DragonCon ALL The Podcasts!

So this year at DragonCon I was part of a lot of different Podcasts throughout the weekend! Four in total! This post is just an easy link to all of them for anyone that would be interested in hearing them all! 

Earth Station One Live from DragonCon!

I have done the live podcast since before I had my segment A Geek Girls Take on the ESO network. For maybe the last three or four years now. It is always so much fun to talk about the convention and all the cool stuff going on with this amazing group of people! You can check it out here!

ESW Live from DragonCon! What makes a good companion! 

I sat in on the ESW panel again this year and you can hear all the awesome stuff we talked about here!

The next one was the recording for The Arrow Squad and the Arrow Fan panel at DragonCon! It is always fun to get to talk about the shows I love and how those shows have evolved over the years! And this year was no different! Check out the PodCast here!

The Flash panel was also recorded, but I have not been able to find the link to that one as of yet. Once I do I will update this post with it!

[Tea Review] Capitol Tea's Pumpkin Spice Oolong

For the next few weeks all my tea, makeup/beauty and food reviews will have a fall theme to them! I am starting off with a tea from Capitol Tea's, a tea company that has its headquarters in Annapolis Maryland, but have stores all over Maryland, DC and Virginia. I purchased my Pumpkin Spice Oolong at their Charlottesville, Va. location. 

I chose the Pumpkin Spice Oolong for the amazing smell it has, a spicy smell with hints of pumpkin and apples, and because I had so many Pumpkin Chai's that I wanted to mix things up a bit, and who doesnt love a good Oolong every now and then! I got 4oz. of the tea (since that was the smallest amount they would sell in store) and it cost 24.90 for it. HOWEVER looking on their webpage you can also order there and get 2oz. of the tea for 12.45, for those who just want a little bit to drink.

Capitol Teas Tin 

The tea looks amazing and smells amazing, like I said above, the tea has a great spicy smell to it with hints of pumpkin and apple (you can even see the apple pieces in the tea.) The Oolong leaves are also beautiful in color and after they were steeped the tea swelled up and you could see how fresh it all was. 

Loose Tea

The color of this tea was a dark honey color, and has a light pumpkin pie smell to me. I know there is tea in there but I cant smell it from the pumpkin spice, which is fine because it smells delicious. 

Tea after steeping for 3-5 minutes

The taste isn't as spicy as the smell but you have pumpkin and apple hints in it. The taste is good and this would be a great, sit by the fire and sip tea in my opinion. The description for this tea on the webpage is "A rich organic oolong with the flavors of fall, this seasonal treat features creamy pumpkin and apples accentuated by rich vanilla."

I didn't really taste any vanilla in the tea, but that's OK to me too since that is one flavor that can overwhelm the others to me. I really enjoyed this tea, it has a little bit of an earthy tone to it from the Oolong, which is normal in Oolong tea. Overall a great warm tea to enjoy! You can find it here on Capitol Tea's Webpage

Concerts at DragonCon! The Doubleclicks

Every year I make it a goal to attend some of the great concerts while at DragonCon. The musical artist that they get for the con is one of my big reasons for wanting to attend! For the second year in a row they had The Doubleclicks again, which I adore these two ladies. Their songs speak to the nerd girl in me and let me know that my struggles of growing up as that awkward weird nerd girl, were also faced by others, and in knowing that it gives me a sense of community with my fellow geek ladies.

The Doubleclicks is made up of sister duo Angela and Aubrey. They are an awesome, guitar/ukulele and cello wielding duo who occasionally bring on the help of a cat keyboard in their music! They played a great set at the one concert I got to attend at DragonCon, playing songs like "This is my Jam" and "Velociraptor" and also did a really fun cover of the Doctor Who theme on the cat keyboard. They have so much energy on stage and between songs have some really funny banter, since these two girls have a great humor about them and overall just seems like two really cool people.

Even cooler Angela was dressed in a ghost busters costume from the new movie, showing how much she supported the new film and liked it! She rocked that costume and the two of them rocked their set at DragonCon that Friday! You can check out these two ladies online here!

[Geeky Makeup] July Espionage Cosmetics NEXUS! "Passport to Nihon"

The second month of Espionage Cosmetics NEXUS monthly subscription's theme had me really excited, and OMG! the nail wraps that came in it are AMAZING! I have no idea how I am going to choose between these two designs for their voting. The theme was "passport to Nihon" and it featured two Nail Wrap designs with a Japanese feel to them.

