Window Shopping: Tee Shirts

I don't need any more tee shirts, and I certainly don't need to spend any more money.  So all of my shopping lately is of the window variety.  I have found a bunch of really cool shirts that I wouldn't mind having, so I wanted to share them.

for everyone who puts stuff on the internet; also it's in the store for an awesome webcomic so double win

Link has a lot  in his inventory.  This is what it would look like if he was carrying it all without a magical storage system.

This one's pretty adorable.

He's a Stormtroopa.  Get it?  This one is out of stock, but that's okay when you're window shopping.

Wishing For and Wished For

I've been wishing for some things lately, and allowed myself to purchase some of them.  These are a few of the things on my wish/wished list.

1. Dress-Center.com: circus style leggings 2. ThredUp: strapless dress 3. SammyDress.com: short sleeve lace dress 4. SammyDress.com: high low peplum top 5. Etsy: reversible pixel heart necklace 6. Dress-Center.com: tiered dress 7. SammyDress.com: pale green lace dress 8. Etsy: Star Wars hair bow 9. Cage City: striped skater skirt 10. Atterley Road: peplum top 11. Thinkgeek: Star Wars tee shirt 12. Cage City: polka dot dress

Some of those are affiliate links (meaning I'll get a % commission if you buy from the site through those links) but these are all really products I want.  I only share stuff that I really truly love.  I bought the Star Wars shirt, the Star Wars bow, and the reversible pixel hearts necklace, and I got them all in the mail today except the necklace, which I'm so excited for.  Since I make jewelry for a living, I never buy jewelry unless it's super amazing, and this necklace is definitely super amazing.  And that bow?  It's the fifth one I've bought from that seller on Etsy.  She's one of the best sellers I've done business with there and I will continue to turn to her for all of my cute hair bow needs.  In fact, I'm so in love with her stuff that I'm going to dedicate a whole post to her shop in the future.

Okay, let me tell you about some of the sites I'm partnering with.  You may have seen the name ThredUp on other blogs lately (I have.)  It's a pretty cool concept that's pretty much an online thrift store.  You can even sell them your own gently used clothing.  Just like any thrift store, not everything is super fashionable or on trend, but there are some super cute things for low prices, and there is new stuff added all of the time.  I really really love that strapless dress I found there.  How cute would it be under a blazer or cardigan (I'm planning ahead for fall), plus it's great for this hot Seattle weather that's been happening lately.  SammyDress.com and Dress-Center.com are both pretty great sites for cute clothing at amazing bargain prices.  I haven't purchased from either of them yet, but when I have shopped on similar sites in the past the clothing has always been high-quality and I've been astounded that I got it for such a low price.  Of the two, SammyDress.com is definitely the one with the lowest prices.  I'm super excited to share more of these brands with you and at some point I will buy things from them and let you know how I like their products and service and all that.

Blog and Shop of the Month: Silly and Adorable

My Blog of the Month for this month is someone who I've been following for probably over a year.  She's a super cool girl, who has lots of mental and physical strength.  She blogs about her life, which includes web design and circus performing.  I love her fashion sense.  One of the things I love about her is that although she has a fairly large blog following she still takes the time to get to know her readers and answer their questions.  If you haven't guessed by now, I'm talking about Sarah from SillyGrrl.  She's one of my favorite bloggers.  She also just released an e-book filled with coding and design tips for bloggers.  She's an all-around super awesome person who you should get to know, if you haven't yet.

I discovered this month's Shop of the Month through Pinterest.  (Have I mentioned how much I love Pinterest?!)  She makes super awesome nerdy products that I love.  The Pac Man purse drew me in and the Zelda purses, Chain Chomp purse, and zombie purse (with blood spatter bow!) kept me there.  And she has 74 sales, which is higher than 50, but I make the rules here and I can break them if I want to!  Jen is the cool lady behind Disturbingly Adorable.  She makes and sells nerdy (and other awesome) purses, pouches, scarves, shirts, jewelry, and underwear.  And fellow Whovians, there's a purse featuring the cutest Dr. Who alien ever!  And besides being amazing, all of the Disturbingly Adorable products are very reasonably priced.  Plus, how great is that name?!  I love it.  Seriously.

