New Year’s in the Twilight Zone

Hi Internet People,

It’s New Year’s Eve and I honestly can’t believe it. It doesn’t feel like 2015 should be coming to an end already. There is a benefit to the year coming to an end, it means that all the shows on holiday hiatus will be coming back soon. Though I’m still behind on a bunch of them. Gotham I love you, but I just never seem to catch up. I’m also crazy behind on Doctor Who like literally haven’t seen any of the most recent season. I need to set up a binge watch. I think I’m going to see if my friend who binged last season with me wants to do a big binge again.

This year has been amazing! I’ve met wonderful people and created new friendships that I never would have expected to make. I started this blog, a YouTube channel, and was invited to be part of an amazing website, The Nerdy Girl Express. I hope next year I’ll be able to grow my blog and my YouTube, though I really just enjoy doing them and will keep posting no matter how many people read or watch my stuff. I’m also looking forward to all that The Nerdy Girl Express is going to be doing next year.

A bunch of us are planning on having a sort of party on Twitter. There is going to be a lot of ringing in the new year in a lot of different time zones. Now onto the reason my title is about the Twilight Zone. Normally on New Year’s Eve my brother, my sister, sometimes my dad, and I watch episodes of the Twilight Zone. The only episode that we always watch is The Masks. It’s the 25th episode of the fifth season, which you can watch on Netflix if you want. In the episode a dying man invites his remaining family to a Mardi Gras party. They each wear masks and count down until midnight. At the end of the night the masks everyone wears cause changes that only the dying man expected. It’s not my favorite episode of The Twilight Zone, but it’s perfect for New Year’s.

I’m going out of town with my family for a bit during the day today, but I’ll be checking Twitter and being goofy since it’s New Year’s Eve so if you have Twitter you can find me @kleffnotes. I also have a random new YouTube video up and a movie review up on The Nerdy Girl Express.

Talk to ya in the new year,

Katherine

Do You Remember Heavyweights?

Hi Internet People,

Last night at work I was able to put in a bunch of movies instead of watching the preview reel, which at this point in the month is super out of date. Just as a quick fun fact for you we have this dvd that just shows previews and ads for movies and products in our store and we are normally supposed to let it play most of the time. While the dvds are labeled for an entire month they actually only show movies that came out during the last two weeks of the month before and the first two weeks of the current month.

When I got there the people working were just finishing up The Neverending Story so I got to pick out movies for my shift. We have to watch G or PG stuff so we are a little bit limited. I started with Penelope, which stars Christina Ricci as the daughter of a rich family who has inherited a curse that has given her a pig nose. I hadn’t watched it in forever, but it had been played in the store before so I thought I’d throw it in. I had forgotten James McAvoy was in it and I actually think I’m going to rent it myself so that I can watch it when I’m not working. Then in keeping with the sort of romantic female led theme I put in The Princess Diaries, which I’ve seen a billion times. It’s one of my sister and my go to movies and we used to watch it on vhs all the time. I actually really wish I had pre-makeover Mia’s hair. It’s so big and fabulous! Also I want a Fat Louis.

Now after all of that onto the movie that a bunch of people were excited about. After scouring our Family movie section I was ecstatic to find that a copy of Heavyweights was actually in stock. The movie rents out a lot and I rarely get a chance to watch it. I put it in and was enjoying some nice nostalgia time while cleaning and organizing things. While the movie was on a guy started looking around the store and kept stopping and staring at the tvs. He eventually asked what the title of the movie was. When I told him he actually got really excited and said he hadn’t seen this movie in ages. He kept sort of shopping, but frequently kept stopping and watching the movie. He actually didn’t leave until I had to start vacuuming, and by that point he’d been in the store watching the movie for a little over an hour. After he left someone else came in to rent movies and he was pumped when he saw Kenan Thompson on the screen and he knew just what the movie was.

If you haven’t seen Heavyweights and are into 90’s Disney or just 90’s stuff in general you should find it. The plot is that these boys all get sent to a fat camp that is normally a lot of fun. This year though the owners of the camp are retiring and have sold the camp to this crazy intense fitness dude, who happens to be Ben Stiller. He basically ruins the kids summer by restricting their meals and working them practically to death. Eventually the kids find a way to take back the camp and save their summer. It’s super old school Disney and yes, Kenan Thompson is in it. He’s currently on SNL, but he used to be a Nickelodeon regular on All That and Kenan and Kel. If you have some nostalgia movies you want to share you can comment below or tweet at me, @kleffnotes.

