Marian Call

If you tell someone to picture a geek or a nerd, chances are you think of some scrawny guy with big glasses, high waist pants, and terribly hunched posture from sitting at a computer or other gaming station. Women being involved in geek culture has been a fairly new thing, publicly, and has gotten a lot of mixed reactions. Some people look down on the girl gamers and geeks, saying that they only got into comics or gaming because it became popular, that they're riding out the mainstream fad of being nerdy. If this is true or not, I'm more than happy to have women involved in nerdy culture and be proud of who they are. One such proud individual is Marian Call, an iconic musician in the nerd world. She's attended many, many, conventions and events throughout North America to perform. 

One of her songs, I'll Still be A Geek, is also known as the Nerd Anthem and with good reason. She calls out the stereotypes that geeky women fight against, proudly stating all the facets of nerd-dom that she enjoys. In addition to incredibly amusing lyrics, Marian Call has a beautiful voice that she uses to captivate her audiences. 

When not singing overtop of typewriters and listing her favourite nerds throughout history, Marian Call also brings a tender side to her music. Dark, Dark Eyes is one of my personal favourite songs on her album Got to Fly. The guitar and clarinet add to the mood of the song perfectly. Just give it a listen.

Geeks of all genders, orientations, and interests should check out this wonderfully talented women. Beautiful, funny, and relatable music is always a welcome addition to the world, especially in the slightly obsessive world of geekiness.

Toodles!

Nappin Kraken

If you like to browse the internet for ways to spend all of your monies, chances are you've happened upon Etsy. A website where crafters and talented product makers can sell their wares without having a larger distributor. I'm sure that a number of posts in the future will feature products sold on Etsy. One shopkeeper on the site is Nappin Kraken. A Nintendo fan, NK makes a small handful of gamer jewellery from a variety of games. 

New Leaf pendent from Animal Crossing

Spirit Stone necklace from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Phantump, from Pokemon X/Y

Also available in shiny Phantump

Nappin Kraken has some really nice jewellery, and would make a very nice gift for the gamer in your life (yourself or otherwise). Give their shop a look, and consider supporting a small business. They're even based in Canada! Woot!

Gamer love is forever love. Just don't overwrite their save file....

Toodles!

An Update // Tea Shop

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for their patience during my short break from posting. The time off was definitely a good way for me to get some posts queued up, opportunities to think, and to spend some time with Style. During this break, I also came to a rather abrupt decision. With school starting again, I was accelerated in making my choice between continuing my degree for a few years, or simply finishing my bachelor degree and beginning a passion project of mine that has been stewing in my brain for a few years now. Because of the deadline of registration, I chose to follow my passion. I will be finishing my degree this year and figuring out how to open up my own tea shop.

I've always heard it said that you shouldn't just do whatever job you can for a career. You're supposed to do what you love, what you're supremely passionate about, and figure out a way to make money doing it. It might be difficult to start, it might even be difficult for your entire life. But doing what you love makes it worth it. I love music, and I love teaching music. But there have been times throughout my degree that I have lost that spark, that necessary component of teaching. During these moments of doubt and disinterest, I have never lost my passion for tea. It's always been interesting to me, comforting no matter the situation.

One of the jobs I've had as an adult was working in a tea shop, selling bags of looseleaf tea. It was an amazing experience that I learned a lot doing. Part of being hired for that job was taking a class all about tea. I even discovered that you can get certificates in tea knowledge (That I will most likely be pursuing later). Anyway, the owner of this shop moved to another provence, as the store was more of a hobby for him instead of his career.

With the closing of my beloved local teashop, the only place that sells looseleaf tea in my city is a poor excuse for a store, a mass produced chain store. Don't get me wrong, I see the appeal and purpose. It's not a terrible place for people to start their adventures into looseleaf tea. But for someone who has moved beyond the taste of artificial flavours and sweeteners, I can't really enjoy the tea from there anymore. This strands me, and people with similar palettes, without a place to buy good looseleaf tea. This planted the idea in my mind that I could open a teashop.

One aspect of local shops, of any kind, I've always loved is how welcoming they can feel. Like how you can just walk in one afternoon and spend a couple of hours there, reading or talking or whatever. This is very reminiscent of the teahouses of Asia, and something that my city is very much lacking. This is my vision for my own shop. I want a place where you can walk in, sit down in a nice chair, order a cup or pot of tea, and spend some time enjoying yourself. Too much of life is rushed through, not enjoyed. I want there to be a place that has great quality tea, a relaxing atmosphere, and a place of community. That's the goal for my shop.

If you have any ideas, suggestions, or requests regarding the shop, please leave a comment or message. Know a great kind of tea you would like to see served? Let me know! Have an amazing artist who wants some art publicized? Shoot me a comment and a contact! Really, all ideas are welcome.

