Henshin-A-Go-Go-Baby

November 7th, 2024

Remember Tamagotchi? They’re still around, and there’s loads of licensed ones now. Such as this one:

It’s tiny and inexpensive – I paid about $12 – and the fact it’s a Kamen Rider ‘gotchi was irresistible. So I bought one and turned it on, and my first ‘rider boy’ soon arrived:

The above shows the ‘boy’ chilling, eating and being attacked by Shocker troops. There’s not much interaction aside from pushing a button now and then, and it seems even if you forget all that happens is he gets sad:

There’s a couple of rudimentary games to play (that I mostly ignored) and 24 hours after the ‘boy’ is born he turns into an actual Kamen Rider:

What are their names? I think the right is Kamen Rider Saber, but the others I don’t know. The device has 48 Riders in it (some of which are ‘secret’) and despite the tiny resolution they seem to be decent representations of Riders from each era of the show. I’ve not yet watched the 7 Kamen Rider DVD box sets I’ve already bought but once I do I’m sure I’ll know their names 🙂

The riders stay around for 48 hours before ‘leaving to help someone else’, which looks like this:

And then, with a push of the reset button, the cycle begins anew. I ‘played’ it for two weeks and saw five riders at which point I’d lost interest. It’s cute and funny for a while, but as with all Tamagotchi (and I’ve got about half a dozen now) the appeal fades fast.

Maybe I’ll return after I’ve watched some of those DVDs!

Ramen 29: What’s This?!?

November 3rd, 2024

A short post today, since I had to mention this limited edition flavour of Funyuns onion ring snacks:

Why oh why did they have to be hot & spicy chicken ramen?!? What’s wrong with plain chicken, the flavour beloved by all??!? For this reason these were purchased, placed carefully in our larder, and then forgotten for months.

This is no exaggeration! I only ever saw these for sale once – at a petrol station of all places – and I purchased them immediately. Many times since I had considered opening them but I was always terrified of the ‘hot & spicy’. Yesterday, six weeks after they had expired, they were finally tasted.

My verdict: inedible. Quite literally I could barely even finish the sole ring I tasted, so excruciating was the mouth-scalding heat. Others (such as KLS, who didn’t mind them) may say they’re not even hot at all, but as with all True Australians I have no heat tolerance and these were torture.

Halloween Decorations

October 29th, 2024

Halloween decorations seem to have increased both in frequency and size this year. We went for a walk the other day to admire some of them. Here’s some photos.

Many houses that decorate will have pumpkins on their porch, perhaps a few little ghosts hanging from a tree, and maybe a skeletons or skull in their window. This house went all-in with a full-sized skeleton and a gigantic spider web that spans their entire front yard. This isn’t even the biggest web near us: another house covered almost the entire front of the house with a massive web!

This one is a bit low effort but made us laugh: (rubber) body parts scattered on the lawn. On a dark night I think this could be quite scary for a young child, which I feel is in the ‘true’ spirit of Halloween

Just down the street from us they built a small graveyard in their yard which looks great amongst the fallen leaves. As you can see the dead are escaping and climbing a nearby tree. This is illuminated with spooky red lights at night and looks great.

The place around the corner has two massive inflatables (one is Hogwarts!), a looming skeleton with animated eyes and dozens of smaller statues all throughout the yard. Trick-or-treaters will walk through the purple house on their way to the front door. All this is lit at night and accompanied by spooky music.

The place down the road that did tennis playing skeletons years ago now have an incredible Ghostbusters scene. The backpacks and ‘slimer’ ghost are all homemade from cardboard and styrofoam and (we think) the beams light up at night. This is amazingly well done and the sort of display that could win a Halloween decoration contest!

A few blocks away, in front of a house that looks like it could legitimately be haunted, are the biggest decorations we’ve ever seen. Jack Skellington here is 13 feet tall (I checked!) and animated, and only one of five different enormous statues they have in their front yard.

This demon has light-up eyes and towers over me. It’s legitimately creepy and I imagine kids will love it.

And as you can see this headless horseman is almost life-sized as well. I checked online to find a price and there seems to be a few different similar models but even the cheapest is almost $400. And this is just one of five in this houses front yard!

Inflatables remain common, but perhaps not as much as they used to be. Here’s the display in front of our fire station, which as usual will have a haunted house installation this year for parents to take their kids to on Halloween. I like the sausage dog, with a sign (‘Happy Halloweiner‘) that seems removable so he can remain out with his pilgrim hat on as a thanksgiving ornament.