So there’s some random nostalgia for you. If you want to check out some of my videos they are up on my YouTube channel and I have some movie reviews up on The Nerdy Girl Express.

Talk to ya tomorrow,

Katherine

New Videos, Food, and Fun

Hi Internet People,

Yesterday I got to hang out with some friends, do some shopping, and eat some really tasty food. I haven’t been able to hang out with many people recently so it was a treat to be able to chat and have fun. We did some malling and I found two cool things at Hot Topic. I mean I always find cool things at Hot Topic so you probably aren’t surprised. They had a Scream Queens shirt so I grabbed it and I found a Penny Dreadful’s dress that I really liked. My store has had pieces of that collection floating around and I decided to grab it because I had a coupon. I got more Hot Cash so be prepared for an intense haul video near the end of January.

I also grabbed some stuff at Bath and Body, the semi annual sale started and it’s the best time to get candles. My favorite is London, it smells like lemon and tea, and I got a huge candle for cheap. I also got a baby candle that smells really good. It’s mint and lemon, I forget the actual name, but it smelled wonderful. I also stocked up on hand sanitizers. They had a bunch of the vampire blood one for really cheap. It smells like pomegranates and I really like it, but you can only get it in October normally so I grabbed a bunch.

Besides shopping I tried this Japanese restaurant I had never been too. I had yummy veggie sushi and an avocado salad. My friend almost spilled an entire diet pepsi on me, but it was okay I fled to another booth and saved myself from being soaked on a cold and rainy night. We then hung out and played this card game called Personally Incorrect, it’s a lot like Cards Against Humanity, though we kept having to use Urban Dictionary to figure out the definitions of things. Maybe we live very sheltered lives, but some of those words I had literally never heard. Well one I’d heard as an insult in a British comedy, but I didn’t actually know what it meant

When I got home I got to work uploading the video I promised would be up and it took forever. It recorded weird and I look super washed out and grey. I have no clue what happened, but it looks like I have a weird filter going on, but I couldn’t fix it. Oh well, I just posted it anyway. I couldn’t really refilm it. You should totally watch it because I’m announcing something I want to do that would mean you could get some really cool stuff. You can find it on my kleffnotes YouTube channel. If you watch it shoot me a tweet, @kleffnotes, or comment on the video or here to let me know what you think.

I also have articles going up on The Nerdy Girl Express this week about different movies I was able to watch. You can also find some amazing articles about movies, books, and tv shows by some wonderful people there too.

Talk to ya tomorrow,

Katherine

Why You Should Check Out Couple-ish

Hi Internet People,

As you’ve probably noticed in my previous posts I’m a huge fan of the webseries Carmilla. Well, when I learned that Kaitlyn Alexander was making a web series I was instantly super excited. Couple-ish was not only created by a Carmilla alum, but also stars Kaitlyn as Dee and Sharon Belle, Danny from Carmilla, as Rachel. The two characters become roommates after Dee, with the help of her sister Amy, decides to use the internet to help her find someone to split her rent. After a few months together Dee learns that Rachel, who is from England, has submitted paperwork to the Canadian government that says that they are a couple so that she can continue to stay in the country.

I don’t want to give too much more away because I really want you to go check out this series. It has it’s own YouTube channel, just named Couple-ish, and so far there are only 6 episodes. New episodes are being released on Wednesdays and Saturdays and you definitely have time to catch up before a new episode goes up. You get to watch drunken Ikea furniture building, the creation of a couples channel, and appearances from the hilarious Amy. Not only is the show great so far, watching it supports LGBTQ+ series and characters.

I’d love to geek out about awesome web series with you so if you want to share your thoughts with me you can comment below or tweet at me, @kleffnotes. You can also find new articles by me over on The Nerdy Girl Express and new videos will be going up on my YouTube channel this week.

