Meeting a legend

  Back in June we attended a special signing at Mostly Comics. Legendary artist Neil Adams was in town to sign autographs and tell stories. In addition to awesome runs on The Avengers and  Batman he co created the villain Ras Al Ghul and Green Lantern John Stewart. He had drawn all the famous comic book covers of my youth.

      This was the first big signing at Mostly Comics.We brought our recorder just in case we could ask him  a few questions. Mr Adams was more than happy to do that for us. He signed a Green Lantern and Green Arrow comic. He told stories about Green Arrow and working on the famous Superman Vs Muhammed Ali Comic. Such a nice guy.

  I want to give a shout out to Bev and Kim and Cheryl of Mostly Comics. They definitely had our back. When i approached Mr Adams  Kim immediatelt said  these are the guys i was telling you about. I thanked them and Bev said we were like family and gave me a hug. It was a nice moment and we appreciated it.

   

Allison, Scott and Ryan

 Thinking of friends today. First up I wanna say get well to our good buddy Ryan. We were  supposed to attend a new convention in London Ontario today  but Ryan became ill. Feel better my brother.

 Up next I want  to say sorry to my friends Allison and Scott. I've been a terrible friend. I have had a terrible year. One bad thing after another has happened. In addition to not blogging I haven't wanted to email anyone either. My old e mail address is gone so I'm not sure if they tried to contact me. Guys I know you read my blog in the past. If you're reading it now I'm sorry for not writing and I love you both. Please try writing  me  at--- email@wegotthegeek.com. I miss you both very much/ 

Niagara Falls Comic Con 2014.

 Hey guys. Welcome to my 6th blog of the year. How sad is that? Its been a rough year. I'd rather not get into it. Needless to say there's been a lot of moping and feeling sorry for myself. A friend of mine--Kimmy  pointed out that maybe getting back to the blog would cheer me up a little bit. I'm sure going to give it a try. I do miss it and despite the shitty things that have happened to me this  year..there were also a few happy moments as well.  Some  great moments for the pod cast actually.

  So the last time i wrote we had done our trivia night. It went over great. What happened next surprised us. After a few years of trying we finally got press passes to the Niagara Falls comic con. Our friend Alex had a lot to do with that. She had gotten us tickets to give away at our trivia night from Chris who is also one of the creators of Niagara Falls comic con. Over the years it seems he had a problem with us. Not sure why. This year Alex talked to him and we were given 2 press passes to the event. Kath was already getting in for free to help our friend Kristen with her table. Ryan and I would use the passes and hopefully get some interviews.

 If that weren't enough, we won two  tickets from Mostly Comics for  the third day of the con. We could cover two days of the three day convention.Ryan couldnt make it to the second day so we gave the extra ticket to Kimmy. She would also help on photography opportunities.

 Day one:  Because we were getting in as press we were allowed to go into the building an hour early. Ryan and I scoped out the place to see where  everyone was located. We immediately found out  that some of the celebrities were not doing any press. We were sad because we had our hearts set on a Dean Cain interview. I was happy with the interviews we got. We got to meet and talk to Dan Parent-a writer for Arche Comics and creator of Archie's first gay character Kevin Keller. He was such a nice guy. We also met the current artist on Marvels Elektra series Mike D'elmundo.

   We did an interview with a local cos player named Zombie Bit Me. We were so impressed with what she had to say that we are now trying to do cos play interviews at every con we go to. Interesting stuff.

  It was cool seeing all the friends we have made at other cons such as the ladies from Cosplay for a cure and our old buddy Alfonso and Steph and Dan from the Gce.  I love seeing people from our extended geek family.

  Ok let me get to one of the coolest moments of the day. The interview i was hoping to land was the guys from the show Comic Book Men.  As you all know I am a huge Kevin Smith fan. Walt and Brian from comic book men and have appeared in a lot of his movies. Walt even drew a couple of Kevin's Batman comic book series which i also loved. I really wanted to get an interview with any of the guys from the show. I was really nervous to speak with them but managed enough guts to walk up to Walt and another cast member Ming. They were very nice and said yes. I started to talk to Ming and Walt kind of looked pissed off. I was hoping i hadn't caused that. As soon as i started talking about actual comics he actually lit up and got talkative. Man it was a nice moment. Walt even signed one of my comics. I was so happy.

Day 2; like i said earlier this day i was helped by the lovely Kimmy. We took a lot of pics and spoke to some local talent, Limmy surprised Kath and i with a huge surprise--she got us a photo op with the comic book men! When we went into the room Ming recognized me and yelled out --JStew! It was  truly a kick ass moment.

  So a few thank yous: Thanks Chris for the passes we appreciate it. Thanks to Ryan for being a huge asset to the We Got The Geek team.Thank you Kimmy for helping us out on Day two. You are a great friend. We can't wait to check out Niagara Falls comic con next year. Truly an awesome experience for the whole team.

