Let’s Do Space Archaeozoology!

September 27th, 2018

I’ve seen my fair share of real bad Star Wars merchandise over the years and thought I was immune to excessive awfulness but this product tested my limits:

‘Star Wars Science’ they say, where you excavate alien skulls of beloved Star Wars creatures. Science…

That’s the list of possible skulls to be found, educationally compared to mundane Earthbound examples. I wonder which one I’ll get…?

The contents of the box. I reckon that’s alien dirt waiting to be dug, although since this could be some sort of space shipping container I guess it could be space vermiculite? I was impatient though and upended the whole thing:

Golly gee is that a Zabrak skull I see? Ancient remains of Darth Maul’s noble race that sometimes has the horns growing out of the head and sometimes stuck on as decoration?

Well yes it is a Zabrak! It’s in three pieces no less, so this sucker must have died a wretched death. Cleaning the space dirt off was a chore, and the inch-high skull didn’t go together as cleanly as it should, but I suppose it’s a curiosity if nothing else…?

Nah it’s awful, has zero play value and isn’t close to worth the $6 I paid for it. Even for a SW maniac like me this is terrible, so avoid at all costs…

(Except Bernard, who can expect one for Christmas!)

Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »

Eleven Things We Saw At The Fair

September 23rd, 2018

Yesterday we all piled into our car – KLS, JK, her brother DK, YZ and myself – and went to a new fair! Well not exactly new, since it was the 101st year it’s been held, but for us this was our first visit to The Big E.

This is a megafair that is held in Maine and represents six eastern states. And it’s massive! Too big in fact, in that you couldn’t possibly see it all in one day. We were there 6.5 hours (it’s a 90 minute drive away) and probably only saw half of it. But it was fun, and here’s eleven random photos from our visit…

This dude gave a great talk/demo about sheep shearing! Note the other sheep peeping under the door waiting for their haircuts? A sheep fact I learned is that the world record for shearing an adult sheep is 37 seconds!

Here’s J and D after being turned into incredibly disturbing sheep/human hybrids. D is here on an extended stay from Korea and I reckon he was a bit mystified by the USA culture he saw yesterday 🙂

That’s a butter sculpture. It was stupidly large and detailed and I wonder what happens to it when the fair is done? (Yes it’s all carved from real butter and is made and stored inside a refrigerated room.)

It was a hard decision as to whether I would include the Yoda, the Gene Simmons or the Fizzgig Chewbacca/BB-8 (with actual LED eye) carved pumpkin contest entries but this one won mostly because it pushes the envelope (in my opinion) of what a decorated pumpkin can be.

That’s a pig with babies. It was bigger than me! Nearby there were baby goats and chickens and an extraordinary incubator as well as…

insanely big pumpkins! 1440 lbs to be precise! One wonders if the grower of this monstrosity could have snagged two awards if he’d decorated it to look like Jabba The Hutt?!?

A beautiful display of entrants in the honey contest.

There was so much food to choose from. This stand sold 18 inch corn dogs (Pluto Pups, for the Aussies) for $14 but we didn’t partake instead buying…

Turkey legs, gyros, lobster rolls, fries, roasted corn, grilled pork belly, deep fried battered corn, clam chowder, grilled root vegetables, chocolate/strawberry milk and maple coffee. (In addition to various samples.)

The midway was great, with loads of amazing rides. Alas I knew I’d get sick so I vicariously rode them by putting J and D on a few (they’re riding this Zipper in this shot). Damn my motion sickness ><

And finally, some quality airbrushed ride art. There was loads like this example (on a ghost train ride), but the weird lighting meant many of my photos were too dark.

It was a great fair and I feel there was even more amazing stuff we didn’t even see. We’ll return for sure next year, albeit probably on a weekday to avoid the insane crowds!

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Passage To Maouv

September 18th, 2018

I bought this at a local con some months ago:

It’s an old book and record set from 1975 and yes it still includes the record:

The idea was that kids would read the comic while listening to the record, and these things were very common back in the day.

This particular story involved the Enterprise transporting a telepathic catlike creature between planets only to be jeopardized by its mental powers when it escapees it’s cage and becomes terrified. It’s empty fluff of course, but would have made for a curious tv episode. Amusingly, it was written by Alan Dean “I’ll write anything” Foster!

When I bought this it was sealed in a protective sleeve and as soon as I opened it the stench of cigarettes overwhelmed me. This is a prime example of why collectibles that come “from a smoke-free home” are worth more on the secondary market!

Anyway let’s enjoy the story, albeit briefly. You’re about to hear this page:

Here’s the video:

Your first question is whether or not this is a performance by the original actors, and I don’t know the answer. I found conflicting information either way online but since my record player seems to have a perishing drive belt there’s a slight pitch offset on the audio which confuses things. (At the end of the video I set the pitch back to the default so you can hear the speed issue.)

