I was going to talk about something but then I forgot what it was.  So, last night I played in a weekly D&D game.  And when I say my character died, I mean my D&D character and not an aspect of my psyche.  My character, Uk’as Twirleyes, a tabaxi rogue-ish fighter…or a fight-ey rogue…I haven’t decided exactly yet.  Anyway, Uk’as Twirleyes died last night.  Disintegrated by a beholder, on an asteroid I think, you know me and fantasy stuff.  He died heroically with fighting alongside his allies, Akryn Whitemantle and Erdrick Dotsler, while defending a giant or something.  Again, fantasy.  Uk’as stood up to oppose a necromancer, named for a character from something with which I’m not super familiar.  And when his friends were consumed by a mysterious dark magic, as Uk’as secured himself to the ground with his short swords.  Seeing his party mates drawn into the darkness and thinking more quickly than Tim, he tied one end of his rope to an anchoring sword and tied the other end around his waist whilst jumping into the unknown.  Finding there his allies and a beholder, shooting eye lasers or something, I don’t get it.  After a couple of successful attacks Tim started shitting every bed with his Dexterity saves…DEXTERITY SAVES, GOD DAMN IT!  For context, Uk’as has +7 for DEX saves!  How shitty were my rolls to blow that?!  At any rate, the beholder tagged him with a disintegration ray…this isn’t half assed sci/fi, how?!  So, his teammates striving to hold their feelings to mourn once the danger passes, fill their pockets with Uk’as dust with the hope of one day resurrecting their fallen comrade, and trap the beholder wherever it was that it needs such a wacky elevator.

     Uk’as will be missed but it’s all magic I guess so, he might come back and apparently leveled up.  Gaining a level posthumously is no less honorable but certainly much funnier.

     That’s pretty much all I’ve got right now.  Stay tuned, I’ve got some things coming up…oh wait, I already wrote about my panel at Los Angeles Comic Con.  Yeah, that’s pretty much all I got now.  Later.

I got sidetracked earlier this week so I missed my deadline for Tuesday.  Here I am now.  I’ve gotten an update about my panel at LACC.  I still don’t have a time and room yet but the world hasn’t ended yet…again…so, we’re still on!  I’m still super excited for this, I can’t wait!  I recorded something the other day but I couldn’t upload it from my phone.  I need to figure out some things with the podcast stuff again.  I will, ideally have time after getting home from this trip that I can sit down and put together stuff in the studio again.  It’s looking like I’ll be sitting around DFW for a couple hours so after I tolerate my sister’s presence for a little bit, I’ll be working on some projects.  Among them planning and notes for my panel.  Maybe I’ll try and see if I can find any fellow podcasters to join me.  There’ll be plenty of time to talk about that over the next month and a half or so.  Right now, though, I have a couple things I want to talk about going on right now.

     First, I finally broke down and got myself a set of bone inductive headphones.  I’ve always been interested in getting some of these and decided earlier that now is the time.  I got a pair of the OpenRun by Shokz at Costco.  I put them on straight out of the box and they were great from moment one.  I didn’t expect the quality of the sound to be so clear, it’s fantastic!  Honestly, the sound is better than many over-ear and earbuds I’ve used over the years.  I’ve been listening to podcasts so far but I’ll try out some music later.  And the best part is that they don’t get greasy and gross sitting in my ears and caking in gallons of sweat.  I’m really diggin’ them so far.  I’m testing the limits of the battery now.  While I write this and try to get to sleep before work, or maybe just before I get up extra early to go and indulge in another of my new favorite things.

     There’s a place here called Hurts Donut.  It’s a couple blocks away from our hotel room and we ran out to get some ice cream there.  YES!  The donut place has ice cream!  AND colossal donuts!  They have there big cookies and some of those cookies sandwiching creams as giant cookie sandwiches.  But more than that…the whole staff seems to be pretty girls.  Think about that.  Pretty girls, ice cream, giant cookies and in turn giant cookie sandwiches, AND huge donuts!!!  One of reason and logic would look on this and never dare the hubris to ask “Could this be better?” and yet, there is one more thing about this place.  It’s open twenty-four hours.  THAT’S RIGHT!  All day, all night, in effect, always.  Hurts Donut is now among my most favorite places.  I’m thinking about buying one of their mugs but I don’t know how exactly I’ll be able to get it home.  I’m formulating plans this moment…

Ok, so this time, I do have some pretty good news.  I submitted a panel to Los Angeles Comic Con a couple weeks ago and it was accepted.  I was going to wait until I got the notification telling me when and where my panel will be but I’m pretty fucking excited about this.  I submitted a panel to FanX last year and I made it as far as the standby list and then nothing came of it.  But for this show, I heard back very quick, my panel was accepted, and now I’m just waiting to hear back with time and place.  So, yeah, a lot of fun for me.  And of course, it’ll be a panel about podcasting.  The title, Podcasting for Beginners.  I figured that to be a good first step to get going with things like this.  I’m going to record something this coming Monday.  I’m looking for some questions and/or thoughts beforehand to offer as advice to start the panel.  I have a list of topics and notes already, I’m just curious what things other people think of when considering how to start podcasting.  Now, I’m planning to record this panel and maybe put it out as a podcast if it works out well enough.  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see happens.  Again, I’m pretty excited for this.  Also, just going to another convention is going to be so much fun!  Previously I went to Indiana Comic Con this last March and I wrote about that adventure then.  Feel free to look through previous posts, I can always use more clicks as it were.  In summation, I really enjoyed that convention and going to a different conventions beyond FanX.  And then going to a convention right here at home in LA.  I can’t wait for September!

