I went wakeboarding with my friends gem and Anela this weekend! We went to Silverwood Lake with my parents on their new boat. I’d been wakeboarding once a few weeks ago, but it was gem and Anela’s first time.
It’s hard to make us out in the photos, but that’s gem.
And here’s Anela on the board.
Here’s a great action shot of Anela eating lunch with a bonus bunny ears from Pete.
This was cooler in person with the wind.
Wakeboarding is fun, but lying in the sun with your eyes closed is also fun.
I’m going to guess someone said something funny right before this photo, because my mom looks really happy.
Here I am wakeboarding!
Wakeboarding in action! Woohoo!
After some delicious shrimp, potato, and corn soup at my parents’ house, we met Anela’s friend Daniel at the OC Night Market.
We ate, as gem would say, all the things!
Multi-colored dumplings with multiple dips! Mmm!
Delicious baco – soft!
Delicious baco – crunchy!
We saw this super cute sign with a rad dino on it.
Fried macaroni and cheese with garlic aioli and sausage is tasty.
We also tried what was being marketed as “eggporn.” The egg is cooked inside the jar in boiling water along with cornmeal, bacon, and green onion. I think. Anyways, it was pretty good.
See these cookies? They’re amazing! There’s actually two kinds in that photo – habanero peanut butter and jelly and salted caramel apple oatmeal. They’re from the Velvet Rope Bake Shop. Check them out and get some cookies!
I also had some other things that I didn’t photograph (or the photos came out badly) including a fried squid, ice cream in a plant pot, fresh potato chips with Thai coconut curry toppings, some sort of corn dog, Brussels sprouts, spam musubi, and probably more about which I’m forgetting. Tasty! There was also a lot of cool art to see, a costume contest, some kids dancing, and live music. I heard a girl with a guitar do a great rendition of the Pokemon theme song, and I also some cosplayers throwing a pokeball at each other.
Friday night was the 2nd Scott Pilgrim Picture Show, an amazing interactive film screening by CinemAttack at the Frida Cinema in Santa Ana. The idea is similar to screenings of the Rocky Horror – a movie with lots of audience participation. I bought this poster along with a poster representing the original Scott Pilgrim Picture Show from last year too. I didn’t even notice until later that the one for last year was signed by Tyler Jacobs, the creator, and numbered.
Audience participation, a costume contest, garlic bread, a light show, and more. What’s not to love?
gem and I got there about 45 minutes before the doors opened so we could hang out. I had to get a picture of the marquee!
Even though bread makes you fat, they handed out garlic bread to the people waiting in line. Sweet!
The walls were plastered with flyers for the Toronto International Battle of the Bands, the Katayanagi Twins, Sex Bob-omb, the Clash at Demonhead, and more. It was a pretty nice touch.
There was a photo op with Scott Pilgrim and a photographer. They said they would post all the photos on Facebook and then you could go find and tag yourself and save the photo. However, I’ve yet to see them posted. In addition, only a handful of people got to take pictures with this before everyone filed into the theater. After the screening, it was already gone. They said people could take the flyers, so I suspect someone might have grabbed this early. Oh well.
Edit: They posted them! Here I am chilling with Scott! The photo was taken at the CinemAttack photo booth, so credit goes to their photographer whose name wasn’t mentioned. They encouraged sharing the photos, so I think it’s cool that I’m posting it here.
Overhead, a CinemAttack! banner was hanging. CinemAttack is the events company hosting the Scott Pilgrim Picture Show. It was created by a man named Tyler Jacobs. While I’d been looking forward to the event for some time, I hadn’t realized until the night before the show that Tyler Jacobs is Christian Jacobs’ (the MC Bat Commander, lead singer of the Aquabats) and Parker Jacobs’ (lead singer of GOGO13) brother. The a pretty rad family. I’m also glad I found Tyler Jacobs’ independently of his brothers. I had a moment to stop and say hello to Tyler as well, and he was quite friendly. I’m glad I did.
You’ll also notice the movie was being shown in the Chaos Theater!
With the posters I purchased, I received two bags of “coins for throwing!” When an evil ex is defeated, you’re supposed to toss coins in the air. It was fun and definitely added to the experience.
Yes, yes, this photo is horrible. Anyways, there was a costume contest as well. There were a number of Scotts and Ramonas as expected but also a Gideon and even a Vegan Police! The guy who came as the Vegan Police even had a green laser.
