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We Boldly Went

Sunday, March 4th, 2018

Yesterday was my birthday, and despite the exhaustion I felt from opening an obscene amount of gifts we somehow managed to drag ourselves over to Dave and Busters to ‘play’ this:

I’d seen this a few weeks back when I was here with Y and J, but I hid my excitement from them because clearly this is a machine that only weirdos would be excited by.

It’s one of those sliding-floor token machines, where you drop ‘coins’ down a ramp in the hope of having them push other coins off the edge (the front of the above image) so you can win. In other machines of this type you can win the actual coins, but in this one you win tickets (for the redemption shop) and trading cards!!

As you can see it’s Star Trek themed, and there’s eight different card designs, with sixteen different cards in total because there are uncommon ‘limited edition’ versions of each. The machine periodically drops cards or plastic tokens down onto the playfield, and these can fall into the hopper and ultimately can be redeemed for tickets. The metal coins are recycled back into play automatically.

It’s a lot of fun. Dangerously entertaining perhaps. Aside from the lights and sounds (such as a phaser every time you drop a coin) there’s also a combo bonus, the thrill when a new card or coin falls onto the playfield and – best of all – the joy when something of note actually falls off the edge!

After an hour of play, here’s what I’d won:

The plastic tokens were worth 15 prize tickets each, and we had 68. The cards are worth points as well (100 or 200 for limited versions) but you have to turn them in so I didn’t redeem mine. With the 1020 total tickets we earned I bought this (for 1000) tickets:

And… it’s terrible! It barely turns at all and will likely be trashed quickly 🙂

So here’s some analysis. In total I sunk $45 into the machine, from which I got 1020 tickets which were redeemed for a $5 toy. But we also had an hour of fun, and (most importantly) I also left with these beauties:

6 of the 8 cards, 2 in limited edition versions. These are extremely nice, very high quality cards and I like them a lot. So much so I may return to get the other two (Chekhov and a Tribble)! The game is super fun, and I can’t deny I’d like to play it again.

Interestingly despite the cards all being original series characters, the machine is branded with characters from many different Star Trek series. Will they be cycling in new cards over time?

I also have a few doubles of some of the cards. To get one at random, leave a comment explaining why Enterprise was the best Trek series 🙂

Posted in Collecting, Games, Otaku, Trading Cards | 3 Comments »

The Tiny Arcade

Sunday, February 11th, 2018

Bernard gave me this for Christmas:

It’s a tiny arcade machine. Better yet it’s a kit that needs to be assembled! Here’s what it looked like out of the box:

The critical components are indeed tiny, and fit easily into the palm of my hand:

Here’s the screen being tested:

Assembly of the case was tricky but not difficult, and I actually had more trouble affixing the super-adhesive ‘cabinet art’. Once finished, it’s tiny (about 8 cm tall) and very impressive:

The back is open to access the electronics, which include on/off switches, a plug to charge the battery and a micro SD card port:

The unit runs off an arduino-derived chip (I believe), and supports a tiny OLED screen that is very sharp and bright. There’s several basic games included but to be honest most are little more than tech demos. Amongst clones of Flappy Bird, Tetris, Space Invaders and even R-Type there is however a charming little roguelike by a Japanese dev:

Bernard has one too and wanted to compete on some games. Like a cur he hasn’t submitted scores yet so here’s some for him to aim at:

(To be honest these were just my scores for one game of each)

Anyway I’m very impressed with this thing. It’s completely open so I could in theory write my own game for it. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Posted in Crafts, Games, Models, Otaku, Retro, Tech | 1 Comment »

The Stamp Collector (Final Part)

Saturday, December 23rd, 2017

This series turned out longer and more work than anticipated but as we all know, all good things must come to an end.

The largest portion of my stamp ‘collection’ is still affixed to the hundreds of postcards I have stored together in a box. From all over the world and spanning over twenty years, these contain a fascinating selection of stamps and cancellations.

The New Zealand stamps on the postcards sent by Bernard were quite special and varied, but I also like the mini airmail stamp attached to the Swiss stamp and the (very unique!) Death Valley cancellation.

