Eugene

It's that time of year again

2008-07-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

Can't believe it's already that time of year again.

Nerd Prom. The 96 hour job interview. Geek Mecca. Nerd Ground Zero.

So a few notes before I head down to San Diego for several days of pure geek madness-

-If you want to track where I'm at in San Diego, check out my Comic Con Twitter feed. I'll update it with all sorts of useless and unfunny observations.

-One bit of non-Comic Con news. I had a really great time on Sunday, getting to meet some very cool people and see some amazing animation history. I'll blog more about this in detail when I get back.

-Reminiscing ahoy!

I went to my first Comic Con in 1989 when I was just a pimply dorky Asian comic-collecting obsessive-compulsive nerd-boy with bad personal manners and the innate ability to repel women.

Come to think of it. I haven't changed much.

Anyways, I haven't gone to every Comic Con since 1989, but I'm guessing this must be my 15th or so convention. Back then I would spend my days buying comic books and watching movie trailers - now I go to catch up with old friends, make new friends, network and make connections, and maybe try and catch an hour or two of sleep a night.

I guess it still surprises me how life turns out in ways you'd never expect.

See you in San Diego.

Iron Man: Armored Adventures Trailer

2008-07-15T01:58:00.000-07:00

So the new trailer for Iron Man : Armored Adventures got released yesterday. The show premieres on NickToons in 2009. Great writers involved in the series - including Chris Yost, Brandon Auman, Andrew Robinson, Alexx Van Dyne, Michael Ryan, Len Uhley, and more.

There's a panel about the new show next Saturday at Comic Con - I should be in the audience somewhere.

#458

2008-07-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

The eugeneson.com website's been up since summer 2002. For the first few years, the domain was only for email, so I left the website blank. Then in 2005, somebody made fun of me for having a blank website.

Three years and 458 posts later, here we are.

The blog has been a more rewarding experience than I ever could have imagined. A huge part of the fun has been because I know my friends read it - love you guys. But I've also made new friends through the blog.

I think I've made some enemies, too - but mostly friends.

The weird thing is to think that someday I'm going to die, but my blog will still be here. So long after I'm gone, someone will find this and go, "WOW! This guy sucks!"

So thanks for reading the blog to this point so far. I can't promise it'll get better, but I can assure you it can't get any worse...

What I learned from Independence Day

2008-07-05T21:59:00.000-07:00

So Fox Movie Channel is showing Independence Day over and over this weekend.

1997. I had to take an upper-division course to graduate. ANY upper-division course. So I found that during the summer session, the visual arts department had an upper division film course on fantasy and sci-fi. Bingo - I couldn't think of an easier class.

It ended up being a great course. The professor showed an odd assortment of films - from the Dead Zone, Hitchcock's Marnie, I Married a Monster, X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes, the Charles Laughton version of The Island of Dr. Moreau, even the musical, Pennies from Heaven.

At that first lecture, the professor told us that because it was the big sci-fi movie of the summer, the first movie assignment was to watch Independence Day. Then he asked, "Has anyone seen it already?"

I raised my hand weakly. I'd gone to the 10pm sneak preview screening the night before. But apparently I was the only one.

So the professor, very excited that someone had already seen it, asked me excitedly, "What did you think? Was it good?"

What was I supposed to say? This is an upper division film course! I couldn't tell him the truth - that the movie succeeds despite itself. That the film is awful and I was acutely aware that it was bad, but I couldn't help but have a good time. It was a turn your brain off and hope you don't choke on your popcorn as you enjoy the silly fun. That it's the Citizen Kane of movies with a dog leaping away from giant special-effects fireballs.

I could feel the professor looking at me. The entire class was looking at me. I had to give an answer. So I muttered, "Um... it was okay?"

The professor looked disappointed. That was the best I could do. In an upper division film course. I had my chance to expound on the theme, the film-making, the mise-en-scene - all the stuff that film professors love. It was my chance to make myself the class genius. The one in the class who knew more about film than all the others put together.

Instead, I looked like a complete idiot.

After that first class, some guy came over to me and said, "Could the thing that saved humanity from the aliens been any more phallic?" I laughed and responded, "Hey - maybe that shape was what allowed a Macintosh Powerbook to infect an advanced alien civilization with a virus?"

