Robot Claw

Fine Art

June 1st, 2019

Many of the souvenir shops here sell beautiful souvenirs made of shells. The selection is exceeded only by the craftsmanship and it is tremendously difficult to select which ones to buy.

Bernard in particular would love these and I’m brainstorming how I’d get them home since they’re quite fragile.

Just when I think I’ve found the ultimate gift another design comes along. I don’t know who the artisans crafting these pieces are, but they’re masters of distilling the Floridian vacation experience down to a figurine made of shells.

Which one would you buy?

Posted in Art, Trip | 2 Comments »

Universal

May 31st, 2019

We’re in Florida and visited Universal Studios today, one of two Universal theme parks located here in Orlando. The theme is ‘movies’, and all the rides/attractions/restaurants/shops are based around films.

The ‘star of the show’ for us was the Harry Potter section of the park, which recreated ‘Diagon Alley’ from the films. It was extremely impressive and contained a mind-boggling ride that was half roller coaster and half 3D film.

I’ve been to many Disney parks and thought they had cornered the market on fantastic design and attractions but Harry Potter today opened my eyes. It was, in a word, amazing!

But it’s also only a part of a very large park, and over about 7.5 hrs today we rode almost every ride and saw most of what there was to see.

That shot was taken waiting in line for the Transformers ride which was maybe even slightly better than the HP one. The goggles are for the 3D component of the ride, which didn’t even make me sick! We also went on rides based on the ‘Mummy’ and ‘Fast & The Furious’ film series, and KLS rode a Jimmy Fallon NY-themed ride while I rode this:

While it was a hellish brain-shaker of a coaster I’d say it’s probably worth it, if only for the initial (17 story) vertical climb. They use metal detectors on every rider before you can get on just to make sure you don’t have items that could fall out of your pockets!

The Simpsons ride – a motion simulator ride utilizing a gargantuan imax 3D screen – was too much for me and I basically ignored the screen and focused on the wall to minimize motion sickness. This was only partially successful and had the ride continued for only a minute or so longer I may have revisited my lunch! KLS loved it though 🙂

The ET ride – 29 years old and the only ride remaining from when the park opened – was surreal and worth doing just because it’ll certainly close soon enough. You give your name at the start and an animatronic ET speaks it at the very end but I was too embarrassed to say my name was something like ‘Jesus’ or ‘Satan’ 🙂

That is KLS drinking frozen ‘butterbeer’, a butterscotch flavored concotion sold in the Harry Potter restaurant. She said it was even worth the $7!

It’s late and I just spent hours painting Dobby house elves on postcards so I’ll leave some of the remainder of the Universal Studios news for those. Suffice to say we had fun, and are already looking forward to the other Universal park – which has more rides! – in a couple of days.

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Postcrossing Update

May 28th, 2019

I’ve been using Postcrossing for five months now, and have sent and received just under 50 cards. Every time I find a new card in my PO Box it brings a smile to my face, and I’m enjoying the service even more than I thought I would.

I’ve received cards from 25 countries, although a third came from only three of them (Germany, Russia and China). I’ve sent cards to Australia and South America but not received any from either. I’ve neither sent nor received cards to Africa.

The cards themselves run the gamut from typical scenic shots to art, animals, seasonal or pop culture. Sometimes people don’t write much at all, sometimes they write a lot. Occasionally even the simplest messages bring a smile:

Most users are older women, but I did get a card from a child (complete with art!):

Some users are so experienced they have massively streamlined their work via stamps or stickers. Here’s an extreme example of a card featuring only printed stickers and no actual writing:

The variety of stamps is astonishing. Most users seem as interested in the stamps as the card themselves and take the extra effort to use interesting postage. I particularly like the unusually-shaped stamps that often come from EU countries.

Here’s an example of a card from Malaysia that included the non-postage parts from the stamp sheet. They are so big there wasn’t much space for anything else:

So of almost fifty cards which is my favorite? That’s a difficult question but I sat down and had a look and arrived at this one from Moscow:

It’s tiny – like a normal card cut in half! – and is styled to look like a Polaroid. I’ve never seen a card like this so it gets extra points for originality. Given how many I get from Russia I wonder how long before I get another tiny card?

