May Round-Up: Purple Hair, Miyazaki, & New Board Games!

Weekend at my parents' house. // Hot tub selfie! // Miyazaki marathon

Movies Watched 

Coraline, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, & Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - These are in my very small DVD collection (the rest are digital). I only buy movies I really love and want to see special features on DVD.

Jennifer’s Body, The Ramen Girl - It was hard to find some movies that all my friends would enjoy while we all hung out while my friend did my hair. I really recommend The Ramen Girl, starring Brittany Murphy.

My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Ponyo, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - I had a mostly Miyazaki/Japanese movie week. It's hard to pick a movie without any sort of love story when you are just not in the mood for seeing anyone in love, but Miyazaki movies are great adventures without any stupid romance.

Warm Bodies - The only zombie movie I'll ever need. Sooooo cute!

Ass Backwards - I wasn't sure if I wanted to see this movie until I listened to Casey Wilson and June Diane Raphael on the Nerdist podcast talking about making the movie and I decided that it deserved my attention. It's a great buddy comedy.

Imagine Me & You - It's a cute little love story about a girl falling for a girl right after she married a man. One of those cute British rom-coms.

TV Watched

Charmed - My "background watching" this month, as I've seen it all a million times, but I haven't watched it in a couple years.

The Mindy Project: Season 2- Because I'm a masochist and I love/hate re-watching all the adorable Mindy + Danny = <3 scenes.

  

Music Played

Neon Jungle - It's fun dance-pop, but definitely watch them cover Hozier's Take Me to Church. I'm a little obsessed with Asami's (the Japanese girl) voice. I want a solo acoustic album from her. Damn, that voice.

Glorious by Foxes - It's fun dance-able pop, but it's also kinda retro groovy, akin to Ellie Goulding, a bit dreamy.

Sheezus by Lily Allen - I realized after a few listenings that almost every song mentions her husband & babies, so I'm dubbing it "Mom-Pop". Heh heh.

Games Played

 

I raided my parent's closet for more board games and totally scored! Our favorite we played on our Sunday Funday was Scotland Yard. One player is the criminal whose moves are hidden from the rest of the players who are detectives. The criminal only reveals his position a few times during the game, so the goal is for the detectives to capture the criminal. We three girls had so much fun being Charlie's Angels trying to find Greg, the criminal. 

Another really old game I scored, that only some of us geography nerds enjoyed (I never thought of myself as a geography nerd, but compared to my friends...), was National Geographic: Global Pursuit. It's part puzzle, part trivia. You use hexagonal pieces of a map to build onto each other and you get more chances to play your map cards if you answer your trivia question correctly. Our map got pretty crazy.

My friend and I totally kicked the engaged couple's ass at Catchphrase. Maybe they need to work on their communication skills. Ha.

A couple months ago, I ordered an adapter and two more PS2 controllers so I could finally play one of my favorite games with all my friends; The Bible Game. It's a long story how it all started, but the short versions is; I have a thing for Bible games (in an ironic way). This PS2 game is like a TV game show with mini games, trivia, and the ever-present threat of "Wrath of God!" We love it.
Kim and I had fun one day playing Mastermind. It's good to have some two-player games in your collection. I say we had fun, but I think it mostly drove Kim mad. You have to really use your brain for this one!

Cakes Made

Kelsey's belated birthday cake!

Fun Had

This was a pretty impulsive decision, but I don't regret it in the least! One night I got it in my head that I should actually bleach the shit outta my hair and go pastel (which I have always loved, but figured was impossible for my dark hair to achieve), so I stayed up past my bedtime pinning pretty colors, and the next day I was asking a hairstylist friend if she could do it. A week later, this was happening...

After a couple weeks of playing with the Manic Panic, I finally got my ends pink (had to mix some Hot Pink with the Cotton Candy Pink), and the rest some lovely shades of purple. I'm looking forward to trying lots of different colors eventually. :)

MONSTER SPECTACULAR! There are some things I would never say "No" to, and free VIP tickets to a monster truck show is one of them. There was BMX, stunt bikes, motocross bikes, and quad bikes as well as the monster trucks, so it was really quite a show.

Because we had VIP tickets, we got to go down onto the floor at half-time to get photos with the trucks & the guys and get autographs. Also, while we were walking around a guy asked me if I wanted to be in a music video! Duh, of course. I asked him who it was for, and he said Grandtheft, a Toronto artist. So, I will definitely be watching out for that!

My friends and I were really excited to see the bioluminescence exhibit at the Museum of Nature. It was pretty lame, though, because there wasn't any real animals to see. We wanted to see jellies and stuff! But then we went to the bug part of the museum, because they have real live bugs. I bought a rhinoceros beetle at the gift shop and then we hung out with this dino on the way home.