The movie was a lot more fun to watch in this setting. Words on the screen would direct you to yell lines aloud, and during songs, they would progress karaoke-style. There were also instructions sometimes, including high-fiving a neighbor or jumping up to pretend to play DDR along with Scott and Knives. When an evil ex was defeated, they’d remind you to throw your coins in the air. There were also light shows during the scenes with the bands playing, which really added to the awesomeness. When the Vegan Police came to depower Todd, green lasers shot out everywhere. It wasn’t enough for the fans as they began to cry out for our Vegan Police. Luckily our cosplayer saved the day; when we saw his green laser hit the screen and track Todd, everyone cheered!
After the movie, gem stopped to pose with her ukulele like Scott does with his guitar. I wasn’t sure it was going to come out, because the lighting wasn’t great, but I’m pretty happy with the photo. gem actually hasn’t seen it yet. Hopefully she likes it too.
Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra gave an awesome performance yesterday at The Observatory! Half Past Two posted about it, but I wasn’t planning on spending money. However, when Max talked to me about it at this week’s Ska Parade Lounge on Wednesday, he convinced me to go. I’m glad he did!
I’d never been to The Observatory in Santa Ana, but it was a pretty sweet venue. Reviews on Foursquare seemed pretty negative honestly, but I thought things were fine. There was a lot of space and multiple tiers as well. Multiple tiers also means multiple walls on which to lean so there’s a lot of room for people who want to take it easy.
The show opened with Viernes 13, a ska band from LA. Before they started, I noticed that the woman next to me was with a man who kept leaving for long periods of time. As it turns out, he was the keyboard player. I seem to be running into a lot of Spanish ska lately! They were fun with a good variety of music, including a Skatalites cover. I talk to the guy on keys, Francis “The BubbaMaster” Sanchez (assuming their Facebook is current), a little after the show too.
Skapeche Mode performed second. Given their name, it should be no surprise that they play ska covers of 80’s music. Their Facebook says that they’re “Committed to ruining both the eighties and ska, one show at a time.” Well, they certainly weren’t ruining either because they were awesome. Skapeche Mode had awesome stage presence – especially the singer and horn section. Is the trumpet played Bryan Lackey, the same trumpet player from Failed to Victory? Did I somehow see him two nights in a row? Rad, because he’s great!
I know what you were thinking. You wanted to check out what they sound like considering these jerks aren’t on Spotify. There you go.
Last but not least we have Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, a ska band all the way from Japan! Composed of drums, percussion, trumpet, trombone, tenor sax, baritone sax, vocals, guitar, bass, and even a melodica, they really rocked! They just had so much energy and really commanded the stage and enthralled the audience. I particularly enjoyed the bari sax player. Also, and I’m sorry if it’s weird that I noticed, but their clothes, especially their jackets, fit. It’s rare.
I know you’d be sad if you got to see a bad video of Skapeche Mode but no bad video clip of Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, so there you go. They do have an album on Spotify too, so check them out. One thing I really liked them about them is that despite having guitar, bass, and vocals, I really felt like the horns stood in the spotlight. Their line up isn’t very different than a lot of full ska bands (besides the melodica), but normally it seems like vocals take center stage with guitar and horns standing side-by-side. I liked the feature on the horns! They also did a fantastic rendition of the song from Tetris. How could I not fall in love with that?
Another successful ska night! At the beginning of the night, I’d never seen these three bands. By the end of the night, I have three more bands I’d love to see again in the future!
It’s a Ska World After All! Sunday was the 4th annual Ska Day at Disneyland! I’m pretty glad I found this flier at The Skatalites’ concert at Slidebar last week.
The festivities actually started Saturday night. There was a pre-party at Las Palomas Mexican Restaurant in Anaheim. I went with Edward and gem. I guess there was a call-out, because there was some staffing and service problems. It was fun anyways! I noticed that we were sitting next to members of the ska band Half Past Two!
There was a hat dance, musical chairs, dance competition thingy! Basically, there was a circle of people, and one person had to wear a hat. As music plays, the person wearing the hat has to dance across the circle and put the hat on someone else. If you’re wearing the hat when the music stops, you’re out, and it continues to another round. gem made it to the last round!
The person with whom she’s dancing in the photos was the guitar or bass player (I couldn’t see) for The Pocketeers I think!
She technically came in second, but they gave her a prize anyways. She got this sweet 45 of David Hillyard & The Rocksteady 7’s cover of “Evil” by Moondust Records. Pretty cool!
