Category: Miscellaneous

Birthday Aquisitions #5: The Rest

A few months ago KLS and I found this in a local arcade:

I was dazzled, not just by the fact it was the worlds largest Pac-Man, but by the fact it used a giant bank of LEDs for the display:

So imagine my surprise when Florence sent me this for my birthday:

It’s a Pac-Man clock using LEDs for the display! And it animates!

The animations are of Pac-Man being chased by or chasing the ghosts, and are perfect recreations of the arcade sprites and colours. All using just LEDs:

I love it and it’s proudly displayed in my study! Thanks Florence!

Now I know we’ve been doing the birthday thing for days now and it’s obscene how much stuff I got but this next item – speaking two weeks down the road from my actual birthday – has turned out to be the thing I have used the most:

Yep, a ‘gherkin fork’! I have taken to occasionally buying gherkins and they’re just not the same unless eaten with a quality long fork. Yes I know it’s metal and yes I’m a weirdo that doesn’t like metal in his mouth but for this fork and a delicious gherkin I’m making an exception!

Mum and Dad: maybe I’ll bring one to Oz next time to replace the one that ‘got lost’ 🙂

There’s a few other gifts I was going to list today (a sterling engine, the new Zelda, some tools…) but they will likely get their own posts eventually. I’ll end with one last item, very recently received in the mail from none other than Bernard:

A 3D Rilakkuma model! As with the Pac-Man clock had I known this existed I would have bought it for myself already!

So there you have it: a mostly comprehensive series of posts documenting much of what I got for my birthday. Too much to be true, and – since I bought much of it myself – tailor made for me. 

I’ll end with a request: Of all the items I listed this week, what item(s) would you most – or least – like to own yourselves? 

You never know. If it’s a Guy N Smith novel maybe I can make your wish come true 😉

Birthday Aquisitions #4: Figures

I’m a sucker for a good figure, as you probably know, and in that regard the birthday didn’t disappoint. They were a common gift item from a few people.

I haven’t opened any of these yet. I’ve still got some work to do with a new curio cabinet before I’m ready to populate it, so all these photos are boxed.

I had thought the chance of new Guyver figures was about zero for years now, so when Max Factory announced Figmas a couple of years back I was pretty happy! Female Guyver is the second in the line and pretty snazzy. There’s actually two versions, with the other being purple and based on the anime appearance.

I’ve posted about Aegis before, and she’s still a favourite of mine! This incredibly cute not-a-Nendroid (also from Good Smile) was a gift from JF! I’m looking forward to getting this one out and putting her next to her twin sisters 🙂

Now this is amazing. It’s my first Tamashii Nations figure, plus it’s a cute goth girl and she’s wearing dress/armor based on Gore Magala from Monster Hunter. Basically this is an ubër-otaku figure right up my alley. Also… it needs some construction! When I open and make her, she’ll get a dedicated post.

Florence got me this! She knows I’m a bit disturbed by René Auberjonois famous changeling from DS9, but not so much that I’m not proud of my very own! So now I have two, and this one even has legs!

I’ll never open this one by the way. I wouldn’t want to ruin the value 😉

Birthday Aquisitions #3: Films

We’ve got a massive collection of DVDs and Blu-rays, and I’d estimate easily 95% of them are genre films (sci-fi, fantasy, horror). They run the gamut from classics to trash but I’ve watched them all, and now we no longer have cable find ourselves watching DVDs far more than ever!

It’s a good thing therefore there’s always something new, like this haul I got for my birthday…

The Dr Who serial is the last release for original series material and I have to say I enjoyed it quite a lot. Sherlock season 4 we haven’t watched yet, but I think it’ll be good. Florry gave me pause though…

Street Fighter is a terrible film and we saw it at the movies (!) when it came out. I wanted to rewatch it though and KLS found it for dirt cheap! The 4-pack on the right was bought for Kull (which we also saw at the movies and is just a wretched film…) but for the low cost and both Conan films included who can resist?

And the Argento? Another film I’ve been curious about for years that hasn’t been on Hulu, Netflix or (free) Prime. It’s apparently not great, but I think I may like it. Besides, I’m this || close to going on a full-on euro-vampire movie bender and just spending a fortune on Jean Rollin and Jess Franco stuff so the Argento is maybe to scratch that itch.

I still watch a lot of anime and since I’m too stubborn to use Crunchyroll that means I do my bit to keep the DVD collection market alive! Gantz should be fun if it’s anything like the recent film. Desert Punk I know nothing about but was cheap and Highschool DxD is the third collection of the funny harem comedy.

The top two are no surprise to anyone that knows me. I’ll just say thank god Chinese Odyssey finally got a western release! The bottom two are because I can no longer ignore those that claim these two are better than Chows films. We shall see…

So I’m on a little Hammer high. At the risk of sounding old, ‘they don’t make horror like they used to’ and I’ve always been a bigger fan of the (literally) theatric  and creepy Hammer style than US horror (like Halloween or Friday the 13th). I’ve watched loads of Hammer already on streaming, but the best ones (from the 70s) are unavailable free do it was time to step to the next level. Hammer House Of Horror is the anthology TV show from 1980 that I remember watching as a kid. It’s creepy and the plots are unpredictable and we’re really enjoying it!

Now that I’m making these posts and documenting the stuff I got it seems like too much doesn’t it? Remember I bought much of this myself (or put it on a list) so it may be a stretch to call them birthday gifts. But I did get some surprises, which you’ll start seeing tomorrow…