The Crafty Nerd Goes On Vacation: Part 1

Posted on July 28, 2013
by Beth Lynn

No no no, not a vacation from posting – although I did unintentionally take one of those, and I’m sorry! I’m going to stick to a schedule from now on – Wednesdays and Sundays will be my posting days, with an occasional Roundup here and there. And since today is a Sunday…

WE HAVE A POST!

Now, I really am on vacation – back in my home state of New York, in the lovely Adirondack Mountains. Bryan’s grandparents have a cabin here, and I’ve been coming up here with Bryan and his family for about six years now. We’re close to Lake George, which is a very touristy place, but far enough away from all the busy-ness of the town, which is wonderful.

I mean, come on, look at this beautiful view of the Hudson River. Absolutely wonderful. I’ve been looking forward to this all summer – and I am incredibly happy to be here. All my classes are done for the summer, work has entered a lull (I taught a ridiculous amount of page layout and design workshops during the early part of last week, and that’s it for my teaching schedule for the rest of the summer), and it’s the perfect part of the summer to take a vacation. So here I am, parked at the kitchen table in my pajamas and my Escher-inspired Doctor Who sweatshirt, with my laptop, writing this post while listening to the birds tweet outside.

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Music Enthusiasm (or, What Happens When the Head Nerd Sees One of Her Favorite Musical Groups)

Posted on July 7, 2013
by Beth Lynn

I may not be quite so obvious about it, but I am definitely a huge music nerd – I grew up in a household that not only loved listening to music, but everyone was musically inclined to some degree. My mom played trumpet, I played clarinet and piano, and my sister played alto sax and a tiny bit of clarinet. Performing has always been a thrill for me, and watching concerts even more so. When I go to concerts, I get especially excited – I get to see some of my favorite musicians playing music I love to listen to – and there’s nothing separating me from the music as it’s being played. It’s not coming out of speakers or headphones – it’s coming straight from the musicians to my ears.

So, when I heard one of my most favorite musical groups was coming somewhat nearby, I may have flailed about and then ordered tickets promptly. Yes, Caravan Palace came to Chicago recently, and I went and saw them, and it was… oh, it was an experience.

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Book review: Anything Goes by John Barrowman

Posted on April 22, 2013
by Beth Lynn

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.)

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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Tiny Review – Vanellope von Schweets talking doll!

Posted on February 21, 2013
by Beth Lynn

I will proudly admit that I am a huge fan of Wreck-it Ralph. I’m pretty sure that’s no surprise at all to anyone who follows my blog. I’ve got quite a few Wreck-It Ralph figurines – there was a set of them I received as a holiday present from a close friend, and there’s a couple of Vanellope figures I picked up, and I’ve also got an awesome Wreck-It Ralph poster – and a Vanellope plush as well! I’m eagerly awaiting March 5th, when the DVD comes out – of course I’ve got it preordered. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that when I found out Disney made a talking Vanellope von Schweets doll, I had to have one of my own.

It took a while to actually track one down – before the holidays, every Disney store I visited was out of talking Vanellopes. I visited three stores in two different states, and no luck! (I did manage to get the plush Vanellope in Syracuse, NY, however, so it wasn’t entirely a waste!) Then, when I finally did find a talking Vanellope…

…she was $50.00. And talked a lot about getting her hair done, and had some ridiculous hair extensions. Granted, yeah, this was the Toys R Us version, and not the Disney Store version I’d initially been looking for, but I was definitely shocked by the $50 price tag. I’m not going to lie – I almost bought her, but realized $50 would also buy a lot of My Little Ponies, and talked myself out of the purchase at the time. I’m glad I did, because I found the version I was looking for on the Disney Store’s website, for half the price of the crazy hair-extension version, and I had a 25% off coupon too! So, I picked her up, because it was a lot easier for me to justify dropping $20 on a talking doll instead of $50. And on my sick day at home earlier this week, she came!

