#GeakSpeak: Once Upon a Time, There Was a Grimm Fable

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy LaShaun. We play trivia together every Tuesday, and HOLY HELL this dude is good!! For reals, he knows a lot of random things, and is genuinely also a rad human being. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT LASHAUN!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Maj_G

How many of you are familiar with fairy tales? I mean REALLY familiar -  not just seen the Disney movies or read the sugarcoated stories retold in picture books. "What's the difference," you may ask? "How can they be any different from the versions I saw in those classic Disney movies?" Well, Grimm wasn't just the name of the brothers who collected many of these tales - "grim" also describes the overall nature of the stories. Tales like The Little Mermaid and The Little Match Girl were often very graphic and many times, had a depressing ending. Even in the original Cinderella story, the stepsisters went as far as cutting their feet in order to fit the glass slippers. In Little Red Riding Hood, the woodsman cut open the wolf to find Red and her grandmother whole and replaced their spot inside the wolf with stones. Indeed, in that day & age, children's stories were much, much different than their modern counterparts.

In 2002, a former artist for TSR (the company behind Dungeons & Dragons) began penning a comic series about the fairy tale characters of old and how they became stuck in our reality. This series, he called, Fables.  Fables mostly takes place in an area of New York City appropriately called, Fabletown, which is where the majority of the human characters (or those who could change their shape to human) live. Old King Cole is the mayor of Fabletown, with Snow White as his right-hand (she actually runs the town) and Bigby Wolf as the sheriff. Other notable residents of Fabletown include Jack Horner (of every Jack-based fairy tale), Prince Charming (a broke, but charming con artist playboy), Bluebeard, Pinocchio (now a real, albeit permanent, boy), and Beauty and the Beast. Fabletown also has a separate entity known as the Farm, which is where many non-humanoids are encouraged to live so that they don't attract attention from who they call, "Mundys" (us). Some of those include the three bears as well as the three little pigs. According to the story, some centuries ago, the Fables were chased into our universe from theirs by a mysterious character know only as "the Adversary." The Adversary waged war, conquering just about everyplace his army landed with the intention of enslaving the Fables. For whatever reason, once the Fables crossed into our universe, they became more or less immortal and for that reason, it was generally decided that they would try to stay away from Mundy affairs.

Due to the popularity of the series as well as the critical acclaim, executives rushed to cash in on the marketability of the comics by developing them into a television series. The first was NBC, who purchased the rights in 2005, but could not seem to get a script off the ground. Then in 2008,  ABC purchased the rights to create their own television series based on the comics. However, their script writers also seemed to not be able to make anything of it. Despite this, two series based on the premise of fairy tales becoming reality premiered this past fall: Once Upon a Time and Grimm.

Once Upon a Time

If you're like me and saw the promos for this series on ABC, you were saying to yourself, "OMG, IT'S FABLES ON TV!!" And this isn't too far off. Out of the two fairy tale themed tv series of this past season, Once Upon a Time, is clearly the most similar to the original source material. OUT, like Fables, is about the exile of notable fairy tale characters from their lands. But unlike Fables, this exile is imposed by the evil queen from Snow White & the Seven Dwarves (Lana Parilla) in order to prevent the prophecy of Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter usurping her reign. Fortunately, Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) and the Prince (Josh Dallas) were privy to the prophecy and were able to enter a complicated deal with Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle) to ensure her safety just before they were transported from their world. As an adult (Jennifer Morrison), she is talked into coming to Storybrooke by her son whom she gave up for adoption 10 years prior and has been adopted by the Evil Queen. He tells her that all the residents of Storybrooke are from fairy tales, they don't remember who they are (save himself, Rumplestiltskin, & the Queen), and they are unable to leave the town.

"Wait a second - that doesn't really sound like Fables at all," is what some may be saying, and yes, that is true. Beyond the surface resemblance of fairy tale characters being trapped in the real world and their near-immortality (Time stands still in Storybrooke while Fables' popularity keeps them alive), there isn't really much in common between the two titles. Fables not only remember the stories that made them popular, but are able to leave Fabletown at will (although it isn't recommended). The one major benefit that OUT has over Fables is the fact that it is aired on a Disney-owned network, which means that popular characters who had only been named in Disney movies (such as Pinocchio's Jiminy Cricket and Sleeping Beauty's Maleficent) were able to make appearances in episodes. It is an interesting series, but due to the oversaturation of good Sunday night TV, I couldn't justify watching it over series like Dexter, Boardwalk Empire, or The Walking Dead.

