Archive for the ‘Toys’ Category

Himeji Castle

Sunday, April 27th, 2014

This is Himeji Castle in Japan:

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It’s a world heritage site, considered the best example of a feudal-era Japanese castle still standing.

Here it is in metal:

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This was the largest and most difficult metal miniature model I’ve assembled yet. Taking about 6 hours in total, this was an exercise in patience even with the correct tools. Don’t even think about making this without fine needle nose pliers! It also suffers from the common problem of less-than-stellar instructions.

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Sadly, as with most Japanese structures, Himeji is vulnerable to the occasional attack from an oversized monster…

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The Doomsday Box

Sunday, March 16th, 2014

For Christmas, I received a most wonderful item from Doctor Florence (aka. The Great Bear of the Northwest). Specifically, I received this:

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Useless Box“? What is that? All will be revealed…

There’s actually a funny story behind this gift! I had purchased one myself for JBF for Christmas, and when it had arrived I committed the evil sin of covetousness and very nearly ‘stole’ his for myself. My good nature won out though, and it was wrapped and put under the tree. I was super happy when I ended up getting one of my own from SFL! In short: this was a perfect gift ๐Ÿ™‚

I made it yesterday. The suggested assembly time was 1.5 hours, but it took me at least double that. During construction I ruined:
– my eyes (due to me needing a new prescription)
– my fingers (due to friction from jewellers screwdriver handles and a soldering iron burn)
– my back (due to bending over the tiny pieces putting them together
But despite the endless and soul-wracking pain, this was one of the most enjoyable builds I have ever done!

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That’s me being a technomancer there, soldering the toggle switch to the PCB. There was actually quite a bit of soldering required, since none of the wires came attached. Here’s the finished circuit:

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You can see a motor, a PCB, a toggle switch and a pressure switch. What could it all do?

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The box itself is made of thick laser-cut plastic, and is assembled using a very clever T-connection system (via nuts and bolts). The machining of the parts is superb, and it all went together smoothly, seamlessly and very easily. Here’s the nearly-finished box:

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And here’s the final product, both closed and opened to show the inside:

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I finished it! I made it with no mistakes, and it worked perfectly first time. As you can see when it is closed there is a just a switch poking out. So what happens when you switch it on? This happens:

Yes my friends, the box – when switched on – switches itself off! It’s only goal in life is to turn itself off if anyone happens to turn it on. The very definition of a useless item…

…and I love it!

The Sticker Collection

Sunday, December 8th, 2013

I have in my possession an old, yellowing tupperware container full of stickers. This is a collection of mine that started back when I was a child and continued up until my mid teens. Many (most!) other of my possessions from those days are long, long gone. But the sticker collection remains. For various reasons I was never able to discard it, and it lingered in the back of a closet even up until I left Australia.

It was then passed on to my brother, who himself kept it safe for many years. He ended up bringing it to America with him when he moved here and on my first trip to visit him in San Jose he returned it to me. What a reunion! Soon after it was placed back into deep storage, in our attic to be precise, but the other week I dug it out (if only to remind myself I still had it) and opened it for a look.

And what a trip down memory lane that was!

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That’s a shot taken just now, with the stickers all over my desk (and on the drawer to the left) as I was scanning them. There are many hundreds, in all shapes, colours and sizes. I was particular about my collection, and happily took anything that could be ‘stuck’ (and hence was a ‘sticker’) including doubles. I have dozens of certain stickers.

Did I buy them? No, not at all. The very vast majority were free, collected either from trade shows (industry stickers), from shops (marketing stickers), from food or toy packaging (licensed stickers) or from clinics/hospitals/school (safety stickers).

In this lengthy post I’ll give a few examples of the many different stickers, with a focus on the more nostalgic variety. (Because of the way I manipulated the scan files, the sticker images in this post are not to scale.)

