omgh4x denuded

So I had a pretty crappy week--very tiring, very stressful. But maybe that's the price I had to pay to see

THE BEST CONCERT EVER!!!!

On Wednesday, I was able to sneak away from work at a decent hour so that Demian and I could go to the Josh Groban concert at the HP Pavilion. Oh man. He is just SO good! He has such a beautiful, powerful baritone and he knows how to use it--he puts so much heart into every note and lyric, but at the same time makes it look so effortless. To back him up, he had a full orchestra and his favorite hapa violinist, Lucia Micarelli. It ended up being REALLY long set (two hours), during which he sang most of his CD (including my favorites, "You Are Loved" and "Februrary Song"). The best part of the night for me was when he sang "Remember When It Rained," which I think is the best showcase of his voice and during which he plays the piano himself *swoon* What can a say--I'm a sucker for pianists. Turns out that he's also learning the drums--he's very decent for a beginner, although it's clear that his true talent lies in his vocals. I also really liked how he comes off as a total dork, in a cute, funny, endearing way--surprise, suprise, I'm a sucker for nerds too. He was very interactive with the crowd, since the stage extended almost to the crowd on either side and he'd come up and sing--we were sitting SOOO close that if we wanted to, we could've just walked down and touched him...instead, the crazy, creepy, obsessive Asian lady sitting next to us did. That was one downer of the show--all of Josh Grobans' fans ARE OLD LADIES!!! OLD LADIES WHO WANT A PIECE OF HIM! EW!!!!!! Oh well--I prefer creepy old ladies to annoying, young brats any day. In any case, let me repeat my overall assessment of the evening:

BEST CONCERT EVER!!! AAAHHH!!! I can't wait for him to come back!!!

After many hours of serious thought and empirical testing, Demian and I finally came up with the perfect response to the bike lady's "can't you see us?!" query:

NO, BUT I SAW YOUR MOM!

Nonsensical, yet offensive at the same time. Brilliant.

Now to get in some more bikers' ways to test this puppy out.

i just wanted to say..... captain america beat the living stuff out of iron man =)
the rebellion was about to win! but cpt decided to surrender T_T nehoo iron man lying on the ground beaten was a GREAT moment imo -geekrant over

and cheers to demian on the 'eat it fatty!' i thought that was great =)

And by "party" I mean work.

On the plus side, though, Demian's taking me out to lunch today, and then, on Saturday, to MOMA for the new Picasso exhibit and Chez Panisse in Berkeley for dinner (when I'll get to wear my sexy new polka dot black dress and killer red heels)!

I have a good feeling about the big 2-3--I think 23 is going to be the new 17...or the new 15...or 12...or 7 (my favorite years). Or maybe I'm just telling myself that because now I'm

SOOOOO OOOOOLD

*sob*

On Saturday, Demian was walking me to my car as I was leaving the Palo Alto house to go meet my mom and brother at the mall. As we reached the curb where my car was parked, we noticed that about a block or two away, a couple of bikers were headed in our direction, but really didn't make much of it. After opening my car door to get in, the couple cycles past and the woman biker yells at me,

"CAN'T YOU SEE US?"

I was stunned. There weren't any cars around, so the bikers had had no difficulty just going around me, and I had gotten to my car first. What the heck! They don't own the freaking bike lane! Excuuuuuse me for breathing! Before I even had time to get pissed off, Demian yells back in my defense,

"EAT IT FATTY!"

And in all seriousness, I thought that was the most romantic thing ever! Perhaps not the most civil or creative comeback, but way to defend my honor!

Call me old-fashioned, but I am a sucker for chivalry.

* * * *

Later that night, Demian and I grabbed some Jack in the Crack and headed to San Jose for the Christina Aguilera concert. It turned out to be a-mazing--it felt like a Vegas show, with larger-than-life sets, tons of costume changes, great choreography, and Christina Aguilera's brilliant vocals. I thought the whole performance was just really thoughtful and even moving at times. The opening acts were also...entertaining. The first group was Danity Kane, P. Diddy's girl band from "Making the Band," which was just horrific. Even if the girls could perform individually, they couldn't sing or dance as a group to save their lives. In general, their whole set, even the interactions with the crowd, was totally artificial and planned out. Surprisingly, the Pussycat Dolls who came on next were great! They had good choreography and the lead singer definitely has a fantastic voice. I felt like I was in Vegas watching the cabaret. The only disturbing part about that was that the pre-teen and high school girls that comprised the crowd seemed to WORSHIP the Pussycat Dolls...I just know that like 99% of the crowd actually believes that guys wish their girlfriends were hot like them *HURL* Also very disturbing was this old man sitting in front of us who was with his wife and daughter--he sat through the whole Danity Kane act and part of the Pussycat Dolls act until the Pussycat Dolls started slapping each other on the butt...THEN he stood up to watch. GROSS! Anyhoo, all in all, a really good concert. Here are some really terrible pictures from Demian's cell phone to cap off this entry and to document the occasion:

Danity Kane

Pussycat Dolls

Lots of Christina Aguilera!

