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Con Haul

Monday, October 31st, 2016

I’m shamelessly borrowing a post format from AW here; everything I purchased at the local comic con I attended yesterday. I arrived with $106.50 on me, and left with nothing! Here’s the swag…

A pack of Voltron tattoos from 1984. The guy that sold them to me (from a mostly full box) seemed surprised when I said I’d use them. ($2)

Three packs of trading cards. As should be obvious by now, I can’t pass up non-sports cards. At $1/pack these were a bit pricey though. ($3)

A stuffed stegosaurus. I bought this for KLS from the girl who made it. This is actually the second one I’ve bought over the years, although this one is cuter and fatter! ($7)

A Japanese money box ‘sound bank’. I haven’t opened it yet. I think it’s a tiny bank that plays a sound effect from Super Mario Bros. when you put coins in. ($5)

Loads of comics. The average cost was just under $0.50 each. I tend to gravitate to non superhero stuff pre 1990 if possible. That’s the first eleven issues of Indy! ($14.50 in total)

An Avalon Hill fantasy board game from 1979. Yes it’s complete, and yes it will be played. The rules seem delightfully complex! ($10)

A fat Rilakkuma thing. I overpaid for this, but it was my white whale in a UFO catcher in CA early this year. Plus it’s cute! ($40)

Dungeons & Dragons lite-brite set (from 1983). Yes it’s unopened and yes it will remain that way! How could I have passed up such a curiosity! ($15)

Not a bad load of loot is it? For those keeping tabs this totals to only $96.50. What about the other $10 you ask? That was the admission fee.

After a string of disappointing years the con roared back this year and impressed me to no end. Next time I’ll be sure to have more cash with me 🙂

Posted in Books & Comics, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Toys, Trading Cards | 2 Comments »

Frozen Novelties (Part 2)

Friday, October 14th, 2016

The post on ice creams was unexpectedly popular! It led to some digging around on the interwebs during which I found these licensed Aussie ice blocks.

I’ll post them in more or less chronological order:

I can remember these! Apparently the license was so massive that more than one company made SW ice blocks over the years. This was of course in 1978.

Licensing was in full bloom by the late 1970s, although obviously the Bionic Man license was cheaper than the Star Trek one based on the cost of the ice block 🙂

The KISS ‘water ice confection’ came out in 1980 and I can remember the cola-flavoured back ice staining your tongue when you ate it. They sold these at school believe it or not!

Look at those flavours on this 1980 ice block! Lemonade, pineapple and bubblegum?!? I bet I loved them!

This delicious Flash Gordon ice cream was also 1980. I’d ruin one of these right now.

Collating these photos gave me distinct flashbacks of perusing the freezer cases in the days all this stuff was available. Happy times!

We’re into the early 1980s now. Orange and pineapple is my dream combination; here’s hoping they still market Donkey Kong when I visit 😛

The first one is a bit special since they came with glow-in-the-dark stickers. You can read about them here, and I strongly recall having a Spider Man sticker of my own! There other licensed shaped popsicles as well (such as Disney), but I don’t recall ever buying any.

Here things have just got a bit out of control don’t you agree? While this is a box from a New Zealand company, I read (although don’t recall) that Fame iceblocks were marketed in Australia as well.

All these are over 30 years ago, and there were virtually no licensed iceblocks before 1978. This is just another example of how Star Wars changed marketing entirely. Growing up in that era – where even The Bionic Man was a good license for the freezer case – was a privilege indeed.

Posted in Food, Miscellaneous, Retro, Time | Comments Closed

House Of Hell

Sunday, October 9th, 2016

Yesterday we visited this tourist trap up in Lake George.

We didn’t really know what to expect as we handed over a Jackson, but I don’t think either of us would have predicted a museum of animatronic horror vignettes set inside an incredibly dark series of winding narrow hallways.

That’s one of them, a staked lady vampire. She was still breathing!

That’s the grim reaper taking the life of an elderly woman in bed. There were dozens of them, many obviously inspired by 1970s hammer films, with classic monsters (mummy, werewolf etc) or film scenes (torture, human sacrifice, witch trials). Some – most! – of them are extremely disturbing, such as this one called “The Bathroom Murder”…

She swung the axe up and down to the accompaniment of wet hacking sounds!

