Where I am at

This is a post that has been kicking around in my head for quite awhile now I have just been trying to work up the nerve and motivation to just do it all the time as it deals with some of the more depressing areas and aspects of my personal life but at the same time it is also in a sense a story of victory over at least some problems and I think the people that have helped get me to where I am at deserve some sincere thanks.  Once again I will apologize for my awful grammar as this being more personal will probably be harder to write and therefore more prone to these kind of errors.

This is a story of how Felicia Day, The Guild, Chris Pope, Twitter, Kenny Mittleider and Podcasting in many ways saved my life both figuratively & probably literally as well but that is the end of the story to understand how we need to start at the well not the beginning (as that would be too long to explain) but at a beginning.  A few years ago (I honestly can't remember exactly when this was I will explain why later) I was working but struggling alot with depression, self-worth & self-esteem issues which I have had for most of my life in some respects I was living my life on a rickety scaffold that was helping me to be functional and keeping the depression from consuming me.  However I was fired from that job and that more or less collapsed the scaffold that had been keeping me going along with that a few other things happened at around the same time which further beat down on my self-esteem and self worth.  In response to all this I think some part of me realized that I was heading for real danger and so as a self-defence mechanism I fell into a pretty deep state of apathy as if you just don't really care about anything then whatever happens to you doesn't hurt you as you don't care so while it did effectively eliminate the pain my depression/self-worth problems were causing me it came at a very high price.  I don't know that I can really explain the full impact of being in such a state of apathy as I honestly really didn't care about much I never really talked to anyone unless they initiated it and even then I wasn't really there, I only ate when I had to keep my body from getting too annoyed at me, I didn't go out or do anything unless I was seriously pushed to do it, I spent most of my time trying to find things to help pass the time but even with stuff I used to really enjoy I found I lost most that enjoyment and only really continued with it as it was familiar and did indeed help pass the time.  While I was in this state I didn't really keep track of time as one day would blur into the next and one week would blue into the next so I honestly couldn't tell you how long I was in this state and even now looking back it has seriously screwed with my ability to determine when things happened before that.  

I think it was around the start of the summer of 2010 that I started to find that there were times when I'd start to pull out of the apathy a little and want to try to start moving forward however as the apathy waned the pain and stress of depression/self-worth would start to return and would generally plunge me back into the apathy.  

I think it was around the beginning of Fall of 2010 when I was in the middle of one of these times where the apathy had waned and I was looking for things to watch on the internet when I saw a video called 'Do you want to date my avatar' by The Guild in my list of suggested videos on YouTube.  I had been playing WoW (or World of Warcraft) since it's launch and so I had heard of The Guild in passing but not much more then that.  So I figured I'd check it out since I was bored and didn't have anything else to do.  Even though I knew almost nothing about The Guild I still got quite a kick out of the video as it was joking around with alot of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) staples so I figured I would go and actually watch The Guild since I enjoyed the video (which was a rarity for me those days) so I started watching it and after watching the first 2 and half seasons in one go had to tear myself away so I wouldn't screw up my sleeping schedule anymore as it was very early in the morning at that point.  Needless to say as soon as I got up the next morning I went and finished watching the available episodes (I think they had finished season 4 at that point) after I finished watching them (and really enjoying them which again was rare for me at that time) I was curious to learn more about the series and that is when I heard about the story behind The Guild and how Felicia had gotten tired of not getting to do what she wanted as an actor so decided she was going to write herself a part in something and thus created The Guild.  

This actually really resonated with me as I was also at a point where I was tired of going nowhere and kinda wanted to try to start moving forward again and so I started looking for all the interviews I could find of Felicia to learn more about her and how she had been able to do this and to try to learn a little more about her as a person.  Learning about her story combined with the fact that I was already at a point where my feelings of apathy were lessened gave me the strength to start to fight against slipping back into the deadening apathy once again.  I knew that if I was serious about this I wasn't going to be able to do it alone as I knew I would eventually just get overcome by depression etc again and fall back in and since at this point I didn't really have any solid social contacts (I can't blame them though I mean I completely dropped off the grid) I decided I would try to get a little more involved online as I did talk to a few people from my WoW guild online and so thought I'd see if I could find any other like minded people online to start trying to get myself out there in a sense and work on my by then very rusty social skills.  After listening to one of Felicia's interviews where she talked about Twitter gave her the opportunity to communicate with people she otherwise wouldn't have access to gave me the idea to actually join Twitter and to use it to reach out and thank people I otherwise would have no contact with such as actors in TV shows I enjoyed so I joined and tried to find some of the actors I knew of in TV shows I enjoyed and whenever I watch an episode where I thought they did a good job I would send them a short message to tell them that which also helped me a little as it is always nice to let people know they are doing a good job (Trust me no one knows the value of a compliment more then someone that doesn't like/hates themselves).  I also decided right there at the beginning that I was going to keep my own tendency to be negative off of Twitter and only send something if it was positive or uplifting in some way that way it would only be a help to me.  I also figured I would start my search for places I could find a community off by looking into the community which had formed around The Guild so I joined the community site they had setup and started joining the chat room they had setup there and actually met a bunch of cool people alot of whom I later started following on Twitter which helped it become more of place to have conversations instead of just sending out messages from.  

