Various posts that don’t really fit into other categories, such as updates on what’s going on in my life or what’s going on with the blog.
Has it really been a year since I posted my Wreck-it Ralph Valentines on the blog? Wow. Sadly, I haven’t really had much time to make new Valentines this year, but here’s a smattering of fun ones I’ve found around the internet! Share them with your sweetie today!
Well, GenCon opened up preregistration today. And Bryan and I have been talking about the upcoming Indiana Comic Con, and how many days we’re going/what costumes we’re wearing/who should go with us. With all this talk about conventions, and planning for them, it’s got me thinking about the first convention I ever went to…
Most of SUNY Potsdam’s Gaming Club, from Spirit Night back in early 2005. Ahh, those were the days…
Way back in 2004, the SUNY Potsdam Gaming club learned about this most amazing convention that happened down on the other side of the state. It was called I-CON (short for International Convention of Nerds), and one of our members had gone quite a few times and said it was epic. And we’d heard that the Student Government Association would possibly fund trips for clubs, as long as they had a legitimate purpose for going on a specific trip. So, we gamers formulated a plan. We decided that we would go to I-CON, and we would call it “research”. (And, well, we did do some game-related research, so our reason for going was valid!) We put together the proposal. submitted it to the Student Government Association, and waited not so patiently to hear back about whether we’d get the funding or not.
Well, we just about died when SGA said they’d fund our entire trip – hotel, badges, and even gas there and back. Not only were most of us going to our first convention, but we were going for free. We were so so excited it was ridiculous. My only knowledge of conventions involved knowing people wore costumes to them, and there were lots of other people interested in all sorts of nerdy things. So, I dusted off my renfaire garb, as I didn’t have any idea of what else to wear, and in April packed my bags and got ready for the incredibly long trip to I-CON 24.
The ride was long and somewhat eventful – people kept getting lost, one person’s car couldn’t go faster than 40 miles an hour, and we got there so late on Friday that we almost weren’t able to pick up our badges, and we wandered around for a half hour before returning to our hotel and passing out, saving our energy for Saturday.
The Cheat!
Saturday was… amazing. Overwhelming. Insane. I was positively surrounded by delightful geekery. So many costumes. So much excitement. So many things to watch and see and do and buy. It was geeky heaven. Especially… the dealer’s room.
BUY ALL THE THINGS
Oh, the things we could buy. I don’t even know how much money I spent at that first I-CON – probably an entirely irresponsible amount. I think we all did. (I distinctly remember one of my friends coming home with a giant staff – trying to wedge that into a tiny car was interesting, to say the least) I remember buying a gigantic plushie of Shippo from Inuyasha, and a ridiculous amount of Sailor Moon gashapon figurines… I got a few pictures of people in costume, mostly because I was too shy to ask people for their picture and because I didn’t actually have a digital camera of my own back then. In fact, aside from a picture of me and my friend with The Cheat, the only picture I got of myself with anyone was with someone dressed as Edward Elric.
The Fullmetal Alchemist and The Crafty Nerd!
I don’t remember much else about Saturday except for wandering into a couple of viewing rooms and watching random episodes of animes I’d never heard of, wandering aimlessly about the Dealer’s Room spending stupid amounts of money, and beginning my tradition of inadvertantly con-stalking Michael “Mookie” Terraciano of Dominic Deegan fame. Sunday was more of the same, but with a few more pictures!
At the end of the weekend, we all loaded our goodies into various cars and settled in for what was actually a rather uneventful 8 and a half hour trip back up to Potsdam. I may have spent that trip with part of a giant wizard’s staff across my lap, using my ridiculously large Shippo plushie as a pillow, wearing my Death from Above t-shirt, trying to sleep through a bumpy car ride. Ahh, car trips to and from conventions…
This is the convention that sparked my desire to go to more and more conventions. Later that year I went to Otakon for the first time ever, which was absolutely amazing, and then I continued going to I-CON until I graduated from Potsdam. I also went to the first ever Bear Con in 2011, which was so much fun! Now I’m hoping to make it to three conventions this year – which is more than I’ve ever been to in a convention season! I’ve got Indy Comic Con coming up in March, then PopCon in late May/early June, and then, of course, GenCon in August. I’m so ridiculously excited.
Is it convention season yet?
One of the classes I’m taking this spring, Digital Humanities, has a blog posting component. Which I’m really excited about. As I’m learning while doing readings for my Digital Humanities class, blogging is a really big part of the field. A lot of information gets shared through blogs, and it’s really interesting to learn about. Not only that, but digital humanities in general. It’s got my inner art history nerd peeping out again to see what sorts of projects I could work on that tie Art History into Digital Humanities… so many things to learn this semester!