So go check out these ladies are their great work, because they're really cool and they do great work.

My Favorite Video Games I've Ever Played

Golden Sun II via

In no particular order, these are my favorite video games I've ever played.

1. The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap for Game Boy Advance
Partially because of the fact that this is the only Zelda game I've actually managed to beat (unless you count single player on Four Swords, which you really really shouldn't) and also because of the fact that the shrinking thing is really cool and also because of the addictiveness of the figurine collecting, this is my favorite Legend of Zelda game. Judge all you want.

2. Golden Sun 1 and 2 for Game Boy Advance
I'm not sure how many people have actually played these, but I adore them.  I also beat them both, which is a huge factor in whether I love games.  It's sort of like Final Fantasy.  I would describe it as a turn-based fighting strategy adventure puzzle game.  It takes a long time to beat and it's replayable as well.  You can focus on just beating the game, leveling up your characters as much as possible, collecting all of the Djinn, or a combination of everything.

3. Gex: Enter the Gecko for Game Boy Color
I'm pretty sure that this one is the most obscure on my list.  It's like if Mario was a lizard and the game was even more of a trip.  It's very bizarre.  There are a ton of levels and I never beat it, but I loved it anyway.

4. Spyro Season of Flame (or Season of Ice) for Game Boy Advance
I beat both of these games.  I love that are lots of things to collect.  Also if you get stuck in one world, you can just go to a different world instead of dying over and over again until you beat it like on some games.

5. Little Big Planet for PS3
Another game with lots and lots of things to collect.  It's extra fun (for me anyway because you can decorate your rocket ship with stuff you find and also wear different outfits that you collect).  It's a really great puzzle game with lots of levels of varying difficulties.  The bosses are crazy and the whole game is very artistic.  And I beat it too, with G's assistance.

6. Donkey Kong Country 2 for Game Boy Advance
This game is sort of a puzzle platformer.  There are lots of challenges like shooting out of a barrel when it's at the right angle so you don't die.  It can be frustrating at times, but I have beat it after a very very long time playing it.

7. Earthworm Jim: Menace 2 the Galaxy for Game Boy Color
This game is weird.  You're a worm with a gun.  You can get killed by big falls or by electricity or by lots of other things.  Sometimes you're in a city, others in outer space, others in a house.  It's always weird and kind of confusing.  If I remember correctly, the final boss is a mutant fish guarded by electricity.  You can also teleport through toilets, which is always fun.  I beat this game.  I think I love it so much because it's so weird and a huge part of the game is figuring out how to do things, like teleport through toilets.

8. Banjo Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge for Game Boy Advance
I beat this game as well but it took a very long time and some frustration.  There are lots of things to collect: honeycombs, music notes, special abilities, and puzzle pieces.  I liked but also hated the ability to mutate because I never actually figured out how to get some of the mutations so I died a whole lot more than I should have.  I liked that there were so many minigames and also the levels were all pretty open for exploration.  Also before you can fight the final boss battle, you have to win at trivia, which appealed to me.

9. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 for Game Boy Color
I like skating games, but I'm terrible at sports games.  I love this one because you make money for accomplishing different objectives and you can do some pretty crazy tricks.

10. Frogger Temple Adventure for Game Boy Color
It's a puzzle game with Frogger!  I loved it because while the controls were very simple (move and stick tongue out), the puzzles get pretty difficult.  There are even floors that dissolve under you during one of the boss battles.  I beat this game too.

11. Lego Star Wars
Part of why this appealed to me is that I love being able to destroy parts of my environment in video games (like cutting weeds and breaking pots in Zelda games).  The large majority of why I loved this is because it's Star Wars.  I beat this game.

