Meltdown Mondays

Welcome back to another week!! I am sooo close to being done this semester with school and back to a completely normal blogging schedule. Class is killing me but since I procrastinated through my free week last week I now have to do everything by Sunday. Oh well.

I can also officially cross off my sister's bridal shower off my long list of things to do so I'm glad I don't have that stress. I still have a wedding this weekend, my sister's bachelorette party and two more wedding by mid-June but it should be good.

Apparently, I've been going too x-core at the gym, which resulted in me spraining my knee. I've never had a serious injury before (just needing 10 stitches when I was 7) so I was thinking the worst, especially with the pain. Luckily, I didn't do anything serious, so I just have to do the RICE method (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) and take some Motrin.

Also I just discovered Frozen is on Redbox, so I think the time is ripe for another viewing

I'll just leave this here since it's appriopriate for the time...

Game of Thrones 4x04 Recap: Book Spoilers?

Episode 4: Oathkeeper

Dany- She swiftly enacts her assualt on Meereen that leaves the city intact with the aid of Grey Worm (who seems to have a burgeoning romance with Missandei as they bond over their past slavery). With her fighting "injustice with justice" she further proceeds to crucify 163 slave masters as punishment for the crucifixation of the 163 slaves that Dany found along the way. That scene with the Targaryen banner covering up the Harpy was pretty awesome, so I'm actually excited for Dany's character.

Lannisters- Jaime continues practicing with Bronn and then goes off to visit Tyrion in the Black Cells. We then get to see the brothers interact together again discussing the murder and Cersei. Jaime offers to help Tyrion but can't seem to come up with a productive solution. Cersei is still descending into madness/alcoholism as she continues to rail on Jaime about Tyrion's guilt. No resolution on the scene last week, so I guess she's okay? Still it sucks that everytime I saw Jaime I thought of a crazed rapist. We get a little bit more from Tommen this week, which is nice since Tommen is such a sweet kid. They aged him up for the show to have Margaery's overtures not  seem predatory but I do like how they still kept in his love of his cats (Ser Pounce).

Tyrells- We finally learn that Olenna was the person who colluded with Baelish to have Joffrey killed. Between this and the ancetdoe that she gives, she really earns her "Queen of Thorns" title. Surprisingly, Margaery didn't know about the plot but is happy to start working on her relationship with Tommen, since they are due to be married. It'll be interesting to see how she manipulates Tommen, since with Joffrey all she had to due was feign interest in harming others/using weapons.

Sansa- She finds out her unintentional role in the death of Joffrey via her necklace and still is getting creeped on my Baelish. I feel like her story is still ramping up so I hope she can really start taking control of her situation.

Night's Watch- Locke joins up with the Watch under a false story to presumably get close to Jon to learn the location of Bran. Jon's rivarly with Alliser Thorne continues as the Watch tries to figure out how to deal with all of their problems. The plan is set for Jon and volunteers (including Locke) to go out and capture or kill the mutineers at Craster's Keep. This wasn't in the book so I'm not sure what to think about. I guess it is a way to get Bran and Jon close to another and have Bran face some danger that will keep his story relevant.

For some reason, these last few epsiodes haven't been really catching to me. They feel like filler for bigger and better things to come. Plus with all of the changes and the possible book spoilers with the Others/White Walkers I'm getting a little nervous as the show already seems to be moving leaps and bounds.

April Loot Crate

As promised, I will have my monthly Loot Crate un-boxings and talk about the products inside. In case you didn't know, Loot Crate is a monthly subscription that fills a box will all kinds of geeky items that value around $40. Now without further adieu...

 

This Month's Theme:

Dragons!!!!

 

More specifically, this crate featured items from Game of Thrones and Elder Scrolls. They contained a wide variety of items like:

• Dogtags that say "DragonSlayer", which is pretty cool
• Two different kinds of dice which can be used for boardgames/tabletop games
• Two figures: a Nord from Elder Scrolls that comes with an axe and a sword, and Ghost from Game of Thrones. I'm happy with both of these since I feel like they can go together (a Viking warrior and his trusty white wolf) an they are both pretty cute. I don't like the other kind of miniature figures, but these are pretty cool.
• Dragon Jerky: green colored jerky, which I didn't try but my boyfriend said it was pretty good.
• Phone Screen cleaner: it sticks to the back of my phone and I can use it multiple times, which is nice and convenient.
• Loot Crate button that has the theme on it.

