Prior to leaving home, we had obtained reservations for a 1:45 PM tour of Mammoth Cave. Due to the logistics of getting people in and out of the park, it operates differently than other parks; they do not sell year-old park passes and tours are the only way to get in and out of the caves. We got on I-65 and within an hour were within the boundaries of the park. The deer population rivaled the number of people we saw on the way in. In fact, there were so few people on the way in that I began to
We left home at 2:55 PM and filled up the gas tank on the way out of town. Like our first trip, we went along I-40 and made good time. Our first stop was at the stadium of the Hickory Crawdads at 4:30. The good ol' boys manning the front office informed us that they no longer sold pennants—in fact, they stopped production a few years ago because there weren't enough buyers. Nevertheless, one of them offered to take us through the empty stadium to their gift store, and we were willing to go alo
It is with no slight degree of sadness that we bid adieu to the road-trip days of "Lulu," the black Buick that has taken us on more journeys than I can remember, from years before these Great American Road Trips began. She took us to Florida at least twice, to BrickFair for three years, and Toronto in 2011, not to mention the 20,000 miles from the first three mega-trips and countless hour-long jaunts to my grandmother's house. Lulu has been a great car for us, but with her mileage nearing 140,00
[NOTE: My apologies in advance for typos, but it's 2:12 in the morning so I think I have an excuse.] I'm afraid that I'm known more here now for being away for long periods of time, only to drop in every now and then with a long blog entry either detailing my life or sharing some offbeat observation. This is one of the former, although it has more to do with the events leading up to the things that have concluded in this month. The Honor Society For years, I've been an honor society member
Let's face it: franchises rule the box office. Let's take a look at some of the big franchises, both current and anticipated, and get a good sense of where this is all headed. There's more peril than promise, I fear. First, let's look at Harry Potter, the quintessential film franchise. One movie per book, with seven b—no, wait, they split Deathly Hallows to keep the die-hards happy, so eight movies. Still, that's pretty good, right? They didn't split Goblet of Fire like they were going to; w
Late last night, I was up thinking (uh oh), and the most random question popped into my head: what Hogwarts house would Ron Swanson be in? The answer became very complex very quickly, because Ron Swanson—like all of the Parks and Recreation characters—is more interesting than a some actual people, which makes a simple classification tricky. But Hogwarts houses shouldn't just be a simple classification, which is what they've boiled down to. They're flanderized and there's not much that Rowlin
Star Wars is back with Episode VII at the end of this year, and I'm pumped because I'm secretly Star Wars trash. The first time I saw Star Wars, Episode I was already out. I accepted Jar Jar from a young age, but it didn't take me long to realize that while I enjoyed it, it really wasn't the same style of film. Nevertheless, I remember counting down the days until Attack of the Clones came out and I remember liking it too. By the time 2005 rolled around and I was counting down the days until
Alternatively: The Wonderful World of Going Through Old Pictures I would say "presented out of context" but I don't even remember the context for this in the slightest.
I am the first to admit that the time I spent on the old forums was time spent as a noob in nearly every regard, but I joined when I was only ten, so my zealous enthusiasm for BIONICLE, the site, and literally any member I thought was cool has an explanation. When the forums came back, I felt like I'd grown quite a bit in many ways. I still didn't really know what I was doing or what I'd be doing in the future—aren't we all adrift in that regard?—but I felt more confident about my life. Life
It all began with the idea for a short story, yet it spun into a full-blown comic tetralogy that took the Comedies forum by storm. Now, after four installments of eight chapters each, The Adventures of Sumiki's Dad has come to an end. The complete Adventures of Sumiki's Dad saga shall be printed and bound later this year. At least one of these copies will go to Portalfig (the Blogarithm Contest #9 winner). Where to from here? Let's just say the G&T forum should look out.
