How to Make Friends at Conventions

   

Maybe meet your soulmate. Cons are a great place to go as a nerd. You have a safe place to geek out and be passionate about what you love. It can be a safe haven. If you go with a positive and confident attitude. If you do not have a good attitude, no one will want to be around you no matter where you go.

  Say hello to everyone. I mean everyone. Make connections with as many people as you can. You never know where your next friendship or relationship might start. you don't know who is going to invite you to the next cool room party. You don't know who can get you behind the curtain to meet William Shatner. So talk to everyone you can. Just say hello to everyone! You don’t necessarily need to have full conversations, it’s ok to just say hello and move on. The important part is that a connection was made and maybe later a friendship could develop. 

Plan Ahead before the con starts

    Get to the convention early. Figure out where everything is located inside the hotel or convention center. Knowing where you are going will be so much easier for you to move around and look confident while doing it.. Do some exploring and reconnaissance. Plan for all the panels and special events you want to check out before the con starts. Figure out where those events take place. If you make your schedule early, you won’t end up feeling lost or bored. (if you are bored at a con, you are definitely doing it wrong. Of course you can always change your schedule when other fun things come up. Having at least an idea of what you want to do will help a lot. 

   Being early is important because the more you are seen on the first day, the more people will recognize you later on at the con. It’s all about making those connections. If people recognize you from before, you already have something in common and it’s very likely that they will want to connect and hang out with you. They want to see people they already recognize. If you show up to a party or a dance on Saturday night, you might recognize people you met from the day before, your connections are already made! 

Go To Panels

   Panels are the best thing ever if you want to meet people at con. If you have nothing to do or you don’t know where to go, just sit in on a random panel. Of course it’s better to plan first to find the ones you are actually interested in. Panels make great ice breakers because you are in a room full of people who are interested in the same stuff that you are. 

   Be a part of conversation at the panel. Ask questions. Talk about why you love the stuff that you love. This is ultimately what a panel is for. Don’t be afraid to talk about your passions. Everyone is in that room because they are excited about the same thing you are! The more you get involved in the panel, the more people will remember you. 

    Say hello to everyone sitting around you. You will have time before the panel starts to meet those around you. Instead of just sitting there waiting, you should be meeting everyone there. It’s easy to say hi. Talk about the panel you are about to see. Or ask about how their con is going. There are always going to be people around you, if you want to meet them, you have to say hello! 

Talk to people in line. 

  No matter what is going on, you will eventually have to stand in line. If it’s for getting badges or going into a panel, waiting for photos, or the bathroom. There will always be a line. Take advantage of this line time. You will be surrounded by people, talk to the people around you in line. It’s a great way to meet people who share the same interest as you. You are stuck in line for an hour, why not make some friends! Geek out together. enjoy the time being stuck in a line instead of staring at your phone the entire time.

You have to be having fun.

"The only ill will to be found in this valley is that which you bring yourself." -Gandalf

  If you aren't having fun, no one will want to be around you. Get in there with a positive attitude. Most nerds have social anxiety, depression or a simple need for escapism. It can be a lot harder to break the ice with a hotel full of introverts. So if you want to meet people, it's up to you.

You can't expect people to approach you if you are brooding in a corner or otherwise falling apart. People will not be attracted to that. If you have something to cry about, go to your hotel room or hide in a bathroom and get yourself together. Do not cause unnecessary drama. Nobody wants to end up taking care of the girl crying in the corner on Saturday night. People come to cons as a vacation. They come to have fun. Nobody will want to babysit your needy little butt on their much anticipated Saturday night.

So have some fun. Look confident. Who would you rather hang out with? The drunk guy who is crying for attention, the girl on the floor in the hallway crying to get attention? Or would you rather hang with the person who is obviously having fun. The person telling stories and joking around with everyone else. Take a good look in the mirror and decide to bring a good attitude. Promise yourself you will maintain a good attitude.

If you are genuinely having fun, people will notice. People will want to be around you. They'll feed off of your good energy and add to it. If you are having fun, you will look so much more confident and attractive than anything else you can ever do.

Take Care of Yourself.

