The latest episode of action figure comedy web series Shelf Life is up and you might recognize a familiar voice! My amazing friends Tara Platt and Yuri Lowenthal (a.k.a. Hero Lass and Bug Boy) asked me if I would write and perform the “Young Hero Lass” theme, based on Josh A. Cagan and Kayla Cagan‘s lyrics, and how could I say no?

I had so much fun coming up with a sound for the theme. Initially I sent Yuri and Tara a jazzy 1950s jingle I had recorded a capella in my iPhone’s Voice Memos, but with some feedback and my Fender Stratocaster I ended up making something more akin to a Hot Wheels commercial. Hell, I’ve even got a version that sounds completely punk rock!

I couldn’t be happier about the way the episode turned out. Aside from my song, Amber Benson as Raggedy Ann is BRILLIANT, the writing is absolutely hilarious and excellently executed, and OMG Bug Boy is nekkid! Hope you enjoy it. :)

In addition to a kick-ass t-shirt, this year I gave my husband a “Gamer Kit” for his birthday. In the kit, pictured above, I included 1600 Microsoft Points to use on XBox Live, two bags of M&Ms (his personal favorite), and a Certificate of Sandwich that read as follows:

That’s right, I vowed to make him a sandwich whenever he said “Make me a sammich!”

The expression, meant to belittle women by saying they are only useful in the kitchen, is often used by asshole sexist gamers. My husband is not an asshole, nor a sexist, so I guess that’s why I thought it would be fun to give this to him as a gift. In fact, it has made him one of the most grateful men in the multiverse!

Before presenting him with his certificate, I stocked my fridge with a bunch of his favorite cold meats, cheese slices, lettuce, tomatoes, and a delicious artisan whole grain bread from the bakery section of our local grocery store. My mission was to “make him a sammich!” anytime he asked me this week (Monday-Friday) during his video game vacation. Of course, he never used the expression because he’s too nice, but he certainly had a fun Week of Gaming where he finally played through Mass Effect 1 & 2; games he owned, but never had the time to play.

It’s been a fun week and I’m proud of the sandwiches I’ve made. They were healthy and delicious, so I thought I would share photos and descriptions of them here, in case some of you feel like going and making your own sammiches. ;)

Day One: Roast Beef and Pepper Jack

Slices of roast beef, pepper jack cheese, tomatoes, romaine lettuce, and Dijon mustard on La Brea whole grain bread. Served with celery, baby carrots, and hummus for dipping.

Day Two: Tuna Melt

Tuna salad with provolone cheese melted in the oven on broil, sliced tomatoes and lettuce on La Brea whole grain bread. I also suggest adding a dash of Miracle Whip as well for a little extra zing.

Day Three: Pastrami

Hot pastrami and mustard on La Brea whole grain bread grilled panini-style!

Day Four: Wait… what?!

Oops… no more homemade sammiches! We went to DisneyLand and got lazy for the rest of the week. :P

There were a few more sandwiches I was planning to make if he asked me, but we ran out of bread and started eating out after DisneyLand. A few ideas I had up my sleeve: grilled cheese; egg salad; black pepper smoked turkey breast and provolone; and a grilled chicken sandwich made with the leftovers from Fajita Night.

I hope this post has given you some ideas for your gamer… especially if that gamer is yourself. ;)

Now it’s time for me to go tell some 12 year old boys on XBox Live to make ME a sammich! Later, n00bs…

Hello, my name is Casey McKinnon and I’m a size 0. Heck, sometimes I’m even a size 00 as my body measurements are 32-23-33 and I’m 5’1″. So, it goes without saying that when I hear people dissing my dress size, I get a little offended because it doesn’t make any sense. How is it that I can fit perfectly in my mother’s dresses from the 1960s, but the US fashion industry had to invent a size in the past ten years just to fit me?!

Recently I’ve seen a lot of photos being shared by my friends that affirm larger body images with slogans and quotes. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does become hurtful when they start making fun of smaller sizes as if they are “unhealthy.” Sure, it would be rather unhealthy if you were 6′ tall, but the average American woman is 5’4″. With this in mind, I feel it’s important for my fellow females to understand the history of sizes 00-0 and why they exist in our stores today.