12. Escape from Monkey Island 2 for PC
This game was great because it's point-and-click type of adventure where you have to figure out how to advance by using items.  It's a very elaborate game and there is also a lot of humor.  I got pretty far in this game, but I got stuck after a while.

13. Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland for Game Boy
This one's pretty old school.  I love Kirby.  It's fun to play as him on Super Smash Bros.  and also he can eat things and gain their powers which is always cool.  This game has lots and lots of levels.  It is very artistic and I beat it.

14. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade for Game Boy
Another old school one.  I love the Indiana Jones movies, which is probably why I loved this game so much.  I can't remember a whole lot about it other than crawling through catacombs and the fact that I loved it.

15. Scooby Doo for PC
I can't find information about this game online anywhere (including the title).  It was a default game that came with my grandma's HP desktop computer.  It was one of those demo games that you can only play for 48 hours and then you have to buy it.  I beat it before the 48 hours was up.  It starts out with a haunted carnival and then you end up in the wild west and have a showdown that turns out to be a pie fight after escaping from jail.  I loved it because it was a complex point-and-click adventure with lots of challenges.

16. Animal Crossing: Wild World for Nintendo DS
I loved this game because there was SO MUCH to do.  There wasn't really a way to beat it.  In the winter snow fell and you could make snowmen who talked.  You could dig up fossils, catch bugs, and catch fish, which you could donate to the museum or sell.  You could also decorate your house with things that you find, buy, or shoot out of the sky with a slingshot.  It was really fun.  Sometimes your neighbors would reward you for doing quests for them too, like delivering a letter to another neighbor within a certain time limit.

17. Super Smash Bros. for anything
I love this game because even though I button mash, I almost always win.  I like to play as either Zelda or Kirby, usually Zelda.

Pretty Things

This is what happened last week.

I had this little shelf in the back of my room between my two windows that had nothing on it.  So I put things on it.  From left: teacup with my makeup brushes in it; teacup that plays music and is the only thing I have left of my grandma; old milkshake glass filled with purple rocks, chains, and a strand of pearls; another pretty teacup; my alarm clock from when I was a baby (it might still work); my writing utensil teacup.  I did thrift some cute teacups and saucers last weekend so this arrangement might change.

I made this after my across-the-hall neighbor said my jewelry was awesome and said if I made a Triforce necklace, he'd buy it for a thousand dollars.  He didn't buy it.  (I knew he was joking but I liked the idea of a Triforce necklace.)  So this will go up in the shop once I photograph it, which may be awhile.  The way my room is, every single surface to put things on to photograph casts a shadow between me and the light, so I need to set up my desk lamp.  But first I need to buy an extension cord and a power strip so I can.

Nerdy and I Know It

You may have gathered/I may have mentioned that I am a nerd. But I am not sure that I have ever posted a list of the reasons why I am a nerd. And I figure that this blog needs more bulleted lists. So here we go!

1. Every time I read "here we go" anywhere, I read it in the voice of Mario.

1. I am a word nerd.

• I love puns.
• I have loved to read books ever since I learned how when I was 3. Fun fact: I got a trophy in elementary school because I read over 1,000 books. It is the only personal trophy I've ever gotten.
• I love learning new words, and I am all about the vocabulary quiz on FreeRice.com.
• I love alliteration too.
• I also sort of collect fonts on my laptop, but only good ones that are also free (which are hard to find).
• People who insult people and use "your" where they should use "you're" make me laugh at them.
• I'm not a grammar Nazi, at least not outwardly. I keep all of my corrections to other people's grammar to myself.
• I also enjoy solving crossword puzzles, and doing fill-in puzzles (they're like crosswords mixed with logic puzzles).
• I read/devour webcomics. (This one will get its own post very soon.)

