Year in Review
2017. What can you say about it? In 2016 we saw the death of huge icons, of people we have admired for years. 2017 continued the theme of death. Not of people per se, but of ideals. People that we thought were kind, courageous, and brave ended up being total trash heaps. Our country is in the middle of one of the biggest dumpster fires I have ever seen. That is what 2017 meant to me.
2018 is here and it is full of the optimism, hope, and joy we once wished 2017 would hold for us. Please let that be true. I am not sure I can handle too many more dumpster fires.
It is a new year. It is the same old me. I don’t believe in resolutions. I never keep them. I am however working on being a better person. Here is the list of things I plan on doing for the new year (But I had also been working on them in 2017 as well)
1) Organization
If 2017 was a dumpster fire, my brain is part of the trash heap that had lighter fluid sprayed liberally upon it. I am an organizational nightmare. I worked on this a lot by obtaining a paper planner and started to use that. I did not use it as well as I could have and that is what I want to work on this year. I actually have two planners this year. One for my job, and one for my personal life. Maybe if I organize a little bit better I could have the time and energy to do the things I want to do when I have down time. It might make it easier for me to craft more or organize more activities for geeky baby. To see some of the fun creative stuff I have been doing with my planner, don’t forget to check us out on Instagram.
2) Werqin on my fitness
2017 saw me change my eating habits a lot. I eat (most of the time) like I have some damn sense. I drink more water than I do diet soda. Though I do still enjoy an icy cold Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper. I make somewhat of an attempt to bring a healthy lunch and snacks to work that work well with a diabetic.
I am the most sedentary person you will ever meet in your life. Like I am a total slug. It amazes my husband that he can find me in one spot and 5 hours later I will be in that same spot huddled up with a blanket on doing absolutely nothing. He doesn’t understand it at all. I feel like if I exercised more, maybe I would get some energy back? Isn’t that how it is supposed to work? We shall see. I found some free videos on YouTube and will be using those to start. If I feel like it is something I could go gung ho on, I may get a gym membership.
3) Do Your Homework!
I have been talking about this one or a while. My goal this year is to do every single bit of homework Nerdette assigns throughout the year. You may be asking yourself “Why in the hell would she want to do homework?” In addition to being a nerd, I am an absolute geek. I live for homework. Plus, I have done several of the homework assignments from Nerdette, and I always come away with some knowledge, or at least a good book recommendation.
So yes. These are the major things I have in store for 2018. Do you have anything that you want to grow or develop? Did you have a great 2017? Let us know!
My Top 10 Podcasts – Part 1
Two years ago, I did not listen to podcasts. I had heard of them, but I never really paid attention. That all changed a year ago.
"Give me some of your favorite podcasts!" One of my Facebook friends posted. In 15 minutes she had a resounding list. One kept popping up over and over and over again. "Welcome To Nightvale" I decided to check it out. I started at the very beginning and was hooked after one episode. I started at the beginning, and was done in no time. I began searching for other podcasts to listen to while I was waiting for an update to WTNV. It just kind of snowballed from there.
Let's start with how I listen to my podcasts. Podcasts are called such because of Apple. These types of broadcasts have been around forever, but Apple made it simple (as they do with most things) to get all of these in one spot. I am not an Apple product user. I never have been. I find it amusing that even when I was all about trends and trendiness, I never had an Apple product.
My current smart phone is an LG Nexus 4. My phone is great, however I got the low end of the memory when I purchased it. I know now that my next phone will have the most memory I can get.
The application I use to access podcasts is BeyondPod for Android. I tried other applications, but they didn't feel as user friendly to me. There is a free verion and a paid version. I used the free version for a while then switched to the paid one. According to the website, the Lite (free version) has the same features of the Pro (paid version) except the following:
- You will be able to update only one feed at a time.
- You can download only one episode at a time.
- You can play episodes only at normal speed.
- Chromecast support will be disabled.
- Scheduling of automatic updates will be disabled.
- EpisodeSync will be disabled.
The main things that I needed from Pro were the first two on this list. I have a lot of podcasts...as well as feelings.
It is user friendly and the only thing I wish that it had (and this is totally superficial) is the ability to change the color of the application. The only two color palettes you have are a khaki color or dark. Boo.