Us!

Til next time!

Greetings once again fellow readers. In general, Siu and I have been posting less frequently, but hopefully we haven't lost all two of our devoted readers!

Sign up for your free ipod and stock (From me! Really! Demian's company!)
First off, I have to do my obligatory eMax post. I've been working with a couple of friends on this new company and as a part of generating users for the site, we're giving away stock and an ipod. Click here to sign up. So make sure to register (you'll need a valid e-mail address and your real name to sign up), validated your e-mail account, and pass this on to all your friends. If you have any questions on how this works, hollar a at playah.

Just to give a basic rundown on what the company is all about:

eMax is an online consumer community focused on organizing group buys to maximize members' purchasing power. eMax's proprietary technology empowers members to obtain compelling prices at popular national chain stores, restaurants, and services providers across the United States and Canada.

I know most of you that read don't comment, but if any of you have good ideas on how to promote free stock and a free chance to win an iPod without sounding like a scam, give me a hollar.

WonderCon: the joy of being a nerd

So Siu and I went to wondercon this weekend (well, just Friday and Sunday). First off, lets all take a moment to appreciate how nice it was of Siu to keep me company on my comic book nerdliness tour.

***moment***

Well then, onto the festivities. I think the most accurate description of this convention is best represented by a conversation that Siu and I had with one of our favorite artists, eBas (Eric Basaladua). We were just hanging out and talking to him and he asks us what our favorite part of the convention was, and Jaci quickly responded with "Getting the Supergirl commision from you" (pictures below). This was followed by your typical "awww, really?" "no really" answers and then Eric asked me the same question. I just stopped... looked up and around... and had to think for awhile. My problem was that I was having a real hard time thinking of something REALLY good that happened at this convention. Eventually I blubbered out some answer about seeing artists that I had met last year again and just catching up and seeing how they were doing... but there wasn't really anything out of the ordinary or fantastic about the convention this year.

Last year(our first comic book convention) was the first time we met a lot of the cool artists like Buzz, Mike and Eric who were geniunely awesome people. They were awesome artists, but they made you feel comfortable and they just exuded an aura of NORMALness. I'm not going to name any names, but one of the new artists we met was very stand-offish, had the attitude that made you feel like he was too good to be there, and he was doing a big favor for you just by being there...wat the heck?

All in all, the convention was good though, just not as great as I think either of us hoped it would be. So just to run through the highlights of the convention:

Friday:
We got there a little bit early on Friday to wait in line. I played on my PSP while Siu read her Orson Scott Card book. After we got I went directly to the Aspen booth to check out who was there. I got a sketch from Micah Gunnel (artist for Soulfire and Shrugged) and sadly was informed that Koi (Fathom artist) and Peter (Aspen colorist) weren't going to make it. Both of them are really cool people and I was hoping to get a sketch from Koi in my sketchbook. Ah well. The sketch from Micah turned out pretty awesome and while he was doing it I send Siu to see if Josh Middleton was taking commission. Unfortunately, my battle plan was flawed! I accidently sent Jaci to Josh Ellison's table and she came back to the Aspen booth dazed and confused! So we probably should have done this in the first place, but I had Siu wait with my sketchbook while Micah was working on it, and I looked for Josh Middleton. He was pretty easy to find, but by the time I got there I was 4th or 5th in line. However, some of the poop-heads in front of me apparently had sent some of THEIR friends to check some things out and when they came back in like I was bumped to like 6th or 7th in line. I got on Josh's list, but he was only able to get to a couple of commissions, so I didn't end up getting anything from him. WAH!

While I was still in line, Micah had finished my sketchbook and Siu picked it up for me. While she was waiting, for the sketchbook two things happened to her. First of all, she had a "moment" with Michael Turner (my favorite comic book artist) while she was flipping through his cover art, and Mike Choi also found her. He came to WonderCon to check some things out with his lady and an amazing colorist Sonia Oback. We've been in talks about getting a witchblade piece from him, and was finally able to snag it from him today. So Mike gave Jaci the piece for me in case didn't run into each other later, but some time later during the show I found him. When I think about it, WonderCon is a pretty small show. Something else eBas mentioned was that a lot of people get bored of WonderCon and end up leaving after a little while. When you compare it to other shows like San Diego or WWLA he says that there usually isn't enough time to do everything throughout the day.

Either way, the rest of the day we spent saying hi to Buzz, signing up for a commision from Ale, and saying Aaron. Met Aaron's son who came along for the trip. Also talked with Matt Wagner and got a quick sketch from him. He got Siu interested in the CBLDF (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund) but I let her talk about if she's still interested in it or not. We also found Eric later on in the day and talked with him for awhile. When I think about it, most of this convention was just walking around, and talking with Eric.

