Healthy/Geeky: Adri + Yoda’s Jedi Power Smoothie

Since I moved back to Massachusetts about 7 months ago, I’ve had to say peace out to my Brooklyn frequents of the past few years and create some new weekly haunts. Which wasn’t hard, considering there are a couple of nearby spots worth infesting: Jerry’s Comics & Collectibles, and Rawbert’s Organic Garden Café – an all raw, all vegan restaurant - in Beverly, MA.

My favorite after-workout orders are the kale chips and their Yoda’s Jedi Power Smoothie, which I OBVIOUSLY first ordered for its name – but then became hooked. When I order it now, I’ve modified it to be more diet-friendly (I’m trying to keep below a certain number of calories) but the whole thing is super-healthy.

The best part? The smoothie is GREEN. Judge it by its color, do you? This smoothie’s ally is DELICIOUSNESS!

So, if you can’t make it to Rawbert’s Organic Garden and want to try out this sweet and fluffy high-protein, high-fiber smoothie, here’s the recipe to whip one up yourself…with The Force. Or, you know, your blender or Cuisinart-thingy.

Adri + Yoda’s Jedi Power Smoothie
(Modified from Rawbert’s Organic Garden in Beverly, MA’s recipe) 

Ingredients

1 medium banana (frozen preferable)
1- 1/2 cup berries of choice (Goji berries, strawberries, raspberries, etc.)
2 teaspoons agave nectar
1 teaspoon Spirulina or Spirulina Protein Powder (What’s Spirulina?)
1-2 tablespoons of sprouted buckwheat, wheat germ or flax seed
Water and ice to desired consistency

Directions
Blend in a blender, you dummy! (said in the voice of Dr. Steve Brule)

Gonna Moderate the HECK out of Some Panels at the BOSTON COMIC CON!

It’s official, folks – I’ve been invited to moderate two AMAZING panels at the Boston Comic Con next weekend, April 30th-May 1 at the Hynes Convention Center! Not only am I flattered, but I’m super-psyched to get the chance to chat with some creators I truly admire.

I’ll be moderating the Female Creators Panel with Ming Doyle, Sara Richard, Stephanie Buscema, and Allison Sohn on Saturday, April 30 from 11:30A.M.-12:15.PM and the Spotlight on Terry Moore from 6:00P.M.-6:45P.M that same day – so get yo’ questions ready!

Here’s the full lineup for the Con:

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WAAANT! Earloomz STAR WARS Bluetooth Headsets

Because I’m a biz gal and a relentless geek, I haz a dilemma: how to talk hands-free on my cell without looking like a douchebag – and we all know how hard that is to do.

But today, like a beacon of light shining down from the galaxies, my inbox glowed with the news that Earloomz was releasing an entire collection of Star Wars-inspired Bluetooth headsets.

From the press release:

The new Earloomz STAR WARS collection includes four distinct headsets – featuring Boba Fett, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and The Empire Strikes Back’s climactic ’Dark Duel.’ Future styles  - including Yoda, R2-D2, C-3PO, Princess Leia, Darth Maul, Chewbacca the Wookiee, Jabba the Hutt, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi and more – are planned for release later in 2011.

HUZZAH! NOW I can look like a SUPER-NERDY douchebag! From far away, I will seem like a pretentious business woman, but up close – BAM! – I gots the Force. In my ear.

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PS: If someone sends me one, I’m going to take a series of photos of myself in public wearing this thing. Making awesome faces. Being awesome.

PPS: Douche Vader.

Social Media for Comics: 5 Tips for Promoting Your Comics on Twitter

As a publicist AND a blogger, I’m lucky enough to see several slices of the promotional spectrum. Some may even say a publicist and a writer are polar opposites – I prefer to see it as a beneficial partnership: we hook you up with content and news ideas, you hook us up by writing about it if it interests you.

The important thing is to actually provide news that’s interesting, which, sadly, many publicists can’t claim. I feel fortunate that I get to promote cool books, interesting stories, and things that actually peak the interests of most reporters. But the key for me – and the mantra I stick to – is to remain transparent. Let’s be real people – everyone knows I do PR; and they know it because I tell them. Nobody likes to be “tricked,” manipulated or sold.

I don’t try to spin stories or use sellsellsell jargon – I like to say, “Hey, I’m promoting this. We both know that. Here are the details of what I’m pitching, and here’s why I think you’d like this. If not, cool,” and I can leave the discussion knowing that that person won’t feel negatively “sold” to, and perhaps be open to more of my ideas in the future.

And after years of learning and utilizing different methods of promotion, I wanted to share these little tidbits of knowledge with you comics creators whose strengths are in doing what you do best: illustration and writing. Public relations is not necessarily intuitive, especially in the digital age, and it helps to have a guideline to show you the way.

This is the first in a series of articles that will focus on social media for comics and webcomics, which I’ll continue to do throughout the next few months. For now, I want to focus on Twitter, with 5 tips to help you either get started or get better.

