Robot Claw – Page 108 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Birthday Trip

October 10, 2023

We went to NYC for a few days to celebrate Kristins birthday. Once again we splurged for a room high above Bryant Park with a balcony.

It was cooler than we expected in the city and I probably wasn’t dressed for it, but we filled the first day with shopping at all our favourite spots.

We had fun, bought some interesting things and ate richly, as usual. Also as usual, we mostly ate at different times since we both prefer different things (and I eat freakishly early these days).

Here’s the view from the balcony at night:

On the second day we went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which we’d never visited before. It was very popular and bustling with people at the entrance, but it’s a large museum and didn’t seem packed inside.

That was the highlight. It’s (of course) Starry Night by Van Gogh, and neither of us knew it was there. In fact we were both so surprised to see it just hanging on a wall in the open we assumed it was a copy or something, but it is the actual painting which has been in the MoMA collection for over 80 years. It was genuinely moving to see, given the story behind it and how famous it is. Some believe it’s the most valuable painting in the world!

Of course MoMA has many other works, and we did our best to view all of them. I’ve been to modern art exhibits before and all I’ll say about much of what we saw is that the question of whether it was ‘art’ or not is perhaps more interesting (to me) than the pieces themselves.

Afterwards we did more shopping and eating and just soaking in the sights and character of the city. There was a parade as well, to celebrate Italian-Americans, and we watched the floats a bit as they went down 5th Avenue.

Although summer has passed and winter’s chill is starting to arrive, the city was still full of tourists. Times Square was busy as it always is and yesterday in particular shops and eateries were very full probably because it was a holiday (Columbus Day)?

Inside an empty shop we saw taller-than-man-sized reproductions of Star Wars PEZ dispensers being carved from styrofoam. Why and for what reason? We’ll probably never know…

Oh and it’s beginning to feel a bit like Christmas…

It was a very relaxing and fun few days, and while we exhausted ourselves filling each day with activities.

To cap things off we sprung for a large sized roomette on the train on the way home. It seated four and had its own shower (in a separate room to the left in the photo). It was more than twice the size (and cost!) of the roomette we usually use and was very comfy:

I asked Kristin if she had fun on her birthday trip and she said: “Yes, I ate bought and saw many wonderful things!” 🙂

Top 40 Nostalgia

October 7, 2023

Some years back I referred to my collection of ‘Too 40’ charts I used to get at the record shops. I had dozens of them lasting many years through the 1980s, and wish I still had them.

Recently I found some scanned in a historical website of Australian music. The scans were a little low-resolution, but the charts are still readable. Here’s one from March 1984:

Some iconic songs in that top 10! Also note that Thriller is at week 67 in the top 40 but a Midnight Oil album is at week 69! Incidentally I love how this scan is obviously of a copy once owned by a kid who wrote on it.

Here’s the back of the same chart:

These were about A4 size, always printed in two different colours, and usually sat in piles on a counter free for the taking. The fronts always showed the singles/album chart and the back was usually an ad that often contained lyrics. It was a particularly great week when a band I liked was featured on the back 🙂

Here’s the front and back of another from 1984:

99 Luftballoons spent at least two weeks at number 1 in Australia? I wouldn’t have remembered that, even though I did buy the single (and I believe own it to this day). Since I was a big fan of Nik Kershaw in those days, I’m sure I was thrilled to see him featured on the back.

Here’s one from 1985, in which we see the Countdown (a very famous Oz music TV show) promotion had ended:

And lastly the fronts only of two more:

That’s all I was able to find online, and since it was years ago I no longer remember where. If anything this dip into nostalgia makes me want to get my hands on one even more. Years back I saw one (in so-so condition) for sale in an antique store for some silly price and passed. Next time I may reach for my wallet, especially if it’s got a good band on the back 🙂

World Postcard Day

October 1, 2023

It’s been a year since my last Postcrossing post, which was when I passed 750 cards received. I was going to wait for 1000, but since today is World Postcard Day (did you send someone a card?) it felt like a good day to catch up.

As of today, I’ve received (and sent) 943 cards. I’m getting about 25 a month, so I’ll pass 1000 this year. There’s been no change in the top 10 countries from which I’ve received cards, but the order has shuffled a little bit:

Interestingly while I’ve received about 30 cards from Russia in the past year, I’ve sent none. I didn’t realize until writing this post that the service seems to not be assigning Russian addresses, no doubt due to the ongoing war.

The above is a map showing the locations from which I have been sent cards since I joined back in 2018. As you can see every continent is represented, with a strong concentration in Europe. If you look closely you may see one unusual one off the northwest of Africa:

That’s the island of Madeira, which is a region of Portugal. I believe that’s the most remote place from which I have received a postcard so far.

The above shows where I have sent cards, which is similar to where they have arrived from with an even larger concentration in Europe. Once again, one marker is notably more remote than others:

That’s Guam, out there in the Pacific. Although it’s counted as a country by Postcrossing, it’s a US territory and therefore I was able to send a card there using domestic postage! It also arrived very quickly, which suggests the USA doesn’t mess around getting mail to its territories 🙂

As far as cards received, the top two are notable. Both came from Australia, and both were examples of pre-stamped postcards sold at post offices. They date to 1997 and 2001, and the postage on each is much lower than what it costs today to send a card internationally. But since these are forever valid for international use, both made it here without problem. For comparison, it costs about A$3.60 to send a postcard from Australia to the USA today, but the doll one has only A$0.45 postage on it!

I was inspired by the above to test this myself when I found (in an Australian antique store back in May) a similar postcard from the early 1980s with even less postage on it. I mailed it and it arrived here without issue! If I ever see any others for sale, I’ll buy and send them for sure.

As usual I love looking at the cornucopia of stamps on the postcrossing cards, and during this past 10 months there’s been a lot of exceptional examples. I’ve only showed a couple of examples above, but the Diana stamps were unusually included on a postcard sent from Germany. I was under the impression that in most countries it wasn’t allowed to put foreign stamps on postal items so maybe this was simply overlooked by a postal worker or perhaps it’s not a problem at all. I’m tempted to try it myself…

The above show five unusually shaped stamps received in the last year. The standout is the absolutely wild owl stamp from Finland which was a Valentine’s Day issue back in 2011! It was one of five similarly unusual (but differently shaped) bird stamps, and I’m happy the sender hung on to it for so long and sent me one.

The other Postcrossing news from the last year was that for a time I was seriously facing the need to stop due to lack of postcards. It’s become impossible to buy new ones in Albany, so I used to depend on the freeway rest stop shops and used to stock up every time we took a long drive. However they have closed as well, which left only Rochester which itself has run nearly dry. Things looked grim indeed until by a happy twist of fate I learned of the existence of a dedicated postcard shop not half an hour from our house! Two visits later and I’d bought 200+ cards for about $0.25 each, most of which will be used for Postcrossing. It seems my membership can continue for the foreseeable future 🙂