Blog « Robot Claw

Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

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

Let’s Cook Desserts!

Sunday, October 3rd, 2021

Yesterday we made these:

It was fairly easy says KLS, who did most of the work. The box contained only three things: the meringue powder, an icing pen and a bag for piping. The power was mixed with egg white and whipped until fluffy:

Then the meringues were piped onto oven paper:

Here they are before cooking:

We then baked them on lowish heat (200F) for 75 minutes, then iced them before eating:

And they were – in a word – terrible! They tasted like the glue I used to eat as a child, and the aftertaste was even worse. My happy memories of melt-in-your-mouth meringues from my youth have now been corrupted by these sticky, inedible travesties!

But there was a secret! We chose the alternate cooking method which involved the addition of tonic water. This is basically sparkling water that contained quinine, which phosphors under UV light:

Apparently adding a tiny bit to the mix makes the meringues ‘glow in the dark’! Did it work? Judge for yourself:

Posted in Blog, Food, Home | Comments Closed

Ramen 10: I’m Not Stopping!

Sunday, September 12th, 2021

I’m not reviewing ramen today, just showing off a recent purchase. Specifically this:

It’s a noodle stopper, which is a figurine designed to help keep the top on cup noodles while they steep. Most of us probably use a fork or plate or some other device, but now you can use a cute figurine:

Yes this is a real figure designed for this use. They are made by the Japanese company Furyu mostly as UFO Catcher prizes, although the days you can just buy them on amazon. Mine is Hatsune Miku in a cherry blossom outfit, and I’m astonished at the sculpting and paint job considering how inexpensive she was ($20)! She also sits on the noodles very well and keeps the top nice and sealed while the hot water does its job.

Of course since I don’t want to damage her I won’t actually be using her for this purpose, and instead she’ll sit happily on a ledge in my office to remind that a piping hot cup of noodles is only a few steps away:

Noodle stoppers: an essential tool for the cupnoodologist! 🙂

Posted in Blog, Collecting, Food, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Toys | Comments Closed

Ramen 9: Electric Chookaloo

Thursday, August 26th, 2021

Time for more chicken ramen!

Tradition Instant Noodle Soup Chicken Flavor Reduced Sodium (290 Calories, 14 g fat, 730 mg sodium)

Yet another product from this company, and as best I can tell virtually identical to the non sodium free version, which I gave a score of 0/10. So how does this stack up? Well, it’s even worse! The other had woeful noodles and no flavor at all (I even thought they’d forgotten the flavor packet), and this one has even less. It’s barely edible: -1/10

Oh Ricey! Pho Noodles Chicken Flavor (270 Calories, 6 g fat, 1600 mg sodium)

I’m bending the rules here a bit since these aren’t ramen, but since they’re a dehydrated brick noodle product I doubt anyone will complain. This is a rice noodle soup, with unusual translucent noodles that secreted a frankly disturbing slime when heated. The flavor pack is just a bag of sticky oil and the entire concoction, once prepared, was about as appetizing as something I’d award a score of 0/10.

Despite my reaction to this dross, KLS ate it. I just now asked her what she thought and she said “I don’t remember it!”

Cup Noodle Artificial Chicken Flavor (320 Calories, 11 g fat, 1620 mg sodium)

I can barely believe I haven’t yet covered a Cup Noodle ramen yet, especially since I even bought a model kit of one!

This is a Chinese version and I assumed it’s probably the same as the USA one. After trying it though, I’m doubtful. The noodles are good (as you would expect from the guys who invented cup ramen) but the taste was far too earthy for my delicate palette, and even had a hint of spiciness. Overall I think this is a good product, just probably not to my taste: 6/10.

Nine installments of ramen reviews so far, and there’s more to come! Stay tuned…

Posted in Blog, Food | Comments Closed

Robot Claw