After too long of a hiatus I am back to blogging.
In the time that I have been gone I have gotten married to my lovely now wife, Nicole. For work, I am no longer located at site since the project is done, or near enough. I am back in the office at home. What this means is I have a bunch of projects that I am excited to not just dive into but to also blog about. I also have a bunch of topics that I have been banking up and will be pounding out over the coming weeks. Things like my rain barrel system, thoughts on the US election,the Edmonton Expo, best weapons to have for when the world ends, my wedding day, my wedding comic and a whole lot more.
I have decided to change up the format of this blog a little bit to add more content. I want to include more Home Improvement projects, Recipes and cooking feats, tech projects around home, automotive projects, and a whole lot more. So you can expect to see more of those and I intend to use the label feature a whole hell of a lot more, but in a way that is a lot simpler so if you want to see topics about my garden, or my thoughts, that these will be there and grouped together for easier navigation.
I have to say guys it is good to be back.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Joss Whendon's S.H.E.I.L.D. TV Show
It has been announced that Joss Whedon is going to go back
into TV with a new entry from Marvel for ABC in the 2013 season. His new show is titled S.H.E.I.L.D, and it
looks like the show will be spearheaded by his brother Jed Whedon and Jed's wife Maurissa Tancharoen.
Also in the news about a month ago, is that Joss is signed on to not only to do the Avengers sequel, but is contracted with a free
pass to write in all the other Marvel films in the coming line up. Basically
what this means is that he get to shape these other movies for the lead in to The
Avengers 2. These movies include Iron
Man 3, Thor: the Dark World, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Ant Man, League
of Guardians, and then the Avengers 2.
And then there is talk about Marvel making shorts with run times about
ten minutes each to introduce more B characters into the Marvel movie
verse. Characters like Luke Cage, Dr.
Strange, maybe even the Black Panther.
And now a TV show.
Marvel is trying to do in the film industry essentially what
it does with it’s comic franchises.
They are making a universe
where each character has their own story but they exist as part of a larger
community. This is what I was talking
about before with my Marvel Movie Rights blog.
Since I have written that blog, Joss has the chance to make a project of
tremendous scope that we have never seen before in Hollywood.
Let me tell you a little something about mister Whedon. His writing style for the projects close to his heart like Buff the Vampire Slayer and Firefly is that before we ever see the first episode, he already has the whole series mapped out. Like all Eight seasons of Buffy had the main arcs made or that Serenity was to be at about the end of season 2 of Firefly if it wasn’t prematurely cancelled. He knew where he wanted the characters to go, what trials he wanted them to face, and how to make them who they will finally be.
Now knowing this, he is given a free pass from Marvel
studios to dabble in any of their coming projects, make a movie that puts all
the heroes together, and now a TV show not about any big heroes, but about the
people in an organization that puts so much of the Marvel comic universe
together. Do you see where this is
going?
S.H.E.I.L.D. can be a platform where you develop a show that
maybe doesn’t directly interact with the film franchises but perhaps sets up
small points for, or reacts to the outcomes of the films. Maybe S.H.E.I.L.D. makes a weapon in the show
for Captain America to use in his film.
Maybe Thor uncovers a piece of tech from the Elvish world that
S.H.E.I.L.D develops. Or maybe the
characters discuss the ramifications of what the heroes do in a critical way,
or about rebuilding after the destruction the hero fights often cause. In the deleted scenes of the Avengers Joss
wanted to set a darker tone that cast doubt on the idea of superheroes. Maybe Joss makes us care about the characters
he develops in the TV show so that he can kill them in the Avengers sequel and
evoke emotion from the audience about these deaths who would otherwise just be
fodder.
He could use it as a platform to further develop the
characters and back stories for S.H.E.I.L.D. agents like Widow, Hawkeye, and
even Fury, that haven’t been given a lot of attention in the films. Of course it will all depend on the
contracting, but you could even guest star the movie stars, and B characters
into some of the episodes and story arcs.
You can explore a lot more of the concepts about S.H.E.I.L.D. and more
of the more sinister global factions like AIM or Hydra. It is a great platform to further develop the
state of the world that the movies, being so action orientated, can’t spend the
time to develop in the detail we would love to have not as fans but as people
who enjoy stories.