On Sunday, we started the day by trying on some hats.
Next we went on Space Mountain. We didn’t even realize it was already Ghost Galaxy!We had lunch at the Hungry Bear Restaurant for the meet and greet. After we sat down, we noticed we were sitting next to some of the members of Half Past Two again. Cool coincidence or destiny? We chatted for a bit with out new friends and took this photo!
While in line for Splash Mountain, we met two women from Sacramento here on vacation. We had fun talking to them, and then I got soaked on the ride. We also gave them our fast passes to Indiana Jones because we were running late for the group photo.
This is as good as a group photo as we were going to get, because we were a little late. Oh well.
Look how many security guards it takes to deal with ska fans! There were actually a few more here at one time. Let’s skip over the negative part of the day.
After the group photo, we all went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad together! We had a rather large group. The plan was to ride It’s a Small World together as well, but gem and I decided to go on Indiana Jones instead.
This is not a good place to leave a diaper.
We also managed to go on some rides that didn’t involve photographs. For example, we had to go on Star Tours of course (twice!) as well as the Haunted Mansion to see its Nightmare Before Christmas version. We played a lot of Heads Up, a game gem introduced to me, on our phones while in line. It seemed to be a popular game with other people as well, and we even told others about it. There was a woman in line with us for the Haunted Mansion who downloaded it after we told her about it, and then we played with her and her son too!
I also battled the Evil Empereror Zurg!
Pew pew pew!
And another Toy Story shot.
Before the concert, I just had to play some Fix It Felix Jr.
While we were waiting for the show to begin, we saw that the latest It’s a Ska World SKAvenger Hunt goal was near us. We headed there and got there first, winning some Dulce Cookies by Melo! Oh my goodness, they were so amazing. We gave two to Remy, the host, for him and girlfriend as well as one to a woman who got there after us. Then I ate some more of them. They were really tasty!
Next it was time for the highlight of the evening, Suburban Legends! They’re so amazing. Their sound is great, their choreography is stunning, their ability to engage the audience is always superb, and their sets consist of covers and awesome originals.
There’s gem with the band!
Here’s a clip of them playing DuckTales. Very awesome.
I danced a lot, and boy was I exhausted. I even got to be a firework. The crowd all crouched down. They began to count to eight, using “cicero” to switch to a “Cell Block Tango” reference, and then went back to counting normally. When they reached eight, we all jumped up, threw our arms in the air, and yelled, “boom!” It was fun!
Also, you know how gang fights always involve singing, dancing, and hand snapping? Yeah, the audience split in two for one of those fights. Super rad.
After the concert I wanted to try on this helmet even if I looked dumb.
After a break, The Suffragettes, an all-girl cover band, played at the Tomorrowland Terrace. They were pretty good, but they just didn’t do enough for us. We listened to a few songs before heading back to Main Street, U.S.A. We had some delicious ice cream before calling it a night.
It’s too bad that this was the fourth annual Ska Day at Disneyland and that I missed three of them. I’ll be going in the future!
We started Friday by rushing to get tickets for the Aquabats autograph session.
I was wearing my Aquabats costume (which I had to wash because of how sweaty I got at the concert). I was stopped by a couple that wanted a photo with me. It was a bit shocking to me. I ask people to take photos with me; they don’t usually ask me. Of course, I don’t usually wear a cosplay. It was pretty cool! He was cosplaying the X-men, and she was cosplaying the Fifth Element!
We got out tickets and then headed to a Star Wars Origami panel in which we learned to make lightsabers and Boba Fett’s head.
The Headless Horseman
Next we headed to Petco Park to get tickets for the Adult Swim Fun House. There was also some promotion for Sleepy Hollow, so I had to battle the Headless Horseman. While in line for tickets, we got to know some of the staff. They were very cool, and they definitely liked gem and her ukulele. That ukulele makes her friends everywhere.
Little Aquabats!
While getting in line for the Aquabats autographs, I saw these two little Aquacadets and had to get a photo with them. Adorable!
gem met a guy in line with a small guitar, so they played guitar and ukulele together and even taught each other some songs.
The Aquabats!
The MC Bat Commander complimented me on my outfit, and I told him it was of my own design. (I think he bought it!) They autographed by Anti-Negativity Helmet and Power Belt. It’s hard to see, but in this photo, they’re already signed! Super rad!
