Comic-Con '08

If you are or know anyone who is a content creator (books, comics, film, tv, web) and who will be at Comic-Con, I'm looking to put together some "off the beaten path" interviews for Geekerati, both for the blog and for our internet radio show/podcast.

Please email me if you have an interest in being interviewed or has a friend (or client, if you are PR) that would like to be interviewed.

Thanks all! To my readers: I'll be twittering the whole thing, as I did last year. I'm hoping to really improve coverage, particularly focused on the TV panels (and there are a LOT of them this year), not only for my blog but for the aforementioned blog and podcast.

The water's fine.

"You don't even bother to check the temperature of the water, you just jump right in."

This is what a friend said to me today about how I treat my 'hobbies' and fixations. If I get interested in something I go at it full force, no messing around. I don't just dabble...I *live* it.

Some of you were around for my "Taylor Hicks phase", something I'm still grasping to understand myself. I just knew it was something that had taken hold of me at a particular time in my life when I needed something to excite me, and I went for the ride. And what a ride it was. It's still difficult to explain that Mr. Hicks really became a minor player in my hobby. Each time I saw him put on a show, it became less and less about him, more and more about who I was spending the time with, and all of the experiences I was having. I went to Birmingham, AL twice, Atlanta, New York, Las Vegas...all to experience life with this group of people who were becoming my friends.

I don't talk to many of them anymore, but the ones I talk to a lot are the ones I intend to keep forever. I'm sure I'll continue to have some conversations with a few of the others, but once this 'phase' was winding down for me, it seemed to be winding down for others...we just moved on.

So, now I've dived into my next hobby, phase or 'subculture' as I am frequently finding fascinating similarities and interesting differences between the various groups I mingle with (writers, blues and soul music fans, sci-fi geeks, tech geeks, etc).

I'm *really* into wine.

And that doesn't just mean I find a couple I like. Oh no. It means I 'found' the winebloggers, the vloggers, the wikis, EVERYTHING I can get my hands on that relates to wine. I track my cellar and tasting notes. I have 43 bottles right now, 15 of which I consider worth 'saving' and not just popping open to drink randomly. I'm learning how to train my palate to get better at tasting wine.

I live my passions.

So Friday, I'm checking in on my favorite wine vlogger, who is a cult icon with the wine lover set -- he has fanatic followers and has caused a lot of controversy in the staid wine business.

Meet Gary Vaynerchuk.

Gary took over his family's wine business many years ago and has built it into one of the premier wine businesses on the web. He embraces Web 2.0 (and I'll be posting about throwing myself deep into the social networking pool more in another post...this only scratches the surface of it).

So Friday, I learn he's up in Sonoma tasting wines with Kevin Rose, founder of Digg. Kevin was using a great new Web 2.0 tool Qik to broadcast LIVE from his Nokia phone out to the site and to the entire world. Further, you could chat with them through the phone as they were recording, resulting in some questions being asked by people to Kevin and Gary which they could answer (that is until the lag got kind of bad -- there's still work to be done on this technology).

Gary is also joined by Tim Ferriss, author of the NY Times Bestseller "The Four-Hour Work Week" and Robert Scoble from Fast Company. These four people are extremely successful with their business and a lot of it can be attributed to their shrewd use of Web 2.0 technology.

During the course of the video, Gary mentions it might be fun to host a party Saturday night for the Twitter followers -- yes, Twitter is yet another Web 2.0 technology that I have embraced (if you come here often, you've probably seen my recent twitter updates over in the sidebar).

So, a party? A WINE party? Hosted by *the* Gary Vaynerchuk and with the aforementioned internet 'personalities' in attendence? I instantly knew that I had to be there. Before they could confirm their musings I twittered Robert Scoble and asked if the party was a go. He told me it was, and I said I'd be there, in Santa Rosa, for the party the next night.

Crazy, right? Looking back, no crazier than my flights hither and yon to see the American Idol winner. In fact, this looked downright sane in comparison. So, I sought out travel companions of a female nature...my other thought being it would make for a good girl's weekend and I didn't need any of my male friends (who I cherish SOOOO much) to get in the way of any possible, ahem, romantic possibilities. Hey, some of these guys are wealthy. A girl can dream, right?

I had no takers on the trip. At first I was bummed, and almost talked myself out of going...seven hours of driving alone seemed too risky. But I didn't let it stop me. I got up Saturday morning, gassed up my car, packed a small bag and hit the road.

SPLASH. I am in the pool, and the water is fine.

(To be continued...)