I’m also taking Gender and Computerization, which so far has proven to be an eye-opening look at how gender plays into various parts of the computing/technology field. Some of the topics discussed in the class so far have given me even more ideas for research projects. Might even talk about them here, although they’re so very nerdy and not exactly crafty. Who cares? Someone out there may find my ideas/realizations interesting! Plus, research!
Oh, and I get to make a website for Information Architecture for the web. Which is always fun.
Speaking of fun! I installed Ubuntu on my laptop last night! It’s my first experience with Linux. I’m enjoying it so far. I’ve got a bit of experience with Unix from my studies in ILS, using it when doing programming in Python and Perl, stuff like that, but this is the first time I’ve jumped in completely and devoted an entire machine to a Linux based OS. I actually enjoy the fact that sometimes it takes a little bit of tinkering to get stuff to work.
I might make some more grad-school-oriented posts this semester, not sure. I mean, most of the stuff I do in grad school is considered pretty nerdy, and I love sharing the things I learn with others, maybe getting people to discuss things on the blog…
Oh. Unrelated to anything except my previous post: I saved a pony from certain death last week. The weather here has been exceptionally chilly lately, though, so I’m going to have to get creative if I want to hit my step goal this week and save another pony. But if I do hit my goal… I GET SOCKS.
And yes, I really am excited about socks. I mean, come on, socks are awesome. Especially fun socks, like the robot-cupcake-unicorn socks I’m wearing right now. 😀
Alright, enough of my disjointed rambling. I’ll hopefully have a more well-formed blog post for everyone next week.
I’ll admit it. I’m not in the greatest shape. There are a number of things that contribute to this – some I can’t control, like health issues, and some that I can control, like being a lump parked at a desk in a cube farm for 29ish hours a week. And I know that I need to be in better shape. I want to be in better shape. I want to fit into my steampunk skirt properly, and I want to avoid having to let out all my cosplay outfits. So, I’ve found a few things to motivate myself with. Quite a few, actually, and some of them more effective than others.
I’ve had a number of these awesome pedometers over the years – and recently, I got a Fitbit Flex. (In obnoxious green, like the one above.) And for some reason, not actually knowing how many steps I’ve taken strangely motivates me to move more. I want to fill up all the little lights on my tracker! I want it to vibrate with glee! AND ALL THE DATA I RECEIVE. Oh, the data. I can see when I was most active, how many steps I took throughout the day, and how well I slept the previous night. I love data. This is one of the many reasons why I’m an Information Science master’s student. Data. 😀
The Aria is the smartest scale I’ve ever owned. It connects to the internet and funnels weight info for 8 people into their respective Fitbit accounts. I do like stepping on it and having it recognize me by name. (Most of the time.) I will admit to having a love-hate relationship with my Aria. I love that it gives me all the freaking data I could ever have on my body and weight and such, but I hate how brutally honest the damn thing is. I also hate when it confuses me with Mr. Crafty Nerd. That’s another motivating reason for me to lose some weight. (Curse you, Aria! SAY MY NAME!) But I guess having a scale that lied to you would be counterproductive, wouldn’t it?
(I swear, this article isn’t turning into an advertisement for Fitbit.)
Yes, I will totally stoop to bribing myself. For every week I hit my step goal (I’m not even aiming to hit the gym at this point, I’m shooting for getting my butt out of my desk chair and walking every day), I will allow myself to buy a pair of socks from Sock Dreams. Because aside from all the other addictions I have (like My Little Ponies, video games, crafts, and Toothless the Dragon), I also am addicted to knee socks. My collection is epic… but it could be more epic. And the self-bribing isn’t limited to just socks. When I hit the “holy crap I’ve lost five pounds” point, I’m going to treat myself to a massage. Lose more weight? Get a more awesome reward. And so on. I am hoping to have all the socks on my Sock Dreams wishlist.
Yes, this is a little bit more cruel, I guess you could say, but I think this will also keep me on track. For every week I don’t hit my step goal – and I’m gonna be reasonable, if I’m a couple hundred steps off I’ll go easy on myself, or if I’ve been sick that’s completely understandable – I will give up one pony from my My Little Pony collection. And I’ll even let Mr. Crafty Nerd pick which ones go. He’s been saying I have too many ponies anyway.
Yes, I think I just heard that collective gasp. “But Crafty Nerd, you can’t give up your ponies! You love them too much!” And that’s why I’m doing this – because I don’t want to lose any ponies. No sirree. However, if I do mess up, and a pony has to go… I’ll offer it up to you guys on Facebook first, as a sort of contest. But here’s hoping that doesn’t have to happen.