5 Tips for Promoting Your Comics on Twitter

1. Build an Audience
Easier said than done. Want to know how? Time. Repetition. Patience. The goal is to have more followers than the number of people you’re following. Although it’s generally frowned upon, you’ll need to Follow, Follow, Follow at first, everybody in the comics world – then, eventually, weed out the people that aren’t necessary to be following. There are four important tools I recommend to help you on this incredibly tedious task:

  • Bit.ly – Not necessarily for gaining followers, but to make your life easier – this is a service that shortens your links so that you’ll use up less characters in your Tweet. Make sure to actually sign up for the free account – it will provide you with valuable tools to track who’s clicked on your link.
  • Tweepi.com – Filter out people who haven’t updated in awhile or who haven’t followed you back within two weeks of following them (my recommended time period you give before saying YOU HAVE BEEN DELETED – unless a celebrity or prominent figure, who most likely won’t follow you back anyway).
  • SproutSocial.com - Check out the trial period of this. Allows you to search for people by subject, check out stats, etc.
  • TweetReach.com – Plug in a keyword, and this program tells you how many people Tweeted/Re-Tweeted the search term and how many actual people had the chance to view it.

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Where Have the Good Men Gone, Kay Hymowitz? Change Your Definition of “Good.”

The Wall Street Journal‘s most recent “Saturday Essay” from author Kay S. Hymowitz (the WSJ acting as pimp-in-the-white-tie for Hymnowitz’s upcoming book, “Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys”) has caused quite a Twittering over the past few days. Men are offended by Hymnowitz’s small-minded approach to today’s 20-something man:

…and what is expected of them:

While I agree with Hymowitz’s analysis of our economy, the shift of the 20-something man’s priorities (to find a career, be happy – not to just subsist in the world) is palpable. But it has been quite similar for women – in a world where we have so many options, and women don’t necessarily need to get married for survival, we question its very necessity.

Thus, what this article completely lacks is a commentary of the women on the other side of the spectrum, reveling in this “new” breed of man: the woman who refuses to marry unless she happens to meet a person who matches her intentions, who compliments her faults, strengthens her weaknesses, and she his own.

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Help The Nerdy Bird with her MDA Muscle Walk! Do eeet!

I’m re-posting this blog for my darling pal and fellow geekstress, Jill Pantozzi (aka @TheNerdyBird) – not because I’m lazy, but because I can’t put it any better than she does. The full, original post is at Jill’s blog, TheNerdyBird.com.

Help Me with My MDA Muscle Walk!
(originally posted on TheNerdyBird.com, by Jill Pantozzi)
Who says fundraising can’t be fun? At last year’s MDA Stride & Ride we raised $142,000 towards curing Muscular Dystrophy. Not only that, I got to meet Batman. I can only imagine what will happen this year.

In case you’re new to my blog, here’s a quick history of my involvement with the Muscular Dystrophy Association. I was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy, specifically Spinal Muscular Atrophy, when I was two and a half. My involvement with MDA came soon after that in the form of emotional support for my family as well as financial support for doctors visits and wheelchairs/braces. And in a way you can thank MDA for this blog even existing. It was my appearances on the MDA Jerry Lewis Telethon starting at age seven that got me interested in TV and journalism to begin with.

All that being said, it’s time for the annual MDA Muscle Walk (previously called Stride & Ride) for the NY-NJ Metro area. On March 12 I’ll be gathering up my team, “The Nerdy Birds,” to walk around the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ along with countless other teams fighting for a cure. So what do I need from you? Anything you can spare.

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The 7 Most Disturbing – Yet Kind of Cool – Japanese Inventions (via Guyism.com)

A few months ago (when I still lived in NYC!), I wrote a lil’ post for Guyism.com: The 7 Most Disturbing – Yet Kind of Cool – Japanese Inventions, and realized I never linked to it on here! I did a ton of research to find the most legitimately disconcerting inventions from my most favorite Land of the Rising Sun – and you wouldn’t believe the crazy crap that comes out of that country. I even had a little throw-up-in-my-mouth action after seeing a few of these things. For reals.

A sneak peek at my favorite:

#7.  Placenta Drink (2008)
Placenta Drink 1 135x95 The 7 most disturbing (yet kind of cool) Japanese inventionsBecause nothing quenches your thirst like animal fetus casing, Japanese beauty company Nihon Sofuken created the Qbit Placenta 10000 Jelly drink, made of 10% pig placenta. The placenta – the temporary organ connecting the mother to the fetus – is removed from pigs, stripped from any lingering birth matter and manufactured into a jelly, spiked with a refreshing peach flavor. Sure, it grosses us out that people have been eating this stuff since B.C. for the apparent health benefits, but something about a jelly drink just tips the scale.

Read the full post (and the six other most disturbing inventions) here!