So, actually not a lot to talk about this Friday evening. I just got back from a very, very good yoga class (taught by favorite teacher, Liz Hage at the studio downstairs, TruYoga, which is awesome). I haven't talked about the yoga that much, but I will do so eventually. Suffice to say, I take two 90 minute classes a week and if I could, I would take three more. It's pretty much one of my favorite things to do with my time, I will admit.

A few auditions this week, nothing to write the web about, though. It's slow, which is fine; work is pretty active right now, so the balance seems to work out okay. Paul is in town, so we'll be hanging out this weekend, playing records and doing the dumb stuff that guys who have known each other for awhile tend to do. It's fun to have him back.

Gonna spend much of the weekend reading, I hope; many books to catch up on and I really just want to slow down a bit, which I always think I am doing but I never actually do. I guess that's just the way things are going to for awhile. I am looking forward to this summer being over, if only so it gets darker; it's still way too bright in the mornings for a ghoul like myself.

I got invited to speak at my old theatre department to talk about life as an actor in New York and LA, the various pitfalls, opportunities, bounced checks, etc. I must admit I am pretty excited and flattered to be asked, and hopefully the students will get something out of it. I certainly would have appreciated someone going through the various differences between LA and NY before I graduated.

All right, it's time to get out of here. Have a good weekend!

(Iron Man statue from the Marvel booth at Comic-Con)

Sigh. I have been having several issues with the video on the site as well as some RapidWeaver crashes, which are kind of driving me nuts. I hate having to retype stuff!!! ARGH!

Anyway, I'm back in LA after what was a great time in San Diego for this year's Comic-Con. Though we were there for longer than last year, this year's show seemed to go by much more quickly. It was a strange show, in a way; there were not "super announcements" that drove the show forward (though there were plenty of announcements and news). It was kind of an odd show and I can't really put my finger on what made it different. I never really felt relaxed, that's for sure, and even when I was in panels I was enjoying, I couldn't help but feel I was missing out on something else. Still, it was a blast. Comic-Con is by far one of my favorite events of the year and I am already looking foward to next year's. Kinda.

I won't attempt to give a broad overview of the news that came out of the con (for that sort of thing go here, here and here). This was the first show that I caught one of the bigger panels; usually I show I up for them and they are completely sold out, but this time I was able to drag myself out of bed and get to the Con early enough to spend most of the day in Ballroom 20, where the highly anticipated Heroes and Battlestar Galactica talks were. Both were fairly cool; I mean, it's cool and all to see the creators of the shows and to see the actors, but I must admit that I always get a little squirmy when I go to these things. As an actor who is working very hard to get on shows like these, part of me is resistant to hanging out in a room full of adoring fans to hear what people who technically my colleagues have to say about what is admittedly a fantastic gig. But then again, I am a fan and I enjoy hearing their stories and I appreciate the time they take to sit down and take questions from their fans and all that. It's just odd. I go back and forth, though--I really love both of these shows and I also happen to think that the casts of these shows are absolutely fantastic. Indeed, both shows have some of the best acting on TV, period, so it's a good thing for me to hear what they think about the jobs, what the challenges are and what their hopes are for the future of the shows (and their careers). In the end, I guess, I just wanna be up there, too! Which is good--you should know what you want from life, right? Once you define it, you can obtain it. So, next year, I'll have a photo the opposite of this one:

Where I am looking at the audience from the table (one of the Heroes guys actually took a picture like that, I think it was Greg Grunberg.)

So I spent most of Saturday near Ballroom 20, which was fun, but I hate waiting in line, which I did all morning, so it sucked a bit, too. Long story short, I basically got there at 9 and waited over 2.5 hours to get into the hall, which holds almost 2000 people). At one point the line actually lapped itself, so there was another line that started right near us (were were very close to the door, thankfully) that wrapped all the way around the hall. The organizers basically told them the line was closed a short time later. Insane. They have a hall there that can hold 6,000 people--they should have used that hall for these two presentations.

Backing up a bit, Whit and I had a really good time on Friday. Very soon after Whit and I arrived, we ended up watching a taping of the iFanboy podcast, where I actually ended up participating in during the Q&A session. Sadly, the audio didn't work out, but it was fun nonetheless. Later, after attending one of the DC panels, we ended up at the iFanboy/Totally Rad Show party that night, which was a lot of fun, followed by a staggering walk down to the Hyatt with a few friends, including Jonathan London (from the very good Geekscape podcast), who is a total crack up. Really fun night, but whew, Saturday was ro-ugh.

Back to Saturday...we actually ended up going home for a disco nap before arriving at the PopCandy party that night, which was super fun (if way too small and way too hot with way too little air).

Whitney and Whitney!

Why so fun? Well, we were finally able to hang out a bit with the always-fantastic friend James Sime, whom I have known for many, many years as the owner of the greatest comics store on the planet, Isotope. I've known James since he bought the old Comics and Da'Kiine, which was one of my old shops when I was a kid in San Francisco. James was actually one of the Eisner Award judges this year, which was super, super cool. James is really one of the most inspirationally cool cats you can hang out with; he is one of those guys that just contributes so much to the whole comic book scene. I will go on and on about him sometime later, suffice to say, I am a big fan of his and feel very lucky to watch him work so hard and be so successful. So cool.

Of course, I spent much of my time with the iFanboy guys, which was a lot of fun, as always, as well as Ash (Asche??), talking about the show and comics. I actually don't get a chance to talk about comics with that many people, so I really, really love that aspect of the show. I also had a great time chatting with Alex Albrecht from Revision3's Diggnation and The Totally Rad Show. I'm a big fan of Diggnation from waaay back (I watched the first 4 or 5 episodes back to back armed with a 6 pack of beer while I put up a ceiling fan in our bedroom. Whit came in at one point to see who I was talking to and why I was laughing so loud--and yes, the fan works fine), and it was fun to finally meet Alex, who is also an actor in LA with a background in technology and all things somewhat geeky. It was great to talk to him about his show and what he is up to. In a very real way, I was more stoked to talk with Alex about all this stuff than I was to see the cast of Heroes, I must admit.

This entry's getting a little long so I will end it here, but I will scrap up some more stories tomorrow. I've posted a few of our photos here and will discuss some of the comic and movie news over the next few days! See ya!

Oh, and finally, I am trying out the Twitter thing for awhile. It was really, really useful during the Con but we shall see if it matters the rest of the time...

Tags: comics,comiccon,san diego