SO DETERMINED.
I’ll try and post regular updates on here or on Twitter about my progress – here’s hoping I end up with more socks, and not less ponies. I’m determined. I can do this. Oh yes.
One thing that I am horrible at is building new habits – and sticking to them. Sure, I’ll wear my Fitbit for about a week, excited about all the data it provides to me about how far I’ve walked and how many times I woke up in the middle of the night, then forget it at home one day… and sure I’ll say “I’m going to read ALL THE BOOKS this year” and then, without fail, end up on the computer all weekend and watching Law and Order to fall asleep. Or I’ll start a craft project, work on it for a few weeks, and then go “oooh I should start another Doctor Who scarf” and forget about whatever it was I was working on completely.
Well, HabitRPG sets out to change that.
Yes, that’s my little tiny character, clad in leather armor, brandishing a sword. I need to keep up my good habits in order to earn a helm.
The premise is very simple – build habits and complete tasks, earn XP and gold pieces to spend on in-game goodies to keep you from losing too much health should you forget to complete a given task in a day, or to redeem for real-life privileges and treats. When you log in for the first time, you’ll see four columns – Habits, Dailies, To Do, and Rewards. You’ll also see a little pixel version of your character up in the left hand corner of the screen, which you can customize to your liking. HabitRPG will suggest some habits and daily tasks for you, as well as suggest some possible rewards you can give to yourself – the first thing I did was set up some habits that I’m working on (like wearing my Fitbit every day, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, bringing my lunch to work) and also add some daily tasks I wanted to make sure I did every day (including reading a book for at least 30 minutes, and spending an hour away from the computer – which you might think is easy, but when you work in IT, your entire life is computers!). To-do comes in handy as a reminder list that also earns me gold and XP – and the Rewards section is where you can go spend your gold.
Don’t think that it’s just a cute way to remember to walk the dog and mail out the bills, however. There are QUESTS. (Or, as HabitRPG calls them, challenges.) Yes, you can compete with/against other HabitRPG warriors for the potential to earn goodies while building good habits! Which is pretty awesome. And you can randomly get pets – I picked up a wolf egg when I checked off one of my dailies today. 😀
And so you don’t have to go it alone – you can create parties, join a guild, and more. I’m currently going it alone, as there’s no easy way to share a link to a party so others can join, but if any of you readers join up, shoot me a comment on here or on the Facebook page with your User ID (which can be found either here or here, but you must be logged in) and I’ll add you to my party!
So, for those of you who have some trouble sticking to new habits, or just want to find a new way to make doing all that laundry exciting, give HabitRPG a try! I’m enjoying the heck out of it, and may have freaked out a little when I neglected my chores for a day and though “nooo, my little warrior is going to die if I don’t clean!”, heheh.
I’m still not quite back to regular posting, thanks to NaNoWriMo eating up all my creative brain (only 11,944 words to go until I win! Story is nowhere near over yet though), but I wanted to post a little tidbit of awesomeness here.
One of my most favorite webcomics ever is Dumbing of Age, by David Willis. I’ve had the chance to meet him in person twice at comic book signings at my local comic book store, Vintage Phoenix, and he’s always been super friendly. So when a recent strip gave me some inspiration to draw some fanart, I figured, why the heck not?
Yes, I drew Joyce, one of the comic’s main characters, on a scooter. Driving in the grass, and being rebellious. At least, as rebellious as Joyce can get, anyway. I posted it to Twitter, David retweeted it, and I flailed about a bit. Then, this past Wednesday, he was at Vintage Phoenix. And after I flailed about and said “I WANT JOYCE IN MY BOOK” (which was much better than last year where I completely blanked on every single character’s name, and blurted out “DRAW ME SUPERHERO GIRL”), I said “I’m the one who drew Joyce on the scooter, by the way.” And he said “Oh, that was you? Awesome!”
AND THEN HE POSTED MY FANART ON HIS SITE YESTERDAY.
And he said I’m awesome.
*flails*
I love webcomic artists. They’re a special breed of awesome, I swear. I’ve never had a bad interaction with one. From my all awkward-turtle purchase of Questionable Content book 1 from Jeph Jacques at GenCon (where I said “I sent my husband over here to get a sketch of Marigold earlier ’cause I was too shy to ask myself”), to my unintentional convention-stalking of Michael “Mookie” Terraciano , formerly of Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire fame back in 2005 (I can’t believe he remembered me from I-CON when I found him at Otacon! not to mention he let me touch the following day’s comic strip, I may have nearly died, haha), to David Willis posting my fanart… yeah. Webcomic artists are awesome.
