Category: Miscellaneous

Advent

December 1, 2023

Advent is upon us (well… in two days it is) and you know what that means: Advent Calendars! This year, somehow, we have five.

This is perhaps the most mundane: 24 days of various skincare products. KLS bought this one for herself and started opening it about 5 days ago so she will finish it before we travel. It’s mostly small or sample-sized cosmetics.

She also got this super-fancy (and expensive) Florasis calendar, which shipped from China. It’s a sturdy box with a magnetic clasp and though it’s not visible in the photo has a lustrous coating that sparkles in the light.

Inside each of the 12 doors is a high-quality cosmetic item. As you can see door 1 was opened this morning, and contained a bottle of ‘Botanical Hydra-Sooth Balancing Cleansing Oil‘.

Since cats are well-known for their love of ceremony, naturally we got them an advent calendar as well!

It’s another fancy affair: well constructed with a meal behind each of the 24 doors.

Zoffy approved of day 1, which was a chicken pate 🙂

And look at this: a second advent calendar for our kitties. This was a gift from JK and is a dry treat version. I’m pretty sure Loppi will be a big fan since she love treats. We’ll open the first door when KLS gets home later.

Lastly there is this guy: ‘The Star Chaser‘. This is a jigsaw puzzle advent calendar!

It’s got 24 doors but only 19 puzzles since some doors contain portions of a larger puzzle. It seems each day is part of a story and the goal is to ‘find’ a magical Christmas star.

The box warns me not to open more than one box a day lest I interfere with the magic. Maybe I’ll break that oath since I want to finish it before we travel 🙂

The day 1 puzzle was a big surprise since it’s not only a postcard but also double-sided. Since this is a plastic Pintoo puzzle, the quality is sky-high and it was fun to put together. The calendar includes no instructions or images (you can get them online) but I didn’t earn my nickname of The Prodigy of Puzzles without reason and I knocked this one together in only a moment.

Did you get any advent calendars this year? If so, which ones? And will you be good and open only one door a day?

Comic-Con Haul

October 29, 2023

I just got back from Albany Comic-Con. I hadn’t been for many years, and last time I did go (pre-pandemic) it was disappointing. With a new, larger venue (and at $10, double the admission) I thought it was time to check it out again.

It only took me about a half hour to explore all the dealers tables, and here’s what I bought:

A 1992 issue of Dungeon magazine ($5). I took a gamble on this because I have a couple of dozen of these but happily I didn’t have this one. This is the TSR companion to Dragon magazine that features premade adventures, and I always enjoy reading them.

Two packs of Denny’s Solo Cards ($1 for the two). These were given out at Denny’s when the film came out in 2018, and each pack contained two cards and two coupons. I believe I had two of these packs, gifted to me by JF who got them at Denny’s back then, but I couldn’t resist two more at the price. The guy selling this had hundreds of them!

A ‘full set’ (or so the seller claimed) of Taco Bell Star Wars Plastic Cups from 1996 ($5 for the set), released as part of a promotion for the Star Wars special edition. These are a mystery, since I don’t remember seeing them before but they were released during a time I was mad about collecting Star Wars ephemera and surely would have got – and saved – them. Oh well, these are in fantastic condition and I own them now 🙂

A couple of Boris Vallejo Artbooks ($20 for the two). I’m not a great fan of Vellejo’s art, since I find his physiques to be a bit grotesque, but in recent years my appreciation for pulp sword and sorcery art has increased so I’m giving him a second look. These prices were very good: about half what I would have paid on Amazon.

A carded Star Wars ‘joke’ figure: R6-SNO ($18). This was a holiday 2022 Disney Parks special edition figure, and I got it for slightly less than it goes for on eBay. I only ‘collect’ astromech droids now, and this is in fact the first figure I’ve bought since I sold off my collection. It’s a travesty isn’t it?

Two Boris Vallejo jigsaw puzzles ($30 for the pair). These were unused and even shrink-wrapped, which is remarkable since they came out in 1979! I opened both and they’re in fine condition. While the art isn’t great – surely a female barbarian would have been a more logical choice? – I enjoy jigsaws and these are both 500 pieces which is believe is the ideal size.

And that’s that! Most of the dealers were selling exclusively comics, or modern toys, so there were perhaps fewer items to my interest than I would have liked. But this is a decent hail for <$100 so I think overall it was a worthy con. What do you think of my pickups?

World Postcard Day

October 1, 2023

It’s been a year since my last Postcrossing post, which was when I passed 750 cards received. I was going to wait for 1000, but since today is World Postcard Day (did you send someone a card?) it felt like a good day to catch up.

As of today, I’ve received (and sent) 943 cards. I’m getting about 25 a month, so I’ll pass 1000 this year. There’s been no change in the top 10 countries from which I’ve received cards, but the order has shuffled a little bit:

Interestingly while I’ve received about 30 cards from Russia in the past year, I’ve sent none. I didn’t realize until writing this post that the service seems to not be assigning Russian addresses, no doubt due to the ongoing war.

The above is a map showing the locations from which I have been sent cards since I joined back in 2018. As you can see every continent is represented, with a strong concentration in Europe. If you look closely you may see one unusual one off the northwest of Africa:

That’s the island of Madeira, which is a region of Portugal. I believe that’s the most remote place from which I have received a postcard so far.

The above shows where I have sent cards, which is similar to where they have arrived from with an even larger concentration in Europe. Once again, one marker is notably more remote than others:

That’s Guam, out there in the Pacific. Although it’s counted as a country by Postcrossing, it’s a US territory and therefore I was able to send a card there using domestic postage! It also arrived very quickly, which suggests the USA doesn’t mess around getting mail to its territories 🙂

As far as cards received, the top two are notable. Both came from Australia, and both were examples of pre-stamped postcards sold at post offices. They date to 1997 and 2001, and the postage on each is much lower than what it costs today to send a card internationally. But since these are forever valid for international use, both made it here without problem. For comparison, it costs about A$3.60 to send a postcard from Australia to the USA today, but the doll one has only A$0.45 postage on it!

I was inspired by the above to test this myself when I found (in an Australian antique store back in May) a similar postcard from the early 1980s with even less postage on it. I mailed it and it arrived here without issue! If I ever see any others for sale, I’ll buy and send them for sure.

As usual I love looking at the cornucopia of stamps on the postcrossing cards, and during this past 10 months there’s been a lot of exceptional examples. I’ve only showed a couple of examples above, but the Diana stamps were unusually included on a postcard sent from Germany. I was under the impression that in most countries it wasn’t allowed to put foreign stamps on postal items so maybe this was simply overlooked by a postal worker or perhaps it’s not a problem at all. I’m tempted to try it myself…

The above show five unusually shaped stamps received in the last year. The standout is the absolutely wild owl stamp from Finland which was a Valentine’s Day issue back in 2011! It was one of five similarly unusual (but differently shaped) bird stamps, and I’m happy the sender hung on to it for so long and sent me one.

The other Postcrossing news from the last year was that for a time I was seriously facing the need to stop due to lack of postcards. It’s become impossible to buy new ones in Albany, so I used to depend on the freeway rest stop shops and used to stock up every time we took a long drive. However they have closed as well, which left only Rochester which itself has run nearly dry. Things looked grim indeed until by a happy twist of fate I learned of the existence of a dedicated postcard shop not half an hour from our house! Two visits later and I’d bought 200+ cards for about $0.25 each, most of which will be used for Postcrossing. It seems my membership can continue for the foreseeable future 🙂

Robot Claw