Meeting Frodo Baggins

OK yes it's Elija Wood, I think the role of Frodo will forever haunt or be linked with him.

He was very cool. Turns out Elijah is a big Jimi Hendrix & Nirvana fan. Because before we did the interview we had an interview with Charles Cross who wrote "Room Full of Mirrors : A Biography of Jimi Hendrix" & after it was over Elijah wanted to meet him & they talked for a good 20 - 30 minutes.

Then we did the interview with him for his new movie "Everything Is Illuminated," what it's like to film the movie in Prauge ("There's lot of beer there," said Elijah) & of course stuff about Lord of the Rings.

After the interview was over I grabbed my copy of "The Fellowship of the Ring" extended version & walked over. Before I got to him he said, "Ohhp, I see a DVD. I have to sign it." He asked my name & signed it, "Tracy, All The Best Elijah Wood." Just before we got the picture someone handed him a slip of paper saying, "Here's that info on Nirvana you wanted." And he replied with an enthusiastic, "Oh cool! Thanks!" I thanked him for the autograph & the photo, shook hands, he said, "No problem."

Then he was on his way, seems I was the last to get an autograph, but then again most people caught him before the interview.

P.S. Everyone I talk to about him seems to want to know his heighth. Well I'm 5'11" & he seems about an inch shorter, so there you go.

PAX '05 aka Gamer Geek Heaven

Well I survived the weekend of August 26-28.

A week prior to PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) my car died, this ment that I would be bussing to & from the expo. Not my idea of fun. Luckily I was able to find someone who lived in Bellevue to let me crash at their place for the whole expo. Which ment 2 bus rides, much better.

Packed up 3 days of clothes, my medicine, shower stuff, charged up my Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra & PSP and I was off. Bus ride wasn't too bad, the Sound Transit busses are a lot nicer than the Metro Transit busses.

I got there about 2 hours before it opened. The line outside for attendees was pretty decent in size. Checked in & got my sweet "Enforcer" shirt & black "Staff" badge, & rode the escalator up to the 4th floor. At the top of the escalator they had the Bawls booth, great placement since everyone has to pass by it to get to any of the tournement areas. Wandering down the walkway I passed a DDR machine, the BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) room, the computer LAN tourney room onto the Table-Top rooms where I would be working most of the weekend.

I got meet a lot of cool people, Rae, Paul, Christian, & many more who's names I can't recall right now. It was great to see thousands of people just enjoying gaming in all it's aspects, table-top, computer, console, etc.

The first game I played was the new 3rd edtion rules Dungeons & Dragons. I haven't played D&D since 1st edtion rules, in fact 2nd editon was out the last time I played. While it's changed slightly it's still basicly the same game. We fought a small horde of Orcs & won. Horray! And there was much rejoicing. :) Shortly there after I played Super Munchkin. It's a card game from Steve Jackson Games. Very fun to play. Basicly the Munchkin series of games is way of playing various genres of role-playing games quickly with a lot of fun & a bit of humor.

Interstingly enough the whole time I was there I never wandered into the computer or console free play areas, and that was part of the reason I went. Goes to show the power of all things gaming I guess.

Friday was kinda short, but fun none the less. Saturday was the first day though of the dealers/sponsers room, where a good bunch of game manufactures & whatnot set up. Nintendo & Sony both had booths, but Microsoft surprisingly really didn't. Kinda weird for having a gaming expo in your own back yard. The only thing Microsoft had set up was a booth for their playtesting department to sign people up. I did check in with them & talked with Kristin. She asked if I wanted to sign up, I told her that I had already quite awhile ago. She asked when was the last time I was in, I told her over a year ago. She then set me up to come in on Monday after PAX was over. (Shhhh don't tell anyone but I got to playtest Project Gotham Racing 3 on the Xbox 360....very cool, making me think about getting one sooner now.)

Nintendo brought out the big guns they had a playable version of "Legend of Zelda; The Twilight Princess" and had brought the most game stations to play all of their new games for all of their systems. Sony, while they had a booth it was kinda sparse. They had three game demos up, Ratchet Deadlocked, Sly 3, & Jak X. Which they were giving out demos for also.