Aheheheh. I do apologize sincerely for my absence over the past few weeks – with NaNoWriMo approaching (and then starting), I’ve been wrapped up in plotting and writing and such… and on top of that, I started another Doctor Who scarf, so… yes. I am not dead, just crazy.
So much so that I just about died when I saw this enter my Facebook news feed this morning.
Yes, that is Grumpy Cat as Ariel, The Little Mermaid. Yes, I am very glad I wasn’t drinking coffee at the time. I might have snorted it all across my monitor otherwise.
Eric Proctor (TsaoShin on DeviantArt) is the wonderful mind who came up with the delightful idea of inserting Grumpy Cat into various Disney films – with the simple premise of: ” the appearance of the cat must derail the plot of the film.” And oh, would Grumpy Cat derail these films, haha.
I mean, come on. Grumpy Cat as Lilo? Adorable. I love the little fist-bump she’s giving Stitch.
And this last one is my absolute favorite – especially for the look of horror on the Beast’s face as Grumpy bats at the rose. Oh lord. I just about died.
If you want to see more, check out the Grumpy Disney gallery on DeviantArt! Eric’s other artwork is great as well – he’s got some My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic stuff, and this little treat that made me squeal with delight.
OH MY GOD YOU GUYS IT’S TOOTHLESS. And he looks so much better than any of my little clay Toothlesses. (Toothli?)
So yes, go check out his artwork, and stay away from the beverages while you look at the Grumpy Disney gallery – trust me, your monitor will thank you.
Meanwhile, AUGH I’ve written almost 300 words that aren’t novel related! I MUST WRITE MY BOOK. (For those curious: the working title is For Whom the Bard Sings, and it’s a fantasy novel loosely set in the D&D Eberron world. If it comes out as well as I’m hoping, maybe someday I may eventually publish this one… maybe.)
Back to writing! 😀
Last night, I had the opportunity to play a new game – it’s a short and sweet little game called Love Letter. Michael and I played it while at dinner at the local Chinese buffet place – because why not have a little game with your dinner?
The premise of Love Letter is simple – Princess Annette is pretty darn popular, and has quite a few suitors wanting to get a love letter to her. However… she’s locked herself in a tower, and it’s your job to try and cozy up to the people closest to the princess in hopes of getting your letter to her.
There’s a small deck of cards with various people from the castle, with different numbers on each card. The number indicates how close that person is to the princess. Each card also has a condition on it – for example, the Priest card makes it so another player has to show you their cards, and the Countess card has to be discarded if she’s caught with the King or the Prince in the same hand (scandalous!) – these conditions can make game play pretty interesting.
At the end of each round, whoever has the highest numbered card in their hand gets their letter to the princess, and they earn a token of her affection (which is a little tiny red cube). Once a player earns enough tokens, they win the princess’s affection (and therefore the game). The game can be played with 2-4 people, and the amount of tokens needed to win changes with the amount of people playing. For two players, you need seven tokens to win. It’s a pretty quick game to play, especially depending on what cards you end up with.
Michael and I managed to play through an entire game in a half hour – I was wiping the floor with him for a chunk of the game, as I kept getting lucky and getting the princess card (I mean, how much closer can you get to the princess when you’ve got the princess card?) – however, then Michael kept getting cards that made it that even once I’d gotten the princess card I’d have to discard it (and therefore lose the round, because the princess card’s condition? When discarded, you lose the round). In the end, Michael swooped past me, captured the princess’s affections, and won. I was so close, too – I was two tokens shy!
So, in short, this is a good little game to play if you’ve got a little bit of time to kill and want a small game to play – the entire game fits into a bag roughly the size of a dice bag, and doesn’t take terribly long to play. It’s also pretty entertaining, too, and is pretty inexpensive to boot! You can find it here on Amazon.
So, in short, The Crafty Nerd’s verdict? Pretty darn awesome, and I suggest you give it a try!
Or, as I’ve been titling this project in my head, “How To Turn Yourself Into A Dragon”.
Toothless is best dragon.
Yes, I’m going to try to put together a Toothless costume for the 2014 convention season. I may even start as early as tomorrow. And it’ll be my first time assembling a costume this complicated, especially without any sort of pattern! I’m excited. And kinda nervous.