Take a shower. Pop those zits. Shave off your stupid neck-beard. You don't necessarily need to look clean cut, but you need to look like you have a semblance of self respect. No body wants to be around someone who doesn't show respect to anyone, yourself included..This applies to everything in life. Looking good, will make you feel good. Looking good will make you feel confident. Confidence itself is amazingly attractive. So please, take that extra time to clean yourself up a bit. People will be a lot more open to saying hi if you don't look like an ogre on the prowl for fresh meat.

Take a shower. Maintain a good attitude. Have fun. You got this.

Wreck It Ralph movie review!

Wreck-it-Ralph

Wow. Anything about video games and video game culture I just love. This movie has more heart than most animated features. It is kind of like a Toy Story premise where the characters of the game come to life after people stop playing their video games.

The story starts with Ralph narrating about his life. He lives in a dump right next to a high rise apartment that was built over his land. He plays the character of the bad guy in the game Fix-it-Felix Jr. (the “jr.” is a reference to Donkey Kong of course.) When the narration ends we see that he is actually telling his story to a group called Bad-Anon, support for people who portray bad guys in video games. I love that there is a Beholder attending the meeting!

Since he plays a bad guy everybody treats him like one. Ralph has no friends, and doesn’t even get invited to the party celebrating the games anniversary. This is Ralphs problem. He just wants to be accepted. Ralph crashes the party and ends up making a mess. The citizens of the game tell Ralph that they might like him if he gets a heroes medal.

So Ralph leaves his game in order to find one. He finds himself in a shooter called Heroes Duty, starring Jane Lynch as the female commander. Her character was programmed with the most horrible back-story ever! Lots of fun references to the Aliens movies. Ralph escapes with a heroes medal he plans to bring back home.

Ralph crash lands in a game called Sugar Rush. Everything there is made of candy, even the racing karts. Then he meets Vanellope, Voiced by Sara Silverman, she is the heart of the movie. An orphan girl, trapped in a racing game, but she can’t race because she is a glitch… Vanellope steals the medal from Ralph and uses it to get into a race. Ralph eventually makes a deal with her to help her win so he can get the medal.

This isn’t actually an action or adventure story. It’s what Blake Snyder, writer of the Save the Cat books, calls a “Buddy Love” story. It’s story where two people change and grow because of their relationship with each other. Ralph and Vanellope can’t live without one another, their lives are intertwined and they wouldn’t be who they are if they hadn’t met.

This movie is so much fun! There are great gaming references all over the place, from the Konami code to graffiti sayings like “Arieth lives” and “Leroy Jenkins”. We see a fun cameo by Sonic the Hedgehog at the beginning. They also create some cool video game lore about a game character going “Turbo”, when a character leaves their game making it unplayable.

I also love the romance between Jayne Lynchs’ character and Fix-it-Felix. They are so fun together because she is the hardcore cussing tomboy and Felix is the chivalrous sweet guy who never says anything mean. They’re polar opposites of each other and their courting is great.

Throughout the movie there is a running gag about how bad Ralphs breath is. When Ralph puts on a space suit he says “smells like Ralph in here”. The joke adds to the story when he threatens to put a candy character in his mouth as a form of torture.

Ralphs journey in this movie is wonderful. He leaves his home trying to impress the people he doesn’t care about. He makes friends with the only person he can through Vanellope, both outcasts in their own games. Of course Ralph becomes a hero but it’s not in order to impress anyone. His journey is very real to the characters in their world.

This movie is imaginative, exciting, and creative. The most heartwarming coming of age films I have seen in a long time!

Go see it right now!

A downloadable racing game teaches us how to be financially responsible.

A downloadable racing game teaches us how to be financially responsible.

 

  A simple racing game made for smart phones and tablets, Beach Buggy Blitz, is game that has multiple objectives. Just like real life. It is a multiple choice test. The main objective in the game is to drive as long as you can, as far as you can, while collecting as much money as you can, all before you run out of time.

  The objectives and upgrades in Beach Buggy Blitz cost money. But you don’t earn money unless you play the game. You want to play the game to earn money, just so you can buy more upgrades so you can play the game longer. This game doesn’t even put you in first place, there are other racers, but they only get in the way. You have checkpoints you need to reach in order to get more game time, distance, and money.

What does this have to do with fiscally fit gamers?