Talk to ya tomorrow,

Katherine

Blogging with Benny: Holiday Hoopla

Hi Internet People,

This week was Christmas and Benny and I were able to spend some time hanging out with my family. I had to work on Christmas Eve and for part of Christmas Day so part of the day Benny just hung out on his own in some festive lounge wear.

I thought I’d give you a close up of the socks. I bought them at Five Below around Halloween, but Benny decided to lay claim to them while I was out.

When I got home my mom and dad were working on stuff in the kitchen still and I sort of fell asleep until the food was ready. Instead of getting a bunch of shots of the table I wound up just taking a pic of the clean up process instead.

We did a lot of post dinner lounging around and I fell back asleep while everyone watched Inside Out. I didn’t get a lot of sleep the nights before Christmas Eve or Christmas and was pretty exhausted by that night. While I did gifts with my family before work Benny said he wanted to wait until after I was more rested to surprise me. This is what I found under the tree.

According to Benny my gift this year was his presence in my life so he attempted to wrap himself. He planned on putting a bow on his head too, but I guess he couldn’t find any. I did wind up getting Benny something, but it was more a joke gift than anything else.

The sweater Benny is wearing was given to me at an Ugly Sweater party a few years ago and he’s been eyeing it. I told him I could buy him his own sweater, but he said he liked this one so much that he wanted to be able to call it his own.

I hope you had a lovely holiday and that now you can relax. I know I was running around a lot this season. New Year’s Eve is much more chill here. I just sort of hang out around the house. A group of us might be doing something on Twitter this year though so keep an eye out, you can find me @kleffnotes. You can also find me on my YouTube channel and on The Nerdy Girl Express.

Talk to ya tomorrow,

Katherine

Carmilla Christmas Recap

Hi Internet People,

Sadly there wasn’t a Carmilla Christmas episode this year, but we did get a Twitter adventure with Carmilla, Laura, and LaFontaine full of tiny toy terrors. I know not everyone was online because of the holiday and I thought that I would share my own summary of the story as it unfolded in case you don’t check Twitter or have a Twitter account. If you want every detail than head over to Twitter and find @HeyCarmilla, @Laura2theLetter, and @LaFilphormes. I have all the tweets favorited if you need any help finding them.

Last year we got to see Laura, Carmilla, LaF, and Perry holed up in a diner full of tasty treats and a cannibalistic witch, who was vanquished by our vampire vixen before the holiday was over. This year we had to use our imaginations instead of tuning into YouTube. Laura and Carm had left LaF to do some exploring and our two lovely ladies first encountered some very friendly vines, Laura compared them to The Devil’s Snare from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Philosopher’s Stone for my lovely readers outside of the US). Once they escaped from the vengeful vines, Hollstein found a cave straight out of Jurassic Park with a toothy dinosaur looking for a snack. They survived by jumping down a waterfall and wound up in some sort of tunnel.

While all of this was going on LaF was left to their own devices and thoughts. They’re very worried about Perry and upset that they didn’t save her from everything that was going in the finale of season two. With all this alone time they found a toy soldier, just like the kind they used to play with during the holidays with Perry. With all the nostalgia, LaF was getting more and more upset, but their new wooden friend seemed to be trying to help. He gave them a heart pendant and, when they couldn’t get a response from Laura or Carm, LaF wished that they could just bring their friends back.

In a severe case of be careful what you wish for, Laura and Carmilla were suddenly attacked by tin soldiers, apparently on the direction of the wooden soldier with the pendant. The brigade of tin toys knocked out Hollstein and brought them completely trussed up to LaF. When the soldiers started wrapping Laura like a doll, they started throwing all of the papers they could find into the furnace. While this was happening LaF tried to thank the soldiers for bringing them their friends, but they wouldn’t stop in their mission. The toy soldier began jumping toward the furnace and when the heart pendant fell in he jumped in too. After that the tin soldier brigade followed suit and all of them melted away. LaF doesn’t want to tell Carmilla and Laura that they were actually the reason for the attack of the toy soldiers, so instead they were planning on making some s’mores to ease the pain. Hopefully Hollstein doesn’t check out their feed after they wake up.