FanGirl Review: I really liked this month's theme and the items it came with. I will always love t-shirts, but this stuff is also pretty useful. Plus, who doesn't love dragons?

 

Tired Tuesdays

*100th Post Alert!!!! Thank you all for reading and getting me to nearly 4,000 views in just 2 months!

Since I had an epic fail yesterday, this will take the place of my normal Meltdown Monday for this week. Tired fits since I woke up tired and am still struggling not to think of sleep every minute of the day. I seriously think it's because I have these crazy vivid dreams that cause me to wake up and then I have to start the cycle all over again to get back to a deep sleep. Since I'v started working out my priorities have been taking long showers after the gym, maybe eating, and finally going to bed as early as possible.

Anyway my sister's bridal shower is this week, so I've been keeping pretty busy with that.

I also have my last few assignments to do for class including a discussion board, an outline, a paper and a 20 page PowerPoint. It's times like these that I don't like school.

The end of the semester means that I can start up blogging more which will hopefully mean more books that I read and then review. Also more cooking from the geeky cookbook (I have a Star Wars one now, too) and more recaps/reviews of all of the things I have coming up this summer (Ice & Fire Con, ConCarolinas, and any summer movies I see).

My little girl, Summer Stark

Just wanted to end this post with a picture of my puppy, Summer. She's a 2 year old beagle-corgi mix that my boyfriend got at the Delware SPCA. She's obviously named after Bran Stark's direwolf, Summer, although she has the fiery attitude that's more seen in Arya.

Thank you all again for giving me and my blog a chance and I hope I can continue to give you all the best content that I can make. See you all tomorrow!

Pop of Culture

Welcome back to another week of my melting pot of popular culture news. This contains mostly television news, but that's just how it happens some weeks.

*Slight spoilers for this week's Game of Thrones episode*

Frozen- Yes more Frozen news. I know, it's a problem. Anyway, it's been reported that Frozen is now the sixth-highest grossing film in history (not counting inflation). More importantly, it beat the 3rd Transformer movie that was on there, so that's good. I am getting concerned that it could maybe overtake Harry Potter, but it has to get through Iron Man 3 first, so I think it'll be ok. It does seem strange since the movie is out on DVD but who knows?

Girl Meets World- The first trailer for the show has been released and it looks really cute. Even the logo (see above) harkens back to the old days (ha, i mean the late 90s) when Biy Meets World was on the air. I definitely plan on watching, but all of this news is making me want to rewatch all of the BMW episodes, so I probably will start that up.

Netflix- It was announced yesterday that Netflix would be raising their prices for new customers from 7.99 to 8.99 for monthly use of their streaming services. Current users won't be effected for up to 1-2 years, but eventually the price will go up for everyone. I'm not sure how I feel between this and the huge Amazon Prime price hike, it'll be interesting to see how the consumers will respond.

Game of Thrones- Episode 3 featured a very controversial scene between Cersei and Jaime that, depending on who you asked, differed greatly from the book. I seen arguments from both side and definitely think that the writers, directors and actors completely got through the wrong message. They were tyring to show the conficted relationship and the back-and-forth with consent and all that was shown was Jaime forcing himself for her and Cersei never changing her mind earlier in the scene like it was in the book. This was a scene (before Sunday) that people only talked about for the grossness factor (in the books Cersei was on her period while her and Jaime were having sex by Joffrey's dead body), not to mention the blatant twincest. George himself even called this scene as the result of the snowball effect that came from having Jaime present at the end of Season 3, when in reality (the book) he doesn't show up until after the funeral. It will be interesting to see the fallout of their realtionship happen now that it is so different from how it happened in the books

Thoughts on...Movie Reboots

Now on to my part two on my thoughts about the current scoop of the film industry. Last time, I talked about the issues and strengths of sequels and now I want to talk about my thoughts on reboots. I consider a reboot to be a new take on a previous franchise/movie. They can also be something that changes mediums (like from TV to movies) and can feature a new spin to the series. There have been many great reboots, but now I feel like reboots are an easy way for a studio to not come up with an original idea and cash in on something that was previously popular and is still in the popular culture consciousness (*ahem Michael Bay*).

When I was younger, I remember when the first Spiderman series of movies came out. At the time I had been watching the animated series, so I ended up liking the first two movies. I'm more of a DC person, but I did enjoy this series (I heard the 3rd was terrible) so I was super surprised when they announced that they would already be redoing the series less than 10 years away from the original. I mean, it's not like the series wasn't successful at the box office. I haven't seen those movies but I ave heard that they are better/closer to the original content and a more fresh take, but honestly I don't feel like seeing a movie I've already seen.

