Social Media Break, Day Three

I'm changing the title of this series to Social Media Break rather than keeping with Social Media Free. I really am more on a Social Media Break than attempting to be free of Social Media, so this title makes better sense in my opinion.

I'm going to try to keep today's entry short because I'm full, I'm tired and I might be a little buzzed. Remember kids, tryptophan, insulin crash and alcohol do not mix. Not even a new episode of Doctor Who can keep me up tonight.

Today was generally not a good day. To borrow a quote for George R. R. Martin's Not A Blog on LiveJournal, life is miserable and full of pain. UCLA lost today to USC in football. It's time like this that I wonder why I am a sports fan at all. It has gotten to the point where most of the time that I watch any of my teams play, I'm more hoping that they don't lose than I am hoping that they win. When my team wins, I feel more of a temporary relief than anything else. Sure, there are times when I feel immense joy, like when my Giants won the World Series for the first time since they moved to San Francisco. Actually, that one was both immense relief and immense joy. Regardless, the moral is that I experience less joy as each year passes. I need to rediscover the love for sports. I also need to let go of that sadness when my team loses. That is one of the worst superficial emotional pains out there.

The bright side of taking a social media break during this time period is that I cannot see what the other fan base is saying. That helps ease the pain a little. The scotch is helping with the rest of that pain. lol. My Facebook feed is going to be loving the fact that I'm taking a break right now, cause I could totally see another round of drunken video postings coming up, if this deadly trio of typtophan, alcohol and insulin crash doesn't knock me out first.

In other news, I've held out on buying a Nexus 9 so far. My resolve is holding strong. I needed some help from Marie-Reine and Nicole, but so far so good. That is such a good deal, but it is a piece of technology that would hold no use for me other than being a semi-dedicated Chromecast remote and a possible vehicle for a secondary Clash of Clans account. The fact that I'm even thinking of getting a tablet for that Clash of Clans thing is reason enough why I shouldn't get it. It is such a frivolous piece of tech that I don't need. But, a discount of $200 is just soooooo good. I'll think more about this later.

In a bit of blog news, I was surprised to see that my last two blog posts have received some views out there. I mean, who the hell is reading this. lol. I didn't think I had an audience out there, but my Blogger stats say that it's being viewed out there. That's just crazy. I swear I'm not this insane, although I really might just be this boring. haha

And I'm now laughing at my own bad jokes. I think that is a sign that I need to sign off for the night. My last day of my hella long weekend ends tomorrow. I really should go out and enjoy the day tomorrow. Good thing I was able to finish Jessica Jones this weekend. That show was hella good. I highly recommend it.

Well, that's it for now. I'll try to shoehorn a blog post tomorrow. Laters.

Social Media Free, Day Two

Day two of trying to be social media free started off pretty well. The need to constantly check my three sites wasn't as strong today as it was on day one. I guess not posting anything kinda helps with that. Also, after about a day, any previous post would lose steam, so there would be less of a need to check to see how many "like" or "+1's" my "going away post" got.

I did some Black Friday shopping this morning online. I wonder if that is closer to doing a Cyber Monday on Black Friday since I didn't exactly go to a store? I don't know. I guess it really is all the same. I tried to stay away from shopping at Amazon because I'm having personal issues with their business practices, but I couldn't find anything I liked on ThinkGeek or the HBO Store, and some of the tech deals on Amazon were just too good to pass up. As of 11:30 pm PT, I have resisted buying a Nexus 9 from the Google Store. The 16-gig version is going for $199 while the 32-gig version is going for $279 on Black Friday. Those are amazing deals, however, I already have a tablet, and my personal tech purchase of the year is my handy dandy Dell laptop. I don't think I could justify another tech purchase.

I was semi-planning on seeing Creed today, but I ended up grabbing lunch with a work friend instead, followed by some Jessica Jones afterwards. It was fun hanging out with my work friend outside of work. We don't normally get a chance to grab lunch together as typically I have to cover for her when she goes to lunch, so this was a fun experience to hangout outside the work environment.

I'm still planning on checking out Creed this weekend. I have heard nothing but great reviews about it. I also want to check out Victor Frankenstein, but I have the distinct feeling that I just won't have the time to see all of the movies that I want to see. Oh well, it's not exactly the end of the world if I miss a couple of movies here or there. The one movie I can't miss is Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I mean, after being brought near to tears at Comic-Con, I would lose all geek cred if I missed this movie on opening weekend.

