All posts by Beth Lynn.

Book review: Anything Goes by John Barrowman

I’m going to preface this review with the following: I need to read more.

I’ve fallen into a sad habit of watching too much television lately.  Sure, there’s lots of wonderful television shows out there!  Doctor Who, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Farscape, Firefly, Archer, 30 Rock, Mad Men… but I used to read so very much!  When we moved to Bloomington, I signed out a giant stack of books and read through them in a week!

So I’m going to challenge myself to read more – and I’m also going to talk about the books I’ve read, too, in hopes people discover new books to read.  And I’m going to start with a favorite of mine.  (A favorite that I should really buy my own copy of.)

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Anything Goes by John Barrowman

This was an incredibly quick read!  And an incredibly enjoyable one.  If you’ve watched Doctor Who or Torchwood, you’re familiar with John Barrowman – he plays the incredibly awesome Captain Jack Harkness in both shows.  (He’s also in Arrow, but I haven’t seen that yet – I don’t have cable, and live off of Hulu and Netflix, and missed out on the start of it, sadly)  This book tells his story – from when he was a kid, to his experiences as a teenager, all the way through to his time on Doctor Who and Torchwood.

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I’m a writer over at Geek Crafts!

This is a short little update for you all – I just want to let everyone know I’m writing over at Geek Crafts!  I’ll be posting a new geeky craft every Sunday afternoon, and today I’ve posted my introduction.  (I go by Beth Lynn over there, since there’s already a Beth there!)  I hope everyone’ll go check it out!  I’ll be sharing links to my Sunday posts over on The Crafty Nerd’s Facebook page – so if you’re not already a fan, go hit the Like button in my Facebook widget over on the right side of the page!

 

The Best and Worst Parts of Being A Nerd

Being a nerd sure seems like a lot of fun.  You get to play lots of games, go to conventions, watch all sorts of awesome movies, and so much other stuff.  However, with great awesomeness comes great responsibility, and occasionally great downfalls.  This was actually one of the most requested topics on a recent poll I posted on The Crafty Nerd’s Facebook page, and I’m going to go into what I feel are the best parts, as well as the worst parts, of being a nerd.

This is what happens when I'm in full-on nerd mode. This picture is ancient, but even now, 13 years later, I still do this when I get fangirly.

This is what happens when I’m in full-on nerd mode. This picture is ancient, but even now, 13 years later, I still do this when I get fangirly.

The Best Parts of Being a Nerd

  • You get to dress up in fun costumes on days besides Halloween!  I’ve dressed as Princess Peach in March, Pinkie Pie in August, and all sorts of other costumes for fun occasions.  Plus, if you’re skilled enough at it, you get to make those costumes, too.  I think the best part is making the costume, and then putting it on and marveling at all your hard work come to life.  
  • Games.  SO MANY GAMES.  Board games, video games, tabletop RPGs.  Fluxx, Cards Against Humanity, Dungeons and Dragons, Final Fantasy, Super Mario Bros., Munchkin, the Ace Attorney series, and those are just the ones I can list off the top of my head.  There’s always something fun to play, something to stimulate your brain with.
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Beth’s Craft Picks of the Week! – 4/15/13

Hello all!  I hope your Monday went well – mine was a bit of a mixed bag.  Ah well.  I’ve got a fresh batch of crafty picks for everyone this week!

Case of the Mondays Cross-Stitch Kit

hatemondaysSpeaking of Mondays… this would be a hilarious addition to anyone’s cubicle, haha.  It’s in a handy dandy kit, put together by Purple Hippo Stitches, and also part of their Tax Day Sale!  I’m half done with my own set, and plan on sticking mine in my cube once it’s done.  It’s really simple, and an easy intro to cross-stitching if you’ve never done it before.