   Just like in real life, it seems like we need to get as far as we can with as much money as we can. Usually just to survive in a day to day basis. We get to choose what we spend our money on. Do you buy a TV that’s a couple inches bigger? Or do you use that money for investing? Owning a company? The choice is yours. One of these choices helps us get farther and makes us more money.

   In the game I could spend money on buying a new driver, but the racers aren’t better or worse than any other. They just look different. We don’t gain anything from a new driver. There are trophies you can earn but it doesn’t give us more time or money….

 You could spend that money on buying a coin bubble upgrade so that when you run into it you can make more money. This helps you collect as much money as you can.

 Maybe you could buy a checkpoint upgrade so you don’t run out of time as fast. This helps you get as far as you can before time runs out. If you buy another check point upgrade it gives you coins for every second you have on the clock. This helps you make as much money as you can.

  You can spend money on a shield that breaks things, like palm trees, that are in your way. Without the shield you hit a tree and it slows you down forcing you to loose time. This helps you get as far as you can. If you spend money to upgrade the shield again, it gives you coins from everything you break. This helps you get as much money as you can.

 

  You can spend money upgrading your car so it goes faster and doesn’t slow down as much when you run into things. This helps you get as far as you can.

 So the real object of the game is to make money in order to buy things that make you more money.

  Is that the real object of someone who is responsible with money?  

   Let’s overthink this; if you have a job and pay to get training, or pay for school in order to become better at that job, you make more money doing that job. If you own a business, all your profit usually goes back into the business in order to make more profit. If you own a house that you rent out, you put your profit into updating and remodeling the house in order to raise the rent and therefore make more profit. If you have an investment and it makes money, that money is added to the investment in order to make more money.

  According to Beach Buggy Blitz, the object of life is to get as far as you can with as much money as you can. It doesn’t mean we have to become rich and powerful though, it is simply telling us that we are in a social system that requires us to have money in order to survive.  The game is telling us to get as far as we can, with whatever goal or objective we choose.

  So if you buy a coin bubble upgrade in the game in order to get more coins, isn’t that just a metaphor for upgrading anything in real life you can make money off of?

 

  In Beach Buggy Blitz, you need to play more and more games in order to save up money so you can buy the upgrade you want.  In real life you need to save up money to get the house you want, or get the college funding you want.

  The game doesn’t let you get a loan and go into debt, it forces you to save up every coin you have until you have enough to buy what you want. The fact that there is no debt in the game, or any video game that I can think of, tells us that debt is bad. If you have to go into debt, make sure that loan goes toward a real life upgrade that will help you save time and make more money.

   What about saving time? We have to do all this before time runs out!? Sounds like the real life system we are stuck in. We only get about 80 – 100 years, right? How do we get more time in real life?

   Stay active.

   Stay healthy.

   Don’t let your fear stop you from taking action. When fear gets in the way, and stops you from doing what you want to do, it’s just like running into a palm tree on the beach, slowing you down, wasting your time.

   What do we do with the time that we have? Besides playing video games of course, we should put that time to good use. Learn something new. Use your time to train yourself to become better at something you love to do. The better you are, the higher chance is that make money off of it. The farther you get in the game, the more coins are available to you.

 

  Real life is hard. We are in reality that forces us to work in order to survive. Since we have to work, why shouldn’t we find work that we actually want to do? (Like writing articles about playing video games…)

It’s a vicious circle we are trapped in. A circle I learned from a video game that is free to play.

  Or maybe the real goal of playing Beach Buggy Blitz, and living, is simply to get an adrenaline rush before we have to get back to work.

4 Things Hollywood Needs to do in order to Make Better Movies

#1 Hire and keep talented writers

      It makes me angry how many movies have bad storylines. There is no reason for any movie to be made without a good story. There are so many good writers on this planet that I don’t understand why so many bad movies are made. Great writers come from everywhere! Movies, comic books, novels, TV series, anime, and even video games have better storylines than Transformers. Someone had to write all those. A good writer should not be hard to find!

     Think of how much better Transformers would be if there was a writer actually adding good, relatable, traits to those characters. Sure the movie made money and people saw it, but nobody really cared did they? How much more money could they have made if there were a few real characters along with all the mindless action and special effects.  Transformers (or even worse, Battleship) could have lasted a lot longer than the opening weekend if it had a real story to tell.