Some were surprisingly sophisticated using optical illusions, projections or audio tricks. Due to the extreme darkness it was easy to be creeped out and we were genuinely scared a few times by unexpected events.

Yes it was cheesy, a bit short and probably overpriced. But it was fun and were glad we went. Recommended if you’re ever in the area.

Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments Closed

Frozen Novelties

Friday, October 7th, 2016

I used to love ice cream. I ate it all the time, in vast quantities. Mostly vanilla, but in my youth enjoyed mango, pineapple, strawberry and peach flavour as well. I loved ‘ice blocks’ as well (non-dairy frozen treats), especially the fruit ones.

No longer. I rarely eat any ice cream, and when I do regret it. Even ice blocks aren’t much to my taste. Unlike some people.

I was thinking about this recently. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I do eat, since the list seems to get shorter all the time. But compared to my youth, the absence of ice cream from my diet is notable.

That’s a Bubble O’Bill, an ice cream that was my favorite as a kid. It’s a ice cream cowboy with a chocolate back and bubblegum nose! He looks like this:

Appetizing isn’t it? I loved these guys; not only did you get a frosty snack but the bubblegum just seemed like extra bang for your $0.40. For a child, this deal was irresistible.

Bubble O’Bill was actually an American invention, released in 1985. It wasn’t too successful here though, but found its ideal market in always-sunny Australia. I remember when they were released; an immediate other option to the always-purchased Heart ice cream. The bubblegum nose meant they couldn’t be sold at school, but I’d buy them all the time at the corner shop.

The bubblegum nose was occasionally strange colours (a green nose?!) and I seem to recall there used to be quotes on the stick as well. The best was when he was a bit deformed, or his nose was on backwards. Such rare versions were prized, and consumed with a smile. It was the pinnacle of frozen novelties, and always money well spent!

Of course there were other ice creams I liked:

And Bubble O’Bill success led to similar treats:

That even continue today:

And in my teenage, sophisticated years I tended to prefer this guy:

But even up to me leaving Oz in ’93 used to still buy the occasional Bill.

In England we had some whipped ice cream at the ‘steam fair’ that reminded a lot of what I ate in my youth. I wondered why I don’t ever eat any during my annual trips. Next time, I think I’ll have to make it a point to get a Bubble O’Bill, even if just for old times sake.

And if – when – I do, you can look forward to a review write here on the blog 🙂

Posted in Australia, Miscellaneous, Time | 7 Comments »

Rogue Friday

Friday, September 30th, 2016

Today was ‘Rogue Friday‘, which is the day that merchandise for the new upcoming Star Wars film Rogue One hit stores. Obviously I had to go and check things out.

Apparently Toys’R’Us opened at midnight! Of the five stores I went to, they were the most disappointing so I suspect anyone that did arrive at midnight may have regretted it…

Target seems to have made a bigger deal out of it, with signs on the doors, this display just inside the entrance and…

…a whopping big (cardboard) AT-AT towering over the toy aisle endcap! They had the most new stuff by far, with all sorts of toys, costumes, models and Lego kits.

I don’t know much at all about the film, having only seen the trailers. It’s my intention – as I did The Force Awakens – to go into it as spoiler free as possible. Even so, these toys give a little glimpse at what’s to come 🙂

That’s the Walmart display, or at least some of it since they were still setting up! Happily I found the new Rogue One trading cards there, which made me a happy nerd 🙂

My last stop was probably the best, and that was (surprisingly!) the Disney Store. They had oodles of exclusive stuff including some very nice diecast figures. I bought the hell out of this one:

No I don’t know this character, who appears to be an R2 unit but is called C2-B5. He looks like a baddie with his dark paint, but then almost everyone does in this film. My guess he’s a lovable rogue of a droid 🙂

So it was a pretty good day of Star Wars toy shopping; certainly better than I had expected. In addition to C2-B5 I bought a couple of figures, a bunch of trading cards, some kitchenware (!) and a few other things that may end up as gifts.

Now the hype can really start for the film!

Posted in Miscellaneous, Movies, Otaku, Toys | Comments Closed

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