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I have a great many souvenir stickers, from many classically Australian towns: Nyngan, Trangie, Bourke, Cobar (the copper city of the west!). I doubt I ever visited any of these, which means the stickers were given to me as a souvenir or I swapped them from someone else. The sticker shown on the left above – typical of many of these – includes instructions on the back which basically summarize to: “Stick this on something”! Amusingly, almost all these stickers include sheep in the coat-of-arms. I guess it’s true that sheep are everywhere in Australia ๐Ÿ™‚

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Radio stickers were commonly distributed in record shops. The idea was to put them on your bumper and possibly win a prize if your license plate was read on the air. I never did this (of course), and instead hoarded the stickers. I have stickers for about a dozen radio stations, including 2NUR, 2KO, JJJ (many varieties) and even a Queensland radio station! Where did I get that?

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That’s one of three stickers of which I am even today quite proud of, since that’s for my uncle’s (Peter Sheely) surfboard company. Sheely stickers were one of the few I ever actually stuck on things (schoolbooks mostly) since I could use my contacts to get more ๐Ÿ˜‰

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I find the stickers with dates to be quite interesting. The oldest sticker I have seems to be the one advertising the 1977 tennis tournament, and the youngest seems to be from 1988 (when I was 16). Stickers can be educational as well: who knew that in 1979 Australia apparently had an argentine ant infestation? It’s a good thing Inspector Anteater was on the job!

Oh, and what the heck is this:

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I doubt we went to this event, especially since I don’t know where Blacktown is. But mysteriously I have not one or two but three different stickers advertising it! That’s a mystery that will never be solved…

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Safety stickers, like those above, were given out at school or (more commonly) at free clinics that were held at malls or sometimes libraries. The best way to teach a child safety is to give him a sticker I suppose. In those days I don’t recall people sticking stickers on shops or cars or street signs like some do today, so they seem to have been more commonly used for marketing.

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We’ll call the above ‘brainwashing stickers’. I have a lot of these as well, including anti-littering, save-the-animals, save-the-water and (a whole bunch of) religions ‘I love being a christian’ stickers. For children in the 1970s and 1980s, much education was accomplished via the distribution of stickers!

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Speaking of marketing, I’ve got a good selection of food promotional stickers all showing off the logos and design sense of 197X. I don’t think any advertising exec these days would ever use the word ‘peddler’ in his jingles, do you? The UFO’s sticker – for a type of snack chip product (think flavoured, shaped cheetos) makes me want to eat a bag right now!

Speaking of marketing, I have a few high quality ‘shop window’ vinyl stickers. I have absolutely no idea where I got them from, since we didn’t know anyone that owned a shop. They are all quite massive and don’t fit in the scanner. Here’s a classic:

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That sticker has to be 25+ years old now, and I believe Chiko Roll still uses similar marketing today! Seeing this sticker, and posting the image, makes me want to eat a Chiko Roll for the first time in my life. Watch for that event during the Australia trip…

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A couple of stickers for long-dead Newcastle restaurants. As a child I used to love going to The Beefeater since it seemed posh and special. I bet viewed through adult eyes it was a bit of a dirty very amateur theme restaurant ๐Ÿ™‚

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Smash Hits stickers! Yes, I kept everything. I wonder how many other unstuck Icehouse stickers exist in the world today?

On the subject of keeping everything, here are some true gems of the collection:

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I’m pretty sure I nicked the above from a clothing store called ‘Best & Less’ when the employee wasn’t looking. I actually have three, in different amounts. It’s obviously designed for a store display, and is about 20 cm long. It’ll be handy if I ever have a sale!

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The above somewhat boggles my mind. But hey, it’s a sticker!

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The above was designed for a math contest that I entered (and actually won)! At the time I was probably more excited by the $50 prize, but now I’m happy I kept the sticker.

