2 Smart Hip Hop Shows

These last couple weeks have been "alternative Hip Hop" heavy.

Monday, Feb. 15nth T1nk & I were up in The City at Cafe Du Nord, a shwanky little place, for the MC Frontalot show (someone whom if you are at this blog you should become familiar with).

Opening act was Ken Flagg (While performing with Front his moniker is Vic20) was good. He had a shout out song called "merced" and I was disappointed to find it was not a depressing song. Flagg has a mellow alternative sound to him, very easy for everyone to listen to.

I really enjoyed Brandon Patton (Blak Lotus). Great songs, great stage presence. Excellent storyteller. When I can afford it I should buy some of his albums. " MUNCHIN THE KOOTCH!"

AND > > > >

FRONT! 2 new singles. Better at Rapping and 1st World Problem from his latest album "Zero Day."
He sang It is Pitch Dark, and a deep cut of Front the Most.
Guests included GMinor7 & MC Lars. The "Encore" was Goth Girls. A blast.

I also got to watch Frontalot have "technical difficulties" while trying to take cards. Since Du Nord is sub-level he had to stand next to the stairs in order to get a solid signal. The approximate quote was "there's a down arrow, no? damnit, work, you fucker" as he waved the phone at the stairway.

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Later, Sunday Feb. 21st we found ourselves at The Bottom of The Hill for MC Lars, YTCracker & Kay Flay, with a special surprise guest.

Lars Senior laid down some poetry. Yeah, it was very cool, MC Lars' father was there because it was his 10nth anniversary show and read some prose as an opener.

Next up was a true space man. There was some serious YTCracker love from the central valley as myself and a handful of dudes up front sang along with every song. You could tell just from looking at him YT was a little impressed by us knowing who he was AND loving his music.

Kay flay has mad beats and a new fan in my fiance. This skinny chick just rolled up, threw it down and rocked the house with some alternative, some rap, some beats, some remixes. This girl is a musician in every sense of the word.

Lars was as good as usual, putting all he had into his performance.He was sweating his fool head off but continued to be a true player through the whole set. It was a solid night all the way through.

During his last song, which was Hot Topic Is Not Punk Rock, he called for a mosh pit to form. I was impressed by the concert attendees. A very professional mosh pit formed, only the people who wanted to be in it were involved, the wall was not heavily assaulted and it reformed into crowd with no one being badly injured. Kudos to the moshers at The Bottom Of the Hill that night.

Blogging My Con

Quick Update, I will not have the regularly scheduled Tuesday update today because I will be posting a Blog about S.G.I.S.Con IV!! And I have not yet finished recuperating, transporting, nor detoxing from the weekend. I will also try and find some pics from T1nk and give a breakdown of events. Stay tuned, I hope to have it up by the end of the week. thanks for sticking around . . all 8 of you.

L2 Con, Blizz!

(this post is brought to you by This Lovely Lady's opinion on what my next post should be. Biased? Do I care?)

"Gee h47, that's a lot of people milling about, where's that?"
THAT IS A LINE OF PAIN AND ANGUISH THAT COILS TO AND FRO LIKE A NEFARIOUS FIEND'S FECES ONLY TO END IN A FLURRY OF ACTIVITY AND AN EXCHANGE OF TOO LITTLE GOODS TO TOO MUCH MONEY!!

In a less irate tone, that was the line for the Blizzcon Store at the 08 Con. I don't know what the con was like at the first 2 Blizzcons or so, nor the latest blizzcon, but if 08 was ANY indication, Blizzard needs to seriously rework their con staff and allocation of resources.

Hint one, was when we had to partake of the ticket buying debacle. We had heard the year before that tickets sold out within days of going on sale. So, we were poised ("we" being myself and T1nk) with a couple days off and mouses on "buy" option. Then, the amazing happened, the site went down.These two images are the avatars of pain and suffering to Blizzard addicts everywhere and were stared at for nearly three days straight while Blizzards store servers went down from the ruthless pummeling it had taken from the droves of rabid fans.

This did not need to happen. The previous years traffic should have indicated that the interest was large enough to warrant a third party ticket seller or that servers needed to be fortified for the onslaught. These are things that are inferred or speculated upon through various circles I move in. No? Not enough of an authority?