One of the times I was in the Guild chatroom they were all talking about a live podcast they were looking forward to so I ended up deciding to go listen to the podcast with them which ended up being Tech Barbarians which is hosted by Chris Pope and Mark Eoff which is the first time I was introduced to Chris and it just so happened that the guest they were interviewing was Jenni Powell who at the time was the cohost of Knights of the Guild which was a recorded podcast she did with Kenny and so that was the first time I was introduced to the other two people who would play a large roll in where I am now.  After listening and enjoying the live podcast I figured I would check out the Knights of the Guild podcast and really enjoyed it both Kenny and Jenni are wonderful and delightful people who would joke back and forth between the shows segments.  I just want to take a minute to try to describe Kenny as he is just an amazing guy, he just seems to have a natural warm and friendliness about him that just makes you feel welcomed and note I got all this just from his voice as I was just listening to audio podcasts.  The Knights of the Guild podcasts became kinda of a refuge for me as I would listen to them and feel accepted and happy and would generally end up laughing alot as well.  As I continued listening to them I started to send in a few pieces of feedback which is something I had never done before but I figured since this podcast had become important to me I would thank them for it.  Also Kenny & Jenni usually read the feedback they got on the show so hearing my name on the show was also pretty cool and helped me feel more connected so I continued to send in feedback although over time it was just to make Kenny happy as he always liked to get feedback and I started talking to him on Twitter and on Facebook at this point and has become one of my best and closests  friends online. 

As I have mentioned I am a pretty big video game player so while all this was happening I also found out that Chris Pope also did a live podcast with voice over actors from TV and video games and so started listening to that as well as continuing to listen to his Tech Barbarians podcasts and so got to know him more and befriend him but also I started to talk to few of the people that I regularly noticed were at the live podcasts as well and so through that my circle of internet friends widened again with Twitter being the hub of most of my contact with people now.  Chris then told me he was planning on starting a podcast based around WoW which I had played for years with Russ (one of the guys I had met and become friends with through the other podcasts), Maria who was an experienced player who had been raiding in WoW for awhile (as had I) and then finally Teal who had never played any MMOs before but who I knew as she had played a character on The Guild and that he wanted to have a Guild in WoW which was connected to the podcast and if I wanted to join them in that guild so I did and through that and the podcast called I Hearth Geeks I got to know both Maria and Teal and so my group of internet friends expanded even further (Teal has also created her own webseries called My Gimpy Life which is awesome so please check it out on YouTube).  

There is one thing I also forget to mention was that back when I was first getting into Twitter and the internet community I found out through twitter that the cast of one of my favourite TV shows Stargate Universe was coming to Toronto and that Innerspace (a local geek/review/news type show) was doing a special with the cast and a live audience and so I ended up being able to go to it (I wrote an earlier blog entry about it if you want to know more) but I really enjoyed it.  It was also the first time I had ever had the chance to actually meet any of the actors I admired so that combined with all the excited talk I would hear about conventions and how much fun they had attending them from my new group of friends especially as they planned for SDCC (San Diego Comic Con) 2011 led me to look up and decide to attend Fan Expo 2011 (this is also why I know this all started the year earlier) which ended up being an amazing experience which I really really enjoyed and why I attended three conventions this year including Fan Expo again and have really enjoyed them and actually met some awesome new people this year through watching another webseries called Pretty in Geek which is pretty funny and I highly recommend checking it out as well on YouTube.

These people all helped me to be able to fight against the urge to just slip back into apathy and not bother with trying to sort through my problems with depression and self-worth and the pain and stress that comes with them and so in that sense they figuratively saved my life as let's be honest existing in that sort of apathy isn't really living it is merely existing.  As for how they may have literally saved my life? well without those three key people I probably wouldn't really have any online friends and I honestly can't believe that I would have been able to keep just existing in that state of apathy forever as eventually something would come along and rip it away and if that happened without the support system I have now I don't know what would happen but it is definitely conceivable that I would commit suicide (as I have thought of it before but never acted on it) and so by providing that support system they may have literally saved my life. 

