Its gravy time with Rich.

Its moving day for Rich and some friends are helping him out. Its lunch time with some KFC. Before work begins a new, Gravy Time is called where Rich finishes of the gravy we had.

Time well spent.

With me on twitter, I have not been updating this blog that much.

Here are some things that has happened in the last few months.

Emerald City ComicCon 2011
Here are some pictures from the convention and some videos of the panels I went to.
I meet up with Kirsten (@pkmn_trainer) and got to hang out with her.
I helped out Echo Chernik with her set up of her Artist Alley table.

SakuraCon 2011
Here are some pictures from the convention and some videos of the panels I went to.
Carpooled with my friend Rich who had a table in the Artest Alley area.

Epic Game Day 2
Here are some pictures from the Epic Game Day.

The last item of note is that all pieces are in place for San Diego Comic-Con International for me and my nephew. Convention tickets purchased. Flight booked. Hotel reserved. Now all I need to do is wait.

Pen and Paper Games Get-Together

This last Saturday at 2pm was the Pen and Paper Games 3rd Anniversary Get-Together at Games & Gizmos in Redmond. I got there about 2 and a D&D 4th Ed Forgotten Realms game was about to begin.It was a 1st level test game for WotC. Characters were provided, but some people had some 1st level character made up. One character of note was a Drow Assassin called "The Darkness". Of course the joke, "I shoot at The Darkness", came up a few time. The game was fun. For a test game it was ok. Some of the plot points and skill challenges need a little work.

There was pizza & cake provided and a meeting of other gamers.

Some spots opened on another D&D 4th Ed game for the 2nd part of the game. This time 4th Level characters were provided. It was another fun game. My character was only knocked out 3 to 4 time and once rolled a 20 vs Death, which allowed me to use a healing serge. For the big bad guy, I was able to land the final blow to end the game. Yea!

It was a fun day. I look foward to next year's get together.

Check out the pictures from the even I took.

www.flickr.com heath_bar's Pen and Paper Games Get-Together photoset

Search and Find

Small version picture listed here for reference,
the larger one has been removed.

Here is the message that turned up on the above picture:

Hi Heath_bar,

I am the girl dressed up as Aeon Flux whose picture you have used without permission. I am asking that you PLEASE remove my image here. I was shocked to find that when a Google Image search is conducted using "Aeon Flux" and "comic con" or "costume", the results link to a photo of me. For the rest of my life, I will remember my attendance and dress at this convention as one of my most shameful moments.

I am a young professional, not a model or entertainer of any sort. I am certainly not someone who seeks profit through using my image and believe it or not, it was not my plan to seek major media exposure when I wore this outfit to Comic Con. I had no idea what I was getting myself into at the time. Following the convention, a popular cosplay website asked to use my image, and I respectfully declined. I did not want my image splayed across any website, no matter what type of exposure.

I hope that you appreciate my late yet legitimate wariness. I have a mild online presence and have already been subjected to cyberstalking, having my image posted on pornographic websites, and other questionable net practices as a result of my naive costuming. I trust that you will do the right thing, and respect my wishes by removing my image.

Thank you very much for your time and understanding, from one Aeon Flux fan to another.

A few notes about the above message. One I dislike is being told what I can and can not do. I took the picture in a public place and the person made a choice to dress in the costume. If the request was of just a note to take it down, I would have deleted the message and kept the picture. But due the story and asking it it be removed, I put in a filler picture to keep the spot and the stats of the picture. The story could be just that, a story, but it sounded like the truth (well mostly). For this post I have a small version of the picture (with a basic name) to go with the story. See below for the filler and the direct link (if you want to click on it).

From the blog of Emerald Gamefest.

From Emerald Gamefest web site, they give out some links about their game day. My blog, this blog that you are reading, got a link as you can see here. Also my Flickr set of pictures of the event got a link also. I say Yea!

To show support.

As per Wil Wheaton blog, he did a episode of Criminal Minds called Paradise. He filmed the episode a few months ago and aired October 22nd. Last week he released his production diary he wrote during the filming, which go from his point of view from the audition to the final shot. From my end to show support, I took some screencaps from the episode and created a mosaic of his time on screen. On his final post about his time on the show, the mosaic I did got mentioned along with my Flickr user name of heath_bar.

The meeting of old friends.