Other booths included the Army with their new "America's Army Special Forces" game, NCsoft with most of their MMORPG's (City of Hero's, Guild Wars, etc), Brady Games gave away a ton of books, Sierra had "Fear" & "The Incredible Hulk" playable demos up & were giving away demos, Nvidia in special drawings gave away their top of the line video cards (retail around $500), Sabertooth Games showed their new card games, one based on Penny Arcade & one based on Warhamer 40,000, Turbine Software had a demo of Dungeons & Dragons Online and were giving away Beta Test keys for it and so many more. The guys from "Red vs. Blue" had a booth, Gameskins sold t-shirts & there was a Pocky booth selling mutiple flavors of Pocky & lots of anime related stuff like figures, soundtracks, etc.

I missed the Omeganaughts competitons, but they had the grand prize on display. Every NES game & accessory ever made & an Alienware Star Wars edition computer. SWEEEEEET.

I missed the concerts they had because of my shift, but I heard that MC Frontalot, MC Chris & The Mini-Bosses all kicked ass.

In the end it was one of the greatest weekend I've had in a while & will gladly volunteer again for it.

Don't Get On Snoop Dogg's Stage.

This is a bit of a long one.

So I decided to work the concert season at White River Amphitheater on the weekends for fun & for a couple extra bucks. The first show of the season is Snoop Dogg.

Now this started out a little weird, I was late getting to the load in. Then while we are putting together a lighting truss I smell something.......something familiar.......something from my past.......I'm suddenly hungry & I don't know why. I look around & yup the roadies are smoking a joint. Now while I know roadies tend to smoke drink etc. they usually don't during work. Towards the end of setting up the stage a couple of the roadies mention that we're the best crew they've had yet. Seems we are about an hour & half ahead of schedule.

After set-up most of us are cut until tear down & load out. Since it's way early in the afternoon I go home, get something to eat & basically chill till load out.

I arrive early for load out & notice the parking lot is barely half full. Methinks Snoop is not big in the Seattle area. I make my way around to the backstage entrance, check through with the guard, then walk up to the backstage area & check in with ERM (the company I'm working for). I look out through a door to the audience & it's a small crowd, most are in the pit area.

I find out that Snoop is not there yet & that nobody is on stage right now. The Game had already played & nobody's been on stage for about 10-15 minutes. Roughly 30 minutes later Snoop's tour bus shows up. How do I know it's Snoop's? It the only bus with spinners on the wheels. Another 45 minutes pass. I find out that White River has a curfew in place that all shows need to be over at 11:00pm, every minute over is a $1000 fine to the performer. Evidently Snoop has been doing this at his last few shows, showing up late playing his full set & just paying the fines.

Snoop takes the stage finally at 10:30pm. We are told we are on "Snoop Time" & that he is playing his full set & possibly longer. Also we are not allowed to "walk through" and go watch the show in the audience area.

About an hour into the show is when all hell breaks loose.

(The following is culled from the stories of five people I talked to who were able to see the show. One of our guys that snuck up to see the show, 2 of our guys that were working spotlights, & from 2 of the roadies.)

Some guy decides he's going to get on stage & hang with Snoop. Now this guy is not small, were talking defensive lineman big. He somehow managed to get past not only house security, but Snoop's own security. As soon as the guy made it to the stage he was grabbed up by 3 guys. Snoop comes over & busts his glass of Hennessey (he had a few bottles on stage) over the guy's head. Then 20 guys (Snoop's security/crew) came out of nowhere & gave this guy the beating of his life. House security & medics eventually brought the guy back stage. Dude was bloody all over & for some reason his pants were ripped to shreds. He was able to walk by himself. They got an ambulance back there & took him away.

We were told that we are not to go anywhere, stay right in out little waiting area. That things were very tense in the main backstage area (understatement) & that the cops had to go over the "crime scene" & that they had to get a haz-mat team in to clean up all the blood. If we need to go to the bath room we were use the buddy system & let one of our supervisors know we were going. When we were finally able to go in & start tear down were all given rubber latex gloves for our protection.

