MY LA WEEKEND

Hey- slammed with work so this is gonna be fast.

Went to LA on Friday to do a playtest and now am back with a trunkful of very useful notes. Gonna spend most of the day getting those on lists and then sending off to Utah to see which ones we can/should/want to address and which notes we want to let go (always a tough a call after a play test: which comments to incorporate and which to throw back).

But a few things about my trip- if I may:


#1- I SAW KEVIN SMITH!

Caught the Kevin Smith Q/A live at the House of Blues on Sunset. Me and my brother went and it was...ok. Yeah, just ok. I dig the Smith a lot but his schtick is feeling tired and no longer feels genuine. I get it tho- I feel for the guy. I am a fan, to be sure. But you see the same kind of 'tiredness/struggle' in his movies as well: where he's been trying since Jersey Girl to step away from his View Askew stuff but has not had a lot of success with that and so keeps going back to his old vibe because (just guessing here) it's either safe/feels natural and/or it's lucrative. I don't begrudge the man- it's tough to grow creatively and I wish him the best. But we left the show 2 hours in (he's known to go on for 3-5 hours sometimes). Nice and kind a guy as he seems, the show just dragged and got pretty dull. Still, cool to see he can pack a house. As I said: I'm a fan, so good for him!

#2- IRON MAN 2=IRON MEH 2
Yeah, I wrote that...whatever! Would have been happier catching this on Blu Ray when it hits in 4-6 months. It was fine but nothing close to being special. IM1 was crazy fresh and had a heartbeat that was incredibly attractive and charismatic and the story was so tight and smart. This one just felt...corporate? Serviceable? Certainly not a BAD movie in the scheme of things. It was solid for sure but it just was not special enough to merit me spending 2 hours of my life at a theater. As I get older, I still love movies but I get a lot more picky now and this one - for me- just didn't cut it as a full price,  big event deal. Watching at home or catching with medium expectations at a matinee= the perfect way to watch Iron Man 2.  Come on Marvel Studios...don't start slipping on us now!

#3- FULL CIRCLE!
So I caught IM2 at the fantastic GROVE in L.A. with my brother. Before the flick we browsed the amazing Barnes & Noble superstore that they have there and check out what I found!

How cool! I had seen early versions of this at the studios, but to see it on the stands (last copy left too!) was just crazy neat! I grew up loving comics and still buy and read comics and hell, some of my personal inspiration for God of War 1 came from my love of comic books. And to see a comic based on a story/world/character that I had a huge hand in crafting? And to see it as a REAL comic in a REAL store (vs. a one off comic that is done JUST for promotional purposes and handed out at trade shows and such?)...Well wow man. That's just amazing to me. How cool is that?!?!

#4- PHYSICAL MEDIA IS DEAD TO ME
Got the ipad. LOVE the ipad. Read comics, books, magazines on the thing all the time. I've spent way too much cash already on ipad digital media that used to fill my house as physical media. Man, it's all nice and tidy and simple to carry around on my little ipad. Totally rocks. I love it. But having all that digital media on the pad made it odd going into Barnes & Noble Saturday cause I LOVE bookstores. Always have. And mega book stores like the B&N at the Grove make me crazy happy and I could spend hours in there just browsing and getting lost. But now that I've had a week of buying and reading magazines and comics and books on the ipad, a real life book store just seems archaic to me. I know some peeps will always love their physical media (and I get it...I LOVE to smell new books and fold magazines and carry around a weathered paperback that I'm working thru)...but once you go digital with this stuff, the waste of space and death of trees and mega effort to create and store and sell and buy real life paper media just seems...stupid.

#5- SPAM- Hate all the spam the posts have gotten as of late. Turned on the spam filter which means if you want to comment you gotta enter in one of those little code words they provide you. Sorry about that. I know it's a pain. But it beats having 50 messages about buying some bullshit this or that.

Ok, tons to do! Later ya'll!

David