Then it hit me. There were PLENTY of other people who'd been to the sneak preview the night before. I was the only one STUPID enough to raise my hand. The next week, the professor had seen the movie and gave a half hour lecture about how terrible it was. I wanted to crawl under my desk and hide.

So what did I learn from Independence Day? Well, for a while I thought it was that the nail that stands up inevitably gets hammered down. But alas, that lesson didn't take.

What I really learned is that I have a soft spot for dogs leaping away from giant special-effects fireballs.

Good dog.

Tired

2008-07-01T22:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. I'm basically waiting to hear about stuff, but I've somehow been insanely busy with-

-The backyard fence. Instead of hiring someone to fix it, the neighbor wanted to do the work ourselves. The good news? We saved a ton of money and the new fence is looking great.

The bad news? I am not cut out for manual labor. I don't know what's worse - the aching muscles, the sunburn, the splinters in all my typing fingers, or my allergies. And it's still not finished yet...

-The Ebay auctions went well, but now I'm up to my neck in packing peanuts and boxes - struggling with the stupid FedEx website and driving back and forth to the post office.

By selling off this stuff, I'm cleaning out the garage, and I'm funding my next insane vacation that I'm hoping to do in 2009. Who knew insanity could be so expensive?

-I got injured in hockey again. Not bad - but just a little muscle tweak, so I decided to miss a game and let it heal. I should be 100% for the next game.

-I'm going to head to Anime Expo at the L.A. Convention Center this weekend. I've never been before - should be interesting. I'll take pictures.

-It hurts to be an L.A. Kings fan. I'll rant more on this later.

-It hurts even more to try to log onto MySpace. Seriously, what is the deal with all the stupid changes they're making? It wasn't exactly heaven to begin with, but now they added more ugly eye-candy and even more "page not found" errors. I couldn't even update the blog on MySpace because it wouldn't let me log-in - it just kept replaying the Dark Knight trailer over and over.

Don't be surprised if I drop the MySpace blog. And if I find MySpace Tom, I'm going to knock his smiley face out...

Clock Watching

2008-06-24T21:43:00.000-07:00

Nothing happening worth blogging about. Just catching up on Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica.

Oh - and I put some of my old stuff up on Ebay - old Star Wars toys, Simpsons toys, video games, etc. If you're interested in some really cool nerd stuff, it's there.

Back to killing time. Aka Facebook...

June 2008 Music Diary

2008-06-24T21:38:00.000-07:00

Here's what I'm listening to most this month-

Ten Thousand Nights - Alphabeat
The Only One - Cure
Falling out of Reach - Guillemots
Always Right Behind You - Zutons
Hollow Man - R.E.M.
Life in Technicolor - Coldplay
Cemeteries of London - Coldplay
Lovers in Japan / Reign Of Love - Coldplay
Lost? - Coldplay
Let's Dance to Joy Division - The Wombats

I've never heard of bands like Alphabeat and Guillemots until this month, thanks to Virgin Radio UK. I love listening to British radio online. I get catchy pop music without it having to be the same-old-60-times-a-day pop music that we get here. Though, it's unnerving sitting in 110 degree heat while the radio DJ complains about the cold wet weather...

Then there's new Coldplay album - easily their weakest album so far, but still a terrific album.

And then there's the free single of the week. I love this Wombats track, and it was free.

Scam / Not a Scam

2008-06-21T21:46:00.001-07:00

So at all the Neighborhood Watch meetings, they're always warning us about the scam where someone shows up at your door, tells you that they're working on the fence behind your house, and then when you let them in, their accomplice robs your house.

So today some guys show up at my door and say that they're from behind my house and need to see the broken fence. I think it's the scam, so I close the door on them and go check the backyard.... where my fence is GONE.

Oops.

Apparently the fence actually HAD fallen over. Apologized profusely to the neighbor who I closed the door on. So as if I didn't have enough going on, now I have to fix a fence.

I have a theory that the fence just got angry at how hot it is and just decided to leap to its death. But that's just my working theory.

Man, it's hot.

