like hike recommendations, just didn’t fit with my schedule. But some things had to be done!
Did you know that at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory you can watch people make fortune cookies? Well, she did, and now I do, and now you do.
They start out round, while they’re still hot, she shapes them into fortune cookies. I got to try some nice hot ones that were still round, and I bought a bag of normal and chocolate fortune cookies.
I tried one chocolate one from the bag, and my fortune was “Your luck will soon be at a high point.” That seems good, but what if it just means my luck is going to be terrible for a long time after that? Uh oh.
I took some other random photos too.
Building art.
Yummy not-quite-a-fortune-cookie!
I had to stop at a bakery too, so I got a pineapple BBQ pork bun from The AA Bakery & Cafe. I love pork buns!
Anela also recommended I get pastries in Little Italy, so off I went. I often say I don’t really like looking up recommendations because it’s more fun to find stuff on your own, but I wasn’t sure about Italian pastries, so I turned to reviews and found Stella Pasty and Cafe. Everyone seemed to recommend their Sacripantina.
According to their site, it contains “vanilla sponge cake, zabaione (a delicate custard made with egg yolks, sweet butter, marsala and sherry wine) cream, and rum.” It was light yet rich. I could only eat about half of the piece actually.
I knew I wanted pizza while I was there too, and I felt like looking around to see what caught my eye. Spoiler alert – it wa Golden Boy Pizza. I just liked the feeling and look of the place. Foursquare recommended the garlic clam pizza, so I went with that.
It was a thick slice, and I put red pepper on it. It was good, although I didn’t find it amazing. Still, I liked the place enough that I might try to go back and get a different kind if I can. It was small on the inside but was covered with stickers and similar art.
I also want to mention Victoria Pastry Company. I didn’t eat there, but I got detoured as I followed the amazing smell. I just wasn’t hungry enough.
My final goal was Ghirardelli Square. Anela recommended this as well, although I’d actually been there already. However, I just love chocolate. On the way, I stopped at Dennis Rae Fine Art. They had an exhibit on the art of Theodor Seuss Geisel – Dr. Seuss. It was neat.
I bought a few things to take home at Ghirardelli before purchasing a hot fudge sundae to eat! The fudge was just so awesome. I kinda sorta maybe love hot fudge.
Even so, I couldn’t do it. There were just too many things to eat that day and not enough room in my stomach.
Here’s a nice view from the Fisherman’s Wharf area near the San Francisco National Historic Park (or maybe it’s part of it).
Look, a ship.
This was a really heroic ship, but I heard it killed its family once.
I liked the view from the end of the pier.
Hey, it’s me!
On my way back to the hotel, I happened to walk past Lombard Street at it’s famously twisted block. This was actually another recommendation from Anela, although I wasn’t aiming to see it this time since I’d already seen it. I just happened to walk past it, so I took a picture because of how beautiful it looked.
I just thought this door was cool.
The welcome event for the Lithium Network Conference was held at Jillian’s. There was a variety of food and an open bar. I know what you’re thinking, but actually I only had a small glass of wine. Too exhausted, so I didn’t stay long. After a detour at Target to buy water, I went back to my room for the night.
Tuesday
Tuesday was the first actual day of the conference. After a quick breakfast, I was off to the weird introduction!
That woman was a bunch of bananas.
And that woman was the whole city!
The opening was about three and half hours, and it mostly talked about what customers expect from social engagement. Blah, blah, blah. You don’t care about that.
But then there was lunch and time to socialize! Yes, some of that was through texts to home, but I also talked with some cool people at the conference.
After lunch, I went to a session on “Self service content publishing” and another on “How to get content in the right place at the right time” that were both interesting. They were more about developing applications and custom modifications to the Lithium platform, which isn’t something I have the power to go implement, but I like seeing new ways to think about the process.