Link & Likes 

The Book of Life looks so incredible! I could have seen just one still from the trailer and I would still be obsessed! It's just my style with the Dio de los Meurtos skull faces and designs. I know what movie I will be seeing for my birthday (Halloween) this year! Aaaugh! Can't wait!

I'm really excited that one of my favorite YouTubers, Grace Helbig, has written a book!

A lot of trailers came out this month for the fall TV shows. I'm looking forward to A to Z, Marry Me, and Mulaney.

April Round-Up: Geek & Sundry, The Host, & a New Bike!

Movies Watched 

2 Days in New York - A sort-of sequel to 2 Days in Paris, in which Marion and her boyfriend visit her family in Paris, this movie takes place years later when Marion's crazy French family comes to stay with her and her boyfriend (and their children from previous relationships). Her family is absolutely nuts, so it's all so hilarious.

Before Midnight - If you haven't seen Before Sunrise or Before Sunset (Before Midnight is the third in this series), I highly recommend them if you like character-based movies with lots of thought-provoking conversation.

Much Ado About Nothing - I love Shakespeare movies because they allow me to actually enjoy Shakespeare! No one can appreciate or understand Shakespeare when it's being read awkwardly aloud by a 15 yr-old boy in your 10th grade English class. They are plays, they need to be played out! If you're not familiar with Shakespeare, this is a good movie to start with. It's totally understandable (they just speak in a lot of metaphors) and hilarious.

Frozen - I swear, by the time I watched this movie, I had already seen half of it in gifs on Tumblr. I'm not nearly as over-the-moon about it as everyone else seems to be. It had laugh-out-loud moments, but the story was nothing special. A pretty quick fairytale. It needed more development time. I didn't feel like I knew the characters at all. (But maybe I'm just getting too old for Disney fairy tales?)

Monsters University - Monsters Inc. is a movie I've rewatched many times because it's lighthearted and fun (and Boo is so cute!) and Monsters University is the same. I really liked seeing younger Mike & Sully become a team.

TV Watched

Happy Endings - I watched this series (only 3 seasons- wah!) sometime last year for the first time. It's pretty funny and I love the characters. (P.S. If you are watching it on Netflix or something, the episodes (esp. season 1) are out of order. Look it up on Wikipedia and watch in order of the production code numbers. I realized this problem the first time I watched it because they put episodes 2 & 3 later in the season and I was like "Why are they dealing with this stuff months after the fact?")

Sherlock: Season 3 - I just had to watch it again! Drunk Sherlock & Watson is my favorite! :)

American Horror Story: Coven - I'm a sucker for anything witchy and everyone was so obsessed with it on Tumblr that I gave in even though horror/thriller as a genre does not appeal to me. I really loved it, of course. Incredible and crazy. I'm definitely going to watch the first two seasons now, and I'm excited for next season- Freak Show!

Broad City - These girls are ridiculous and amazing. I love these shows (mostly web shows) coming out that show twenty-something girls in a more realistic way. It's the humor of everyday life that we can all relate to. Or, if not, you would laugh if it happened to a friend.

Web Series Watched 

Caper - This is a great series from Geek & Sundry about a group of superheroes that live together and find that having superpowers doesn't mean you can pay rent.

Dragon Age: Redemption - I checked this out because of my recent Felicia Day obsession (she wrote & starred in it) even though it's based in a video game world and I'm not a gamer. It's actually a really good story. It does a good job of explaining how things in their world work, so you don't feel out of the loop.

Cristina Viseu - This isn't a web series, exactly, just a channel. Cristina is Geek & Sundry's videography & photography vlogger. I've already learned a lot from her about equipment, cameras, and shooting.

Chaotic Awesome - It's a live online show, but segments are uploaded to the channel after. I haven't been interested in every segment, but I watch any that look interesting. It's all about geek culture, technology, gaming, etc.

The Flog - It's my favorite geek girl- Felicia Day! She talks at the camera about cool stuff and then there is a segment in which she learns something like blacksmith-ing, crocheting, yo-yo-ing, even trapeze-ing! Lots of fun.

Felicia Day - Again, not a web series, but rather a channel. Felicia no longer does her series The Flog, but she has been uploading vlogs on her own channel. She talks about interesting stuff or recaps her adventures.

Bee and Puppycat - Blame Felicia again. She mentioned this web series, so I checked it out. It's only two parts right now, but a successful Kickstarter campaign means they are making more! It's so weird but so funny and awesome.

Books Read 

The Host- I finally read it! Once I got started, I couldn't stop. (As with any good novel.) It's been 5 years since I last read it, so it was still exciting to read, even though I knew the gist of what would happen. I'm going to watch the movie this weekend. I'm a bit nervous because I know it will not be as good, but I'm interested to see how they adapted it.

Music Played

Christina Perri - Head or Heart

Iggy Azalea - New Classic

OneRepublic - Waking Up, Native

Shakira - Shakira.