I’m no stranger to the world of do-it-yourself cosplay. While I don’t exactly have the skills for super frilly over-the-top costumes, I know where my strengths lie, and I work with that to make costumes that will look good, even being simple. Like my Pinkie Pie costume, or my Fourth Doctor costume. And I have done work without patterns before – Pinkie Pie’s skirt was done completely freehand. I’ve also done three sailor fukus with no pattern (yes, not only did I dress as Sailor Moon and Sailor Jupiter, but I also dressed as my own fan character, embarrassing as it is to admit), and an entire Princess Peach costume as well – with varying levels of success. I know what I’m about to enter into – this isn’t unfamiliar territory.
And I do have some visuals to work off of. I’ve seen this around the internet in a number of places – this is one of them, as well as on DeviantArt – and while I’d love to buy one, I can’t really justify spending $300+ on a sweatshirt. (And having made a Toothless plush myself, I know that a fair bit of work went into it, I’m quite sure, but is it really $300 worth of work?) I’d much rather make one myself, too. I had a blast making Toothless, and I’d love to do something similar, something on a slightly bigger scale, something fun. And not to mention pretty darn recognizable, especially for the summer conventions, with How To Train Your Dragon 2 coming out in June.
So, how the heck am I going to approach this? How am I going to start?
Determined dragon is determined.
With determination, that’s how! Heh. I figure I’ll start with stuff I’ve already got – I’ll be using the pattern from the Toothless plush for inspiration on how to construct the head and tail. I’ll also take advantage of ready-made stuff – such as a pre-made sweatshirt and pair of sweatpants. And the pictures posted of the sweatshirt give me quite a few ideas of how to construct things. From there, I can construct Toothless’s little… head tentacles? Not-quite-horns? You guys know what I mean. Anyhow. I can construct a way to add those to a sweatshirt hood, and then add hand covers and wings and a tail. (And maybe foot covers, for the sweatpants, if I can swing it.) The most laborious part will likely be the scales – I have no idea how I’m doing those yet, but those aren’t my main concern anyway. Those’ll likely be the last things I put on.
But yes. I am going to make a Toothless costume. And it will either be epic, or be an epic failure. I’m leaning more towards epic, myself. And of course, as I build the costume, I’ll keep everyone updated. I know I have a lot of fellow Toothless fans who read the blog, and I want to share the process with you guys!
So, stay tuned – Project How To Make Yourself Into A Dragon will start soon.
I freaking love anime music videos. I remember going around to people’s dorm rooms to watch ones they’d downloaded, in the days before YouTube, and keeping a collection of my favorites burned to CD to free up precious disk space on my computer. (Many of these were back from the days when all I had for hard drive space was 12 gigabytes, spread across three hard drives… my cellphone has more storage space than that now!) These are just a handful of my favorites – not all of them are available anymore, and a handful of them, including a certain Pikachu-themed video some of my friends might remember that’s done to a Mindless Self Indulgence song, aren’t exactly family friendly – and I do try to keep it family friendly here, for the most part – so here, enjoy some anime music videos from days gone by!
Jinnai and the Bugrom
I first saw this one at Otakon back in 2005, during an AMV competition. The song promptly got stuck in my head for the next week. It was really well done – I remember scrambling to find some paper to write down the name of the video, so I could find it when I got home, haha.
Evangelion: Engel
This is one a friend of mine showed me back in 2001 – I was in awe of how amazing it was, especially with the meticulous attention to lip syncing and everything… it was great! Plus, the whole video is just… awesome. Definitely one of my most favorite videos.
No need for Polka!
Because what’s an anime music video roundup without some Tenchi Muyo done to Weird Al? 😀
Mini Goddess – Everybody Have Fun
I think this may have been my first introduction to Oh! My Goddess ever. I was… mildly curious, after seeing this – I knew it wasn’t the actual series, but I was all “hmm, just what the heck is that show about?” (Interesting tangent – the Oh! My Goddess movie was the first DVD I ever owned. I still have it, too!)
Sailor Moon on Jerry Springer!
What else can be said? It’s Sailor Moon. On Jerry Springer. Thanks to Weird Al. (Stick around and watch to the very end – there’s a pretty amusing mention of Save Our Sailors, a campaign to bring back Sailor Moon that many of the younger Sailor Moon fans may not remember (or even know about). SOS was a little out in left field, to say the least…
Daft Punk – One More Time
And this last one is actually an official anime music video – way back in the early part of the last decade (yikes, I feel so old just saying that!), Daft Punk had an entire anime movie made for their album Discovery, and this is the first part. The movie, for those curious, is Interstella 5555 – The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. (yes, lots of fives) It’s really, really good, especially for what’s essentially an anime with no speaking roles.
Hope everyone enjoyed this peek into yesteryear – if anyone else has any favorite anime music videos they want to share, post them in the comments!