Random Geek Child

Ever eaten a truly Red Robin?

Alright, you are not actually eating robins. Red Robin is a family friendly, well-priced burger place with wonderfully attentive waiting staff. It has become a family favorite, from eating lunch on our way to a friend’s place to eating dinner before a movie at our local movie theater.

Food

As I said, you are not actually eating robins. While they are a burger place, they do serve other food, not just the standard American burger and chicken nuggets. For instance, most recently I got the Clamdigger’s Clam Chowder (cup, not bowl) for $2.99. It came in a small portion, but it was creamy with chunks of clam. They also have bottomless sides for most things. In other words, you will never run out of fries. This is good, since the fries are quite satisfying, as steak fries with extra seasoning. They also have bottomless lemonades, sodas, and more! Now, being a burger restaurant, they do (go figure!) have burgers. One of these burgers (the only one that I can presently remember the details for, thus the one I mention here) is the Burnin’ Love Burger for $9.59. This burger is a mouthful, with jalepeños, salsa, pepperjack cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, chipotle mayo, and a cayenne-seasoned burger patty.

Service

The service does not disappoint either. With a smile on their face, the waitstaff will make sure you are always supplied with your bottomless (and otherwise) sides and beverages. They are always friendly, well timed, and very informative. If your refill of fries is delayed because they are making a new batch, they will tell you such. You don’t even have to wait to pay! They have a little computer system at each table so you can pay and leave. It also has games like Plants vs. Zombies 2 on it to entertain kids that don’t have devices with them. (I personally don’t see the point, but hey, some people would pay to play those games. Me? I’d either bring in my own phone, or, more likely, a book).

Facility

The facilities are also quite nice. Some of them have a bar area for the adults. The tables are well spaced, so it doesn’t feel crowded, but it doesn’t feel eerily empty either. The lights are at just the right brightness, bright enough so you aren’t squinting to see the menu, but you aren’t taken aback by the bright, unnatural colors. They play rock music at a medium-low volume. The walls and ceiling are vastly decorated with an assortment of mismatched pictures and displays, which reminds me of my room. Another big thing is that it is always clean. I have yet to see a Red Robin facility that I am not satisfied with.

Other Stuff

While you can call and pick up, Red Robin does not deliver. It does not have a drive through since it is not officially fast food, but it also takes much less time than sit-down. They have approximately 540 locations across the country.

Overall

Overall, I like this restaurant. Clearly, they carry more than burgers. You can order ahead of time and pick up, or you can sit in. It is good for when you have time for more than fast food, but not enough time for a full-blown sit-down meal. The expansive menu, quality food, and cheerful service have never failed to brighten my mood.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Disclaimer: In light of more recent events, Random Geek Child no longer supports Ms. Rowling. However, we have chosen not to pull down this post, as that would be erasing part of our blog’s history.

Right, so last week I talked about J. K. Rowling. But of course, why talk about the author if I don’t mention her books? After all, were it not for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, most of us probably wouldn’t even know who J. K. Rowling is!

The Harry Potter series is about an orphaned boy named – gee, you guessed it – Harry Potter. When our story begins, Harry is ten years old and lives with his horrible aunt, uncle and cousin, who have drilled it into his head that he is practically worthless. It isn’t until his eleventh birthday, July 31st (yes, that date is eerily familiar… re-read my last post until you realize the connection), that a stranger appears on the doorstep and tells him the news: that he is a wizard, and one of the most famous wizards at that, though Harry doesn’t completely understand why.

Harry also finds out about the magical school, Hogwarts, where he makes the first friends of his life. Throughout the series, Harry and his best friends, Ron and Hermione, solve mysteries, make new friends and avoid some seriously freaky bad guys, like that pale-to-the-point-of-bloodless dude with red eyes and no nose. I mean seriously, what’s up with him? And once we’ve read far enough in the series (like, book two or so) we know he didn’t always look like that, too, so when did he go from relatively good looking, smart, seemingly-kind teenage boy to murderous creep? Anyways, you get the idea.

But what is it about this Harry kid that makes him such an interesting character? Is it his seeming inability to ever die? Actually, no. Well, okay, kind of, but not entirely. It’s his flaws that make him a memorable character. This kid has lost his parents at a young age, which he has had nightmares about ever since, grown up with relatives who practically despise him, and then, within a year of finding that somebody actually cares about him (oh, and he’s famous), he nearly dies at least five times!

Throughout the series, he watches people he cares about die, nearly dies himself, and tries to push his friends away so that they don’t die. Yet, despite these horrible odds, he and his friends always persevere. This message of perseverance in the most difficult of times is what stays with you the most about the Harry Potter series.

That, and, you know, these kids are awesome! Or, to say it more professionally, “In contrast to the lack of power most children have in their own lives, Harry and his friends master the natural world and make it behave in ways that are most unnatural,” wrote Sara Ann Beach and Elizabeth Harden Willner in World Literature Today. “In addition, they are able to use their power to frustrate those adults who do not have children’s best interests at heart. Rowling opens the door for adolescent readers to share the characters’ power while experiencing a connection to literature that has the potential to enrich their lives.”

Ironically, the “connection to literature” that the journalists above mentioned, while certainly a most-welcome product of the series, was not Rowling’s original intent. She said that, “When I write the books, I really do write them for me,” and that she didn’t expect them to be all that popular. Boy, was she proved wrong! The quote above may be another reason why we love her work so much, though: it’s straight from the heart. “… So the humor in the books is really what I find funny.” This makes the fictitious world she created all the easier to connect to.

And speaking of her expansive, hidden, magical world, let’s talk about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them! No, not the book, the film. The book doesn’t have any characters, except the author. It’s more of an index, really… an index written by Newt Scamander, the main character of the film!

Given that J. K. Rowling was directly involved in the creation of the original movies, I wasn’t that surprised to find out that she was writing a film, just excited. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them follows the awkwardly introverted English author Newt Scamander and his TARDIS-like (and technically illegal) briefcase of crazy critters to New York, where he allegedly hopes to purchase a particularly species of Puffskein as a gift.

All is going well until he runs into a Muggle (no-Maj, or non-magic person) who carries a similar briefcase, and they accidentally switch the two. The Muggle, Jacob, opens the briefcase believing that it contains harmless pastries, and instead unleashes the catastrophic creatures. Newt, Jacob, and American witches Tina and Queenie spend the rest of the film chasing down the animals, running from the uncompromising agents of MACUSA (The Magical Congress of the United States of America) who consider Newt to be a felon, and worrying about a mysterious child possessed by a dark blob that causes them to turn into a giant, destructive swirling cloud of anger.

Just like Harry Potter, Newt has his fair share of issues. His fascination and love for peculiar creatures has gotten him into much trouble over the years. He was expelled from Hogwarts after an incident with a creature (A Jarvey, I believe) that endangered the life of another student, and he carries some pretty deadly animals around with him. (Quote Newt talking to one of his creatures, “Leave his brains, come on!”) And yet, despite these flaws, he perseveres.

With these statements in mind, I will repeat one of the first lines of my last post, this time with evidence for my point:

It is this characteristic that makes these books so excellent: Rowling’s ability to create severely flawed characters, who, despite these flaws, or perhaps because of them, rise to the occasion and beat the odds. This allows her characters to be both easy to connect with and a continual inspiration.

J. K. Rowling

“There’s always room for a story that can transport people to another place.” – J. K. Rowling.

Joanne Rowling is by far best known for her work on the Harry Potter series, following a teenage boy through a fictitious magical school, shops and death traps, while encountering bewildering people, strange creatures and concerning plants. It is such a world of wonder, yet seeds of reality are cunningly sown within, complete with bits and pieces of Rowling’s personal life. It is this characteristic that makes these books so excellent: Rowling’s ability to create severely flawed characters, who, despite these flaws, or perhaps because of them, rise to the occasion and beat the odds. This allows her characters to be both easy to connect with and a continual inspiration.