Very well. Servers went down, QQ, people started buying out tickets left and right. Just like the year before and the year after, tickets sold out in less than triple digit hours, approximately 3 days. The reason the tickets sell out so quickly is the drastically limited space at Anaheim convention center to the massive volume of fans who are willing and have adequate funding to attend. One of my favorite phrases I heard at least twice at Blizzcon 08, paraphrased was "10 million people play WoW alone (at the time), not to mention the hardcore Diablo and Starcraft players. The convention center holds 9100. round up or down very graciously either way and that's still less than ONE PERCENT!"

Aright, maybe Blizzard has done this on purpose so that only the most dedicated and serious people will make it to Blizzcon and they prefer to keep it as intimate as possible with such a large fan base. Fine.

T1nk and I got to the con, waited a while after it opened in order to not need to stand in line to get badges and swag, then entered the con a few hours after it had started.
As soon as we walked in we saw the above mentioned line for the Blizzcon Store and T1nk decided to get in it just in case, because T1nk has a healthy concern for practical things like that. We then spent the rest of the day exploring the con, seeing the booths, watching events . . while T1nk stood in line. Then we explored more, stalked The Guild, and perused the itinerary for the next day.

Admittedly, the line died down considerably the next day, but I still stood in line for a good hour to make my shirt purchases and they did not sell out of anything that year. Line rush from day one uncalled for? Due to sellouts in previous year? I honestly don't know.

After less than 9 hours total at the con, we left EARLY to go to "The Magic Kingdom (don't actually click that link, just MOUSE over it. oooh, I know.)"
The next day, we hit Blizzcon 08 hard with a clear plan of what we wanted to do and see.
I played the Wrath of the Lich King preview (not yet released in beta at the time) as well as the Starcraft II preview, for my thoughts, see Hitler!

We tried to get seats as close as possible for the ending concert and Patton Oswalt, but succeeded in getting about 3 screens back, approximately 50 yards back from the stage.

All told, it took us less than 15 hours to see and do everything we wanted at Blizzcon 08, including line time, with one small exception, while I was standing in the store line, I believe the WoW Q&A panel started and I did not know until that moment I wanted to see it. So, Oh well.

All told, I gave Blizzcon 08 a solid "C" grade. From all the fail that we encountered and all the win to make up for it, the ultimate experience was totally whelming(yes, I used the correct word for my thought). Personally, I need a Con to be B grade in order to justify attending and was only slightly heartbroken to not attend Blizzcon 09. Only because I have gained a very rich experience of Blizz's products in the last year (finally beat the Starcraft campaigns and most of the way through Warcraft 3. I know, I know, blasphemer, I only ever played the LAN games with friends every day for a whole academic year in our Cisco Networking class. I finally bought the battlechests last year.) am I much more aware now of what Blizzard's products are and what to be interested in.

Gruh'nug, Who's favorite phrase is "build more TREES!" shares my feelings . .

San Diego Comic Con 2009 part 1

(There is a room above the fire station on Main Street Disneyland which Walt Disney would stay in all the time. He would keep a light on to let the people in the park know he was there and after his passing they keep the light on all the time now. Thats right)

TEN FUCKING HOURS!!!Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself by about six hours. So, for the fun adventures of how we finally decided to go to SDCC see Theatreg33k . . damn. one of these days I will link the shit outta these posts.

SO! Pievuhg had a weekend pass (she's sleeping with the owner of a local comic shop, regardless of the fact that the owner is currently carrying her husbands child SHUSH!) but T1nk(theatreg33k, yes i know, "holy shit h47!? nicknames for your nicknames?!" shuddup, T1nk is shorter and its another of her personas, AND it's my blog, keep up!) and I only had passes for Fri & Sat, we were gonna drive down Wednesday, and while pievuhg was at the con thurs, T1nk & I would hit the magic kingdom (yes, we're Disney whores and have no shame about it. yes, i know they're an evil ubercorp, but I'll be damned if its not one of the most fun places in the world, get a childhood) *looks around* crap, got ahead of myself again.