Grimm

Grimm, on the other hand, is pretty much nothing at all like its inspiration, which is probably a good thing. Unlike Once Upon a Time, Grimm is made up of a cast of relative nobodies, the most recognizable of which most likely being Russell Hornsby (former star of the ABC Family series Lincoln Heights) and Silas Weir Mitchell (most remembered from his recurring role as criminally insane Charles "Haywire" Patoshik of Prison Break). Grimm takes the old Grimm brothers tales and assumes that they were all based on reality. The Grimm brothers were apparently a part of a line of monster hunters known as "Grimms," which extends down to Portland Homicide Detective Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli) who suddenly begins to notice people changing into odd creatures. His dying aunt is unable to give him much information about his new predicament before being hospitalized, but she leaves him her old trailer full of weapons and notes on the wesen (or creatures) he is to face. Russell Hornsby plays his partner, Hank, who does not know about Nick's new task. However, on his first case as a Grimm, he meets Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell), a reformed Blutbad, or "Big Bad Wolf." Nick mistakenly attacks him on his first encounter, but grows to rely on him for knowledge of the wesen world when he realizes Monroe is indeed as harmless as he claims.

The main reason I love Grimm so much is because as a fairy tale fanatic, I know that they were originally very dark stories, and Grimm keeps that in mind. While it's nowhere near as gory or dark as Supernatural, for the major  four network channels (CBS, ABC, NBC, & FOX), it is a pretty dark series. There are vicious attacks, blades and claws being slashed, and plenty of skulking about at night. And with the level of backstory and mystery going on in its world, Grimm makes me want to not miss a single episode in case a minute detail may be missed.

#thatisall

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#GeekSpeak: @Maj_g's Top 5 Favorite Live Action Adaptations

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy LaShaun. We play trivia together every Tuesday, and HOLY HELL this dude is good!! For reals, he knows a lot of random things, and is genuinely also a rad human being. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT LASHAUN!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Maj_G

It's a good time to be a nerd and/or geek. That is something which absolutely cannot be argued. I never thought I'd live to see the day when many of the biggest blockbuster movies would be based on comic books and video games. Not only that, but video games are now a massive industry and rather than one incredibly great game being released annually, great games are now being released monthly. In addition to this, a new wave of people now call themselves nerds and/or geeks. And I am NOT going to get into whether or not only fringe interests (comics, video games, sci-fi, fantasy, etc) count as being geeky. One of my favorite things to daydream about is being able to go into the past and bring a geek into present day so I can show them trailers for movies & video games. In fact, I usually like to imagine it's Eric Forman (from That 70's Show) if only to put a face to the geek. We'd watch trailers like the original Spider-Man trailer with the World Trade Center, Batman Begins, the Smallville openings, the Avengers trailers, and many others. Kind of like a geeky version of the "It Gets Better" campaign, if you will. Anyway, now with fantastic geeky movies on the horizon, such as James Cameron's Battle Angel (a film adaptation of Battle Angel Alita) and Legendary Films's Mass Effect as well as the releases of live action movies Rurouni Kenshin, Ace Attorney, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Dark Knight Rises just around the corner, things are looking especially bright. However, as fun as all of them look and sound, I cannot guarantee that any of them will be great. For every Men in Black, A History of Violence, or Ghost World, there's at least 5 stinkers like The King of Fighters, Super Mario Bros., and  Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.  This is why I am going to look back at my 5 favorite live action adaptations.

Note:  I am limiting these adaptations to visual media, like anime, cartoons, comics, manga, and video games. I am also limiting my favorites to those titles in which I'm familiar with both the original source AND the adaptation.