If you haven’t watched Carmilla you definitely should check it out. Seasons 1 and 2 are on The Vervegirl TV YouTube channel, click here for season one and click here for season two. There is a prequel, Carmilla Season Zero, but you have to watch it after you watch season two. You can find it on both the Vervegirl YouTube and on The U by Kotex YouTube channel.

While you’re on YouTube you could also check out my YouTube channel. You can also find me on Twitter, @kleffnotes, and at The Nerdy Girl Express.

Talk to ya tomorrow,

Katherine

Happy Holidays!

Hi Internet People,

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are both very busy this year so this post isn’t a real post. I just wanted to say I hope you all are having an amazing week and that your weekend is full of good food, fun, and people that you love. Regardless of your denomination or religious beliefs I hope that you have a wonderful day and are able to do something fun or find a way to have fun.

If you are a fan of Carmilla they are doing some tweeting that I’m hoping means another Christmas episode is going to happen and you can have fun reading through tweets from Carmilla, Laura, and LaFontaine as they try and flee from tin soldiers while navigating the maze like hallways of the library.

I’d love to hear how your Christmas is going or goes, you can even use me as an excuse to avoid people if you want. You can tweet me, @kleffnotes, or comment below. If you need some random holiday background music you can find some Christmas song covers on my YouTube channel. You can also find cool articles over on The Nerdy Girl Express.

Merry Christmas!

Talk to ya tomorrow,

Katherine

So Little Time, So Much to Do

Hi Internet People,

Oh my goodness it’s Christmas Eve and I am totally not ready. Okay, I have all my shopping done and we have all the dinner supplies ready to get cooked up, but I am totally not ready. With work and my last minute shopping this week, I still need to wrap all of my presents and I’ll have to make my two cranberry sauces tonight.

That would be much easier if I didn’t have work technically from 12-7:30 today. I might not have to actually go to work at 12 or stay until 7:30. #magicalmysteryvideostore has an interesting way of scheduling. Tomorrow we are supposed to be really busy, but we don’t know that for certain. Our computer tells us there are hours we can work, but if we don’t need two people in the store we aren’t supposed to come in. This means I might not have to go in until closer to 2:30 and if we get less busy I might be able to leave early. That’s just some general information for you. If I can go in later I will work on busting out some gift wrapping before I leave. If I get out earlier we get to go eat dinner earlier so I’m really hoping that the store gets pretty dead by like 6, just saying video shoppers I’d like you to stop shopping for a bit around 6. I then have church, where I’m going to be sight reading a bunch of music and after that home to make all the cranberry sauces. It won’t take long, but I still have to make them.

Yesterday work was nuts so I’m hoping that today is at least okay. I closed and after I locked the doors at 11 I had a bunch of people who tried to come in and they were super distracting. I got all the big stuff done, but totally made some rookie closing mistakes and forgot to turn off two computers. Sigh, oh well, I told our opener so it’s okay no biggie. You didn’t really need to know that, but I’m just sharing all the work drama. See #magicalmysterystore may be like Narnia and Xanadu , but it gets super busy sometimes and it does actually get crazy. Like besides all the people yesterday, I had to put away about 80 movies right at close. You have to run around the store and make sure everything looks nice. So lots of work talk there, but I’m just hoping today is more chill. I work on Christmas too, but only from about 12 to 4 so it should be okay. I get Saturday off so I’m definitely staying up late and having holiday fun Friday night and Saturday.

I hope you have a great and not hectic day! If you want to see more of me you can check out my YouTube channel and I have some articles up over on the ever awesome The Nerdy Girl Express. I won’t be on Twitter much for the next couple of days, but you can always tweet or comment below if you want to chat and I’ll respond as soon as I can.

Talk to ya tomorrow,

Katherine

Time for Recipes

Hi Internet People,

I thought that even though I didn’t make any brains this week I would share some of my favorite holiday recipes. Most people I’m sure eat cranberry sauces on Thanksgiving, but in my family we only have them on Christmas and making two different versions has been my job for the past few years. These are sort of family recipes, but we didn’t invent them ourselves. So today I will share my two cranberry sauce recipes so that if you want to add them to your holiday table you can.