J. K. Rowling was born on the 31st of July, 1965, in Chipping Sodbury (near Bristol) to Anne and Peter Rowling. Their second daughter, Dianne, would be born two years later. Rowling wrote her first book at the age of six, about a rabbit with measles. She studied French in college, then moved to Portugal to teach it. Shortly before she moved, she first conceived Harry Potter while on a delayed train. She couldn’t write it down, however, because she didn’t have a pen on her! “To my immense frustration, I didn’t have a pen that worked, and I was too shy to ask anybody if I could borrow one.” The moral: always have a writing utensil on hand!

While in Portugal, she met television journalist Jorge Arantes, whom she married and had a daughter with, before their relationship was ended by frequent quarreling. When she returned to England, she brought not only her daughter, but the first three chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. She has confirmed that her lying, arrogant character Gilderoy Lockhart was not in fact based of off Arantes, but has stated that Lockhart’s real life counterpart “even more objectionable than his fictional counterpart.”

It took talking to thirteen different publishers to find one who would take on the script, but eventually one did. A tiny publishing company, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, eventually agreed to publish the book in 1997, in large part because the editor’s eight-year-old daughter loved the first chapter.

The reaction to Harry Potter was unprecedented. By the time the third book came out in 1999, Harry Potter was on the cover of Time Magazine, and the fourth book sold a record-breaking three million books in the first forty-eight hours. In 1998, Warner Bros purchased the film rights to the series for a seven-figure sum, on the condition the Rowling be directly involved in the film process. Thus, the movies have stayed relatively true to the books, and, per her request, the actors are all British and filmed in Britain.

By the time she remarried on December 26, 2001, to anesthesiologist Neil Murray, she had accumulated $150 million dollars. Neil quit his job to take care of Jessica while her mother wrote and traveled. In 2003, he became a father of his own to their son David, who was followed two years later by their daughter, Mackenzie.

Rowling rode the wave of fame, becoming one of the wealthiest people in the world. She continued to write Harry Potter books, with a total of seven in the central series (not counting Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) and a handful of side books. Alongside, she recently began writing screenplays (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and the Fantastic Beasts series).

The fame and fortune she acquired would have been satisfying for most, but not Rowling. She felt an obligation to continue her work. She went on to create multiple websites expanding the Harry Potter universe, provide large contributions to more than eight different charities (and more than once, you can be sure), and write four other novels with no relation to Harry Potter (the Cormorant Strike series — currently three books — and The Casual Vacancy).

Run from the Minotaurus!

Yes, Minotaurus, not Minotaur. Minotaurus is a simple, quick LEGO game about teams of heroes and a minotaur that guards the Temple at the center of the board. Minotaurus, a Lego game

As could be expected with a LEGO game, first you have to build it. This phase is pretty straightforward: follow the building instructions. Once you’ve built the board, the game can begin.

Choose the color of your little LEGO people’s armor (apparently that’s how you distinguish nations in this game?). The youngest player goes first, rolling the special die, which you constructed along with the board. The original die has 3-6, gray and black. If you roll a number, you move one of your heroes that amount of spaces (one pip on the board is one space, and no diagonals). If you roll a gray, you move one of the gray walls to wherever you’d like on the board, so long as there is at least one path from every starter corner block to the center. If you roll the black side of the die, you get to move the Minotaur eight spaces, again in whichever direction you choose.

If the Minotaur catches a hero during any of those eight moves, the hero goes back to their starting block and the Minotaur goes back to the center. The goal of the game depends on how many players you have. The game rules state that if there are only two players, you have to get two of your heroes to the Temple, and if there are three or four players, you only have to get one to the Temple.

That said, the rules aren’t concrete. There’s another side to the die that can replace the number three, if you chose. It’s green, and when you roll it, you can choose to move one of the hedges. You can also change the goal. By changing the rules, you could theoretically play this game solo, but I think it’s more fun with other people.

Now THIS is REAL Trivia!

