Miscellaneous « Robot Claw

Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category

Star Wars Tuesday: Food Packaging

Tuesday, July 18th, 2023

Star Wars has been used to promote food for decades now, and every now and then I’ve bought something and kept the packaging. Here’s what I found in storage:

The above is a box of Star Wars cereal released in 2016. This was released to promote The Force Awakens and in total there were eight different designs. It’s also one of my favourite pieces of Star Wars ephemera. I don’t recall eating any of the cereal.

General Mills released a lot of Star Wars branded boxes that year, and I have the two above as well. You can see these included a little ‘droid viewer’, but strangely I seem to have discarded those. These three are the only cereal boxes I own (I think…) which is just a drop in the bucket of the over 2000 Star Wars cereal boxes released worldwide since 1977!

The above is a true curiosity, since it’s a store brand item (Price Chopper is a local supermarket) that also happens to be Star Wars themed. I’m sure I threw away the gummies and kept the box, and I wonder how many Star Wars food box collectors worldwide would love to have this rare item in their collection?

Jelly Belly used this branded packaging in 2017 and they were available everywhere for a long time. I think there may have been other wrappers as well, but the above are all I have.

I don’t remember this Skittles promotion at all (from 2005) but obviously I bought at least one pack. ‘The Hunt For Grievous’ was obviously to raise hype for Episode III, which makes it stranger I don’t remember it since merchandise for that film seemed slim.

Around the same time – and as part of the awful ‘Star Wars Mpire’ cross-branded event – these M&Ms were released. I only have the above wrapper, but the back shows a Sith version was available as well. I used to enjoy M&Ms, but no longer like the taste of their chocolate.

And speaking of M&Ms, although it’s not Star Wars themed, here’s an Indiana Jones wrapper from 2008. This was of course to promote The Crystal Skull film, and I like the designs on the candies as well as the white variant.

Space Punch was a horrible drink – far too sweet for even my taste buds – and in 2018 the German company released a large variety of Star Wars themed cans and distributed them worldwide. Heavily marketed to collectors, people were trying to sell the ‘rare’ cans for silly money online. The above was the only one I ever saw/bought (in Oregon), and I’m happy it’s Artoo for reasons that will be clearer on Friday.

I’ve bought lots of other Star Wars foodstuffs over the years – including ice creams, waffles, cookies, candy and many other drinks – but I’m not one of those lunatics that keeps the packaging just because it has a Star Wars character on it. Most of the time, anyway 😉

Posted in Collecting, Food, Miscellaneous | Comments Closed

Star Wars Monday: Adhesive Bandages

Monday, July 17th, 2023

In addition to sorting and selling my Star Wars figures, I also dove into a large box of ephemera I had accumulated over the decades. This week I’ll showcase some of what I found.

Today we’re focusing on ‘adhesive bandages’, and since most of us call them ‘Bandaids’ it makes sense to begin with the above three sealed boxes of Star Wars (actual) Band-Aids from 2014. The back of each is shown at right.

The bandages are a bit boring due to the pores and what I think is a mostly failing graphic design. The above are only three of many, and I know there’s been other boxes sold over the years (perhaps even still today) so it’s possible other bandages look better. I’ve received many boxes of these over the years as gifts and have used many of the bandages, .but the above three boxes will remain sealed in my collection.

The above ‘collectible’ Band-Aid tins also were on shelves in 2014. I stalked the local shops until I found all four of these because they’re lovely tins!

It was a little tough to photograph them since the silver metal parts are very reflective. The backs of each are identical and show the Star Wars logo. I particularly like the choice of the Death Star and Darth Vader’s tie fighter since both are rarely seen on licensed ephemera.

The above is an earlier product from 2009. It’s not sealed, and the Yoda design suggests it was a Clone Wars licensed item. I’ve still got about a dozen of the bandages, which are printed on clear plastic (hence the ‘tattoo’ claim):

I seem to recall the tattoo effect mostly failed so this was very much a gimmick product.

Going back even further – all the way to 1999 – we have some Curad brand bandages licensed to The Phantom Menace! I don’t know why I never kept the box, and only two unused bandages remain. The design is similar to the band-aid ones of over a decade later but these, in my opinion, are better.

Lastly we have the above. These again are tins, only they are for Elastoplast brand bandages sold in England. Each ton is double-sided, and all four sides are shown above. I picked these up in chemists during our Scottish trip, and have always wondered if there were others available.

The bandages themselves are superior (in design) to all the ones I’ve seen released in the USA, and there is a larger variety as well. An impressive product!

I also have the above (now empty) box, which I probably purchased on the same trip.

In sorting my ephemera a great deal – old packaging, cheap toys, stationary – has been thrown away, but there’s something so unusual about these bandages that I’ll be keeping them. And I may even buy more if I spy a new design in the bandage aisle one day!