     Just a quick update on Bottle Cap, my pokémon buddy that’s extreme training on Pokémon Go.  We’ve a little more progress over the last week.  Right now his stats are up to Att. 14/15 Def. 10/15 HP 12/15.  We’re working our way through a time dependent task, and then one more time dependent task, and the rest of the tasks for that stat should clear pretty quick.  I’m fairly confident that we’ll get this done in pretty good time.  And then I’ll have a 4* shiny charizard!  

     I’m going to cut this one a here.  Work this week has been somewhat of a shit show and I’m beat to hell.  The last few days I have actually managed to sleep just about six full hours each day.  I know!  Six hours a day!  Just imagine the days I’m having that I can sleep six hours at one time.  Oh, and I feel this should be said.  There’s a decent Mexican restaurant in Cincinnati.  We went there to grab dinner after work.  I got a Hot & Spicy Burrito and the only complaint I have is that I was an idiot and forgot to ask for it without sour cream.  Good heat and spice but not overwhelming the flavor.  La Jaiba Seafood & Taqueria in Hamilton County, Ohio.  If you’re around, check it out.

Another couple of rough days.  This past Sunday, Malcom Jamal-Warner died.  I can’t decide whether it’s more tragic that he died in a random accident or if it had been some illness he’d been dealing with.  According to the reports I read, he was dragged out by an undertow.  He was under water for a bit and then bystanders pulled onto the beach and couldn’t be revived.  It wasn’t even something like a car accident where someone could be blamed for something.  I was always a fan.  I used to watch that one show, everyone older than thirty-five knows what I’m talking about and everyone younger than thirty-five can’t do anything with it, and I just feel personally that there’s no real reason to discuss it by name.  I also watched some of Malcolm and Eddie.  I’d caught a couple episodes recently and still, it holds pretty well judging by a small sampling.  My favorite work of his, though, is on The Resident.  That, in and of itself, is a great show but his character specifically with him portraying that character, always added to the whole of the show in no small way.  Ever a talent, he always managed to find a special little something in his characters.  He is surely no less missed than any of the other great talents and just good people we’ve lost in recent years.

     I was planning on this and then finding something fun to write about now but then earlier this afternoon while I was sitting at the airport, the news broke.  Ozzy Osborne died today.  You know I’m as attentive to music but god damn it, Ozzy was objectively great.  Sure, he had his issues and then got kicked out of his own band but then, went on to release a number of high scoring tracks and albums on his own.  Despite his problems.  He’s one of those generational minds who had that one defining moment where he thought to himself “Fuck that, I’m going to do it now.”  And then he did it.  I was listening to a bit of Black Sabbath’s titular album and was impressed.  Yeah, I’ve heard at least bits and pieces of those songs over the years but this album is not what I expected.  Being more familiar with Iron Man and Crazy Train, that first album was more melodic and the real distinctive talent was in the lyrics.  Again, I’m not an expert or even really inclined musically so, this opinion is in every way not-so-much informed.  But I’ve always tended to gravitate more to lyrics of songs rather than instrumental mechanics.  So, hearing more closely the lyrics of those earlier works have made me more intentionally a fan.  I wasn’t paying attention to whether I listened to that whole album right then but Rush’s Tom Sawyer kicked in with shuffle and I went back to listening to podcasts.  But the important thing is that he’s biting the heads off of angels now.

     Ok, I’m currently on my way to Cincinnati so, I’ll definitely be writing more later this week, I just wanted to address these more recent tragedies and you may know, that’s not a word I use lightly.  Until then.

     First things first, I had a really bad tummy thing last week so, I wasn’t able to sit down and write.  Then I was pretty lazy today aside from doing laundry which is why I finally started this at ten:forty-five tonight past deadline.  But I’m doing it so stop yelling at me.

     Now then, I’m thinking it’s time for an update on my Pokémon buddy, a shiny charmander I’m training up to 4*.  I changed his name to Bottle Cap because, ya know, I used that bottle cap for him.  I guess it’s been two weeks now, you can see his progress below.  Things are going pretty well so far.  It looks like a couple of upcoming tasks will have a minimum time requirement but they are consecutive so, it’ll be thirty days to complete those two, otherwise, all the other tasks should be relatively quick.  I can’t wait to finish this finally have a shiny 4* charizard!!!

     More fun things!  I’m working out some plans for upcoming conventions.  I’m focusing on some things for LA Comic Con.  And then FanX…it looks like this’ll be first FanX I miss.  I’ve been going to that show every year since its beginning but this year it’s landing on the same weekend as LA.  So, the plan is for Ben and Dustin to cover FanX while I cover LACC.  I can’t wait!  Glancing through the guest list, a lot of the stars from Daredevil: Born Again, a bunch of voice actors, and then Elizabeth Olson and Paul Bettany.  But one person I’m really excited to meet is Greg Weisman.  I just recently watched through Young Justice again.  As you can read in previous posts, Young Justice is one of the greatest DC projects in recent time.

     I’m running late so I’m going to cut it off here.  I need to take of some things and maybe clean this shithole apartment.  Yeah, it didn’t take me very long to get here.  Oh, and I’m taking steps to get the podcast going again.  I’m thinking we’ll post episodes on Wednesdays but I’m working to put out something this week.  Ideally I’ll get something put together and posted before I go to work tomorrow.  If not, I’ll get something uploaded on Thursday.