One thing that has always bothered me about trivia games is how easy they are. Well, I’m glad to say that I have finally found a game where that is most certainly not an issue. For Christmas, my mother bought me Blinded By Science Trivia Game, a trivia game about just about every type of science. Because that name is really long, I’m just going to call it Blinded By Science.

Everything in this game, starting from the instructions, are science-y. The number of rounds in a game are the amount of colors in the rainbow for a short game, the number of the mission number of the Apollo spaceflight that brought Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon for a regular game, and the atomic number of phosphorus for a long game. Granted, you can choose to play more or less rounds depending on timing, and yes, they did include the numbers for the rounds, not just the clues. The first player to go is whichever one most closely resembles Charles Darwin.

How many cards go on the table depends on how many rounds and players there are. Multiply the rounds by the players and lay that many cards face down on the table. Each card has a name on the back that gives some clue to what the questions are about (for instance, Elementary, My Dear, was about the elements, and Bring Me A Shrubbery is about plants.) Most cards have three questions, but some have extra credit as well. Each question is worth a point.

Some questions are True or False, some are multiple choice, and some are open-ended. True or False questions include, “True or False? Penicillin was the first antibiotic widely used in modern medicine,” and “True or False? The parrotfish eats coral and poops sand.” Multiple choice questions are rare and include, “Which of the following are killed, or their growth impaired, with the use of antibiotics: bacteria, fungi, or viruses?” and open-ended questions make up the majority of the cards, with questions like, “What acid is added to silicone oil to produce Silly Putty?” and “Tomatoes are a member of what often toxic family?”

The answers to these, in order, as I’m sure you would love to know, are False, True, bacteria, Boric acid, and the Nightshade family. Yes, there is actually a type of fish that poops sand. How does that work? I have no clue, the card didn’t say. Sometimes, the card does include more information about the answer. For instance, the question about penicillin I mentioned above said, “False (sulfonamides were first; penicillin was discovered in 1928, but was not used to treat infections until 1942)”. Personally, I appreciate these notes, particularly with True or False and multiple choice questions.

You play through all of the cards, and whoever has the most points wins. There is also a version of the game where you play in teams, working together to answer the questions and gain points, though I haven’t played that option.

Historic Stuff in Philly

Good news, guys! This is my last Philadelphia post. When I think of Philadelphia, I think of the Liberty Bell, the Declaration House, and our Founding Fathers. It makes sense, when you think about it. Philadelphia used to be the capital of the United States, and so a lot of important historic stuff happened there. Assorted statues and sights around Philadelphia

The whole city was littered with random statues and memorials. There were many statues of Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington in particular, including this image of George Washington talking to Ben Franklin.

Unfortunately, the Declaration House was closed to tourism at the point when we happened across it, but we took some pictures from the outside. The Declaration House is where Thomas Jefferson first drafted the Declaration (excluding any drafting he had done within his mind, of course). There were tours at the monument shown in the lower left, but the line was long enough we didn’t go in. While I didn’t go in, I can tell you that it is called Independence Hall.

The lower right was interesting: I thought that when the map said “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier” they were talking about the big one, which confused me. After all, as I recall it, that’s in Virginia. Well, it turns out that this Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is designated for Washington’s men from the Revolution. The entire park is a burial ground, with hundreds of bodies interred there. In the same park, there was the Moon Tree, which, as I understand it, was one of 500 trees taken to the moon and back on Apollo XIV when it was just a seed, and is now growing healthily in Philly.

And of course, there’s the Liberty Bell. The monument is part of the National Park Service, and has not only the Bell itself but also tons of information on the history of the Bell, and it’s symbolic purpose over the years. Though it can no longer ring literally, it continues to ring through the spirit of all who read it’s amazing past.

Food in Philly

Yup, another post about Philadelphia, and arguably one of the most important. After all, you have to eat at some point during your stay, right? And why not try something new? Over the course of our stay, we made a point of not eating at chain restaurants to get the authentic Philly experience. I mean, Subway is okay, but I can get that back home just as easily as in Philadelphia.