With a writer like Joss, this idea is exciting because if
anyone can do this it’s him. With the
movie franchise and now with a TV series, he can essentially pull the whole
universe together and a story in magnitude that has not been known. All of he infrastructure is there and now he
just has to have the ambition to put it all together and if anyone could do
this, I firmly believe that Joss Whedon could take on this monumental task and
make something great. In an interview
about the Avengers Joss stated that the movie wasn’t a great movie, but rather
a great experience. Now he has
everything he needs to not just make a great movie, but a great legacy of
films.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Emotional Satisfaction at a Desk Job
This blog is inspired by the Max Brook’s book, World War
Z. In this book at one point it details
how America has to go into a state of Total War and in the process, first
generation Americans who have more craft based trades, and a lifestyle where
they try to extend the life of every luxury they own are far more valuable
wartime skills then the skills that executives or paper pushers have in living life. The book goes on to detail how the paper
pushers start to own the work of the new manual labor jobs the government
thrusts upon them and that they find the new war time jobs far more emotionally
satisfying then their previous jobs where the skill sets were emails, contracts
and telephone calls, and paying a plumber to fix their toilets.
This struck a cord with me. A cord the reverberated within me so much that I was stricken restless in my bed unable to sleep for a long while. I considered just getting up and spilling this cord onto here, my blog, but chose not to as I get so little sleep at camp anyway. So it is a week later that I am not pounding this one out.
The cord that it struck was a very personal one. I am more or less a paper pusher and on that
particular day I was focused on a task of logistically figuring out how to move
our company's couple hundred night shift to a new camp, while solving bag
transfers, transportation and all other details that would make it go smooth. Of course, despite high hopes and all the planning in the world it didn’t go
smooth and every day I would have new problems come to me that are my
responsibility but not in any way my fault.
That is a big part of my job. The
other part is completing paper work. Now
I say completing but that is a lie. I
revise the same paper work on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Be it reports,
or forecasts or gathering information that aides my managers but really that is
the sum of my job at work and although it is critical to the job itself, it is
very emotionally unsatisfying on a regular basis which can be frustrating.
This brings me to my next point. When I have time off, I am seldom
relaxing. I develop projects when I am
at work that I execute when I get home.
Gardening, organization, home improvements, automotive work and a
plethora of hobbies that make a list so long I care not to mention that occupy
so much of my time when I am home. I
will have people ask me why I don’t just kick back and see friends, or play
video games or do anything to relax and for the longest while I didn’t have the
best answer. I would always say that I
like being busy. I like to work hard. Part of that is a lie. I do my work job but I don’t love it, but when I
am home I love what I do and that is because of this concept of emotional
satisfaction in what I do. I never made
that connection before but I am always so proud of the things I do when I am
home, even if it is simply mowing the lawn in straight lines, or hanging
pictures or rebuilding a room. The only
time I am proud of my job at work is when I manage to burn through a bunch of
it at a rate that impresses myself.
Which is sad.
It gave me an idea though, but it is not my idea, it is one I heard on Extra Credits, a video blog on Penny Arcade. It is an idea called GAMIFICATION. This is an idea where you take principles that make playing a video game interesting and applying it to life in a very real way. Please go to the links below they explain their idea way better than I can paraphrase and perverse it to meet my needs at work.
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/gamification
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/gamifying-education
Now imagine this, every task you do is mapped out to a
certain number of (for simplicity sake) experience points that are earned upon
completion of that tasks. So take for
example if you do an activity daily, like say a Daily Report. When you complete that report you get XP for
completing it, you earn points. For
fairness lets say that each different task is weighted based on complexity or
the amount of time it takes to do so ideally you can hit out the same amount of points per day. This would
also make workers want to find ways to be more efficient at their tasks to earn
more points in less time, so there is some incentive there. You can challenge yourself to beat your own
scores, or to grind. It gives you
something to say that at the end of the day yes you achieved something, even if
all it was the same shit you would be doing anyway but now it is more
satisfying because you get some points from. It is a bit like wearing a
pedometer all day. If you hit your
target you feel accomplished. If you
exceed your goal it feels good. Or if
you miss it, you think of why and how to improve tomorrow. And with a pedometer all it is is
walking. Something that you have to do
on a daily basis, but once you measure it and are aware of it can be a more satisfying
activity.
