The Crafty Nerd Podcast: Episode 2

Okay, I swear, after this episode I’ll move to a saner posting schedule. I’m so ridiculously excited about this project of mine, though, and ended up cranking out another episode.

In this episode…

  • I ramble about how hard it is for me to do a podcast,  especially when I’m so used to working off scripts (so many filler words!).
  • I tell the story of my first ever LARP experience! (It’s the first nerdy thing that popped into my head.)
  • I also talk about how I ended up in Kishar, especially after that first LARP experience.

Give it a listen! I think it turned out better than the first episode. 😀

Mentioned in this episode:

Kishar LARP – http://www.kisharlarp.org

 

The Crafty Nerd Podcast: Episode 1

Holy crap, you guys, I did it.

I recorded my first ever podcast episode. It’s short, and it’s rambly, but IT EXISTS! This first episode has me rambling my way through a podcast version of What I’m Watching, which was… interesting. Plus, I talk about craft projects I’m working on and video games I’m playing. You can listen to Episode 1 of The Crafty Nerd Podcast using the player below.

You should also be able to find me on Google Play Music, YouTube, and Spotify shortly – I’ll still keep sharing new episodes on the blog as I make them, though, so no worries about needing to subscribe to listen to the podcast.

Podcast shout-outs:

Where I’ve been the past two months

I’m so sorry I ended up dropping off the radar, folks. It seems like every year after Gen Con, I end up a little bit burnt out and end up not posting for anywhere from a few weeks to a month or so, but this time my post-Gen Con hiatus ended up being nearly two months long. Yikes.

During my accidental hiatus…

  • I’ve been so busy at work – I’ve taught ten workshops since the beginning of the semester (end of August), designed three posters to present at conferences, and put together printed materials for a conference as well. I’ve been so busy it’s insane.
  • I bought a Nintendo Switch Lite and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in an attempt to get back into gaming and find something to write about. Instead, Breath of the Wild has eaten up all my spare time over the past week. Please send help. 🤣
  • Two games of Kishar have happened – Ëlinyr successfully defeated armies in combat, managed to learn how to use a staff, helped stop a civil war, and rescued her elf-boyfriend Alair from certain doom.
  • I backed ArchRavels on Kickstarter! Which I’m really excited about.
  • I hung out with R2-D2 all day at a work event last week! It was pretty awesome.

Me kneeling next to a remote-controlled R2-D2 in front of IT Training's booth at Game On.

With all that happening, though, I haven’t had much energy (or brain) for writing up new posts. However, I’ve got some ideas for new content here that’ll hopefully be added soon – I’ve just gotta put everything together.

Thanks for sticking with me, folks – I appreciate it, and I promise this year’s post-Gen Con hiatus is done!

Gen Con 2019: The Haul

One of the big reasons people go to Gen Con is to buy games – lots of them. And this year, I definitely bought some games! Not as many as some folks, but I did bring home a couple new additions to my game collection. Of course, I found some not-quite-game-related goodies too! My Gen Con 2019 haul is a little smaller than it’s been in previous years, but here’s just about all of it!

Photo of my Gen Con 2019 Haul.

Some – but not all! – of the haul.

Want to hear more about what I got? Read on!

Continue reading →

Gen Con 2019: The Cosplay Post

Seeing all the different cosplays at Gen Con is one of my favorite parts of the convention. Well, that and having the chance to do some cosplaying of my own! This post is all about the cosplay at Gen Con 2019.

As you all know, I brought two costumes to Gen Con this year – President Laura Roslin and Jadzia Dax. While not many people recognized President Roslin, plenty of people recognized Dax!

My Gen Con 2019 cosplay photos - President Roslin on the left, and Jadzia Dax on the right.

Left: President Roslin, right: Jadzia Dax

Apparently I did a good job with the Trill spots, as I got plenty of compliments on them. That made the 30+ minutes I spent awkwardly applying them while looking in the mirror worth it!

Now, I know you don’t just want to see the costumes I wore. However, with the LARP I was running on Saturday I didn’t have too many chances to get pictures of people on Saturday (the big cosplay day). Thankfully, Ross stepped in as photographer for me! He took loads of pictures of the costume parade, and here they are, in addition to the pictures I took while walking the con!