Captain America: The First Avenger

For a long time, I didn't get the appeal of Captain America. He was a goody two-shoes who (compared to the most of the Avengers) didn't really really seem to be all that special. Then I started playing as him in Marvel vs Capcom (teamed up with Captain Commando), and my appreciation for him increased exponentially. Soon after, I picked up Marvel's Earth X series (which stars him) and liked him even more. Admittedly, I haven't read every comic about him, but I do understand a enough about him to know if he's getting treated fairly, and this movie definitely did him justice without being overly cheesy. I like to think one of the main reasons is because unlike past films, both his origin and return to present day weren't squeezed into the same storyline. His campaign in the Army encompassed multiple years and ignoring them doesn't do his story justice. Not only does this film take that into context, but it also accounts for the Army's being overprotective of him because 1) he originally wasn't extensively skilled in combat and 2) he was the only super soldier created. Not to mention that some of the comic's favorites were included, even if they weren't really explained, such as Bucky (who was given a different origin for the movie) and Dum Dum Dugan.

Initial D

This is yet another title that I didn't initially take to (pun not intended). I remember hearing about it when I was in college, but despite being a big racing fan, I had no interest in seeing  or reading it. I can only assume that it's because I thought it was about professional racing, rather than street racing. Anyway, I didn't actually get into this until a few years ago, when I decided to pick up the manga at the library. Unfortunately, I'm only at volume 10, but that's only because it's VERY difficult to find the complete series of this in one place. If you're not familiar with Initial D (which is legendary in Japan), imagine The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, except the main character is a master at drifting, and it takes place in the mountains instead of Tokyo. As for the movie, like most live action adaptations, there are some differences between the it and the original manga & anime series. However, everything that matters plotwise was kept intact, and that's what's important.

The Dark Knight  series

There have been many interpretations of the Batman series, but it's Christopher Nolan's versions which seem to come the closest to what Batman is actually like in the comics. I know many people are probably saying, but what about the old Adam West series or Tim Burton's takes? Well, while accurate for its time (thanks, Comics Code!), the Adam West series is nowhere near how dark Batman was supposed to be. Despite portraying Batman as the skilled detective he is, it is done in a laughable manner - almost to the point of spoofing him. As for the Tim Burton movies, while Batman is definitely feared, he also racks up a massive body count, which it has been generally established that Batman does not do. He [mentally] tortures and breaks bones like twigs, but he simply does not kill. Christopher Nolan's interpretations, on the other hand, combine both of these essential elements without the excessive cheese factor.

Smallville/Superman

As I've mentioned before, I am a huge fan of Smallville, and part of that is because it introduced me to comic books. If you missed that post, Smallville was a show on the WB and CW which was essentially an updated version of the Superboy of old (the original Superboy was Superman as a teen, while the current Superboy is a clone of Superman & Lex Luthor). While it is definitely its own story, there are a lot of hints towards Clark's future as Superman. As the series goes on, more an more references from the comics are woven into the plot. I consider it tied with the old Superman movie in that there are many elements which suggest that Smallville is heavily inspired by the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. Also add in the fact that some of the main cast from those era films have guest spots (many recurring) including Terrence Stamp (Zod in Superman II, Jor-El in Smallville), Annette O'Toole (Lana Lang in Superman III, Martha Kent in Smallville), Margo Kidder (Lois Lane in Superman, Ms. Crosby in Smallville), Helen Slater (Supergirl in Supergirl, and Lara-El in Smallville), and last, but certainly not least, Christopher Reeve (Superman in Superman, and Dr. Swann in Smallville).

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

I have been fascinated by the concept of Tomb Raider since it first arrived on PSX in the mid-90s. Unfortunately, the only reason I wasn't a big fan right away was because I didn't own a Playstation. However, that changed a few years later when I received Tomb Raider II and Tomb Raider III for PC. I quickly fell in love with the games despite the fact that I never finished either of them. Even though they come off as action-adventure games, the original Tomb Raider trilogy are much closer to puzzle games. In fact, most levels rarely feature any sort of combat. This is one of the main reasons I consider Lara Croft: Tomb Raider as one of the most accurate video game to film adaptations out there. The film follows the fairly simplistic formula from the first three games: Lara travels to various [seemly] unrelated destinations to find an artifact, Lara dodges traps in the process, Lara trains in her mansion, and most importantly, Lara has huge boobs. While I have heard people complain about the movie, I've never actually heard any reasons why they considered it bad. Until I hear a decent reason why, I will continue to think of it as one of the most faithful video game adaptations ever created.