Alright, first off, let’s talk about Philly cheesesteaks. I don’t know how other places serve it, but where we got it in the Reading Terminal Market, it really did just taste like an Italian Beef sandwich, and occasionally you’d have trouble biting a string of cheese and remember it was there. Granted, I like Italian Beef, so no complaints there!

Then we get to the restaurants themselves. Our hotel had an adjoining farm-to-table restaurant called Urban Farmer. The seating was wacky and fun, the food was fresh (as it should be) and tasty, and the entire place just felt homey. As I’ve found, most of the places I went in Philly didn’t put ice in the water, but in this case, it just contributed to the colloquial feel of the restaurant. I got an orange juice (I was feeling unoriginal), which was fresh-squeezed, and a Pear French Toast, with pear compote and pear slices adorning giant towers of bread. My mother got an English muffin with her omelet; the muffin was so huge that we just had leftovers for lunch that day.

Assorted food we ate in Philadelphia Our first lunch in Philly was at a small ramen place in the local Chinatown called Yamitsuki Ramen (huh, I wonder what they serve?). It was a nice little place that feels like it should have kicked in claustrophobia, but didn’t. The water was served in little beakers, and the cold tea came in Mason jars. I got a refreshing mint and blueberry tea, as well as a pork and sweetcorn ramen. The pork was huge and had to be cut up just so that I could get to the noodles, which were under the gargantuan meat and pile of corn. My ramen also had what the internet (source here) tells me is called narutomaki, or Japanese fishcake. What’s funny is, to me, it didn’t taste like fish!

I mentioned in my Pack Up + Go post that they planned us a dinner reservation. The reservation was for a nice restaurant in the neighborhood called Garces Trading Company. Like a lot of fancy places, the lights were dim, but not so dim that I couldn’t read easily. They had an entire bar of olive oil and vinegar for the breads! I capped out at one slice of bread, though the bread was good, to save room for my minestrone and homemade mozzarella. Usually, I wouldn’t have ordered a minestrone, seeing as I can and do get those back home, but I noticed on the menu that their minestrone had asparagus and something called cranberry beans. That isn’t what I would usually imagine a minestrone to contain, so I tried it. And homemade mozzarella, well, it’s homemade mozzarella. Do I really have to justify that? After dinner, they brought out dessert. I had a chocolate mousse with pistachios and raspberries on top.

Last but certainly not least, I’d like to mention the nice Mexican restaurant we went to for dinner on Sunday. El Rey is, again, a small restaurant, and one of the two Mexican restaurants on Pack Up + Go’s recommendation list. The difference? El Rey still had seats open, whereas El Vez didn’t. At El Rey, I got tamarind juice (yes, juice, not the soda) and three tamales, one chicken, one pork, and one veggie. Unlike most tamales I’ve had, the toppings were actually on top of the corn stuffs (yes, I know, very scientific terminology). For dessert, I had rice pudding flan, and Mom had a chocolate rendition of pastel de tres leches.

Overall, there was so much to eat in Philadelphia, it was almost overwhelming, but all of the food that we did get to try was delicious!

Animal-Related Stuff (in Philly)

Philadelphia related post number two: Animal-related stuff. Today I’ll be talking about the Academy of Natural Sciences [of Drexel University], the Adventure Aquarium, and the Philadelphia Zoo. Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Adventure Aquarium (Camden, NJ), Philadelphia Zoo

First up: the Academy. We never would have known about this awesome little museum if it weren’t for Pack Up + Go: the envelope they sent us included two tickets, so of course we decided to capitalize upon the opportunity.

The Academy surprised me: the outside was modest and easy to miss in the crowded city, but the interior was expansive. It was like the TARDIS: bigger on the inside. One of the largest rooms there housed several (kinda scary) fossils ranging from sea turtles to mosasaurs. Did you know that the mosasaurs’ closest living relative is the Komodo Dragon? Or that it used to live in Kansas, where there was once (or maybe two or three times over history, I don’t know) a sea in the middle of what is now the continental US?