@destinedsaint (Instagram) as Little Mac
After the autograph session, we got in line to get an autograph by Bryan Lee O’Malley (Scott Pilgrim, Seconds). We ended up talking to the guy in front of us in line for a while. He was from Las Vegas, and I enjoyed talking to him quite a bit. He cosplayed as Little Mac from Punch-Out, so we had to get a photo together. I friended him on Instagram!
Here I am with Bryan Lee O’Malley and Jason Fischer!
At the Tokidoki booth, I bought a Tokidoki puzzle. I’ve had my eye on it for a while and finally caved. They also had tote bags that seemed cool. I wanted one to use for yoga. As it turned out, they were free if you spent $50, but I was spending that much. I asked if they sold the bag, and the guy said “no,” but then he said I could just have it. Yay!
Speaking of goodies, I also got a small pack of free comics – Tesla, The First Daughter, Pandora’s Blogs, and Darchon. I haven’t looked at them yet, but I will.
We had lunch at Hot Papa’s. The food was delicious, and the staff were incredibly friendly, but there were a couple mistakes. Everything was corrected eventually though.
Then it was time to go back to Petco Park. In addition to the Adult Swim Fun House, there was also the Adult Swim Meatwad Full Dome Experience. We had some scheduling problems, but luckily the staff were helpful and allowed us to change times a bit. They totally remembered gem from earlier in the day, which was cool. We started with the Meatwad Full Dome Experience. You can see a close-up of the outside above.
Inside, you sit in low seats leaning back because the whole roof of the dome is a screen.
It’s hard to explain the show, because it’s random and weird.
It was definitely cool though!
Then we entered the Fun House! For the most part, it was the same as last year. While we in line, we got to know the three guys behind us. They were from San Diego, and they were really funny. It’s great how fun it is to get to know the people near you in lines.
However, last year we exited through the… well… through the giant vagina as if we were being born. This year we crawled through a washing machine that was being humped by a robot. This was a new exit replacing the one we used last year.
We came out of a cat’s butt into a litter box.
Afterward you’re allowed to choose a t-shirt, a print, and a location for the print, and they make you a free t-shirt. While I was waiting for mine, I saw a woman who was cosplaying as the Serenity, the ship itself from Firefly/Serenity. It was pretty cool!
On our way back to the hotel, a guy asked for a song, and when gem started playing and singing, he started dancing!
We met with Mike since we were in San Diego, and we had sushi and drinks at Full Moon Sushi and Kitchen Bar. Then he took us to Neighborhood, a fun bar. When they closed we headed to The Commons Bar before returning to the hotel to play Cards Against Humanity. It was great to see Mike again!
We headed to San Diego on Wednesday after work. After checking in at the Westin Gaslamp Quarter, we took the shuttle to the Town & Country to pick up our badges. By the time we got back downtown, we were feeling hungry and at the Meze Greek Fusion. It was amazing! So many tasty things to eat. We ordered a ton, and everything was great.
Day 1 – Thursday
We started the day with the Science Fiction & Fantasy Literature panel that included Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files) and Marie Lu (Legend). It was pretty interesting.
We also headed to the I Know That Voice: Insights from the Cutting Room Floor panel. I hadn’t heard of I Know That Voice, but it’s a documentary produced by John DiMaggio (voice of Bender, Finn, and a bunch of other cool characters). It was really awesome to hear them talk about voice acting. gem even got a high five from John DiMaggio!
We tried lining up for a panel about NASA, but we didn’t get into it. Buzz Aldrin was there! Too bad I didn’t get to see him. However, there were people dressed as knights battling outside, and gem met one.
Martian Girl
When we were done with SDCC for the day, we headed to the House of Blues for the Aquabats concert! The Aquabats have a song called Martian Girl about a green-skinned, blue-haired Martian. This woman was cosplaying as the Martian Girl, and she was nice enough to take a photo with me. She looked amazing!
I also posed with the Battle Tram of course! The Aquabats played with Koo Koo Kangaroo as part of their twentieth anniversary tour. It was a great show! I bought a 20th anniversary tour t-shirt too. Antonio escaped to the back when the Aquabats took to the stage and the shoving started. I stayed with gem for a while but then let the crowd push me around. I also joined the circle in the back to do some moshing.
There was a battle on stage too as usual.
I had to record it.
After the concert, we showered and then headed to the Geek & Sundry Lounge for drinks and dancing. Now I’m best friends with Wil Wheaton. (Or it might have been a cardboard cut-out. Who knows?)