Of course with hundreds of stickers including many that are – let’s face it – borderline garbage, I had to have my favourites. And I did indeed, and they were almost all the licensed stickers. These came from cereal, bread or ice-cream boxes and the nature of their distribution meant I only have a rare few of each. Back in the day these were the creme-d-la-creme of my collection, so be impressed:

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The smurf sticker (which is about 4 times the size of the Pac man one) probably came from a BP station and was free with a gas refill. I’d bet the Ms. Pac Man one came from a box of Pac Man ice-creams. Here’s another sticker that clearly came from an ice-cream box:

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What a beauty! Looking through my collection photo stickers are very rare, but to have such a nice one from 1979 – and Star Trek no less – surely elevated this guy to highest echelons of my collection! It shared that spot with:

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OMG! Nine different painted ewok stickers that were used to promote the Ewok Adventure film (in 1984). It’s a real mystery where these guys came from, but just look at them. This would be a real treasure for ewok collectors…

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And then, Star Wars! These stickers are big (about 10 cm tall) and there were a lot of them for all the major characters. I have five different ones, many in duplicate, and am sure I once had many more because I stuck these on schoolbooks as well. Back in those days Star Wars was a mania of mine; I would have prized these. Incidentally I have no idea where they came from. I very much doubt they were food promotions due to their size. Anyone remember?

So what could have possibly exceeded Star Wars to 12-year-old me? Feast your eyes on this trio:

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I’m sure we all remember fondly the Power Lords toy/comic line that was introduced by Revell in 1983 to compete against Masters Of The Universe? You don’t? Shame on you! As a kid I got some of the figures, and probably liked them enough, but I loved the stickers that came with them! Raygoth! Gripptogg! Such fantastic names. These stickers are big, colourful and I loved, loved, loved them. They were, quite simply, three of the best four stickers that I owned.

And this was the very best:

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Lord in heaven a glitter skull sticker! This was the very pinnacle, the sticker so good it could never be stuck. This was also purchased by me, and I remember exactly where: Angus & Robertson in Garden City. I actually purchased two stickers that day, the other being a similarly glittery striking cobra design. That second sticker is no longer still with me, so I imagine it was stuck somewhere, but the skull is still waiting. This sticker has powerful nostalgic value for me these days, and still is in fantastic condition and tremendously glittery when viewed in the right light.

So where should I stick it?

As My Brother Requested, A List Of What He Could Buy Me For Christmas

Thursday, November 14th, 2013

Did you notice the blog was down for about a week? I received the following missive from my brother explaining the absence:

“Dearest secondborn, it pains me to admit I forsook the required blog maintenance due to an abundance of stress that resulted from an inability to find Christmas gifts of a level high enough to show you the appreciation that you deserve. Pray tell, could you help as you have done in years past?”

Lest you think this is fake, his telegram didn’t include the hyperlinks. Those were my additions ๐Ÿ™‚

It would be positively bestial of me to ignore such a cry for help, and thus I present – once again – a humble list of items that I would love to unwrap on that most special of days…

Books Category

“I Am The Doctor” – Jon Pertwee

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This was Jon Pertwee’s last biography, and apparently is a smashing read, containing many and varied anecdotes about his life during and after the time he portrayed what everyone agrees is the best ever Doctor Who. For me, this book would essentially be a ‘how to’ that I could apply to living all aspects of my life.

Manual Of The Planes (1st Edition)

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It’s possible I have one of the most complete AD&D 1E collections out there, since I have no less than fifteen different hardcover manuals including such esoterica as The Wilderness Survival Guide and Dragonlance Adventures. And yet the original edition of the Manual Of The Planes has yet avoided my ‘ever-expanding web of acquisition’ (a somewhat obscure AD&D magic item). Of course I have the 3E version, as well as other planar guides, but in the name of completeness I must have the above! If I were to live within driving range of a fabulous used book store that sells D&D manuals then I’d probably drive over there and see if they had this one in stock to buy and give me for Christmas……