After chatting with people we spent a little time checking out the Westfield mall and eating at 'wichCraft (Siu's review below).

Sunday was pretty much exactly the same as Friday, except we spent more time at the mall =P Siu was tempted to buy some Pooh art, but ended up not getting any since she didn't want to spend too much scrillas.

300 Screening

Maybe when I think about it, the second best thing at WonderCon, after getting all my comic art, was winning tickets to the 300 screening. When registering for your ticket you got a chance to win tickets to watch 300 that night at Metreon's IMAX theatre. The screen was huge, and I think the best seats in the place are probably at the back. Unfortunately, something had to happen that day to ruin this too. So everybody at the convention, in all the programs, said the movie started at 8:00pm. So we got into line around 6:30 (got good seats) and they let us in around 7:30pm and at around 7:55pm some dude says the movie wont start until 9:00pm. We all thought he was kidding, but then he just walked away. Who let's people in for a 9:00pm showing at 7:30pm. Wat the heck?! Turns out the guy said he was informed the movie wouldn't start until 9:00pm but he decided not to tell anybody else? LAAMEEZ000rrz. So dinner that night consisted of hot dog, nachos, and egg rolls. YUM YUM.

The movie itself was pretty awesome. Action sequences were of the chizzain and I thought the acting was pretty great. Jaci said she was distracted by some of the side stories and she wanted some more plot development, but I thought it was still a pretty awesome movie. I think a lot of people will go in there with really high expectations and will come out pretty satisfied with the movie. This wasn't the most ground breaking movie, but definately a movie you should see in the theatre.

Now the moment you have all been waiting for... Pictures of new art demian got. First of all, most of the pictures are gunna suck because I used the scanner at home and its too small. I'm going to either have to rescan these or take better pictures of them or something. Either way, consider this a little preview.

This is a colored version of the piece I got from Mike Choi. This is a double page spread from witchblade #100. I couldn't scan in the pencils/inks I got of this because since its a double page spread it'd be even harder to line everything together. I have some mental thinking to do but this piece is definately in the running for one of my favorite pieces in my collection.

Ale is such an awesome artist, so everytime I see him I think I might have to get a commission from him. He pumps these babies out really quick, which is something I appreciate. Rogue is Siu's favorite character so since I already have a supergirl from him I thought I'd get a Rogue for Siu!

So Ale also the new penciller for the Supergirl comics which is really awesome. He's totatlly redesigned the way he draws supergirl to make it more fitting for the comics and I think he did a great job. We were flipping through his portfolio of stuff and saw this piece, it looks like he did this piece in the middle of the transition period of his supergirl. If you want to compare it to the other supergirl piece he did for me check out my gallery.

I'm not sure, but this may Jaci's favorite piece in my collection. I've been waiting about a year to get this from Eric, but I was glad I was finally able to. We both love the way he draws Supergirl, and I think the job he did on the background and the overall composition was just awesome!

Free sketch I got from Micah of Soulfire's Grace.

Free sketch of grendel from Matt Wagner.

When Demian and I were in the city yesterday looking for a place for lunch, we were drawn to 'wichcraft, mostly because we thought the name was cute and clever. At the time, we didn't know that it was a Tom Colicchio restaurant, but I suspected that it might be, since Colicchio probably has developed some sort of trademark cache for "craft" as it's applied to restaurants. He's done a brilliant job of branding his restaurants, and I'm sure that being number one judge on Top Chef hasn't hurt. Anyway, 'wichcraft was amazing--high-concept sandwiches that are good. Even though the sandwiches used non-traditional sandwich ingredients, they were simple and made perfect sense. 'wichcraft really embodies the type of cuisine that I love most--innovative, straightforward, and fresh. Dishes where the ingredients are selected thoughtfully, so that you can identify each and its role in the dish.

I had such a hard time deciding what to order because all of the menu options looked freaking terrific, but I finally chose the goat cheese sandwich with avocado, celery, watercress & walnut pesto on multi-grain. It was fresh, salty, creamy, and crunchy, all at once. Demian ordered the slow roasted pork sandwich with red cabbage, jalapeños & mustard on ciabatta roll, slightly spicy from the mustard and jalapenos, with just the right chewiness of bread and sweet-savory pork, and fresh acidic crunch of dressed cabbage. Demian and I also liked the soda offerings there--we had a Dizzy Lizzy Pineapple Soda, which actually tasted like pineapple--what a concept! It's too bad 'wichcraft only has one location in California (the rest are in New York), but since it's part of the new Westfield mall (which, by the way, is huge and amazing), I know I'll go back. Makes me so eager to try the rest of Colicchio's restaurants.

I <3 Tom!