Posted in Collecting, Miscellaneous | Comments Closed

Fireworks 2023

Wednesday, July 5th, 2023

Happy July 4 for yesterday! As usual we went to Rochester for a combined July 4 / JAF Birthday, which included setting these guys off:

The neighborhood was echoing with booms last night, and many nearby neighbors invested in much bigger fireworks than we did. But we had a lot of fun with our modest selection:

It took many hours to set them all off, and here’s some highlights in a short video:

Another successful July 4 backyard fireworks display then. See you again for more in 2024 🙂

Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments Closed

Fireworks Shopping

Sunday, July 2nd, 2023

These past two weekends we’ve driven interstate (to PA and NH) to buy fireworks for our annual backyard (in Rochester) celebration. As always, it’s a lot of fun seeing the variety of product available and imaging the fun of setting it off.

The above – 16000 little firecrackers (what we used to call ‘crazy jacks’ in my youth) – is about as big as the wheel on your typical car. Imagine the noise and smoke as this thing went off. Wouldn’t it be incredible?

And the above – an $860 assortment – is 60 shells that would produce effects similar to what you’d see at a professional show. It still amazes me that in some states you can just buy this stuff and let it off in your backyard. While we bought a few launching fireworks, they’re very tame and neither go high or produce much noise.

Speaking of noise: 750 missiles! This thing takes more than two minutes to fire all the missiles, and each missile whistles and then bangs in the air. While it would be spectacular, I imagine this would be the sort of thing that may have the neighbors calling the rozzers in our suburb (since these sorts of things are currently illegal in our county).

The packaging of the bigger fireworks is always wonderful, and here I focus on a few of the genre ones (although in 2023 a reference to the ‘Majestic 12’ is a bit esoteric). Here’s a few others:

Can you spot the blatant copyright infringement on two of the above? If it’s not obvious, here’s some that is:

The label designer obviously have fun with these products (which, remember, are designed to be set on fire), and every now and then there are head-scratching examples like this one:

We bought a bunch of items from several shops, and our ‘show’ promises to be a good one. At Joyce’s request we tried to only buy low-noise fireworks, and that included this selection of fountains we’ve got:

We’ve had one or two low noise fountains before (they mostly make a low hiss due to the sparks coming out) so it will be interesting seeing what these are like.

That said it’s possible that some of the fountains we got may make a few crackles, but for obvious reasons how could we pass on…

…a skull and a spinning snake?!? Imagine if such things had been available when we were kids?

I also can’t resist a good sword (handheld fountains, basically) and you know there was no chance I’d pass up this lightsaber firework!

And this is just a selection of what we’ll be lighting up on Tuesday. As usual I’ll try to catch the excitement in pictures and maybe video and follow up later in the week 🙂

Posted in Holiday, Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »

Fry Guy

Monday, June 5th, 2023

I ate fries at five fast food places here in Oz. How did they compare? Let’s find out!

McDonalds fries are exactly as you’d expect since they taste the same everywhere. They have a familiar if unremarkable taste but the excessive salt is a distraction from a hint of grease and perhaps even an inkling of regret. Of the five types of fry I tested, these were the worst (and yet paradoxically the ones I ate the most).

Hungry Jack’s (aka. Burger King) served up robust and tasty fries with a slight crispy snap to them. I got these three times and every time they were piping hot, not too salted, and delicious! And yet, I’d only rank these fourth of the five…

The above sad excuse for a fry serving was from Henny Penny, but they tasted much better than they looked. But this review is based on the large serving Sue and I shared a few days prior, which was delightful. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo but the fries were hot as hell, thick and full of potato energy, not greasy at all and dusted with delicious chicken salt. They were fantastic, but still only the third best of the five I tried.

Incidentally I feel obliged to showcase the ‘chicken roll’ I bought at Henny Penny, which was undoubtedly the single worst piece of food ever served to me:

Cold garbage chicken on a stale roll: this travesty was possibly excreted by Satan and I hurled it into a bin at light speed!

I’ve only had KFC once this trip, but it was in the middle of a long walk and I was very hungry at the time. The fries were extraordinary! Crispy and fluffy inside, they were golden brown and drenched in chicken salt. I devoured them in seconds, would happily eat more, and yet they’re still not the best I’ve had this trip.

And so we get to Oporto. I’ve had it several times this trip, and every time the fries were perfectly cooked, served hot, generously portioned (the above is a small serving), chicken-salted and tasted wonderful. And I don’t even have to give them extra points for giving me the longest fry I’ve ever seen! So just as Oporto served the best chicken tenders last year, this year they served me the best fries 🙂

Truth be told though, the fries at all five of these fast food places were all good, and even the worst were tasty. But if you’ve only got time for one fast food visit in Oz, as always my suggestion remains Oporto!

Posted in Australia, Food, Miscellaneous, Trip | Comments Closed

Robot Claw