2. I am a logic nerd.

• I love logic problems.
• I also love Sudoku and its nerdier cousin Kakuro.
• I think that cryptography (coding and decoding) is fascinating.
• I have lots of different Rubik's cubes. I even know how to solve some of them.

Not pictured: I also have two ordinary Rubik's cubes, aka the 3x3. I know how to solve
the 3x3 as well as the weird segmented 2x2 in the upper right corner of this picture.

3. I am sort of a video game/computer game nerd.

• I don't play a whole lot of video games anymore, mainly because I feel bad about kicking G off his own TV so I can play video games, and I'm too poor to buy my own and still be able to pay my rent.
• I used to play lots of video games.
• My mom had a rule when my brother and I were young that we could only play video games for 20 minutes a day, and we had to set a timer.  We weren't allowed to own video games untl I was 10 and my brother was 12. At that time my mom reluctantly bought us an original Game Boy at a yard sale for $5. We had to share it and we amassed quite a few games for it. One of these was called Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle.  It was one of those annoying games where you can't save it but when you beat a level, it gives you a password that you can enter to continue from the last level you beat instead of having to start over from the beginning.  The first time I broke the 20 minute rule, it was with the Bugs Bunny game.  My grandparents were watching us while my mom was visiting my uncle in the hospital after his motorcycle accident. I played Bugs Bunny for at least 2 hours straight, but probably more like 4 hours.  I saw Bugs Bunnys running around in my vision for at least two hours after I stopped playing. It was slightly worrisome.  After that my mom realized that you can't accomplish a whole lot on any video game within 20 minutes, so she upped our time limit to one hour a day, and two hours during the summer, but only one hour at a time twice a day.
• Over the years of living at home, my brother and I acquired one lime green Game Boy Color which we shared, a Game Boy Advance SP each, and a Nintendo DS each. My brother bought consoles after moving out but I didn't.  We also amassed quite an impressive collection of games.  My favorites were anything Zelda, anything Mario, and Golden Sun.  For those of you who don't know, Golden Sun is an incredibly epic RPG. I still have my Game Boy Advance SP, but I sold my Nintendo DS at the beginning of last summer to get rent money.
• I currently know how to play music from both Zelda and Mario on both my flute and my guitar.
• I want a Link hat and I want Mario character plushies, but I won't buy them because I don't have money for both them and rent.
• I drew a really cool picture of Link when I was 12. I'll have to find my old sketchbook next time I go home and scan the drawings for you.
• I used to play Runescape, when I was in middle school.
• I learned that MMORPGs are much too addictive for me to handle, so now I steer clear of them.
• I still love to play flash-based browser games, especially point and click games and escape the room games.

5. I am a sci fi nerd.

• This post is already pretty long, so I'll try to keep this one short. I like sci fi shows, books, and movies.
• Star Wars is my one true love. Sidenote: They make real life lightsabers now, and they've been advertised on my blog sometimes in my Project Wonderful ads. They're actually lasers and not intended for use as weapons. Also? I want a Chewbacca plushie. Also also? I am a Jedi.
• I need to watch the X Files and I need to finish the 7th season of Buffy.
• I'm not sure if supernatural shows count as sci fi, but I am counting it anyway. I love the series Supernatural and I love the series Reaper, which I discovered on Netflix and watched both seasons in 3 days.
• Doctor Who also has a special place in my heart.
• There is a third Men in Black movie and it involves time travel. I have not decided how I feel about this yet.
• I took a contemporary literature class in college that was all about sci fi movies and books. It was one of the coolest classes ever.
• I have and love a Back to the Future shirt.
• Zombies aren't sci fi in my opinion. (It could seriously really happen!) But I'll put that I love zombie-related stuff in this category anyway.
• Pottermore: I know that I need to read the books, but I definitely went through the first book on Pottermore in one evening. It's kind of like a point-and-click game combined with reading and I love it.

8. There's probably a ton more stuff that I'll think of later, but I think this is enough for now.