<Note: Because of the sheer number of adaptations available, I honestly can't just keep it to 5 - on the other hand, for certain reasons which I will explain, I cannot justify having them on my top 5.>

American Splendor

American Splendor is actually one of my favorite comics ever. It's about a guy named Harvey Pekar and his life as a middle-of-the-road hardworking American in Cleveland, Ohio. In fact, the movie to me perfectly captured the tone of the comics. So if I've read all of it, and I saw the movie as well as enjoyed it, why don't I have it in my top 5? Because American Splendor is an autobiographical comic series. That's right - Harvey Pekar is a 100% real person...er...was. He actually died in 2010. But I would imagine having it on the list would be a cheap shot since the comic that the live action movie is based on comes from the most ultimate live action there is: real life.

Blade

Blade is most likely my favorite live action adaptation of a comic. At the time of its release (this was BEFORE Marvel began adding their name to the credits), I remember being one of the few who recognized the character as being a Marvel character. As this was well before I was regularly reading comics, I had remembered him from his guest arc on FOX's Spider-Man cartoon series. Unfortunately, despite the success of the trilogy, the Blade comics are still fairly difficult to come by and because of this, I've only read one trade paperback of his.

Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass was an AWESOME comic & film. I actually got a chance to read the comic just before the movie was released and was thoroughly pleased with it. It was a gritty, VERY realistic take on what being a real-life superhero (like Batman, the Green Arrow, or Spoiler) would be like if they devoted themselves to taking down criminals & kingpins. And then I saw the movie. While the first half was more or less parallel to the comic (except we didn't know who Red Mist was until his betrayal), the second half was absolute movie insanity. I simply couldn't understand why the endings were so wildly different...until I found out that the comic series didn't end until AFTER filming had ended.

Space Battleship Yamato

About four years before the original Battlestar Galactica aired in the US, there was single-season animated series that ran in Japan about a lone warship dispatched to a planet light-years away from Earth in search of a machine which could remove radiation from the planet. The single-season series was called Space Battleship Yamato. It even managed to make its way to the US under the title, Star Blazers. The movie was absolutely great (even though the middle was a bit slow). Unfortunately, I've never seen any of the original anime series or movies.

Speed Racer

Speed Racer is another movie that ranks as one of my favorite adaptations ever. It was also one of the few movies that I could watch over & over again without being tired of it. It has action, racing, a decent plotline, and it seems to be relatively accurate. On the other hand, what would I know about the accuracy since I haven't seen the original anime series. I do happen to notice that it generally falls within one of three categories: 1) You saw it and LOVED it.  2) You saw it and didn't really care for it. 3) You didn't really care enough to see it. Unfortunately, most of the populace seems to fall under column 3.

#thatisall

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#GeekSpeak: @Maj_g's love that seems not to be (mass effect)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy LaShaun. We play trivia together every Tuesday, and HOLY HELL this dude is good!! For reals, he knows a lot of random things, and is genuinely also a rad human being. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT LASHAUN!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Maj_G

One of the most anticipated games of the year is set to be released today and despite my love for the series, I won’t be able to join in the festivities. I have both PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as the previous installments, and I could find some way to afford to preorder it despite my low income, so why won’t I be getting it? Because the Xbox 360 I have has been showing an error code 74 since March of 2010. For those who don’t know what that is, it is one of those infamous Red Rings of Death which plagued the original Xbox 360s. And mine happened just 3 months outside of the [extended] warranty, so Microsoft refused to extend any courtesies towards fixing it. What this means is that for a common problem that happens to Xboxes, I’m going to have to shell out $90. However, I am poor and have never made more than minimum wage, which means it will most likely take some time before I am able to get that done.

Luckily, most of the games I play are cross-platform, so if I really wanted to finish a title, I was able to simply get that title on PS3. I was able to do that for Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2, Wet, and Midnight Club: Los Angeles. And yes, I realize that not too long ago, the Mass Effect series joined those titles which bridged across platforms. However, there is one extremely important difference which makes the Mass Effect series different from continuing titles like Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Grand Theft Auto, or even The Legend of Zelda. That difference is a feature which has been a staple of EA Sports’s football titles since the late 90s, but hasn’t really been seen elsewhere – the ability to transfer a custom character from one game to another. However, Mass Effect‘s version is a bit more advanced. See, in the original Mass Effect, Commander Shepard makes 3 major decisions which can change the course of the entire series including how s/he is treated and who interacts with him/her for the entire series. Not only that, but there are a number of smaller decisions made  during side quests which are continually referenced later in the series (for example, one particular hero-worshipper meets up with my Commander Shepard in ME2 and recounts how I punched him in the previous title. Punching him was a momentary Renegade option my character had taken despite him being a Paragon).