Found out during the vacation from my brother that the old gang has all oked a get together next year some time in June or July. A time will be nailed down sometime in January. For me, June or early July are good for me. ComicCon begins July 22nd of 2009. From what I know, Chad has his wife's brother's wedding some time in late June (I think). As time goes on, time will tell.

This is close to a group picture as I have.
On the left we have Luke, Heath (thats me) and Chad.
On the right we have Neal, Mark and Will.

It has been a while sense we have all been in the same room together. I thinking of a date of some time in 1991, plus or min a year. We have all spread out all across the US.

Sunday, traveling incognito.

Today we traveled to Wild Safari, a Six Flags Animal Park in Jackson, NJ. It was basically a 2 hr drive to get there. In the car some reading was done, the DS was played and a iPod was on. Once there, our car was used to drive thru the park (at slow speed) and stopping to look at and take pictures of the different animals in the different sections of the park. It was a great day to do this. The sun was out, a little over cast and there was no rain in sight. We had some time before we had to head back, we headed over to Jenkinson's Boardwalk for some food, rides and video games. For food I had a cheese hot dog and two fried oreos (not all at once). For the rides, we went on three of them (the names to be added later). And for the games, there was two games of air hockey (I won 1 and lost the other), a Deal or No Deal (for tickets) and some video games. We headed on back to home base where dinner was served with some DVD watching of the Star Wars Robot Chicken and 2 Episodes of Mythbusters. The day ended with some needed rest.

Click the picture to see the set of pictures on flickr.

My Sunday at PAX

In case you did not know, PAX breaks dow to Penny Arcade Expo and the web site can be found here.

My plans were to go with a friend. As things go, plans changed. I started the day by getting some breakfast at IHOP and headed on over to Washington State Convention Center. Found a parking spot and headed on up to get my ticket. The line was not large at and got taken care of in a few minutes. First thing I did was pick up the The Guild: Season 1 DVD and got Felicia Day to sign it and talked to her for a min or two. I looked around to see a lot of eletronic game booths. I did some demos at the Wizards of the Coast booth for awhile, the first one was on the Magic:CCG to get some SWAG. I got a Time Spiral Tournament Pack (75 cards), a Planar Chaos Booster Pack (15 cards) and a Magic:CCG Artwork mouse pad. It has been about 5 or so years sence I have played Magic and a creature from the past has shown in with the name of Slivers. I also got a online demo of the D&D character creation that is available thru D&D Insider (so I was told). As time got close, I headed over to the Wil Wheaton panel. I got there some what early, but not early enougth to get a seat. There was only standing room available at that time. Things started and found out that audio system was not the greated. At the back it was hard to hear. It got a little better. Wil read Blue Light Special from his third book, The Happiest Days of Our Lives. I had heard the story before, but is good to hear it live. Next he did a colorfull reading from a review (he did) of a classic Star Trek:TNG episode, called Datalore. After the panel I went around to see what was available to the RPG and game section. I spoted a room with Wizards of the Coast games (ie D&D), some miniture gaming and board game. I went over to the main exhibition hall to look it over once or twice. After some time I went home and called it a day.

I also want to note that I spotted a lot of people with their DS out playing some games. They had a lounge area where they had these beanbag type chairs for people to play their DS, work on their labtop or crash out.

Also for the record, the Rock Band game were in at least 3 or more different booths rocking out with no shortage of victims.

For the record, this does make my 6th convention for the year.

Here are the pictures I took at PAX.

What I did at Dragonflight.

Dragonflight was from Aug 8th thru the 10th.

I took Friday off and slept in. I headed over to where the convention was being held, which was about a 10 min drive, around 2:00 pm. I spotted Bob (a friend) in the board game room playing a game. Norm (another friend) showed up after a while and we went over to Kohana, a Mongoliam Grill,for a late lunch early dinner. With food in our bellies we head back to the con and waited for for our 7:00 pm game to start. The game was called "Just a Mater of Time", used the Spirit of the Century system and was GMed by the Blue Dragons. This was part 1 of a 2 part game. We had about 15 people, which we split into 3 group with 3 different GMs. The game started with a flash forward (in game time) for the intro and and then we woke up needing to stop the bad thing that happened in our dream (that would happen if we did not stop it). We got to a point and called it a night to be continued the next day in part 2.

