Monty's New Collar

Best collar ever...and Monty has one. What else is there to say really?

Super Megafest 2009: New England's Largest Multimedia Fanfest

Yesterday, I finally had the opportunity to attend Boston Super Megafest. I've been trying to go for the past couple of years, but something always seems to come up and I haven't gone. This year's celebrity guests weren't all that great; unlike previous years when they had Adam West, Burt Ward, William Katt (The Greatest American Hero), Jeremy Bulloch (original Boba Fett), and Lou Ferrigno (TVs Hulk)...this year, the big guests were Ray Park (which was pretty good), Spike from Buffy, and Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek). David Prowse (the man in the original trilogy Vader suit) was supposed to be there , but he cancelled at the last minute. So, there were no celebrities I had to meet, but it was fun to see the crowds react to them. But first, I had to wait in the ticket line.

Ray Park and the guy from Buffy had huge lines. Data from Star Trek had 4 people in his line...probably because he was an ass to his fans. I overheard him in a hallway conversation tell some young guy carrying a Data action figure that it would take 12 seconds to take a photo with him and that was 11 more than he had. Ouch. Data. You played an android with no emotion on TV...apparently it wasn't a far stretch. I would have snapped my Data figure's head off and handed him the body and told him to suck it. But that's just me. I almost said something, but I didn't want to be on the news as the guy that got kicked out of Super Megafest for berating Data. Here's Data looking angry...maybe someone asked him a question.

Lindsay Wagner and Richard Anderson were there from the original Bionic Woman show...in hindsight, that would have made a good photo op. And sure it would have been amusing to take a picture with all the Playboy models, but whatever. Strangely none of them, or the two Baywatch girls that were there (one of which was signing her Playboy pics...awkward), are airbrushed in real life.

So instead, I wandered and looked at merchandise (which may or may not have included Batman the original TV series on DVD (how do they get away with selling that at a public venue))? There were action figures and autographed photos as well...I questioned the validity of the autographs until I was overheard by the vendor and came over to politely explain how he got his photos autographed.

Out of everyone, I chose to get my picture taken with the celebrity in attendance that I cared the most about which was the Batmobile from the 1960s Batman series, which was one of the original cars used on the set (the door was broken so I had to be careful climbing into the driver's seat). I walked away with that...an autographed photo of William Katt from the previous year (thanks Ethan), and a print from a new artist, Tracy Lee Quinn. It was a good show...can't wait to go back next year. Maybe I'll get lucky and the guests will be better. I'll be sure to let you know.

Nobody Should Pay Full Price

There are so many discounts, deals, coupons, and promotional codes on the Internet today, it leaves me feeling bad for those people that are still paying full price for anything. Yesterday, myself and a handful of friends purchased a new release, bluray version, of the movie "UP" with a $10 off manufacturer's coupon from Disney that really anyone could have used if they had known about it. A movie priced $19.99 in the store for only $9.99 plus tax, making this purchase cheaper than the standard definition version of the movie and it INCLUDED the standard def version. If you wanted the movie Monsters Inc at the same time, you could have saved an additional $10 off of both movies with a Target "in-store" coupon. Where did I find out about this? One of my friends turned me on to SlickDeals.Net, one of many websites that goes out and finds money saving deals for you and reports them.

With the holidays coming up, and with the economy not being the best of times, I wanted to share a few of the sites I know about with you and encourage all of you to use sites like SlickDeals.Net, DealNews.Com, DealCatcher.Com, and Dealio.Com to save yourselves some money whether you're buying online, or shopping in stores...there's something here for everyone. Enjoy!

The Blogs of Strangers, Part 1

I've been told that November is National Blog Posting Month and I've already failed at posting something every day, but I've decided; since I'm awake every night now at around 2am, and because there are only so many websites I regularly visit, that tonight I'm going to try out Blogger's NEXT BLOG feature. "Next Blog" selects a random blog from Blogger and displays it for you, which I'll then tell you about if I find them fun or interesting in any way.

The first handful I came across were dedicated to people's children and families. It's easy material...I get that. I definitely have some of that to include here, but I want to make sure I keep enough other material for the non-baby people that might be interested in reading my site. As I click through multiple random blogs, I'm finding that out of 20-30 clicks, about 95% of them are family related blogs, which changes my experiment a little. Let's see what the first non-family or non-baby blog turns out to be.

Click, click, click, click...ah, here's one. Jessica Horowitz Photography blog. Nice pictures...good advertising for Jessica, but nothing fun to read. And then apparently I'm stuck in a "photography" section of Blogger so I'll check out the "Blogs of Note".

The first "Blog of Note" was actually the first unique blog I've come across and that was Anthony's blog, "The Fenetic Pen Project". This guy draws everything he sees...interesting hobby. Makes me want to learn how to draw better. And then I've moved into the artists section of Blogger. I get it Blogger...this isn't really random.

If you haven't noticed, I'm writing this live and it's not exactly working out the way I hoped. I was thinking the Internet was filled with thousands of unique blogs on a variety of topics...even some individuals and their random thoughts, but that's not the case. SO...I've labeled this post "Part 1" but really, I have hundreds of other things to write about, so this will likely be "Part ONLY" of The Blogs of Strangers. Of course, instead of reading random blogs, if any of my friends out there have something fun to read online, I'd rather be reading that in the middle of the night than the ramblings of strangers, so post or send me your links! If not, I'm sure I'll be prowling the Internet evenings and I'm sure to report anything interesting I might find.

And now it's time to sleep.

Up in the Middle of the Night

I find myself awake at 3am a lot these days. Having a four and a half month old will do that to you, but considering that he is sleeping right now and I'm still up, it's not all him. You see...he woke up at 230am, I fed him, Katharine changed him, and they all went back to sleep with the dog in tow. And now it's 317am and I'm typing typing typing...drinking a big old bottle of cold water. Blog updates, Facebook, email. I remember when I was young--er, I used to stay up until wee hours of the morning. I'd be at Dunkin Donuts at closing...taking home all the Donuts that they were throwing away, home watching TV in bed until 2am until I fell asleep to the glow of some situation comedy or a rerun of Saturday Night Live. I'd wake up to an infomercial, roll over and leave the TV on for the rest of the night (which somehow doesn't make for a restful night's sleep). That behavior remained through my 20s...ish. Then there was that whole period when I graduated to my 30s where I would stay out until 2am on Wednesday - Saturday night at bars, clubs, and whatever...sleeping most of Sunday away. Of course that got expensive, but whatever...at the time, for those couple of years, I had little responsibility. I slept in a recliner in front of the TV a lot then too...from 3am to time for work. That was until I met Katharine and we got married...then I graduated to late night movies, videogames, and this wonderful Internet that keeps me in touch with all of you great people...that didn't have anything to do with Katharine specifically, but I wanted to place this in timeline perspective. And then Nathan was born and here I am...at 326am finishing a statement on being up in the middle of the night...finishing up that bottle of water...yawning a bit...and shutting off the computer for a few more hours of rest. Thanks for joining me...I see some of you are awake too. What are you doing up so late?