Now, full disclosure time on the social media: towards the end of the day, I did log on to both Facebook and Google Plus briefly. Here are my justifications. I logged onto Facebook when I got a friend request from one of my G+ friends. Since my Facebook posts are mostly private, my friend probably didn't see that I was on a social media break, and I didn't want to appear rude. With Google Plus, one of my friends had invited me to her TV Spoiler Community. Again, I didn't want to appear rude by not accepting, so I popped in quickly to accept the invitation. I didn't check my newsfeed at all. With Facebook, I saw my sister's new profile pic of her kids. I had to quickly close the browser because I knew that I would get sucked back into that whole Facebook world, and it is only day two. Hmmm. I'm already making a lot of allowances here. I really have to break this habit.

Other than those two quick moments of weakness, I think I've done well today. The next couple of days will be harder (#twss?). Saturday is a big college football day, and with the UCLA-USC football game being for the Pac-12 South title, everyone will be out representing on social media tomorrow. The big test will be on Monday. Going on the social media sites and sharing articles is normally a great way to pass the day during work when there is some downtime. I guess there is some actually work things I can do this week. Social media has become a big part of my work time routine. I need to create new habits during the work day.

Well, that's it for now. I still can't believe that I'm attempting to blog this. It's even harder (#twss?) to believe that I have this much to write. I don't exactly lead an exciting life as the words above can attest. I guess social media does tend to stifle some creativity, if blogging about your day can be considered creative. lol. Anywho, I don't know how long I can keep up this blogging experience, but it's something for me to think about for now. I'll see y'all next time.

Social Media Free, Day One

I'm going to try a little personal experiment. I'm going to try to stay away from my big three of social media: Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ . This experiment is meant to go from Thanksgiving to Christmas. It can also stop at anytime. Now, if I break down and go to one of these sites before Christmas, it won't be the end of the world. The experiment can always restart right after that moment.

The impetus of this idea is the realization that I spend too much time on these sites, and I tend to express some of my borderline self-destructive tendencies on these sites. In other words, I get too emo and I spam my Facebook feed with random '80s and '90s videos that I can find on YouTube. Also, I was listening to a podcast with Bill Simmons and Judd Apatow where they mention that some modern day creativity might be stifled by the immediacy of social media posts. I need to re-focus some of my creative energy somewhere.

I can also see the irony of blogging about being Social Media Free. Some can see a personal blog as something of a social media outlet. I'm going to let this slide. I need some outlet to express myself. Plus, I don't think I really have an audience out there, so this is really just me howling at the proverbial wind.

So, on Thanksgiving Eve, I posted a little "going away" meme on Facebook and G+ with the only caption being #socialmediabrek. Yes, the irony of posting about a social media break is also not lost on me. Somehow, I felt the need to inform my friends on Facebook and my 2000+ followers on G+ that I was going away for a while. I might be a bit of a narcissist.

I also deleted the Facebook, G+ and Twitter apps from my phone and tablet. Theoretically, that should help with the temptation of checking these sites on a near constant basis for my source of validation from other people's opinion of me. I also turned off all email notifications from my "duties" of moderating some Communities on G+. Those Communities will just have to manage themselves without me.

With that being said, I have to confess that I cheated a bit. I can still check and clear G+ notifications from the main Google website. I also did log into Facebook at the beginning of the post to make sure that I had my personalized FB URL correct. But, I didn't visit my newsfeed or stream or whatever it is that the friends and followers feed stream thing is called nowadays. I don't know what people are doing and saying, and that's just going to have to be okay for me for now.

I did find myself checking my email more often today. That's not really going to do me any good as I wasn't expecting anything from anyone. I just needed something to do while I was sitting around. The immediacy of social media really is a habit that is hard to break. I'm going to need a lot of help and willpower with this one.

Well, that's going to be it for now. I needed to "document" this near one month journey of mine. I think I can do it. I mean, what do I really need to post on social media nowadays? Most of my Facebook posts lately have been music videos. I guess that can get old pretty quick.

One of these days, I'm going to actually talk about some of the things that have been bothering me, but today is not this day. I have no idea if anyone is going to see this other than me, but that's okay. I'm not trying to be famous or anything.