Continue reading →

Gen Con 2019: The Report

It’s that time of year again – time for the Gen Con 2019 report!

Lucas Oil Stadium, with the football field covered with board gaming tables.

I’ll admit, I’ve only ever gone to Lucas Oil Stadium to play nerdy games, and not to watch the Colts…

A record breaking year

This year was a pretty good year for Gen Con! The convention had another record-breaking year, with almost 70,000 attendees, 19,600 ticketed events, and 538 exhibitors. Plus, Gen Con and Make-a-Wish helped grant a 13-year-old boy his wish to come to Gen Con and play Dungeons and Dragons! Drake Kiderlen made the first dice roll of the convention, too, for Gen Con’s annual charity dice roll.

Drake Kiderlen making the first dice roll of Gen Con on Thursday morning.

Drake ended up rolling two sixes!

Much like last year, I kept up with what was going on at the convention via the Fans of Gen Con Facebook group. The group kept everyone up to date on will-call line wait times, helped reunite people with lost badges, and also helped people collect badge ribbons, among other things. There was also a fair bit of complaining about the usual things – backpacks in the dealers hall, the wait times in the will-call line, how long it took to get food at the food trucks… but others in the group did their best to help keep things positive, which was good.

A quiet Gen Con for the Crafty Nerd, sort of

This Gen Con was actually a little more subdued on my end, due to Ross being sick on and off through the convention. He’s been dealing with mysterious stomach issues, and due to that he didn’t cosplay this year (which you probably noticed already, from my daily Gen Con posts). I ended up keeping a pretty light schedule as a result, just in case Ross needed me. I still had a great time, though, and got to see a lot of great games as well as some fun traditions, like Cardhalla:

Cardhalla from day 1 of Gen Con.

Cardhalla 2019, in its early stages.

Until recently, I wasn’t sure what Cardhalla was about. People built card towers, knocked them all down at the end of the con, and somehow it related to charity – that was all I knew. Well, at the end of the convention, people toss coins at the card towers in order to knock them over, and all the coins are collected for charity! I love how Gen Con finds so many ways to give back to the community.

Cardhalla on Saturday morning.

Cardhalla on Saturday morning. I’m bummed that I didn’t get to see it on Sunday!

Overall, Gen Con was pretty good this year. There were more vendors to check out than I could actually visit, and I got to hang out with friends I don’t see often. I got to eat tasty cupcakes from The Flying Cupcake (like the butterbeer flavored Wizards Unite!), and enjoyed tasty food at downtown Indy restaurants. I got to dress up as Jadzia Dax! And, I got to help run a LARP too!

The Crafty Nerd’s Gen Con 2019 posts

To make things easy to find, I’ll link to detailed coverage of different aspects of my Gen Con experience here. (These links will become active as I write the posts!)

Stay tuned for the next post in my Gen Con 2019 coverage, focusing on all the goodies I got at the con!

Gen Con 2019, Day 3 and 4

Since Day 3 is mostly going to be covered in a post specifically about the Blue Rose LARP, and there wasn’t much to Day 4, I’m going to cover these both in a slightly belated post.

Day 3

Day 3 of Gen Con was a blast! Granted, I spent most of it helping run Trials of the Rose: The Call to Adventure, but that’s what you go to Gen Con for, right? Running or playing games!

Before prep started for the Blue Rose LARP, I got the chance to wander around the convention center a bit. I saw some awesome cosplayers, and also ran into this little guy!

Gray and white dog dressed up as Gandalf from Lord of the Rings.

This is Gandalf, and he’s become a bit of a Gen Con celebrity over the years. Ross and I were behind Gandalf and his owner in the costume parade last year, and I ended up following Gandalf’s Facebook page afterwards. This sweet little dog gets to go to a lot of conventions, and probably has more costumes than I do! I’m happy I got to see him – and he definitely loves his fans, he ran right up to me as soon as I took my camera out and gave me a bunch of doggy nuzzles. I even got his pawtograph!

A photo of Gandalf the dog wearing a Starfleet uniform, with a paw print signature at the bottom right corner.

After wandering the convention center for a bit, it was time for the LARP!