When I finally got on the stage......Wow. They had cleaned up the blood, but it does leave that tell-tale stain. It was about a 6-8 foot around stain & when we moved some equipment we found more. Unfortunately it was also right were some of the cables I was gathering up went right through, so they had to get the haz-mat clean-up team back in there.

The lighting roadie I was working with stated he's never work a rap tour ever again. This poor guy was right there for the whole thing. He had gotten splattered with the blood, had to be questioned by the cops & then scrubbed down by the haz-mat/medic team.

At the end of the night when we signed out there was no free swag, but someone did find a box of CD singles that they were giving out at the show. It was of a new rapper Snoop discovered called "Oowee." One of the crew told me earlier that the crew had nicknamed him Mini-Me because he would dress like Snoop & do all of Snoop's move right along with Snoop, but was shorter than Snoop.

So that was my fun last night.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

Damn, been a while since I posted.

Well I'm slowly getting used to my shift at work. I'm on the 3am - 11am shift. During my unemployed/freelance/part-time year+ I had gotten used to the wake up/got to sleep when I want routine. Now I got to bed when it's still light out & wake up when it's dark out. When I first started the shift I had a large coffee/energy drink intake, but now that is subsiding. I'm down to one of each & I try to drink nothing with caffine after work. I'm still loving the job & still ask myself often why I hadn't gone in this direction originally after school. It's fun, keeps me on my toes & is different every day. Though I'm becoming more & more of a news junkie everyday with it. Ah well.

Starting to kind of exercise now. I've known I've been out of shape for a while now & have been really wanting to do something about it for the last couple of years. Sot the other day I went for a long walk from my house, on 91st ave, to 85th ave & back. That may not sound like much but it is a bit of a distance. I figured I would slowly build myself up to a point where I'm finally using those pieces of exercise equipment I have.

Well I turned 38 on the 24th....or is it 24 on the 38th? (is the mind that goes first?.......what was I talking about?). I got a gift certificate, a CD & a video game from my roommates. Got a card & $10 from my Grandma, I haven't gotten together with the rest of my family yet, hopefully soon. As much as I tell myself I need to spend more time with family I seem to spend less. Is it just me or the nature of this fast paced world?

Well I think I've blabbed enough of my slightly boring life. Maybe I'll be more exciting next time. ;-)

Back to Life, SWEET!!!!!!

OK so I think it's time to stop whineing about my life & living again. Especially since the root of all my problems is gone.

I'M FULL-TIME EMPLOYED!!!!!!!!

It's strange what will make you feel better. The last couple months I went through what I can best describe as a mini-depression. But with the full-time job again I feel like a weight has been lifted & I can face life & it's challenges again.

Now that life is good again I can start talking about other things again, but I'll start doing that later. Right now I got Katrina & the Waves blasting in my head with this news.

Now I'm walking on sunshine, whoa oh
Now I'm walking on sunshine, whoa oh
Now I'm walking on sunshine, whoa oh
And don't it feel good, hey, all right now
And don't it feel good

A Quiet Canceled Christmas

Tis the season. Well I just found out Christmas is canceled this year. Well for my family it is. In some ways I'm glad, with my job & freelance situation as it is I really can't afford it anyways.

I was sorta looking forward to at least spending it with my mom, my sisters, their S.O.'s & my nieces & nephew, but that's not going to happen this year. Seems the water pump isn't working at my mom's place, so she has no running water. So that means neither of my sisters want to bring their kids out there, which is understandable. Because my middle sister is married & my littlest sister might as well be, they have in-laws to spend the holidays with. Usually what happens is my mom will rotate with them a "Christmas day," which means some years we have Christmas on Christmas eve, Christmas day, or the day after Christmas. This year my mom decided since the girls won't bring the kids out she'll just cancel it or postpone it till later.

On top of this I'm finding that my mom's financial situation isn't that much better than mine. She's putting herself through school & living off her widow's pension, which sounds like she just barely getting by like me. Evidently she already owes money to the guy that can fix the water pump, so she has to repay him first & then to get it fixed she'll need to pay him up front probably. At this point I really wish I was working full-time just so I could help her with the cost of it. Sounds like life is tough all around this year.

