Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Well I finally saw Pirates 2 and I really enjoyed it. I knew before hand that this was going to be the middle movie and a third one was being made. So when it ended the way it did, I was not surprised. I think Depp did another great job as Captain Jack Sparrow. The SFX were awesome and there was a ton of action. I don't think this was a complete story though. I think the fact that they knew they were doing another film hurt the story telling in this movie. This series could not end with this movie, there must be a third installment to complete this story.

Another "Little" Outing

Took my "little" brother to the Sherman Oaks Gallery. I still haven't seen Superman or Pirates 2 so I gave him the choice of which ever one he wanted to see. He chose Pirates 2 and we both really enjoyed the movie. After the movie we went to The Cheesecake Factory for lunch and had a nice lunch.

Comic Con Day Four

Final Thoughts.... Not as many stars or panels and the horrible mix up with the hotel , but all in all this has been a fun comic con experience. Be sure to check out my website and follow the link to my comic con 2006 pictures.

Sunday is usually a laid back kind of day. It's "Kids day" so I normally don't go to any panels that day and normally finish up buying whatever I want to buy before we head home. But this year I was volunteering at the California Browncoats fan table. From 9:30am to about 1pm it was controlled chaos. It was so much fun meeting fellow fans of Firefly and Serenity. We sold tons of t-shirts, buttons, stickers and so much more. I did very good and didn't buy everything. After working the booth I then strolled around a bit longer and checked out a few things. At about 1:30 I headed upstairs for the Browncoats charity drawing, which I had bought 20 tickets. I sat there for about two hours as they read off ticket number but alas I did not win any of the 123 items. After that I found Tom and we headed back home.

Comic Con Day Three

There wasn't much going on Saturday in regards to the panels, at least not much that I wanted to see. So I planned on spending most of my time down in the dealers room or roaming around taking pictures. But there were two panels that I wanted to see. At 10:30 there was the Lost panel. I have gone to this every year (this being year three) and every year different actors show up to promote this show. This year we had Jorge Garcia (Hurley) and Daniel Dae Kim (Jin). It was a packed house over 5000 people and they talked about the upcoming season but kept very tight lipped. After that panel and in the same room was The Simpson panel. The creative time behind this show came in and discussed several things, the big thing was seeing unfinished clips from the big Simpsons movie coming out next year. Both panels were great

After the panels I picked up some lunch and went back down to the floor where I took tons of picture ( which you can see on my website) and continue to check out all the geeky things. At 8pm there was a special screening of "Done the Impossilbe" it's a fan film about how the fans of Firefly fought to get our beloved but cancelled TV series made into the big damn movie Serenity. When then did dinner and back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

Comic Con Day Two

Friday was my first full day at this years Comic Con and I would have to say that it didn't disappoint me. There were crowds, lines, people in costumes and plenty of geeky things as far as the eye could see. Every year I sit down with the program schedule for each day and make lists of what I want to see and who I want to see. Of course there is always conflicting event happening at the same time so I pick which one I really want to see and have the other ones as back up just in case I can't get into the one I really want to see. There were 12 events/panels that I wanted to see but 0nly three were "must" see.

When the doors opened on the huge dealers room ( about the size of a football field) I started to look at all the goodies. I only needed a few action figures but was also buying some figures for friends that couldn't make to comic con.. so I started to shop. I knew that I had about an hour before I needed to get in line for the Warner Bros presentation. I knew that they weren't going to be showing any new footage from the new Harry Potter so it went from a 'must' see to if I had time panel and once I was on the dealers floor looking at all the cool things I decided that it wasn't so important and skipped it.

Around Noon I knew that I needed to get upstairs and get in line for the one thing that I really have been looking forward too, the screening and panel for Heroes. Heroes is a new TV series that will be premiering on NBC in the fall and they had a special sneak peak at a 70 minutes comic con exclusive cut of the pilot episode. Then the entire cast but two came in and spoke to the crowds of thousands. The pilot was awesome and it was so cool being one of the first people to watch this great new TV series. The cast was funny, charming and taken back by the response from the audience. Eveyone must watch this new TV series.