Other movies like the Hulk needed a fresh take on the franchise as the first movie was a flop. The second movie was more well received but then Edward Norton turned down doing anything else so they had to go with a third actor (mark Ruffalo) to portray Hulk for the Avengers. Honestly I feel like when reboots are done right, they keep the old fans happy that the original is still that and they can also gain new fans. There have been other plenty terrible reboots like 101 Dalmations (live action) and Godzilla (even though my 8yr old self Loved that movie) that show that there are still a lot of duds amongst the great movies, so I hope movie studios get it together (like possibly with the new Godzilla, perhaps?)

Batman could be the ultimate example of constant reboots from over the years. What began as a campy/dark 80s flick spawned into 3 very different takes on the franchise, with different actors and varying successes. The most successful of the series has been when they are more compelling villains and a grittier/realistic Batman. Many people consider the Dark Knight Trilogy to be the one that other comic book movies are judged against (up there with the Avengers) with its success and it content.

I think what ultimately makes a movie reboot successful is the time passage between the movies and a quality story that pays homage to the original without trying to completely duplicate it. Many times this has been seen with foreign language reboots like The Grudge, The Ring or the Departed. All of them have origins overseas and were able to successfully take the key elements from the originals and make the movie something fresh and unique. Until, of course it get its sequel, but that's a whole different story.

Game of Thrones 4x03 Recap: The Fallout

As always, for my recap I will be breaking down the action (or lack thereof) by family or character. Somehow this post isn't showing up so here is a re-post.

Episode 3: Breaker of Chains

Starks- Sansa managed to get away and it's all due to...Petr Baelish aka Littlefinger. Time will tell if getting out of King's Landing was the best thing for Sansa, or if it was a 'out of the frying, pan, into the fire' kind of idea with creepy, manipulative Littlefinger. This also begs the question of who killed Joffrey and who was working with Baelish (other than Dontos)? Meanwhile Ayra is still on her adventure with the Hound, discovering the lengths he will go to get what he wants, like silver. It does say something that he didn't kill the farmer, just injured him. I'm worried his jaded nature will rub off on Arya, if it hasn't already.

Lannisters- Cersei is still on her rampage to declare Tyrion immediately guilty, even using Jaime's love or her to try to get him to kill his own brother. I've read a lot of debate of their scene together and do agree it was done against what the book had down. We also got to officially hear Tommen speak and see that Tywin sees him as the chance to have a proper ruler (that he can control). Tyrion is of course still in jail and basically broke up with Pod to save his life so that was a sad moment.

Tyrells- Margaery seemed more upset of not being queen than the murder of Joffrey so that should tell us something. Her grandmother seemed optimistic about her next marriage but the question now is who that husband will be?

Night's Watch- Well don't they just have a ton of problems. From the wildings and their double assault to the mutiny at Craster's Keep. I wonder who will step up to be a leader during these difficult times *cough, jon cough*.

Martells- It's know been established that Oberyn is known for his poisons, but it seems as though they are really hammering the point of the Dornishmen's sexuality. It is interesting Tywin is wheeling and dealing to bring the Martells to his side against Tyrion, so we will see how that goes.

Stannis- Still as unpleasant as ever. I feel like in his current state, he would kick a puppy. Anyway, I'm loving the friendship of Shireen and Davos and can't waot to see how the Iron Ban responds to the letter. Also any episode without the foreboding presence of Melisandre is fine with me

Wildings- a very "Two Towers" sequence with the wildings raiding the towns closest to the Wall. We also keep getting teased with the idea of Mance, although he hasn't been seen but the Thenns are pretty terrifying. More Ygritte killing people, so there's that. It'll be interesting to see her and Jon interact.

Dany- still on her campaign against slavery, but this time she's appealing directly to the slaves of Meeren, who likely outnumber the nobles in the city. I can't wait to see the forthcoming battle between the two forces and if the slaves rally to Dany's cause. Still not feeling this new Daario, but maybe his scences will mimic how they are in the book.

FanGirl Special Edition

For my final PAX East themed post, I wanted to talk about the main focus of the convention, something that I enjoy and also something that is also huge in popular culture, which is...

