Category: Blog

The Box Of Treasures

September 25, 2022

This came in the mail the other day:

It’s a box from Adam’s sister (let’s call her AC) in Japan! It’s a large box and had been traveling for almost 3.5 months! It was sent surface mail which could be the topic of a blog post in and of itself (but I shall save for another time).

The box was a big surprise, and I couldn’t wait to open it. But never in my wildest imagination did I expect the contents:

Look at this pristine condition burger box from McDonald’s! Back in April Macca’s Japan had a Shin Ultraman collaboration which featured the return of two chicken burgers which would be sold in Ultraman boxes. AC sent me two of these boxes! Aren’t they beautiful 🙂

But it didn’t stop there! Inside the box was also three of the special Ultraman branded plastic cups, also from McDonald’s. These are even prettier than the burger box and have immediately become the stars of my ‘Ultraman fast food packaging’ sub-collection!

I don’t know any details behind the acquisition of these items – AC included limited commentary in the box – so I assume she went to McDonald’s herself and purchased a Shin Chicken Tatsuya burger with accompanying McFizz Aomori Fuji Apple beverage. And yet the burger boxes are absolutely spotless and look unused… did she have a black market connection? However she obtained these, I appreciate it.

If you’re not aware, these items are in collaboration with the brand new Shin Ultraman film that opened in Japan in May. I want to see this film more than any film that ever existed but it hasn’t yet been released outside of Japan so I continue to wait. I’m guessing Amber saw the movie, since the box also contained this extraordinary item:

I believe this is a cup purchased from a Japanese cinema! The side of the cup features the movie logo, and underneath it says ‘fantasy special effects film’ just in case you’re one of the handful of Japanese movie-goers that hasn’t heard of Ultraman! The cup is large and the Ultraman on top – in his Spacium Beam pose – is large and dynamic. This is an amazing item that will proudly be displayed on my shelf for ever!

And this wasn’t everything in the box. There were a few other Ultraman items, an extraordinary hand towel (that you’ll see in a future post), a clear file (how did AC know I was planning an upcoming clear file post?!?) and two more incredible Gotochi postcards including this one:

I need to go back to Japan so I can send some of these special postcards myself…

Thanks AC; this box was like Christmas coming early 🙂

The Bonkers Picross Book

September 20, 2022

I bought this last time I was in NYC:

KLS and I both enjoy Picross puzzles, and even without opening it I knew I’d be buying it. Here’s what the cover says:

Summer 2022 Anime Feature?!? Fun, beautiful and easy to draw? Dream co-star feature?!? Sheep with presents??!?

This was my sort of book!

Picross is the puzzle where you fill in squares in a grid to make a picture according to the numbers along the edges of the rows and columns. If it says 4 that means 4 connected squares. 4 2 would mean an unconnected blocks of 4 and 2 along that line (or column). It’s fun 🙂

The book is loaded with puzzles – over a hundred – and they get difficult almost immediately. The above photo are all the ‘easy’ ones they have, and after these you dive right into this sort of madness:

The difficulty difference between the eggplant and whatever the above is is tremendous, and it would take a great deal of time to solve.

But this book has incentives for beating the puzzles! When you finish one you can answer the question next to it (which seems to usually be ‘identify this character’) and submit your answer to win a prize, some of which are very nice:

As befits an anime themed puzzle book, many of the prizes are for anime/game fans as well. Alas the submission for entry was September 19 (yesterday!) so it seems I’ll miss out.

If you’re some sort of Picross god and have no trouble with that 45 x 50 shown above, this book has you covered, since it even has several large fold-out puzzles including this lunacy:

That’s 60 x 200, or 120 times larger than the goat I did above. This would be a monumental achievement to complete. I wonder how long it will take me?

And if you’re just masochistic, the book even includes some (harder) colored picrosses, including this fold-out one:

Yes, it is as difficult as it looks.

Oh and if you’re wondering what these look like when finished, the book also includes the full solutions to the previous issue, which it seems was anime-themed as well:

Since I’ve done the easy 10 x 10 puzzles I’m moving on to a bigger challenge: a 45 x 50 one featuring characters from the Bastard!!! anime:

I’ll follow up if I ever manage to complete it 🙂

My UFO Sighting

September 8, 2022

Earlier this year when I was in Australia, I saw a UFO. Or perhaps three UFO’s. I didn’t write about it then because I had forgotten, so it’s time to remedy that.

It was late May or early June. I was walking along the Newcastle Harbour foreshore toward Nobby’s. It was bright and sunny, and there were lots of people walking and cycling. I was taking some photos of the ferry, so I was approaching the dock from the west. All of a sudden, three silver objects noiselessly flew quickly over me.

Here are my impressions:

They were moving fairly quickly in a roughly eastern direction out to sea, and there was no noise at all.
They were silver or at the least light gray or white. They seemed reflective, and while they seemed elongated it was difficult to determine their exact shape.
They seemed to twist and turn around their individual axes, and the trio of objects seemed to rotate together or at least turn in formation.
The more I watched them the more I wasn’t sure I was looking at multiple objects or one (possibly connected by parts I could not see).
I couldn’t determine their height. I couldn’t tell if they were small and closer to the ground or large and higher up.

The above photo shows their path as best I recall. I watched them for maybe 30 seconds, and even tried to take some photos (in which they weren’t visible). Due to the bright sun and the reflective nature of the objects they became difficult to see as they moved away from me, and I lost site of them probably around the time they left the harbour.

I wasn’t the only one who saw them, since I observed two men ahead of me pointing towards them and watching as well.

At the time, I had no idea what I was watching. In my mind I assumed they were simply something that I could not identify, but not for one instant did I consider they were something no-one could identify. For me therefore, they were literally UFOs, but I never considered that they were UFOs for everyone. I was certainly intrigued by them, and wished I had taken some video, but to be honest they left my mind quickly. I didn’t even write about them on a postcard, which seems unusual.

Before writing this post I did a bit of research, and confirmed that there was no scheduled fighter jet activity from Williamstown on or about Newcastle in late May or early June. Even though nothing about the objects suggested ‘jets’ to me, I wanted to consider the most obvious explanation. Thinking about the objects now, my guess would be drones, although I’m not aware of drones that can fly so fast and with such range, and as I said I couldn’t estimate the size when I saw them. I suppose other exotic explanations may exist: I did see a gyrocopter flying over Newcastle baths only a few days prior!

I was reminded of this incident after speaking with a colleague about UFOs. I was struck by the fact that this had happened to me, and I definitely saw physical things (or a thing) that I could not – and still can’t – identify flying over a major city, and it didn’t seem like a big deal and was forgotten by the end of the day. This gives me a new perspective on UFO sightings: how often do others see curious objects in the sky, wonder for a minute or so and then just go on with their lives?

To the Novocastrians reading: have you ever seen anything like this? If so, what was it?

Robot Claw