You can also show your bosses how much work you actually do,
so your value is known. I am not saying
that you should have a minimum threshold as to what people you keep or not but
use it to level people up when it is time to give them a raise. In writing this it would be a much better
tool for self evaluation then to have your bosses own but still I think the
idea of gamifying work could be a powerful tool to help people like me who push
paper feel a bit more emotionally satisfied with their work by feeling like
they actually accomplish something and are not just revising the same reports.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Marvel Movie Rights
I am blogging about this because I have had a few people ask about it and I was kinda surprised by the fact that they were asking. Of course I shouldn't be surprised because what I assume is common knowledge is in fact intimately nerdy details that only a select few ever care to learn. And with that...
When the Avengers came out some people were asking about why Spider-man wasn't in it? Why is Wolverine not in?
Well there is technically two answers. One nerdy and one that is actual. The nerdy one is that the original Avengers were Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, Thor, Night Hawk, Ant-Man and Wasp. Though later in the New Avengers and other incarnations of the Avengers, Spiderman and Wolverine were in the Avengers line up. So if nothing else they could be referenced in the Avengers film along with some of the other properties
Now the actual reason they aren't in the Marvel films is due to licenses. Marvel doesn't have the licenses to make Spiderman or Wolverine movies or even mention their existence in their films. Sony and Fox own the rights! Here's why. In 1996 Marvel was broke. They filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. They started a new corporation and to raise money it looks like they started to sell there properties to big studios.
It all started with X-men, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Blade, and Prince Namor going to Fox in the late ninties. 1999 marked when Sony licensed Spiderman. In the early 2000s Artisan entertainment acquired the licenses to 15 marvel characters including the AAA names Captain America, Iron Man, The Avengers and Thor. Paramount also licensed in the mid 2000s a lot of the heavy weight names including the Avengers, Captain America, etc.
This is part of the reason why there is a distinct line in the sand in terms of quality of the movies relative to the source material is because of the way other studios handle the material. Studios like Fox, Universal and Columbia with input from Marvel did the movies. When you compare the movies done by other studios to the ones done by Marvel studios (their own film company) you notice that the homemade ones are better, truer and made with more of a love for the comics, then a director proving his salt.
To make the Avengers and all the films prior Marvel had to get the rights back from other studios. In the mid 2000s Marvel started to get the licenses back, with characters like Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor...basically the Avengers. They have slowly been getting the rights back and are investing heavily in developing the properties. We have already see the Avengers, and their origin films but you can expect to see Iron Man 3, Captain America 2, Thor 2, a Hulk film and TV and then some of their lesser known B series names like Ant Man, Dr. Strange, Black Panther, and Power Man/Luke Cage.
But they won' be getting all of their licenses back right away. Fox is making money on the X-men and will continue to develop properties like a sequel to First Class and Wolverine. For them to retain the rights to the Fantastic Four they have to make another film, which will likely be a reboot to the previous franchise. Same thing with SpiderMan unless Sony gets into real trouble and needs to earn some cash quick (their stocks are at record lows right now)
But here's the thing. I look forward to a day when Marvel has all the rights back to all their properties which may be ten to twenty years from now, and they are making films and team ups on a regular basis. The strength of the Marvel comic franchise hasn't been in the strength of the couple of characters but in the strengthen of the community of all these characters. Their relationships together and the challenges they face against and with eachother. I want to see the decimation, House of M, World War Hulk. And then I want it to get to a point where they make the Civil War. This is where Iron Man and Captain America are on polar opposite sides about a government bill and it draws a line in the middle of the Marvel universe. Heroes on either side fighting heroes. It would be epic, but it is something that would need to draw all the heroes together from all the film franchises into one movie.
For me that is the dream but until then we will have some exciting things coming out of Marvel Studios and some interesting films from the other studios that will really make you ask, "What if this film was made by Marvel? Made by the people that love the characters, know the characters and aren't afraid of the decades of source material that they can draw upon.
When the Avengers came out some people were asking about why Spider-man wasn't in it? Why is Wolverine not in?
