Sunday

Last day of the con and I have yet to go to the awesome dealer room! Remedying that situation, I headed there right before my Full Metal Alchemist panel. And the dealers’ room was indeed fantastic. I like the big rooms. But even still – I can’t find action figures for Fairy Tail or D. Gray Man – where’s the love?! My photography peeps stayed in the dealers’ arena while I headed to my panel with a full roster including Sabat, Willingham, Cason, McFarland, myself, and Vic.

The hours was filled with ADD behavior, songs, and laughs – all in a day’s work for us on a panel together. A nice final panel before the last autograph session for the con.

There were more people at this signing session than at the previous day’s! And let me tell ya, I was a tired korn after that! With a strong writing hand and my bags, I said goodbye to my ever so helpful kore teammates and photographers as I headed to LA. They are truly worthy of their kornvengers titles Thank you for a great weekend guys!

I hope I was able to provide a little awesome to the rest of the kornvengers – cause I’m so grateful that they put up with me.

Workout for the day? Check. Breakfast with the Kornvengers? Check. And what a tasty breakfast it was! I always get into the bad habit of not eating during cons cause I just get so caught up in what needs to get done for the day in addition to my normal activities I have to do as an actor and business owner.

Folks think that cons are just a vacation, when actually they’re quite a bit of work and require a lot of energy. When I’m not on the con floor, I’m working on the next panel or stuff on the actor side of things. No complaints here though- I’m glad to be busy. Live for it. Cause it helps me reach my personal long term goals…and no one is going to help me achieve those faster than myself and the powers that be.

It was a big day today…not only were we going to try the new photo idea I had, we were going to see Vic’s final tribute video. Little did he know that I had plans for his screening. For the record, we did chat about me not doing anything during this premiere…and I did say I wouldn’t. But then again, these are the Tribute Wars, right? And for the record, Vic did ambush my CSI: Mignogna screening at Ichibancon a few years earlier – so was it more important to make this right or go with the flow?

I chose neither and decided to be a smartass, unfortunately. I had the materials gathered and handed them off to the tech crew in the main events hallway, ready for ambushing during Vic’s premiere. It was a clandestine operation that had been in the planning stages for a few weeks and was now ready to execute.

But first – autographs with the new photo idea! With Brian, Shelby, and the awesome Team Haberkorn banner (thank you Molly!) in place, we were ready to offer something to the fans that they don’t normally – or ever – get: 8×10 professional pictures taken right then and there. A lot of times, folks are taking pictures with me that are grainy, have poor lighting, poor composition, etc – and that’s due to a lot of factors beyond most people’s control. Enter my folks – we offer high quality, professional pictures taken with you at the time of the autograph session. Then we print them out and I sign them so you can have a keepsake of the moment forever!

Suzette and Kristen were oh so helpful with the Team Haberkorn merchandise that they brought to offer to the fans. And folks were digging on the Haberkeychain – that’s rad. They really tore it up.

Autographs went well! Unfortunately, we didn’t get to everyone before the hour was up – and I apologize for folks that were waiting a long time and didn’t get to come and say hello. Due to the sheer amount of people at the convention, I’m not able to get to everyone. And a lot of times, its up to the staff deciding how many people I can see. So – sorry guys!

Now that that was done, it was time for the next task at hand: tribute time. Now at this point, a few fans and the guests were all in on this…they knew something was coming. So, they arranged their schedules so they could attend. The main events room was huge: five screens, top notch audio, and a two thousand seat house was waiting for us. I could tell Vic was on edge trying to get everything together for the big premiere. What a venue for what was sure to be a wonderful screening.

I sat next to Vic, of course, and after a bit of an introduction – the film began. Todd of the Rings was burning itself into my mind as a final entry from Mignogna and it was filled with good production value, good audio, and quite a few references to what he calls a “tiny crotch”.

(to my son) I’m sorry, son – sometimes your dad gets lampooned, but that doesn’t mean anything bad about your dad! Don’t worry, buddy – ol’ dad’s got something up his sleeve for Uncle Victor.

It was a 20 + minute filmic journey into the Tolkien world through Vic’s eyes…fans were loving it and right as the credits began…boom. Ambush. A fiendish laugh fills the room as the screen shows color bars. Then, the Team Haberkorn logo begins to spin on the screen….follow this with clips from my final tribute video. I couldn’t look at Vic – I knew what had been done couldn’t be taken back. He. Was. Mad. This joke didn’t come across to him as funny at all!

I did apologize for the placement of the interruption – lord knows I didn’t want to do anything to interrupt his film – I wanted it played at the end of the screening, but the tech guys jumped the gun a bit. I take the blame for that…but, c’mon – it was funny. And considering how much awesome his film had and how great the production value was – I think my 1 1/2 minute interruption wasn’t all that evil! (sorry again Vic!)

What transpired after this is not blog worthy. It shall remain behind closed doors for those involved to know – ask me about it over a drink someday Just know that it involved hair raising swashbuckling excitement, korny hand to hand combat, and pizza (this was in Chicago after all).

The evening ended in the green room of the convention; top floor of the con hotel with a 360 degree view of the city in all its splendor. With good friends, great drinks, and laughs – the night was enjoyable.