There was a kids’ area with all sorts of little critters and a butterfly house to walk through, but what stood out most to me were the dioramas. They had entire hallways of statues upon statues, so lifelike that you almost thought the tiger in front of you would suddenly start breathing, or the rabbit would break out of it’s trance and hop away. This stunning aspect was implemented by the impressive scenery to display the habitat and the other creatures in the scene suggesting an ecosystem and not just an image.

After we finished exploring the Academy, we took a lunch break, then caught a ride over to New Jersey. Apparently, Camden is a big crime town, but the Aquarium was great. We arrived in time to watch the hippos eat cabbages, stared at a bunch of jellyfish, then walked over a metal bar (with netting) a couple feet above a bunch of sharks. We also watched penguins fight over little fish and bought some delicious cinnamon sugar donuts.

My favorite part of the aquarium was probably the multitude of critters to pet. I got to pet a stingray, a shark, a starfish, and even a shrimp! I passed on petting the crab and the lobster, even though the lobster’s claws were rubber-banded shut.

On Monday we went to the Philadelphia Zoo, which is the oldest zoo in the US. I finally got to see both a golden lion tamarin and a flamingo up close (which have both been on my to-see list for ages), stood five feet directly under a leopard, and stood a similar five feet directly under a red panda.

I got to be so close to these animals thanks to the Zoo360 program, which follows a series of suspended wire trails throughout the zoo, which the animals take turns having free range. From what I’ve seen, they have one path for the little critters (mostly primates, and, apparently, red pandas) and one for the big cats, as well as a similar trail on the ground outside the meerkat enclosure for them. The goats have a bridge that goes over the sidewalk, and some of the other monkeys have a climbing structure that takes them exceptionally near a parallel human climbing structure.

There were a bunch of games, selfie machines and other interactive exhibits to engender a learning environment, which I thought was ingenious. If you want the kids to learn while they’re on vacation, you have to convince them that they want to learn, right? Anyways, I appreciated it.

Pack Up + Go

Last weekend, my mother and I went to Philadelphia. I’ll probably spend the next few weeks raving about the assorted aspects of that trip, but today I want to talk about the travel agency that sent us there.

You see, we didn’t actually know where we were going until the day we left. We used this cool agency called Pack Up + Go to decide that for us. You fill out a survey – where you’ve been recently, where you’re headed in the near future, hotel vs B&B, what days you’d like to book the trip for, what sort of stuff you like, car or bus/train/plane.

Pack Up + Go arranges your flights and accommodations, sends you a list of what to pack and the weather forecast for where you’re headed, checks you in for your flights once check-in opens and emails you your boarding passes. They also send you an envelope that you don’t open until the day of departure with where you are headed, lists of places you might want to go in that place, and a map of the city. Pack Up + Go vacation

As if this wasn’t enough, they also provided us with a dinner reservation and tickets to the Academy of Natural Sciences (which I will refrain from speaking about until a later post), most likely because we specified our interest in science and history on our survey.

DragonVale

I first started playing DragonVale when I was six. I played on my mother’s iPad, then on my tablet, then on my phone. DragonVale is a fun, child friendly (obviously) app where you raise and breed dragons. I’ve tried a few other games like it over the years, but never found it’s equal. (Granted, I’m a bit biased; it was my first dragon game online.)

Dragons come in types (Plant, Fire, Water, etc.). When you first unlock a type, you need to buy the Type Habitat and the main Type Dragon. Once you have these, you can breed them to gain combo dragons. These can live in Habitats of any type that match theirs. Note: if you breed a Fire Dragon with an Air Dragon, there are 4 possible that dragon types you can breed. I’d presume that logically, this is due to dominant genes and the like, but I have no clue. I think the game just decides randomly.

Besides breeding dragons, you can also enter them in Colosseum competitions and send them on quests. These earn you Dragon Food, money, and gems.

Occasionally you breed rare dragons. For instance, I’ve just breed an Epic Tinsel Dragon, which is, according the the DragonVale Wiki, produced by a Holly Dragon bred with any species of Cold dragon.

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