Represent!

The Wonderful World of the Wide Web is filled with ceWEBrities (or WEBlebrities, if you prefer). And the World Wide Comic Book-Type People World…or whatever…is filled with COMlebrities (I’m hoping that one starts catching on).

Last weekend a good deal of both were gathered together in one place for the sole purpose of sitting behind rickety folding tables cluttered with kooky crap.

The place? San Diego. “The Big S.D.” The Diego by the San.

The reason? I said it earlier, weren’t you paying attention? The rickety table thing?


…And Comic-Con.

Everyone who is anyone was at ComicCon – or was at the very least represented by an official proxy at Comic-Con.

How do I know?

Because LFTI was at Comiccon.

That’s right! Steve and myself went to Comic Con to represent the show (at least that’s what it’ll say on our taxes). Tanya, refusing to wear the sexy metallic Princess Leia in Jabba’s Palace costume, was forced to stay behind in LA.

This was my first time at the convention and I learned two things at ComicCon this year:

1. There are about 10,000 different, yet apparently acceptable, ways of spelling Comic-Con.

2. There is no stink like the stink of the bathrooms at Comiccon. Evidentally $6 pretzels and waxy pizza, when combined in the stomach of a dude wearing a storm trooper costume, create toxic gasses that could terraform Mars.


Steve and I had a great time, shuffling through crowds, getting free stuff, hobnobbing with contemporaries.

We even stopped by to see the folks from The Guild. No, gentle Guild fan, we did not meet Felicia Day. She wasn’t manning the booth when we strolled by to say “hi.” In fact, she’s become such a huge celebrity now with the release of Dr. Horrible (quite a few Dr. Horrible costumes at Comic-Con by the way), that I’m surprised she had any time to greet her Guild fans (but she did).

But we did get to chat briefly with Vincent Caso, Sandeep Parikh and Jeff Lewis. They were all very nice and promised to watch our show (note to Vincent, Sandeep and Jeff: if your Google Alert goes off and you read this, there’s a link to our show on this page…a few actually. In case you lost the business cards we gave you. And it was nice to meet you! An additional note to Jeff: If I had known that you had written a film that’s about to be released I would have heartily congratulated you. That’s very cool. Congrats!)

They were busy signing autographs and generally being ceWEBrities. Cool, approachable, ceWEBrities. So check out The Guild! You may not have heard of it. Yeah, they’re a pretty obscure organization. Give ‘em a shot. Support those kids.

Steve also took some pictures while at Comic-Con. Very interesting, poignant and personally inspiring pictures to chronicle our time in San Diego.

Here they are:

All 4 of them:




This a picture (above) of Steve pretending to be Iron Man. Personally, I think it’s a pretty poor imitation, but the comic-drunk patrons of Comic-Con (not pictured) seemed to think it was okay. I said “Man of Steel?! More like Man of Teal…blue design aesthetic…‘cause you’re a pansy…!” And I laughed. Until Steve informed me that Superman is the “Man of Steel.” Which makes no sense at all to me since Iron Man is made of…plastic.





I dressed up like Jabba the Hut (above)(Tanya, I could have used you in that Leia costume!). I have gained a bit of weight lately. So I had that working for me. Sure the costume was a bit lazy. But, in my defense, I had very little time to prepare. Hey, at least I made the effort to find a dead alien frog-looking thing to eat! I think it made the costume.





This is a picture (still above) of the MST3K planet that I forced Steve to take because…well because MST3K kicks ass, that’s why. This photo also makes me personally responsible for exactly 25% of the photos taken at Comic-Con. I think that officially makes me a “muse.”





This is Peter Mayhew (don’t keep making me tell you where the photo is). He played Chewbacca (what a Wookie!). He was there to sign autographs and take cash from Star Wars geeks. Did he sign anything for us? Heck no. We don’t have the kind of money he was asking for autographs. Yes, he charged for autographs. Big deal! What do you want?! He freed the galaxy from the Empire’s icy grip! That was free (except for the money he got for rescuing Princess Leia…but he stuck around for free)! Intergalactic warfare: Gratis. Putting up with comic book geeks: $150.


And that was Comic-Con 2008. Hope you enjoyed this personal glimpse into our exciting lives!

We really spread the word around about LFTI! It was a rousing promotional success!

ROBB

No music today. But I’m working on some for the next video that you might like. It’ll be here to torture you soon enough!

All A-Twitter

So the madness is over. We’ve been off the front page of YouTube for a while now. I just wanted to take a few minutes to thank all of our new subscribers for their support! It’s nice to have people following the show. We had no plans to quit making the show, but all of the great comments have really energized us!

Honestly, we appreciate each and every one of you. We practically gave ourselves carpal tunnel syndrome thanking everyone on YouTube. But that’s a nice way to see what our subscribers are up to.