Cartoon Network Action Pack #29

2008-06-18T13:14:00.001-07:00

Because Charlotte's my pal, an obligatory gratuitous plug for her upcoming comic book-

CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK #29
Written by Charlotte Fullerton, Tom Warburton, & Jim Alexander
Art by Mike Cavallaro, Stephanie Buscema, Phil Moy, & Scott Shaw
Cover by Min S. Ku

A new Ben 10: Alien Force story opens with Kevin involved in a deal with the DNAliens! Has he returned to his old, evil ways? Also, the Kids Next Door take on the Delightful Children from Down The Lane, and a Samurai Jack story to boot!

On sale September 10 • 32 pg, FC, $2.25 US

Pre-order now - pre-order often!

Manhattan

2008-06-17T23:07:00.001-07:00

Catching up on some sleep - waiting to hear back on work stuff. Since I've got nothing noteworthy to blog about, I'll go a little off the board-

I watched a bit of Manhattan recently - one of my favorite movies of all time. While I love every moment of that film, I started thinking about the scene where Woody Allen asks the question-

Why is life worth living?

It's a very good question. Well, there are certain things that make it worthwhile. This isn't an all-encompassing list, but for me, it's-

...Wayne Gretzky.

...The Raider's March by John Williams.

...Calvin and Hobbes.

...Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead.

...the first three Star Wars movies (yes, even Jedi).

...Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns by Mother Love Bone.

...and of course, Woody Allen.

For real - an update

2008-06-12T22:53:00.000-07:00

Wow. Some Laker game, huh? Glad I sat around to watch that one. I mean... wow.

Sorry about the blog silence. Combination of nothing to tell you about, plus working like crazy. Had some good stuff happen this week, but I don't want to jinx it because nothing's for certain. But I feel good.

Except for the lack of sleep this week. With the bags under my eyes, I looked into the mirror and thought I was the villain from the Scream movies.

I mentioned earlier on the blog that items are being auctioned off to help comic book artist Gene Colan. Check out thecliffordmethod.blogspot.com for some neat new animated stuff available, including-

#64. TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED (IDW Books, Volume 1 & 2)
-Signed by writer/story editor MARTY ISENBERG, director MATT YOUNGBERG, director IRINEO MARAMBA, art director/character designer DERRICK WYATT

#68. ANIMATION MAGAZINE (LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES - Comic Con 2006)
-Signed by producer JAMES TUCKER, writer/story editor ROB HOEGEE, voice of Bouncing Boy MICHAEL CORNACCHIA, voice of Timber Wolf SHAWN HARRISON, voice of Superman YURI LOWENTHAL, voice of Lightning Lad ANDY MILDER, voice of Saturn Girl KARI WAHLGREN

If you could help spread the word, that'd be great.

Okay - back to work. This stuff won't type itself...

A New Blog

2008-06-06T00:28:00.000-07:00

Had a great meeting this week. I always try to use a baseball hitter analogy when it comes to this stuff, and the analogy never works, but I got nothing else. So let's just say I'm standing on second base right now... and I am feeling GOOD.

Anyways, I have to get back to work, but one quick hit before the weekend-

I just started a new blog. I know, I know. People should not start new blogs if they're not updating their old blog, but bear with me. I had a whole bunch of family travel tips that would be incredibly boring here, so I created a new blog to keep those.

So if you're interested in family travel, check out Crazy Dad's Guide to Family Travel.

If you're not interested in family travel, check out this kid in the spelling bee.

Have a great weekend!

Resume Bloopers

2008-06-02T22:07:00.000-07:00

Man, I love NHL Playoff hockey. 3 overtimes, Red Wings v Penguins, Petr Sykora telling the reporter he would win the game and then DOES it. Awesome.

Anyways, instead of giving you something about me, here're some of my favorites from 150 Funniest Resume Mistakes, Bloopers and Blunders Ever-

Hobbies: “enjoy cooking Chinese and Italians”

“Skills: Strong Work Ethic, Attention to Detail, Team Player, Self Motivated, Attention to Detail”

“Consistently tanked as top sales producer for new accounts.”

Reason for leaving: “I thought the world was coming to an end.”
(Funny thing is - I actually know someone who left a job for that same reason...)

Qualifications: “Twin sister has accounting degree.”

Reason for leaving last job: “Bounty hunting was outlawed in my state.”