All I know is that I will be forever grateful to Felicia Day for having the nerve to follow her dream and then to share the story and be such an amazing role model for people like me.  Not only that but every interview or video I see of Felicia being herself just deepens my respect for her which I just love.  I am also thankful to her for giving a reason to join Twitter through which I have been able to do things I never thought possible and so I stand as a living example that telling your story and being yourself can positively impact people even if you have no idea who they are and have never met them as Felicia has for me.  

I also want to thank both Chris and Kenny or the Podcasting Kings as I like to call them :) for not only being amazing friends themselves but also for introducing me to so many other awesome geeky people who have become my friends and part of my social framework.

I am sorry this is so long and probably at time rambly and I am sure chalk full of grammar and spelling mistakes but I didn't know any other way of doing this.

Fan Expo 2011 - Friday

First of all yes I realize this post is incredibly late, I've been meaning to write this up and post it for ages but never actually got around to actually doing it so here goes.

Friday was the first full day of the convention however since I was taking the GO train into Toronto to get there and since it was still during the week I didn't actually make it to the convention centre until around 11:30 or so I think even though the convention actually opened at 10:00 ( I believe, I still actually have quite vivid memories of the convention despite it being almost 5 months ago but there are going to be things I'm not positive about) but since there really wasn't anything on in the morning that day I really wanted to catch I wasn't really too concerned about getting there late.  In fact it was actually kinda nice since when I got there there was no line at all and I was just able to walk straight into the convention centre and onto the main floor with no problems and no delays at all.  There were definitely more people in the main convention area already today then there were on the Thursday but it still didn't seem overly crowded which was nice.  All of the booths were set up and manned now and there were a couple of more celebrities in the signing area so everything seemed alot busier now.  The first thing I was really interested in was a signing by Zoie Palmer one of the cast of Lost Girl but that wasn't until 1:00 I think so I still had plenty of time before that so I figured I'd just walk around the convention and just take it all in really at this point since the day before alot of it hadn't been setup yet.  This is when I really realized that there is a ton of stuff to see just in terms of the floor alone not counting any panels or anything else, I myself am not really into collecting in many regards but I can see how people interested in that could spend ages just looking at the booths and the vendors alone.  I tried to get a good sense of where things were in relation to each other so that I could get to the various booths and areas I was interested in fairly quickly when I needed to get there.  I made sure to keep walking by the Lost Girl booth, which is where the signing was going to be, as the time got closer to 1:00 so that I could get in line if one started forming.  I didn't really see much of a line forming till around 12:45 so at that time I joined the line and so had a pretty good spot and was able to meet her soon after 1:00 (Since Saturday pretty much ended up being my Lost Girl day at the convention I'll wait till then to really say more about meeting the cast).  The first Q&A panel I was looking forward to going to was at 2:30 with Lexa Doig who had been in a number of shows I really like specifically Andromeda, Eureka and SG1, so I explored the convention floor a little more then heading up to the room to wait for a good seat for the panel.  Unfortunately though once 2:30 came around we were informed that sadly both her and her Husband Michael Shanks weren't going to make it due to weather (At this time there had been Tornado/Hurricane warnings for the area so a few of the guests weren't able to make it till late in the convention and some not at all).  This was really the only disappointing thing for me during the whole convention since Michael Shanks Q&A, which was supposed to be later on this day, was one of the things I had been looking forward to most as I have always been a huge fan of Stargate and SG1 but life is life and something can't be helped.  So since the two panels I had been interested had been cancelled I suddenly had alot of time to kill since the next thing I was interested in wasn't until 7:30pm which was a screening of the first hour of the pilot of Terra Nova, this was the first time any of it had been shown in Canada.  Since I had hours now to kill I went back down to the main convention floor and checked out a few of the vendors I had noticed while I was scouting everything out.  I have never really been much of an overt fan, in the sense of having shirts etc, of some of my favourite shows and game I figured I should start to remedy that so spent a good little while looking through the different T-shirt stands especially and ended up getting a Starcraft 2 shirt that I really liked.  I also looked through a number of the comic vendors and picked a few of the Guild one-shot comics that I didn't have.  I also decided that since I had quite a bit of time to kill I'd take the time and go stand in line to get one of the autographs I wanted, this being from Kevin Sorbo.  I had pretty much grown up watching him on Hercules and then later in Andromeda so I had been debating whether I wanted to pay to get his autograph and ultimately the Q&A panel he did the day before is what made me decide to go for it, I am much happier supporting someone that clearly enjoys what he is doing but also very clearly cares about the people he is making entertainment for.  So I stood in line for a bit I am not sure how long but it wasn't long and got the chance to meet him, shake his hand, get his autograph and talk very briefly to him which was nice, I will say that all of the celebrities that I got autographs from were very nice and friendly and even though there was often a line waiting I never really felt rushed or that they weren't happy to meet their fans which is something I know I really appreciated.  After all that I was feeling a little beat and worn out, I have scoliosis in my lower back so if I am standing or walk alot it tends to get quite sore, so I just found an out of the way corner and sat down and had some water and an O'Henry bar I had packed and just rested for a bit.  I am not exactly sure of the timing or order of alot of the things I mentioned I just remember them taking place in that time frame.  I eventually ended up just heading up to the room where the screening was going to take place quite a bit early since I didn't really have anything else to do and was a little tired from exploring the convention floor quite thoroughly, I wasn't really in line for anything since there were a couple of panels in the room it was going to be in and unlike what I heard from people at SDCC here they cleared the rooms before each panel so you couldn't just go in and sit there for as many panels as you want.  Once the last panel before the screening started I did go and take a seat along the wall near the entrance as I noticed a few others doing the same.  It was nice to just sit and rest a bit and to just watch people coming and coming and milling around, conventions are incredibly interesting places to people watch :)  As the time of the screening grew closer more and more people started lining up and before long there was quite a long line.  I am not sure if they were getting things setup or waiting for all the press, since this was the first screening of Terra Nova in Canada there were a number of press there as well to see it, but we weren't let into the room till around 7:40 or so and I did get an excellent seat.  The screening got started around 8:15 or so I think and went for an hour.  I actually really enjoyed the screening of it, although I did feel bad at the end as there must have been a graphical glitch on the DVD so it messed up a bit of the picture near the end of the screening.  With the screening this ended up being my latest night at the convention, and ironically the next day was one of my earliest as there was a panel at 11:00 the next morning I really wanted to catch.  All in all though my first full day at Fan Expo was very enjoyable even if some of the Q&A Panels I really wanted to see got cancelled.

