This Weeks Assignment from the League Of Extraordinary Bloggers: Halloween Traditions

 

 

This week’s topic might duplicate what many of you are already doing for your Halloween countdowns, but I wanted the League to do something Halloweeny this week. Here is your assignment:

This is Halloween! This is Halloween! What are your Halloween traditions?

Our Halloween traditions are pretty simple these days. The kids usually carve some pumpkins prior to the big day. Then on Oct 31 after school we hand out candies to the tricker treaters who make the early start. Crystal takes the kids out to collect Halloween treats from around our neighbourhood around 5pm, then off to collect candies from the homes of our closest friends who do not live in the neighbourhood. In Barrhead they have a very cool tradition called 'The Pumpkin Walk'. The Pumpkin Walk is set up at the in town Golf course, and on each hole a local business has a set up where they give away stuff to the kids who are on the walk. Most business's rather than giving away candies, most tend to give away other stuff such as frisbees, colouring books & crayons, healthy snacks, etc. Some give away candies but the walk is more about alternative things for kids to take home to reduce sugar. The Pumpkin Walk usually starts I believe at 6:30 until 8:00 pm. So we will be there this year for the kids. If you are in or near the Barrhead area I strongly recommend checking out the Pumpkin Walk. 

 

 

Be sure to check out some of the other blogs that are part of the League which will be discussing Halloween traditions:

www.monstercafesaltillo.blogspot.com

www.brandedinthe80s.com

www.geekittillithurts.wordpress.com

www.that-figures.blogspot.com

Random Nerdness Episode 2: Show Me The McNuggets

Episode 2 of the Random Nerdness Podcast is available for free! streaming atwww.randomnerdness.podbean.com and also on iTunes. 

Chrisloc1701 is joined in the 'Batcave' studio with Sound Engineer Sebastian, good friend Mr Tyler Kluin and Step-Sister Meghan. In this exciting episode they discuss Turkey McNuggets, Thanksgiving, O'Ryans Chips, Crystal Pepsi, NHL Lockout, Comic book legend Stan Lee, Revolution, Hunger Games, and 50 Shades Of Grey. Chris's sister Brianna joins in on the 'Random Rant' discussion about guilty pleasures.

Edmonton Expo & He-Man Rebuild Collection Update

He-Man Rebuild Collection Update:

So last year I started rebuilding the lost He-Man toy collection from my youth. I've been going to conventions and the occasional garage sale in the hopes of finding those lost treasures from my youth.

Heres a few pics:

Left to Right: Evil Lynn, Tri-Clops,  Zodak, Teela and Buzz-Off (in front)

The Villains part of the rebuild collection

He-Man & allies part of the rebuild collection

This past weekend I attended the first Edmonton Comic & Entertainment Expo: 

This was the first year for this event and I attended the Sunday portion of the event. I got to meet and get Nichelle Nichols autograph, 'Uhura' from the original Star Trek Series. Other guest included Billy Dee Williams, Burt Ward, and others.

I managed to pick up a replica of Harry Potters first magic wand. A great start to an annual event. This show is done by the same people who do the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo. Definitely worth going to see. Mark next years date in your calenders: September 28-29 2013!

Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo will also be back: April 26-28 2013!!



Lots of great cosplay people attending too. Heres some pics:

Chrisloc1701 beside the Bear Radio Station truck

RN Podcast Episode 1:Spam Not Just A Breakfast Food

Random Nerdness Episode 1: Spam Not Just A Breakfast Food

It has been completed, and we are officially a proud member of The Atomic Geeks Podcast Network! The podcast is up on Podbean, hopefully soon on iTunes. Just finished submitting to iTunes, just waiting for approval from them then we'll be there too! Give this podcast a listen. Also it's free!!

http://www.randomnerdness.podbean.com

In Episode 1: Chris is joined in the ´Batcave´ Studio with Sebastian, sister Brianna and Mr Tyler Kluin. In this episode they discuss the Bleeding Cool website, Brianna tries to convince us why we should check out the ´Twilight` movies and books. We discuss the new Robocop, Dick Tracy on Blue-Ray, Kick Ass 2, The Avengers. We also talk about e-mails, spam and other online headaches.

Also are the apes going to take over the world??

“State of the Site” Random Nerdness

This weeks assignment from the League Of Extraordinary Bloggers is pretty straight forward: Write a “State of the Site” for your web site. How’s it going? What exciting things have happened this past year? Where do you want your site to be in a year’s time?

 

So I actually started blogging on Facebook back in May 2009. Fall 2011 I decided to branch out and do my blog elsewhere in the hopes of getting more people reading my random thoughts on life, pop culture, Star Trek, comic books, etc. So I found 'Blogspot' and started blogging there under the 'Random Nerdness' banner. I really enjoyed building my own blog site so much so I created a second soon after called 'Trek1701', a Star Trek blog. Then I got hit with blogging fever and I started a 3rd blog called 'The Cola Dog', which was a comic book and animation blog. I shutdown 'The Cola Dog' at the end of May 2012, just because I couldn't keep up with a weekly blog schedule for all 3 blogs. But Random Nerdness has been a lot of fun. In March 2012 I made my podcasting debut as a '4th Chair' guest on the 'Nerd Lunch' podcast. That was a great experience for me. The Nerd Lunch crew (CT, Jeeg and Pax) were great and wonderful to work with and I had a blast on Episode 28 discussing Star Trek. But doing that podcast inspired me to branch out the Random Nerdness blog into its own podcast...