Anyways, until tomorrow, or whenever I decide to write next. Adios.

How to Prepare for the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con: What to Expect

On my last post, I briefly went over my own experience and history with the San Diego Comic-Con.This installment will be...

What Can You Expect at the San Diego Comic-Con.

As previously noted by this May 2013 article by Film School Rejects, the San Diego Comic-Con has about 130,000 attendees at a convention center with a square footage of 615,700 (an area larger than 10 football fields). What does that all mean? It means you can expect that there will be a lot of people, there will be a lot of walking, there will be a lot of waiting in line to get into places to check things out, and it will be hella crowded. But you are going to have a lot of fun while you’re there.

Oh, and you can expect to see some cosplay.



Lots of cosplay:



Make sure you have your camera ready. Lots of people cosplay, and everyone wants to show off. Just be polite and ask if you can take their picture. Unless the cosplayers need to get somewhere, they are always willing to oblige for a picture or three.

Besides, you never know who might be under that Spider-Man mask.

The Days Of Comic Con

Comic-Con takes place over the course of 5 days.: Wednesday night to Sunday.

Wednesday night is Preview Night.

Not everyone can go to Preview Night. It used to be that there was no price difference between a 4-day pass and a 4-day pass with Preview Night. With the growing popularity of the show, Preview Night costs a little extra. Preview Night was meant to be where you could check out the Exhibit Hall the night before the show opens. It was never too hectic or too crowded and you could get freebies from many booths as well as having the opportunity to buy some Exclusives from places like Mattel or Hasbro. Those days are now a thing of the past. Preview Night is now all about getting Exclusives and watching Screenings, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Despite Preview Night turning into a day all on its own, Thursday is still considered the first day of Comic-Con.

You can expect lighter programming on Thursday than the other days, but when the Twilight movies were a thing, Thursdays at Comic-Con became as busy and as hectic as Saturday Hall H programming.

Friday is Star Wars Day!

Friday is considered Star Wars day at Comic-Con because of the bevy of Star Wars related programming that day. Also, the first slides of the first Star Wars was shown in Comic-Con, so there will always be a deep connection between the film franchise and the show. With Star Wars: The Force Awakens coming out later this year, it is almost a sure bet that there will be a Star Wars panel in 2015.

In the last few years, Friday has also hosted panels for AMC’s The Walking Dead and HBO’s Game of Thrones in Hall H, a room that fits 6500 people. Having been to those panels, I can tell you that you have to line up early and no one leaves until at least those two panels are over.

The Will Eisner Awards are also held on Friday. The Eisners are the comic book equivalent of the Oscars. They are held at Indigo Ballroom of the Hilton Bayfront and they are open to anyone with a four-day badge or a Friday badge.

 

Saturday is the big "Hollywood" day!

Saturday is what I like to call "movie panel day" as Hall H typically hosts the Warner Bros panel to start the day with Marvel Studios ending the day. With Marvel Studios potentially not coming to Comic-Con this year, there’ll be a Hulk-sized programming hole that will need to be filled. There will be plenty of studios that will be clamoring for just that spot in the programming schedule. When people say that Hollywood has taken over Comic-Con, they are typically talking about the stuff that happens in Hall H on Saturday.

On other programming news, the second biggest room in the San Diego Convention Center is Ballroom 20 which seats about 2000 people. That room on Saturday hosts the Comic-Con Masquerade Ball. The Masquerade Ball is arguably the biggest event of Comic-Con. Morgan Spurlock’s documentary, Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope, dedicated a huge portion to the Masquerade Ball and what people have to go through to make that magic happen.

Sunday is Kids Day!

You can expect a lot of family friendly programming on Sunday. Sunday is not as hectic as the other days, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to stay in the Exhibit Hall to the very end. The rush to get out of the convention center rivals any mass crowd scene I’ve experienced.

Everything I’ve already mentioned does not even scratch the surface of all of the events at Comic-Con. There are off-site events like Nerd HQ, the the Nerdist, Walker Stalker Fan Fest and The Walking Dead Escape just to name a few.

As you can see, there is a lot to do at Comic-Con. This post was my attempt at showing what one can expect at the Comic-Con. On my next post, I will actually go over what you need to do to prepare for the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con. There is a lot to do with so little time. You will need to prepare and plan accordingly so that you can get the most out of your Comic-Con experience.