(Of course the very best card in these five months is one I sent myself on which I drew an astonishing Freddy Mercury since the recipient mentioned she was a Queen superfan. She hasn’t received it yet…)

If you’re reading this and wondering when you’ll next have the fun of a postcard in your very own mailbox then the future looks bright! In only two days we’re off on a vacation, and you can look forward to my usual postcards in your mailbox very soon 🙂

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My Collection: Virtual Boy

May 24th, 2019

In 1995 Nintendo released their Virtual Boy console. It utilized monochrome red stereoscopic 3D graphics and became a legendary failure, being pulled from the market in under a year. The launch price was $180; eight months after launch I bought mine – an ex-rental – for $30.

When assembled for use it looks like this:

And is played like this:

While playing you view two screens – one each eye – which form a 3D image via parallax. It’s very effective – ‘true’ 3D – and almost impossible to photograph. But I tried:

While the 3D effect is convincing, there are three significant problems with the device:
1) The games are poor.
2) The posture required to actually play it is painful.
3) Playing hurts the eyes and for most people (myself included) causes headaches in only minutes.

It’s incredible this was ever released since these serious issues are obvious after even casual use. I remember after it launched I knew it would fail, and was never seriously interested in buying one even after the first price cut (this is an advert I kept from a late 1995 comic):

Only 14 games were released in the USA (22 worldwide) and I own four:

All of these were purchased brand new for $10 apiece (games were $30 at launch). I got Red Alarm the day I got the system, and the others about six months later. I recall playing the Wario game to completion but barely played the others.

The cartridges are large but very thin, and quite collectible today. The game shown above may be my priciest single game, with boxed copies on eBay right now for $900 (yes, nine hundred). It’s notable for being the last and rarest game for the system and for being linked to the Persona series.

I only paid $70 for my system and games. I could probably sell it all for $1000+ today. Not bad for one of the biggest failures in video game history.

Posted in Collecting, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Tech | Comments Closed

A New Sink

May 14th, 2019

We had the trap under our sink rust out three months ago, and needed to call a plumber. A lot of money later – admittedly because I had him replace our water shutoff downstairs as well – the leak was fixed.

Then the other day we discovered a more insidious problem. A water line to our faucet had developed a slow drip leak and needed replacement. Once again the plumber was called.

He tore out the water-damaged undersink cupboard floor and we found a puddle. It’s possible water had been soaking into the wood a while, but there’s no sign of serious damage either here or downstairs so it looks good. The pipe on the left was corroded and had at least two slow leaks. It had to go.

That’s our old sink. And when I say old, I mean probably as old as the house. The faucet was terrible and wobbly, and the sprayer was lying in the sink since we discovered a few days back that it leaked into the cupboard too!

KLS wanted a new sink and faucet and as it turns out the plumbers company (who had also done our furnace and AC) was full service and he said he could install everything today! So we had a price estimate chat, I picked out a sink and faucet, and he got to work.

Most of this needed to be replaced, which essentially would erase half the work we paid for three months ago! It looked like hellish work due to how inaccessible it is, and he was both older and bigger than me.

He worked professionally and obviously had a lot of experience. All day he was cutting pipes, welding them together, removing the old sink and putting in the new. Including a trip to collect the parts it took him 7.5 hours in total before it was all done.

The only parts not new are the pipe from the wall and the bottom of the trap. The water lines were replaced from floor level. The black pipe is the line to the faucet sprayer, and the black cylinder is the weight to keep it in the faucet.

And there it is. As you can see I went with a simple design, and unlike our old faucet it can turn to the side thus freeing the sink (which is deeper). It’s all high quality stuff too; leagues better than the old.

Of course it was hellishly expensive, but anyone that owns a home knows the terror of calling the plumber. But this work should last longer than we’ll be in this house, and given we’ve hardly put anything into this place for all the years we’ve been here we reckon that’s not bad at all.

Posted in Home, Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »