02 October 2013

Poké-Nightmare

What would Pokémon have looked like if I had designed them? This. They would have looked like this.



JIGGLYPUFF


ZUBAT



PIKACHU







DODRIO




BELLSPROUT




LICKITUNG



PONYTA 




BUTTERFREE



Just a sec






Okay wait don't leave yet I have one more...


MR MIME


UGH LOOK AT IT



Done!

I'm done now.


20 July 2013

Sweatshirt and Battleship

So remember my last post about how I've just loved cats my entire life and how I've wanted to get one for a while?


Well... in May we finally got our first cat as an anniversary present to ourselves! She is fluffy and her name is Sweatshirt. Here she is sitting in my bag.


We got on a local classifieds site and found a family who had a bunch of kittens they were giving away. We contacted them in our blind excitement and drove to their house. Turns out these cat-dealers were really weird. They had SO MANY CATSLIKE 15. (Which is why they were also coated in cat hair.)



We told them we were there for a kitten.  They brought her out, and I almost died of a cute-overload. I really felt like taking all the kittens away from these people, but...you know, that would have been CRAZY. 



We took her home and got her all set up. Soon we realized that she was really lethargic and sick, and kept having diarrhea. It was really sad and a little bit pathetic. When it didn't stop, we took her to the vet and it turned out she had worms. Which probably meant that all the other cats those people probably also had worms. Those people probably had worms.

Once we got the worm sitch all settled she finally started acting all playful like a normal kitten. We were SO HAPPY. 







And because the relationship Sean and I have revolves completely around enabling each other, we ended up getting another kitten.  


This is him. He's a Russian Blue, and his name is Battleship.  





CATS YOU GUYS. WE HAVE THEM. 





Since then, we've just had a blast basking in their cuteness. The only problem has been feeling like a fool whenever I have to yell their names when I'm trying to call them back to the house.






And that, well...that just makes me look absolutely insane. 







Moral of the story: Cats.  

29 April 2013

Origins: Hannah, Part II

In the first part of this post, we covered the first half of my life as a nerd. From cats, to science, to boy wizards, to HTML and nerdy fan websites.

Part II is here now, and instead of a fancy intro, lets just start.

HERE WE GO.



PHASE 10: FANFICTION

Oh man. Guys.This is the first time in the history of this blog where I have actually had to stop myself from panicking and deleting all of this. Maybe, since this is the first one of the post, you'll somehow forget about it by the end?

This is a chapter of my life that I guess I am just now facing...and now that I think about it, I think I've maybe only told a few people about this.

So here it goes.







Hey Mom and Dad, remember when I used to write a ton in middle school? Filled like....12 notebooks?  Yeah. Yep. It was Fanfic.

I'm sorry if I've broken your hearts.

What kind of fanfic, you ask through your tears? Does it matter?

Luckily for the world and my future children, I have since disposed of said notebooks in a way that most shameful things can be destroyed: by fire.




PHASE 11: THEATRE

Because of Lord of the Rings (see part I), I decided that I would really love to be an actor, mostly in order to marry Elijah Wood someday. But after I was in my first play (Sherlock Holmes) I was addicted.

This phase lasted about 5 years, and I even applied to universities with the plan to get a degree in theater. My focus? Shakespeare. Man, I loved Shakespeare. I just got Shakespeare, you know? Until I realized that Shakespeare was really the only thing I liked about theatre.

Also...high school theater kids?







PHASE 12: BAND



Oh man. BAND. Band was great, but if you were ever in band, you know that when you are in one of the band classes, you end up doing everything else, including...

Jazz band, pep band (the only way you could get me to a sports event), I was in marching band.

I hung out in the band room at lunch.



PHASE 13: WELSH 

The Welsh language isn't nerdy, and neither are my reasons for learning it. What made it nerdy was my friends and family. I made the mistake of saying something to them that they will never, ever forget.



I have never lived it down.

(Though I would like take this opportunity to tell thousands of people that Erika up there actually owns an Elvish dictionary. WHO IS THE NERD NOW, MELLON?! Hah. Loser.)



PHASE 14: FANART

This is just becoming a secrets-about-Hannah free-for-all, isn't it. Buuuut since I'm putting it all out there, I may as well just go all the way.

I draw fanart.

I'd like to say I don't, because (most) fanart is the scariest stuff you'll ever see. (Go ahead. Stare at that. Think about it a little. Cry if you have to. I did.) The scariest fanart resides in the darkest corners of the internet, where none go besides those few who type in "The Avengers as Ponies" (Don't...google that.)

I'd like to say my "fanart" is more character study, since I'm an illustrator and it's good to practice character design...right?

But I'll let you decide for yourself. Behold, an example of my fanart.



Yeah, no. Sorry guys. If you are truly meant to see it, you will know where to look.


PHASE 14: VIDEO GAMES

I'd always liked playing video games with my family and friends, but they were usually the really simple, multiplayer games.

A little while ago, though...I truly found the joy in playing a first person game. It has only gotten worse since.




And then when I did every single (let me repeat that, every single) quest that was available in Skyrim, I thought I would be done with games forever.

But nope. I found Minecraft. I found Borderlands. I started playing the Sims again.

Someone is going to need to lock me in a room by myself without any technology whatsoever and never allow me to leave that room.


PHASE 15: CATS STILL

Yep. Cats still. I don't think I ever got over it - and the internet certainly hasn't helped at all. 

I wanna fall asleep buried in kittens every single night.





PHASE 16: Nerd Rock Bottom

It's all over, you guys. I'm on the downward spiral. My Mom, in her moments of self-validation for birthing a nerd, always said "Just don't hit Nerd Rock-Bottom..."

I think I've hit it, Mom.






I think I've hit it hard.


04 March 2013

Origins: Hannah


ORIGINS: HANNAH

Part I

A little while ago I found myself in a game store. Not like video games...but a real one. The kind where you walk in to see board games, and eventually if you walk far enough through the thick clouds of body odor, you end up in the very back, surrounded by the unwashed social misfits you only ever saw huddled in the corners of your high school, all staring up at you as if you were some sort of strange mirage.

I don't want to delve too far into the reasons why I was in such a place. All I know is that I had a little bit of an existential crisis.








So here we go. We are going to take on the massive and probably terrifying task of tracking my nerdiness back to its origin. Wherever and whatever that may be.

Before we begin, there's something I need to explain. As I was thinking back on my life, I had a realization. That most of my "nerd" phases were more like obsessions. Obsession that I was incredibly loyal and dedicated to.

When I love something, I don't just love it. I flat out obsess over it. Even as a 25-year-old, I still find things I love and I just...hold on to them for dear life.



PHASE 1: CATS

I believe it all began with cats.

I loved cats.





I mean, you don't even know how much I loved cats.




My only goal as a child was to obtain as many cats or cat-related things I could.




PHASE 2: SCIENCE

My love for cats was only matched by my love for space. Yeah, space as in...the solar system and stuff. There was a point in my life when I knew almost all 50-or-so of Jupiter's moons and I would make sure everyone knew it.








My favorite planet was Saturn...by far.



PHASE 3: CATS AGAIN

I just want to stress how intense my love of cats was when I was a small child.

My laser eyes will obliterate anyone who keeps me from holding every cat.


PHASE 4: POKEMON


Come on. If you are currently in your twenties, then you know what it was like when Pokemon first became a thing. 

Pokemon was the best. Especially when you opened that fresh pack of cards. It was like freaking Christmas morning! You never knew what you'd get, but you knew there's at least one rare in there. Just waiting for you to see it, to cherish it, to show your friends, and maybe even trade for a Charizard or something. 



Usually you just got like 5 more Weedles or whatever.

But we all wanted that stupid Charizard! And those of you who were lucky enough to get one were the envy of all. Oh and those of you who were even luckier and got the freaking HOLOGRAPHIC CHARIZARD?

You were Gods among children.


I never got Charizard, but my brother did. And when he showed the neighbor kids, one of them bit him.

PHASE 5: SPORTS?

Not nerdy. I included this because I'm feeling vulnerable and need some sort of redemption before I delve even deeper. I used to play sports. A lot of them.


I don't know what happened.


PHASE 6: HTML

Oh that's right. This happened. The internet happened. And with the internet came my discovery of HTML code. I could make my own Internet!



It was my ticket to a lifetime of pasty skin and strained eyes.

PHASE 7: HARRY POTTER




If you're new, then let me tell you now. There have been few things that have rivaled my dedication to the Harry Potter fandom. I read the books when I was 11, and subsequently cried myself to sleep that summer when I didn't get a letter. From the 4th book on, I was at every single midnight release - dressed up. 

My sister, Annie, finally gave into my pestering and started the books last year.



I could go on and on about sentimental stuff like how Harry Potter made me feel less lonely when I moved and had no friends, or that Harry Potter made me love reading again, etc, etc...but I'll leave it at this.

PHASE 8: LORD OF THE RINGS 

Oh man. I did love LOTR. The fact that I usually still call it "LOTR" should tell you that. I wish I could say I'd read the books first, but that wasn't the case. Although... I began reading them almost immediately after seeing the first movie, and I was truly dedicated. The final one was the first time I'd really cried during a movie.

Unable to deal with these new emotions, I hid inside of my sweatshirt so nobody would see my Lord of the Rings-induced tears.




PHASE 9: A COMBINATION OF PHASES 6 and 8

This is an example of one of those times where two nerd forces combine to make something nerdier.

When I was 14, I was the creator and webmaster of an LOTR fansite.

I gathered news, interviews, statistics, and photos and compiled them all on a crappy little website made completely of tables and hosted on Angelfire.






If I still had any of the original graphics or anything, trust me...I'd post it. But maybe it's a good thing that it seems to have disappeared forever. Just know that the font Papyrus was used in excess and that most of the website revolved around Elijah Wood.



We've made it halfway through. There's quite a bit more. The rest covers the second half of my life so far, and we get into some pretty dark nerd stuff.

The second post is almost done, so it won't be too long to wait.