The Neko-Chan design features cute cats and hearts and is really colorful. This design is super cute (sadly this was not the one that won, man, if only there was a way to vote for both designs and they both win, lol.)

LOOK AT THOSE KITTIES!

The second design is titled Ukiyo-e, and features koi fish and a wave design on it. I love this design, it looks so good on my nails and I got so many compliments when wearing it. The wraps went on easy and stayed on for two weeks, and just looked overall awesome!

           

NEXUS is a monthly subscription through Espionage Cosmetics, where for $15.00 a month you get two nails wraps that are part of a theme. They have voting and the one with the most votes becomes a regular design that they sell on their webpage. You can find out more info here. 

[Influenster] Revive VoxBox

I love getting boxes from Influenster, I get random items of makeup, beauty products, food, clothing, etc. you never know what they will send you. There are a few boxes I really wished they had chosen me for, but I'll take what I can get! I'm not picky at all.

The revive voxbox had food and drink items in it this time around, as well as a hair care product. The items were from Snackwell, SheMoisture, The Vitamin Shoppe, and Kauai Coffee.

I like cookies, and I like Snackwells, so I was totally fine with trying this Vanilla Latte biscuit thin that they sent and it tasted really good! It's not incredibly hard to ruin vanilla biscuits. 

As all of you who frequent my blog know, I am a tea drinker. But everyone else in my house drinks coffee so these got drank by them and reviewed. The verdict? The Garden Isle was the best liked. 

I have long hair and love trying out new products for it! I had never tried SheaMoisutre, and really liked it. It didn't make my hair feel stringy or gross after i used this package up (and some hair care products have.) 

These vitamin poders and drink mixes were hit or miss, some were good and the others were meh to me. None of them were awful. The Plant protein was my favorite, with the whey tech being my least. But dude look at that cup, it will get a lot of use out of me! 

Check out Influenster here and see how you can also review products for free!

[Geek Beauty] Fortune Cookie Soaps Fall Soap Box "As You Wish"

I absolutely LOVE Fortune Cookie Soaps as a brand. They handmake all their items and many of them have great fandom related themes to them! The Fall Soap Box wasnt any different. The them for fall is "As You Wish" and all of the items have a Princess Bride theme to them!

Each soap box always has the iconic fortune cookie soap in it! This one has the Drop Your Sword Fortune Cookie Soap, and has the smell of medieval honey apple mead, and a cute sword through it! The dread pirate Robert would be proud!

Probably my favorite item out of the box! The Mostly Dead Whipped Cream. I LOVE their whipped creams, they are super moisturizing and make your skin feel so good. This one also smells amazing! the description says it is "Golden honey drizzled over toasted almonds and pumpkin puree." And it does have a hint of pumpkin smell to it, which is probably why I love it so! 

Another item included in the Fall Soap Box was the Buttercup shampoo. I LOVE Fortune Cookie Soaps shampoos. They make your hair feel so good. The smell description on this one is "Candied run wrapped with ripe fig, bergamot, vetiver, warm sandalwood and sweet vanilla musk" This stuff smells great, and I am so happy they included a shampoo this time!

Prepare to Die OCD Hand Sanitizer. These hand santizers are the best, like seriously they smell amazing and work great, this one also has glitter in it! (which glitter makes everything better!) The scent is listed as "A warm blend of fresh baked cookie dough spiced with clove and saffron." It does smell yummy but use it to sanitize your hands not eat!

The Steam Me Up Scotty "Pit of Despair", is the one item I am really excited about trying in this set. I have not gotten a chance to try out these fizzy things for the shower. The description on their webpage makes them sound great though. "Directions: For maximum results take a hot, steamy shower. Simply unwrap & toss the shower fizzy on the floor to the back of your shower, out of the stream of water. You want it to slowly fizz during your shower, rather than quickly run down your drain. It's like your personal little aromatherapy room, the steamier the better!"

This one has the scent of patchouli and fresh cut lemongrass and tropical plumeria. So that just sounds amazing! 