      Harold and Kumar’s Christmas did it right. It was supposedly a mindless comedy about stoners who go on wacky adventures. Sounds like something just as dumb as Transformers right? Wrong. There were a lot of jokes and some bad humor, sure, that’s what the audience wanted. But it was so much more than that. Harold and Kumar were real characters we could relate to, real people who had problems and motivations and had to deal with their real life situations. I cared more about what Harold and Kumar went through than anyone from the all Transformers films.

     A good writer can create bad jokes, stupid situations, mindless action, and still have good characters who go through all that. Unlike Transformers, Harold and Kumars’ Christmas is a perfect example of mixing lame comedy and good characters to make a fun movie.

#2 Good Publicity

   Watching previews for Wreck-it-Ralph the audience knew immediately that the movie was going to be good. The previews showed us who the characters were, their motivations, and what kind of journey Ralph was going to go on. We knew what to expect and we wanted to go on that journey with those characters. The audience was relating to Ralph even before the movie was released. Wreck-it-Ralph did not disappoint.

    Compare that to the previews and trailers of Battleship. They were so bad I didn’t even want to see the movie. The previews for Battleship were played and overplayed so often that I didn’t even want to see the preview anymore. Their ads made it obvious that the movie had no storyline, no characters, and proved that they just wanted to make the same money that Transformers already had. They make it look like a movie about killing red shirts with special effects stolen from Transformers. Making a copy of a film that made lots of money is always a bad way to go. Even worse, they wasted way too much money on marketing the film. They could have spent that money on a good writer!

    Learn from Wreck-It-Ralph. They had characters that nobody had seen before, from games that nobody had played before. The audience still related to those new characters, new games, and new situations.

Wreck-it-Ralph proved that you could still make something new and the audience will buy into that world.

It worked because the characters were relatable, and the previews showed the audience who those characters were and what they were going to go through.

   If a preview doesn’t show the audience what the movie is about or who the movie is about, no one is going to see it. Don’t spend millions of dollars to play a preview everywhere if the preview doesn’t show us what to expect.

#3 Get the audience to care.

    The entire plot of the Hunger Games movie was hinged on Katniss volunteering for the games so her sister, Prim, didn’t have to be forced to participate.

    There was not a single thing in the movie that showed me why Katniss loved her little sister, Prim. Or why Katniss would risk her life to save her. They didn’t show the audience who Prim was, and why she was important to Katniss. The film didn’t give us an emotional core from any of the characters. If you didn’t read the Hunger Games books, and knew the characters beforehand, you would never know who these characters were.

    The Hunger Games film didn’t give us any of the character that we loved so much in the books. It just felt like the actors were going through the motions, like robots who were programmed by the Cliff notes based off the book. All the characters in the movie were reduced to stereotypes. Haymicth became the explainer, Effie became the mindless government puppet, Katniss was reduced to just a strong woman, Peeta was the guy with a crush, and Gale became just the best friend. There was no emotional core for any of those characters in the movie.

    I didn’t connect or relate to any character in that movie. I really wanted to care because I loved the books. I loved Katniss and what she went through, and I was disappointed that the movie didn’t show us any of that. I didn’t see any of the emotional turmoil that Katniss went through.

    Are you seeing a theme here? If you can create a good character that the audience can relate to, you have a lot better chance of success.

    The only reason the Hunger Games movie made money was because it already had an audience that loved the books. It was a world we were familiar with and it was easy to escape into it. If there wasn’t a popular book that the Hunger Games movie was based on, it would have failed.

    

#4 If the filmmakers care, then the audience will care.

  If the producers and crew don’t care about what they are making, then you will get crap like Battleship, and the Last Airbender.

    M. Night Shamalan, director of The Last Aribender, took characters from the cartoon, ripped out their souls and anything else resembling human and replaced them with carbon copies of sock puppet actors. It’s a really sad day when characters from a cartoon TV series are more human and lovable than their wooden replacements in the film. The audience knew right away that there were no characters or anything to connect to in the film so they just stopped thinking about it. Same horrible thing happened to Eragon, and John Carter of Mars, Great books, but lame movie replacements.

    Avatar the Last Airbender, animated show, worked so well because the creators and writers actually cared about what they were making! They loved those characters, they loved the world they created and it was obvious how much work they put into it. That work pays off. Fans loved that cartoon. The series was loved so much they made a  sequel, The Legend of Korra. The audience can tell if the writing or directing work is half-assed. Viewers are not as stupid as a filmmaker would like to think.