Video Games

 

Now, video games have always been a huge part of my life increasing my love of competition and good storytelling/graphics. As I had older siblings I grew up watching and sometimes playing games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis. As I got older me and my sister played on the N64 and of, course the original PlayStation and the PlayStation 2. Not to mention I've played an endless variety of computer games like Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, MathBlaster and Myst. I'm probably dating myself, but I still remember the days when only one kid in the neighborhood had a specific game and we would all crowd in his computer or living room to watch. This led to some awesome memories that I have failing at Goldeneye or endlessly using Yoshi for Super Smash Bros. Some other games that I have great memories with : Street Fighters III, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Spyro, Aladdin, Super Mario World, Crash Bandicoot, Carmen Sandiego, Myst, Mario Kart, Zelda: A Link to the Past and on.

I think I had such great memories because the games were both interesting and challenging in their own ways. Later in college I took a Psychology of Video Games class, which got me hooked back on playing games, when I had normally just watched others for a while since I would quit games a lot. Required "homework" for the class would be a minimum of two hours of gaming a week, and although I started doing the bear minimal, I ended up playing for 6,8,10 hours each week. It did help that I had a great game to play (the original Kingdom Hearts) and I was able to remember how much I loved video games from when I was younger, as this game had mature gameplay and stories combined with Disney nostalgia. This past fall, I bought a Nintendo 3DS, which I love and I was able to actually beat games for the first time (The New Super Mario Bros, Pokemon X) and have fun while doing it which is really important for me.

 Recently I started watching the IGN channel on YouTube and getting into Let's Plays to reminisce on older games that I haven't seen in a while. This added to my interest in gaming and was one of the reasons why I attended PAX this year, I wanted to make the switch from being passive to active in all of my interests. Currently, I have been playing Mass Effect, Bravely Default, The Wolf Among Us and the Walking Dead and have at least 10 other games in my queue for Steam. Seriously, once class is over I will get more into gaming and reading, two things that have been lacking recently.

Thoughts on...The Console Wars

Since I had planned to have a video game themed week of topics, I figured I could finally talk about something that has been in the news in the last few years and that reignites constantly; the gamer "Console Wars". I will specifically focus on the current competition of PlayStation (Sony) vs XBox )Microsoft), but others like Sega vs Nintendo definitely started the trend.


Source

First I'll give some background and then I'll discuss the current situation. I'm not sure where this term came from but it probably originated from the media, who love to see two companies battle it out for dominance with similar consumers. For whatever reason it also pits the fans of those systems (disparagingly named "fanboys"-though sometimes in a good way) against each other into a pit of name calling and fact-checking. Something that is outside of the "war" are the people who align themselves with the PC Master Race. These are the people that prefer the aspects of PC gaming over anything else. Their argument is that they don't have to spend as much to get a massively powerful system and upgrades are cheap.  I'm more of a Playstation person since I grew up playing Crash, Spyro, Jak and Daxter and Kingdom Hearts but I'm open to getting into Microsoft, I just have to see what kind of games they offer and if their in my interest range and will always prefer a controller over a keyboard since I'm "old-school" in that respect.

Alright, so back when I was in high school, the Xbox360 and PS3 were released. Back then, everyone hated PlayStation due to the high price of the system and other issues. Not sure if it was a result of this, but I knew more people who had XBox over a PS. We didn't get a PS3 (we're strictly a PS family) and plus I was more of a watcher so that probably explains why I never played Uncharted even though it's something I would love. Anyway, it seemed during this generation that Playstation finally lost steam after dominating the previous two generations (with the PS and PS2). Technically neither the PS or the XBox360 were the winners; that award went to the Wii, who dominated with sales of 100 million units (the others fell around 80mil). Eventually Playstation released some solid titles (but no Kingdom Hearts!) and started to up their sales to the point that they are fairly even with Microsoft. So in a nutshell, Sony "lost" this generation by generally getting too cocky and assuming their consumers would just roll over and buy, no matter the price (it also didn't help that blu-ray was brand-new tech that no one knew what to do with yet).

