Robot Claw – Page 133 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Dinosaur Models!

March 25, 2023

I recently bought and assembled three dinosaur model kits. Collectively they cost me under $40, which is less than a (single) typical model kit that I usually buy.

The first was this Triceratops which seems to be part of a new line they’re calling Plannosaurus. It’s a beginners kit that allows you to build a skeleton or normal version of the beast.

The instructions are in colour and contain lots of information about the dinosaurs presented in a cute style. The kit is easy to make (you assemble the skeleton first, then if you want you put the skin on) and I finished in about half an hour.

I’m assuming this is aimed at kids, so I think that while it’s well-engineered (you barely need nippers or sand paper), I found I had to use glue to get certain pieces of the skin to stay on. Also the stickers were fiddly to attach, and I think kids would get frustrated with them quickly. But it looked great once I finished.

I also got this Tyrannosaurus kit, from the same line as the Triceratops. It’s extremely similar, only as you can see it has more parts since the assembly (and parts) is slightly different depending on whether you build the normal or ‘feathered’ version.

Here’s proof that model kits can be educational! There’s lots of this sort of thing in the instructions 🙂

I chose the ‘non-feathered’ mode since I didn’t want to put the stickers on. I think he looks even better than the Triceratops, and considering the low price I’m very impressed with the quality.

Lastly, I also made this curio: yet another Triceratops skeleton kit (also from Bandai) but made from a new non-plastic material called Limex. This is an environmentally friendly alternative made from calcium, and they’ve only used it for an extremely small amount of recent kits. This kit was extremely inexpensive at only $7!

It’s a trivial skeleton to assemble – it took me maybe 5 minutes – and the material is extremely white and seems very slightly translucent which is why it appears to glow in the photos. I think it’s well suited to a skeleton kit like this one, but I’m not sure Bandai will be switching their Gundams to Limex any time soon.

While these are all fairly simple kits, I think they were great value and for their intended audience of kids I think they’d be a big success. All three of these will go to work and be displayed on a cabinet in my office next to the other dinosaur skeleton kit I made a year or so back (and a shark kit I bought in Japan). Maybe if I get the other two Dino-related kits I’ll make and bring them to work too 🙂

My Collections: Wii and Wii U

March 23, 2023

Nintendo released the Wii in November of 2006 to followup from the GameCube. It had a revolutionary motion control system and some notable software that was well-engineered to take advantage, and the Wii became a breakout success appealing to players well beyond the traditional demographic. It was a best-seller almost immediately, and would go on to become one of the most successful consoles ever made. When released I had trouble finding one, but Jim used his connections to get me (and himself) one for Christmas that year.

I liked the Wii, but I always felt it was a back step compared to the GameCube and during its lifetime I vastly preferred games for the Nintendo handheld systems. That said I’m happy for the great success of the Wii: it made Nintendo a lot of money and paved the way for the Switch which I feel is one of the best consoles ever made.

During the eight year lifetime of the Wii I bought 59 games, and here are most of them:

My favourites are the first party Mario games, Monster Hunter Tri and Hyrule Warriors (which I would rebuy for Switch years later). But the system lacks nostalgic appeal, the controls these days are clumsy and the graphics on a HD screen are fuzzy. The Wii was a system of it’s time, and I think best left there.

At the end of 2012 Nintendo released a followup console called the Wii U, and it was a disaster!

Even from the first reveal this thing confused customers: was it a new console or an add-on? What was that weird controller with a screen? Did it even connect to the TV at all? Nintendo’s marketing was poor, and the console was struggling even before release.

When it did come out things didn’t get much better. The Wii U suffered from a critical shortage of software (the strange controller made porting games difficult and development costly) and sales were poor. It would go on to be Nintendo’s worst-selling console ever, and a financial disaster.

I bought only 15 games for the Wii U, which is the least I’ve ever bought for any console. While a few of these were incredibly good (Xenoblade Chronicles X, MH Tri Ultimate, Zelda: Breath Of The Wild), many of the others struggled with weird controls or excessive load times. The Wii U may have had a (very) few great games, but it wasn’t a fun or comfortable device to use, and it was inevitable it would be replaced.

In retrospect we can see the Wii U was a stepping-stone on the path to the Switch, so for that I suppose we can excuse it. But it’s now a footnote in Nintendo history, almost forgotten only a few years after it was retired.

I’ll soon be selling my entire Wii and Wii U collections (including hardware and even original boxes). Neither the hardware nor most of the games have any great value these days, and even in good condition – as mine all are – rarely fetch a quarter of what they sold for back in the day. I do have two somewhat collectible Wii games (shown above), but the value of these is dwarfed by some of the NES/SNES games I have already sold (and Gameboy/GBA games still in my collection).

I won’t miss any of this once it is gone, and am happy for my once-loved games to pass to a new collector. I enjoyed the Wii in its time – and less so the Wii U – but as I said that time has passed, and I’m ok with just the memories from now on 🙂

NYC #2

March 18, 2023

We went to the St Patrick’s Day parade yesterday. From an early hour the city was full of people in festive green clothes, and if you didn’t have any street vendors had popped up to happily sell you some.

The parade travels over 30 city blocks and lasts for about 5 hours. According to the forecast, there were 150,000 marchers and over two million spectators. We inadvertently ended up at a good viewing position about two blocks past the starting point.

The parade alternated bands (many with bagpipes), military groups, school groups and Irish community groups. There was a seemingly never-end to them, and we saw all sorts of banners and flags and uniforms walking by.

The crowds lining the street were deep, and it was all a bit surreal to stand in such a crowd watching another large crowd walk past! But it was fun, and we stayed much longer than we had expected to.

I was particularly impressed by the school bands. I don’t recall any school I attended ever having a band, and certainly not like some of those I saw yesterday: dozens or even hundreds of students in some cases all wearing flashy uniforms and playing every imaginable instrument (including xylophones and triangles!) as they walked through the city.

The above is a shot taken in one of the side-streets, which were used as a staging area. These were stuffed with people waiting to join the parade, and the streets were closed for 12 blocks to hold them all!

Notably this was the first parade since before Covid to have no restrictions, and it was great to participate in an event that confirmed the pandemic part of Covid is behind us (yes I know the disease isn’t, but life has moved on).

However security was very tight, and we were both particularly impressed by the unmarked cars and bodyguards that were part of the retinue of the NY Governor as she walked past.

Afterwards: more shopping and eating. Another full day in NYC, and as usual we’ll need a day or two to recover from all the activity 🙂