Between not really wanting to take off from work, as it's just starting to get slightly busy again, and not having the drive this year.
I think that I am planning now on just taking the train down on Saturday first thing, and spending the full day there. The majority of the panels and talks that I would really want to do would have been on Thursday or Friday, so I think I'll just go for the floor, and meeting some of the artists that I know from online again.
I have to admit, some of it is not having the drive of having shelled out any actual cash for my pass, so I don't feel I have to justify the expense to myself.

I just wanted to chime in.
I am the epitome of "Lurker" but I would love to see some form of something, yeah really cogent thought there, to assist in the continued DIFness of the world.
I've gotten my shirts, and such, but I think there might need to be a concentrated push to get some publicity out there.
As a fellow industry vfx wonk, I get slightly exasperated when a large number of my co-workers have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention DIF, granted then I get the joy of attempting to convert the heathens, but ... I'm never sure if they followup and listen or just humor me.
Not sure what it would entail, but just getting a bit more name recognition out there would im sure help across the board.

While I can admit I found the actual ceremony ... well yeah, I managed to get to the Look FX office party, so was right above the red carpet, with a pretty cool group of people, which made the people watching actually fun.
And then got the fun of group reactions to some of the more insane bits of "theatre" that were put on.

Sorry for the thread resurrection, but I've been re-listening to my back archive of DIF episodes, and got to this one.
And I was shocked to realize when it was brought up what was comparable to Star Trek, and all of you seemed to fixate on Firefly, granted an excellent show that I do really enjoy, while completely missing the opportunity to mention Babylon 5, as something that had arguably quite a few ties thematically & setting wise, as well as airing concurrent to DS9.
Granted not everyone is a fan, or familiar with, all shows, but with the cross section of folks, I'm just amazed it didn't get the mention.

I tend to agree, I feel that at their core they are using a setting that is out of our normal day-to-day, and using that to tell a story that either entertains or contrasts something in our normal lives in a way that we can approach.

If that entails swords,sorcery & dragons or starships, robots & aliens it gets to the same thing in the end, in a generality sort of way.

Growing up one of the authors that I enjoyed was Piers Anthony, who across different books, or even within the same books mixed the two quite entertainingly. So that to my young mind conflated the two into a mash of a genre, and I never really broke out of that, even while enjoying properties that solidly settled in one side or the other.

I will second the option that gives you the most flexibility, and you really shouldn't be to concerned with "neighborhoods" for now, set that aside for your actual apartment hunting.

From personal experience, I had a great friend who was willing to let me crash on his couch when I drove cross country out here, granted I had the job lined up at that point, so it was just a "till I locate a place" situation, but it was much easier than trying to put up with the $ of some form of hotel.

I join in on the good luck wishes in landing a gig, I have been lucky recently, and as a byproduct a bit out of the loop for anything that might be out there, but I'm sure you'll be able to find something if your willing to burn some shoe leather hunting it down. (is that phrase still in use?)

Ahh, the joy of being at work on Saturday.

Well at least I am at a place where they don't mind to much if I stream video at my desk, so I still get to "attend".

On the subject that was brought up during the discussion about the occurrence of the hero having to realize his heroic duty/potential by assisting another to complete the quest/save the day.

A fantasy novel that approaches this on two fronts is that of Mistborn, the back of the book quote that kinda sold the idea to me was ... wow this is from memory so ... There was a hero that was destined to defeat the great evil and save the world, there is always a hero, but what if in this story he failed, and now we live in the world that is left.

It is a interesting series if you haven't read it, and to make it germain it approaches this concept both in the primary story with the main cast, as well as eventually through flashbacks to the failed hero.

Nope, not to my knowledge.

http://www.gnomonschool.com/?p=1368

I went to this event, where they were presenting, got to say hi to Dan Curry.

Was a nice presentation for both crews, actually got name checked by the Lost guys, so that was appreciated.

True enough, I did kind of weight it a bit heavily in the smoke monster direction, but the're so fun ... might tighten up the edit a bit latter on, but for now I think I'll leave it. I'm looking forward to adding in some cool shots from Black Swan on down the line.

The smoke was done as a bone driven particle system in Maya, not sure 100% on the specifics, all I know was it was apparently quite a pain to balance the movement of the body vs the internal movement & feel of the roiling smoke. All credit to the great 3d artists that rotated though working on getting me some great elements to work with.

Just got home, before I crash for the night, in anticipation of having to get up and get to work in a few hours, I wanted to just shout out and say it was great catching the showing with everyone tonight.

Was a blast, and hope to get out more and cross paths with all you guys.

I'll be honest, I recall and love movies, but I really don't seem to have the gene that allows for just remembering quotes from movies and being able to spit them back out.

That said, I want to say that some of the lines that I do quote the most, stem from some of the great one liners from the comedy classic Clue.

Yeah, not really deep by any means, but ... between that and MASH & Monty Python, they shaped my childhood, so they stuck somewhere back in my brain and keep coming out every now and again.