After the Heroes panel I went back down to the dealers room and continued to go through the crowds of people and shop for items that I needed. About and hour after that my nerves were starting to get frayed. I can only take the crowds for so long and my feet were starting to hurt.. so I decided that is was time for lunch. I went upstairs and found a semi-quiet area and sat down for a much needed rest. After lunch I really didn't want to go back down to the floor so I decided to go to another panel. And so for the next few hours I went to the Star Wars Day: Lucasfilm's Star Wars Spectacular, which really is one big sales pitch for what games are coming out next year, but was still fun. I also went to The Jim Henson Company: Power of the Dark Crystal and found out about some upcoming movies and event from the Jim Henson Company. Now being 7pm I was tired but Tom and I wanted to see if we could get into one more panel, SNL Saturday TV Funhouse. We got in line, which was huge but the room filled up and we couldn't get it. We decided that it was time for dinner and then back to the hotel to rest up for Saturday.

Comic Con Day One

Well after getting five phone calls from work asking me various questions I managed to get everything packed and ready to go. Tom showed up and we jumped in the car and went to the store to buy some snacks. We were just about to get on the freeway when i noticed that I didn't have the directions or my hotel conformation information so back to the apartment we go. So we get the info and head out again. After almost four hours in the car we get to the hotel and find out another surprise. A few months back my credit card was stolen and I cancelled the card and was re-issued another one. Well I used that cancel card to hold the room, I thought this would be okay because they ran the CC number when I booked the room back in Feb. to make sure it was good. I figure when I got there I could give them the new one and all would be good. Well the guy told me that they cancelled our room because the credit card was bad. He then went on to tell me that I was a bad person because the credit card was bad. I tried to argue but they already gave the room to someone else. Tom asked why they didn't call us or let us know about this and he said it was my problem and not theres.. he also mentioned that they booked our room for about $500 a night instead of the $189 that booked it at back in Feb.. He was the most un-helpful person but after talking to him he did call another hotel and asked if they had rooms and if we could get the same rate. Well the rate we paid for this hotel was high because it was close to the convention center. Our new hotel was 5 miles even though the guy said it was 1 mile away from his hotel. So we paid a ton of money for a crappy hotel five miles away and had to taxi in every day which cost us another 100 dollars what we didn't expect.

We did manage to get to the convention center before they closed and get our badges and still make it to the second half of a panel with Kenneth Johnson the creator of V, The Incredible Hulk, Bionic Man and Woman, Alien Nation amoung others. So what started off as a horrible day and continued to be a crappy afternoon ended with a good night. Next up Friday.. one of the busiest con days.

"little" outing

Entry for July 16, 2006 - "little" outing

Well I had my third outing with my "little" Sean. We went to Castle Park in Sherman Oaks. Played a round of minature golf, we hit the ball around. He wasn't really into golf. He would nail the ball and it would go flying. He then would hit if a few time and then get bored and pick it up and move to the next hole. He liked the arcade more. Played tons of games for the next few hours. All in all a fun day and with all the tickets we won he got a really cool SFX "LOTR - Sting" sword for only 280 tickets.He was trilled. Only a few more outings before he moves.

CRASH

You know computers are great... when they work. Well about a year and a month ago my computer crashed and I lost six months worth of everything. Well last night I go to my computer and the screen is frozen so I re-boot and notice on my start up that one of my hard drives (I have a RAID system, a 2 hard drive system) had an error. My heart dropped. Since it's a two hard drive system working as one, if one goes down the the other become useless. Well it looks like I have a second hard drive crash in a matter of a year. I did back up my computer back in May but being to busy I wasn't able to do a more current one. So I lost the past two months worth of work, I'm so bummed. I'm not sure if it was my original hard drive that crashed or the new replacement one that I got from Dell last year. Regardless it's been just over year and these drive have a one year limited warrenty. Just my luck... oh well this crash was bad but not as bad as last year. Last years crash devastated me, this one just hurts.

Comic Con

I'm so excited... one week to until the International Comic Con down in San Diego. I have gone the past four years and it is so much fun. I book this a year in advance. I go with my friend Tom every year. You can get in free if you are in the Entertainment industry, which is kind of nice. The only bad thing is that Harry is really not into going so I have to be away from him for four days. I'm sure I'll be posting the going on's down there when I get back.