Games Played

Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! (PlayStation)

I last year, my friends and I had a yard sale, and they were selling their PlayStation and games. Being the retro console collector that I was (or trying to be) I snatched that baby up. I haven't played it much until my gaming kick I've been on lately, and I finally found a game for it that I liked. Being the "casual" gamer that I am, I like easy games. Spyro is pretty chill. There's no pressure to be fast, or good, or not die. Plus, he's really cute!

Cakes Made at Work

Fun Had 

I got a new bike! I've had the same bike since I was a kid. I didn't use it much, so I didn't care how stupid I looked on a boy's blue and yellow mountain bike. But this past year, I biked to work all Summer, until it finally got a flat tire. I was planning on getting myself a new bike in the Spring anyway, so I said so long to my childhood bike and looked forward to a cute bike in the Spring! I could only find one bike that had the cute retro cruiser style, but actually had gears. I wasn't looking for a purple bike, but I've come to love it.

After I got my new futon mattress, I got out my sewing machine to fix up/make some pillowcases I've been meaning to do. I'd been saving this cute Nintendo t-shirt to make into a pillowcase. It wasn't big enough on its own, so I had to use a scrap red t-shirt to give it a border, and a white t-shirt to make the back.

I tweeted the link to my Girl I Love: Felicia Day blog post to Felicia and she tweeted back! So exciting!

Links & Likes

A Bad Lip Reading of The Twlight Saga: Eclipse made me laugh so hard. Do yourself a favor and watch all the bad lip readings videos. Maybe have a paramedic standing by to revive you when you kill yourself laughing.

In 2012, Miley Cyrus made a few Backyard Sessions videos. Her rendition of Jolene is pretty amazing.

I love this geek anthem from Felicia Day & friends; I'm the One That's Cool. It's an awesome song with a great message.

Girl I Love: Felicia Day

I can't remember the first time I heard about Felicia Day, but I'm sure her name was used in relation to something YouTubey, Geeky, or Internety. You might know Felicia for her acting work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural. I know her as the Internet's Geek Queen, founder of Geek & Sundry.

Felicia's rise to Geek Queen status started in 2007 when she was spending her life playing video games between acting jobs. She decided to finally do something, so she wrote a TV pilot, which turned into season one of The Guild. The Guild just ended their sixth and final season on Felicia's YouTube channel, Geek & Sundry, last year. Geek & Sundry also produces several scripted and not-so-scripted shows like The Flog (in which Felicia vlogs and goes on adventures), Caper (scripted series about superheros trying to just make rent), and my favorites Co-Optitude (in which Felicia and her brother, Ryon, play retro console games) and TableTop (in which Wil Wheaton plays board games with friends). Geek & Sundry also has a vlogs channel, and several associated vloggers' channels. That's right, the geeks are indeed taking over the world, guys.

The Guild

Aside from the simple fact that Felicia is a female in a male-dominated industry (aren't they all, though?), Felicia stands out to me as someone who never backed down from doing what she loves, liking what she likes, and doesn't take shit from anyone who thinks she's not [insert qualification here] enough. Being a geek and gamer is deemed pretty cool now, but when Felicia created The Guild, she was taking a big risk that there were enough gamers that would find this web series and that non-gamers would like it, too. (As a non-gamer, I can say that it is not a gamers-only series. It's hilarious and charming.)

Felicia as Tallis in Dragon Age: Redemption

Felicia has become a huge inspiration & role model to me because of her "origin story" (writing The Guild and having the guts to make it happen) and everything she's done since. She's created her own niche on the Internet by just sticking with what she likes, not bending to short-lived trends. By being her awesome self, she's attracted an audience of people that share her interests as well as people like me, who are not gamers or geeks in all the same ways, but who have a penchant for geekiness and enjoy quality work. As a multi-passionate creative person, I also look to Felicia as an example of someone who has pursued multiple passions, and been able to incorporate them all into her creative work. Felicia is an accomplished violinist, singer, actor, writer, producer, gamer, and a reader of both comics and fantasy romance novels. With Geek & Sundry, and other projects, I've been able to see how Felicia has incorporated all of these talents into her work.

Felicia Day is a Girl I Love because she stands up for herself, she broke the mold of a gamer/geek, she pursues her passions unapologetically, and she does it all with gratitude & respect for the fans who helped her get where she is.


Check out Felicia Day in these places!
Geek & Sundry // YouTube // Twitter // Website // Wikipedia // IMDb

Let Them Eat Cake: Geek

I'm definitely a big geek at heart. I love computers, gadgets, Super Mario, Nintendo, video games, and anything to do with them. Geeky cakes and cupcakes are some of the cutest ones out there.

Super Mario Bros.

Transformers

Video Games

iPhone

Star Wars

Twitter