Me wearing a purple shirt with puffy sleeves and a green corset dress.

I’ll cover most of the LARP in its own post – from the prep I did to the actual storytelling that happened. I will say, I think I did a much better job storytelling at Trials of the Rose than I did at the City of Heroes LARP last year. (Then again, I think anything would have been better than that, given that I had a nasty anxiety attack just before the City of Heroes LARP.)

Day 4

Me wearing a Toothless kigurumi.

I was one exhausted nerd on Sunday.

Day 4 of Gen Con didn’t really happen this year, due to Ross being sick. 🙁 He’s been struggling with stomach issues on and off for months now, and parts of Gen Con were particularly rough. On Sunday morning, he wasn’t feeling well at all, so we decided to just pack up and go home. It didn’t help that the Marriott never actually sent a bellhop up to help us with all our luggage, despite us calling twice, and never passed the word on to valet parking that we wanted to pick up our car. (Then again, I think we got off easy with hotel difficulties, given that I heard a story about a valet backing someone’s car into a window at the JW Marriott…) Once we dragged all our stuff downstairs, and once the valet brought Luna up from wherever they parked her, we headed home to look at all the goodies we got and relax a bit. (And, in my case, wash lots of costume laundry.)

And that’s the day-by-day report of Gen Con 2019! I’ll be posting more about the con in general, cosplayers at the con, the Blue Rose LARP, and my Gen Con haul later!

Gen Con 2019, Day 2

Today was my big cosplay day, since tomorrow is the Blue Rose LARP. And I am SO PLEASED with how my Jadzia Dax cosplay turned out.

Me, dressed up as Jadzia Dax.

Sure, it took me a half hour to get all those Trill spots on, but it was so worth all the work! I got so many compliments on my costume, and even on my Trill spots. Plus, the costume itself was less toasty than I thought it would be! However, I ended up not switching to Ezri midway through the day. Just about everyone I talked to said Jadzia was better than Ezri, and so I figured I may as well stick to Jadzia. Ah well – maybe I’ll do Ezri for Halloween.

I also got to help my friend Kasi turn into a Trill! Drawing her Trill spots on took a lot less time than drawing my own on, thankfully.

My friend Kasi and I, both wearing Starfleet science officer uniforms, with trill spot makeup on.

Kasi played a doctor in the Deep Space Ten LARP today, and I’m glad I could help her with her spots!

While wandering around the dealer’s hall, after posing for some costume photos, I stumbled across something I’ve been wanting for a while now: a Toothless kigurumi.

The top half of my new Toothless kigurumi.

Of course I bought it, and I’m not going to lie, I wore it around Gen Con for a couple hours.  It’s so comfy, and cute, and it has pockets! It’s amazing and I love it, haha.

Today also involved some last-minute planning for tomorrow’s LARP game. I’m really excited for it – and I hope everything goes well tomorrow!

And there you have it: my Friday at Gen Con! (It looks like I didn’t do much, but there was a lot of aimless wandering in costume, heh.) Come back tomorrow for Day 3 at Gen Con!

Gen Con 2019, Day 1

Day one of Gen Con has been a blast so far – and it’s not quite over yet! I’ve got some down time, though, and figured I’d post about the day so far.

Georgia St. sign in downtown Indy temporarily replaced with a Gen Con Ln sign.

Long story short: Gen Con is great, as always!  I always love how I manage to find people from all areas of my life here – in the past 36 hours, I’ve seen two people from my LARP group, one of my co-workers, a bunch of folks from a professional organization I’m a member of, and my mom-in-law – all here at the convention! It’s strange and wonderful, seeing people from all the different parts of my life in the same place.

Lucas Oil Stadium, entering the football field where, instead of football, boardgames are being played.

I love going into Lucas Oil Stadium to see the football field covered in games.

Today was split between wandering around the convention center/dealer’s hall and hanging out with some friends at the board game library. I’ll admit, I was pretty excited to get to play games on the field at Lucas Oil Stadium – they’re definitely the type of game I’m interested in as opposed to football, haha.

Me dressed as President Roslyn from Battlestar Galactica, in front of a wall with Battlestar Galactica characters on it.

