Category: Time

Let’s Trade Cards (Part 4)!

July 23, 2021

My bottomless stash of weird trading card packs has no end! Time for some more…

Anastasia (1998) was one of those animated films everyone saw and immediately forgot about. These cards are equally forgettable, and since they were always a staple in the discount sections of card shops (remember them?) I imagine they were massively overproduced and none too successful. The only chase of note were lenticular cards showing a scene from the film, but they were rarer than one per box.

Kristin actually bought me a box of Maverick (1994) cards for Christmas so I have a full set of them! I’ve never seen the film, and based on the images on the cards never want to. It’s another by-the-numbers boring movie card set, and the only chase cards (‘tekchrome’) are so similar to the normal cards they’re almost indistinguishable!

Country Classics cards (1992) are another curious relic from the days of ‘sounds like a great idea’ opportunism! Who bought these? I’m no expert on the topic but it seems to me that in ’92 many of these dudes were long in the tooth, so were these cards aimed at senior-citizen card collectors? Obviously they’re of no interest to me, but I can’t deny I wanted to pull the super rare (only two existed!) redemption cards that back in the day could be mailed in for a 24-carat solid gold card!

This is a good contender for the worst card set I’ve ever seen. In the great trash can of repulsive designs, far below the wacky packages and garbage pail kids, you’ll find this dross. Troll Force (1992) cards showcase horribly drawn ‘trolls’ (which don’t resemble any troll I’ve seen) with ‘comedy’ names doing ‘wacky’ things. They’re disturbingly amateur and utterly unappealing in every way. If you ever come into possession of a pack of these, just burn it.

Based on these Saved By The Bell: The College Years cards (1994) this TV series only had a few characters and they were all girls. It’s a stupid-boring set that reprints pseudo-glamour shots of the actresses with nothing of note on the back. In short, it doesn’t really have anything to do with the show (and I suspect it was made before the show screened). Another trash set hardly worth the cardboard.

There’s a box of beanie babies in our attic and I’ve already decided to do a blog post on them soon so stay tuned for that. These Beanie Baby cards (1988) on the other hand… are a total scam! They’re completely unofficial, and feature bad photos of the toys with meaningless statistics on the back. Beanie Babies were very much on the way out when these cards came out but I’m sure the screaming hordes of collectors bought these cards anyway. I reckon they’ve all ended up in landfills alongside the stuffed toys.

Yes there’s even more packs left to open, including one or two ‘good’ ones! I’ll get to them eventually…

Vaccinated

April 22, 2021

We went for our second shot of covid vaccine today. Our city is using a downtown stadium as one of several vaccination sites and it was where we went today.

There were about 2000 people getting their second shots in the morning, and then the afternoon was for others getting their first shot. Lines were long but fast moving, so our wait wasn’t excessive.

One of the reasons for the long lines (which snakes up and down stairs and spanned two levels) was social distancing, and they had cute entertainment-themed signs to remind us where to stand.

It was quite a sight to see the floor of the arena (that we’d been to before for wrestling shows) converted to a vaccination clinic. Even the led signs up on the seats had vaccination messages on them!

And then, very quickly, we got our second jabs and joined the crowd of ‘fully vaccinated’ (yes I know technically it takes 10 more days…)

A quick wait just in case of side effects and we were good to go.

Speaking of side effects some people get them and some don’t, and they’re more common after the second shot. I read the rate is about 55%, so statistically one of us will wake up feeling crook tomorrow (since the side effects are more common the next day)!

Albany has done a good job with vaccinations, and we are above the national and state rates. But as with most parts of America supply has now exceeded demand and theres still many that haven’t yet become vaccinated. Some just need a gentle push toward a clinic, but there’s a non-trivial amount of Americans that say they’ll never get the vaccine (and even still deny covid) which will seriously hamper this country’s ability to overcome covid.

Let’s hope they understand this and go and get a shot soon. It’s easy, it’s free, it’s fast and it’s safe. And it’s what we all need to do to move on from this pandemic.

When Will I Be Famous?

April 3, 2021

For seven years between 1982 and 1988 I competed in an annual mathematics contest for high school students. In the earlier years this was held at school, but later on we went to a different location to take the exam. I recall in 1988 (when I was in 11th grade) we all sat in an indoor stadium somewhere.

I was awarded commendations in every year I entered, and actually won prizes three times. The first time this happened (in 1982) I made the newspaper:

Yes that’s the original cutting, which I still own. I placed second the following year (year 6) and in 1985 – when I was in year 8 – I won! Neither achievements apparently warranted a mention in the papers, although the prizes were better.

If I remember correctly I got $50 for second place and $100 for winning. The winning prize was given in the form of a bank account, which was my first bank account and the very same one I used until the day I left Australia!

Alas despite my photo being in the paper in 1982 I was not recognized on the street and hardly showered with respect and adoration from strangers. Celebrity, I was learning, was an elusive beast.

Luckily I had a second shot at stardom in the works, and for several years also competed in a young writers contest. Once again I received commendations for all/most of my short stories (which were no doubt awful) and in 1988 I was again in the paper:

This was a small big deal at my school if I recall, and netted me lunch with the principal (which perhaps influenced me becoming captain the next year?) but this measly name drop in the Newcastle Herald didn’t lead to free meals at fancy restaurants or designers sending me their clothes for free. Once again I learned a lesson on how difficult it was to become famous.

I also recall once competing in a spelling competition at Garden City mall, probably when I was in primary school. My memories of this are extremely vague but I think I won a gift certificate so I must have done well? There was a crowd watching but I doubt it made the papers.

Anyway after two appearances in the newspaper it had become clear to me that television was the true path to stardom, and that became my next goal. To facilitate this I became school captain (in 1989) and leveraged my newfound political power into appearances on local TV. But that’s a tale I’ve already blogged, and you can read about it here.

After two newspaper mentioned and three spots on tv I yet remained an average guy with nary an atom of celebrity to his name. In late 1989 I realized there were only two more paths open to me if my goal was superstardom. I rejected motion pictures as unfeasible, and instead looked seriously at a political career. But that’s perhaps a blog post of its own (if not one I already made)…

This tale would be incomplete without mentioning Bernards brush with stardom. During one of our weekly library trips in early 198X he posed for a photograph that featured in a story about Teletext. It was printed in a local paper and I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a lovely shot:

He still has the newspaper clipping, alas not the text that went with it. In terms of column inches his newspaper appearance dwarfed my own, but I can assure you that he still had to pay for his movie tickets and his Big Macs. Even a feature story photo as large as this wasn’t enough for him to become a star!

Robot Claw