How to Prepare for the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con: My History and Introduction

The San Diego Comic-Con has been called many things: nerd prom, a gigantic pop-culture event, a celebration of the popular arts. Comic-Con is all of that and more. Comic-Con is one of the biggest pop-culture events in the world. Because of the scale of the show, preparing for Comic-Con requires a lot of planning and homework. Yes, something like Comic-Con should be fun, but planning and preparing for Comic-Con is the best way to get the most out of your experience.

Before I start with the “how to prepare for Comic-Con” advice, I would like to share my own history with the show, and particularly what going to Comic-Con unprepared is like. I have been going to Comic-Con since 2001. My first Comic-Con experience was as a day trip on a Saturday. My girlfriend and I had only heard of Comic-Con. Neither of us had ever been, and neither of us knew what was in store for us. We had decided that week to check out the world famous San Diego Comic-Con. Even back then, Comic-Con was already pretty well known. We just did not know the scope of the show.

We jumped in my car and drove to San Diego on a Saturday morning. We fought through typical Southern California Saturday traffic, we navigated our way through a crowded downtown San Diego to one of the Comic-Con parking lots, and we eventually made our way to the San Diego Convention Center through one of the free Comic-Con shuttles. Once we arrived at the convention center, we had to wait in a hella long line to get a registration pass for the day. Yes, there used to be a time when you could get passes to Comic-Con on the day of the show. After the 2+ hour traffic from Van Nuys to San Diego, plus what seemed to be at least an hour wait in line just to register, we were finally able to get into Comic-Con. We weren’t prepared for what we saw and experienced.

We saw a crowded Exhibit Hall with maybe 50-60,000 people all checking out the same booths. We saw a lot of people dressed as their favorite comic book character. We did not know about cosplaying back then. When we tried to go to a quiet part of the convention center, we just saw more people crowding around. When we tried to check out some programming, we saw more lines to get into some of these rooms. We thought the show was already huge and overcrowded and overwhelming. We did not prepare for Comic-Con. We did not know where to get food. We did not have any water with us. We didn’t even have any bags to help us carry around the free stuff we got or any of the cool and geeky things we bought. And then after the show, we fought our way through San Diego and Southern California traffic to make our way back home that same day.

However, when all was said and done, we didn’t know how good we had it back then. That first day seems like a nice quiet Comic-Con day now. To paraphrase Game of Thrones, we were sweet summer children.

The San Diego Comic-Con has only grown since then . I have witnessed first hand the incredible growth and popularity of Comic-Con.

What used to be a show where you can get tickets the same day is now a show that sells out in one hour.

Comic-Con used to cost around $50 for a 4 day pass with Preview Night. That same ticket costs about $200 now.

I was there before Hall H was ever a thing. Now for many people, Hall H is the only thing that matters.



I remember when Preview Night wasn’t a madhouse like it is now, and you could actually walk through the Exhibit Hall without getting having to fight your way through the crowds.



This is not to say that Comic-Con has gotten worse. This is only to say that Comic-Con has changed and evolved over the years. I have been to the last 14 Comic-Cons. My experience ranges from the one day trip to staying at a hotel near Sea World to staying in the downtown San Diego Gaslamp District.

With my history and experience, I can help some of the newer Con goers to prepare for Comic-Con. In the next few weeks, I will show you what you can expect at Comic-Con, what you need to prepare for Comic-Con, and how to successfully navigate Comic-Con’s programming schedule so that you can make the most out of your Con experience.

A Review of the Insanity Workout Program, Part 2

The main lesson I took from the Insanity workout program is that you never know what type of shape you are in until you get yourself out of your comfort zone. I started Insanity thinking that I was in okay shape. I did not have any delusions that I was in great shape. Hell, I knew I was still overweight, and that I needed something to jump start my own fitness that running and my other regular at home workouts were not doing. However, I still thought that all of the running and the push-ups and the squats and the lunges that I had done almost all of last year would prepare me for this program. I was wrong.

A Review of the Insanity Workout Program, Part 1

So now that I have completed the 60+ days of the Insanity workout program, and having blogged for 60+ days straight about my daily trials and tribulations with the program, a review of the Insanity program is in order. This first part will deal with the pace and structure of the program. The second part will deal with my thoughts on the program and some of my results.