My Internet Law of Proximal Awesomeness

Considering how long I have been using the internet I'm surprised that I really haven't taken much of an interest in web communities or web projects until recently.  I had never watched a webseries before watching the Guild a few months ago, nor had I ever been involved with web communities beyond in-game stuff such as my guild in World of Warcraft.  I knew of and had listened to a few podcasts before but I had never known anything about live webcasts till I heard/attended my first Tech Barbarians show.  Through all of this the one thing that has surprised me when I think about it is that so far I have yet to come across anything in my web journey that I haven't enjoyed or that has made me think to myself "Man I wish I hadn't wasted my time on that" and so that got me wondering how that happened as I have no doubt there is plenty of crap on the internet.  Which got me thinking how have I managed to find so many incredible projects and people, has it just been luck or is there something else I've missed or just not noticed and it was thinking about this that led me to what I have decided to call my Internet Law of Proximal Awesomeness.  This law states that when you find someone who has created/produced something awesome on the internet, take a look at the people that they choose to surround themselves with both literally and figuratively as there is a high chance that they are going to be awesome themselves.

  I'll use my own experience thus far to illustrate how this law works itself out.  The Guild as I mentioned was what started my own journey and so it and its awesome creator Felicia Day became my starting point or awesome project/creator as mentioned in the description above (quick side note if you have not seen the Guild please go see it here).  From the Guild I discovered the Guild Community which is the first web community I have really been a part of, and from them I discovered the Knights of the Guild Podcast(link) which is an amazing podcast devoted to the Guild which is hosted by two people who worked on the show and so have a lot of behind the scenes info and stories to share.  I also discovered and attended my first live webcast of a podcast through the Guild Community and that was Tech Barbarians(link) which I really enjoyed and have attended every subsequent show that I have been able to, also it was through one of the hosts of Tech Barbarians, Chris Pope, that I have become a big fan of OnVox(link) which interviews voice actors and talks about that industry.  My next discovery was The Legend of Neil(link) which was created by Sandeep Parikh who plays Zaboo on the Guild, Legend of Neil is a very funny if somewhat twisted parody of Legend of Zelda.  This leads to my most recent discovery, Team Unicorn through Michele Boyd who plays Riley on the Guild, Team Unicorn is a group of 4 girls (Michele Boyd, Clare Grant, Milynn Sarley and Rileah Vanderbilt) who are all strongly interested in gaming/scifi/fantasy/comics/etc and are challenging the idea that there aren't girls who are seriously interested in those things.  They have created a music video and a fun holiday zombie PSA so far both of which I would highly recommend and you can find on their Youtube channel here.

So if you are looking for something new on the internet I'd recommend trying out my Internet Law of Proximal Awesomeness as you never know what you'll find!