So why am I griping about this instead of being in line for the midnight release? Because when BioWare made the Mass Effectseries available for the PS3,  they only made 2/3 of it available. To make PS3 owners feel like they aren’t missing out, there was an interactive comic which was made as DLC and allows the player to make some of the decisions which should have been made to properly enjoy ME2. However, as someone who had a chance to play 1 & a bit of 2 on the 360, I feel robbed of an incredible opportunity to replay a series that I love. Especially since I do happen to know exactly the experience I’m missing out on. I want to re-experience that  hopeless firefight and get to the end only to realize I must sacrifice a crew member. I want to prove to the other races that humans are worthy of joining their ranks after experiencing the doubts of [Shepard's] ability. Not letting me undergo the journey firsthand just feels like it cheapens the experience. And in this case, I can’t allow myself to settle.

#thatisall

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#GeekSpeak: A Retrospective or How Smallville Made Me a Comic Fan

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy LaShaun. We play trivia together every Tuesday, and HOLY HELL this dude is good!! For reals, he knows a lot of random things, and is genuinely also a rad human being. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT LASHAUN!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Maj_G

This past Saturday, on a whim, I decided to rewatch the pilot episode of the WB/CW’s super-hero series Smallville. I have actually seen it once before a couple of years back. I had downloaded it from Playstation Network because I remembered at some point that I had missed the first half of it when it originally aired in 2001. No matter what the haters will say about it, I will always appreciate Smallville since it’s the reason I officially started reading comics. I mean, I’d read comics before and I was semi-familiar with characters and storylines based on the movies and cartoons that I’d seen, but I’d never actually been to a comic store before. Despite that setback, I did actually have a few comics while growing up. I believe the count is at around 8 including an issue of Web of Spider-Man, a couple of issues of Horus: Son of Osiris, the comic adaptation of RoboCop 2, and about 4 issues of Fantastic Four.

So why hadn’t I ever been to a comic store at that time? Well, to be honest, I didn’t know of any comic stores. Even though I’ve been a super geek all of my life, up until my sophomore year in high school, I was the only geek I knew. When you’re the only geek you know it could be INCREDIBLY difficult to meet other geeks, especially back in the Dark Ages of dial-up internet.

You see, for you young folks out there, in the dial-up era, being on the internet busied up the phone lines which means that to spend a lot of time on the internet, you had to either be a recluse (which I was, but my parents weren’t), or have a separate phone line (which was relatively expensive). Not only that, but we had to pay in minutes for internet time. Yes, this was at home.

Getting back on track, there are very few major events I can remember which inspire me, but this I remember. A good chunk of the first 4 seasons ofSmallville love to do wink, wink, nudge, nudges towards Clark Kent’s future as Superman. In a specific first season episode of Smallville, an elderly woman is reading characters’ futures and at the very end of the episode, young Lex Luthor catches up to her and asks her to read his future. We’re instantly brought into her vision as she sees Lex Luthor casually browsing his Oval Office and creates a field of death with his Kryptonite hand. If you’re like me at the time & haven’t read any of DC’s comics or for whatever reason (I didn’t have cable) didn’t see Justice League Unlimited, you’re probably saying to yourself something along the lines of, “LEX LUTHOR AS PRESIDENT?! NONSENSE! WHAT AD WIZARD WOULD ELECT THAT MAD MAN PRESIDENT?!”