Casting a Long (Digital) Shadow

So I recently tallied up my various 'presences' on a variety of Web applications, 2.0 widgets, etc etc. Here's what I found:

This Blog
The Sistercritics Blog, which I run with...my sister.
Geekerati Media Blog
A LiveJournal account
A Facebook account
A Myspace account
Geekerati Radio Show
My (TV Junkie) Radio Show
A LinkedIn account
Twitter account
Pandora account
Photobucket account
Youtube account
Google News Reader/Google talk
AIM
Yahoo Messenger
MSN Messenger (which I never use anymore)
Yelp account
My CellarTracker Account (Wine)

And Fusing most of these together is my new FriendFeed account.

And we don't even want to count the forums I'm a member of...

Waking up to the future

So, while I remain somewhat secretive about some of my projects, I've decided that for my latest foray into entertaining the masses I will blog extensively on my efforts.

My latest project is a web series. I'm co-writing the series with my good friend Bernie Su. He and I believe that we can make a quality entertaining product specific to the web (at least to start).

While I won't be spilling the story details as yet, here's our basic construct for the series.

We've written a "pilot" episode which introduces our main characters and concept, but is (at least for now) not directly related to the main plot of the 8-episode series.

Each episode will be 5-6 minutes in length, and we hope to clock the total project in at 44 minutes.

We are still working on distribution and I am bringing aboard a producer I think will get us on the right track as we move toward ramping up the writing on the other episodes.

I fully intend for this to see the light of day by the end of April 2008.

Oh, and yes, it will have its own website and viral marketing elements. It should be fun.

Writing while the WGA pickets...

So, I'm contemplating my own future during the strike. Mystery project which had just gotten some MAJOR MOJO is now in limbo as we wait it out. There will be no joy in Mudville, and certainly no selling.

So, off I go to contemplate other projects. There is of course the new spec pilot I'm writing, which I will continue to crank on. Then there's the graphic novel I'm seriously considering. Oh, and I'm thinking of trying out another pilot as a longish narrative story first, just to help figure out the beats. And then there's the web series.

I'm very much looking forward to getting the web series off the ground as I think it's a cool idea and unlike most series which seem to be talking heads, this one might actually be interesting to some people. But here's my question of the day...

...if you were to watch a web series, what is the longest an episode could be before you'd get distracted/bored/stop and need to watch the rest of it later? My thought is 5 minutes is about the most someone will take in a sitting. But maybe it's less, maybe it's more. I know pacing and the goodness of the material accounts for a lot and can help the time fly by. But I'm interested in any other opinions.

TV Show Blogs 2006-07

UPDATE: 4/24/07 - Poked around again and found some more show blogs and podcasts. When in doubt, check the home page for the network/cable channel which airs the show.

I particularly like blogs that aren't 'character blogs' but rather blogs written by the writers about the show. I've scoured the web to find these blogs and bring them to you.

'Behind the Scenes' Blogs

• Brothers and Sisters (ABC)
  
• CSI:Miami (CBS) The Executive Story Editor, Corey Miller blogs.
  
• The Closer (TNT) Written by show creator James Duff
  
• Friday Night Lights (NBC)
  
• Grey's Anatomy (ABC)
  
• Heroes (NBC)
  
• Men In Trees (ABC) Written by Creator/Showrunner Jenny Bicks
  
• Monk (USA) So far, only one post, but hopefully this will continue forward. Also a couple of fun character blogs on the site.
  
• Criminal Minds (CBS) Okay, it's an actress's blog, but every once in awhile there are some insights into the process of making a TV show.
  
• Prison Break (FOX) Huh, this one is new -- written by Wade Williams who plays Bellick on the show. In fact, there are several blogs at TV Guide written by actors on shows such as 'The Office' (Jenna Fisher) and several others...
  
• Standoff (FOX)
  
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (NBC)
  

I'll add to the list as more pop up. I think it is a good trend as it gives us insight into what makes these shows tick.

Character blogs

These are blogs written in the 'voice' of a character on the show. Sometimes they are maintained by the actors, other times a writer on the show writes the blog. For the 'Lost' diary last year, the writer's assistant maintained it (not sure who is doing it this year). I have listed these by show in alphabetical order.

• Crossing Jordan (NBC) Nigel's Blog
  
• Grey's Anatomy (ABC)
  • The Nurse's Station
    
  • Emerald City Bar
• Heroes (NBC) Hiro's Blog
• How I Met Your Mother (CBS) Barney's Blog
  
• The Office (NBC) Dwight's Blog

Podcasts

• Lost
  
• Ugly Betty
  

Miscellaneous

• NBC Blog (with blogroll of all show/character blogs)
  
• ABC.com Home Page (including link to watch shows online with commercials for free)
  
• CBS.com Home Page (with link to Innertube)