The conference ended for the day with two pretty great speakers. The first was Sal Khan, founder of the Khan Academy. The Khan Academy is a free online tool for education. It originally sprang from him tutoring his cousin on the phone, then tutoring many of his cousins, then making custom tutoring software to help him tutor them, and then creating videos to help as well. I can’t really do it justice. He discussed how school goes at a certain pace for the whole class and then judges them rather than helping them master something before continuing. He wants to bring this free education to everyone in the world. It’s a beautiful idea, and a couple parts of his talk made me tear up. Shh, don’t tell anyone.
The second speaker was Orny Adams, a comedian. “Let’s talk about what we really wanna talk about. We hate our customers. Because they’re stupid.” He was joking, I swear. Yeah, he didn’t really care about crossing any lines as he also made fun of people who avoid gluten or are scared of germs (uh oh) and even had to end with some differences between men and women. He was pretty hilarious.
That night’s party was held at City View on the fourth floor of The Metreon.
There were a lot of people inside and out. I talked to some cool people, including a long conversation with a Greek woman who compared Greek family members with me! She’s actually a contact at Lithium I hadn’t met, so that was very cool. I also had a great conversation with a man from Zürich.
The view was nice!
There were oh so many desserts. Combined with all the normal food I had that night, it added up to another terrible health night.
Oh, and then after all that I discovered more food.
Wednesday
I didn’t really take many photos this day, but I did attend sessions on “Master social lead generation” and “15 tips for new community managers.” I don’t really need sales leads, and I’m not a new community manager, but I like looking at new ways of thinking.
Later I had a meeting with my coworker, the VP of Global Strategic Accounts & Value Engineering at Lithium, the Chief Revenue Officer of Lithium, and a woman in charge of Customer Success at Lithium.
Dr. Michael Wu, Chief Scientist at Lithium, did a talk about how customers perceive brands, customer expectations, and a lot more. He wears a distinctive hat and glasses, so the conference gave a hat and glasses to everyone in attendance!
I didn’t take the glasses since I already wear glasses, but a free hat? Sure.
I also took an accidental selfie on the way to the BART.
And the last photo I took in the city was this. It reminded me of the RISK! podcast.
It was a great trip, but by the end I was exhausted and happy to get home. If only I didn’t have two work days left in the week.
Thanks for the wonderful time, Bay Area.
And the best part? I didn’t really gain much weight!
Yesterday gem and I went to Hollywood for a Kindred Throats show! We saw them at the Coup de Comedy Festival, and they were amazing. They’re the sketch comedy / musical duo that sang to gem, and they were the recipients of gem’s cookies!
Before the show, we also so much food at Hollywood Thai Restaurant. Oh my god, it was delicious.
Eventually I dragged my bloated why-oh-why-did-I-eat-so-much body to the Comedy Central Stage at The Hudson Theatres. gem made a really awesome card for them and, of course, more cookies.
The show was hilarious! I don’t really know how to convey how funny it is, because describing it as funny songs doesn’t really do it justice. There’s audience interaction as well, which is comedic gold. Their opening song was about how the people in the back thought they were safe. During the song, they proceeded to move everyone from the back row closer. Luckily we were already sitting in the front.
On the way out, we saw Todd, one of the members, who recognized her and thanked her for coming all the way out! Woo! She was wondering if they’d recognize her, but I’d sure recognize someone who seemed to always bring me cookies. I might be in love with food.
The Coup de Comedy Festival 2015 was this weekend, hosted by UCI’s Improv Revolution – a four day festival celebrating all sorts of comedy. Wednesday opened with Improv Revolution and Live Nude People playing together, referring to themselves as Nude* Revolution. Great name, and great comedy.
It was followed by The Resistance. They were amazing last year, so I was really looking forward to them this year. The video at the top depicts a flashback scene they performed of a pirate’s curse. The Resistance improvises action movies. This one was about kids finding a skeleton with a map to a treasure, full of karate, the nerd winning the girl, and useless adults. I didn’t realize until that day that Derek Mears, who I had just seen with Dr. God, was performing with them. Awesome!
Here’s another scene near the end – a karate montage.
