Robot Claw – Page 229 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Troll Pop

June 16, 2020

This is a troll:

They’re toys that have been around for decades and are beloved by almost everyone especially my brother. While he’s never actually said anything about them, I know he adores troll toys.

Something else he loves is the K-Pop band Red Velvet, shown here:

You can imagine how excited he must have been when he heard that these two things he loved had combined into one! Yes my friends, Red Velvet were ‘in’ the recent Trolls film:

I don’t doubt Bernard threw caution to the wind and ran to the cinema to see this film but since I loathe trolls and am ambivalent toward Red Velvet I barely gave the movie a thought. However a particular piece of licensing did catch my eye, and that was these Oreos:

Green-cream Oreos with glitter and popping candy?!? This is what it means to live in the 21st century!

So many cookies with delicious sugary cream. Don’t you just want to try one? You can even enjoy them in four different designs:

What are they like? In a word: heavenly. The slightly chemical taste of the cream is completely overridden by the astonishing experience of the poprocks and the thought that even though it’s not visible you’re eating glitter as well:

During lockdown I religiously bought a pack of these every two weeks and we wolfed them down like starving beasts. Alas they are now gone from our stores, another victim of corona. They’ll never be forgotten.

If you happen to find a pack on shelves in your area don’t hesitate to buy them. These are by a very wide margin the best Oreos ever, and highly recommended 🙂

Cannon Bull

June 13, 2020

I bought the above in Japan in January. I vacillated on the purchase since luggage space was tight but I decided in the end to make it fit.

It’s a ZOID! But not a plastic model version; this is a toy version. You still assemble it, but it’s much easier and the pieces aren’t on runners. I’ve done one like this before, but they still make and sell new ones and this one seemed to be a new release.

Assembly was trivial, but I was surprised to see (since I apparently didn’t bother looking closely at the packaging) that it has a battery powered motor in it! I selected this kit for its appearance though, and think it looks quite nifty.

That’s the finished product. According to the ZOIDs wiki this is a medium sized ‘buffalo type’ weapons platform that has a mass of 50.4 tonnes and carries a 9-barreled missile pod for long range attacks!

And there he is attacking! He moves at a good clip and the barrels of his missile launchers click as they ‘fire’.

A fun little toy. Next time I’m in Japan I’ll be picking myself up another one of these I reckon…

Dice Dice Baby

June 11, 2020

Around 1983, I got my first Dungeons & Dragons set. Inside, along with the rule books, were these six dice:

They have 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 20 sides, and all are used when playing D&D. Yes these are my exact dice: although the rule books are long gone I kept the dice and they eventually made their way to me here in the US (thanks B!). The dice weren’t inked and came with a crayon used to fill the depressions and make the numbers more visible. You can still see nearly 40-year-old crayon in my dice:

Interestingly the particular D&D set I got (the famous ‘Red Box’) was packaged with dice of many different colors so it’s not unusual that my 6-sided is a different color from the others. Some sets even came with pre-inked dice or (as a result of shortages) a coupon to send away for dice. I feel sorry for the kids that bought the box set and had to wait weeks for dice so they could play!

I recently learned that these original dice are somewhat collectible now, and although inferior to modern equivalents could fetch $50 or more online. I’ll never sell mine of course; they’re one of the oldest of my original possessions I still own.

Speaking of modern dice, here’s a set:

These are solid metal, precision made and (apparently) balanced to be truly random. I also suspect they could damage a hard surface (look at the sharp corners) so you’ll want a dice mat if you’re going to use ones like these. I bought these after buying AW a set for Xmas and thinking they were quite nifty. Since he actually plays D&D I assume he’ll use his more than I will mine 🙂

The last die in I’ll share today is this weird example:

It’s a 100-sided die! This is designed for rolling percentage values but is very impractical since it’s so spherical it takes forever to stop. I did some distribution tests a few months back and found the results to be comparable to the Excel random number generator and random numbers as given to me by about 50 of my students, so I assume this is a mostly random tool.

In the mid 1980s an inventor patented a unique type of 100-sided die with an internal braking mechanism he called the Zocchihedron. You can still buy them today but they’re quite expensive so I went with this cheaper, solid example. My guess is if you really have a use for a 100-sided die go for the patented one and save yourself time on every roll 🙂

Do you need any dice rolled? Leave a comment and tell me which one and I’ll tell you what you got…