The last group of items were all in smaller containers so I crammed them all into one photo you have (from left to right) Mawiage scented cotton ball, True Love Facial Cleansing Oil, Knight Cream Face Moisturizer, and the Inconceivable perfume oil. 

The Mawiage cotton ball has to have my favorite name out of all the items, it is a scented cotton ball that smells like pound cake, cardamom, pistachio and rosewater. 

The True Love Facial Clensing Oil is GREAT! This stuff makes your skin feel so good,. You put some in your hands, rub it together until it gets a milky color and then massage it onto your face, then rinse off. 

Knight Cream Face Moisturizer is a great smooth moisturizer that soaks into you skin and helps keep your face from drying out. 

And lastly the Inconceivable Perfume oil is a great smelling perfume of "fall woods, black amber and poached pears". It smells wonderful. 

There are a lot more items in this set that were not included in the soap box, and you can check them out on the Fortune Cookie Soaps webpage. A bunch say out of stock right now, but they restock regularly as they make products since all are handmade and shipped out. You can also find the link to their soap boxes as well (which come out four times a year, and cost $19.99.)

[Tea Review] Owl's Flower Tea from Discover Tea

This weeks tea review is a little different than my normal reviews. I have reviewed one of Discover Tea's custom blends before with their Oolong Who, so I was excited to get to review another custom blend (that can be ordered if this sounds like something you would like.) Along with the tea I also have photos fro the Owl's Flower book release party. Owl's Flower is a light novel series from Kara Dennison and Ginger Hoesly (the two wonderful ladies who did art for my cookbooks.) Also, since the light novel series has a small focus on food, I have contributed a recipe per book that goes along with the story.

Owl cookies from the release party. Honey Sugar cookies, recipe by me and you can find it in the first book.

During InterventionCon in Rockville Maryland The two had a book release party on the Saturday of the convention where they had their two custom blend teas and honey cookies made from my recipe. During the party they gave away some cute gift baskets with Owl's Flower mugs and tea in them. 

The first tea blend that I tried was called "Owl's Flower" An Oolong bend with Sage and Floral Scents to it. The actual tea for this blend was lovely, you can see the sage in there with the Oolong and the sage really is the main smell you can smell when you take a wiff off this tea out of the bag. The floral scents are in the background but there is a great earthy smell to this tea.

The sage smell comes through once brewed too. And it is such a lovely dark color in the cup. The taste is earthy, with the sage at the front and the floral scents in the back after the initial taste. 

The next tea that I tried was called Stormy and was prepared as a cold brew with seltzer water. 

Stormy is a Lamarche Spice, Cherry Rose Green Tea and Lime. The blend has a great green tea taste and with the seltzer water is has a unique taste to it. 

The tea itself looks love, the green tea leaves look great and it has a wonderful fruity/spice smell to it. The Cherry Rose Green tea on its own is one of my favorites from Discover Tea so I was really excited this as included in this blend. 

The color was a lovely light color, and had little bubbles in it from the Pelogrino. Very fun and unique way to prepare the tea. 

Ginger and Kara at their release party held at InterventionCon 7

You can find out more about the Owl's Flower Light Novel Series here. Also check out Gingers awesome art shop (where you can get mugs, shirts, etc.) Here. And Discover Teas here!

And check out the wonderful convention, InterventionCon here! Intervention is an amazing convention that focuses on creators and all the work they do and helping others who want to be creative achieve their goals to do so!

DragonCon! The Panels!

This year at DragonCon I had the opportunity to attend and speak on a number of panels throughout the weekend! I always love watching and sitting in on panels that so many amazing and well spoken fans do for the convention. They come together to share their opinions on different fandom topics, and offer an opinion I may not always think of myself when approaching the specific topic that is being spoken on.

I participated in five panels this year at DragonCon. Three for the American Scifi Media track and two for the Brit-Track. I was lucky enough to speak on the Arrow, Super Girl and The Flash Panels, which were all great talks about the writing, female visibility in the super hero genre, the way the stories have taken on their own life from their comic book counter parts and how the fan just love these characters and their stories. 