Trivia Night

   Well enough screwing around.back to the blog. A lot of cool stuff has happened to We Got The Geek lately. Today let me tell you about how our Geek fest trivia turned out. 

  Well  to be honest it turned out bigger and better than we ever imagined. Over 80 people showed up and raved about the event.There were a few technical glitches but now we know for next time. Yes that's right there will be a next time! The food went over great, the trivia went over great  and we  made enough cash to cover our costs and contribute to the Jace Wars charity.

 I was flying on cloud nine by the end of the night. I want to thank our crew, Kstew, Ryan, Alex, Darren and Jody. Thanks to everyone who came out and thanks for all the kind words. We'll probably  doing another event in the Fall and we can't wait to see you then.

Password password password

   Holy crap. I hadn't blogged in so long that i forgot my password. I was going to have an actual awesome blog today. I'm so exhausted from trying to retrieve my password that I think I am now going to take a break to recover. Thanks to my lovely wife Kath for helping me retrieve my password. I sure do like saying the word password. Be back later gang. At least i remember the password.

Easter

 Hey its Easter and i just wanted to wish everyone a great holiday. Don't eat to much chocolate! Have a great day everybody,

Geek fest trivia

  Shit. I have really been slacking with the blog. I wrote once this year and that was to resolve unfinished business from last year. I feel like writing something positive.  I think I'll tell you all about a project that is taking up a lot of my time and energy--but in a good way.


  As you all know Kath and I have a pod cast called We Got The Geek. Prior to that we had been involved with a live internet show about geek related issues.  Kath and I have always wanted to put on an event of some type  to get our name out there.  We brought this up to our good friends Darren and Alex. Alex and Kath had put on some craft shows and stuff like that. Alex suggested a geek trivia night. She had been to several trivia events and they are very popular. I thought about it for a few minutes and weighed the pros and cons. I came to the conclusion that this would be a good thing. I also wanted to hold a cosplay contest. We know a lot of people who are into  dressing up as characters from movies and comic books and i have always loved seeing people dress up at the various cons we attend.

  The next day Alex had booked us a hall on April 27th and we were off to the races. We're calling it Geekfest trivia night and it also includes dinner. Lucky for us Pulp Comics, Mostly comics and sketchbook comics agreed to sell tickets for us. We've had people jump on board to donate prizes. We are so excited. We've been working on it for the last 8 weeks and it goes on a week from today. Its going to be a blast. So that's where my head has been for the last few months. I'll keep you posted on how things turn out,

New years resolutions. Better late than never

 Well here it March 15th, My first blog of 2014. I haven't blogged since New Years eve 2013. Where have i been? Its a sad tale. One that i will gladly tell in my next blog. I have nothing to hide. For now however. Something light hearted. I never got around to telling my resolutions for 2014. First of all.. a look back to last year and i'll reveal how  i did with last years resolutions. Here we go

Resolutions 2014




1) take the weight off and leave it off. Gut is starting to look really big now and drooping over the belt. Not cool. Very Boss Hogg like.

2) I want gygo to get bigger and better. I want more live show and more convention opportunities. Some more celebrity guests would be cool. I want to have a good time doing the show.

3) A new job? Less stress would be a good thing.

4) Join Bruce Springsteen on stage to sing Badlands?

5) Would love to take Diana to another concert--maybe another 80's hero!

6) Do a better job of keeping in touch with friends then i've been doing. Life is to short. My friends make me happy.

7) try to have a better year than 2012 turned out to be

8) well i am out of lead actresses from party of 5 to have a three way with. Jennifer Love Hewitt, Lacey Chabert, Neve Campbell and Paula Devicq all didn't happen. So with the magic of imdb i will search for someone who was a guest star on Party of Five.  Well lookee what we have here. Patricia Heaton from Everybody loves Raymond was a guest star on 3 episodes. Ok then maybe a 3 way with her. As always i have the love and support from my lovely wife Kath.




Ok and here's how i did




1) i lost weight at the end of the year. Not in a good way. I got sicker than a dog for a whole month and didn't want to eat anything. Don't worry. I'm back to the previous gut size


2)   Well you all know how the gygo situation went. However Kath and I went on to start our own pod cast called We Got The Geek. We are much happier. We had tables and press passes at a number of shows and events. We've  made a lot of friends and contacts with the new show. Its been awesome.


3) well no new job for Jstew but i did get sent back to my original billing job ! The stress is there more than ever!!


4) I got to sing with Springsteen!!  Just kidding. I did get to see a pretty cool documentary called Springsteen and I. It was about different fans experienced with  Bruce.

5) Diana did attend another concert with us, A free outdoor show in Niagara Falls featuring Barney Bentall!!