And while I didn’t end up wearing the costume for very long (multiple layers of polyester = very bad idea), I did manage to get a couple of photos in my President Roslin costume in front of this advertisement for a Battlestar Galactica game! Ross and I picked it up, and Ross is currently watching videos about it as I’m writing, heheh.

A demo of the game Fuzzy Mage Fight.

And speaking of games, I picked up a copy of Fuzzy Mage Fight – I’m excited to play it, it looks like fun! (Plus, I’m a sucker for cute furry animals.) I also picked up some Blue Rose books (surprise, surprise) and a couple of other goodies. All in all, a fun first day at the convention!

Tomorrow, I’m demoing the game Arch Ravelry, as well as finally getting to wear my Jadzia costume! I hope I don’t end up roasting in it like I did in my President Roslin costume, but if I do end up overheating, I have a secret backup Jadzia costume, just in case. 🙂

Gen Con 2019: the pre-convention excited flaily post

Banner image of Ezri Dax, President Laura Roslin, and Jadzia Dax with the text 'The Crafty Nerd at Gen Con' at the bottom of the image.

I think I love this graphic even more than the one I made for last year’s Gen Con.

It’s that time of year, folks: almost time for Gen Con. And in case you couldn’t tell by some of my previous Gen Con posts for this year, I’m excited.

This year’s costumes

So it turns out I’m actually going to do three costumes this year! I got hit with the grand idea for costume number three while I was taking a walk at work on Friday: how fun would it be to cosplay as both Jadzia and Ezri on the same day?  All I need to transform from Jadzia to Ezri is a pixie-cut wig – which I found on Amazon for a pretty reasonable price. So, surprise!  I’m gonna cosplay as Ezri in addition to Jadzia and President Roslin.

I’ve also got a separate costume for the Blue Rose LARP I’m helping run! Keep an eye out for Liana Masri – envoy in the Sovereign’s Finest, bard, and hopeful Aldin noble. I’ll be wearing a royal purple shirt and skirt with a beautiful spring green corset for Liana’s costume.

For those of you who might be going to Gen Con and want to say hi, here’s my costume schedule, so you know who to look for!

  • Thursday: President Laura Roslin
  • Friday: Jadzia and Ezri
  • Saturday: Liana (for the Blue Rose LARP)
  • Sunday: exhausted nerd (likely wearing my Crafty Nerd shirt and a kilt)

This year’s games

Once again, I’m helping Phoenix Fire LARP run a game at Gen Con – this year we’re hosting Trials of the Rose: The Call to Adventure, which is loosely based on the Blue Rose tabletop game that J’s been running for a small group of our friends for almost two years now. I’m excited – not just for getting to LARP as Liana, but also to see our small tabletop group all dressed up as our characters! And to see J in the role of Fosteno (*fancy hand swoosh*), one of the instructors from our game. (Fosteno is so fancy, he gets a hand-swoosh every time anyone says his name, haha.)

In addition to helping run a game, I’m also attending a demo of a knitting-themed game – ArchRavelry! I’m curious to see what it’s like. I’ve also got plans to wander around the dealer’s room on Friday and learn about as many games as I can. Given how my work has started focusing on how to make training fun by gamifying it, I’ll definitely be looking for inspiration for work projects.

Trade Day excitement

I’m also going to Trade Day this year, with my co-worker and fellow geeky media creator, Rachel of the Five(ish) Fangirls Podcast! As I mentioned previously, our work has shifted to include exploring gamification of learning, so we’re going to a number of Trade Day events to learn about how others approach games in education. We’re both excited about being able to take things we learn at Gen Con back to our work! I may nerd out about gamifying training at some point post-Gen Con, since it’s a delightful combination of two things I really enjoy: gaming and teaching.

Gen Con coverage

Like in previous years, I’ll be posting the following:

  • a summary each day of my Gen Con experiences,
  • after-con posts about events, cosplay, and the con in general
  • the Gen Con episode of The Five(ish) Fangirls Podcast, as it’s starting to become a tradition for me to guest-star on their Gen Con episode

I hope everyone else is as excited about Gen Con this year as I am! (Now, time to start packing for the Best Four Days in Gaming!)