Willow Has Arrived

On Friday my five Willow action figures arrived! There is a story behind these Willows, as you may have guessed. The original Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS) action figures were produced by a company called Moore Action Collectibles (MAC). Their figures were very popular, but after BtVS was canceled, MAC stopped producing new action figures. Then, last year, MAC announced that due to an increase in demand for BtVS figures, they were starting a new line of figures, beginning with six different Willows. I signed up as a member of their collectors society so I would have first access at buying them. I was able to buy a pre-production White Witch Willow, of which they only made 995. I then pre-ordered all six Willow figures. Sometime in March, MAC sold the BTVS (and Angel) action figure rights to a company called Diamond Select Toys (DST). During the transition, many people, including me, had their orders lost. (This is based on usefull information I read from a BtVS figures forum.) By the time I found out, DST had already sold-out their White Witch Willows. So I ordered the other five and in one week they were delivered to my door. Now they sit on my wall for all to admire.


Diamond Select Toys

BtVS Figures Forum

Last Angel Party

Last night I had some friends over to watch the final episode of Angel. After five years of outstanding writing, directing and acting, the television show Angel came to an abrupt end. In fact, there are no shows on TV by Joss Whedon anymore. At one time there were three. Our only hope lies in the fact that the ending was a cliffhanger - the battle never ends. I wish I hadn't waited until the end of the 3rd season to start watching Angel - lets here it for DVDs! I thank the people who came to my house yesterday - it has been a while since I've hosted a get-together of more than three people. I wanted to take a photo of everyone but forgot. Also, next time I will have more potato chips so we don't have to ration. For tonight - leftover pizza for dinner and one Smirnoff Ice malt beverage.

Xyst

What does "Xyst" mean? I will explain soon. I recently saw Dennis DeYoung, formerly of Styx, perform with the San Diego symphony. I had been wanting to see him solo in concert for almost 20 years, ever since he released his first solo album, Desert Moon, in 1984. I had see him perform with Styx three times and had enjoyed each concert. But at this show I got to see Dennis DeYoung do more than sing. He told jokes and made the audience laugh. He let other singers perform while he watched from back stage. Dennis DeYoung still has a great singing voice and knows how to perform in front of a live audience. I had never seen the San Diego Symphony before, and they were a great accompaniment to the music of Styx. I am glad I went to the concert. So how does "Xyst" fit in? Well "Xyst" is the name of a game that I wrote on an Atari 800 back in 1981. "Xyst" comes from Styx, my favorite band of all times. "Xyst" was written in Basic and the object of the game was to have each band member find their instruments in a series of rooms. The only copy of the game exists on a 5 1/4 floppy disc in my closet - I hope it still works. Yes, I do have the Atari 800 still.

How it all started

How did this blog get started? It involves They Might be Giants, Wil Wheaton and The Screen Savers. Read on. I was driving up to Anaheim with my sister to see They Might be Giants at the House of Blues in Downtown Disney. On the way my sister asked me, out of the blue, "What's a blog?". I told her that a blog was a web log, a journal style of web site. After seeing Kill Bill Volume 2 and eating diner at the Rainforest Cafe, we saw the concert, which was excellent, as TMBG always is. Even the opening act, Corn 'Mo, was fun. Corn 'Mo was a one man band who played an accordion and a foot symbol. Moving on. A few days later, I was watching the show The Screen Savers on TechTV, and they had Wil Wheaton as a guest. He was talking about computers and such, and then he mentioned that he saw TMBG last week and at the concert he talked to Corn 'Mo about blogs. Seems that Wil was at the same concert we were, and had the same converstion about blogs - scarry!. So my sister stared a blog on e-blogger, and a few weeks later, I created this blog. That's how this blog got started.

Web sites discussed above:

Wil Wheaton's Blog

They Might be Giants

The Screen Savers

Corn 'Mo

Trip to Picacho

This last weekend I went camping with some friends at Picacho State Park, located on the California side of the Colorado River. We camped at a "primitive" camp site, meaning there is no water and only a portable out-house, plus covered tables. Well, I guess it is not so primitive after all. The camp site sits near Taylor Lake, where we float around on rafts drinking beer. This time we actually ventured out to the River, where we watched boaters race madly up and down the river. We stayed near the edge, otherwise the current would take our small rafts swiftly downstream to certain peril. Below are some pictures Steve took plus a link to the park's web site. Next trip - Kern River.


Picacho State Park

My First Blog and Post

Hello World,

This is my first blog entry in my new blog. Yes, I jumped on the blog bandwagon. Now I can talk to Wil Wheaton if I see him at a concert without talking about Star Trek (a long story for another blog entry). My next blog entry will actually have something interesting in it. 'Till then,

Happy blogging
Keith

P.S.

I just did a spell check using the built-in spell checker, and "blog" was not in their dictionary! Wow!