Toys Category

Neo-Otyugh figure

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This is one of those things that most of you would instantly ignore if you ever saw it in a store. Me? I’d buy it! As my brother will, to brighten my Weihnachten! Of course he’d have to find it first, which is no mean feat since it’s one of the less common figures in a figure line that failed miserably more than 20 years ago. Plus it’s a bendable figure, which means it was made in China out of some no doubt toxic rubber that after all this time has probably dissolved into poisonous gas. I guess I’ll find out on Christmas Day ๐Ÿ˜‰

Imakarum Miribalis figure kit by Max Factory

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This one’s been on this list before, and I’ve wanted it for years now. As availability evaporates, so too does the price continue to rise. In Japan earlier this year I fully intended to buy this; I was even prepared to pay an unreasonable amount for it. But I never saw it. I looked everywhere for it. I even took a solo trip to Akihabara and explored every figure shop I could find. It beggars belief that I never found it, because where else on Earth would this be available? I’ll tell you where: the place Bernard finds it. And buys it. For me. For Christmas.

Music Category

Who Is The Doctor – Jon Pertwee (7″ single)

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This one’s been on my list for a while, for several reasons:
i) It’s sung by the person everyone agrees played the best Doctor, Jon Pertwee.
ii) It’s very, very good. Actually it’s even better.
iii) I still have a working and connected record player downstairs, and could therefore dance to it with Yossie.

Don’t believe me about how great it is? Judge for yourself:

I’d love to taste that ‘secret sauce’ on December 25th!

Oh, and Bernard… when you’re adding the above Jon Pertwee albums to your cart, and if you’re feeling especially generous, you may want to throw this one in as well:

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Now that is a man’s album cover!

Electronic Game Category

Dalek Attack LCD game

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It’s difficult to use the English language to even describe why I would want the above, so let’s use German: Der Grund hierfรผr ist, dass ich ein besessener Sammler bin und wollte diese, seit ich ein Sprรถssling war. I reckon Bernard’s going to have to use some sort of supernatural power to actually obtain one though, since I’ve never ever seen it, nor seen it for sale, or even know if it exists. This is the sort of item that makes the quest that is Christmas shopping so grand, and I am almost jealous of my brother that I have now given him the joy of finding this gem.

Zelda Game-&-Watch

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I’ve actually seen the above product, more than once, always in Japan. Every time I beheld it I wept, for two reasons. Firstly, because I wanted to own it that badly, and secondly because the price literally brought tears to my eyes. Especially for a mint-in-boxed version, which is of course the one I would want. Once, when only I was present and no-one else could have possibly heard him, my brother said: “No item is too expensive at Christmas!” Approximately 41 days from today, I’ll see if he remembers those words.

DVD Category

Sword & The Sorceror

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This was released quite a few years ago in the US, but it’s all-but-unavailable now. Which is a shame, because I want it! I religiously check amazon for reissues, and even went so far as to buy a bootleg ripped-from-VHS version at NYCC (which didn’t work). Those of you that have seen this dreadful film may wonder why the obsession with seeing it again, and I may not be able to easily answer. Until Christmas day ๐Ÿ˜‰

Video Games Category

Snow Brothers (Game Boy)

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Picture this: you’re in a used game shop, perusing the ancient Game Boy cartridges. Your eyes fall on the above, and what do you do? I reckon nothing. You’d barely even notice it as you scanned the titles. You almost certainly wouldn’t know you were looking at $200 of plastic and microchips would you? I would, and I’d eagerly rip out my wallet and buy the little sucker.

Of course the above story is pure fiction, since it would never ever, EVER happen. I know because – for twenty goddamn years now – I have scanned game boy cartridges in used game stores and have never seen Snow Brothers.

It warms my heart to think that my brother, as he drives around to every single game store within 5 hours of his house, actually will find Snow Brothers. And he’ll buy it for a song. And I’ll sing the same song when I open it on Christmas Day: “To taste the secret sauce of life”!

