Halloween 2020

 Happy Halloween friends,

Well it's a full moon tonight. I'm watching the old Addams Family on TV. We'll probably be partaking of our usual Halloween feast see my past Halloween Post. We've already snacked on the pumpkin cookies my Mom baked.  We'll be watching our old Halloween staples tonight I assume. I really haven't been in a Halloween mood this year. The mental health hydra has been bothering me a lot lately.

Artsy Fartsy Time: Jack'o'lanterns 2020

We carved our pumpkins last night. I was at a loss what to do this year so I went with a Geeky pumpkin:

This was my folks offering Mom conjured up this year:

The shall light our place tonight as will the rare Halloween blue moon tonight and Mars. I also send out condolences to Sean Connery's family. He will be missed.

I hope you have bats in your skies tonight, magic all around, Happy Halloween! As always Good bless you!

*Thrifty Geek*

Crazy Idea Time: Corsair Typewriter Dreams

 Hello creative friends,

So today I'm delving into my creative ideas. I've seen where some people have made computer keyboards from or look like old typewriters'. One company Qwerkytoys has made the Qwerkywriter® which is a keyboard old in look, but new in parts.

But I'd like to do something different. I was at a thrift store a few years ago and came across a teal Corsair for $10. I fell in love with it, but couldn't justify buying it, now all this time later I'm still kicking myself for not getting it. I love old typewriters, funny since despite leaving in the computer age I was force to type my research papers on my Mom's electronic typewriter and hated it. Now I want to own two. A clunkier Corona like R.L. Stine had in the Goosebumps movie and make it where it works. But the Corsair I've decided I'd love to make it a keyboard for my tablet and have a makeshift laptop. The Corsair is a traveling typewriter so I could go somewhere and just type if I didn't wanna sit at my desktop writing a story. I'd just have to find someone who could do it without damaging the Corsair in the process. It'd be cool if it could be done. I could write at the park, or a coffee house. Love the vibe of a coffee house, particularly independent ones, but coffee usually hates my stomach, so I'm the chick buying hot chocolate.

So that was a delve into my crazy ideas. An idea for that world where money is no object. Do you guys have any project ideas you'd like to do? If so let me know in the comments.
I hope you guys have a good weekend, and may God bless you guys!

*Thrifty Geek*

It All Started With a Snapping Turtle

 Happy Weekend friends,

Well today I'll be talking about well last Saturday. It was Fangirl and mine's monthly outing that we've only been able to pick up again as we're able to venture out again. It was a rainy day, that was a crappy thing. So we get started driving back toward civilization and we'd had one out of towner in front of us who had to finally pull over cause I assume they have no clue where they were or were freaking out on our curvy roads, I don't know and I really shouldn't assume. Anyways we get right past a produce stand and there's a vehicle stopped in the middle of the road and we're like "What the heck?", and there was a huge butt snapping, or mud, turtle. The vehicle that was in front of us pulled over to block it from getting ran over. We went on not because we where heartless, but cause hello it's a snapping turtle, and I like all my fingers.
 

After some errands we went to spend the day in Asheville. Out first stop was lunch at Tao's which has opened their dining room (please keep in mind we are wearing masks, social distancing, and using hand sanitizer during this day). I was so happy I haven't had Chinese food since March. It was amazing.

Morgan's Comics

Well we've been going to the comic book stores more than once a year now, which makes me happy. Our first stop was Morgan's Comics. We actually were there when I think Morgan was there. I love this shop especially since we're not being crushed by Free Comic Book Day crowds. It allows me to browse a bit. Saw the first comic in the Doctor Who 10 and 13 crossover. Wanting to save some money I decided against getting it this time. If they have it the next time I go I may grab it.
The only thing I ended up getting was a pin from a Dungeons and Dragons box. I bought a Chaotic Good alignment pin cause that's gonna be my first D & D character's alignment. I also feels like this describes me in real life as well, but probably not in the same sense as the game.
Because of the pin one of of the workers was telling us about the games they hosted online, which once I have experience with the game with friends who can teach us how the game goes, I'll feel more comfortable.

Asheville Mall

We took our first foray into the mall in months. Saw how Covid was effecting it. Due to lines and not wanting to walk far for no good reason we just ended up going to Hot Topic. The had Beetlejuice stuff out. I grinned over some of the books that had the cover of the book from the movie. The also had the 13th Doctor's Sonic Screw driver. If they have any next time we go for that price, I gotta get one for my collection. Yeah purchasing Doctor Who things is gonna be a theme I see.