The logo for the Random Nerdness Podcast

 

In September I teamed up with my brother-in-law Sebastian, who is actually a sound engineer, in doing a podcast based on Random Nerdness. So far we have done 2 test pilots, and recorded 5 episodes which I am hoping will be streaming soon at 'Podbean.com' and available on iTunes. Like the blog we on the podcast discuss randomly nerdy things. So far my guest list on the podcast includes my sister Brianna, best friend Tyler, step-sister Meghan, and cousin Curtis. Future episodes will feature other friends and family and hopefully some distant friends and bloggers on the Skype. So stay tuned for that.

 

In August I joined 'The League Of Extraordinary Bloggers'. In the posts I have done for the league I have had a great time. The league definitely has helped in gaining exposure for my blog. I don't do every assignment every week, but I do try.

 

What does the future hold? With doing a podcast my blogs may not get all the attention they once did. But I will still be blogging, but most of my free time will be spent on getting the podcast moving forward. I'm hoping to have streaming for the podcast on the blogs. Stay tuned for future announcements.

 

 

Highlights from this last year:

 

- Started Random Nerdness blog November 2011
- Started Trek1701 and The Cola Dog Blogs January 2012
- March: Guest on Episode 28 of the 'Nerd Lunch' podcast
- April 1st attended the Edmonton Toy Collectible and Comic Books Show in Edmonton and met John DeLancie (TNG's Q) and Julie Benz
- April attended the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo: met the entire cast of TNG, and many other stars. Photos and blog posts available on the RN blog!
- May ended 'The Cola Dog Blog'
- August: Joined the 'League Of Extraordinary Bloggers'
- Sept: Started making preperations for a 'Random Nerdness' podcast.

 

Looking forward to the next year!

- Chris Lockhart, aka 'Chrisloc1701'

 

Be sure to check out these other blogs which are part of the League!:

www.goodwillhunting4geeks.blogspot.com

www.monstercafesaltillo.blogspot.com

www.coolandcollected.com

Blog #40: More Back To School

Its hard to believe that summer is over and the kids are back to school. Where did the summer go? Bailey is in grade 7 this year!!! Junior frickin high!!! I am getting old... and Kayde grade 5 and 'Commander' Shelby is in grade 1!!! Wasn't she just a little baby that I held in my arms not too long ago?. I remember as a kid loving my summer holidays and hated going back to school. But the kids seem cool with going back to school which is good. Here's a few points about school I wish to discuss: 

* Teachers SHOULD be able to discipline kids and give them the strap * 

Teachers have no real power anymore and the kids know it. When I was a kid the Principal had the authority to give any bad kid the strap as a form of discipline and you know what? It frigging worked! I watched my behaviour because I was scared shitless about getting the strap. I seen kids bigger and tougher than me come back from a trip to the office crying like little sissy babies. It was a great deterrent against behaving badly. Now teachers can't even yell at kids without the risk of losing their jobs. 

* Failing Kids * 

Also I'm not sure if this is true for all schools but in Barrhead teachers cannot fail their students without the parents permission. If a kid completely wasted their year and was not ready to go to the next level the teacher cannot hold them back without the parents consent. Again when I was a kid I worked hard (at times) in school so I wouldn't fail and be held back. Now kids don't have that worry, they can be the biggest jerk-off dumb ass and their Mommies will approve their advancement to the next level then what? When they get to high school they will be completely unprepared and quit school due to the stress and they'll coast through life.....GIVE THE TEACHERS THEIR POWER BACK !!!! 

* School Supplies * 

We spent well over $100 for each child buying school stuff. That is a lot of money in my opinion. On their supply list from the school it specifically states what brands they want purchased and they state that they want no supplies purchased from the 'dollar store'. Well Crystal and I can afford to buy brand name supplies for Kayde but if we had bought the same stuff from the 'dollar store' which is not brand name we probably would have only spent half of what we spent. It makes me think about the families that cannot afford to spend that kind of money on school supplies...what do they do? They have to shop at the 'dollar store'. I think what ever teacher made up this school supply shopping list needs to give their head a shake and just accept what ever the parents buy for their kids. A pencil is a pencil who cares if it is Hilroy or Value Brand? Who cares if we buy Value Brand Crayons instead of Crayola Crayons? 

Goodbye to Michael O’Hare, Babylon 5’s Commander Sinclair

On September 28, 2012, J. Michael Straczynski posted that O'Hare suffered a heart attack on September 23 and had remained in a coma until the 28th, when he died. 

^{Very sad to hear this. I was and still am a huge fan of the 'Babylon 5' series and I really enjoyed Michael O'Hare as Commander Sinclair. I remember when season 2 started being devastated that O'Hare would not be returning. I had no Internet back then and had no way of knowing Bruce Boxleitner would be replacing him on the series. He did make a brief return appearance in Season 2 but made a big splash in the 3rd season 2 part episode 'War Without End'. I had always wished they would have had him back more on the series, especially when they started doing TV movies. I had wanted them to do a 'Babylon 4' movie which would have focused on O'Hare as 'Valen', who was actually Commander Sinclair transformed into a Minbari.}

^{Rest in Peace Mr O'Hare, you will be missed and never forgotten.}