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LEGO Rollercoaster

Saturday, December 11th, 2021

I got this for Christmas last year, and I wanted to build it before this Christmas. So I did!

It wasn’t a difficult build, but it was very time consuming. Much of the build was the framework to support the track, and it’s very strong, with the white cylindrical pillars reinforced with axle pieces. Breaking this thing down is going to be a significant challenge.

Even in the early stages, it was clear this was going to be a big kit once finished. For some reason the photos on the box didn’t suggest it was overly large, but as you can see here it scaled up quickly!

The coaster is built in two halves, and the above photo shows it at approximately the halfway point. I’d estimate this was about 6 hours of work at this point.

The second half took longer since it also included most of the mechanics and the kiosks such as the ticket booth. By the time I got to the above step, where I had to connect 203 tiny track pieces (for the winch system to lift the car) my fingers were in agony 🙂

The final kit is enormous, and can’t realistically be displayed in this house. After my trip I’ll have to separate it and store it away. But it’s an extraordinary piece of engineering, because it actually works! The coaster includes a hand-wound winch system that raises the car to the top, and when the car is released it traverses the entire track at an unexpected speed!

I’m particularly impressed with the carriage design, since it’s very flexible and also grabs the track like a real car. I imagine a lot of analysis went into working out the friction involved so it could navigate the track.

And of course this is still a LEGO kit, and part of an increasing series of amusement park rides. As such it is minifig scale, and includes a wonderfully designed ticket booth, drink vendor and even post-ride photo station. All of this fills the space at ground level and – for kids – would give this great play level.

I can only imagine if kits like this existed when I was a kid. I would have sent my LEGO spacemen and knight figures around this coaster all day long 🙂

Posted in Blog, Toys | Comments Closed

$1 Microwave Cheeseburger Review

Saturday, November 27th, 2021

Posted in Blog, Food | Comments Closed

Halloween Decorations

Sunday, October 24th, 2021

Covid ‘canceled’ Halloween last year, and nothing much happened in the way of decorations or trick-or-treaters. This year it seems people are making up for 2020, since the local decorations have taken it to a new level!

That’s a quartet of creepy children in a yard not far from here. They are on a framework which I believe spins when switched on. They’re quite disturbing even up close and I imagine a real scare for young children!

The same house has a hanging skeleton (with axe in chest) and a disturbing evil clown. The quality of these decorations are leagues beyond even a few years ago, and they’re so common this year!

All of the above is in our street alone! Giant animated inflatable trees, a massive pumpkin with a flame light effect, a dog skeleton and another skeleton rising from a grave!

One of the best in our street is this Sadako (the evil long-haired girl from the Japanese film series The Ring) sitting on a swing blocking a front door. I imagine on Halloween night they’ll light this creepily, and it’ll be terrifying for kids to have to push her out of the way!

But the most impressive decorations we’ve seen this year utilize these $80 posable life-sized skeletons sold at Walmart:

People have been so creative with these! Here’s one display not far from our house:

Mum, dad, child and a dog – all skeletons! They spent big on this didn’t they?

A little farther down the road we see this guy keeping watch next to a mailbox:

Fantastic isn’t it?

And then just down the road from our house the owners have put two of these guys and poles and even strung up a net and shuttlecock to make this incredible display:

Skeleton badminton players! And they’ve even lit it at night:

Let’s hope the children are out trick-or-treating this year. It would be shame for all these decorations to not be appreciated 🙂

Posted in Blog, Garden, Holiday, Miscellaneous | Comments Closed

The Biggest Apple

Monday, October 11th, 2021

We went to NYC for a KLS birthday trip. We stayed in the same hotel we always do and our room this time was amazing!

It even had a balcony, with a view of the city and Bryant Park:

Since dining-in hasn’t really returned (thanks Covid!) we made use of this balcony many times enjoying a meal with a view:

The city has also added many more tables and chairs everywhere for outdoor dining, which we took advantage of more than once:

So what did we do? Mostly shopping! We bought so much stuff, especially from the Japanese shops. Food, cosmetics, books, toys and souvenirs. I also sent too many postcards!

We walked everywhere visiting all our favorite stores and it was good to see they are mostly in good shape, obviously having navigated the pandemic well enough. There’s a lot of shops that haven’t though, with far more than usual shopfronts for rent. There’s more construction than usual as well, and this is in a city that is always busy with construction:

We also walked The High Line, a converted elevated rail line which is now a public garden. This took us to a brand new NYC attraction, Little Island, an artificial island/garden built on the Hudson waterfront:

Of course we went to Times Square as well:

And took a brief walk to Central Park to admire the newly opened tallest apartment building in the world, which was disappeared into the clouds the morning we saw it:

We filled our 3.5 days and had a lot of fun:

Covid is here to stay and I believe will be affecting our lives for years to come, especially in a country like the USA where a large contingent fails to take it seriously. It was reassuring to take a trip (including rail travel) amidst all the covid restrictions (masks, social distancing, vaccination cards etc) and still have as much fun as similar city trips we have taken in the past.

Posted in Blog, Trip | Comments Closed

Gorgeous Boy

Tuesday, October 5th, 2021

When we were in Salem back in the summer, we visited a tiny shop selling collectibles and rare toys and in a basket found two 1980s Boy George scrapbooks. They contained original cuttings from magazines and newspapers glued onto the pages with occasional comments. They looked a bit like this (although were much more impressive):

We were both quite taken by these since they were so well made and the creator obviously loved Boy George. I asked the shop owner if she knew anything about the person who had sold them and to our surprise she said they were hers!

Even more astonishingly, she told us an incredible story about how she, as a teenager (she was about our age), actually met Boy George! I forget the details but she went into a ladies bathroom (at a hotel? Restaurant?) in a major US city (New York?) and he was in there. She was starstruck and asked him what he was doing in the ladies bathroom and he replied “The same thing you’re doing!” 🙂

I felt very strongly that she shouldn’t sell the scrapbooks, and told her as much. My opinion is that they were an important part of her personal history, and the short-term gain of a few dollars would never be worth their loss.

She said no one in her family cared about them (including her kids) but admitted she herself had never even looked through them in years. I dared her to look through them and not be overcome with happy memories and nostalgia, and I think she got my message. Before we left, she said she was going to remove them from sale at least long enough to read them again.

I hope she kept them, because they were both amazing. If I had made those scrapbooks, I would have liked to still have them today.

Posted in Blog, Celebrity, History | Comments Closed

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