And what of us? It’s been several years since we out any non-pumpkin decorations out, but we splurged this year on our first ever set of lawn flamingos! Of the zombie kind…

Here they are installed next to the creepy face on the tree in our front yard. They’re black with blood red eyes and long sharp teeth, and probably should have been marketed as vampires and not zombies!

And here they are at night, basking in the glow from that demonic face. We won’t be home on Halloween night, but I hope at least one young trick-or-treater sees this and is momentarily spooked 🙂

Another Year At The Films

October 24th, 2024

Kristin and I saw 30 movies this year, some more than once, and all but one at the drive-in. As with previous years we wrote five-word reviews after each of them, and here they are. Since I couldn’t sometimes pick only one, some films have multiple ‘reviews’ 🙂

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire – Best film of the year!
Ghostbusters Frozen Empire – Time to retire this franchise.
Abigail – Original and fun vampire movie.

The Mummy – A decent bootleg Indy film.
The Mummy – The hero murders many people.
Jumanji – Children imperiled by jungle animals.
Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace – Meesa do lika dis film.

Challengers – It’s not really about tennis.
If – Deadpool as an imaginary friend.
Furiosa – Oh what a lovely film!
Furiosa – We didn’t need another hero.

Inside Out 2 – The sequel to Inside Out.
Kingdom of The Planet Of The Apes – What’s with these ape movies?
Kingdom of The Planet Of The Apes – The best character isn’t simian.
Despicable Me 4 – Prequel to Despicable Me 5.

Maxxxine – Mia Goth is a star!
Twisters – Pretty people doing stupid things.
Close Encounters of The Third Kind – Re mi do do sol.

Deadpool & Wolverine – Proof that plot is irrelevant.
It Ends With Us – Unbelievable people living unbelievable lives.
It Ends With Us – It didn’t end fast enough.
Alien Romulus – ‘Goonies with aliens’ doesn’t work.

Grease – The lyrics are so suggestive!
Grease – Sadly it doesn’t include Xanadu.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice – What the hell was that?
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice – Worst film of the year.
Trap – Just another dumb Shyamalan film.
Trap – Appropriately the title rhymes with…

Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter – What happened to the mum?
The Beyond – Far more style than substance.
Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives– He should have stayed dead.
Evil Dead 2 – A well deserving horror classic.

Transformers One – More than meets the eye.
Joker: Folie A Deux – Should never have been made.
The Wild Robot – Robot Jesus saves furry animals.

The Wolf Man – Spoiler: Lon Chaney’s a werewolf!
DraculaThe bats have left the bell tower
DraculaThe victims have been bled
DraculaRed velvet lines the black box
DraculaBela Lugosi’s dead

(Ok, so I broke my 5 word limit for that last one. I’m sure you forgive me!)

With winter fast approaching the drive-ins are once again closed for the season. It was the end of our 15th year going to our closest local drive-in, and we will again buy a season pass for 2025. I hope they’ll have a lot of good films for us to watch next year!

Chinese Cheetos

October 23rd, 2024

Recently I bought some intriguing Cheetos at an Asian grocer in NYC. Let’s give them a go:

First we have these, mysterious labeled as ‘Japanese Flavour’ and bearing the regal figure of Ultraman Zero on the package.

I’ll admit I was nervous, since I’m a half-man when it comes to new tastes and I’m deeply suspicious of Asian cheese. But these were delicious!

The ‘artificial steak flavouring’ and caramel listed in the ingredients combine nicely to produce a tasty corn snack with the slightest hint of meat and sweet aftertaste. I ate them heartily and wished I had purchased more than one bag. An easy thumbs up!

Next we have Ultraman Tiga Cheetos, this time ‘Artificial American turkey flavour’! Turkey? American turkey? Artificial? What could this be?!?

In short, these are magnificent. Of course they don’t taste like turkey at all, but they – much like the steak versions – are a delightful mix of savory and sweet. Imagine taking a chicken twistie and dipping it in sweet and sour sauce and you’re close to what these taste like. I’ve had these before (pre Ultraman packaging) so knew what to expect, and it was without hesitation that I bought five bags 🙂

These are in fact the best Cheetos I have ever tasted. All my thumbs up!

There is also a third flavour, this time plain cheese graced with Ultraman X‘s ‘Alpha Edge’ form. If I saw these I’d buy them, but I wouldn’t expect much. I’ve had Japanese Cheetos before and they taste of the sort of evil cheese an epicure may favor but I detest.

I suggest running to your nearest Asian grocer and picking up a bag of the turkey or steak ones ASAP. You’ll love them, and as a bonus can add the (carefully washed of course) bag to your Ultraman food packaging collection 🙂