Tuesday night (after D&D) I discovered my H47b0x(my computer) decided I could log in but would then log me back out of windows, so, had to get Epyon_Avenger on the case, my digital savior. I packed up for the weekend and attempted to sleep from 1 Am to 5 Am so we could leave at 6 Am. great plan, meanwhile, T1nk stayed up all night packing and such, just gonna sleep the whole way down, which she did. Left bright and early at about 7 am (of course), watched the sun come up as we drove down I-5, the varicose vein of the crack that is the central valley of California. Constantly paranoid and fighting my fatigue-to-hunger-to-"whatwasthatnoise?!wasitthecar?!" syndrome we made a few stops along the way. tried to talk pievuhg into letting us try and sneak her into the MouseLand around Anaheim, but she wouldn't have it. At that point I thought, "oh good, almost there, not much farther" my spacial recollection of the location of Anaheim to San Diego is still skewed. the last 2-3 hours of the drive were painful for me, I had no idea where i was going again, and of course, instead of -continue on I-5, then left on suchandsuch lane- it was, okay merge onto this highway, now this highway, now left, right, right, up, down, select, start, WTF!? apparently our sweet hookup to stay over is atop the only mountain in the basin (t1nk is NOT cool with windy roads, especially if they're atop a fucking cliff) and so TEN FUCKING HOURS after leaving, we had arrived. Got lost shortly thereafter attempting to locate civilization at the bottom of the hill, had chipotle (so fuckin tasty) and found THE EASY WAY back up the hill to our HQ for the weekend. slept like the dead.

T1nk and I woke up at . . . ? 7:30 am? 8? because we were gonna drop Pievuhg off at the con and head north back to Anaheim. Apparently Pievuhg was welcomed with booze the night before and was nursing a hangover and finally at about 9am T1nk and I realized she wasn't leaving with us. BAM, off to Walt's World. Rode rides and all that, forgot my lanyard (yes, t1nk got me hooked on pin trading the trip I proposed to her [blog about that later, I'm sure] but its actually very fun and I have a sixth sense for hidden mickey's, I'm like a boar to truffles. I just think a pin is cool, but when we look closer, there's ears. anyway) but still snagged a slick lanyard weight, AND, we caught the Electrical Parade. that shit was awesome, the intro music is really the best part. It broke down, sat there for 3 mins, and a deisel pull cart rolled up and pulled it along. it was awesome. I want to be an electrical bug, that looks like so much fun.
made it back to HQ without incident, ready to attack Comic Con '09 fast and hard, just like me, OH!

S.G.I.S.Con 4 Spoiler

A friendly reminder to those in the know. SAME BAD PLACE SAME BAD TIME!

I anticipate both trilogies being played the entire weekend, with special screenings of SW-centric movies. I'm hoping for FANBOYS , SPACEBALLS , and maybe even the terrible X-MAS SPECIAL !!!!

I also really want to do a Lightsabre building workshop, and I'm sure we can dig out numerous SW-themed games to play.

More itinerary as we get closer to the event.

S.G.I.S.Con: The Tale

" WTF is S.G.I.S.Con?!"
Sad Geek In Snow Convention. A "con" held every year in honor of my birthday at a family cabin. I invite every geek I am buddies with and we assemble in a beautiful section of the wilderness, and stay inside for the entire weekend. well, I do, usually the guests venture farther up the road to some snow and get all cold and wet then come back. good times.
I know, "wow, how pretentious, a 'Con' just for your birthday?" but, if you've ever met me, you know I have great plans, just like anyone else, big dreams. One day I hope for it to actually be a full blown Convention, dedicated to all things geeky! Well, most things. I have often complained how Convention season is in the summer, so I would prefer a winter con, especially if I am the figure head and its soul, its true con type, would be flavored by me and my friends interests.
So, a weekend long get together, by invite only, we have begun doing themes, and vague itineraries, as well as, registration fees (so we can afford food) for room and board.
Of course, being the elitist jerk I am, I wont publicly advertise this Con, but I do extend invitations to friends of friends in the hopes that it continues to be a VERY harmonious event with like minded, yet unique individuals.
So far we have had as many as 25 geeks assembled for the festivities, and I will post synopsis of past S.G.I.S.Cons. Also watch Theatreg33k who posts day by day journals of most of our trips.