     Make sure the story is as good as it can be. Spend money on getting the right writers and directors. Spend money only on the special effects that are needed for the story to progress or for a character to learn and grow.

    Character, plot, and story arcs are vital.

    Don’t spend millions of dollars to play a preview everywhere if the preview doesn’t show the audience what to expect.

    Don’t make something you think other people will like. It will never be as good as a movie you would actually want to see, or a movie you care about because there is a better chance that if you like it, other people will too.

Le Miserables is a Crazy-Epic-Drama-Musical

                                                              

  I watch a lot of musicals (mostly because I am a wannabe actor). It started when I was a kid, me and my siblings would watch Grease and Willy Wonka and of course all the Disney movies are musicals. For some reason I never got around to see Le Mis, until this week. This is the only version I have seen, so I can’t compare it with any other versions of the film.

  This new film staring Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, and the rest, was pretty epic. I expected Anne Hathaways' character to be in the film a lot longer than she was. I thought she would be more of a main character. It's her memorable song that is why she is so popular. Why did she show up at the end? Was she a ghost, a vision?

Jean Valjeans' journey is amazing. He is a true hero. Probably the most virtuous man I have ever seen in any movie. He fought so hard to help the miserable.

   This film is almost all singing, and it wasn’t a problem. At least it was in English or it would have been one of those boring dramatic operas.

  This movie felt really long. It is sad. Somehow it is sad in a good way, because you end up caring about all the characters and what they are going through.

   There is some good comedy too, thanks to the craziness of Helena Bonham Carter and Sachaa Baron Cohen. They play the innkeepers, Thenardier, and the master of the house song is hilarious. It reminded me a lot of their craziness in Sweeney Todd. I loved their costumes too, they looked like Renaissance festival rejects.

   I like how the story is told through a period of time and through the revolution. We see all this stuff going on in the world around our characters but the characters stay true to themselves and the story still focuses on them.

   I don’t understand why Russell Crows' character had to do what he did at the end. I know he had a moral dilemma going through his brain. All I could think about during this scene was the Joker and Batman, Neither one could survive without the other.

  This is such a popular play and a popular story, I expected the songs too be a little more catchy or memorable. Lots of characters in this film were crying while singing. It makes sense for their characters, but then the songs aren’t as fun. I guess it’s not supposed to be fun though. It’s no Rodgers and Hammerstein.

  Overall, I enjoyed it. The characters are what make this movie good. They were real and the audience cared about their miserable lives. All while they are singing. Without Jean Valjean connecting all the characters together it wouldn’t have made much sense. I feel a little more cultured and classy after seeing this dramatic musical.

Twilight Breaking Dawn part 2 Review

Twilight Breaking Dawn part 2 Review

   My first thought seeing this movie was, wow, Bella is skinny! At the beginning of the film the story is all about Bella becoming an adult. It deals with the awkwardness of her change. She just became a wife, a mother, and a vampire. She has to learn about Jacob and her daughter’s love affair. Turns out, that is why Jacob has been so attracted to her. Jacobs imprinting on Renesme is really a storytelling escape in order to get rid of the love triangle. Bella also has to deal with what to with her father, all teens lie to their parents right?

  The first part of the film kind of bored me. Bellas’ life is new and awkward. I was hoping for an epic battle between her and the mountain lion but it didn’t happen. I did see Kristen Steward actually show emotion which was surprising. I actually believed that Bella was angry at Jacob for loving Nessie.

  The story doesn’t actually start until Alice has a vision about the vampire leaders, the Volturi, coming to kill their daughter. There is some miscommunication about what Nessie is. She is half human, half vampire and all mcguffin. In order for the vampire family to protect her they gather an army of vampire “witnesses” to meet Nessie and know the truth about Nessies’ harmlessness.

  Of course there is an epic battle at the end of this film, like all the twilight movies. But it just turns out to be a vision that Alice shares with the bad guy in order to scare him off. As an audience member, I always feel cheated when things just turn out to be a dream or a vision or some other plot device. (Like Sherlock and Moriarty in Game of Shadows) I don’t like the idea that these characters didn’t really have to fight as hard as they should. At the same time it is obvious that they would fight if they had to. As I am writing this I realize that is how life is, you are prepared to fight if you have to, but it’s better and smarter if you can avoid it.