After a week of eating the lunches from the Aquabats’ Pizza Day, I was ready for Saturday’s concert at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles! Emily’s Army and Kepi Ghoulie were the opening bands, but of course I was there for the Aquabats.
gem
You can’t make it out in the photos, but I’m wearing a blue rashguard and gem’s wearing a purple rashguard. I opted to leave my anti-negativity helmet and power belt in the car for ease of jumping around and getting slammed by people.
There’s always a game of Duck, Duck, Goose going in the back before the bands start playing, and this show was no exception. It’s pretty cool seeing the same fans at every show. I particularly remember the guy who wears a cool Aquabats lab coat, who I believe said he goes by Skibz, as well as the young woman with kids who was then the pregnant woman in the pink rashguard and is now the woman with the young baby! Very cool.
Kepi Ghoulie was really good; I enjoyed them a lot. Unfortunately, their bass player couldn’t make the show. They asked if anyone could play bass, and, well, Eagle “Bones” Falconhawk can!
The band released a bunch of balloons and streamers into the audience and even threw presents into the crowd. gem got one; it was a toy car!
We each also got a guitar pick from Kepi Ghoulie!
Finally the Aquabats took the stage!
Sorry for such a plain, boring photo, but the Aquabats threw beach balls into the crowd, and I got one. I didn’t take a picture of it until I got home. It’s probably about a foot in diameter. Pretty cool!
Someone threw a red sweater onto the stage, so the Bat Commander decided to wear it before proceeding to sing Red Sweater.
After that song, the Aquabats were attacked by an evil crustacean! Don’t worry though. They managed to defeat him with the help of name-calling! Crash also recited a little poem that led into Super Rad.
He also borrowed this cute hat from the girl standing to the left of me. I didn’t mention it, but it’s probably worth noting that I was right at the front and in the center. It was a sweet spot. I also got to enjoy chatting with security between sets.
Later the Aquabats got into another shorter fight but then found themselves hungry. Luckily, when they asked for a snack such as a granola bar, someone in the audience actually had one. Multiple granola bars, a Clif Bar, and a bag of Pepperidge Farms Milano Cookies were all thrown onto the stage. The Aquabats took a snack break, sang Snack the Night Away, a parody of Van Halen’s Dance the Night Away, and then… all licked the Clif Bar before throwing it into the audience for some “lucky” fan to eat.
Near the end of the show, the Aquabats left but came back like they usually do. When they returned, they were in Christmas costumes! Ricky Fitness and the Bat Commander traded roles, letting Ricky sing while the Commander played the drums. Funny thing – it sure looked like the Bat Commander had four arms. I was hoping to get a photo, but I couldn’t capture it. And no, there was no trick with lighting. Evan Sinclair, the Aquabats Super Show music supervisor and stage manager was crouching behind him while reaching around and playing drums. Weird but funny.
Speaking of Evan Sinclair, he came out at the end to sing a little Hanukkah song before the Aquabats sang a Christmas song.
I managed to grab a set list as well! In case you can’t see the photo, they played the following:
Theme Song
Fashion Zombies
Martian Girl
Look at Me
Shark Fighter
Pizza Day
Cat With 2 Heads
Red Sweater
Fight/Commercial
Super Rad
Legend Is True
Hey Homeys
Demolition Rickshaw
Doing Science
Awesome Forces
Ricky Xmas
Donde Esta Santa Claus
Christmas Is Awesome
Pool Party
It was a fantastic set, and it started off so strong too! After the theme song, they went right to one of my favorite songs from Charge! and then Martian Girl (whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa).
I saw The Intergalactic Nemesis: Book Two – Robot Planet Rising, the live-action, graphic novel, radio drama, today at the Segerstrom Center. It was a ton of fun.
We got to take some photographs, but that was actually the second thing we did. First, we did some voice-acting.
gem wanted to be an evil dinosaur, and Joe Ochman helped show her how. She was very excited to do her evil laugh!
I played the sidekick. I tried to act like a young, eager guy. It was a lot of fun.
Of course, the show was excellent as well. I love the way the cast interact on a layer above the characters as well. I’m looking forward to reading the graphic novel and listening to the radio drama to see how they differ. Hopefully I get to see Book Three performed eventually as well!
I went wakeboarding with my friends gem and Anela this weekend! We went to Silverwood Lake with my parents on their new boat. I’d been wakeboarding once a few weeks ago, but it was gem and Anela’s first time.
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