Objective: “To become Overlord of the Galaxy!”
(Actually, I could see myself putting that on a resume...)

Check out the full list here. Found the link at the L.A. Times Funny Pages 2.0 blog.

Vacation Photos

2008-05-30T22:03:00.000-07:00

Work-wise, it was a very weird week. Can't really go into it, but trust me - weird week.

Anyways, while I settle back into a working weekend, wanted to post this. I finally got around to uploading all my vacation photos from last summer onto Flickr. If you're interested, here're the links-

Back to work...

Auction for Gene Colan

2008-05-25T20:57:00.001-07:00

If you haven't heard, comic book artist Gene Colan is ill and his family is getting crushed by the medical bills. They're auctioning off items to help his family - you should check out the items up for bid at http://thecliffordmethod.blogspot.com/.

More on this in the next week or so.

May 2008 Music Diary

2008-05-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

Here's what iTunes says I'm listening to-

Something Good 08 - Utah Saints
Paper Planes - M.I.A.
Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield
Tomorrow - Ladytron
Chocolate - Snow Patrol
Warwick Avenue - Duffy
Sweet About Me - Gabriella Cilmi
Viva la Vida - Coldplay
Violet Hill - Coldplay
Heartbeat - Scouting For Girls
Cry for You - September
Two Times - The Blakes
Losing Me (Perdido en Ti) - Diego

Something Good. I loved the original - love the new remix - love love love the video.

M.I.A. is amazingly weird and cool. First caught the catchy tune during the trailer of Pineapple Express. Anyone who can make gunshots singable gets thumbs up from me.

Natasha Bedingfield has a new album out. Never listened to her first album's stuff, so I went back and found myself hooked on this tune.

My friend Eric introduced me to Ladytron - now I'm a fan.

For some reason, I noticed that I was missing a Snow Patrol track. Went and bought it on iTunes, and it got into regular rotation.

I love this new trend in British Pop towards throwback soul singers. First it was Amy Winehouse - now it's Duffy and Gabriella Cilmi. Warwick Avenue especially is one of those wonderfully sad songs that make you feel better.

Violins and Coldplay! Together! I pre-ordered my album. Viva la Vida may be their best song ever.

More great Brit Pop in Scouting for Girls. Wonder what it is about the Swedes like September that leads to such catchy dance music?

Here's where I rave about the free iTunes single of the weeks - the Blakes and Diego are great tracks.

It's Raining Men

2008-05-23T01:11:00.000-07:00

For those keeping score at home.

It's Los Angeles in May, and last week it hit 100 degrees Farenheit, but today there was rain, hail, snow, thunder, lightning, flooding, mud slides, and even tornadoes.

I suppose it could be the Climate Change that all the kids are into these days. Global Warming causing severe weather fluctuations, with unreasonably hot temperatures and then snow. Though, if it's going up AND down, maybe the problem is that there isn't ENOUGH Global Warming? Just to be safe, I'm going to stop recycling and try to increase my carbon footprint.

If not Global Warming, then there's only one explanation - God is angry.

Not likely. I mean, it's LOS ANGELES. What could we have possibly done to annoy God?

Uh-oh.

Something Good 08 - "Like floatin' on air"

2008-05-21T01:09:00.000-07:00

The Utah Saints are back. And they've brought the Running Man back with them.

All is good in the world.

Today's "Only in L.A." story

2008-05-20T12:54:00.000-07:00

First off, my review of Prince Caspian. It's an okay film. As a kid, it was my least favorite of the Narnia books, thanks to its really dull story. But the art direction in the film is fantastic. I would happily pay my $12 to sit in a theatre and watch an army of talking dogs, cats, mice, bears, and centaurs in hand-to-hand combat with bad guys for two hours.

Prince Caspian isn't bad, but it's not great. But I'm eagerly waiting for the next film, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which was an EXCELLENT book.

Anyways, before Prince Caspian started, there's a group of people in front of me. They're chattering away, then one turns to the other with an idea.

"We should pitch our television show to the AZN network!"

The others in the group buzz with excitement. "What a great idea!" "Why didn't we think of this before?" "It's a perfect fit for their network!" As the film starts, they're still very excited at the prospect of making phone calls, getting a meeting with the AZN network, and selling their show.