 

  The Amazon guy who is half human says he was fully grown when he was 7 years old. Does that mean that Jacob and Nessie are going to get “married” when she is only seven years old? Weird.

  This film is all about growing up, becoming responsible and doing what you need to do to protect your family. I think its interesting how Bellas’ vamp power is to shield herself and others. It is probably the most nurturing thing a new mother could get, enforcing the Theme of protecting family. Breaking Dawn means a new life for Bella and her vampire family. A new day is dawning.

  This movie is cheap and boring. There wasn’t anything about this film that I cared for. It started slow, and didn’t show me any character or reason to get invested in the characters plight. I think that if this movie wasn’t part of a series it would have bombed horribly. Without the popularity and hype this movie would not do well. The only thing this movie is worth watching is for fantasy escapism. The effects are cool, the fight scenes are good. We all at some point have dreamed about living forever and having special powers. This movie gives us that escape.

Josh’s thoughts on the Hobbit movie

    I got to the theater at 4:00 p.m. to buy tickets for the midnight show. I also got a ticket for Red Dawn and was planning to watch a few other movies waiting for midnight. Then I see a group of nerds dressed as hobbits. No shoes, with hair drawn with marker on their feet, wearing elvish cloaks and nice vests. In their hands were LOTR Trivial Pursuit and LOTR Risk board games. We played games and geeked out, first in line! I had a great time with those nerds and all the other people who got in line behind us.

   The first thing you need in an epic fantasy story is a good prologue, and this delivers well. I loved how it started with old Bilbo telling the story to Frodo. We get his character introducing us to the great back story of Smaug, Erebor and the King under the mountain. It immediately brings us as the audience back into the wonderful world of Middle Earth.

 Martin Freeman as young Bilbo was wonderful, he played awkward and funny and a Bilbo who has never seen adventure before. I am glad they had the dishwashing song at the beginning. It shows the dwarves aren’t that dirty and they do have respect for Bilbo… and his pantry. I don’t understand why Gandalf picks Bilbo as a burglar in the first place. Is it because dragons don’t know what hobbits smell like? Or is it because Bilbo is part Took and he knows Bilbo can handle a little adventure…

 The three trolls were pretty fun. (Troll Bogeys!) In the story I think it’s just a random encounter, they even loot the bodies afterward! I did want to see a little more first level spells by Gandalf. Where was his ventriloquism?

 I am glad they added the whole back story about the necromancer (who is really the dark lord). The ring is really just a horcrux. I think that whole story is an appendix somewhere.

  Radagast the Brown was fun to watch, his giant bunnies were… unexpected. What was on the side of his face? I hope it was mushrooms starting to grow there.

  The meeting with Elrond was pretty good. I don’t understand why they keep saying Saruman is such a great wizard when every time we see him he is being evil? He must be a Sith Lord or something. Galadriel was nice to see, we got a glimpse of how clever and powerful she really is. She does resist the temptation of the ring though, which is pretty hardcore.

  My favorite and most expected scene was of course riddles in the dark, when we get to see Gollum again. The acting for both characters was great. What I liked the most in that scene was how suspenseful it was. Gollum was very threatening and gave an intense life or death situation. In the book we don’t really feel how vicious Gollum really is. They cut a few riddles that were in the book, but it was not a big deal. “It was pity that stayed Bilbos hand”

  I am also glad they added the history with Thorin and the evil pale goblin. It gives the dwarves a relatable connection to the audience and a face to the bad guys. Like how they added Lurtz to the LOTR trilogy.

  I had a lot of fun with the escape from the goblin kings halls. The action got kind of cheesy but it was typical Peter Jackson action. The dwarves all working together was great but not very believable.

  I forgot about the eagles saving the day in the book. I don’t think Thorin had a near death experience there in the book. But for movie purposes it adds suspense and that’s all right with me.

 Overall the Hobbit is awesome. I had a lot of fun watching it, and it was great to get back to Middle Earth. I can’t wait to see what comes next. Especially what happens with The Necromancer at Dol Guldur, Beorn, and Barrels out of Bond should be fun. Or was that Kegs out of capture?