Well there is technically two answers. One nerdy and one that is actual. The nerdy one is that the original Avengers were Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, Thor, Night Hawk, Ant-Man and Wasp. Though later in the New Avengers and other incarnations of the Avengers, Spiderman and Wolverine were in the Avengers line up. So if nothing else they could be referenced in the Avengers film along with some of the other properties
Now the actual reason they aren't in the Marvel films is due to licenses. Marvel doesn't have the licenses to make Spiderman or Wolverine movies or even mention their existence in their films. Sony and Fox own the rights! Here's why. In 1996 Marvel was broke. They filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. They started a new corporation and to raise money it looks like they started to sell there properties to big studios.
This is part of the reason why there is a distinct line in the sand in terms of quality of the movies relative to the source material is because of the way other studios handle the material. Studios like Fox, Universal and Columbia with input from Marvel did the movies. When you compare the movies done by other studios to the ones done by Marvel studios (their own film company) you notice that the homemade ones are better, truer and made with more of a love for the comics, then a director proving his salt.
To make the Avengers and all the films prior Marvel had to get the rights back from other studios. In the mid 2000s Marvel started to get the licenses back, with characters like Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor...basically the Avengers. They have slowly been getting the rights back and are investing heavily in developing the properties. We have already see the Avengers, and their origin films but you can expect to see Iron Man 3, Captain America 2, Thor 2, a Hulk film and TV and then some of their lesser known B series names like Ant Man, Dr. Strange, Black Panther, and Power Man/Luke Cage.
But they won' be getting all of their licenses back right away. Fox is making money on the X-men and will continue to develop properties like a sequel to First Class and Wolverine. For them to retain the rights to the Fantastic Four they have to make another film, which will likely be a reboot to the previous franchise. Same thing with SpiderMan unless Sony gets into real trouble and needs to earn some cash quick (their stocks are at record lows right now)
But here's the thing. I look forward to a day when Marvel has all the rights back to all their properties which may be ten to twenty years from now, and they are making films and team ups on a regular basis. The strength of the Marvel comic franchise hasn't been in the strength of the couple of characters but in the strengthen of the community of all these characters. Their relationships together and the challenges they face against and with eachother. I want to see the decimation, House of M, World War Hulk. And then I want it to get to a point where they make the Civil War. This is where Iron Man and Captain America are on polar opposite sides about a government bill and it draws a line in the middle of the Marvel universe. Heroes on either side fighting heroes. It would be epic, but it is something that would need to draw all the heroes together from all the film franchises into one movie.
For me that is the dream but until then we will have some exciting things coming out of Marvel Studios and some interesting films from the other studios that will really make you ask, "What if this film was made by Marvel? Made by the people that love the characters, know the characters and aren't afraid of the decades of source material that they can draw upon.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Blog II – The experience of the 2012 Expo
This blog is going to be my personal highlights from the
Calgary Entertainment expo, in no particular order.
First off, VIP is totally worth it. We bought VIP early in the year before any
big names were announced and I must say it is very much worth it and it
completely changes the experience.
Normally you spend a lot of time in line at the Con, and because of this
you really can’t do everything. When you
are a VIP though this is a lot less of an issue, the only time you miss things
is when schedules of photo-ops and panels start to conflict. Otherwise you really can see just about
everything and if you are interested in doing that, it is worth the money. On a personal note, even though I paid for it
and was within full rights to move to the front of the lines, I would still
apologize to people around me for cutting in.
I have been in the lines, I know how long the wait can be, but most of
that guilt gets scrubbed away when you get your autograph.
A lot of people will dress up for the con, but this year you
couldn’t see more than ten people or so without seeing someone in costume and
when you think about how many people were at the show… 52,000. That is a lot of
costumes and it was great to see. There
were a lot of creative ones, a lot that had a lot of hard work poured into
their creation and most significantly a lot of team costumes. X-men, all the power rangers, even a steam
punk version of the Justice League.
There were an astonishing amount of sensational costumes, see the pics
below for examples. If you haven’t heard
of the 501st, they are a group that accepts members that have Star
Wars costumes film grade or better.
These costumes are complicated too.
It can get so warm in the get ups that they have onboard fans, and
coolers and power packs to make them all work in keeping the person
comfortable. So many of the works were
really impressive
In the second day morning panel I realized that Max Brooks isso
awesome. First thing he did when he got
to the panel is counted out how many empty seats were at the head table of the
panel, and then counted out seven people standing along the walls and got them
to sit next to him at the panel. He was
very intelligent, very quick on his feet and really funny. If you haven’t read them yet, read World War
Z and the Zombie Survival Guide. They
are very well written and very serious books about the impending zombie apocalypse, and about the global scale of an outbreak.
