About a week ago, Joe and I got a package in the mail containing the first two boxes of Jetpack Unicorn. I’m sure you can imagine our excitement, holding the game we created in our hands for the first time ever. It’s a surreal experience, as I’m sure any creator knows – to work tirelessly on a project and then, suddenly, the finished product just… exists. It’s hard to accept that it’s a wholly real and tangible object you can touch and open and eventually sell to other people who will hopefully in turn love and enjoy it as much as you hoped they would.

We took the game up to AFK Tavern, our favorite nerd bar, and we filmed ourselves opening the box. I mean, come on – you can only open the first game you create once in your entire life, so I felt the moment needed to be saved. We went on to play (with real cards!) with a handful of our friends amidst ordering drinks like the Sonic Rainboom and the Still a Better Love Story Than Twilight, and overall the night rated pretty high on my list of favorite nights.

If you’re interested in see our unboxing, I’m embedding the video below. Also, Jetpack Unicorn will be available in stores and on DFTBA.com very soon! I will keep you all informed.

Last week, I went caving for the first time over at the Ape Cave in Mt. St. Helens, Washington. I’m a total beginner and I had absolutely no idea what to expect – but I had the time of my life! I know that some caves out there require helmets and climbing gear/ropes, but Ape Cave is a bit easier than that – which surprised me, as it’s the longest continuous lava tube in the continental United States (running a full 13,000 feet). Ape Cave definitely required you to be agile and in good shape, but even a cave diving novice could work their way through it.

Before you jump headfirst below the depths of the earth, you’ll need a few important supplies. I passed quite a few people in crappy sneakers and t-shirts, and trust me – you don’t wanna be that guy. If you’re planning a spelunking trip, here’s what you’ll need:

• Waterproof jacket
• Long sleeve shirt (it’s a chilly 42 degrees year round down in that cave so you’ll want to dress warm – but not too warm, as you’re doing a lot of climbing)
• Waterproof pants
• Gloves (absolutely necessary)
• Hat (again, again, absolutely necessary)
• Hiking boots or shoes with great traction
• Headlamps (I can’t stress this enough, you’ll need your hands free quite often so having a light source strapped to your head is crucial – and I’d suggest at least 50 lumens. Mine was 65)
• Another high powered flashlight that can fit in your pocket when you need both hands for climbing (Mine was 265 lumens)
• At least 2 liters of water per person
• Some sort of backpack to hold excess supplies
• Extra batteries. I can’t imagine losing power while you’re down there. Yikes.

The cave itself has two sections, the Upper and Lower caves. The lower cave is relatively easy, takes only an hour to walk down and back at a moderate pace and is home to the famous “meatball”, a large circular rock that got lodged between a skinny upper section of the cave. They give informational guided tours through this section, it’s great for kids, and it’s mostly flat walking. If you’ve got your little sister or Grandpa along, this is a good option.

The Upper Cave is the really exciting one, though. It’s a big jump in difficulty level – this one is a mile and a half long, and when you combine that with the above ground hike back, the full trip will run you 2.5 to 4 hours, depending on how quickly you take it. There’s a lot of climbing over large piles of rocks (one of rangers informed us there were 27 piles to be exact, but we sort of lost count after we took that wrong turn at Albuquerque). Word to the wise, when you hit the first big confusing open area, don’t go left. Go right. After that, it will always be clear which way to go.

For those who were curious, going left will take you down a path that gets smaller and smaller until you start to wonder why you signed up for this hike in the first place because this is going to require some serious crawling and then, oh wait, this path doesn’t even go anywhere. Guess we have to go back.

Anyway, this is what it looks like down in a lava tube:

It’s gorgeous, and scary, and totally worth the amount of sweating and small dizzy spells you might encounter while underground. We all turned our lights off at one point, of course, which is one of the most disorienting things I have ever experienced. True darkness is immensely terrifying, especially when you can’t even see your fingers though you’re waving them inches from your nose. Closing your eyes or leaving theme open – it all looks the same that far underground. Standing in utter blackness like that, hearing only the shallow breathing of your hiking buddies and the drip drip drip of the cave slime… that’d make you crazy after awhile.

About 2/3 of the way through the cave, there’s a wall of rock about 8 feet high that stands between you and freedom. I read some reviews about this wall before embarking on my own journey, and I have to admit: it was my biggest fear about the whole thing. Apparently there used to be a rope there but it’s long gone – though one handy foot hole does exist about halfway up. Luckily my boyfriend Joe has retained all of his childhood playground climbing abilities and easily pulled himself up. With a hand up from him, I was able to make it up as well with relative ease. I’m 5’10” though, so if you’re shorter and equaling inept at scaling SHEER WALLS OF ROCK, make sure you’ve got at least one super agile climbing buddy along to help you.