So that is the hardware my podcasts run on. Lets jump into the podcasts. These are my top 10 in no particular order. I like them all equally.
We've already talked about this in a previous post. Perfect Carlos, Cecil, The Old Woman who secretly lives in your home. They are all amazing characters. This podcast is delightfully weird and is an absolute joy to listen to. I wish I lived in Nightvale. I would happily join Tamika Flynn's band of mercenaries.
2. We're Alive - A Story of Survival
I discovered this podcast roughly a year ago. I don't remember how, and I do not remember why. But I was hooked instantly. It tells the story of a hodgepodge of people, banding together as the Zombie Apocalypse is in full effect. There are a lot of twists and turns along the way. This podcast has been going since 2008 I do believe. Sadly, it is coming to an end. According to the website the finale premeres in LA on July 19th in a live performance. It is killing me that it is ending, as I have grown to seriously care for some of these characters. It feels like it did when Harry Potter ended. I have thrown absolute tantrums on twitter about characters and they have responded. Observe:
@geekygirlguide @WerealiveFans chapter 44?
— We're Alive (@WereAlive) April 24, 2014
And
@geekygirlguide @WerealiveFans WOW! Take the day! — We're Alive (@WereAlive) April 24, 2014
As you can see, I love this podcast. And I love that they interact with my crazy butt.
3. The Read
I don't even know how to begin with The Read. Let me start at the beginning. I live for Kid Fury. I originally started watching his YouTube videos when he talked about the drama he had when trying to get home to watch Scandal:
I was in TEARS of laughter from the jump. You'll notice in this one he briefly mentions the podcast him and Crissle do. I went ahead and checked it out shortly after that.
Bruh. Bruh. Honey, Linda, listen to me right now. If you love Beyonce, pop culture gossip, ratchet music, and just straight silliness. You must listen. There is swearing on here. Please keep that in mind. I don't even care. I'm grown.
From my list so far, you can kind of guess that I enjoy podcasts that tell a story. I am an avid reader. I have never really used books on tape (or cd, or whatever medium you want), but this is what some of these would be. Leviathan Chronicles are no different. It tells the story of an immortal population with a twist. This took some getting into. I think it was roughly the third episode before I was actually invested.
They currently have up to the first half of season 2 out. There have been multiple setbacks recently and the owner (Director? Writer?) Christof Laputka has a State of the Union that has been out there for a while explaining the delays. Christof, if you read this please know that there are people who enjoy this podcast who would have no problems donating to a Kickstarter fundraiser for you. I need to know what happens to Tulley. I also want to punch Maccallen in the face.
BoN holds a special place in my heart. They reached out to us on twitter. Matt lives in Indianapolis (like me!) and Llana lives in LA. Kind of like how Blondie is in Vegas and we co-write on here! For those of you that do not know, a Blerd is just a Black Nerd. Growing up, I didn't run into many Blerds and it wasn't until I was a full fledged adult that I truly let my Geek Flag Fly. BoN talkes about the things that we all care about, such as E3, Comics, Gaming, and more. I appreciate what they do, and hopefully maybe we can collaborate on something someday!
6. Stuff you Missed in History Class
I am going to be honest with you when I say history did not capture my attention in High School/Junior High School. I always made it a point never to fall asleep in class, no matter how tired I was because I snored like a bear back then. To this day, 9th grade world history is the only class I have ever fallen asleep in. Seriously passed out on my desk. I got detention because it is pretty much impossible to discretly sleep when you snore like a damn bear.
I felt like adding this podcast to my roster was going to be a mistake. I figured I would try one and delete the stream if I did not like it. This particular podcast has over 600 episodes. I started with number one. I believe this podcast started in 2008. I am currently in the year 2009. I've listened to over 50 of them. One of the hosts has changed so far and it looks like both will be changing the later I get into them. My favorite podcast is where they talk about Australia's Stolen Generation . I had no clue that this had happened. I spoke to some of my Australian friends and they gave me the breakdown on how the impact of the stolen generation reverberates today in Australia. It is crazy.
I did not realize my countdown was going to be as wordy as it is. So I am going to save the last 4 for a Part 2!
Espionage Cosmetics