I’m not going to lie, I de-boxed her almost immediately. I am a horrible toy collector, I de-box all my toys. It saves space, and honestly, why collect if you can’t have a little fun with your toys? So yes, I freed her of her box (which was a very nice box, definitely made for displaying, if you’re into that) and instantly started poking her to make her talk. She says around 10 different phrases, and they’re all straight from the movie, I think – definitely in Sarah Silverman’s voice. I recorded her talking a little bit, for those curious…

She’s definitely nice and loud, as you can tell, and she says some of her catch phrases from the movie. (Bryan and I are a little disappointed that she didn’t make any doody jokes, though. Yes, we are apparently eternally 10 years old, haha.) She’s put together really well, and stands on her own pretty well too. She’s got a lot of styling product in her hair, though, and some parts of it are tied into place – I guess that’s to help it keep its style? I’ve got no idea. I do know, though, that I thoroughly enjoy this Vanellope doll, and I’m definitely glad I picked her up! If you collect Disney memorabilia, or loved Wreck-it Ralph, you should definitely get one for yourself – you won’t be disappointed!

Comics! My Little Pony and Adventure Time

Posted on February 10, 2013
by Beth Lynn

I’ve only very recently gotten back into the swing of collecting comic books again – when I was a kid, I used to collect Simpsons Comics pretty religiously, and collected stuff that Mixxzine/Tokyopop put out when I was a teenager. However, when I was in college, I sort of fell out of the collecting habit – I’d pick up a few comics here and there, like assorted Pokemon comics and the occasional manga, but not with any sort of regularity.

Then the Sailor Moon manga started being re-released, sometime last year, and I realized that I HAD to get them. I mean, they were re-translated, presented in their original right-to-left format, and published in a sturdier format than the Mixxzine/Tokyopop editions that would fall apart after one or two reads. And then from there, I was lost, haha. Especially when My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic started releasing a comic series. (For those that don’t know me, I am a HUGE My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fan. I mean, come on, I’m sitting here writing this while wearing a Pinkie Pie hoodie and mismatched Twilight Sparkle and Derpy Hooves socks!) Of course I had to start collecting those. And in the process, I started picking up some Adventure Time comics, too.

Oh, so many comics – issues one and two of gender-bending Adventure Time, and a whole ton of ponies. (Plus a bag! Because one can never have too many pony-bedecked project bags, haha.)

When it comes to the MLP:FiM comics, I knew I was going to get those right from the start, as soon as they were announced. I wasn’t sure if they’d be good or not, but hey, if they weren’t, I could at least hang onto the first issue as some sort of collector’s item, right? I read the first issue as soon as I left the comic book shop, and it was good. I mean, really good. It picked up where season 2 left off with one of the villains from the series, Chrysalis (queen of the Changelings), and what she got herself up to in Equestria after our heroines last encountered her. I won’t talk too much about the content of these comics, especially for those who haven’t read them yet and want to – all I will say is that if you enjoy MLP:FiM at all, and enjoy comics, you’ll love the pony comics. And if you’re a comic collector, there are so very many alternate covers out there for each issue – I’ve only been collecting the covers from Hot Topic, but there are far more covers available. Issue one alone has 19 different covers, and issue two has 13! So, yeah. Definitely plenty of reasons to pick up some pony comics.

The Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake comics, those were something of a bonus. The comic shop I visit, Vintage Phoenix, tends to keep their MLP comics on the same rack as they do the Adventure Time comics. When I went in January to pick up my monthly dose of pony, Fionna and Cake were there on the next shelf down – and I love Adventure Time (not nearly as much as I love MLP, though), and figured, what the heck, I’ll give it a shot. I absolutely love the gender-bending story line, and seeing all the opposite-gender counterparts to characters like Princess Bubblegum and Marceline (Prince Gumball and Marshall Lee, respectively) made me giggle. So, when I came in to pick up my comics this month, I added Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake to the pile!

I might do a monthly post about my comic book haul – depends on how many comics I end up getting, whether or not I add manga to the mix (after all, I am still getting those Sailor Moon volumes every other month!), and so on – we’ll see how stuff pans out!