The next noteworthy thing along the journey is the skylight. It’s about twenty minutes from the end of the cave; a welcome sight yet such a tease. You get a quick glimpse of daylight, but there’s no way out at this point (and people have gotten injured trying) – so you have to continue onward, back into the darkness.

All in all, I highly recommend Ape Cave, and if you’re intrigued by caving but don’t live in Washington – look up some caves near you! Be sure to do your research though… there are all sorts of different experience levels of caves, and you should know what you’re getting yourself into before you set out to do it. I had a great, great time, and I can’t wait to go again! If you’re interested, here’s the video I made of my experience:

Have you ever been spelunking? Where did you go? What was your experience like? Let me know in the comments! 🙂

We started really working on Season 2 of Job Hunters back in February of this year. Our Kickstarter launched in March; we started filming in June – and now, on a swelteringly hot weekend in August, we are finally building sets for our final large shooting weekend.

Part of me feels like my entire life has become a constant stream of Job Hunters work, and it’s difficult to imagine there ever being an end in sight. The other part of me can’t believe how close we are to wrapping.

If you came to this post in search of spoilers, you clearly don’t know me very well. All I will say is that I spent a large portion of the day painting these massive panels (that had been used for something else in a previous shoot) this lovely green color. Ooooh there will be green paint in Season 2!? What does it mean!? Maybe our heroes take a visit to the Emerald City! Watch out for the poppies!

I’ve been in such a state of panic/constant forward movement/my dwindling amounts of free time being out of my hands that I really don’t even know what things are going to be like when every single weekend isn’t tied up with this show anymore. I’m getting flashbacks to high school, when your play would open and you suddenly didn’t have to spend every hour at rehearsal. There was always that element of not knowing what regular people do after school and relearning what the sun is. It projects heat… and light? And it’s free??

There’s still at least another full week before i have to start thinking about that transition though, so in the mean time, I’m going to continue making lists, casting extras, and memorizing lines. Although… bonus! I will leave you with this picture of myself, Liz and our Props Master Jenn from yesterday when our building day got slightly derailed:

What. Like you wouldn’t do the same thing if someone randomly had BATTLE BOTS in their garage.

Note: I considered doing an outfit of the day in honor of our work party, but how about this. Grab your oldest shoes, a shirt you’ve already mentally decided to get rid of, and the jeans you wore last time someone asked you to help them paint. Wa-la! You’re gorgeous.

At VidCon this year I managed to hook up with the people over at Loot Crate — which was a grand decision on my part! I’ll be honest with you. I’ve been at other events that Loot Crate was represented at in the past, and it’s not that I wasn’t interested in it then… but just that at VidCon they were selling My Little Pony Funko Pop! Vinyl Figures. Which instantly attracted me like a bug to a flame. While purchasing said My Little Pony figurine, we started talking, and they welcomed me into their YouTube Loot Crate community. Don’t know what Loot Crate is? Watch the video!

I posted my first unboxing video on my main channel pretty much just to inform people that I’ll be getting these each month, so if you want to catch any subsequent unboxing videos, you’ll want to make sure you’re subscribed to my second channel! I post a lot of casual/supplemental content like this over on that channel, as well as daily vlog type stuff, fanmail videos, and a strange series I call “Questions of the Universe”.

I’m working diligently on getting my Cave Diving/Spelunking video edited… I am so excited to tell you guys all about this crazy adventure I had. That’ll be going up soon, so keep an eye out. In the mean time – what kind of videos would you like to see most from me? I just bought a new handy vlogging camera so I’m playing around with the idea of filming more stuff out and about, which is something I kind of stopped doing for awhile there. Let me know in the comments!

As a YouTuber, I often find myself saying the sentence: “Well, this is definitely the weirdest thing I’ve ever done for a video”. That single statement has included things such as “hatching” out of a fake “egg”, wearing a tutu, wrapping my entire living room in wrapping paper, being covered in fake blood and throwing paint at my friends – among many other things I know I am forgetting.

This time, though, I think I’ve taken it to a whole new level.

I’ll be transparent with you – Taco Bell asked me to make this video. They didn’t pay me… I just agreed for the fun of it. I appreciate and respect their keen marketing sense and their food is a huge guilty pleasure of mine, so yeah. When asked if I wanted to anounce the newest Doritos Locos Taco shell flavor, I said yes. And then proceeded to immediately text my roommate Justin, “Can you help me light a taco on fire?”

Bless him, he agreed enthusiastically without even asking why. THAT’S the mark of someone who’s lived with me long enough to know not to bother asking questions. Strangeness is the norm at our house, definitely.