When it comes to body image, one of the most popular tropes in the world is the myth of Marilyn Monroe’s dress size. It is famously said that ‘Marilyn Monroe wore a size 16 dress.” This may have been true in the 1950s and 1960s, but not by today’s standards. If you’ve ever tried to purchase a vintage dress, you’ll know that the sizes are completely different from modern sizes. In 2009, British journalist Sara Buys had the opportunity to try on Marilyn’s dresses and had this to say about her size:

Contrary to received wisdom, she was not a voluptuous size 16 – quite the opposite. While she was undeniably voluptuous – in possession of an ample bosom and a bottom that would look at home gyrating in a J-Lo video – for most of the early part of her career, she was a size 8 and even in her plumper stages, was no more than a 10. I can tell you this from experience because a few weeks ago, I tried to try on her clothes.

In fact, Monroe’s waist size was 22-23 inches. The same, if not smaller, size as me! So how can this be? Thanks to a little thing called vanity sizing.

Also referred to as size inflation, vanity sizing refers to the fact that the US fashion industry inflated the size of their garments to deal with the expanding population of consumers. As America grew outwards, so did the clothes… yet the numbers remained the same. In this New York Times article, journalist Stephanie Clifford has done some really interesting research and has this to say about my 32″ bust size:

A woman with a 32-inch bust would have worn a Size 14 in Sears’s 1937 catalog. By 1967, she would have worn an 8 [...] Today, she would wear a zero.

So why exactly would the US fashion industry succumb so overwhelmingly to vanity sizing?

The CDC reports that the percentage of adults with obesity has been growing since 1980. Last year they reported that, in 2009–2010, 35.7% of U.S. adults were obese. Given that number doesn’t even include overweight individuals, it just proves how large a demographic we’re looking at. It’s no wonder that the fashion industry felt the need to adapt and cater to their growing clientele.

Eventually, however, the industry would learn a very potent lesson: you can increase the size of clothes all you want, but you’ll end up screwing over the petite ladies that still exist in the US!

No matter what your size, it’s always difficult to find the right fit for your body type. In my case, being petite before the invention of sizes 0 and 00 meant shopping in the juniors’ section and dressing like a teenager. It also meant that I couldn’t for the life of me find a store that sold business suits in my size! I was over the moon when I finally took a trip to Vancouver and discovered a magical land called Aritzia… a store that had business suits that were TOO SMALL for me! They carried sizes as small as 000 and XXXS, and their clientele included many beautiful petite Asian ladies that I would not consider “unhealthy” in any way.

Sadly, some stores that carry such small sizes get flack. Last year it was revealed that Zara has had some difficulty in the US because its sizes were “too small” for Americans. Ironically, everything I try on at Zara is still too big for me. :/

The key in today’s world is to find the stores that are right for you and your body shape. We’re all different and we needn’t get upset and blame opposing body types just because our clothes don’t fit right. “Normal” and “healthy” come in a variety of shapes and sizes and it might be hard for us to find the right clothes, but it’s equally as hard on the merchants to decide how many sizes of a garment they need to make to have optimal sales. Sure, it’s frustrating not to find your size in every store, but that’s what seamstresses are for. And to bring it back to Marilyn Monroe; if she were alive today, she would probably have to buy a larger dress size and take it in at the waist because, again, we’re all unique and she had a bangin‘ hourglass figure!

When it all comes down to it, I love and respect my fellow ladies at any size… as long as they love Star Trek. ;)

First off, I’m not a huge Family Guy fan because I find the violence against women jokes deplorable. That said, I think MacFarlane and the team behind last night’s Oscars did a magnificent job of not only hosting the show and staying classy, but also updating it for the next generation. The production included small touches that constantly uplifted the industry, while playing to the audience as film fans.

Some of my favorite touches:

• Trading in hot models handing out the awards for international film students was a brilliant way to honor the next generation of filmmakers;
• The comedic addition of the Jaws theme to “play them off” was a killer move, and I loved it;
• The not-so-subtle reminders of blockbuster film stars that didn’t get nominated was absolutely hilarious and honest. Blockbusters are a huge part of the economy and need to be recognized;
• The Von Trapp Family Singers bit tickled my entire being. I’m insulted by anyone criticizing that sketch today;
• A dance number with Seth MacFarlane, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Daniel Radcliffe? I giggled like an adorable little Japanese schoolgirl.