There’s those Star Wars stamps attached to a postcard I sent from Hawaii a decade ago. There’s the only postcard I ever received from Italy (and boring at that) followed by an example of my creative stamping from England.

Those were both from Oz last year, and you may have seen these on your cards? Australia seems to have doubled down on large and lavish animal stamps these past years, and I always seek them out to include them on postcards.

In fact I’ve got no problem whatsoever eating up large portions of the back of a postcard with lovely stamps…. like this:

Which is another specimen I sent KLS last year. I’ve done the above several times over the years, but this one may be my masterpiece!

One thing I’ve learned doing research for this series is that while collectors prefer stamps to be as pristine as possible, there are certain stamps that are more collectible if they had been used for postage. This is why I particularly like the ones attached to my postcards, since they were used to mail stuff to me!

In a few days I’m off to Australia again. This time, when you get your postcards, spare a moment to appreciate the stamps. It’s likely I put as much thought into them as I did the card itself or even what I wrote on it.

I hope you found this series interesting. I ended up much farther down the rabbit hole than I ever expected, and at times even I couldn’t see light, but I’m glad I’m out now and can move on with the usual topics 🙂

Posted in Art, Collecting, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Stamps | Comments Closed

2017 In Games

Tuesday, December 19th, 2017

You know you’ve been waiting for it, and here it is: the annual summary of my game purchases!

I won’t dance around the facts: 2017 was a ‘down year’ for game spending. I bought only 40 games in 2017, spending a total of $1291. This is the smallest amount of total purchases since 2012, and the smallest amount spend since 1994! Results like this threaten an existential crisis: am I still a gamer?

Of course I am! And we’ll get to that in a little bit, but first here are the pie charts everyone loves. First the games purchased; % by system:

And next the % breakdown by dollars spent:

(Yes I know the fonts are illegibly tiny; click on each for a bigger version.)

The pertinent points:
– I bought games for a few ‘dead systems’ this year: the DS, PSP and NES
– While I still bought Vita games, I bought less than half last year (10 vs 28). This is unsurprising; Sony declared this a ‘legacy system’ a couple of years ago now…
– The Nintendo Switch enter the charts! I bought one game….. but don’t have a Switch yet 😉

As far as overall gaming comments I don’t feel like I’m playing less than ever. I still play Puzzle & Dragons (and am coming up on 1700 consecutive days of logging in) and still enjoy it, and I still have a backlog of (good!) Vita RPGs that are unopened and should last me for years. But I have been playing less console gaming, and certainly spending less on consoles overall. The switch appeals to me for this reason, since I envisage myself more likely to play the games on the system in portable mode than on the TV.

On to my top games of the year, as usual sorted by system. Given the scant purchases for some systems I’ll only tackle the three major ones this time:

Toukiden 2 (PS Vita)

This is a Monster Hunter clone set in feudal Japan with crazy bosses and an emphasis on over-the-top attacks and destructible body parts (on the beasts). It’s an improvement on the already-great Vita original and I played it to death for a couple of months back in late Spring this year. In my opinion, one of the all-time best Vita games.

Monster Hunter Stories (3DS)

This is a pokemon-like game set in the MH world that was much, much better than I thought it would be. I played it like a fiend, only putting it down about 120 hours later. It had fantastic graphics and a great story but above all the gameplay loop was loads of fun and as a (insane) MH fan the appeal of the world was top-notch. Recommended.

The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild (Wii U)

You know how you’ve read/seen countless times that this game is one of (if not THE) best ever made and it’s so good it’s better than real life? Yep, it’s all true. This is the definition of a magnum opus, and a game that will be spoken about for generations to come. Easily the game of the year for me, and worth buying a Wii U/Switch just to play. (This is also likely the last Wii U game I will ever buy, and it’s certainly a worthy title for the system to retire on.)

