Saturday, July 27, 2013

TARDIS Garment Bag

Hello Fellow Geeks and Geekettes!

    Capt Shinypants and I are running around like chickens with their head cut off, trying to get ready for SpaceCity Con!  Yes, that’s right Geeky Adventure will be attending Space City Con down in Houston, TX!  I of course will be live tweeting starting Thursday Aug 1st as I will be going to NASA Space Center in Houston also!


As for Today post, I decide to show you my process on how I converted my old band garment bag into a TARDIS Garment bag! 


Things you will need
  • Blue Garment Bag
  • Black felt
  • White Felt
  • Black Sharpie
  • Scissors
  • Tacky Glue 
  • Straight pins
  • Computer
  • Paper

First I gather the supplies, I did not use all what I have in this picture, and yes I did add things, this was my first time doing things so it was trial and error.




 Second step was to lay the black felt  at the top and use a white pencil to trace the edge of the bag, after I did that I cut it out and laid it on the bag to see how it looked.




Once I figure out how I wanted it , I printed out Police Public Call Box , cut that up and trace them on them onto the white felt.

This took some time but once I trace and cut, I laid them on to top part of the two black felt pieces I cut earlier. Now I have yet glue the black felt to the bag yet, so I use some straight pins to pin it to the bag so it won't move while I laid on the pieces and one by on glue each to the black felt.  
Next came the windows, Now I need to cover up my old band logo and my name on the bag so I decide to do a black background with the white windows. Now I should I measure the windows but I just a found something  laying around to measure the window and cut all the windows out. Glue them to the black felt then to the garment bag. At this time I also glue the top part to the bag also. 
The next tricky thing was the little white box on the left side that  says For public use.... What I ended up doing was printing out the whole wording, I then use the front of my computer screen  as like light box and carefully trace all the letter on to the white felt. 


Once I  finish I cut it out and glued it to the bag and VOILA! I now have a TARDIS Garment Bag for all of my cosplays for when I travel!
 Of course it always bigger in the inside! 
Please if  you see either Capt Shinypants or I at Space City Con don't be shy come say hi!  I promise we don't bite .... hard. 

Stay geeky - DalekChick

Saturday, July 20, 2013

What Comes Next: When science fiction becomes science fact




I will be first to admit I wasn't all that great at science and arithmetic in school. However, I didn't let that stop me from being interested...in science, at least (sorry math, but you suck). More and more lately a question keeps bouncing around in my mind as technology advances more and more toward what Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry envisioned nearly 47 years ago: once the science fiction we know becomes science fact, what comes next?

1769 saw the first automobiles: man could travel across long distances in a shorter amount of time using wheeled machines with engines that ran on steam. In 1806, cars obtained combustible engines that ran on fuel, and in 1885 came the gasoline (petrol)-fueled combustible engines. While we primarily still use gas-fueled combustibles today, we also have electric cars, which initially debuted at the turn of the 20th century and then largely disappeared until the 21st century, and cars powered by refined vegetable oil and fryer grease, even natural gas.

110 years ago, the Wright brothers made history with man's first successful, albeit short-lived, attempted flight, a feat that had likely failed numerous times before by numerous others who dreamed of flying. Back in 1903, that was a pivotal moment where science fiction became science fact: man could fly. Now here we are catching flights to places all across the globe. We’ve even flown into space and visited the moon, a feat Edgar Allen Poe described in 1835 in the short story The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall.
Generally, the elements of flight and steam-powered machines merge together within the science fiction sub-genre known as Steampunk. Authors Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Mary Shelley are often considered to be great influences within the Steampunk universe. Having settings mainly in either the Victorian or Western eras, Steampunk itself is actually a science fiction inverse: fictitious writings of scientific facts generally stemming from the Industrial Revolution. The phrase was coined sometime in the 80’s and has held steadfastly, being applied to other earlier writings of similar content.

While we celebrate each stride forward and remember the leaps and bounds that have been made over the years, sometimes you just can’t help but wonder: what’s next? True, we’ve yet to fully delve into the area of space exploration, but we’re inching ever closer all the time. We currently have NASA’s rover Curiosity traveling across the surface of Mars, and recently Commander Chris Hadfield returned from a five month-long stay aboard the International Space Station as part of Expedition 35. The Hubble telescope is also always eyeballing some new planet or star system that we will likely one day be able to visit and study in depth.

My question to you is this: what do you envision as the next phase for science fiction? What will be the next thing we imagine that will eventually become a science fact? Please, do comment (You don’t even need a Google account to do it!) and let me know your thoughts. I am interested in seeing what each of you can imagine as the next step for mankind.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Reuse and Save!

Well since its summer time and many of us are crafting, cleaning and organizing.  So I figure it would be neat to show you some geeky thing you can do around your house.

1.   Turn your old computer tower into a mail box.

2.   Use on Lego pieces  at a key holder

3.   Use Old CD Cases to Store and Organize Cables

4.   Turn an Old Mini Fridge Into a TV Stand and Storage Unit

5.   Use An Old Hanging Shoe Rack to organize your action figures.

6.   Use Old Books to create a new Desk

7.   Use toilet paper rolls to organize cord.

8.   Use Paperclips to Organize Your Cables

9.    Turn you own nerd shirts that don’t fit any more into bags.


I hope this helpful with you and are in the I want to clean and organize stuff. As I always if you have any questions just email us at Geekyadventure@siteeng.com


DalakChick

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Get to know Shiny!

