I’ve been doing a little online spring/fall cleaning. With all of the changes Facebook keeps making to its security settings and policies, I have been debating closing my Facebook account finally. I am not sure if I will end up doing that, but we will see. I also noticed that Facebook keeps track of connections to your account and I found one that didn’t appear to be from me. That kind of freaked me out a bit. Needless to say, I’ve gone through and changed a lot of my passwords . I’m also heavily debating making my Twitter feed private now, but I’ll let the “freaked out” feeling hopefully pass before I decide on that.
Some may not call this a “Summer Reading List,” but as it is my reading list that I compiled over the summer. A few I’ve read before, but I figured they’d be good to go through again. I’ve marked through the ones I’ve already finished reading this summer.
Here is iteration 2 of my walking workstation. I had to add the second monitor because bending over to look at the laptop screen while I walked 2 hours killed my back! Also raising the laptop up made the keyboard uncomfortable.
On another note, the Quick Photo feature of WordPress for iPhone finally works. Yay!
I attended the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX Prime) this past weekend. I was absolutely blown away by the attendance at PAX, 70,000 people. It was ridiculous! I had no idea it was that big. That is many times the population of the entire town I live in! There is a lot I can write about my experience at PAX, and I might get around to it this weekend. For now, though, let’s focus on some of the Cosplay I saw.
There was a lot of Cosplay that I didn’t get pictures or video of. The one that makes me saddest of is the exceptional Captain Jack Sparrow costume and role-playing that some asian gentlemen did. He played it up with the walk, the demeanor, the attitude, the voice, everything! Having said that, here is the Cosplay I got pictures of.
First, here is Princess Peach and a couple of her friends.
I saw Princess Peach at another point during PAX and decided I needed to get a picture of me with her. At this point I was asking for pictures with a number of the cosplay people, or at least the cute ones.
Speaking of the Mario Brothers’ world, I found Mario and Luigi enjoying some pizza for lunch on the last day of PAX. I figured it was fitting so I had to get a picture.
While walking around the exhibit area I found these three Robins.
Sadly, what convention would be complete without at least one appearance by everyone’s favorite bear! I saw a few other Pedobears, but this was the only one I had my camera out so I could get a picture.
Here is yet another reason I need to look into getting a TARDIS. Granted, I can’t help but look at a TARDIS dress and think it’s advertising “You’d be surprised just how much is packed into this seemingly small dress.” As much as I try, that thought just will not leave my mind. I think I’ll take my chances though. I wish I had found her again so I couldn’t have gotten a picture with her. Oh well.
I have to be honest, I have no idea what show the people in this next picture are from. I just thought they had nice costumes so I asked them for a picture.
This is probably my second favorite cosplay picture from PAX. Although I never saw Felicia Day at PAX, here is a lady who did a really nice job of dressing like Codex from “The Guild.” I couldn’t NOT get a picture with her.
My favorite picture is definitely of me with the two hot nuns! They were at a booth for the upcoming Frima Studios game “Nun Attack.” Unfortunately, I was only able to get a picture when there were two girls at the booth. I had seen 3 working at various times. Somehow I will learn to live with only getting this picture!
Last, but not least, we have two good looking ladies dressed as Sub-Zero and Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. They were posing in various fighting positions so people could get pictures. My picture didn’t turn out to good, but the short video I took turned out nicely.
A friend sent me this song last night. I have listened to it at least 40 times so far! I could not find a good place online that had the lyrics correct, so here they are as best as I could hear in the song.
Brothers and sisters, have you heard the news?
The storm has lifted and there’s nothing to lose.
So swap your confirmation for your dancing shoes,
Because there never was no God.
Step out of the darkness and onto the streets.
Forget about the fast, let’s have a carnival feast.
Raise up your lowered head and hear the liberation beat,
Because there never was no God.
There is no God,
So clap your hands together.
There is no God.
No heaven and no hell.
There is no God,
We’re all in this together,
There is no God,
So ring that victory bell.
No cowering in the dark before some overbearing priest,
Not waiting until we die until we restitute the meek,
No blaming all our failings on imaginary beasts,
Because there never was no God.
No fighting over land your distant fathers told you of,
Not spilling blood for those who have never spread a drop of blood,
No finger pointing justified by phantoms up above,
Because there never was no God.
There is no God,
So clap your hands together,
There is no God,
No heaven and no hell.
There is no God,
We’re all in this together,
There is no God,
So ring that victory bell.
And I know you’re scared of dieing man and I am too,
But just pretending it’s not happening isn’t gonna see us through.
If we just accept that there’s an end game and we haven’t got much time,
Then in the here and now we can try and do things right.
We’d be our own salvation army and together we’d believe
In all the wondrous things that mere mortals can achieve,
Well I’ve known beauty in the stillness of cathedrals in the day,
I sang “Glory Hallelujah! Won’t you wash my sins away?”
But now I’m singing my refrain and this is what I say,
I say there never was no God.
There is no God,
So clap your hands together,
There is no God,
No heaven and no hell.
There is no God,
We’re all in this together,
There is no God,
So ring that victory bell.
When I have an early flight out of LAX, I typically drive to LA the night before and stay at the Courtyard Marriott LAX, right next to the airport. Tuesday night I did just this, but was pleasantly surprised at the renovations at the Courtyard. I wish I had taken pictures of how it used to look so that I could offer a visual comparison.
Here are a few pictures of the my room with two queen beds.
I decided that I needed a small, simple point-and-shoot camera to take with me to TAM, PAX Prime, and other conventions. I wanted something that would take good video and pictures but be small enough to always carry around. I settled finally on the Canon Powershot ELPH 300 HS. It wasn’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow, but when I got home from work tonight it was at the door!
I’ve had a chance to play with it a little and so far I am really impressed with it. Here are some pictures and a short video I took to test it out.
My walking workstation is working out pretty well so far. I just walked 3.2 miles tonight while browsing reddit, watching youtube, and watching podcasts. The only real problem I have found is that I have to lean over slightly to see the screen and this causes my back to hurt after over an hour of walking. I am working on a way to put a monitor at eye-level to alleviate this. I may end up having to buy a monitor specifically for the walking workstation setup
I woke up early Friday morning to find that Kevin Smith (@thatKevinSmith) was auctioning off the rights to host “The Sheriff” movie poster for “Red State” on ones website. I put in an initial bid of $1000 and was quickly beat by a representative of @filmthreat with $1250. I then decided to bid $1275, but was again beaten by @filmthreat with a bid of $1400. Things were too rich for my blood at this point, so I gave up. Since Kevin Smith was going to give the winning bid to the Red Cross Japan fund and also match the contribution, I decided to add $250 to @filmthreat‘s bid, bringing it to $1650. A few other Tweeps also donated extra money towards the cause.
If you’re a movie website or film journalist and you want to feature this poster or use it in a story, don’t be a detail-thin dick.
If you also include the link for Japanese earthquake and tsunami relief (http://www.redcross.org/) in your story/article, you’re not only being a thorough journalist, you’re also helping to save actual lives.
It only takes a few seconds longer to provide all available facts in any story.
Including THIS fact can help save lives.
Please also note, directly from FilmThreat’s terms for using the below image in a post: “If you use or share this Red State poster, then you also must mention and link to the disaster relief for Japan and Wayne Foundation charities.”
. I’m also heavily debating making my Twitter feed private now, but I’ll let the “freaked out” feeling hopefully pass before I decide on that.