JoAnn's

We stopped by Joann's to look mainly at the Halloween items. This year the stores haven't really impressed with Halloween items. See every year I'm prepared to make two lists for Halloween items stuff to buy to decorate for Halloween and the stuff to decorate my space for year round. Yeah I'm a color loving geek, but I got some Addams Family crap going on too. I saw a couple things I liked like a gold skeleton with wings, but I don't know it's cause it was done picked over or Covid it seemed lacking this year. There really hasn't been a lot this year in what I consider year round decor, or other wise, to catch my interest at stores.

Comic Envy
 

We stopped at Comic Envy as we started to make our way back. I love this store too. I ended up purchasing a Captain Marvel comic. As I was waiting to pay the guy paying in front of me was getting his haul and ya'll he was a serious collector. This was my first time seeing one in the wild that I know of. He was like wanting the receipt to keep for his records he was that hardcore.

Goodwills

We hit up a couple Goodwills while we were out. I found some books to give to family members as gifts, and some more CDs for me, yes I still get CDs we still exist. I found from the special edition box that come out for The Phantom Menace some time ago one of the movie strip cells they had for it. If I ever have a place of my own definitely add some geek chic to the place.

Ammon's

For Supper we stopped off in Waynesville to eat supper at Ammon's. I've eaten there often over the years. They just opened their dining room as well. Across the street on a pawn shop's sign it said to vote for Thanos in 2020. This frightens me, when Thanos is considered a better choice for president.

Due to the rain it was a misty drive home. The leaves were changing and falling. I'm just sad there will be no Pumpkinfest, but hopefully at some point we'll be able to return to our events without fear. I'll just have to save my dandelion costume idea till then.

That ends another post. I hope all is well with you my friends. Hope your weekend is good, be safe, and God bless you!

*Thrifty Geek*

Thrifty Geek's Library- The Dark Side of Fantasy

Hey booklovers,
 

First up I decided to point out the changes here on the blog. I decided to change my persona to the Thrifty Geek instead of just having it as a section on the blog. I also changed the blog name to Once Upon a Backwoods day cause I live in the backwoods, and years of eating bologna sandwiches cause that's the cheap option we have to get us through the month has made me sick of them, but alas their still necessary. Now that that bit is done let's move on to the blog.
 

I know it's been a while, but It's time to talk books I've read this year, which hasn't been a lot, I'm only about halfway through my yearly challenge according to Goodreads which I set at 30 books which has been my average since I started on that site. It took me some months to read one book and I DNF'd a couple, current one I've got checked out I might DNF I haven't decided, and one I keep checking out and am interested in reading, but I seem to keep not finishing. But I have read this year, I won't write about all of them cause a. it's been so long I can't remember, and b. many were romances cause I had a hankering for romances. But toy can check out everything I've read on my Goodreads page, which you can get to by clicking the widget on the right side of the page here.
 

The theme for this post is the dark side of fantasy. It's books that deal with the dark places and beings of the fantasy realm. So let's head into the darkness.
 

In Eden's Shadow: Twisted Trilogy Book Three by Amanda Churi
 

This is the final book in the trilogy I started three years ago? Each book I've bought from the author herself at this con I go to AARC. Well I started this one in December of 2019, cause I tend to read these books in December, I do it as a way to offset the Christmas season, we watch a lot of Christmas movies, usually, and it's Christmas everywhere so these books give me a break. Well I started this with the intent to finish it for the 2019 year to round me off at 30 books, but when I realized it wasn't going to happen I decided to take a break and read a new to me Buffy the Vampire Slayer book I had yet to read to get in my average thirty books in for the year on Goodreads.
I did start again after I finished Buffy, but I had a hard time reading this one. I think my anxiety played some part in it cause I took it with me too the laundromat and I'd read a little then put it back down, then pick it up again, read a bit, and put it back down. Another thing that hurt me is how dark and gory it was. I mean this is a dark fantasy and all the books in this trilogy have been dark, but this one was the most dark and gory. I can handle such things to a degree, but I prefer some comic or uplifting relief to the darkness, but this book offers not a lot if any of that.
I thought things were tied up nicely in the end. Though I'm also like they and we went through all of that just to have what happens at the end to happen. I seriously put the death toll up there with a Game of Thrones novel, maybe more. I like that Churi added a section at the end that had inside tidbits and art for all three novels. I'd say it frightens me she started writing this in high school, but me and my friends could be morbid too so I can't say much.
I wanna give thanks to Amanda Churi cause her book actually helped me in my writing. I have a Non Binary character and wasn't 100% sure of pronouns at that time. I'd looked in one of my fantasy novels that I remember had a gender neutral character, but they'd still went with male pronouns. So imagine my excitement to find a gender neutral character in this cook, actually my favorite in this book, so now I know how the pronouns are done. Actually because I've included a gender neutral character in my stories I've had to do research for gender neutral terms for them and I have to say it's been eye opening.