6) 2013 started out awesome and then turned into a flaming pile of dog crap,

7) Last but not least. Did i get to bed Patricia Heaton? Denied.


Ok what do i want to accomplish in 2014?

1) Losing weight would be nice. I ain't holding my breath though.

2) I want We Got The Geek to continue to grow. We already have some events planned for 2014. We love the fan base we have built up and would like  it to continue to grow. Would love to make some more geeky friends.


3) Can i please find a cool job that doesn't make me want to beat the shit out of customers? I'd be happy doing my pod cast for a living.

4) Take Diana to all kinds of cool events. Another concert would be amazing. Billy Joel maybe?

5) hey i totally forgot that Party Of Five had a spin off called. Elizabeth Mitchell was on a bunch of shows. She's had a bunch of geeky  roles on Lost and V and Revolution. I'm pretty sure Kath would give the go ahead    to have a three way with her Hopefully 2014 is the year for that!

Sick again

Shit. I really was all set to go back to work today. I went to bed at 10:30 last night. I never go to bed that early. I was going to sleep off the sick. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way. I got all achy again with the chills. I was delirious. Kath says i even talked in my sleep. Woke up at 7:30. Felt really rough but was still considering going in to work. Then i threw up. That was the end of going into work. This means i don't get paid for the holiday tomorrow which means i lose 3 days of pay. It  really sucks. Its also New years eve,I didn't have any crazy party plans but Kath was going to make all kinds of great treats to eat. I'm scared to eat anything for fear of throwing up again. Well hopefully next time i write I'm feeling better,

Sick

  Today was supposed to be my return to taking billing calls. It was not to be. I woke up at 5 in the morning feeling sicker than a dog. I was achy and freezing and was having terrible nightmares. When my alarm went off at 7:30 i made an executive decision that i was staying home. I haven't been this sick in awhile. Unfortunately i have to go in tomorrow even if I'm dying. I will miss out on getting paid for New Years day if i'm not there tomorrow. I messaged a couple of my friends that were going back to billing and they said it was terrible in there. Yay. I'll have a full report tomorrow on what its like.

sad day for the family.

  Today we had the sad task of attending my Aunt Kristin's funeral. She was my Mom's lifelong friend for 50 years and had been battling cancer for the past year.. She was a really nice lady and I'll always remember her fondly. It was a nice service.

It got me to feeling grateful for the friendships i have made in my life and really glad Colin and i settled our differences this year. Life is way to short.

Mostly Comics big day

  Congratulations to our friends at Mostly Comics. Last month they did a long over due renovation of the store. I've been going there for thirty years  to buy comics practically every week.Fourteen years ago a new owner named Kim took over the store. He and his fellow workers Bev and Sheryl have been really  good to us over the years and there isn't anything that we wouldn't do for them. This is why we said yes to pod casting from the store on the day of their grand re opening. We had an awesome time and the store was busy all day. Ryan came and took pictures and the Mayor of St Catharines was there to cut the ribbon.  So thanks Mostly Comics for a great day and can't wait to buy comics from you for another 30 years!

Its Christmas all over again

 Merry Christmas everybody! It's December 25th and guess what? I still don't have the Christmas spirit. I'm looking forward to seeing my family and eating turkey but i still feel so bah hum bug. Next week i am done training and back to the billing department. I'm still kind of pissed off about that.Its been doing nothing but raining and snowing the last week. Not to happy about that either.

Despite my crappy week and dislike for Christmas, I do hope everyone is having a safe holiday season with friends and family.

Conversations with Alfonso

 It's 2:00 am and I'm about to head off to bed. I've complained quite a bit and I am feeling quite bitter, I thought I would end the night on some good news that we experienced recently.

  Earlier this year at Art o con we met an interviewed a really cool guy named Alfonso Espinos. Alfonso runs a comic book company called Studiocomix and he writes and draws some of the titles as well.

  One of the great things about doing the podcast this year is the new friends and contacts we've made. We've gotten a little bit of recognition as well We never had that with the old live show. In June at the Niagara Falls comic con the first person who said hi to us and shook my hand was Alfonso. I thought that was pretty cool.

 In July we ran into Alfonso at con Bravo where we were  lucky enough to interview him again, Following that event he started linking to our pod cast on his face book page. We really appreciated that.

 In September at the Canadian toy con we got to interview him a third time. This time we felt really comfortable around him and joked around a little more during the interview.

  This brings us to December and Alfonso has put out the third issue of his comic The Night Spike. On the inside back cover he put up an ad for We Got The Geek. I was so touched by the gesture. It was nice. I want to take this time to thank him again for the promotion. He's such a nice guy, Do us a favor and check out his stuff at http://www.studiocomix.com

More head aches for Jay

  I  got some more wonderful news last week and by wonderful i mean shitty. Remember my awesome job in the welcome department? Well last week we were told the welcome department was being discontinued after 18 months. So what does this mean for the 12 people including myself that were in the department? We are being shipped back to the billing department. Longtime readers of my blog know about all the headaches i used to get from the fine customers that call in to the department. To put it as nice as i can--I am not looking forward to it.

