Miscellaneous « Robot Claw

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My Collection: Virtual Boy

Friday, May 24th, 2019

In 1995 Nintendo released their Virtual Boy console. It utilized monochrome red stereoscopic 3D graphics and became a legendary failure, being pulled from the market in under a year. The launch price was $180; eight months after launch I bought mine – an ex-rental – for $30.

When assembled for use it looks like this:

And is played like this:

While playing you view two screens – one each eye – which form a 3D image via parallax. It’s very effective – ‘true’ 3D – and almost impossible to photograph. But I tried:

While the 3D effect is convincing, there are three significant problems with the device:
1) The games are poor.
2) The posture required to actually play it is painful.
3) Playing hurts the eyes and for most people (myself included) causes headaches in only minutes.

It’s incredible this was ever released since these serious issues are obvious after even casual use. I remember after it launched I knew it would fail, and was never seriously interested in buying one even after the first price cut (this is an advert I kept from a late 1995 comic):

Only 14 games were released in the USA (22 worldwide) and I own four:

All of these were purchased brand new for $10 apiece (games were $30 at launch). I got Red Alarm the day I got the system, and the others about six months later. I recall playing the Wario game to completion but barely played the others.

The cartridges are large but very thin, and quite collectible today. The game shown above may be my priciest single game, with boxed copies on eBay right now for $900 (yes, nine hundred). It’s notable for being the last and rarest game for the system and for being linked to the Persona series.

I only paid $70 for my system and games. I could probably sell it all for $1000+ today. Not bad for one of the biggest failures in video game history.

Posted in Collecting, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Tech | Comments Closed

A New Sink

Tuesday, May 14th, 2019

We had the trap under our sink rust out three months ago, and needed to call a plumber. A lot of money later – admittedly because I had him replace our water shutoff downstairs as well – the leak was fixed.

Then the other day we discovered a more insidious problem. A water line to our faucet had developed a slow drip leak and needed replacement. Once again the plumber was called.

He tore out the water-damaged undersink cupboard floor and we found a puddle. It’s possible water had been soaking into the wood a while, but there’s no sign of serious damage either here or downstairs so it looks good. The pipe on the left was corroded and had at least two slow leaks. It had to go.

That’s our old sink. And when I say old, I mean probably as old as the house. The faucet was terrible and wobbly, and the sprayer was lying in the sink since we discovered a few days back that it leaked into the cupboard too!

KLS wanted a new sink and faucet and as it turns out the plumbers company (who had also done our furnace and AC) was full service and he said he could install everything today! So we had a price estimate chat, I picked out a sink and faucet, and he got to work.

Most of this needed to be replaced, which essentially would erase half the work we paid for three months ago! It looked like hellish work due to how inaccessible it is, and he was both older and bigger than me.

He worked professionally and obviously had a lot of experience. All day he was cutting pipes, welding them together, removing the old sink and putting in the new. Including a trip to collect the parts it took him 7.5 hours in total before it was all done.

The only parts not new are the pipe from the wall and the bottom of the trap. The water lines were replaced from floor level. The black pipe is the line to the faucet sprayer, and the black cylinder is the weight to keep it in the faucet.

And there it is. As you can see I went with a simple design, and unlike our old faucet it can turn to the side thus freeing the sink (which is deeper). It’s all high quality stuff too; leagues better than the old.

Of course it was hellishly expensive, but anyone that owns a home knows the terror of calling the plumber. But this work should last longer than we’ll be in this house, and given we’ve hardly put anything into this place for all the years we’ve been here we reckon that’s not bad at all.

Posted in Home, Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »

Two Ptimo Kits

Sunday, May 12th, 2019

While in Japan back in January I picked this up:

It’s a weird superdeformed Hatsune Miku model kit that I previously didn’t even know existed. Even better it was only about $20! Today I made it.