Saturday, the game I have signed up for started at 9:00 am and was called "Saturday of the Dead", used the Savage World system and was GMed by Steve Winter. We started by making some quick characters on some note cards. The game set up with building models and such as seen here. The game was a survival game. We were to get supplies and not get killed by zombies. I liked the set up, but we had too many zombies start showing up with all the gun fire, which two other players were a little too gun happy. We got some item and had to end the game with a quick get away. The game after that was part 2 of the "Just a Mater of Time" where out group and the other two were able to stop the Cthulhu type monster. The last game for the night was called "Who you gonna call?" used the Palladium system and was GMed by Richard Johnson. The game used the Ghostbusters history after the two movies. I had thought it was going to use the Ghostbusters system that was out there. Still the game was fun and was finished the game with a big battle were we kicked some, but I degress.

Sunday, I only planed on one game and it started at 9:00 am. It was called "Aces Harrington and the Hijacked Airship", it used the Spirit of the Century system and was GMed by Eric Aldrich. Like the name, we had to defend the Airship we were traveling on, which we did and lived to see another day. After the game, I meet up with Bob, were we went out for pizza and talked about the "Just a Mater of Time" game we were both in (but at different games).

See the pictures I took of Dragonflight 2008.

The night before.

It the night before my trip to Comic-Con. I check my Flicker account and noted there are 1,500 pictures and over 30,000 views on my Flickr pictures, a update from 20000 views on 04/22/08.

Slave Leia Photos at SDCC

Found via Flickr that at this year's Comic Con there will be a meeting of the Slave Leia in there metal bikini. I missed it last here as seen here from last year. This year it will be on July 25th at 1 PM at the Gentle Giant booth around Jabba the Hut. Check out the web site here. My plan to get some good pictures, time will tell.

Moo Cards

Ran across some pictures on Flickr today of Moo Cards and said what is this. With some diging I found out what they are. Custom mini-cards, pictures on one side and info on the other. Good for business cards, personal cards, product info and many other things (I can not think right at this time). The size of the cards are 0.87 in by 2.76 in. Looks like a good idea. From the pictures I have seen, the pictures on the cards are not just of one, but of many different pictures.

MOO.com | MiniCards
Flickr Group for MiniCards
Found Weblog on Moo Cards

The Squirrel

Yesterday I stoped by a Jumba Juice and parked in the back. I was walking around to the front when I spotted this guy. I used my camera phone and snapped a picture. He came closer, I snapped another. I tried my luck for a closer shot. The squirrel came closer. I could reach out and pet it if it were for that squirrel bite. I had pushed my luck for today and went and got my drink. While waiting for my order, the squirrel came around to the front like of the Jumba Juice shop. It almost seemed like it was tame.

(Click for a bigger picture)

NowPublic

Just today, I had another request to add a picture to a NowPublic story from a email thru my Flickr account.

The picture was taken at the 2007 ComicCon. I was walking in the main room and noticed a puppet was interviewing a group of three people in Marvel costumes. I could not hear what was being said, but some hair pulling was done.

Superheroes Invade Met's Costume Institute on NowPublic

Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Schmap

The other day I found out that the picture that took in 2006 at Metropolitan Museum of Art of some armor has been oked to show on the Schmap site, which show East Cost Museums. The picture shows off some armor and head off the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Click the picture above to see the bigger picture of
the web site. The direct web site to the picture is here.



Click the picture above for the full picture
that shows on the Schmap web site.

The 20,000th View on Flickr

As of today, I have over 20000 views on my Flickr pictures, a update from 16000 views on 02/17/08.

My 30 Day Project

The picture a day, for 30 day is now complete. I had to keep in mind a picture to post for the day and some times took a few for the day, in case something better came along. I enjoy the project in the short time, but would not over a longer time. I may do another 30 days at point in the future.

(Click the picture to get the breakdown of the pictures.)

The 16000th View on Flickr

As of today, I have over 16000 views on my Flickr pictures, a update from 11000 views on 11/01/07.

30 days of pictures.

I have see a few 365 picture a day projects on Flickr. I wanted to test the water and see if I could do it on a small scale. That where this 30 day project of mine comes in. I am going to try for 30 day to get a picture a day posted.

This is going to be from February 1, 2008 to March 1, 2008. Most of the time I will be using my camera phone, which I have with me all the time and is 2.0 MP.

My 30 Day Project