  The good news is that they put us in a training class for the next three weeks. That's great because i don't remember a lot. I do remember that the customers always made me angry. I can't wait to go back. Merry Christmas to me indeed. Oh that was sarcastic as well.

I want to punch winter in the face.

  Well i have slacked off again after getting back into the swing of things. If you read the last post December started off awesome. I change my mind December sucks ass. We had some technical issues with our  internet. We also had car issues. As i type these words we are in the middle of our first big snow fall of the year. The roads absolutely suck. You know what else sucks? We had been planning to attend a comic convention in Toronto this weekend. We were going up with our buddy John Bulmer and we had some interviews lined up for the pod cast. There's no way we are going now. We aren't risking our lives for that. I am really disappointed by this. It sucks. On the plus side Diana likes shoveling for some unknown crazy reason. She helped me a few times already yesterday. Please winter go away.

A great start to December

   Hey everyone. Welcome to December. So i gotta tell you all- I had a great first day of December. The snow is melting and it felt nice out. I only needed 1 jacket instead of 2. Best of all--I got to have a day off with Kath and Diana! We got to sleep in which was a big plus. We headed off to Pulp comics with our artist friend Chris. Pulp has open sketch Sundays where artists can go and hang out and draw. We interviewed the lady in charge of it--Racquel. She was really cool and nice. Then we headed off to Sketchbook comics. The guys there have been helping us with a weekly segment where they discus which books are being released that week.

  We came home around 6 and recorded a few things with our buddies Kristen and Hunter, We followed that up with pizza and the Walking Dead. What a fantastic day.

Bah humbug!

  To the people that are already putting up your Christmas trees--all i have to say to that is-- really? It isn't even December yet. The last thing i want to do is think about Christmas. We're not even close to getting ready. I guess I'm the grinch this year. Oh well.


 On a related note. Once again I have skipped my works Christmas party. That's 12 years in a row baby!!  Why break my streak now?  That would be wrong.

Black Friday blues.

 Well it was the second day off in a row that work made us take. Its Black Friday in the states. Its a big holiday  where all the stores in America have gigantic sales and customers line up  and almost kill everyone trying to get the deals.  We have American customers and the powers that be don't want us calling anyone today. It sort of sucks. Kath still has to work and Diana is in school so its kind of boring around here, Today Kath dropped me off downtown. She works downtown now. I hung out at a Tim Hortons for an hour and then went to Mostly Comics to get my books. Although it had snowed last night it was pretty warm out so i walked home while listening to music on my ipod. I got home and immediately started to miss the family.  Hopefully next time i'll get a day off with Diana and Kath. Hopefully no one died this Black Friday trying to get a deal on a toaster or something.

The day i loved the day job

  So i  guess i should tell the tale of how i wound up with two tickets to the Hammer town comic con. Its actually a pretty cool story.

  Longtime followers of the blog will remember that I'm not a fan of my day job. I have never taken part  in any extra activities my work has done. I've never even been to one of my staff Christmas parties in the last 12 years. In mid September i read that our work was going to have a comic con themed day. I thought it was a cool idea but figured I would stay out of it. As i was leaving work a guy i kind of recognized came running up to me and asked what i was doing for comic con day. I replied probably nothing. Then he asked me if i was still doing the pod cast? Ok i was starting to get curious. I guess my name was given to the committee in charge of the event and they were interested in me doing the pod cast at work. I quickly changed my tune and said that i was indeed interested. It turns out the gut i recognized was also friends  with Paul who runs Pulp Comics and his name was Dusty,

  So the following week for the first time ever i was excited to go to work. I even wore my half assed Clark Kent costume. I gotta tell--in 12 years it was the coolest day i ever had at work. There were super hero movies being played on the tvs and people  in costumes. There were giveaways and super hero music being played in the hallway and free bags of popcorn. I sat at the front with Dusty. Man that guy knows his stuff. I set up the dice game that we run when we have appearances at cons. I was a bit nervous as it was the first time i had run a table without Kath, I recorded a full day of answers and had an excellent time. One of the ladies in charge--Meagan said i did an awesome job and would consider me for future events. Oh yeah i wasn't complaining that this also got me off of the phones all day.

  The next day as i was sitting at my desk wishing i was doing the podcast, i was visited at my desk by Meagan. She produced a comic book looking statue with a panel that said best pod caster. So i guess that technically we now have an award winning pod cast. The icing on the cake was that i was also presented with the tickets to Hammer town for doing such a good job. It was such a great moment. I'll never forget it.