So far so good, lots of pieces in many colours. However I immediately noticed that the runners were all single colour, that the plastic was somewhat brittle and that there was a frankly unacceptable amount of flash on many pieces:

I usually make kits by Bandai (Gundam) or Kotobukiya (ZOIDS, Frame Arm Girls) and the QC on those kits is so high that I can’t recall ever seeing flash. Furthermore they have multicoloured runners, pieces made of all sorts of plastic (or even rubber or metal) and everything goes together perfectly.

Here, not so much. Assembly was tricky and at times difficult, seams were often visible and due to the brittle plastic a few pins even broke off when I tried to attach pieces. But I soldiered on and in a couple of hours had mostly finished:

Look at those tiny legs! The kit didn’t come with a stand and while I initially assumed the hair would function as some sort of standing mechanism this wasn’t the case. In short, she can’t stand at all and even though she looks ok complete she’s definitely supported by the books in this photo:

Yes she’s cute, even unpainted. But it was a frustrating build, and not half as good as the other Miku kit I made a while ago. But I have to say assembly was fun, if only because I had a helper…

So Ptimo was a bit second-rate compared to the (admittedly far more expensive) other kits I usually buy. Would I recommend them? No. Would I buy Ptimo again? Well… it turns out I already had:

Yes this was another Japan pickup, and yes it is (incredibly) a Rilakkuma model kit! It was newer and more expensive than Miku. Here’s the parts:

Unfortunately this kit had the same flaws as Miku, especially in ease of assembly. Kuma’s head in particular stubbornly resisted going together seamlessly and of course once completed he was incredibly difficult to stand unaided:

But they look great don’t they?!? Though it was a fiddly kit to make, with frustrating imperfections, I’ve got to say I’m happy with them both for the uniqueness. Overall the better of the two kits.

Lastly, speaking of Miku kits, I also in Japan bought the astonishing Frame Arm Miku kit (on the actual day of release no less). This will be my next build and assuming it doesnt disappoint you can look forward to seeing it here…

Posted in Crafts, Miscellaneous, Models, Otaku, Toys | 1 Comment »

Shrinkydinking

Monday, April 22nd, 2019

I’ve been sorting through our attic, opening boxes that have been sealed for decades (yes literally) and unearthing all sorts of treasures. Some of it gets resealed and put back, some discarded, and a rare few things were so curious I brought them down for a closer look.

This past weekend I found ‘shrinkydink’ plastic! It wasn’t called that of course, but that’s what it was. I had to try it!

The idea is you draw directly onto the plastic then heat it in an oven so it shrinks. Sounds boring but it’s strangely amusing, and I couldn’t wait to see how old Grimace turned out! In the oven he went, and in an astonishingly short time he shrunk:

Here’s a before/after showing the scale:

Incredible! A quick glance will show the shrinking isn’t equal in both dimensions, so old mate Grimace here became squatter after he shrunk. For perfect shrinkydinks one would have to take this into consideration of course. I didn’t 🙂

Of course I made more, taking advantage of the transparent plastic to trace:

And soon enough all the usual suspects had been immortalized in ‘dink’ form:

Here’s an action shot captured mid-shrink, showing how they curl up as they miniaturize:

At this point I could insert a nostalgic memory of as a youth shrinking chip bags in the oven (since they were briefly manufactured using this type of plastic) or even how the Australian mint almost released shrinkable currency when they transitioned into plastic… but I’ll leave such things to the commenters 🙂

Anyway I’ve got loads more of this plastic. Want a shrinkydink of your own? Put in a request and I’ll make you one!

Posted in Art, Crafts, Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »

Eggstravaganza

Saturday, April 20th, 2019

JK visited today, and even though we all know she’s here mostly to see Zoffy I felt as a good host I needed to have an activity planned. And with tomorrow being Easter the obvious choice was this:

I don’t remember ever dyeing eggs at Easter, so I bought some of these inexpensive kits to try it. It’s very easy, toss a tablet into a mix of water and vinegar and dip a hard-boiled egg in. The kits come with crayons that you use to write on the eggs to keep portions undyed.