In all honesty, there were only two parts of the show I wasn’t really impressed with; the Bond tribute, and the ode to Musicals. My reasoning:

• Bond music tribute: I was surprised how they wasted time with the intro montage, which was way too heavy on VFX and managed not to credit any of the composers. At first I thought they weren’t crediting anyone because it was mostly John Barry (RIP), but then they played “Live and Let Die” by Paul and Linda McCartney with no mention of their names either. I also thought that Shirley Bassey was amazing, but felt like they could have done a lot more with her and the idea that this is a tribute to 50 years of Bond music. What were Nancy Sinatra, Tom Jones, and Duran Duran doing last night? Wouldn’t it have been great if they did a montage of the greatest themes, with the montage video playing in the background and ended the tribute with a grand finale of Adele’s Skyfall performance? Not a great use of time.
• Musical tribute: This was an even worse use of time than the Bond tribute. They felt the need to show loooong intros of every film and then FINALLY went into a performance from that film. I felt this could have been easily condensed with MUCH shorter intros and shorter versions of the songs, or even a creative weaving of the songs from the different musicals leading up to Les Misérables. Again, it just needed to be tighter.

All in all I think they did a fantastic job making an entertaining award show that got away from the stagnant old self-gratifying white guy Oscars of the past. This is exactly what the industry needed and MacFarlane did a wonderful job. It pleased me as a film buff and it touched me as someone working in the industry.

End transmission.

About a year ago, I did my first dramatic reading of Google+ comments and the citizens of the Internet demanded more! Today I’m pleased to post a second video, with plans to make more soon.

Thanks to Juan Carlos Bagnell for his awesome voiceover, and to my darling kitty Wolfie for tolerating and not destroying all the equipment I had to set up in our living room.

In case you missed it earlier today, I had the pleasure of moderating the 3rd Google+ Hangout for Warner Brothers’ hit sci-fi web series H+: The Digital Series. I had a chance to interview cast members Hannah Herzsprung (Manta), Alexis Denisof (Conall), David Rogers (Kenneth), Caitriona Balfe (Breanna) and Samuel Vauramo (Topi). There are a few spoilers, so if you haven’t already checked out the series, be sure to start watching here.

In case you missed it live, you can now see the short recap of my appearance on Jace Hall‘s 1337 Lounge Live where I discussed my love of video games, and my recent single Santa is an Atheist. Enjoy!

Happy holidays, everyone! I made you a present… It’s an atheist Christmas song!

The idea for Santa is an Atheist came naturally as an atheist who enjoys the “spirit” of Christmas, but I almost didn’t release a song at all because I didn’t think I had enough time to make it! Thanks to my friend Celeste Wolfe for encouraging me to do it, and to so many amazing friends supporting me along the way, it’s out in time!

I want to thank Derek Miller for saying yes to appearing as Santa in the video. When I closed my eyes to imagine a music video, he was the only one I could envision playing Santa. And he was amazing. At one point, when we were filming the close up of him thinking and calculating, I didn’t want to yell “cut!” because his performance was so continually surprising and new! He’s a truly talented actor, and I highly suggest you check him out in The Wedding Band on TBS and Opening Night: The Improvised Musical.

I also want to thank Raya Yarbrough who made the song amazing! I sent her an a capella version I recorded one day in my iPhone Voice Memos and she loved it, which encouraged me to move forward with the project. I then recorded a rough version in GarageBand, sent her the demo and she re-created the whole thing with a new improved bass track, percussion, and added jazzy piano! She’s a true maestro. Be sure to buy her album and check out her latest work North of Sunset, West of Vine where she recounts tales of her youth in Hollywood leading into amazing songs that will blow you away.

And more thanks also go to Andrew Seely, who acted as my much needed DP on the music video shoot, Nick Holmes, who photographed the amazing cover photo, and to a number of people who helped by giving me advice, encouragement, and resources: Cathy Baron, Tara Brown, Rudy Jahchan, Bear McCreary, and Taryn Southern. I love and appreciate you all.

As for what’s next? It’s easy. If enough people show interest (i.e. Buy the single on iTunes and Google Play or make the YouTube video go viral), I plan to make an entire atheist Christmas album next year. So, if you want that to happen… please let me know with your actions; watch it, rate it, share it, buy it. ;)

And if you still haven’t seen the episode of TableTop where we play Dixit, be sure to check it out here! It’s a really fun game and would make a helluva holiday gift!

Last year the talented Len Peralta, known for his awesome Geek-a-Week trading cards, drew a pin-up version of me as Chell from Portal. Well, prints are now available for purchase online, so get ‘em while their hot!