Anyway, you can get the new Fiery DLT at Taco Bell early starting on the 19th, before it’s announced to the rest of the world on the 22nd. But the real point of this blog post is to make sure you watch this video, because I LIT A TACO ON FIRE. And apparently my hand, for a few seconds there. I didn’t notice until I started editing the video together. I promise though, we took all the necessary safety precautions, my gloves were fire proof, and we had a fire extinguisher within shouting distance.

Who DOESN’T love swag? If ask anyone (I mean anyone) what their favorite parts of a convention are, I guarantee “swag” will be at least in the top five. And if it’s not; they’re lying.

I’ve been talking about VidCon a lot on this blog, but it’s one of my biggest events of the year. And for those of you out there who didn’t make it, I want to try to at least give you a slice of what it was like, because no one wants to be left out!

So in this final VidCon write-up, here’s the swag I came home with. Let’s start with the free stuff:

• 1. Chapstick “business card” from bfftaylor. Brilliant! Functional! Adorable!
• 2. Endless Silky Eye Pen and Lip Blush from Pixi. Tried both already and I love them.
• 3. Lego themed moleskin (picked this up at the Subblime booth). So awesome!
• 4. YouTube branded phone screen cleaner. Incredibly useful!
• 5. Bare Essentials Marvelous Moxie lipgloss. This came in every VidCon bag.
• 6. “Nailed It!” nail art by Espionage Cosmetis. These just came out and they’re so much fun – check out the kickstarter they currently have running right now!

Next up, the stuff I actually bought at VidCon. Each year the Expo Hall gets bigger and bigger, and as that happens – it means more and more stuff to buy. Believe it or not though, I actually managed to keep it in my pants pretty well this year. My wallet, I mean. Come on, guys.

The first thing I purchased was this ADORABLE vinyl Pinkie Pie figurine by Funko (you can get them here on Amazon.com). I already have a small collection of Disney ones, but when I saw they’d started making My Little Pony ones, I was IN. I saw them for sale at the LootCrate booth, walked right up, handed them my money, and away we went. I have no regrets about this purchase. And I want more.

Next was the Cruella de Vil pin. I knew very little about the Disney pin trading phenomenon before this past weekend, but while I was at Disneyland my friend Sarah enlightened me. I don’t think I am ever going to be one of those hardcore back alley pin collectors, but I can see how it might be fun. So maybe I’ll get one pin per Disney trip. Or something. Anyway, I started with Cruella, since she was who I Disneybounded as that day. 🙂

Note: This post may contain affiliate or referral links.

While in LA last week, my friends and I attended “Disneyland Day” for VidCon – which is like any other normal day at Disneyland, except the park is swarming with YouTubers. Rather than donning my official gray VidCon tee like many others, my friends and I decided to Disneybound:

This was my very first time Disneybounding and I decided I wanted to go villain. I chose Cruella de Vil; mostly on account of finding these adorable polka dot shorts. The puppy earrings were actually just white dog earrings I found at Claire’s (by walking in and asking the girl working to “show me whatever dog stuff they had”) that I drew black spots on with a sharpie. I tucked in a slouchy red shirt, grabbed some other black and white accessories and wa-la! If it doesn’t scare you, no evil thing will!

I never got a full picture of all my friends and I in costume, but we had among us a Dumbo, Christopher Robin, Scuttle, The Queen of Hearts and Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle. I love dressing up, so getting to do so, subtly, on a normal day is something I am all about.

Who should I Disneybound as next? Or, if you’ve done it yourself, show me pictures in the comments section!

Note: This post may contain affiliate or referral links.

The final day of a con always comes much too soon. After what felt like a literal SECOND of parties and panels and pitiful amount of sleep, the final day of VidCon reared its ugly head in a mocking tone, one that shouted directly in my hungover, sensitive ears, “Kristina! You haven’t even explored the Expo Hall yet!”

So Saturday was a blur. I had a signing at 10am, which I had to forcefully roll myself out of bed for. This is why all dresses and skirts and high heeled shoes were left in the suitcase in favor of flats and denim jeans. Don’t get me wrong – my signing was lovely. Two hours of meeting people who watch my videos, who enjoy Job Hunters, who wait with bated breath for the next episode of Dokapon Kingdom – I live for that. But there was a giant mechanical shark that could literally chew its way through a chair in the Expo Hall, and I hadn’t even gotten to see it yet.

Immediately after my signing we gathered the Job Hunters cast and hung out at the Wyrd booth for another hour – taking photos with fans and playing our Season 2 trailer on loop for anyone that’d missed it at the panel. THEN Joe and I played Jetpack Unicorn with a kickstarter backer named Cate Neuhauser who was so good at our game that it made us look bad.

