Halloween is my FAVORITE holiday. My housemates and I always throw our group’s Halloween party, I never miss a year when it comes to carving pumpkins, and I’ve already started looking up corn mazes. Not to mention, costume planning.

Some people have made fun of me for starting to plan my Halloween costume in September, but it’s never too early! If you plan on ordering anything for your costume online, you almost HAVE to start early, since shipping can sometimes take upwards of a few weeks!

I’ve never been one to just buy a pre-made costume from one of those Halloween Super Stores that pops up in the month around Halloween, so this kind of foresight is important if you want to make sure your costume is awesome. Which I do. This year I am planning on being Barbie from Toy Story 3. Because of course I need another excuse to buy a skin tight body suit.

Now I just need to convince Joe to dress up as Ken. We’ll see about that. He’s been struggling against it since I first asked him, about a month ago.

I’ve honestly been thinking about this costume since LAST Halloween, when I opted for a team costume rather than doing something solo. Last year’s costume was one of my favorites though, so I don’t regret it.

In honor of all the exciting Harry Potter related news lately as well, I think we’re going to add some big Potter elements to our party this year. That means breaking out the Harry Potter cookbook, concocting some excellent themed drinks, etc. I’m pumped.

I guess there isn’t a huge point to this post, aside to talk about how much I am anticipating everything that surrounds Halloween, and how it’s all right around the corner. I’m curious if anyone else already knows what they’re dressing up as, or have started working on said costume? Let me know in the comments, and I will keep you updated on how the month goes!

 

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I got quite a few questions about the various supplies needed for painting miniatures, so I figured I would share with you what I personally used. My personal collection is quite modest, but it’s definitely enough for a beginner!

Step 1: Minis!

The Reaper Bones collection is my favorite for painting, since you don’t have to prime them and it makes it easier as a beginner. You can either buy these on their website, or at any number of local game shops that carry this brand. Call the stores around you to see if they have them!

Step 2: Paint!

 

I bought an assortment of these nifty little paint bottles. There wasn’t much rhyme or reason to how I picked colors – I started with a standard set of good colors for mixing (red, blue, green, yellow etc.), a good black and white, a few skin color options, and a wash in black and brown. I splurged a bit for gold and bronze and silver (I knew they’d be useful) and then at the last minute I threw in a pink and a purple. I ended up with about thirty paints, but you can absolutely get by with less than that. These paint bottles are about $3 each, which sounds cheap – but beware! That starts to add up.

Step 3: Brushes!

I bought this set of brushes to get a variety of styles and sizes, and they worked out really well! There are definitely nicer brushes out there, but this set ran me about $20 and I was very pleased with how they ended up working out. You’ll also want a couple of “crappy” brushes to use for drybrushing (this process can ruin nicer brushes, so it’s actually better to just pick up some cheap-o ones) and a few bigger brushes for your base coat.

Step 4: Lights!

First off, I bought some daylight balanced umbrella lights. As a YouTubers, I knew these would be multifaceted, so making the plunge was totally worth it. The lights were hugely useful, but not totally necessary. Any sort of daylight bulbs or natural life is great, as long as you have enough of it. For more detail work, I also got this magnifier+light combo for about $20:

Step 5: Display Case!

Again, this is totally not necessary, but I had so many people asking me about it that I figured I would share. This display case is meant for thimbles, but it’s also exactly the right size for standard miniatures. It comes in a few different colors (black and three various woodgrains) and I absolutely love it. I got it on Amazon for $80.

There you have it! That’s what I have in my collection, and even though it’s a bit spendy to get started – once you have this stuff, you rarely have to buy anything else. I have such a painting bug right now, and I can’t wait to do it again. Also, there’s another set of Reaper Bones coming out soon, so I’ve been highly impatient waiting for the kickstarter. I’ll be sure to let you guys know when it launches.

If you’ve ever painted minis before, or if you start, please send me pictures of what you make!

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Sometimes, right when I think it’s not possible for me to get any more nerdy… I develop a new hobby like painting miniatures. I don’t even totally remember how it happened. I think the first time I painted a mini was a few years ago at a con, and I had no idea what I was doing. I distinctly remember making my fighter much, much too orange. Then some friends of mine bought the giant Reaper Bones kickstarter mega pack and invited a few of us over to help them paint, which was the first time I learned anything at all about technique.

Liz, Joe and I spent a fair amount of time in the Reaper painting room at PAX this year as well, and through that, I could feel the bug catching. That’s why when I saw an opportunity to cultivate my own collection of painting supplies and making a fun video about the process in a Fiesta Mission this month, I jumped on it.

 

I am very much still learning (there’s so much crazy technique involved in this hobby, it’s nuts) but I am having a ton of fun along the way. And as I start to fill my new display case with finished pieces, there’s one thought that really strikes me… I need to play more D&D.

Have you ever painted minis before? Did you even know it was a thing you could do? I’ve always been really interested in dollhouses and miniature sets and basically the concept of “really small versions of larger things” so this was totally right up my alley. I hope you enjoy the video, and maybe I will make more as I continue to learn and get better.

I guess it’s still technically summer, but lately when I’ve been going outside – it doesn’t feel like it. I love the sun and the beach and short denim cutoffs as much as the next girl, and I’m really not ready to let summer go… but I won’t pretend there isn’t a little growing excitement to pull out my scarves and legwarmers and sweaters and pumpkin spice candles. Come on. I can feel it in the air… can’t you?

 

This was the first outfit I’ve worn this year that I felt was decidedly fall. It wasn’t for any specific occasion… just for the anticipation of things to come. I’m wearing a red leather jacket I picked up at Forever 21, a lacy crop top and floral pants from Target, and my yellow Tieks. The headband is from Claire’s, of all places. Hey – don’t knock good accessories!

I can feel summer projects winding down and fall projects picking up. My Extra Life sense are tingling, my NaNoWriMo fingers are itchy, and my Project 4 Awesome muscle wants flexing.The air of festivities is upon us, and I can’t wait for Halloween parties and Thanksgiving gatherings and holiday celebrations – and of course, most of all: the very best festivals in World of Warcraft.

I thought I would mourn the loss of summer a bit more, especially with how little time I was actually able to spend in the sun this year because of Job Hunters, but this time of year makes me feel so alive that I really just feel happy and anticipatory and ready to spend some quality time with my friends and family and everyone in between.

What do you most look forward to about fall/winter? Which holiday is your favorite? Which party makes you the most excited? Let me know!

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.