Not that I would be able to make it up to her place Christmas day, I'll be working. I figured as much anyways, since I am the new guy at NWCN & it's Saturday which is my regular day anywho. The nice thing is I'll get holiday pay. If I get a "cash" Christmas bonus it will probably go first to presents for my nieces & nephew & then whatever is left will go to bills (I actually sorta shopped early this year & have gotten my mom & nephew's gifts already). My sisters & I have a standing agreement not to get gifts for each other, we'd rather take care of Christmas for the kids.

So this year I have a couple Christmas wishes. Money for my mom to get the water pump fixed so the family can get together. Money to help put my finances at least in a situation so I'm not in a borrowing circle with my roommate. Snow, even though I live in Seattle, I like to see snow on the ground for Christmas day. An iPod, the biggest version they got, hell might as well throw in another wish that won't come true anytime soon. ;-)

So Christmas this year will probably be a quiet humbling experience for me this year. Unless I win the lotto, but then again I need to play the lotto. I'll go to work, call my grandma at some point...well probably call my mom & sisters too. If I'm lucky I'll a beer & a nice diner & call it a night. Might even watch some Christmas special movies.

Ah well, life goes on.

Can't Sleep Clowns Will Eat Me.

OK I'm not sure what's going on, but for the last few nights I've been waking up around 3:00 - 4:00 am for no particular reason that I can fathom. I woke at 4:12am. I folded some laundry & tried to figure out what's wrong with my laptop. Which brings me here. I can't sleep so I'm posting.

I've been doing this blog thing for a little while & I don't know if droning on about my personal problems to the world at large is a good thing. I would think that it would get rather boring hearing me complain about my life. The reason I say this is because that's all I seem to think about posting about in my blog lately. My problems, the "why me's," things I can't understand about other people's thinking compared to mine, etc. I mean is this what I'm supposed to be using a blog for? My own personal self-psychological evaluation space for all to see? I could be posting things about music, politics, movies, video games or whatever, but when I think about posting something it always seems to be me wanting to say something that I wouldn't say in real life to anyone for the most part.

Is this sane or am I starting down a weird road of insanity?

*sigh*

Let the personal introspection begin.

In my previous post I said I feel "disconnected" & I still do. I still feel that part of it comes from not much work & barely making enough to get by. But now I'm worried that it might be some form of depression. Happiness seems to come in small spurts here & there & in most cases video games (the joy of finishing Halo 1 the other night for the first time), watching TV shows (Whose Line Is It Anyway?, The Daily Show, Various Poker Shows), or getting together with friends. The rest of the time I'm just in this disconnected blah mood where I wonder about my future, how will I pay my bills, when will I get a full time job, will I ever find the right woman, what am I going to have for lunch, etc.

Now after writing these down I look at them & say anyone reading this is going to say those are normal worries everyone has them, suck it up & drive on. The thing is I really never worried about this stuff that much in the past. It's like these have come to the forefront & decided to park themselves in a never ending loop of thought. I can get my mind off of them for a while, but they come back when I'm not doing anything. Maybe this is why I can't sleep, these thought hit me the most before I go to sleep.

Couple that with a mood of not wanting to burden other with my problems. I used to hang out on Xbox live most night with some on-line friends, but I haven't done that in quite a while now because I don't want to bring them down with my problems. And while I know they are a good close group of friends of mine I just feel I would bring them down & that it would be unfair of me to do that. Especially since part of the joy I got from them was playing a game on-line with them that I can't play now because I can't pay the monthly fee.

Then there are perceived worries. One of my roommates is loosing her job (the company she works for is scaling down operations in Seattle). She's under stress now to find a new job. She is also the most financially sound person in the house. She takes good care of her credit & bills. But in the last couple months I have gotten into a viscous borrowing cycle with her. Roughly $200 of borrowing cycle. It started because I was $200 shy of rent, she covered it for me & I paid her back the next payday. But then the next payday I was $200 shy for bills, so she covered that for me, & so you now see the cycle I've put myself in. I hate it. Now that she's loosing her job she's stressed about this cycle also. She's scarred, I'm scarred. And with that she's stated that I also should be looking for a full time job.