Dating the Undead and Drop Dead Gorgeous (Bite Nites 1 and 2) by Juliet Lyons
 

As I've said I've read a lot of romance novels lately, but I've also read a lot of books with vampires, vampires are my favorite monsters (not so much the sparkly ones though I did like Alice). But I won't be filling the Library posts with those but I will do these books.
In this world an actress has outed the vampire world, and now everyone is kinda cool with them. There's even now a dating service featuring vampires called V-Date which plays a part in both of the books I've read in this series. But for each book's main character the site changes their lives, and love lives.
Both books deal with the London vampire community. Some characters are mentioned or in both books. I like there's a mix of decent and dark vampires like people in the world. I find it interesting only certain Vampires can turn people, actually that's probably a good thing, only downside is if a human wants to become a vampire to be with their vampire love it'd take and act of congress to do it probably. Not that's really been the case so far with these books.
I like a world where people exist with Vampires, downside you have to deal with the evil ones, but hey be kinda cool to date a good vampire once.

Unrelated to the topic's book news
 

So I found myself in Walmart's book section as I was wandering around. Despite loving books I'm not in that section of the store a lot, mostly they don't have a big selection, but I was in there and I found something surprising seems they are re-releasing a book series I read the crap out of as a kid The Baby-Sitter's Club. Apparently they are putting two books into one volume at a time. This might make shopping for them hard for me. See I still have a few in my library, cause it was a special series to me, but due to either the fact some got damaged or lost over the years, or the fact some of my favorites I'd only read because I'd check them out from my school library, I don't have them, but want to get them. Now here's where we have trouble. There's a couple books I want to get the versions of the cover I had, but when I was probably in middle school they changed the format of the covers for all the new ones and went back and re-released the old books with the new format. I think there was graphic novel versions released as well and now these, but given I did an Amazon search for one of my ruined books and found the original version easily I don't think it's gonna be a a big problem, though the version I found of this particular volume isn't exactly like the version I had, yes my version had the original cover, but there was a special thing on the cover announcing something special in the book, but as long as I can get the original cover, I can live with that. I don't know if it was something special related to the fact I got it out of the Scholastic catalogue or just those editions released. You know they have Kindle editions of them now, but I want the physical copy for my library.

Well that's this post of the Library. I may be back with some more Library post I know at least two to catch up on what I've read. I hope you have a good weekend. Fangirl and I are gonna venture out into the world, safely with masks, hand sanitizer, and social distancing. Have a good weekend, read lots, and God bless you!

*Thrifty Geek*

Where have I been? What have I bought? What do I want? What have I been watching?

Hello friends,

Been a bit so let's take a page from Running in a Skirt's Currently segments and see what's up with me now.

Where have I been?

Well not much anywhere due to this pandemic. Haven't really had much to write about. I've been dealing with a raging mental health hydra for months probably cause I couldn't get out. Intrusive thoughts are so fun. I've only read a few books so far this year so I'll probably post a couple book posts on that at some point. I've just started daring to venture out of the backwoods, with a mask of course. Been working a little on some stories. May have had a mild manic episode that I maybe dealing with low side now so that's fun. But enough of my mental health issues and quarantine let's talk fun things.

What have I bought?

Got the Munchkin® Deluxe. I've wanted a one of their games for a long time, lucky for this thrifty geek I came across this version at a Goodwill. I haven't played it yet cause not something I think my folks will get into, but I'm thinking about making that a new thing doing thrifty geek stuff segments what ya think?

