Mini: Surprise Art (Video)

Due to how chaotic things are this week, I don't know if I will have a post for this weekend. But, I might. I didn't quite get a queue going like I had hoped. I did happen upon something odd between interviews though, and it isn't enough for a real post, but sometimes the blog needs to remember that err is part of the name.

King's Island Grand Carnival

 

One of the big events I looked forward to this year was the return of KI's Grand Carnival. [note: at the time of this post, I owned two units of Cedar Fair, the parent company of Kings Island.] It was something I was really looking forward to, especially since it was canceled last year due to Covid, and the year before I only got to see it once. Well, I actually did see it a little more than once, because that year I worked at the park, and trained a day to work the festival before an injury involving a swivel chair almost cost me my foot.

Part of what I love about the festival is that it reminds me a bit of New Orleans. After missing the event in '19, we made plans to go to NOLA for my birthday in 2020, and actually officially left there a week before they claimed Covid arrived. It is one of my favorite places, for reasons I may not ever fully understand. I love it there, and I always feel like I am missing so much on my visit. The parades there that I caught were similar in some ways to what KI had and very different in others. KI kept it family-friendly, and a lot of the parades in New Orleans are also family-friendly. I still hope to watch the Krewe of Thoth's parade one day, but that didn't align with our trip. 

We made three trips this year to KI for the parade, and also the food festival that came with it. We did go a little overboard with the tasting cards, and as a result, we may have about 5 packages of Macaroons still. I really enjoyed the Chinese food section, but I really preferred the Food and Wine Festival at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. 

A few of the floats were different this year, there was at least one I know was missing, or it was changed a lot. I can not say for sure, and since they ran this at another park at the same time, it might have shuffled them a little. 

I don't know if they will do it again next year, maybe they will send it to other parks. Maybe it would be worth seeing how other parks do it, and we might have the opportunity to travel to the other parks next summer. Of course, with the normal pattern of changing shows up after two years, Grand Carnival might be gone after this. Time will tell, as the world hopefully gets back to whatever normal really is. 

More photos...

Gem City Comic Con

 

I really didn't have a lot to do last weekend, other than a dinner at the local Masonic Lodge, and one of my friends called up and asked if I wanted to tag along to a local comic show. He had a computer repair job in the afternoon, so it was just going to be a short trip. Since admission was only $10, I couldn't resist. 

We headed down to the Dayton convention center and got a decent parking spot, arriving about half an hour before the show opened. Since we were there before it opened, we got a free signed print from Stuart Sayger, which was nice. (If awkward to carry around.) It did take a few tries to find his booth, but we did it.

I was just looking for anything that would catch my eye, and I did pick up a few things. Like the Funko Pop Deadpool Trex that I have been looking for all summer. (I bought two, my son wanted one as well, and it was becoming a competition to see who would get to find it first. I drive and have money, so there was a bit of an advantage.  There were other things that I might have bought if I had a real job, like a bust of Captain Picard face-palming. It was really tempting though! 

Even though the show was Comic specific, there were a few cosplayers, at least two that I saw from My Hero Academia. It was a small show though, and we actually paid the parking garage fee two minutes shy of two hours. (Saved a dollar or two!) 

My friend didn't quite find what he was looking for (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers comics) and he was told by one vendor that they had them in their store nearby. So after the Con, we headed to Bell Book and Comic where he may have spent almost $200 on comic books. I'm not judging, I quit collecting comics in college, but I transitioned to Anime Cels for a while, then ran out of money. (I may have over 100 manga books now though. I would rather not count them. Most of Inuyasha and Full Metal Alchemist, and a number of others.)

While it wasn't as large as GalaxyCon was in Louisville, not by a long shot, it was still a nice local show. I might go back next year. It wasn't exactly expensive, and I could have (should?) completed my youngest son's Assassination Classroom manga set, so he would want to go for that alone. And besides, maybe next time I will have the money to burn just for Picard's Facepalm statue.