The TNG panel was a lot of fun too. There is so much that I can say about this
but instead I will toss in some references from some of the participants. But I will go to say it is a very classy
show. They hired a big band to play
while everyone shuffled in, they put together a video with interviews from
other Star Trek cast members and guests at the Emerald City Convention to kick the event off. It was great seeing the cast, they were all
very touchy feely and I have to say that Wil Wheaton stole the show. He was prompted by a question his good friend
Aaron Douglas asked him and well you can see it all here…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvb8HEO6Koo
Copy and paste the link
Speaking of Aaron Douglas he came too for the second year in
a row. His booth was a bit empty but I
think he came to hang out with Wil and cause he enjoyed the Con last year, or
at least I hope he did. He was stuck
wearing a LA Kings Jersey cause he lost a bet about Vancouver taking the
Playoffs with Wil. Aaron is a great
guy. So funny, so approachable, just a
genuinely nice guy. During the photo op
with him Katee Sackoff and Richard Hatch he stopped everything to take a
picture of my T shirt at the time. This
shirt…
Stan Lee is someone you wish was your grandpa. He is somewhat stuck in the sixties in terms
of how it is he talks. He talked a lot
about the characters he created and about the thought that was put into it,which wasn’t about making a deeper meaning but done to make things more
interesting. He explained how the hulk
was made green because of the ink available at the time. They were originally thinking of a grey but
it printed different time and on issue one you can see this. Green printed good, and was a bit of a
different color so green was the color they decided to go with for the
Hulk. It was a lot of fun. This is what going to the cons is about,
seeing your pop culture icons as people.
Something that surprised me was a last minute addition to
the media guests. It looks like when at
another comic expo in Seattle, the Calgary Crew was able to convince the Phelps
twins to come to the Calgary con weeks later.
The Phelps’ are the two gingers that play the twin Weasley brothers in
the Harry Potter films. I never paid
them much mind at the con, but something I found I did mind was the very long
line of individuals looking for autographs.
The line of muggles clenching Harry Potter Hardcovers and Boxsets of the
movies snaked around half of the media area getting in the way of a pretty main
thorough fare. In truth these muggles
likely wouldn’t have come to the Calgary con otherwise, but hopefully after
waiting in that long line they spent some time enjoying the explosive nerdiness
all around.
One of the things that first brought me to the con
was my buddy Big Mike a few years back.
Him and his wife Heather are good friends and in general enjoy having a
couple to share their nerdy adventures with (Weird Al concert, the cons, Steve
Martin Blue Grass), and they too were out there with us in force this year
too. Now Mike has a rather large bro
crush on Wil Wheaton. Loves the work he
does in audio books and his books, his career on Star Trek, and even in the
Secret of Nym. Mike actually got three
photo ops with Wil, and I can’t say as I blame him, Wil has carved out a career
of being a nerd ambassador as it were, through promoting intelligent sci fi,
roles on Big Bang Theory and table top
board games. Two ops with the family,
and one with him all to himself. His
wife, who is an amazing knitter got an idea with Mike to knit a particularly
terrible sweater Wil used to wear on Star Trek, and that has since been
immortalized in the internet character Sparks McGhee
http://sparksmcgeeadventures.tumblr.com/ , for their lil
Elli. When we first happened upon the
two on Friday, Heather just started the sweater, when their op on Sunday came
around the miniature sweater was done…
I have to give a shout out to Adam Baldwin, he was a real
treat to have. He loves cigars, so when
I met him I made sure to give him a nice Cuban.
He talked to us about how he was looking forward to a good steak, which
considering his large stature is no surprise.
I missed some of his panel due to the lock out (will talk about next
time) but he is really an actor that is very physical, likes getting into the
roles and enjoys the fans. Very
friendly, very respectful and all around
happy to be there.
Part of the fun of the cons is listening to these successful
people, hearing about their lives which are very different to the most of folk,
and hearing about the things that have made them successful. In a lot of instances the role that made them
successful isn’t little more than a job they took, which is unfortunate to say,
but at the very least they took this role and made the best of it and made
something amazing. The thing that I love
to see, is the ones that love the work, love the roles and in a very real way
become the characters themselves. The
ones that love their jobs as much as we love them in the roles, those people
are what really make going to the con worth every damn penny. It may seem absurd to some, paying for
autographs, and pictures but that’s what brings them out and in truth they
appreciate the support just as much as we appreciate seeing them.