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The Crafty Nerd Plays Video Games: Sailor Moon S Puzzle Game

I love playing video games.  It’s one of the first nerdy things I’ve ever done – play games on my Atari when I was 5 years old.  I especially love retro video games – the older, the better.  After a friend of mine posted about the Sailor Moon games that came out for the Super Nintendo/Super Famicom back in the height of Sailor Moon’s popularity, I figured I might as well see if I could find some of my old favorites to play with.  And I wasn’t disappointed!

lunagame_00000Here we’ve got the Sailor Moon S puzzle game!  I have no idea what the actual official name of it is, as I can’t read Japanese much more than identifying the kanji that stand for Sailor Moon, but this is my favorite of all the puzzle games that were released for the Super Nintendo.

lunagame_00003Most Sailor Moon fans of a certain age on the internet will definitely recognize these sprites – they were on Lycentia’s Sailor Moon Graphics Site!  She’d lovingly pulled all the sprites from all the Sailor Moon Super Nintendo games, and animated some of them too.  This is the character select screen – you can play as pretty much any character in the series up to the S season.  I picked Jupiter, as she’s one of my long time favorites.

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Beth’s Craft Picks of the Week! – 4/8/13

I’m going to try something new for the next few weeks here, and see how everyone likes it – I’m going to do a nerdy craft roundup, of four of the most interesting nerdy crafts I’ve found out on the internet!  Here’s hoping it brightens everyone’s Monday, and gives everyone some inspiration for some cool craft projects to make.

Books and Tardises bookmark cross-stitch pattern

il_570xN.256727710This looks like a fun project for cross-stitchers, and would also be a great gift for any Doctor Who fan!  It would also be a great weekend project, for when you’ve got some episodes of Doctor Who to catch up on.  You can find it at The Crafty Companion on Etsy.

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Making the best of a sick day (or two)

You know what’s worse than being sick?

Being sick on a weekend.  A beautiful weekend, no less, where it’s finally warm enough to open all the windows and sit outside on the porch, and enjoy the beautiful flowers.

I hate late season colds.

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The beginnings of a TARDIS blanket

However, I did make the best of this cold – yesterday I decided to jump in on the Worsted for Wear Knit/Crochet-a-long on Ravelry (it’s Doctor Who themed!), and am working on a TARDIS blanket.  It’s small – I suppose I could make it a lot bigger if I upped the hook gauge, but I figure I should stick to the pattern for right now, since it’s my first time working with filet crochet.  You can’t really make much of it out, but that’s totally the bottom of the TARDIS. I swear. 😀

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How to Make Your Own Dragon

2013-03-24 22.09.21I’ve noticed that people keep coming to my site to look at all the various Toothless plush that I’ve made (well, the one plush, and the one crocheted Toothless) – and I just now realized I don’t have any links to where I got the patterns or inspiration for these awesome dragons!  So,  this post is dedicated entirely to where to find out How to Make Your Own Dragon.

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Scootering: Best antidepressant ever.

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The Crafty Nerdmobile! (Or, as she’s more commonly known, Scooterlou)

I think, if I were to assign my website a mascot, it might just be Scooterlou.  She may not exactly be the nerdiest mode of transportation – I mean, come on, scooters are for everyone! – but she is decked out pretty nerdily.  She’s got a nice little Nyancat on one side, and a sweet “Engineered by Firefly” sticker on the other, and she’s rocking some My Little Ponies on her trunk (not pictured here – this is before I installed the trunk on her).  She enables my nerdy crafting pursuits, too – if not for her, it’d be a lot harder to get to and from craft stores, as my hubby’s not exactly always keen on schlepping me back and forth to craft stores around town.  I’m rather attached to her.

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Random Project Roundup – 3/24/13

Well, the weekend’s almost over, and I did tell myself I’d be writing a blog post this weekend – since nothing exceedingly nerdy happened this week, I’m going to do a roundup of the projects I’ve been working on recently!  I’ve got three that I’ve been working on over the past week, and here they are.

The Schweet Cowl

2013-03-24 22.03.45This shawl earned its name from the little colored speckles in the yarn – it bears a bit of a resemblance to Vanellope Von Schweets’ hair!  I started working on this on the flight to San Francisco a few weeks ago, and have been working on it in classes since I got home.  It’s getting pretty long – once it’s finished, I’ll sew it up, and then it loops double for wearing.  (It’s the Holy Cannoli pattern, on Ravelry.)

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