May 2018 – 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.

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