So I did research. And much like Smallville‘s (as well as Justice League Unlimited and Lois & Clark‘s, in fact) portrayal of him, the modern Lex Luthor is both an ad wizard and a mad man, so his ambitions are not as obvious as they are in say, the Christopher Reeve movies. However, I still didn’t quite believe what I was reading on the Smallville forums (Wikipedia didn’t exist yet), so I decided I needed more proof. I looked up the nearest comic stores and decided to pay them a visit.

click here to watch

I ended up visiting Graham Cracker Comics, a small Chicago chain. I rifled through the Superman issues looking for proof of Metropolis flooding or Lex being the PotUS and was very surprised to find it all true. However, I was in for an even greater surprise when I discovered thatTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was reprinting their comic series. And to top it off, I was there just in time to discover that a cartoon I was a big fan of, Static Shock, was based on a comic and that comic was making a new limited run. Because of that, I wanted to find out more about the old Staticcomic series which apparently was originally published in the 90s.

(Trivia: the back wall of the pool house in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air has the premiere covers of 4 Milestone comics, one of which was Static)

After discovering these things about Superman comics, I realized I didn’t want to have the wool pulled over my eyes like that again, so I tried to find a place to start and decided to start with the original Crisis on Infinite Earths from the 80s, which [was supposed to] cements the entire DC universe. That succeeded in getting me interested in the Legion of Super-Heroes and more parallel universe versions of comics. That lead me into reading Kingdom Come (GREAT story, by the way). Then Kingdom Come made me realize just how cool Batman is. Somewhere around then, I found The Death and Return of Superman and read that. Needless to say, I became a comic fiend, trying to read as much as financially possible (which wasn’t much). I finally found a nice balance in occasionally reading trade paperbacks and keeping up mostly with non-major comic titles. For example, the new popularity of The Walking Dead‘s tv series is strange to me since I actually started reading it about 3 years ago. But things I wear hipster glasses for are a whole new story.

#thatisall

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#GeekSpeak: The sometimes random misadventures of @Abby_Cake

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Abby. I met her in Chicago at the #20SBSummit, and this chick is raaaddddd!! She considers herself more of a nerd than a geek - but I think she's just all shades of random and awesome. Oh and FTR, the TNTML stance on nerds versus geeks are that nerds are products of a genetic predisposition, and geeks are raised. BOOH-YAH!!! I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT ABBY!!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Abby_Cake

The female act of experimenting with hair is a funny thing — and one that cannot be accomplished without first engaging in a roundtable discussion with friends, co-workers, family, strangers, etc. And even then, you are rarely sure. But sometimes you get lucky and you find a haircut that you like, one you want to stick with for a while, years perhaps.

I have ALWAYS wanted a funky pixie cut a la Shannyn Sossamon or Ginnifer Goodwin. Sometimes at night I would dream of the promised freedom in not having to blowdry with such frequency, the unlimited use of texture and styling cremes previously untouched, becoming a compulsive headband wearer, possessing far less split ends. When I expressed my furtive pixie cut dream, mostly people tell me “your face is too round” or “noooo!” or “there won’t be anything to hold onto,” followed by a suggestive eyebrow wag. Also, my mom told me I would look like a female basketball coach, so there’s that as well.

Females are often encouraging, but guys overwhelmingly react negatively. The male sex seems to really hate pixie cuts as a whole. Maybe it has to do with the aforementioned “nothing to hold onto” concept.

I had the same haircut until I was a sophomore in high school, that’s when I finally grew out my bangs. I remember because at the summer league baseball game a girl said, “Finally” upon noticing my new ‘do.

But a nagging question remained — Can I pull a pixie cut off? Am I a short hair kinda gal? AM I?

Turns out, I am.

And as my move to South Korea approaches I figured, why not get a new haircut for the newest stage of my life? Why not reflect my personality more effectively? This desire conveniently coincided with my 2012 attempt to maintain a healthy level of spontaneity in my life.

I walked into the salon and asked if they could get me in for a cut. A girl replied, “It’s your lucky day, we’ve turned away like five people already, but I just got done early so I can do it right now.” Awesome, spontaneity win.

Like a proper nerd, I had some pictures saved on my laptop of what I wanted — so I busted out some pixie cut examples. And then watched as six inches of my hair collected around my feet. She asked, “Would you like to make it a little asymmetrical?” I excitedly replied, “Yes!” I was nervous, but it felt right.

Zen through risk-taking.

And you know what, after about a day of getting used to it — I am beginning to really fall in love with being a feisty, funky, short haired girl.

xx, @abby_cake

#nerdsunite

Want more from Abby?? Check out her blog over yonder - and don't forget to drop her a follow on twitter!!