Flashforward to 2013, and everyone is ripe with anticipation for the new consoles to be announced. I'm not sure who came out with information first but I think they were announced around the beginning of the summer convention time (possibly at GamesCon), so all eyes were on both companies at E3. I actually think Microsoft released info about the One earlier than E3 and it caused a huge backlash for a wide variety of reasons, while Sony only said some basic info so that only added to the tension. E3 proved to be a slam dunk with Sony solidly giving the fans what they wanted tech-wise (more specifically what they didn't want with the XBox) and also by teasing some highly anticipated games (Kingdom Hearts 3, anyone?). They even had a hilarious "how to trade games" video that brought lot of laughs and poked fun at Microsoft a bit. Meanwhile Microsoft defended their tech and explained that their version of next-gen would be an all-in-one entertainment system and also talked some cool games. This only sought to make some people even more angry and the months leading up to the release saw the reversal of nearly all of their controversial policies and the stepping down of their higher-ups. All of these events obviously caused huge clashes between those fans on either side all over the Internet.

Currently, both of the systems have had successful releases all over the world. Sony did announce that they sold over 7 million units since Nov 15, which is over double what has been reported by Microsoft. This by no means bodes the end of Microsoft (ex. last gen when they ended up even) as there are still upwards of 10 years between generations. Overall, I feel that no matter which "side" you are on (if any), the consumers win outright by receiving quality products and getting to vote with their wallets to force the company to adapt. I guess time will tell and in the meantime, I will be playing some video games.

PAX Recap Day 2

Here is my recap of Day 2 (the final day of PAX)

Day 2 ended up being my favorite day of PAX because I was actually able to do more on the exhibition floor, which was nice. We took a hotel shuttle to the BCEC around 9 so we could have a chance to see everything that we wanted to. After waiting in the queue for a bit, we were finally let in to a semi empty area, which was nice. I could actually walk around the floor without getting too overwhelmed which was nice. I'm pretty sure there was a Gearbox Software panel (creators of Borderlands) at the same time, which probably contributed to less people on the floor.

Anyway so I literally sat down at the first empty booth I found because I knew it would last. I ended up at this company called Spryfox who were promoting their game called Road Not Taken (their site here). It was such a cool game with awesome graphics and really cute, cartoon-like characters with an interesting premise. Basically you can only move in on direction at a time (up, down, left, right) on a board-type area, while also having to grab things/people to get them through the the next round by throwing or carrying. The added difficultly would be the loss of energy that occurs when you carry objects to move them to different rows/columns. The people at the booth were really nice despite the fact that I died before I could beat the level (I was so close!) and the game was really fun so I will definitely play it again.

Next I stopped at this interesting booth by a company called Proletariat, with their game World Zombination. I gave it a chance despite my strong dislike for Zombies and I found myself really liking the game (I got to play as the humans shooting up the zombies). Basically I got a set of different kinds of humans with different fighting skills (snipers, axes, etc) to place in 5 or six key locations. It's a turn-based strategy game where you can choose to be either humans or zombies with the goal of either protecting a hospital or trying to take it over. I also really liked the colors/graphics of the game and that it wasn't too difficult for someone like me who doesn't normally play strategy games and I actually managed to beat the first level. I signed up for beta so I cant wait to see more of it.

The final game I got to play was from Bootsnake and titled Deadrock Divide. It's a turn-based RPG that is best described as the love-child of XCOM and Faster than Light (FTL). I felt a little overwhelmed with this game but I was having fun playing something completely different. My boyfriend really loved it since it was right up his alley in games he likes to play. I ended up not making it all the way through the level, but the girl at the booth was really helpful with dumbing things down so I could understand how to play this game. I feel like once I work with this game for a bit I could get the hang of it.

After walking around and checking more things out, I geaded over to the GameOverGreggy Panel. If you don't know GOG is a YouTube show featuring Greg Miller and others from the IGN (game news website) site talking about everything random. It was really funny and I was glad to see the guys in person. Afterwards I even got to meet Daemon Hatfield (GameScoop!, IGN News), which I was excited about. I've been getting more into video games in the last 2 years and have been watching a lot of IGN videos so it was cool to feel a part of the video game fandom. Also while walking around I managed to also see Holly and Jessica from Heroes of Cosplay, which was exciting since they are super talented with all of their creations, plus their work at BioWare.

I also got to take a picture with a background Iron Throne from the Game of Thrones Ascent game which was really cool. I do plan on taking a picture with the real Throne one day but it was still cool to see something Game of Thrones related at PAX.

Note the GameOverGreggy shirt.haha

Finally we packed up and got on the road. The exhaustion from PAX easily kicked in and I knew it wasn't going to be as pleasant of a ride back to Maryland. We stopped at this restaruant called Publick House in Sturbridge, Mass were I got this pesto penne. I regret not get the lobster mac & cheese so I am definitely resolved to get lobster the next time I'm in New England. For some reason the traffic was slow going and we didn't make it up until after 10, where I was hoping to be home to watch Game of Thrones live. I needed a whole other day to recover but I had a great time and plan on going back next year for the full 3 days (also I plan on flying because once is enough.haha).