Day one of ACEN starts today. And this time, I’ve got some backup…members of the Kore Team: Suzette, Mama Korn – and Kristen, our Social Media Sorceress. They decided to tag along and I made sure they had badges waiting for them when they arrived.

26,000 people are guesstimated to attend this weekend and it looks like they’re well on their way with the amount of cosplay going on here. I started my day off with my normal con work out and made my way down to meet my liaison for the day and get my debriefing. Being her first time on guest relations, she was eager to please and make sure things went well. I made sure to get her my tech requirements and scheduling needs so we could ensure things went smoothly. I introduced her to Suzette and Kristen to make sure they got handled too.

In addition to knowing them, I knew some other folks that were at the con as well – namely, the other guests. It was a big Funimation reunion basically. And it was nice to see all of my coworkers outside of the studio so we could let our hair down and catch up . We always have a lot to talk about – and by talk about, I mean gossip about of course. People say you shouldn’t gossip, but how the hell else are you supposed to keep in touch with what folks are up to, right?!

Out of the guests I knew, there was one in particular I was interested in running into this weekend – Mr. Mignogna. We met and exchanged our usual hugs and hellos. This weekend was going to be quite a milestone. However, at this point in time, Vic was looking as well as ever – armed with his graphic tee and perfectly teased blonde hair.

More on him later.

It was great wandering through the halls and saying hello to fans who were dressed as my various characters. I was happy to stop and take a photo or two and sign a few things for them. Everyone was very polite and cheery! It made going to my panels a fun journey. Recording a Toddcast for a panel is still nerve racking. I prefer to do it in the comfort of my Habercave, but there are some fun aspects to doing it live for sure.

It still gets me how many folks don’t really know about the fan club! I’m just saying – with how hard we advertise and how much Kristen promotes the club on Facebook, Twitter, and now Tumblr – you’d think everyone and their dog knew about the club! We’ll keep trying

The next panel was a Star Trek panel with Vic. And I received my first Spock related item – a Spock plushie! I’m still trying to decode how I should feel about this…I’m stepping into Spock’s boots, but not in the same way Zachary Quinto is right now. Certainly not officially with CBS or with the same budget, etc – but that doesn’t mean I won’t be working as hard on the first episode. I’ve changed my workout routine and diet for the role, grown out my hair, studied up on my Trek – so, do I have a right to fully accept the mantle of the famed Vulcan? I don’t know. I feel weird about signing Star Trek stuff…but I guess one has to look at it like a stage play. A million people have played Romeo and they’re all valid interpretations. So I guess i just answered my own question!

Kristen and Suzette dropped off some Team Haberkorn goodies off in my room and we discussed the particulars of the weekend for maximum kornification with the fans. Hopefully we’ll be able to spread the Team love to others! It was good to see the girls and catch up. We chat all the time via email, but rarely get to catch up on a personal level – we just have so much going on, y’know?

In addition to this team of korn avengers, two more of my peeps joined the mix: my friends and photographers – Brian and Shelby. We were going to try something new this weekend and their assistance was required.

Now that everyone was here – I felt comfortable in saying “Kornvengers – Kornsemble!”

The flight plans for the day had to go differently than planned – it was a con weekend! And this aviation journey didn’t disappoint in that arena. However, it was totally my fault. Well, in a way, the fault of someone else that I was taking the heat for

The previous weekend, I was filming a project at a friend’s studio. The place was littered with equipment (more than the studio normally had), cast, crew, and filmmaking adrenaline. During one particularly long day – 16 hours to be exact – one of the crew members needed to take a seat! So, this individual, standing at about 6’ 3” and weighing well in the 200’s decided that a stylish black chair was just the ticket. Unfortunately, this chair was actually a table from Cantoni.

To make matters worse, the friend that owns the studio was having a birthday in a mere handful of hours…so, it was probably best that I didn’t see the table homicide right away. When the filmmaking smoke cleared, Monday had rolled around and I reached out to my studio friend with the news. At first he told me not to worry about it – that’s just the kind of guy he is. But I couldn’t let it just stay there, I had to make it right! He had a suggestion that would work out even better than just buying him another table.

Fast forward to today. I’m in studio recording for a full day on a live action dub. Its a great film and I actually want to see it when its finished, but I can’t have but the slightest taste of bitter in my throat due to the circumstances…see, I was working off the now dead Cantoni table from the previous weekend! However, my joy over another voice over gig and getting to work with a dear friend outweighed that sentiment.

With the rather emotional recording completed – the film took place during World War II and was very touching actually – it was off to the airport. Standby was the name of the game for me. Instead of getting in the early afternoon, the prescription was a night time arrival. But, hey – I made it!

I was at ACEN – returning to this convention for a second time…let the games begin!

Click now to watch!

Todd has surpassed the $3K goal and will be bungie jumping for the fans that have contributed to the project.

So, join Todd by Kontributing to the project and get some awesome perks AND a video of Todd risking his life by jumping off perfectly good Bungie rig!

UPDATE:

Todd jumped on Thursday Apr 19th as promised. He has survived and faced his fear with a brave and loud scream! All Kickstarter donators have received an email link to download the video. Hope you all enjoy it, and Todd thanks you for your support! If you did not receive your link but you donated, please use the contact form on the site to let us know.

Now the tribute video filming can begin!!