“Life In The So-Called Space Age”
It never ceases to amaze me that Australia – a country with less than a tenth the population of America – has such an enormous and diverse range of candy and ice-creams in the market.
Champagne or slime in your ice-cream?
What about Lemonade chocolate?
Or this evil-sounding thing:
Here’s one of Bernard’s favourites, donuts and frozen coke:
And here’s tuna named after a genus of mammal but using a different mammal as a mascot:
Incidentally, I’ve only eaten one of the items shown above 🙂
January first means two things:
1) New Years Resolutions are broken, and
2) Racing at Randwick!
I didn’t make any resolutions, so off to the races it was!
There have been major upgrades since I was last here, including an all-new stadium. The place has ‘ritzed up’ a bit but still welcomes a diverse crowd including these three punters:
The serious look in their eyes is a hint to the theorycrafting going on inside as they pick their winners. More on the results in a bit 🙂
There are 8 races in total, and we all bet on each. The boys drunk some beer, and I shuffled around (Bernard says I’m like a shark because I can’t be still!) and watched the activities.
Here’s the view from where we sat, dubbed ‘The Kings Seat’ by Adam:
Needless to say we all had a flutter! In the interests of privacy, I was requested by East to anonymize names. Who is East? Well, I’ve given the four of us code names as you’ll see on this chart of our cumulative winnings per race:
In total, $638 was bet, and $790.30 was won. Much of this was due to a single spectacular win of $360 by North on Race 7. Not bad for a $20 bet. Even the three of us who lost overall didn’t lose much and great fun was had by all.
The question remains: who is who? Rather than say, here’s a puzzle that will let you work it out.
Four punters went to the races. Two of them always tell the truth, and two always lie. When asked their real names, here’s what they said:
North said: South is Robert
South said: West is Pat
East said: North is Bernard
West said: I’m Adam
Can you work out who’s who?
No, not those cards, these cards:
That’s a selection I obtained through my usual sources (ie. purchased at a Con). I was debating what to do with them for a while and since I’ve gone overboard with Xmas gifts already decided it was time to open them all. And so, in no particular order…
I recall having some of these cards before I ever saw the film. I think I was a bit scared of some of them actually, especially the alien ones. If I lived in the US I may have joined the fan club!
Gremlins was a bit of a phenomenon when it came out wasn’t it? And yet these days I only seem to recall the effect Phoebe had on me (and probably every other teenage boy that watched it). Looking at these cards reminds me I haven’t seen the film in 20+ years. I wonder how it has held up?
The Jaws 3D cards are as dreadful as you’d imagine, but the curiosity factor is certainly raised by the inclusion of a ‘3D viewer’. How good is the 3D effect? Well, using a bit of technomancy I can let you judge for yourself:
It’s almost like the shark is jumping out of the screen isn’t it? 😉
The Black Hole cards do an equally good job of making me want to see the film again, after 30-odd years. And who among you isn’t impressed by concept art stickers?!? But the most nostalgic part of these cards was actually on the back of the wrapper:
OMG! I remember this candy! I used to buy the coffin containers, and all the little pieces were bone shaped. Tasted terrible, but I loved the little plastic boxes 🙂
The Jurassic Park cards were very disappointing in their design, being less impressive by far than all the others. But to my excitement, the pack contained an incredible lenticular hologram card:
And even more amazingly, it’s a sticker! This is one of the most amazing chase cards I have ever seen, and I certainly didn’t expect to pull it from a $0.50 pack of 20-year old cards!
I guess Christmas came early this year 🙂