Robot Claw – Page 184 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Salem

July 30, 2021

On the way to Salem we stopped at Plymouth to visit a reproduction of The Mayflower and see the famous Plymouth Rock.

Both were worth the trip! Afterwards we ate fish’n’chips on the wharf and then walked out into the jetty you can see in the background of the above photo.

Kids were ‘fishing’ for crabs from the bridge, and we watched them lower nets down and pull up crabs almost immediately! It was quite extraordinary to see, and I imagined how much I would have loved doing something like that as a kid. (The crabs were smallish, and they release them all when they’re done.)

After our stop in Plymouth we drove to Salem, our second major destination.

Salem is one of the most unique places I’ve ever visited. While it has a rich history – only a small part of which involves witches – the tourist industry has become a quirky blend of witches and horror movies and magic. There’s dozens of shops and attractions crammed into only a few blocks selling all sorts of ‘witchy’ souvenirs or offering magical experiences. The town has embraced witches 110%, and that’s why the tourists are here 🙂

We of course partook, and bought some insane stuff. I also found an amazing comic/collectibles shop and we stumbled upon an extraordinary artist in his studio and bought a framed print of an octopus directly from him!

Oh and I had a Pluto Pup. Or a Dagwood Dog. Or a Corndog. Whatever you call it, it was fantastic:

And KLS had these:

The macaroon flavours were earl grey tea, lavender, rose, chocolate, lemon and birthday cakes! The other thing was chocolate mouse with a thin crunchy center and a mirror glaze. She said it was all fabulous 🙂

Salem was great and weird and well worth the trip (and I didn’t even mention the tourist trolley or the wax museum we did), but it’s now time to continue our road trip. Where will be going next…?

Cape Cod

July 28, 2021

We’re on a road trip vacation, and our first two days have been in cape cod. Due to a covid outbreak in these parts, we’ve restricted our activities to outdoor only, which isn’t hard with the beautiful weather and lots to see.

Yesterday we visited two salt marshes. Boardwalks had been constructed over them so you could walk above. We learned that they have plans to rebuild the platforms six feet higher due to future sea level rise.

At the second one the tide was coming in and we watched thousands of crabs and fish moving around as the little pools filled with water. It was mesmerizing!

We then walked along a two mile beach, well past the swimming area, and into dunes where protected birds nest. We were charmed by plovers darting in and out of the waves as they fed. The beach was quite nice and very popular, with loads of people sunbathing and splashing about. We didn’t bring swimmers, so walked in the waves to cool our feet 🙂

Today we went to Provincetown where I walked a causeway across to a sand island (while kls waited, since it was a bit risky for her). It was a challenging walk since the rocks were not level, and a few times I had to jump! Roses are about 9 feet here, and it was low tide when I crossed; I learned that at high tide the waters lap at the top of the causeway. It was extremely windy and a little chill, and the return trip took me 51 minutes! Not bad for a hike that they claim takes an hour each way 🙂

Provincetown is a popular tourist town on the very end of the cape known for its LGBTQ community. The homes and gardens are beautiful and immaculately kept and – since we looked at some listings in a realtor – incredibly expensive!

Provincetown is also in the news right now for recently having a bad covid-19 outbreak and for the first time in many months we were masked everywhere (and so was almost everyone else we saw). It was a bit strange, but I fear it’s the near-future of most of the world (due to Delta) so we may as well get used to it.

We had lunch from a near the pier which serves fresh (fried) seafood. My flounder burger was great but KLS says her scallop roll was ‘beyond excellent’. Even better than the lobster roll she had yesterday!

Afterwards we went and visited the location where Marconi sent his first transmission to England. There was a nearby hike through a swamp which looked great but was ‘infested’ (according to the sign) with ticks and also (according to reviews) with mozzies so we piked out and moved on. Needless to say there’s been a good deal of souvenir shopping as well; mostly for salt-water taffy 🙂

Tomorrow we move to destination #2. I’ll leave you in suspense as to where that will be…

Let’s Trade Cards (Part 4)!

July 23, 2021

My bottomless stash of weird trading card packs has no end! Time for some more…

Anastasia (1998) was one of those animated films everyone saw and immediately forgot about. These cards are equally forgettable, and since they were always a staple in the discount sections of card shops (remember them?) I imagine they were massively overproduced and none too successful. The only chase of note were lenticular cards showing a scene from the film, but they were rarer than one per box.

Kristin actually bought me a box of Maverick (1994) cards for Christmas so I have a full set of them! I’ve never seen the film, and based on the images on the cards never want to. It’s another by-the-numbers boring movie card set, and the only chase cards (‘tekchrome’) are so similar to the normal cards they’re almost indistinguishable!

Country Classics cards (1992) are another curious relic from the days of ‘sounds like a great idea’ opportunism! Who bought these? I’m no expert on the topic but it seems to me that in ’92 many of these dudes were long in the tooth, so were these cards aimed at senior-citizen card collectors? Obviously they’re of no interest to me, but I can’t deny I wanted to pull the super rare (only two existed!) redemption cards that back in the day could be mailed in for a 24-carat solid gold card!

This is a good contender for the worst card set I’ve ever seen. In the great trash can of repulsive designs, far below the wacky packages and garbage pail kids, you’ll find this dross. Troll Force (1992) cards showcase horribly drawn ‘trolls’ (which don’t resemble any troll I’ve seen) with ‘comedy’ names doing ‘wacky’ things. They’re disturbingly amateur and utterly unappealing in every way. If you ever come into possession of a pack of these, just burn it.

Based on these Saved By The Bell: The College Years cards (1994) this TV series only had a few characters and they were all girls. It’s a stupid-boring set that reprints pseudo-glamour shots of the actresses with nothing of note on the back. In short, it doesn’t really have anything to do with the show (and I suspect it was made before the show screened). Another trash set hardly worth the cardboard.

There’s a box of beanie babies in our attic and I’ve already decided to do a blog post on them soon so stay tuned for that. These Beanie Baby cards (1988) on the other hand… are a total scam! They’re completely unofficial, and feature bad photos of the toys with meaningless statistics on the back. Beanie Babies were very much on the way out when these cards came out but I’m sure the screaming hordes of collectors bought these cards anyway. I reckon they’ve all ended up in landfills alongside the stuffed toys.

Yes there’s even more packs left to open, including one or two ‘good’ ones! I’ll get to them eventually…