Might & Magic Games (SNES)

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These are the gifts that, as I open them on Christmas day, will cause me to say aloud “He didn’t!” While I wouldn’t put anything beyond my brother – especially where it involves brightening my Christmas – the organization, acquisition and innovation required to obtain both Super Nintendo Might and Magic cartridges and give them to me in one gift box would be no less than godlike. Lest you find my words hyperbolic, know that Might And Magic 2 is Japanese only, and despite fervent searching throughout all five of my Japanese trips I have never seen it, and that the second was released in very small quantities and is very difficult to find boxed these days.

As an aside, I have played M&M3 SNES. Back in my fanzine days, FCI sent me a pre-release EPROM with the game on it, that I stuck into my SNES and played. It is one of my regrets that I ever returned that to the company…

Atari Lynx + Gauntlet Third Encounter

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aka ‘The One That Got Away’. As with every other human on this planet, I cared less about the Lynx back when it was released in 1989. By the time I got to America it had failed spectacularly, and by the time I started collecting games in early 1994 it had disappeared from stores. These days working versions fetch high prices, much more-so if they are boxed. This is interesting since it was a crap system with crap games… except for Gauntlet: The Third Encounter.

I want a Lynx. I have wanted one for years, and have come close to buying one once or twice. What has held me back was the fact I have essentially no interest in any games for it except for Gauntlet, which means I’d be paying what is now around $300 for something I’d never used. Furthermore, Gauntlet itself is quite rare, and the Lynx + Gauntlet combo (boxed) could be upwards of $500. If you could even find either.

So Bernard, as you spend every weekend between now and Christmas driving the length and breadth of California in the almost-certainly-futile search for a Snow Brothers game boy cartridge, remember me if you spot a cheap Lynx + Gauntlet Third Encounter combo ๐Ÿ˜‰

‘Dream Item’ Category

Doctor Who Pinball Machine

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For a few years now I have seriously entertained the idea of buying a pinball machine. I did some research, and very quickly the above bubbled to the top of my list. It was released in 1992, it’s beautiful, it’s very complex, and it would look marvelous in my house.

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The machines don’t seem that difficult to find, as long as you can somehow arrange shipping (Bernard could I’m sure) and have more money than sense (…). If nothing else, the thought of how beautiful the cabinet would look reflecting the lights of our tree moments after I unwrapped it surely moves even the most miserly of souls? This is truly a gift that would enable the recipient to fully enjoy the ‘secret sauce’ of life!

Air

Friday, November 1st, 2013

Even though, this morning, I didn’t know they were out today…

And even though, less than half an hour before I told JAF I wasn’t going to get one…

…I bought an iPad Air today ๐Ÿ™‚

After a few hours of use, here’s five “why the Air is better than my old iPad 2” observations:

1) It’s much, much faster doing just about anything. Powering on, starting apps, using the internet. This last one surprised me a bit since I figured the slowness was the network lag, but this beast loads webpages and checks email like there’s no tomorrow. In addition, certain games that were sluggish on the iPad 2 are much more playable now.

2) The retina screen is incredible. Of course I’m used to it on my phone, and of course iPads have had retina screens for ages now (since iPad 3), but I had chosen to ignore this since my old iPad didn’t have one ๐Ÿ™‚

3) It’s much lighter and much thinner than any previous iPad. This is why they are calling it the ‘air’, and it’s a bit incredible to have an iPad that is both thinner and lighter than my phone. It’s hard to believe tablets could get much thinner than this.

4) It uses all the features of iOS 7. If you are using an iPad 2, certain features of Apples latest OS are disabled. This irked me a bit, since iOS 7 seemed a bit more complete on my phone than on my old iPad. No such problem on the Air.

5) Battery life seems better. I haven’t plugged it in yet. It was 99% out of the box and now after many hours which included downloading a 18GB backup from the cloud, it’s at 78%. Either it’s just flat out better, or my old iPad had an aging battery (which is very possible).

Needless to say despite the fact that I had no plans or expectation to buy this, I’m very happy with my purchase. For a device I use every single day, I think it was a good time for a big upgrade!