My friends Mike and Tifa got married yesterday, and their wedding was an absolute geek haven. Not only was I tearing up watching two lovely, deserving people merge their lives into one, but there was 8 bit music playing in the background, dice bags at every place setting and magic draft sign ups at the reception table. It was fantastic.

After going back and forth on it a few times, I decided to dress “normal wedding formal”, with one tiny geek element (you can’t see it but I am wearing a minuscule lightning bolt necklace). I can’t for the life of me remember where that dress is from, but the magenta tights are from Nordstrom Rack and the shoes are from ModCloth (currently out of stock, but here’s a very similar pair).

The invitations and program for the wedding were Adventure Time themed, as I’m sure you probably gathered from my picture. Each guest got a cute little satin dice bag with a d20 and a bunch of small d6’s that were extremely useful for those of us that ended up drafting.

The MtG draft went well – personally, my favorite part of drafting is the actually pulling of the cards and deck building (I went green/blue; a stall deck with the intention of either a] pulling out huge enchanted creatures or b] using switcheroo to steal the opponent’s kill card and use it against him) and ended up winning my first match and losing my second one. Losing at a wedding isn’t too bad though, because it freed me up to eat cupcakes and play in the flip-book photo booth with the others who got out early.

It was overall a hugely enjoyable night, a good time with friends, and an exceptionally well done geeky wedding. What are the best themed weddings you’ve been to or heard of? What fun little personal elements have really stood out to you at weddings you’ve attended?

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There was a time when I hailed Frontier Airlines as an “adorable”, “fun” and “caring” airline. Seriously. That feels like an eternity ago.

Let me preface this post by saying that a few years ago (2009 to be exact), I was delighted by this airline. They used to serve warm cookies to passengers on some flights. They have cute woodland creatures painted on the side of their aircrafts. An all around upstanding airline.

But not anymore. The woodland creatures are still there, but now I feel it’s in mockery of the miserable experience you’re about to have — not a friendly, fuzzy welcoming.

I flew Frontier last week to attend a funeral. Life happens sometimes, and you have to buy tickets two days in advance for something completely out of your hands. When you’re a hard working, self employed mid-twenties girl, I don’t think it’s completely out of the question to book your last minute flight on a price comparison website like Kayak or Orbitz. I did it, you’d probably do it, and generally, it wouldn’t be a problem.

Except that Frontier has decided to start penalizing customers for not booking on their personal website. First of all, they have a new bag fee policy. For carry-on bags. You heard me right – Frontier now charges for CARRY ON BAGS, unless you book on their website. This means that if you book on a third party website (like most do), you’re either checking that carryon-bag at the front desk for $25, shelling out $50 at check-in to keep it with you, or being charged A HUNDRED BIG ONES if you don’t quite understand what’s going on and show up at the gate with your bag.

Being that this new policy only went into place on August 6th of 2013, I’m not surprised Frontier passengers are being charged $100 left and right for bags they previously were able to simple walk on a flight with. That they still can walk on a flight with, on any other sensible airline.

Can we stop for a moment and talk about how the CEO of Frontier David Siegel claimed, “we could do a lot of things for free, but we want to stay in business” – and this was his answer? Instead of addressing the overhead bin issues by… I don’t know, enforcing your own bag size regulations, you’re just going to charge all passengers an arm and a leg to bring anything with them on the plane? And then charge for drinks as well, while you’re at it? Oh, excuse me, sorry. A glass of room temperature water is still complimentary. My mistake. How kind of you.

I understand the airline business is hard. Fuel prices are exorbitantly high and companies need to find a way to keep up. But if this is the policy you think is going to keep customers coming back for more, then fine. Have at it. I’m not going to try to tell you how to run your business, I just wont patronize it anymore.

Let me be clear here: after all this, my biggest problem with Frontier (and the reason for this blog post) was their attitude.