And if you haven’t subscribed to us on YouTube yet, why not go there and do so? We’ll thank you! Personally! We’ll write you a very specific message in your comments like “Thanks for Sunscribing!” And If I’ve typed it fast, that’s exactly what it’ll say. Sunscribing. Or “ubscibing.”

(Here’s a little bit of trivia for you, if the word “Subscribing” is capitalized, I wrote it. If it’s not, it was most likely Tanya. Now you know.)

Speaking of seeing what people are up to…if you want to know what we’re up to here at LFTI, all you have to do is check out our Twitter feed! I’ve added it to the sidebar of this blog (over there, on the right). So you can be kept abreast of all our doings through esoteric ramblings and half-clues. Or you can go to our Twitter page. If you have a Twitter account (or want one, it’s pretty cool and all the hip kids are doing it these days) you can “follow” us. If you let us know about your Twitter feed, maybe we’ll “follow” you back!

It’ll be like the blind leading the blind.

Speaking of…I can’t wait to premier Episode 7!

See, that’s the kind of half-clue I was talking about.

ROBB

Oh, one more thing; I don’t want to start any kind of hysteria, but yesterday I completed a rough cut of the entire 7th episode of LFTI!

Writer’s Strike Got You Down?

Well, the good folks at NewTeeVee have a list of quality shows that can help you make it through the dark days. No longer will you have to suffer through hours of “reality” TV. There are plenty of fantastic web shows out there to satiate you.

One show in particular stood out to us here at Life From The Inside…our own. That’s right, we made the list! Yeah us.

So why not go over to NewTeeVee and give them some love? While you’re there, why not check out some of the other shows that they mention? Break a leg (a personal favorite of mine), Mr. Deity, The Meth Minute, Buried Alive and, uh…Quarterlife. Don’t feel obligated to watch Quarterlife, unless you really miss Dawson’s Creek, then by all means, watch it (quietly).

Thanks NewTeeVee!

I do sort of appreciate the irony of the fact that the writers are striking because of Internet “broadcasting” and the cure for any strike-related misery is Internet “broadcasting.” But, hey. Watch them anyway.

ROBB

We’re Featured

On indieTV.tv that is.

I urge you to go to indietv.tv and give them some love. You’ll probably recognize some familiar faces on the front page. Our viewership on indieTV has been a nice little boon, so, again, go to indieTV and watch, or at least vote or comment or something (as long as you’re in the commenting mood, why not visit our iTunes page and write a review? Or, go to YouTube and leave us a nice note. You could also subscribe to us now on Miro – if you haven’t checked out Miro, I highly recommend it, it’s great. BTW, people who liked us on Miro also liked Katie Couric’s podcast. Really? That’s cool with me. But weird, no?).

Anyway, Kaywood Hopkins is the man behind indietv.tv. I’ve actually been a member of the site for quite a while. I joined up right after we decided to make an online sitcom. Kaywood used to produce an indie sitcom called 35th Street Mission and I liked it. Plus he was a fellow Washingtonian so his show had even more interest to me.

Also, Kaywood built an entire coffee house set in his basement! And I’m not talking about some crappy cardboard boxes painted and taped together either. It was a good looking set (Hey Kaywood, do you still have that, I’m just curious?). Now that’s dedication.

So, go to indietv.tv and check it out. You’ll be glad you did.

And watch for the Halloween special to appear there very soon.

ROBB

We Were Mentioned (By Proxy) in the Huffington Post!

Thanks, Yuri.

Okay, here’s the deal; Ryan Davis of the Huffington Post blogged about independent “TV” shows on the web yesterday.

Two shows in particular were on Ryan’s radar, “The Burg” and “Break a Leg.” They are both very good shows. Both of them produced by good people. Kathy, Tanya and I actually bought “dinner” and drinks for Kathleen Grace and Thom Woodley, the producers of The Burg (they were in LA from Williamsburg, very nice, but where are the new episodes?!). We haven’t had a chance to buy Yuri and Vlad Baranovsky of BaL a meal yet, but if they’re ever hungry we will be more than happy to.

So, how did we get mentioned, and why am I so eager to buy food for a couple of expat Ukrainians? Well, the only reason we’re on the Huffington Post is because Yuri and Vlad mentioned LFTI as one of the shows that they are watching.

Wasn’t that cool of them?

I’m not sure of the number of hits that have been generated for our site due to the Huffington Post’s…uh…post because they didn’t hyperlink to us. But we had a good day yesterday. Our second biggest ever. Yeah us!

[Okay, I just checked back in with the article. It seems that we are now hyperlinked! So now I’ll be able to track just how many chocolate martinis we owe the Baranovskys.]

Anyway, check out the article on the Huffington Post (mention how much you hate the war in Iraq and get a free smoothie!).

And, whatever you do, don’t forget to watch Break a Leg! Visit their blog. Buy some T-Shirts. Just say “thanks.”

Thanks again BaL.

ROBB