The Super Girl panel had to be one of my favorites. The show itself shows how much it is needed just by the people attending the panel. A father in the audience raised his hand asking about comics for his 7 year old and what he can get her to read that is age appropriate that will help nurture her love of Super Girl and other female super heroes that she has gained from watching Super Girl. As a female comic reader who has been reading comics since she was a child, and worked for many many years at a comic shop, where she regularly heard "You're the owners daughter right? Why else would a girl be in a comic shop?" It made me so happy to see a father realizing his daughter loves these stories and using that as her gateway for reading instead of trying to push on her stereotypical girl likes, since we no longer live in a world where stereotypes define female likes and male likes. I had a great talk with the dad afterwards and gave him a list of super hero's and child friendly comics and books to pass her way, so hopefully that helped him some. 

Another really amazing Panel was the Brit Track David Bowie panel I got to sit on. I will admit I was scared I would be a blubbering, crying mess when we started talking about the Star Man, whom I loved so much. But this panel was so relaxing and getting to hear so many stories from the panelist AND the audience, it really showed how one person can change so many through their music and art. David Bowie touched so many peoples lives and getting to hear the stories of a few, and share my own was amazing.

My last panel of the weekend was the always fun Earth Station Who live podcast! I have done this one for four years and always love getting to be a part of it. We talked about what makes a good companion and you can check out the episode on the ESW network from the link here .

DragonCon is always one of my favorite conventions during the year. They have great programming and lots of amazing music and costumes. It is always a blast to get to go and enjoy the fandoms I love with a ton of other fans!

You can find out more about DragonCon by visiting their webpage here! 

The Thicket Makes It into more film fests!

Its been just around six months since The Thicket aired at its first film festival (Mysticon Short Film Fest) and took home its first award (best short horror film,) Since then it has played at numerous other film fests and taken home another best horror short award (ConCarolinas Independent film fest.) It has played on the east coast and the west coast of the US and I know Mariah and myself couldn't be more proud of how well the short has been received! And we are not stopping there! It has been accepted to lots more film festivals (Some I am not even allowed to announce yet.) but three I am allowed to talk about are;

InterventionCon 7's Film Fest (Rockville, Md. Sept. 16-18)

The short will be playing September 16th,  Friday afternoon at 3:30pm in the video room at the convention. Please check it out if you are attending InterventionCon in Rockville Maryland! I'll be in attendance for the screening of this one and am really excited to have it playing at this amazing convention that does so much for the creative community! You can find their webpage here! 

CineScream 2016 (Greensboro, NC Oct. 16th, 7:00pm)

CineScream 2016 is an evening of horror films being plays at Geeksboro, Greensboro, NC's best geek coffee shop. Tickets are $5 and all proceeds go to the Forever is Tomorrow Charity that helps raise awareness toward kidney disease. The Thicket will be one of the 13 films playing that night so if you are local to Greensboro, then come on out and enjoy all the films with us!  Check out the Facebook event for it and come out and watch some great films!


Sick Chick Flicks Film Festival (Cary, NC Nov. 5th)

I am really excited about film fests that have a focus on woman creators! Sick Chick Flicks Film Fest is one of those and is run by a wonderful female director whom I admire, so it was really exciting to be included into this film fest this year! Sick Chick Flicks Film Festival is in Cary NC, on Nov. 5th at the Cary Theater. There are 53 short films playing during the weekend, and The Thicket has even been nominated for an award for "Best NC Short Film" so woot for that too! Check out their Facebook page here for more info on this awesome film fest!

There are two other film fests that the short has been accepted into that I cannot announce just yet, but I will be really excited for the film to play in states it has not yet played in (both of these are in state it has not premiered in!) So keep an eye out for new info on where you can see The Thicket premiere at a film festival near you! 

[Tea Review] Lupicia Ripe Mango Oolong

I love Lupicia's Teas, and after their monthly newsletter tea being one of their Oolongs I decided to try out some of the ones they offered. Like the loose leaf teas from Lupicia this one comes in a round metal tin containing 50g of tea and retails for $13.00.

The tea comes packaged inside an airtight bag filled with tea! The teas fragrance is fruity with a wonderful mango smell to it.

The tea looked great and had chunks of mango in it. 

The color of the steeped tea looked like honey and had a great light fruity taste to it. A very light tea to drink and contains very little (if any) caffeine in it. So a great hot tea to enjoy at night if caffeine bothers you. It also tastes good iced too, because of its fruity mango flavor. You can check out Mango Oolong here on Lupicia's webpage!