Happy Christmas everyone. I hope you have a wonderful day and Santa brings you everything you wished for.
In a few days I’ll be in Oz, so stay tuned for the usual travelogue 🙂
Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category
‘Twas The Night Before Christmas
Wednesday, December 24th, 2014Treasure!
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014I went to the bank earlier, and walked out with a $1 coin. This isn’t much news to the Australians, but here in the US we’re still cursed with paper $1 bills.
The coins do exist though, and are mostly ignored by the public. I bought one because I collect them….
Yes this is another post about one of my strange collections!
Back in 1999 the US Mint started releasing a series of 50 quarters to commemorate every state. Five were released every year, and apparently they became the most collected coins in US history, with about half of all Americans (!) collecting a set. And at least one Australian…
I didn’t go out of my way to collect them, since they were (and still are) extremely common. I just kept one of each as I got them in change, putting them into the little book I had purchased.
The set was followed by 6 ‘district and territory’ quarters and now we’re in the middle of a series of 60 (or more!) ‘America The Beautiful’ quarters featuring state parks and other notable natural attractions within the US. Compared to the state quarters both of these follow up sets seem much rarer and I haven’t made any effort to collect either.
The Presidential Dollar series began in 2007 and was intended to promote acceptance amongst the population of a $1 coin. Five new coins were to be released a year but the coins were a failure and after 5 years circulation ended. The coins are still made, but for the collectors market only.
In theory I could fill that book just with coins if receive in change or at the bank. They are difficult to find these days though, so I doubt I will.
The last US coin book I have is this:
I’m not sure why or when I got this book, but I have made an attempt to fill it:
This is not a collection I put any effort into!
In addition to these I have a nearly complete set of Australian 20c, 50c, $1 and $2 coins. If only someone made little collecting books as nice as the ones I have for US coins.
I could probably do a dozen or more posts about other weird collections I have. They’ll have to wait for next Christmas 🙂
A Piece Of Christmas Magic
Thursday, December 18th, 2014Most of you know how much I like these things:
These two were purchased last week at the dollar store. Had I not already sent/wrapped the Christmas gifts you may have received one too! I quickly set them up and found they weren’t the most well-constructed of kits:
They are made of porous cardboard with the edges dipped into food colouring (or in the case of the snowman, not dipped). A small packet of liquid is included, which is poured into the reservoir at the bottom.
It doesn’t take long for the liquid to move up the cardboard until it reaches the tips, where crystals begin to form. If the crystallization occurs where the cardboard contains food colouring, the crystals themselves are coloured as well.
So what’s happening? Well it’s actually quite complex. The solution contains water and a mix of alkaline and ammonium salts. Since it is a liquid, capillary action causes it to move into the cardboard. Once the water evaporates (which is most likely at the edges) the remaining salts form crystals. The process is quite quick (less than 6 hours) and once completed the crystals are fairly rigid and the ‘tree’ can survive for years if protected.
We actually have a few (better) ones in our curio cabinet, including a panorama of Mt Fuji that we must have had for a decade now! I sent many of you trees like this a few years ago. I wonder how many of you still have them?
There are many good explanations of the science behind such trees online (this is a good one), and you can even find instructions on how to make your own. If I taught chemistry instead of physics, I think I’d certainly work this into one of the lab experiments!
Pezzes Are Cool?
Tuesday, December 16th, 2014I thought, since many of you have asked, it’s time to showcase my Pez collection.
What is a Pez? It’s a horrible, horrible candy that I never eat. I really hate them – they taste like medicine to supertasters such as myself. However they are often sold with little sculptured dispensors, and occasionally I have been known to buy them just for the dispensor. Many people collect these avidly (indeed, the pursuit of rare Pez dispensors is what led to the original creation of ebay). I don’t. I just buy them at the checkout line in Wal-Mart every now and then.
Over the years these became a bit of a ‘gag gift’ for Christmas. In the last few years that trend increased as I started giving AW collectors sets every Christmas. Alas, 2014 bore no such set (so you’re safe this year Adam).
But enough blathering, let’s get to my collection:
That’s the first collector set I bought. It was released a few years ago and has characters from the original Lord of The Rings series. It sits proudly on a shelf, never to be opened. I gave this one to Adam and I believe it quickly became his favourite Pez set of all time.
This Star Trek: TNG set is also a couple of years old now. I had trouble finding it at first, and then was never able to find the limited version that replaced one of them (Beverly?) with Locutus of Borg. Again I gave this to AW, and again he treasured it, but not as much as SFL, who surely lists this on top of her list of favourite Pez collectors sets 😉
Last year’s Hobbit set, obviously following on from the LOTR set from 2011, is another that proudly adorns a shelf in my library. Again AW got this one for Christmas last year, but it’s probable that Bernard (who was there) loved it even more than AW since he was heard to bellow “What a grand Pez Collectors Set!”
Many times these past twelve months I daydreamed about what sets they could have done for xmas 2014… Avengers? Guardians Of The Galaxy? Godzilla? AKB48? Sadly, the store shelves remain bare of new sets this year.
Say it with me now: OMG! I bet you didn’t know about the US President series now did you? This is of course an entirely original idea by Pez, since they couldn’t have possibly been influenced by the US President series of $1 coins that started about the same time. Happily, I was able to collect both. (Jokes aside, the sculpting on these guys is very impressive). This first set came out way back, and (as with almost everything in this post) I purchased it on a whim in Wal-Mart one night. Months (years?) passed and I assumed there would never be another. But then…
And (oh my god, why) then…
Yes I have five different sets. These aren’t particularly expensive (I think about $10 or $12 per set) but even so I don’t know why I bought them. Even now I weep a single tear as I see them all on my shelves.
Pause for a moment here to remember I hate Pez candy and will never, ever eat it.
Here’s a C3PO Pez:
And this is a C3PO Pez:
And here, good readers, is a C3PO Pez:
What’s that you say? “They are all the same?” But are they?
Check out these completely different R2D2 Pez’s for instance:
Yep, completely different.
I’ve been purchasing Star Wars pez’s for aeons, and most of them have ended up in boxes destined to be forgotten for ever. It took some time to collect up as many as I could find for this photo:
But I’m quite sure that’s not the extent of the collection. I also suspect there are some I don’t have, since (once again) I never bother to check what’s available, I just buy one every now and then at the store. If you ever see a SW Pez I don’t own, please buy it for me 🙂
So what’s left? Well… nothing. I have no interest in any other Pez’s! I only buy the licensed sets (+ Presidents) and the SW stuff. There’s about eighty-megillion others out there but I don’t care. I’m not a collector of Pez’s. In fact I’ll go further to say I sortof hate them, including the ones I own. And I really, really hate the candy.
So please don’t give me a Pez, since I hate them. Unless it’s one I don’t have from the above series, in which case I must own it 😉
Thinking of Sydney
Monday, December 15th, 2014This one’s for my favourite city, and for how I wish Martin Place would look like right now.