Then, around 3pm (when the Expo Hall would be closing in a mere two hours) I finally, finally got to walk around, check out the booths and get free swag. I blazed through that room with the determination of a shopper on Black Friday. I called it the “photo both tour”, collecting as many silly photos with my friends as we could cram in these final hours. Not to mention a quick pitstop in the ball pit, as well as a small detour in some sort of robot music video.

I’ll be doing another post soon about my VidCon swag, so never fear! All aspects of this con will be covered on my blog! I had such a great time, and the Expo Hall this year really pulled out all the stops. I’m so impressed with how exponentially this little con grows each year, and I’m so happy I’ve been there every year to see it firsthand.

This is a super cheesy thing to ask, but if you attended VidCon 2013, what was your favorite part? The main stage? The concerts? The vendor room? Or was it something VidCon couldn’t plan for and put on a schedule, like meeting a certain YouTuber or getting to spend time with friends you don’t see very often? For me it’s meeting the people who watch my videos. The yearly reminder of why I do this is so special to me, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

This was my favorite outfit of VidCon this year – hence why I saved it for Friday, when I had both the 5AG and Job Hunters panels. This is my brand new galaxy skirt from ModCloth.com, as well as one of my favorite slouchy black blouses from non other than Target. Completed with a cute little golden grenade necklace given to me by my friend Liz (not sure where she got it, but here’s a similar set of pendants on Amazon).

The first panel of the day was the Job Hunters panel. We showed a special VidCon exclusive trailer and then had a talk-back/Q&A with a roomful of lovely fans.

We’ve had a VERY tight lid on pretty much all information about Season 2, so the panel was both hilarious (“We can’t answer that. We can’t answer that either”) as well as a bit relieving when we did decide to reveal a few choice details. The biggest of which is that Season 2 will not only have 12 full episodes, but it will also have 12 additional “mini-sodes” that will take place on the train recruits take to and from the arena each day. Oh yeah, and we showed the trailer a second time – though that was mostly because even most of the cast and crew had never seen it before that panel, and we were all very excited.

Next up was 5AG!

The Fiveawesomegirls panel was seriously the most fun I’ve ever had on a panel. We sat in day order, we answered questions – but mostly we spent our hour reminiscing about the three years we spent making videos together, rehashing old stories, talking about what it was like behind the scenes, and laughing. It was so, so lovely to see the faces of our diehard fans in the audience, knowing many of the people in the room had been watching our videos since 2008. It was all very surreal, very nostalgic, and very positive.

Friday of VidCon also contained the fantastic Women of YouTube meet-up hosted by Laci Green, Rosianna and Lex Croucher. What a wonderful idea, to have a roundtable discussion out on the grass; it went so excitingly well and I really, truly hope VidCon takes notice of the lengths female content creators had to go to just to be able to hold a pseudo panel.

Closed out the night with a Fiesta Movement party up the street and had a great time catching up with some of my fellow agents. I had some spinach and artichoke dip that was, if I dare say it, the most delicious thing I had ever eaten. All in all, Friday was a pretty stellar day.

Note: This post may contain affiliate or referral links.

For being a self-proclaimed geek of 6 years and counting on YouTube, you’d think I would know more about this GeekWeek thing that’s currently going on – but I’m just as in the dark about it as the rest of you. So while I sit twiddling my thumbs waiting to see what YouTube currently classifies as “geeky”, I took my personal geekdom elsewhere. To Subblime!

I’ve been casually talking about anime for a few months now, but I’ve never really made it the focus of a video or anything. I’ve never been a daily vlogger because I like keeping some elements of my life to myself, and my love of anime has stayed one of those things for quite some time. But in thinking about what to do for GeekWeek, I decided it was time to come out of the Japanese animation closet. I’m not the world’s biggest anime nerd or anything, but I do quite like it. I had wall scrolls on my bedroom walls as a child. I collected Cardcaptors glossy stickers in a notebook. I used to have a binder full of Sailor Moon drawings I had done. I genuinely took Japanese in school so that watching subbed anime would be more fun.

I fell out of the hobby for awhile during later middle school and high school (I’m going to blame Harry Potter for that one), only to be reunited in the past year or so when my roommate Justin and I started watching about an anime a month.

Meet Kero-chan, or Kerberos – the ferocious lion guardian of the Clow!

So, if you want to head on over to my Subblime list, I’ve just posted a list of the anime I’ve seen with little blurbs about why I liked them. There’s also a giveaway – enter and you could win a complete season set of Ouran High School Host Club, the anime I am currently watching!