First of all, they have a 45 minute cutoff for checking in. If you don’t check in 45 minutes before the plane is set to take off, you don’t get on the plane. Harsh, but I understand. But the employees working at the check-in counter openly and loudly MOCKED those of us in line when the minutes counted down to that time. “Next time you should get here a lot earlier,” they jeered. “We don’t even have to let you on this flight,” they continued, high on the power, until one rather uncomfortable employee leaned over and said “the pilot and crew aren’t even here yet. Keep checking people in, it’s not a big deal.”

Not to mention I had been in line for over 40 minutes and the delay was genuinely in how slowly the employees were checking all of us in. When I finally got to the front, a check-in that should have taken less than five minutes took at least ten because the particular employee used half the time to lecture me on how I should have checked in online, and when I told her that A) I was traveling for a funeral so flight check-ins weren’t really at the front of my mind and B) there were plenty of people behind me waiting to get on the same flight so we should maybe hurry the transaction up a bit – she snapped at me about my attitude problem.

I have never been so completely disappointed with a travel experience. My mom works in the travel industry and has since I was a baby, so I pride myself in not being an overly critical passenger – because I understand how this industry works. But I have never felt so condescended, taken advantage of, and thoroughly unappreciated by a company in my whole life.

Clearly I’m not alone, as I came home to find an entire twitter account dedicated to spreading the word about Frontier’s terrible lack of decency when it comes to customer service. Reading through this feed made me realize that I actually got off pretty easy, which is disheartening.

I know everyone has their travel nightmare stories and that it’s a natural part of flying that every once in awhile you have to deal with a delay or a lost bag or something, but this trend with Frontier is unacceptable. We shouldn’t be punished for flying. We should take our business elsewhere. Let me know your experiences down below – and tell your friends/family not to take this airline if you can avoid it at all.

The Potter fandom is absolutely WRITHING with excitement today, as many of us woke up to the news of the newest addition to the HP franchise – a brand new movie (potentially a series!) based on the textbook companion to the Harry Potter books, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”. I read this little book from cover to cover back in my school days, and the idea of learning more about Newt Scamander, the fictional author of this piece, is hugely exciting.

Now that I’ve had a moment to stop and catch my breath, a few things have finally started to register. Not only does this story take place 70 years before the Harry Potter books, it also is set in New York city. So much of what we know of the wizarding world is so central to the UK, and very based in the issues and politics of the now. In this new series, we’re going to get to see so much more of Harry’s world; parts he doesn’t even know about. The American wizarding community, life as a witch or wizard in the early 1900’s, other professions we know very little about. I don’t even know what to be most excited about, or what to expect really.

What strikes me as the most incredible, however, is JK Rowling’s seemingly impossibly keen skill at pulling the wool over our eyes. The Cuckoo’s Calling news kept my Potter heart aflutter so much so that I never imagined something like this. And call me a conspiracy theorist, but I was just talking to my friends yesterday about how odd it was that the “8th Harry Potter Book” April Fool’s day prank started circling the internet again, out of nowhere. Coincidence? Maybe, but I like to think it’s some sort of intricate PR strategy that we all walked right into.

There’s not much more news yet – no release date, no word on how many movies, no director, no actors… but I couldn’t be happier. Our fandom is alive and well; there’s theories to be theorized, costumes to be worn, midnight showings to plan for – and there’s no group of people I’d rather do it with than my Harry Potter family. I have ALL the feels right now, and all I want to do is continue to see how the rest of the Internet is handling it. This is better than ten Christmases.

Check out LeakyNews for the full story, or more importantly, for predictions.

I’ve been a bit off the grid for the past week or so, and I’ve rather kept the reasons to myself. I’ve been trying to write it all down in a blog post, but it’s currently sitting, half written, as a draft in my post queue… so that’ll go up whenever I find the words.

Basically (as I’m sure you’ve gathered if you follow me on twitter or instagram) I was in North Dakota surrounded by family for a funeral. This post is not about that, however. It’s about what was happening at home while I was away.

Let me preface this by saying I have some of the most wonderful friends and roommates anyone could ask for. Last week when I was panicking, making arrangements, buying plane tickets – they asked me, “how can we help? What still needs to be done?”