Toodles!

A Short Break

Hey everybody! After a long weekend and spending some great quality time with Style, my one month of perfect posting has come to a close. Yesterday I forgot to make a post, so that ends the streak for now.

I'm going to take a short break from posting every day, and work to get a bunch queued up for when school starts up again. I appreciate the support everyone has shown in reading my posts as they go up. Seeing all the people reading what I ramble about each day is truly heartwarming. So for the next little while, I won't be posting every day.

Rest assured, this blog will continue, it's not ending here. I just want to make sure that I can give you all the best content I can. I wrote a rushed post a few days ago, and I felt terrible about it. It wasn't up to my personal standard but I felt that maintaining my posting schedule was important. Consistency is important, but so is the quality of my writing. Hence, the break. I want to get back to writing at the level I expect of myself while also sticking to my posting schedule.

Some posts may make it up to keep things interesting, but until I get back on schedule, I wish you all the best! See you in a bit!

Toodles!

I Wrote This For You // The First Sign is Taking Strange Pictures

*Language warning today

It's interesting how by attaching a word to something can completely change how it is  perceived. Two people sitting on a couch watching Netflix sounds normal. Call it a relationship, and suddenly that evening could be a date. An evening of sex with someone could be fucking or it could be making love, both have different imagery attached. Someone will fiercely defend whether they are a geek or a nerd.

Attaching words to things has a certain power about it. As someone who loves to write, the words people choose when they write or speak is incredibly interesting to me.


The First Sign is Taking Strange Pictures

I have pretended to go mad in order to tell you things I need to. I call it art. Because art is the word we give to our feelings made public. And art doesn't worry anyone.

*Reminder that I take no credit for this work. It does not belong to me, I did not make it, I make no claim to it other than the feelings it evokes in me.

Toodles!

War Dragons

There are a crap-ton of games out there now. Mobile gaming has exploded in the last few years with the introduction of larger phones and tablets (Gameboys will always have a special place in my heart). But like any gaming industry, mobile gaming is full of both fantastic and abysmal games.

I'm going to make this review short, because it's not a great game. War Dragons is a game for the iPad.

Graphics: 3.5 out of 5
Pretty cool looking dragons, the graphics take advantage of the iPad graphics processor between battles. During the flights the graphics take a pretty big dip down though.

Gameplay: 2 out of 5
The combat system is super grind-heavy and repetitive. The enemy defences quickly out damage your dragons if you don't use all of your cooldowns. You also are unable to dodge attacks or change your flight path. You fly at the speed the game wants you to, and in a straight line into the enemy tower assaults.

Overall: 1 out of 5
The game is very much a "pay-to-win" model, with structure upgrades, dragon creation, and damage recovery all being on fairly long timers without paying for the upgraded versions. It's kind of a fun game for the first few levels, but then the upgraded bases begin to destroy your dragons.


Sorry for the short post today, I didn't get around to writing a full review until fairly late. Tomorrow and Sunday should be more up to the regular par.

Toodles!

Priest

Movies about vampires go back for decades, and having a sect of holy men leading a fight against them goes back almost as long. Priest is a movie set in a post apocalyptic future where animalistic vampires have been fighting with humans for generations. Despite technological advances, humankind slowly is losing the war. They create giant, walled cities to protect their remaining numbers, and discover their only hope of defeating the vampires lies in their training of priests, ironically. These priests somehow attain supernatural speed and strength and use the generous funding of the church to gain specialized weapons for taking out the vampires. Once the priests succeed in single-handedly winning the war, the vampires that remain are herded into reserves. With the war over, the priests are sent back into the general population, where they fade into obscurity. For a time, everything seems peaceful. (Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked...)

Face, meet Stabby McStabstab. Stabby, meet Face.

The movie has some decent action scenes, which it should for a movie with so many plot holes. The origin of the superhuman priests is never discussed, other than that they a chosen by the church and trained to fight the vampires. The characters have just enough depth to keep the viewers attention, but have little history or development.

The opening animation. The whole movie should have been done like this.

The graphic nove

Honestly, the best part of the movie is the opening animated sequence. It give the most story, has well animated action, and would make for a more interesting movie, in my opinion. This is probably because the movie is based on a Korean graphic novel, Priest by Hyung Min-Woo.

Story: 2 out of 5
Really. There's not a lot explained for backstory and the characters lack depth. Certainly an action movie, and that's all.

Visual: 4 out of 5
The opening animation is cool, some of the fights are cool, and I've definitely seen worse CG monsters.

Overall: 3 out of 5
Priest is an action movie to the core. The story is fairly weak, but the action scenes are pretty good. I think it's worth one watch, but don't go in with huge expectations.


Toodles!