Other fun buys that hasn't been music or gift related is something I came across recently at Walmart that was a TMNT™   Anniversary edition 5 movie set. It has the first three turtle movie from the 90's. The animated movie that came out in 2007, and a new animated movie that come out this year, and that I actually saw like a few weeks ago: Batman VS Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles™ . Yeah that's a mash up I never thought I'd see. So yay!

What Do I Want?

Well I saw in the Halloween section at Walmart a Neegan bat. I don't watch The Walking Dead I know shocking and don't beat me with your flails. But I do watch Supernatural I know the Jeffery Dean Morgan has been in booth and they had his bat in an episode. I feel like as a geek I should have one. I'm seriously thinking of going back and purchasing it. Next time I'm there. Also it was weird seeing the Halloween section still in a orderly state.

I really want a blue light saber, I was drooling over some over at UltraSabers®, I mean a custom light saber that's some geek cred, but I'm a thrifty geek so I was just as happy fining this Luke Skywalker one at Party City®

Like most people I want a Nintendo Switch. I'd love The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Animal Crossings: New Horizons (was watching a lot of Youtubers' game play of this), Mario Kart, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. But that's never gonna happen any time soon thrifty geek here. 

What Have I Been Watching?

Supernatural, I saw that TNT's reruns of it was in season one and there's a lot of the early seasons except for the first few eps of season one I watched when it came out the first time. So I've been binging it every day. The rest of the final season premieres this month so can't really say yay, cause the show is ending and given it's darkness I don't see it ending well for our characters, especially Cas, as much as I love that Angel. Sorry had these kind of shows where ending breaks your heart.

Well that's all for this one now that I'm getting out again, maybe I can post some more stuff. Hope your weekend is good, stay safe, and God bless you.

A Little Update and Shopping

Happy Friday friends,

Well last weekend Fangirl and I traveled out to Asheville. It was a day just to chill out after my doctors appointments. We partook of our usual Chinese food. After filling our bellies Fangirl decided to "get lost" being bored with our usual routine. We wound up in the River Arts District. I love seeing the art on the buildings, even the abandoned have an artistic vibe even if it's just graffiti

.
After our wandering and a wrong turn we ended up at the mall. We only visit generally two stores. Hot Topic and Boxlunch. That day we found a surprise at the Hot Topic, a lot of there Funko POPs were on sale for three dollars. Fangirl and I jumped at the chance to get at least one. I've purchased some as gifts for family and friends, but I never got one for me. I was hoping to find a Doctor Who one, no luck, but I did locate a Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That was my show back in high school just ask my friends. He's now guarding the nightstand.

We ended our day with some fun at some Goodwills and Dollar Tree.

So that's a little update not much but a little one. I hope your weekend's good, may you find adventure, and God bless you.

Doctor Who Episode "Spyfall"

Good Evening my friends,

Well the new series of Doctor Who has begun with the two part episode "Spyfall", so I thought I'd share my thoughts.

Spyfall Part One

A great series opener. A very Bondish spy vibe especially when she gives her name at the party. Isn't that like a throwback to the third Doctor. I seem to recall from the Doctors Revisted special back in 2013 that Doctor had gadgets and stuff or am I remembering wrong?

I love how the Doctor keeps her quirky style even when going black tie. She can rock a bow tie as well as Matt Smith. Check out this video for more on all of Team Tardis' black tie attire.

Nice to see the Doctor still has bike riding skills. I love when there's elements of the Doctor's that transpires across the regenerations.

Ok the part one twist really threw me. This makes twice this character has surprised me with a return. I though it be a while before we saw them again.

Spyfall Part Two

Doctor talking to the group via prerecorded message makes me think of "Blink" with hints of Doctor talking to River in that one ep through the screen and anticipating her what she was saying. I also get hints of "The Big Bang" episode.

This is a episode of computer girl power all across time. You know there is Ada Lovelace day? When the Doctor said she was the daughter of Lord Byron didn't realize it was the poet.

I can't believe what the Doctor has to go through now. After all the heartsache and thinking things were squared away with that certain problem, then this happens. I can't say more otherwise I'd spoil it, but when you see it you'll know what I mean.

Hope the rest of the series is just as great as these first eps. I hope you guys have a good week, have fun adventures, and God bless you.

Ninja <[0000]---------------[0000]> Writer and Vampire >vv< Kitty