Before you read the latest Living in the Geekdom, be aware of a few things. First, I've decided to take the comic into a much broader territory. No longer is it necessarily about RPGing. Also, I'm trying out each panel as an individual image. Should be easier to read. Finally, please vote in the poll.
Alright, so as I've said, please vote in the poll. I know most of my friends don't care one way or another, but that's really not the point at all. So you're not a geek, just humor me. If you have a real funny zinger, go ahead and let me have it. If not -- if you have the same old tired groan-inducing snide comment geekery -- go ahead and save it this time. Maybe charge up your wit factory and really say something good next time.
This marks the beginning of a comic story thread. Trust me on this one. It'll get pretty good.
Anyways, this one was a fun one to do. Notice the addition of a new character. If you're wondering how long it takes me to do these, just take a guess and then add 10 hours to that. This one's been in the works for a week and a half or so -- off and on.
Once again, July 14th was a smashing success. The slip n' slide had a sort of car wash building with a flappy door on it. Here's Scott Hanna taking the dive right at the beginning of the night before he had to go to work.
Added this year was the freedom water drinking competition as well as the little red wagon float competition.
Brandon Smith handily won the freedom water competition by drinking, I think, nine cups of tonic water/Perrier. That was a full five cups ahead of the next person. I probably should have told him that he only needed to beat the next guy by one cup, and that he probably drank five cups of the stuff in vain. He also tied for first place in the milk drinking competition.
It was Scott's idea to do the wagon float competition which probably explains his win by default. Here's the manatee/barbie/zombie float he brought to the table.
I forgot to get a count this year. My guess is about 35 over the course of the evening. If you attended, please comment. Let's get an accurate count here.
Oh look, here are the people who threw up last year. No such luck this time around. I think since we extended the drinking contests through the whole night, people were a little more conservative.
After winning the red wagon float competition, Scott wowed us with his freestyle slip n' slide skills.
The wagon, slip 'n sliding and also the bringing of the July 14th photo opportunity cut-out solidified Scott Steele's position as reigning July 14th monarch.
The question came up last weekend: east coast or west coast? Despite often not having a left-turn lane, I would definitely say east coast. I don't like the sun and I don't like volleyball. I certainly don't like the vastness of concrete that is Los Angeles.
Surprising then that I enjoyed myself so much this past weekend. In a nutshell, Joe and I needed to make a presence at our first film festival -- The All Sports Los Angeles Film Festival. We decided to have Jen, Margie and Zo drive us there.
I'm not going to elaborate on a ton of photos like I did with my last California trip. I stuck everything you need to see on Facebook, right here (I hope that link works). Nevertheless, here's something you won't find on Facebook (yet). It's our iPod karaoke that we did as we thought Jen's car may be overheating.
Turns out the car wasn't overheating, it was simply breaking entirely. Or so we thought. The mechanic at Barstow said the repairs would be extensive and time-consuming. Joe then rented a car and we were off again.
Totally arrived in the climate-controlled environs of Los Angeles safely. Here is my meal from Pink's Hot Dogs:
Later that night we hit Santa Monica Pier. I should NOT have done headstands in the water fully clothed. Hmmm. Actually, I have no regrets.
One thing I've forgotten to mention is that we did this whole thing on Joe's birthday. As his birthday present he beat the tar out of this poor kid at Guitar Hero Arcade.
Here's a more beautiful picture of Santa Monica Pier than real life.
Take a look at this picture. When you're on the Santa Monica Pier of life are you the one yearning for what's in the distance, or are you the one taking a bite out of what's in front of you?
Saturday was the day of the festival. Here's my meal at Pann's Diner. Pann's was the restaurant prominently featured in Pulp Fiction.
Here we are in front of the press runway for the film festival. Notice the awesome uniforms Joe had made for us.
It's weird. I thought I was going to be really uncomfortable at the festival scene and hate everybody. I was only half right. The people there were really stellar. Everyone we talked to was super friendly to us and there was a wonderful spirit of camaraderie. I tensed up quite a bit when our movie was shown, but it seemed to roll quite well.
The wonderful news of the evening, but not quite news to Joe and me was that we actually received a reward. Our film was the only film that made it into the festival's "Micro Documentary" category. Who knows how many entered that didn't get in (I supposed there's a POSSIBILITY that nobody else entered)?
Due to camera issues, we didn't get our entire acceptance speech, but here's what we got:
Here's our gang at the awards ceremony:
Here's a meal (not mine) from Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles:
Stunning view of L.A. from Mulholland Drive. Note the power lines. Man! Los Angeles is sure missing a sort of organic appeal.
Here's a drink from that taco place near Manhattan Beach we went to. Does the guy on this cup look like me? Is he a guy from Eagles of Death Metal?
Anyhoo. Film festival: success! Los Angeles: success! Lots went wrong, but it seemed mostly right, which was more than I thought it would be.
In the meantime, it behooves me to say that I'm strangely heading to the Los Angeles area for the second time in a month. I'd rather hit Diego or Francisco, but duty calls. I'll be in Hollywood schmoozing with production types at The All Sports Los Angeles Film Festival with Joe. Our dunkball movie will be highlit.
Please let me know if you need anything in California. I'm already shuttling some fruit into Cali for a couple of shady friends. You'll have to give me a call.
While you're waiting for me to get back, here's a delightful Jon Demand from a couple of months ago. Yeah, goofing off. Glorious.
If you're wondering why we're blindfolded, it's so that we'll keep singing despite the spectator laughter.
Okay, so a few days ago I had an intense yearning to start doing these again. It's actually been a year if you can possibly believe it. This one's been in my head for some time. If nobody minds, I'm going to take the comic in a new direction after this. Well, maybe not so much a new direction, but a big expansion. If I keep the comic going it won't JUST be about gaming.
You may need to click on it to see it properly. Here it is:
Note Joey on the computer screen. When we used to play we used to Skype Joey in.
While playing these games sometimes you have to roll the dice to see if your character notices subtle events. I always kind of thought that was weird because if you don't roll well enough, you're kind of just supposed to pretend that nothing's up, but the fact that you have to roll in the first place obviously means something is up, but your character doesn't know that, but YOU are your character, blah blah, etc. It's sort of like if you heard a car running through the living room of your house, but you don't actually SEE the car, so you assume it was nothing. Actually the point of this comic is that oftentimes geeks are unaware of the life around them. At least that's the way I am. ALL THE TIME.
Do you ever get sick of checking my blog for interesting information? Is Google Reader not "automatic" enough for you? You may be in luck, because I've just finished partnering with the robots who are about to enslave us.
Meet Robot Rex!
Robot Rex is a well-behaved automaton who is in the process of recording my blog posts to audio form! It's actually quite fun, zen and hypnotic!
If you subscribe to the Robot Rex Podcast, my blog posts will download directly to your computer and your iPod or iPhone will sync them up as soon as the chance is there! Then you listen to Robot Rex in his lovable monotone and practical voice say my words! You will never have to READ my words ever again!
But Robot Rex is more than just a means toward illiteracy. Robot Rex will undoubtedly help us connect to all those cute little A.I.s struggling toward self-awareness. Just listen! Robot Rex is like the Joshua computer from Wargames with an iron lung! Listen to my dry humor as it comes amplified through a cold, heartless computerized sound amplifier! So very zen indeed. Zen indeed.
Click here to listen to this post as read by Robot Rex!
.