The first recipe is super easy and literally comes from the back of the Ocean Spray Cranberries bag. This is my dad’s favorite version of cranberry sauce so I try not to mess it up. All you need is one cup of water, a 12 ounce bag of cranberries, and a cup of sugar (I always use Splenda or off brand fake sugar instead of actual sugar). You boil the water and sugar and then add the cranberries. After that you bring it back to a boil and after that you reduce the heat so it’s at a gentle boil and keep it like that for ten minutes. Once the time has passed you remove it from the stove and put it in a medium sized covered container and put it in the fridge to cool. I always make it on Christmas Eve night and then leave it in the fridge until our dinner on Christmas Day. One year I forgot to make it in advance we had to put our sauces out on the front porch in a snowbank to cool, which isn’t possible every year, especially this year since it hasn’t snowed at all.

This second cranberry recipe is my favorite and honestly I eat way more of it than I should on Christmas Day. My maternal grandmother found this recipe for Cranberry Chutney in the paper years ago and shared it with my mom. I actually use the photocopy she sent us every year when I make it, we keep it on the fridge year round on an industrial clip so that we don’t lose it. What you need is a 12 ounce can of chunked pineapple in juice, 1 and a half cups suger (I use Splenda in this one too), a 12 ounce bag of cranberries, 1 cup of golden raisins, a half teaspoon cinnamon, a fourth teaspoon ginger (the ground kind not the fresh kind), and a fourth teaspoon allspice. You can also add a three-fourths cup coarsely chopped walnuts, but I don’t like it with walnuts and have never added them when I make it. You can also leave out the raisins if you want, we accidentally didn’t buy them one year and it was still tasty.

You need to drain the juice from the can of pineapple into a pot on the stove and add the sugar, cranberries, raisins, and spices. You then cook them for 15 minutes, or until they start boiling. Once it comes to a boil you need to reduce the heat, but keep the chutney simmering for 25 to 30 minutes or until the cranberries look tender. Then you turn off the burner and add the pineapple. You need to stir it all in so that the chunks get fully mixed in. This is when you add the walnuts too if you want them. Then you need to chill it in your fridge until at least 4 hours, again I always let mine chill overnight.

I hope you like these recipes or if you already make them or make similar recipes I’d love to hear about them. You can comment below or tweet them at me. If you try out the chutney you should definitely tell me what you think. I have Christmas videos up over on my YouTube channel. You can also find articles I’ve written over on The Nerdy Girl Express. There are tons of amazing things you can read over there by some amazing people.

Talk to ya tomorrow,

Katherine

Want to Have a Movie Night With Me?

Hi Internet People,

Christmas is fast approaching, I totally just finished my shopping yesterday, and I thought it would be fun to have a holiday movie night. Well movie nights are no fun by yourself so I’m hoping that you will want to join me for some fun over on Twitter.

At 11:15 pm est/8:15 pm pst I will be live tweeting Love Actually with anyone who wants to join me. My Twitter is @kleffnotes.You can stream the movie on Netflix, I had to check before I made the suggestion, if you don’t own it or have another way to watch it. You can live tweet whatever you want, I won’t judge if you love or hate the movie. I tweet sarcastically during lots of movies so just be aware that that’s going to happen. Liam Neeson is in the movie so I’m banking on using at least one Taken joke before it ends.

All you have to do to join is just start the movie at 11:15 pm est time and start tweeting. I will tweet to say I’m starting, but there won’t be an official start tweet. If you get a few minutes ahead or behind don’t worry, no one will mind. I live tweet shows with people and never fail one of us always winds up either slightly ahead or behind, you just keep tweeting and roll with it. I will warn you that if you haven’t seen the movie there might be some accidental spoilers if people who have already seen the movie are live tweeting.

Before Love Actually, @quietlikeastorm, @_JonathanWhite_, and I might be live tweeting Daredevil so if you want to join that you totally can. We will be starting on episode 4, but we aren’t exactly sure what time or if we are solidly going to be able to. The holiday season has thrown us for a bit of a loop so we’ve all been busier than expected.

If you are looking for something to watch before the movie I just posted a new video on my YouTube channel. I sang O Holy Night, which is one of my favorite songs of the holiday season. I’ve also posted some articles on The Nerdy Girl Express, which has tons of cool stuff on it that you can check out.

Talk to ya tomorrow,

Katherine