The night ended with Delicious Moments, a duo who switches characters rapidly, usually going back and forth between roles during a single conversation. It’s, uh, long-form, I suppose. They don’t really do scenes exactly. They just talk on stage about their show, and then things happen. It’s pretty funny.
Thursday started with Improv X, but I didn’t catch it. My comedy Thursday started with KINDRED THROATS! They don’t style their name like that or anything. I just really loved them.
Kindred Throats consists of Kevin Stafford and Tom Risenmay who play guitar, sing, and generally act hilarious. Unlike most of what I’d seen so far at the festival, Kindred Throats performed sketch rather than improv (although bits are of course improvised).
This was the only show gem could attend, and I’m glad she did. During one part of the show, Kindred Throats began talking about various historic seats in the theater, including the two seats in the front for lovers. One pointed out gem and me and while the other pointed out gem and the guy sitting on her other side. They kept amusingly confirming that they were looking at the same two people while obviously being in disagreement until settling on gem and the other guy.
Once they were singing directly to gem, I had to record it, and you can see the video above. Basically, they’d get to parts in the song where they’d talk about something the lovers would do, and then they’d abruptly stop and stare until they did it. God it was funny, and I think gem really enjoyed it too.
After the show, I watched Sparks to Fire, which was a bit stand-up, a bit improv, and… a man eating a cactus?
L.A. Beast was there. I hadn’t heard of him, but he’s a competitive eater who also eats strange things on YouTube for entertainment. I saw him eat a dozen raw eggs, including the shells, a whole, raw cactus, and three ghost peppers. He apologized to the women in the audience, noting that his male fan base is much larger than his female fan base.
After the show was Stand-Up on the Spot with Jeremiah Watkins, but I skipped it. I did, however, see Kevin and Tom from Kindred Throats outside getting ready to leave. gem was on her way back to UCI, hoping to bring them homemade cookies. After telling them about the cookies, they agreed to stay and wait, so I had a chance to talk to them for a bit.
They really were in disagreement over who to pick. One wanted to pick gem and me and realized we were there together, while the other wanted to choose gem and the other guy because the other guy was using his phone to record the entire time. They said sometimes they choose people who are obviously together, sometimes they choose obvious strangers, and once they just chose two guys who were clearly just friends.
I think they enjoyed their cookies!
I didn’t attend Friday at all. I missed some Open Mic, Red Door & Triumph, The Mechanicals, OBGY-Not Sketch Show, and Stand-Up with Zoe Rose Moacanin.
Saturday was the last day (and a bit annoying due to breaks). It began with Second City’s Really Awesome Improv Show followed by a two hour break.
I spent that break taking a picture with Peter the Anteater.
Two pictures, actually.
And I also read Scott Pilgrim and messed around on my phone.
I also found this graffiti. THIS ART: FULL OF POOP?
After the break was Doctor Who Live! – an improvised episode of Doctor Who. I don’t really care for Doctor Who, but it was still entertaining. After another two hour break during which I read more, I watched the Count Gumdrop improv performance, which was pretty funny. The night ended with Impro Theatre’s Chekhov UnScripted and Revolutionary Comedy Award honoring Keegan-Michael Key, but I bailed on those to head to my friend’s place for a game night.
Friday night was the first screening of Rude Boy the Movie at the Frida. It follows Rudy, a Mexican-American teenager from Anaheim in 1984 who doesn’t fit in at school. He eventually finds ska and rude boys. It was a lot of fun!
Saturday was Wayzgoose at UCI! I walked to campus and spent a little time wandering around, taking in the festivities. It seemed a lot smaller than previous years honestly.
The Psychology Student Association had this awesome Adventure Time booth with sweet cosplay. I had to get some tacos from them for that! I hope tons of people bought from them.
Some people seemed to be practicing quidditch too. It wasn’t a full game, but they were definitely out there having fun. I talked with them a bit, and they seemed really cool. Quidditch sounds like a pretty fun activity, and it’s cool to see people at UCI playing! Thanks for all the info, Anteater Quidditch!