Cultural Phenomenon: Fan Conventions

I figured that since I just attended one and I will be going to two others, I figured now would be a great time to discuss the cultural phenomenon that is convention-going/conventions in general. They are basically a gathering (usually at a hotel or convention center) of people that contain panels, booths and other kind of events related to that topic. Topics can range from broad like modern-day Comic-con (covering books, movies, TV and of course comic books) or can just cover a specific genre or specific media (Walker-Stalker Con, CapClave, etc).

Conventions have become super popular as they bring a huge nostalgia/community factor. They are a great way to see people like voice actors from your favorite childhood character or television star. They become three-day hubs that encompass everything involving popular culture and they are great ways to meet new people and experience new things. With the increasing popularity of shows and movies like Game of Thrones and everything Marvel, I feel like this community will grow even larger and over-the-top than it already is. My dream is to go to San Diego Comic-Con, but it involves so much planning and luck (in getting a ticket and hotels) that it's nearly impossible unless you're a celebrity or press.

Personally I think conventions are a great way to put yourself around people with similar interests that you're not normally around. It's kind of this big community where everyone was made fun of for being nerdy and those people can all come together and feel comfortable. For specific cons, it's nice to not have to worry about spoilers. For example, at work I have to stay mum about anything that doesn't touch on the current episode (or past ones) so it will be nice to go to Ice & Fire Con (all about Game of Thrones/ASOIAF) and be able to talk about all of the spoilers and theories. I recently embraced being a nerd so it's nice to meet other people and not have to worry about if they think I'm weird for fangirling out after meeting GRRM or something.

Another thing that has greater driven convention popularity is the advent of cosplay (costume-play: where people dress up as their favorite characters). People really go above and beyond with their creativity with cosplay and it's really cool to see it in person.This past weekend, I saw a girl in a Candy Crush costume (alliteration win!) which was really creative and fun. The show Heroes of Cosplay on Syfy (ugh I miss the old spelling Sci-Fi) shows the enormity of the culture. I going to start dressing up and I even have some ideas for wishlist cosplay which include a Weeping Angel (from Doctor Who) and Princess Jasmine (of course, haha). All of these are reasons why cons are such a great and unique experience to go though.

PAX East Recap Day 1

*Technically this was Day 2 of PAX but it was the first day I was there*

They day started with waking up around 2:30am to get ready for the 6 hour drive up to Boston. It wasn't too bad. Surprisingly we didn't listen to music or podcasts the entire drive and just talked. I took over the final leg of driving to our hotel, which was the Doubletree Bayside. It wasn't too bad because we didn't have to drive through downtown but it also meant that we would have to constantly pay taxis $12 for a one-way trip to the convention center.

The hotel was super nice (and they gave us cookies!) since they let us check in well before 3pm. After getting settled we got a taxi and went to the convention center. I don;t know what I was expecting, but I was incredibly overwhelmed not just by the horde of people but also with all of the things to do. Everything (even the indie booths) were super packed so we only managed to really check out one booth. The people were really nice and showed us their cool game called Supreme Ruler 1936. It's sort of a combination between Civilization and Sim City as you can control or automate economies and other things that it takes to rule a country (check them out here).

Most of the day was spent walking around large groups of people and seeing all of the cool stuff that PAX had to offer, from Oculus Rift to tabletop games. There was even a room full of old consoles were you could play older games (definitely going there next year). I also geeked out over seeing Monika Lee and Jessica Nigri from Heroes of Cosplay at the Wildstar booth (which also had an awesome monster looking thing). I guess WIldstar is this new MMO they are hyping up but I had never heardof it before but it seems like something I would definitely check out. Around 12 we went to a panel about getting a job in the gaming industry (more for Brian than me) and it was pretty informative despite the industry being notoriously difficult to get into.