A full time job is what I want, but I want it at the place I'm working at right now. I love my job there. I work at a 24hr TV news station in Seattle. I love it. It's one of those situations where after I started working there I wonder why I never applied there before. The job brings a great joy & sense of accomplishment to me. There are great people to work with & I feel like I actually do something every day I'm working there. But there is nothing full time open right now. Now I understand that they have a kind of a high turnover rate for people there, but when I asked about it, it seems normal for the TV industry. So there is the hope that someone will just quit & move on or move up. Now I've heard that the new News Director wants to add a 4:00am news update show. This gives me a bit of hope because from the way I look at the shift schedule they almost would have to add a new shift to work it in.

When she said I should look for a full time job I felt like I'd been kicked in the gut. I felt like here she was telling me to quit the job I enjoy & find something else. And I know part of her saying I should find a full time job is she's worried about when she is finally let go from her job, how long will she be with out work. Especially after watching me flail around looking for the better part of 7-8 months. Add to that the fact she works in a different field than I. She's looking into something in IT & in Seattle you can throw a rock & hit an IT person.

I'm sort of looking around, but I don't want to loose what I have. I love this job.

Maybe this is the root of my sleeplessness? Job & money worries, it's nothing new, it just has seemed to hit me harder lately.....And this is not the time of the season I want it to hit me either.

And if this disconnection I feel is depression, that's just another worry. Since I can't pay for doctor to even tell me that. Bad enough I'm suppose to be taking medication for high blood pressure & an inactive thyroid, but can't afford that either.

*sigh*

If anyone has read this far sorry for boring you with my burdens & problems. I guess I just had to get it out. I feel a little better, but not by much.

A Strange Disconnected World

Ever feel like you're disconected from the world?

That's the way I've been feeling lately. Ever since graduating high school I have been engaged in something that keeps me busy. First it was the Army, then I went to collage, & then straight out of collage into a job. When I was let go last year I though, no biggy, I'll finally take some time off of sorts & just relax, since I rarely took vactions or time off. Then a few months into unemployment I realized that jobs are hard to find & got a little worried. I ended up going to the last check from unemployment before I finally found a job.

Now I love this job. I work Northwest Cable News, sort of a CNN for the northwest. But it's part-time, so I work the weekends & the rest of the week I'm off. Now during the summer it wasn't bad because I freelance with another company (that does concert setups) so I keep busy & had enough money coming in. Now with winter coming the concert season is over & I have less & less work, & less & less money.

So during the week I have nothing to do. I'd take up a hobby of some sort, but that would require some money to invest & I don't have any, gotta keep a roof over my head & bills paid.

So I feel disconnected. Just don't know what to do with myself. There is only so much video gaming & TV watching a person can do. And this feeling seems to be even hightened since the election.

I don't know, hopefully it will pass. With the holidays coming up I'll probably work a bit more with people going on vaction & I expect that since I'm the new guy I'll probably work the holidays themselves.

*sigh*

Life rolls on & so will I.

Blah, Blah, Vote Blah, Blah, Blah

Finally, it's all winding down. The lies, mudslinging, & name smearing will end. And besides the World Series ending (Yay Red Sox), the election season is also coming to a close, and not a moment too soon. I think I've heard enough BS from both sides for a while. It's getting to a point I don't know who to believe. Hell these last few weeks I've been tuning them all out. I'd much rather a test pattern.

Since I've voted by mail I'm done, all I can do now is sit back & hang on for the ride. I think the real fun will be finding out which state will be the "controversal" state this year. Rumors are it's going to be Hawaii this year, since they are the last to report their results (plus all those lawyers & people that will have to recount the votes can then take in the sights & vaction afterwards). Oh and when I say hang on for the ride I mean it, the cable channel I work for is going to do coverage untill it's completely over. My shift is going to be 8pm - 4am........ugh. I think I'll start drinking coffee now.

Which ever way it goes it's also sounding like it wil be a record turnout of voters this year also. Kinda sad that the reason is that last time was so controversal (and stolen depending on how you look at it).

Which ever you political compass pulls you, get out & vote (for Kerry), vote early...and vote often.

;-)

The views in Lord Moon's blog do not reflect the views of Lord Moon.

Hello

Hello blog world. I shall be the next in the huge sea of blogs. Will anyone notice?