Now I can really go on and on, and on… and on about the
Con. But I realize I have hit page three
on this one so I must stop. But my point
is that at the comic con there is so much to see, do and experience that
writing a blog in this fashion to share the complete experience I had is far
too extensive to do. I do hope this
highlight reel and the very small amount of pictures(You could spend the whole
day taking photos and not get everything!!!!) have helped you too enjoy my
experience at the con.
Next up the upsides and downsides of this year’s con.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Blog I - Why the Calgary Entertainment Expo is Worth Going to
Like last year I figured it would be a great idea to write a debrief about what was experienced at the Calgary Entertainment Expo for 2012. I have decided to do it again this year but in three distinct parts with a lot more pictures in it.
Blog I - Why Calgary Entertainment Expo is worth going to
Blog II – The experience of the 2012 Expo
Blog III – The Good and the Bad
In all honesty, this is a blog I should of wrote and published before the con itself but I didn’t so lets call it a retrospective, in past tense. So the first question is why should you care about the Calgary Entertainment Expo? Isn’t it a collection of a bunch on DnD nerds and social outcasts? Well yes, but it is this and a lot more. As much as people will refer to it as a Comic Con, as I so often do, it isn’t just about comics. The expo brings in mainstream movie actors from sci-fi, horror, and fantasy genres. Artists from across North America that do print comics, web comics and art for the sake of art. This also includes jewelers, armorers, body artist and costumers. There are booths for War Hammer, Magic, Dnd and even just regular board games like Settlers, and Ticket to Ride. And then yeah there is a lot of comic stands, artists and even some writers that make it out This expo is the largest that Calgary has ever seen of its nature. There is a good reason for that. Our amazing organizers, who are all volunteers, managed to bring out some pretty big names.
First, a whole plethora of media guests…
• Adam West of the original Batman series
• Robert Englund of Nightmare on Elm Street
• Adam Baldwin of Serenity, Chuck and many block busters
• Amanda Tapping of Stargate and Sanctuary
• Katee Sackoff, Aaron Douglas, and Richard Hatch of BSG
• James Marsters of Buffy
• Prominent voice actors
Then, more significantly Stan Lee. Even if you don’t think this one is significant, it is. Being the creator of Marvel Comics and a lot of its most significant characters, Stan Lee’s studio in the form of comics, movies, and television shows has blasted the mainstream nowadays. To add a cherry on top, the Avengers movie is released the week after the con. The reason you should see Stan Lee apart from his work is because he is 90 years old. He is getting up there and there may be less and less of an opportunity to ever see him again, and from what I have seen of him in documentaries and interviews he seems like a really cool guy.
Most significantly is the 9 principle members of the Star Trek The Next Generation cast. This is the first time this has happened ever… Since Wil Wheaton left the show. It is the 25th anniversary of the show itself making this the perfect staging for such an immense event. Even though I am not a fan of TNG this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Through their work they made significant contributions to making the science fiction genre more accessible. And the cast has some amazing talent. Patrick Stewart, the captain is a knighted Shakespearian theatre actor. Wil Wheaton is a nerd messiah who leads people to great science fiction and has helped make things that are nerdy more accessible to everyone. For the event they have a hefty priced photo op available as well as a special evening panel.
This year the expo had the largest footprint of any year. First year I went they occupied BMO Centre Halls D and E and the Palomino for panels. In 2011 the expo grew and took over the main area, BMO Centre Halls A,B and C, and the Corral and the Boyce theatre because last year they had Shatner. This year with all the guests, they had all of the above. The Corral, the Palomino and all five halls of the BMO centre.
This year the organizers have also taken strides to make nerdem more accessible year-round by once every month screening a piece of pop culture nostalgia at the Plaza theatre. Movies like...