Okay, my partner in crime has made a post so you can get to know her, but I'm gonna do a throwback post: 25 Things About Me (remember when that was the big thing going around Facebook a few years ago? lol)

  1. My name is Hilary, but when I was born I guess that spelling blew the nurse's mind so my birth certificate lists my name as being Hiliary.
  2. I was born on Thanksgiving Day in 1987. Gobble gobble!
  3. I work in retail. I won't say where, but let's just say Paris Hilton thought they sold walls.
  4. I like to bake and decorate cakes for my friends and family on their birthdays. Most fun so far: princess castle cake, complete with ice cream cone towers and graham cracker walls.
  5. I've played piano since I was 12 and am almost entirely self-taught (I took a beginner piano class in high school and had an instructor, mainly for all the technical stuff like finger placement, transposing, etc.) That being said, I cannot for the life of me read music and play at the same time, so I generally learn songs by ear.
  6. The first movie I ever saw in a theater was Beauty and the Beast; I was 4 and this was the true beginning of fandom for me. It's still my favorite movie of all-time.
  7. Fishing! I haven't been in years and I don't have a license so I can't fish right now anyway, but I do love to fish. The first fish I ever caught was a massive bass on a dinky little kiddie pole when I was about 6 or 7. A few years later, I caught my first turtle (stupid thing kept stealing my bait - served him right!).
  8. Pretty much since I first learned how to read, I've loved reading. I read a lot of classics (Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, 1984, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby), quite a bit of Stephen King (Misery, Four Past Midnight, The Green Mile, currently working on Under the Dome), and fairytales. Not the sugar-coated Disney versions; I own Grimm's and Through the Looking Glass/Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Peter Pan. I also own The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Where the Sidewalk Ends.
  9. In high school, my fandom got a good hard shove into fangirl status with Pirates of the Caribbean. I unfortunately lost a good chunk of my collection (still makes me mad at how, so I won't go there), but I do still have a lot of pirate-themed things.
  10. Speaking of pirates, I have to say I love history. In fact, my fandom inspired me to actually research and learn a great deal about pirates and privateers and I even at one point had a list of nautical/sailor terminology. WWII is another part of history that fascinates me; for there to exist a single man who could talk a whole nation into mass genocide is mind-blowing to me.
  11. I can cook and I'm always experimenting with various spices and seasonings to see what flavors I can come up with.
  12. I don't consider myself to be a hardcore gamer, but I am a gamer nonetheless. My platform of choice is currently the PS3 (which I recently had to take apart and replace the thermal paste), though I've recently gotten into playing Star Trek Online on my PC and intend to one day start playing Minecraft.
  13. My favorite board game is Clue - the original, not that stupid remake with the added cards and rules. Second favorite is Monopoly.
  14. I own a Flash plushie that I've named Sheldon, a singing Soft Kitty, and a Sack Person from LittleBigPlanet that I've named Sackomatic ( <3 Greenly, Boondock Saints 2).
  15. I was raised on Country and Classic Rock, but I'll listen to just about anything. If you were to see my Spotify playlist, you'd think my music choices were suffering an identity crisis.
  16. That age-old question Coke or Pepsi: Pepsi FTW!
  17. My fandom shift over to Sci-Fi really started with Heroes and Big Bang. Then the 2009 Star Trek movie came out and that was my gateway into TOS, TNG and Voyager. Then I discovered Firefly/Serenity, and Battlestar Galactica. Granted, I watched the original Star Wars trilogy growing up, but I never really latched onto it. Just not really my cup of tea, and that's perfectly fine.
  18. Since Trek Expo in Tulsa, OK was cancelled this year, the epic Uno battle between Garrett Wang (Harry Kim, VOY) and I had to be postponed. I was so looking forward to kicking his butt!
  19. I believe in learning the things that interest me, not things society thinks I need to know. Because of this, I know a little about Interior Design (local tech. school intro. program) , how to take apart my PS3 and replace the thermal paste, how to crochet, how to fold origami, a little HTML/CSS coding, how to play Magic: the Gathering, how to build a stage set (tech. theater, senior year of high school), how to set up and frame a shot (video production, senior year of high school), a plethora of words...to name a few lol
  20. Pets I've had over the years: a Boxer, two Parakeets, a German Shepherd, and a Beta. Oh! And Sea Monkeys, though they're really just tiny prawns.
  21. I once tried to teach myself to play guitar, but my fingers don't like to cooperate on the frets.
  22. I've always thought it'd be neat to learn to play the drums.
  23. I was in the school choir from 7th grade till 10th grade. I was primarily a first soprano, but was able to sing second soprano, first and second alto, and tenor. I've since lost much of my upper register due to lack of practice.
  24. I got the worst sunburn of my life when I was about 12. It blistered and got infected, so I had to take antibiotics, then it peeled twice. Worst. Summer. Ever. Moral: never jump into swimming without putting on sunscreen, especially if you have fair skin like me.
  25. If there's a comic book series I'd like to read that I know will eventually be released as a compendium, I'll just wait. I prefer having one solid book as opposed to various smaller books.

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As of today, you guys have just 19 days left to help get the restored TNG bridge to Star Trek: Las Vegas in August. If you want to sit in the Captain's chair, you can learn more and help here: Experience the Enterprise.