I felt a crushing weight as I imagined my to-do list before my 6am flight left the next morning, and at the tippy-top of that list was my weekly “italktosnakes” video. I knew there wouldn’t be time in North Dakota to make one. I knew it wouldn’t even be on my mind.

“Leave it to us,” they said, wicked smiles on their faces. “We’ll make one for you.”

I didn’t even ask what they had in mind; just enveloped them in hugs, put my trust in them entirely, and a week later came home to this adorable, hilarious video — all ready for me to post.

I’m a lucky girl. For a lot of reasons, I’ve discovered over this past week, but today I am focusing on how wonderful it is to have such unwavering support in your friends. This is a new favorite video on my channel, and I hope you all like it too.

This post is a bit past due, but better late than never, right? Last week one day, two my roommates and I myself decided to play hooky and head down to our local water park. It’s a good forty minutes away, so it can be really easy to go a whole summer without making it down there. But with how busy we’ve all been with Job Hunters (and how little I’ve been allowed in the sun to keep continuity for the season) I think it’s really important to make time for spontaneous trips to really appreciate beautiful summer weather.

I spent most of the day in my bikini, but before that, here’s what I was wearing. Fun bright yellow shorts from Target that I rarely find reason to wear, a blue tourist tank I bought on my family trip to Puerto Vallarta back in February, and brand new right-out-of-the-box sandals from Modcloth.

We spent the day lounging in beach chairs, playing in the wave pool and alternating between all of the best water slides. I brought my GoPro along as well, which was altogether too much fun for a video nerd like myself. There really isn’t much more to say about the day, aside from wanting to reiterate how important summer sunshine outings are, especially when shared with friends. This was the most relaxing and fun day I’d had in a long time, and appreciated Eia and Justin coming along with me so, so much.

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While I was at PAX, I kept a notepad list of all the games that caught my eye. From console games to app games to indie games, there’s just so much exciting stuff filling the halls of this convention that it would be impossible to remember everything. As promised – today’s blog post is going to be the list of games I wrote down on my list.

Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time: This was a co-op indie game I watched a demo of that looked colorful and fun and potentially good for the Team Hypercube channel. It takes place in space inside a pink Death Star where you’re running around controlling a ship while simultaneously fighting bad guys in space. Keep an eye out for playthroughs of this one.

Escape Goat 2: This was a simple but fun puzzle platformer where you play a goat progressing through a dungeon. I got to test this game out and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Prison Architect: This is a Steam game that was recommended to me because of my recent obsession with the show Orange is the New Black combined with my love of Roller Coaster Tycoon. I can’t wait to play it.

 

Four days of PAX was a whole new experience – but it was nice to have that final day to make sure we saw everything. I opted for a comfy outfit for this final day; I’d been saving this fantastic Power Rangers dress for last for that very reason. Paired with a simple pair of black leggings, sensible black sneakers and the same Threadless cardigan from the day before, I was good to go (go power rangers)!

I was a little preoccupied the whole day because I finally had the good sense to bring my DS and collect Street Passes. I had never experienced the magic of Street Passing at a video game convention before, and I have to say, it sort of changed everything. Maybe it was annoying that I was multi-tasking with Warrior’s Way while doing everything else that day, but on the other hand, my army is now 30,000+ strong after a single day. So… no regrets.

We spent a good portion of the day hitting up raffles (tried again to win hardware at the MSI booth, then Liz and I succeeded at winning a GIANT Magic the Gathering card at the MtG raffle, which was hilarious and awesome albeit awkward to carry around the rest of the con) checking out a fun board game called Dungeon Run, and then painting another miniature over at Reaper. It was a nice, calming way to end the con.

In an attempt to prioritize games and fun on Monday, my group somehow ended up forgetting to eat for most of the day – so the last thing we did was GORGE ourselves on Mexican food over at Pacific Place mall. Let me tell you… enchiladas have never tasted as good as they do after four straight days of conventioning. I could have eaten chips and salsa all night if the restaurant had let me.