I will say if these aren’t the original actors they’re very good soundalikes!

Your second question is what the hell is up with Uhura in the comic! That’s another I can’t answer…

Anyway it’s a good product overall and I was very surprised by the quality of the record. Even though it’s short (~16 minutes) it’s professional and very respectful to the show and I reckon Star Trek lovin’ kids in ’75 went bonkers for this!

Oh and if you’re wondering they managed to avoid disaster due to a feline crew member who was able to calm the alien cat down before it enslaved everyone:

Posted in Books & Comics, Collecting, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Retro, TV | Comments Closed

A Couple Of Crafts

September 10th, 2018

It’s been a while since a craft post, and while these two aren’t particular novel I thought they were unusual enough to warrant a mini showcase!

I saw these Figure-rise Bust kits in Japan last year but they were all of (Gundam) characters I didn’t know. Recently however this Miku kit came out and I had to have it. And yes, it’s an actual kit and not a figure:

Pay attention to the face which is molded in many colours thus eliminating the need for stamps:

Assembly was easy, and even though the kit did include some stickers they were easy to apply and are mostly hidden:

Completed, it looks amazing!

The only customization I did was using my Gundam paint pen to give her black fingernails. She’ll sit now forever on a shelf looking pretty 🙂

Next we have this LEGO kit I bought in Scotland:

This was one of those kits designed by ‘normal’ people that – since it received over 10000 votes online – became a real product. It’s based on Tron Legacy, which is a much, much better film than you think…

Assembly was trivial for a LEGO prodigy like myself and I liked the unusual colours and ‘Tronny’ aesthetic. You can either have Sam fighting Rinzler in a high-stakes disc battle, or battling via lightcycles on the grid:

It’s a nifty kit, well worth the cost for someone who appreciates Tron Legacy as the masterpiece many incorrectly think it isn’t. It’ll now sit forever on my shelf looking digital.

Posted in Collecting, Movies, Otaku, Toys | 2 Comments »

My Collection: Neo Geo Pocket Color

September 8th, 2018

Neo Geo was well known for high-end and arcade quality home game consoles when it decided to enter the handheld market, and expectations were high for the Neo Geo Pocket Colour when it launched in mid 1999. I bought mine later that year with six of the launch games. I immediately fell in love with it.

That’s my original handheld – I chose the ‘anthracite’ color – in it’s box. I hadn’t played it for many years before preparing this post, and had forgotten just how much I loved it.

The system is smaller than the original gameboy, and very lightweight. Though entirely plastic it feels very solid and professionally built. Special mention must be made of the tiny 8-way joystick that utilizes microswitches than click when used. It’s extremely satisfying. Oh and if you wonder about the specs, they’re printed right under the screen!

The screen is reflective rather than backlit, which was fine in those days but is charmingly old fashioned now. The contrast however is excellent and there’s almost no blurring. Here’s a shot of the bioryhtym calculator included as part of the basic OS:

The games came in cardboard boxes (as did gameboy games in those days) with the cartridge itself in a tiny plastic box. Manuals were full colour.

The cartridges are on the small side. Of course compared to Switch and Vita games they’re not but in those days these were quite a bit smaller than the competitors games:

The Neo Geo Pocket Color failed as a system, due mostly to the financial woes of the parent company. It was demonstrably a better system than the Gameboy and was priced competitively but poor management coupled with competition from the juggernaut known as Pokemon helped seal it’s fate in less than a year. As the months passed games became increasingly difficult to find (this was before such things were easily purchased online) and I recall it was a bit of an effort to buy games into early 2000.

All in all I managed to obtain 14 games:

Most are boxed; some are not. All were purchased new. The reason for the lack of boxes is that there were games that had been produced but not distributed when the system was pulled from stores in early 2000 and boxes for those games were never made. I bought them online (for almost nothing) years later.

As you can see there are many Neo Geo arcade ‘ports’. These have been mostly redesigned to fit the different style of control and display, and are almost without exception excellent. The Metal Slug games in particular play very well, and Gal’s Fighters is probably the best handheld fighting game I have ever played. The standout game though is Card Fighters Clash, a strategic collectible card game with astonishingly good graphics. I loved this game to death, and am strongly considering (yet) another playthrough from scratch for old times sake 🙂

As with most of my games, my NGPC collection is in virtual mint condition and is complete with all boxes and manuals. I don’t think much about it though, and was surprised in preparing this post to see how much this once-clearanced and mostly forgotten system has appreciated. Consulting my database I see that I paid a total of $389.71 for the system and the 14 games I bought (the system cost $70, the games averaged $22 apiece). And yet these days the boxed system alone is ‘worth’ about $180 and one of the games (Evolution) may even fetch more than that! A brief tabulation at one of the internet price charting sites values my collection at just shy of $1000 so I’ll be sure to keep it safe and sound for many years to come 🙂

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

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