Robot Claw – Page 172 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Hershey Park One

July 25, 2022

We’re in Pennsylvania! Specifically the city of Hershey, named after Milton Hershey who was the guy who created the chocolate company. If you like Hershey chocolate (and I don’t!) then you should visit this place since it’s the epicenter of their empire 🙂

We’re here for Hershey Park, the amusement park. It’s big and loud and famous for its many rollercoasters, and we came here specifically to visit and ride them.

But first we had to ride the Hershey’s Chocolate Tour in ‘Hershey’s Chocolate World’, which is a gigantic shop/attraction right next to the main park. This tour consists of riding self-propelled carriages through a dramatization of one of their chocolate factories and is narrated by some of their super-creepy characters. With more than a hint of Disney, this ‘ride’ was fairly well done for a free attraction and I think would dazzle a child.

We lined up at the entrance gates before opening, and as soon as they opened we legged it to Fahrenheit, the coaster shown above. I picked this one first since it usually has the longest lines (2.5 hours yesterday!) and I was able to hop right on with no wait. It’s an intense ride with an initial vertical climb, a 97 degree drop and many inversions and once or twice I was pretty sure the car had derailed. One of the more thrilling coasters I’ve ever ridden, this was a great first ride and I highly recommend it!

Next was Great Bear, another monster coaster with many inversions and a high amount of disorientation. It’s an ominous ride that makes a distinctive roaring noise due to the wheel/track design and it includes many moments when your (hanging) feet feel only centimeters away from obstacles. But – perhaps due to the fact I didn’t have my glasses on or because I was hot and thirsty – when I got off I was very dizzy and light-headed, so it was time for lunch and a break!

The park is big and mazelike, and while it has a great app with an interactive map, it’s a real challenge getting around. There’s loads of rides (I think about 45?) including the coasters, and all the usual other attractions common in theme parks such as games, characters, food galore and even an attached mini zoo!

Oh and I couldn’t resist posing with a bunch of characters. They’re all hideous creatures of nightmare, but were I to pick a favourite it would be this Twizzler even though the red ones are abominations. But I suppose they wouldn’t make a black Twizzler mascot since everyone knows black Twizzlers are laxatives 😉

After lunch I rode Wildcat, which is a wooden coaster that closes permanently in less than a week. There was essentially no line and it seemed almost abandoned, and after I rode it I knew why: this was a seriously uncomfortable ride! It’s apparently infamous as one of the worlds roughest, and my body was thrown left and right like a boneless puppet as the car whipped around the track. It was painful, and put me off wooden coasters for the rest of the day! Only ride this if you have a deathwish!

While Kristin went on none of the three I’ve described (she waited patiently with my glasses since they don’t let yet you wear them on intense rides), we both rode many other rides, including two other coasters (the Wild Mouse was terrifying!), a crazy log flume and a few others. We also visited the zoo, which was underwhelming since half the animals are off-exhibit due to an avian flu and the others were hiding due to the extreme heat.

And when I say extreme heat, I mean the life-draining kind. There was a short rainstorm mid morning, but by noon the heat had returned with a vengeance, by mid afternoon it had become unpleasant, and by late afternoon we were both near exhaustion! It was time to leave so we could laze in the hotel room like blobs.

But there was still 4 or 5 other rollercoasters to try out, as well as some other rides and attractions. And there’s even an attached water park with its own series of water slides and other rides! We’d been going 8 hours but hadn’t seen everything…

It’s a good thing therefore we got two-day tickets so we can return to ride the rest tomorrow 🙂

Let’s Make A Rubber Stamp!

July 20, 2022

I bought this in Australia:

I thought it was a rubber stamp making ‘kit’, but it’s actually just a piece of soft rubber (an ‘eraser’ perhaps, from the label) that can be used to cut a rubber stamp. Since it came with nothing else and since I lacked most of the required supplies (tracing paper, chisels) I would have to wing it.

I started small, by drawing my design right onto the surface. I planned on removing the excess rubber using just an exacto knife.

This proved to be much easier than I expected since the rubber is so soft. Soft enough it can be easily torn! I had to be careful lest the blade cut somewhere I didn’t want it to.

I was fairly happy with it by this point, but removing the eyes was going to be a challenge. I did my best:

I cleaned it up, and gave it a try:

And it worked! I’m fairly impressed given it was my first attempt, and I expect I’ll make a few more 🙂

What’s that you say? You request an impression of your own? Don’t worry, you’ll get one…

My Collection: Nintendo 64

July 17, 2022

As a followup to the SNES, Nintendo released the Nintendo 64 (N64) in Japan in mid 1996, and in the rest of the world in 1997. Even at the time it was an unusual choice for the system to use cartridges for games (when the industry was moving to discs), and this ultimately doomed the console to lose in the market against the PlayStation.

I got my N64 early, since I had befriended the guy who ran the game company I would in time write reviews for, and he brought me back one from Japan in 1996. I had exactly one game for it, Super Mario 64, but this was such a groundbreaking and important game that it hardly mattered. I played it nonstop.

When the US version was released nine months later, I had to modify mine to play American games. Luckily this was a trivial process (I had to open the system and remove a piece of plastic) and I then had an N64 that could play games from anywhere in the world. Despite this I only ever bought one other Japanese game – Sin and Punishment – which was also fittingly the last N64 game I ever bought (in 2002).

As I mentioned this was a system hamstrung by the choice of cartridges. It was technically competent and had a great controller – the first true analogue controller for a home console in fact – but gaming was maturing from simple 2D graphics and games needed far more data storage. Publishers faced the choice of inexpensive CDs for PlayStation versus expensive cartridges for N64 and it’s unsurprising the discs won. As a result the N64 was the last non-handheld console to use cartridges until they returned for the Switch over 20 years later.

I only ever bought about 25 N64 games, and traded many of them in in the early 00’s when EB Games offered too-good-to-refuse prices. My remaining collection is above. Despite the small number of games there were some true classics on the system, including Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, which is a wonderful Zelda game that pioneered many advancements that countless games utilize today such as lock-on targeting and a user-controlled camera.

Ultimately though this system must be remembered as a failure which lost Nintendo control of the industry. It’s followup – the GameCube – didn’t do well either, and it wasn’t until the phenomenal success of the Wii that they would return to the top of the market. I loved the N64 when it was the current system (I always preferred it to the PlayStation), but in retrospect it’s unquestionably my least nostalgic Nintendo console.

Which is one reason why I’m now saying goodbye to mine. I’m about to sell another large chunk of my collection, and will this time say goodbye to my NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube games (and hardware). Lots of memories will go with it all, but the time (and price) is right and I feel comfortable parting with it. I hope the next owners get as much joy from the games as I have over the years 🙂