At the Wildstar booth

After this, we walked around some more, ate some ridiculously expensive burgers and then decided to go back to the hotel. We were completely exhausted (and hungry still) and we planned to go to an afterparty so we figured it would be a good time to nap. Since I was dying of thirst (another one of the rules of convention-going: bring water)  we first went to the cafe that the Doubletree had and although everything was expensive, it all tasted good and there was a nice selection so I was able to eat something before napping. After a long nap, we got dressed to go to the PCGamer/ASUS party at this place called the Estate. I dressed up really nice but it turned out it was unnecessary as they didn't turn anyone away. We got to the club super early and still were in a line that went down 3 blocks. Somehow we made it in this club and I was a bit overwhelmed. It had hardly any decorations to denote the party and only mysterious VIPs could go upstairs where there was breathing room and an open bar. No idea how one could get VIP but I wish I could have known. Anyway, the music was good but there wasn't really anything to do. There were two screens on the wall where people were playing games but that was it. Between that and the $10 drinks, I was ready to call it a day. We had tickets to go to a comedy show but that didn't start until 12 and we wanted to be awake for the full last day so we just headed back to the hotel (after a hilarious detour of trying to meet up with the Indies Need Booze barcrawl, which ended up at a strip club so that was a no.haha)

Overall Saturday was kind of overwhelming and I definitely saw the need to go all three days as I didn't get to do much. Sunday ended up being a much better PAX day overall (despite the horrible aftermath of driving home). But more on my Day 2 tomorrow.

Pop of Culture

Here is this weeks collection of news from all around the popular culture realm.

Frozen- this movie has officially passed Skyfall to become the 8th highest grossing film ever (check it here). I also read that it just hit $100 million in Japan, so it seems that Frozen is still going strong. Disney hasn't released their figures from DVD sales but I'm sure those are also huge. Surprisingly, I haven't gotten the movie yet, but I definitely will. It's crazy to think that this movie is only $7 million from passing LOTR: Return of the King to make it into the number 7 spot.

Sherlock- In an interview, star Benedict Cumberbatch expressed his doubts on future seasons of the show Sherlock. The writers/creators Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss also work on Doctor Who and Cumberbatch and Freemen just signed on to do London plays, so if season 4 does come out, it won't be for another 2 years, which is a little disappointing. The reason for the last gap was their growing popularity that led to their roles on the Hobbit movies.

Game of Thrones- this week, GOT maintained their high ratings (6.3 million) for the Purple Wedding. It also broke torrent records with 1.5 million people downloading the episode in a single day. Safe to say, GOT is huge and is super in-demand. It was a surprising episode as we've only be trained to big events happening in the latter part of the season, but obviously all bets are off.

Source

Allegiant- it was announced that the third movie based on the book series, Divergent would be split into two movies, following the likes of Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games and the Hobbit. While some of these splits were warranted, most are just used as a blatant cash grab and turns off fans who would otherwise be excited to see this movie. Allegiant didn't receive great reviews not just from the ending, but the entire structure of the book, so it will be interesting to see how they fix/add things to make it enjoyable for the people like me who regret reading the books in the first place.

Stephen Colbert- after a week of wondering, CBS announced that Stephen Colbert would be replacing David Letterman as the head of the Late Show. Colbert won't be in his iconic character, so it will be interesting to see how his comedy will fare and if he can retain as big of an audience that he currently has.

Meltdown Mondays

Ugh I am still seriously struggling to get myself back to normal after PAX. Between the driving and all the walking around and standing in line, I am still exhausted. It probably didn't help that I was up until 2am last night catching up on all of the things I missed by not being on my laptop. I didn't take many pictures but here's a little glimpse of the madness I experienced ahead of my recap.

There are so many things going on right now, but I feel like I'm in a good place. My costumes are coming along for the conventions I'm going to next month. I'm still successful with losing weight and getting healthier, which is keeping me motivated. The semester is also winding down which is good and bad. Good, because I'll be free until the end of August and bad because I have a bridal shower and wedding stuff to do leading up to the end of class. And I have to do a 20 page PowerPoint that I'm not looking forward to, so I'll probably try to pretend it doesn't exist until the final week.

I totally had plans to be productive and instead I watched YouTube videos and took a 3.5 hour nap. Typical. At least I feel prepared to deal with my short work week (I have off on Friday so yay!). Plus I get to talk with my co-workers about the Purple Wedding, which I am excited about, as I have a strict no spoiler policy and enjoy seeing natural reactions.

I was super tempted to go to Awesome Con in DC this weekend but I really need to get back to my exercising/eating schedule plus not having to spend money would be nice since I still have a lot of things to do in the next month. I was just being lazy today so hopefully I get back to normal to get back to my normal schedule. I did have fun this past weekend, it was just a lot to take in and do so it will be nice to have a break for a bit.