• The original Batman film (1960s)
• Serenity
• Star Trek First Contact
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Once More with Feeling episode and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog
• A Nightmare on Elm Street
These events help bring the crowds by raising awareness and the staff make talking about the even that much easier by offering Q &A periods. To chat them up a bit more, after the last con, they would ask on their site, who people wanted to see? What could be improved? Having them start the conversation like goes to show how much they want to make an event that is for us the audience. Emily Expo’s facebook made asking questions about the event in advance an easy and personable experience. We talked and they listened. I noticed this blog is getting a bit long so I will close. VIP. This year Nicole talked me into getting VIP tickets back in December before any big names were even announced. The con experience for VIP is a drastically different one, and one I am very excited to try. All of this promises to make a Great Con for the Calgary entertainment expo.
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Blog I - Why Calgary Entertainment Expo is worth going to
Blog II – The experience of the 2012 Expo
Blog III – The Good and the Bad
In all honesty, this is a blog I should of wrote and published before the con itself but I didn’t so lets call it a retrospective, in past tense. So the first question is why should you care about the Calgary Entertainment Expo? Isn’t it a collection of a bunch on DnD nerds and social outcasts? Well yes, but it is this and a lot more. As much as people will refer to it as a Comic Con, as I so often do, it isn’t just about comics. The expo brings in mainstream movie actors from sci-fi, horror, and fantasy genres. Artists from across North America that do print comics, web comics and art for the sake of art. This also includes jewelers, armorers, body artist and costumers. There are booths for War Hammer, Magic, Dnd and even just regular board games like Settlers, and Ticket to Ride. And then yeah there is a lot of comic stands, artists and even some writers that make it out This expo is the largest that Calgary has ever seen of its nature. There is a good reason for that. Our amazing organizers, who are all volunteers, managed to bring out some pretty big names.
First, a whole plethora of media guests…
• Adam West of the original Batman series
• Robert Englund of Nightmare on Elm Street
• Adam Baldwin of Serenity, Chuck and many block busters
• Amanda Tapping of Stargate and Sanctuary
• Katee Sackoff, Aaron Douglas, and Richard Hatch of BSG
• James Marsters of Buffy
• Prominent voice actors
Then, more significantly Stan Lee. Even if you don’t think this one is significant, it is. Being the creator of Marvel Comics and a lot of its most significant characters, Stan Lee’s studio in the form of comics, movies, and television shows has blasted the mainstream nowadays. To add a cherry on top, the Avengers movie is released the week after the con. The reason you should see Stan Lee apart from his work is because he is 90 years old. He is getting up there and there may be less and less of an opportunity to ever see him again, and from what I have seen of him in documentaries and interviews he seems like a really cool guy.
Most significantly is the 9 principle members of the Star Trek The Next Generation cast. This is the first time this has happened ever… Since Wil Wheaton left the show. It is the 25th anniversary of the show itself making this the perfect staging for such an immense event. Even though I am not a fan of TNG this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Through their work they made significant contributions to making the science fiction genre more accessible. And the cast has some amazing talent. Patrick Stewart, the captain is a knighted Shakespearian theatre actor. Wil Wheaton is a nerd messiah who leads people to great science fiction and has helped make things that are nerdy more accessible to everyone. For the event they have a hefty priced photo op available as well as a special evening panel.
This year the expo had the largest footprint of any year. First year I went they occupied BMO Centre Halls D and E and the Palomino for panels. In 2011 the expo grew and took over the main area, BMO Centre Halls A,B and C, and the Corral and the Boyce theatre because last year they had Shatner. This year with all the guests, they had all of the above. The Corral, the Palomino and all five halls of the BMO centre.
This year the organizers have also taken strides to make nerdem more accessible year-round by once every month screening a piece of pop culture nostalgia at the Plaza theatre. Movies like...
• The original Batman film (1960s)
• Serenity
• Star Trek First Contact
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Once More with Feeling episode and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog
• A Nightmare on Elm Street
These events help bring the crowds by raising awareness and the staff make talking about the even that much easier by offering Q &A periods. To chat them up a bit more, after the last con, they would ask on their site, who people wanted to see? What could be improved? Having them start the conversation like goes to show how much they want to make an event that is for us the audience. Emily Expo’s facebook made asking questions about the event in advance an easy and personable experience. We talked and they listened. I noticed this blog is getting a bit long so I will close. VIP. This year Nicole talked me into getting VIP tickets back in December before any big names were even announced. The con experience for VIP is a drastically different one, and one I am very excited to try. All of this promises to make a Great Con for the Calgary entertainment expo.
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