I’ve been going to Wayzgoose since 2007, and every year I get a shawarma from the Muslim Student Union. Yum, yum, yum. Besides the tacos and shawarma, I also had horchata, a churro, spam musubi, and a brownie. It was a delicious day.
The 3D printing club had a booth showing some of the neat things they made. Here’s a bulbasaur.
And here’s a squirtle. I like the bulbasaur more. I didn’t see a charmander even though charmander was clearly the best of the three.
The anteater was pretty cool though!
On my walk back home, I decided to walk through Middle Earth. I stopped to take a picture from Gondolin.
I also saw cool restrooms in Middle Earth. When I lived there, they were men’s and women’s. Now they’re both all-inclusive. Pretty cool.
I had to stop by my old dorm too. It seems weird to think that I lived there a decade ago.
Later that night I went to Sean’s reggae yoga workshop. It was a two hour yoga workshop with DJ Tory playing reggae music. It was a lot of fun. After the workshop, I went to an after party. There were a couple people I knew and a lot more that I didn’t. Everyone seemed really cool, making a really awesome night!
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!
I had a super awesome 29th birthday weekend! My birthday was Friday, and I worked from home. After work, I took Alice’s yoga class, which was really great. Anela was covering someone’s shift, so I got to see her while I was there too. After yoga, I met with gem for dinner. She gave me these guns that might or might not have been bananas. She’s good at Snapchat edits.
We went to Sake 2 Me and ate way too much sushi.
I don’t remember exactly what the one on the left is called, but it has fried onions on top and is tasty. The one on the right is the Green Goblin. It’s amazing; sorry people who don’t like cilantro!
For dessert, I got a cherry pie from Polly’s Pies. gem lit this candle for me and sang to me!
Mmmmm.
On Saturday, gem and I had lunch with our friends Matt and Katie. They were in town from the Bay area to go to Disneyland! We ate at the Anaheim Packing House. I forgot to get a picture of us, but I did get a picture of the crepe we split. I guess we know my priorities 🙁
Later that night, Jonathan came to the house. He joined me and the other roommates in a game of Power Grid. It was pretty fun!
Sunday was a day for Huntington Beach! This mailbox looked pretty cool.
Looks beautiful, huh? It was actually pretty chilly and overcast most of the day, but it was still fun.
Anela and Edward ended up meeting gem and me there. We had some tacos at Sancho’s Tacos. They pretty much make the best tacos ever.
I also tried their nachos for the first time. The nachos were good, but I still wouldn’t dare order something without getting the O.G. tacos.
After we finished eating, we decided to go to a restaurant and get more food. Don’t worry, it makes perfect sense. This was some sort of tangerine ice cream with a chocolate chip cookie from Zimzala.
And ganache! So rich!
I tried an apple blossom cocktail with apple brandy, apple juice, lemon, and cinnamon syrup; a cucumber cooler cocktail with Grey Goose pear vodka, agave, cucumber, lime, and soda; and tequila shots. The apple blossom was good, and the tequila shot was surprisingly smooth, but the cucumber cooler was absolutely delicious and quite refreshing and crisp!
The main reason I wanted to go Sunday instead of Saturday was because Danny Maika performs on Sunday. I requested some Sublime.
gem asked for some ukulele music. It’s no surprise that this was one of the songs he played!
gem also asked him to sing me “Happy Birthday!” Yay, thanks gem and Danny!
There was a Connect Four board out, so we had to play some games. Edward had left by this time, but the three of us had fun playing. Anela is better than gem or me!
The Shorebreak Hotel also had these neat little fires outside. gem noticed they look like sunflowers!
On the way back to our cars, we also two cats. One didn’t want to hang out with us, but one was super friendly. We got to pet him a bunch!
From left to right, here’s Anela, gem, Danny, and myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to get a photo until after Edward left. It was a rad day and a super fun weekend! Thanks to everyone that made it great!
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!
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