One little problem. The AZN network went out of business a few months ago.

I decided not to say anything. I didn't want to bring them down, since they looked so happy. But the only thing worse than some L.A. guys yammering on about their tv show? It's the know-it-all smart-alec sitting behind them who puts this stuff on his blog.

You just can't get this kind of fun with Netflix.

on procrastination

2008-05-15T01:39:00.001-07:00

Still working. Skipping martial arts, television, NBA and NHL playoffs, shaving, and showers - but still working.

Though, I just have to say - it's amazing the stuff you can do when you're trying to avoid work. Today I went shopping for comic books, got my hockey skates sharpened, spent time online researching a new computer from the Apple Store, lost my umpteenth game of Facebook Scrabulous, found a hotel in Havana that sounds delightful for if/when the U.S. and Cuba hug it out.

That's not even including the time it's taking to write this blog post.

Sigh. And I'm still behind on watching Battlestar Galactica. Only by, like, 120 episodes, but I'm eventually going to catch up.

Oh, one quick note. I know a lot of this blog's readers are repped by the Gotham Group. Ellen was quoted in the L.A. Times last week. The quote is awesome, babe.

Speaking of repped by Gotham, gotta plug Dan Santat's gallery show this coming Tuesday.

Okay, no more procrastinating. Time to get back to work.

I'm hungry...

Happy now, Jon?!?!

2008-05-10T00:32:00.000-07:00

Updating the blog, thanks to a friend who chided me for not doing a better job of entertaining him with it. Sorry for the lack of blogging. Believe it or not, I have NOT been playing GTA IV - I've been working on a couple projects.

In the meantime, since I've got nothing interesting to tell you about, how about some pictures?

You can check out the dozen pics I took in San Francisco on Flickr.

Daytripper

2008-05-06T17:03:00.000-07:00

Writing this from San Francisco Airport - ducked up here for a one day getaway. Partly for fun, but mostly because I absolutely had to get on a plane.

See, a few months back, I had a claustrophobic anxiety attack while trying to get on a plane. And without being too wishy washy in describing it-

It sucked.

So since then, I did the recommended treatment - coping mechanisms, controlled breathing, and a small sedative. I felt more confident, but I wouldn't know for certain until I got onboard a plane.

Which brings us to today. After a lot of trepidation, I got on board a plane this morning. After determining that there was adequate aisle space in case I had to curl up in the fetal position, the flight went swimmingly.

Which is weird, because I've NEVER had any problem flying before. But for some reason, now I've got claustrophobic anxiety attacks to worry about. Thankfully, I made it - even though it was pretty touch-and-go there for a bit.

So that's why I'm here for a one day San Francisco daytrip. Walked around south beach, had sushi lunch with my buddy Eric, and took a few pictures of AT&T ballpark.

Anyways, the sedative's kicking in. Better get to my gate - hope these security guys give me back my shoes...

Lonely Planet Guide to Liberty City

2008-05-06T06:19:00.000-07:00

If I ever write a travel book, it'll have to be about someplace I know very well. Like the fictional city in Grand Theft Auto 4.

So you may have noticed the lack of postings in the past week. You may have also noticed that it happened the exact moment that GTA 4 came out. Coincidence, I'm sure.

I've also had some family commitments, along with a couple of events hanging out with my writer friends.

Which reminds me. I used to name drop my writer friends on my blog. I stopped doing that, though, because I always end up forgetting to invite someone to these things. Then I feel bad when they read about how we had lunch in their living room, but forgot to invite them.

Anyways, I'm blogging this from my phone. More on that later.

Midnight Madness

2008-04-29T00:04:00.000-07:00

Very weird standing in line at midnight for a video game. There are maybe 200 people in line here at the Best Buy in Sherman Oaks. Everyone is under the age of 35. Maybe 50% Asian. A handful of actual honest-to-goodness girls... here with their boyfriends.

Now THERE's a great date. Hey, let's go stand in line at midnight for the video game that I'll be playing while I ignore you for the next few days.

The mood in line is pretty mellow. Like we're all too cool to be getting excited about this.

Line's moving!

Grand Theft Auto IV & Iron Man

2008-04-28T15:42:00.001-07:00

It's a great week to be a geek.