I’m doing this a little early this year, especially since I have a inkling what’s under the tree for me and specifically that one of those ‘whats’ may even give Zelda a run for it’s money in the masterpiece stakes. Oh well, you’ll have to wait until this time next year to find out 🙂

Posted in Collecting, Games, Otaku, Tech | 1 Comment »

The Stamp Collector (Part Five)

Tuesday, December 12th, 2017

It’s time for the penultimate entry in my stamp collection series. This time: ‘Chinese New Year’ stamps!

Stamps of this type represent the bigger portion of my collection, especially since they (usually) are released every time I am in Australia. But as you’ll see I have a few from elsewhere as well. Because of how many I have this post won’t show all of them. If you interested in seeing the others, ask me next time you come and visit 🙂

I’m going to do these in chronological order, and the above is my earliest – a snake stamp from 2011. Note it’s (another) Christmas Island issue. You’ll see that is true for all the new years stamps issued by Australia.

This pair (2003 & 2004) was another purchase from the stamp museum in Washington DC. They’re quite remarkable because the envelopes actually have cloth patches glued on to them. I wonder if the entire series (of 12 animals) was done over the years? I’ve never looked…

I suspect this dog stamp from 2006 is in the same series as the snake above, although it looks different. By this time several different covers were being issued since they did one (or two) stamps with the animal of interest, and an entire sheet of all twelve. For most years since then I have both covers, but as I said I’ll only show one here.

As a child of 1972, my ratlike qualities are well known. I’ve been told by an expert (thanks YZ!) that the stamp on the right actually says ‘mouse’ in Chinese 🙂

2010 was the year of the tiger, and here’s both first day covers that were sold then. Once again they use the Chinese characters in the stamp itself, but the second set contains stylized pictures of the animals. I very much like this approach, and Australia has been continuing it ever since.

Eagle-eyed readers will ask “Where are 2007 and 2009?” The answer is… I don’t have them 🙂

For 2011 – the rabbit year – I’ll only show the full sheet of twelve. Note the rabbit stamp gets special treatment being framed by a silver moon. I love the colouring on this set.

I just read online that famous ‘dragons’ (ie. born in the year of the dragon) include Bruce Lee, Vladimir Putin and none other than Jesus Christ himself! I bet all of them would love the above stamp.

Both covers from 2013. The former is impressive not just for the lovely design, but since it includes the food that the animals types like as well. I never knew Jesus was a fan of tomatoes! The latter seems to be the first year they started including the larger sheet on the second cover, which in this case depicts the serpent-goddess Nuwa, who I had never heard of and was not aware had anything to do with the Chinese Zodiac!

2014 was the year of the horse. Notice the horseshoe cancellation and the inclusion of elements with each animal. This is unusual since I believed each animal had multiple potential elements. I’m not sure how they arrived at the ones shown on these stamps.

Here we have a second year of the horse stamp, this time from Singapore! Bernard got me this when he visited. It’s very fanciful and colourful, as all Chinese new years stamps seem to be.

I think if I could have picked my animal I may have chosen goat. Not only are they cute, but I like the word ‘goat’, and since I myself am ‘calm and gentle’ (which are characteristics of goat-people) it’s seems silly I was born under the rat in the first place!

Here we notice Singapore straddling 2014/2015 with this issue, which contains both a horse and a ram. Once again, it’s a beautiful and colourful stamp with metallic-ink elements. I also suspect that ink may be pure gold, since Bernard paid a princely sum for this one:

Who else has a brother that purchased them thousands of dollars worth of stamps when he went to Singapore? 😉

And here we have this years stamp, the rooster. Note the series is still following the same style as 2008, which means for 10 consecutive years. Since I don’t have 2007 I can’t say if this began then (and will end next year) or whether my rat cover was the first (and it will end in 2019). I guess I’ll find out soon enough!

2016 you say? That was the year I shuffled around post offices in Australia looking for first-day covers that I was told at the time didn’t exist but have since learned did. I have tried to not let that bother me ever since…

Only one more stamp post to go, and it’ll come sometime next week. This series has been a lot of work; I hope you’ve been enjoying it.

Posted in Otaku, Stamps | 1 Comment »

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