As a kid, I grew up seeing Shakespeare as a bit of a rite of passage. I knew he had a propensity for wordiness (exacerbated by the sheer time differential in the years that have passed since the Bard wrote his last), and my one and only encounter with similarly loquacious literature (the opening chapters of The Hobbit) in November of my fourth grade year averted me from any writer who chose to couch their ideas in language I considered overwrought. Now look at me; I completely unironically wro
This next week will be one of the most important weeks of my life. I have back-to-back music auditions on Friday and Saturday, and it's been an interesting setup thus far. I have ties to both schools, but they have very different audition standards and admissions offices. One requires a piano audition, which I'm not excited about—not that I'm not competent at the instrument (far from it), but that I'm afraid I'll be judged in that area against full-time prospective piano students with whom I
My previous appearance at a plastic surgeon to excise a cyst from the right side of my neck ended with me setting up a follow-up appointment in order to remove an adjacent mole. I'd had this mole since birth, and when the surgeon heard of this, he told me that such things have a small but significant chance of developing into melanoma. Earlier in the week, I went over there and the operation was almost entirely the same as what I'd experienced before: some sharp pain during the numbing process
Xaeraz kills zombies Slayraz Xaeraz is a significant other Baeraz Xaeraz arrives before June Mayraz Xaeraz appears in a John Green novel Okayraz Xaeraz is a well-trained dog Stayraz Xaeraz takes a nap Layraz Xaeraz is diurnal Dayraz Xaeraz becomes fond of ligatures Xæraz
G1 and G2 are not related. Yes, they're reusing names, and they're reusing elements, and the Vahi keeps cropping up in hidden ways. But other franchises have gone through reboots, and no other fandom has attempted to connect generations as I've seen here. Please stop trying to connect them. Sincerely, Sumiki
So about a year ago, I was sitting in a chair and my dad suddenly starts feeling along the upper right side of my neck. I had a large bump in it and went to see a dermatologist, who didn't know what it was but prescribed a low-strength antibiotic to try and get it down. It worked a little bit, but the bump never went away. It wasn't painful in the slightest, which made it pretty strange. Last fall, I went back to the dermatologist. He'd narrowed it down to "cyst" and "random inflammation," hav
I've had this blog since a few months after I joined, and although I don't have eight full years of entries (I deleted many on the back end), there are still plenty of memories and hilarious moments in its many pages. To spare you the pain of trawling them, here's a list containing the best of the best. I request that no one comment in these entries. Wikipedia Has it All Wrong - 12/29/09 The Tale of the Toxic Waste Bunny - 05/03/10 -----the original Sumiki's Dad adventure Someone Had to Do I
You know, I was trying to decide the other day who my favorite Toa from G2 is going to be, and lo and behold, I find out that I've won a Kopaka poster. IT'S BEEN DECIDED
My grandmother is making excellent physical progress; she's far beyond where she was a week after the first surgery. The physical therapy the rehab center is making her is above and beyond what we are capable of assisting her with. The painkillers have made her equal parts loopy, groggy, and irritable. Her loopiness makes her forgetful and willing to say things in her sleep worthy of my status updates (my personal favorite is "baby fig, baby fig, oh, baby fig ... CHICKEN"), her grogginess make
My grandmother progressed well after her second surgery, but the doctors wanted her to go to rehab to make her move around enough to prevent scar tissue from forming in her back, which was part of why she had to have a second surgery in the first place. Though we all knew it was the best thing for her, she didn't take it with a sound mind; although she doesn't have any sort of dementia, the pain medicine regimen the hospital put her on threw her brain for a loop. Essentially, while given these
After struggling mightily to cull excellent entries down to a lone winner, Sumiki's Dad has chosen Portalfig as the winner of Blogarithm Contest #9: Vakama Eats Spam‽ Portalfig will be featured in The Adventures of Sumiki's Dad 2: Vakama Eats Spam, to be posted shortly in the Comedies forum. In addition, Portalfig will receive a signed copy of The Adventures of Sumiki's Dad saga upon its completion—signed, of course, by Sumiki's Dad himself. Dallior08 and Pohatu: Master of Stone came in seco