Big Screen TV

I got a Big Screen TV today. Well I got part of a Big Screen TV. My brother Michael bought a 50 inch Mitsubishi rear projection Big Screen TV from ebay, but while they were bringing it home they cracked the front screen. The TV worked great, they checked it out before hand and all was well. He paid $260 for it which isn't bad since it originaly cost $1595.00. Well my brother being my brother doesn't want to fix it, which I don't understand since he paid so little for it. I told him I would take it and fix it. So I gave him $200.00 for it and I was told that the new screen would be about $250.00 and another $250.00 for them to install it. So I'm hoping by the time it's repaired and working I will have spent $700.00 for a 50 inch TV. Keep you're fingers crossed that it worked out. I'll keep you posted.

Four day Weekend

Well it's been an interesting four day fourth of July weekend. It started off really good.. going up to my Mom's cabin in Green Valley Lake for four days relaxing getaway with Harry and Daisy. Got up their Saturday night, relaxed all day Sunday, walked around the Lake and had a really nice time. Monday we went off-roading, which was alot of fun and did some more relaxing. But while off-roading I got a message on my cell phone, it doesn’t work in Green Valley but where we were off-roading we got reception. So I checked it and it was the EP of the show I'm working on panicking about getting a bunch of things done by Wednesday night. So I called him and tried to calm him down a bit. But of course now I'm worrying about work and getting all this stuff done before Wednesday night. I asked Harry if we could go home a bit earlier because I wanted to go into work today on the fourth and try and get a headstart on things. He was fine with that, both of us aren't really into fireworks and we wanted to beat the traffic home. So we got up Tuesday and started to pack up the jeep and head home. We got out of the mountains and was about 80 miles or so from home when the temperature gauge on the jeep started to rise and kept rising until it was in the red and I started to pull to the side of the road when I realized that I was losing horsepower. Well we managed to get to the side of the road and I called AAA. Come to find out that I have the basic AAA and they only tow 7 miles for free and for every mile after that it's $8 a mile. Well us still being 80 miles from home it would cost be about $640.00 to tow the jeep to our place. I called my brother who lives in Corona and talked with him and told him what has happened. He suggest I bring the jeep to his place about 20 miles and he can have his friends take a look at it and he would give us a ride home. Well after waiting in the 100 + temp, which Daisy was just dying in, the tow truck came and towed the jeep to my brother's house. I'm still not sure what the problem is. But the jeep overheated and may have cause the head gasket to blow, which is bad but even worse it may have cracked the engine block, which would mean we would need a new engine. Anyways we got home about 5pm and just crashed on the couch. What started out as being a great relaxing weekend turned into a stressful and costly weekend and I’m still waiting to hear the worst of it. Oh and I didn't go into work to get that head start like I wanted to. So tomorrow is going to be one hell of a day.

A New "little" Brother??

Oh I forgot to mention in my last blog that when I picked Sean up he mentioned that we only had two more outings left. I asked him why he said this and come to find out that his mom got a job in Idaho and his family is moving mid August. He knows it's for the best but was very upset that we just started to get to know each other and he has to leave. He very sweetly asked if I can move there too. I assured him that he'll get another big brother from idaho to hang out with. Not sure what I'm going to do next. I assume once he leaves I'll have to start again with another "little' brother, but I'm sure there are plenty of kids out there who need a mentors.

Second Outing with my "Little" Brother

Well I had my second outing with Sean my new "little" brother. I was going to take him to Santa Monic Pier. I thought it would be fun to go on some of the rides and play some video games and get hot dogs and such. Well his understanding was that we were going to Santa Monic Beach and he loves the beach and hasn't gone in years. So as soon as we got to the beach he made a bee line for the water and spent the next three hours playing in the ocean. I went in and out of the water but most of the time sat on the beach and watched him play in the ocean. Since I didn't plan on sitting at the beach I didn't put sunblock on my legs and or course got 3rd degree burns on them from the knee down. All in all it was a fun trip. We had some very nice conversation on our way to the beach about school and mean kids and first impressions.