I have a huge list of games I wrote down over the course of PAX that I’ll be checking out in the near future… I’m thinking tomorrow’s blog post might go through that list. Let me know if that would be interesting!

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This was my favorite outfit of PAX so far — I called it BMO chic. I incorporated a lot of new PAX purchases into my standard everyday clothing, and I was extremely happy with the result! First of all, the top is a body suit/leotard from We Love Fine, with BMO detailings on both sides. I love it. I paired this with a pink skirt I’ve had in my closet for ages, a pair of black tights, gray ankle boots from Forever21 and a gray cardigan I got from Threadless. The cardigan has a tiny little hidden unicorn on it as well, which makes it one of my favorite pieces of outerwear. To finish the outfit, I added the Mario Star necklace I bought in the Expo Hall the day before from Sanshee.

Sunday started a bit late for Liz and myself (four days of PAXing really starts to take it out of you!) and we meandered downtown on the bus around 11:15. We stopped off at a Gamestop before heading to the Convention Center, because Liz wanted to buy a 3DS. Once she had it in her hands, the entire convention changed for us (as I had brought mine along as well). I’ll admit it – I’d never used StreetPass before. I know, I know. I’m a terrible nerd. We watched in awe as we collected new friends, filled up our region maps, and started collecting puzzle pieces. Having a 3DS at a geek con is the best! How had I not done this before?

So aside from walking around with our gameboys in our hands, we spent the rest of the day hitting up parts of the cons we hadn’t seen yet. The biggest one of note was the miniature painting room, where we situated ourselves for over and hour.

 

I’m not particularly great at it or anything, but I really enjoy the hobby. And attending these painting sessions at cons is great, because everyone is so friendly – so you both end up meeting cool artsy people, and getting a lot of great tips from people who have been doing it much longer. I want to get better at this… especially faces. Man, faces are hard.

We walked around the Expo Hall more and tested games/spun prize wheels/dabbled in a bit of pin trading before meeting up with some of our friends and deciding to try our hand at this complex game called Mansions of Madness. It was fun, if not a bit ambitious for a “quick game”. It took us well into the evening, where we ended the night with an inspiring crafting panel and then raced over to the best show we saw all weekend… the Late Night Dub Fight. It was a panel of improvisers dubbing over crazy old cartoons, and it was hilariously brilliant. I had such a great time.

There’s one more day left, and I’m currently heading out the door to get there. PAX has been so much fun this year, and it’s crazy being at day 4 – a day that previously didn’t exist for our Seattle geek con. Here’s to another full afternoon of nerdy adventures!

Day two of PAX was fantastic and amazing and exhausting – and to celebrate, I decided to go with a unicorn and space-cat theme. The dress is a simple LBD I picked up at Ross a few months ago, the necklace was a gift from a subscriber of mine, and the leggings were a purchase on day 1 of PAX from the We Love Fine booth.

We spent a large portion of the day wandering the Expo Hall, mentally noting which booths to come back to for playing games and buying stuff. I did make one purchase yesterday (well, really a co-purchase with Liz) and that was a pack of eight Pokémon gym badges in the form of pins. I mentioned recently my introduction to the Disney pin-trading world – well, PAX introduced a new thing called “Pinny Arcade” this year and it’s been extremely difficult not to join in. Pins are so expensive! People have been losing their minds over it though, so I cracked and split this one set with Liz.

We attended a couple panels in the afternoon, grabbed lunch at Chipotle, and made our way over to the Magic The Gathering party. This party is exactly the opposite of what you’d imagine a MtG party to be like – with crazy lights, music, drinks and a booth that allows you to get your face printed on a Magic card. We ducked out of that party a bit early (armed with packs of cards) and stopped by another party (this one with free drink tickets) before creating our OWN party over at our friends Tara and Alexander’s place… where we proceeded to play MtG until we were too tired to remember turn order. Or when to keep our eyes open. As you can see below – this game didn’t go well for me.

Now I’m dating off to Day 3 (can you believe this con is only halfway over??) where I am determined to paint miniatures. It’ll happen today. I can feel it.