Robot Claw – Page 26 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Ramen 31: March Of The Ramen Queen

April 24, 2025

It’s been a long time since the last post reviewing some chicken ramen, but I’ve (finally!) found a few more. Let’s see what I thought…

Cup Noodles Chicken (290 Calories, 11g fat, 1160 mg sodium)

This is a new version of one of the ubiquitous chicken ramens, with the difference being it’s in a paper cup and intended to be cooked in a microwave. I followed the instructions (2.5 minutes at maximum) and it worked well, although the paper cup was much hotter to hold than the styrofoam version. The contents seemed a bit ‘blobby’ after cooking, but a quick stir and everything was ok.

As far as taste this was simply acceptable. As with the ‘normal’ version the flavour is cooked into the noodles and it lacks veggies aside from a few tiny pieces of corn and carrot. In a world with no other options this would be ok, but with better available I won’t be trying it again. I’ll give it 7/10.

Oolongmen Chicken Ramyun (310 Calories, 10g fat, 1430 mg sodium)

This was purchased in Canada, and I didn’t eat it for months since most of the other Canadian ones were awful. But when I finally got to this, I was pleasantly surprised!

The first taste was unusual – arguably not like chicken at all – and the ramen contained lots of veggies included dehydrated mushrooms. Subsequent forkfulls were better, and since I actually ate it all I deem this a higher-quality product, probably in the top 10% of those I’ve tasted. I’ll score it 8/10.

Cup Noodles Rice With Noodles Teriyaki Chicken (300 Calories, 5g fat, 1100 mg sodium)

I know this isn’t a ramen product, but since it clearly says ‘with noodles‘ I purchased it anyway. It’s another microwave-only product, and after the required 4.5 minutes on high the contents had become a sort of brown slush.

I was hesitant since the sickly sweet smell was reminiscent of rot, and when I tentatively tried a small forkful my fears were confirmed since this was one of very worst cup noodle products I have ever tasted. I hated this, and even now regret preparing it since the stench has filled the house. Score: 0/10.

I know brands I haven’t yet tried exist, but I’ve never seen them in local stores. I wonder how long it will be until my next installment?

90s-Era Trading Cards

April 20, 2025

Last year I purchased four old packs of trading cards. They’ve been aging for over six months now and it’s time to open them and see what’s inside…

Tools released these The Rocketeer cards in 1992 and they’re typical of most of their series from that era. The plastic wrapper had become brittle and disintegrated a bit upon opening.

The pack contained the eight photo cards shown above, and they’re all a bit dark and muddy to my eye. Interestingly I saw this film for the first time last year, didn’t think it was very good, and I would have had zero interest in these cards upon release even were I still buying cards then.

The backs of the cards are a little difficult to read due to lack of ink. All of them were like this; maybe it was a production error? As I’ve said before I prefer the synopsis extracts on the backs of sets like this, although for this film I wonder how many read them?

There was a single (non die-cut) sticker in the pack as well, and it’s this somewhat boring movie poster style art. The adhesive had completely failed after 33 years, and when I peeled it off it wouldn’t stick to anything.

Overall a by-the-books set for a somewhat mundane film. I don’t think too many were enthusiastic for these cards when they released.

I’ve not heard of ‘Star Pics’, the company who released these Alien 3 cards, also in 1992. This was a famously troubled film production, and the result divides fans to this day.

Much like the previous packs (and admittedly the film), the cards are muddy and quite ugly. They’re also thin and flimsy, which indicate a low budget product. The screenshots are a bit blurry, which is unfortunate considering they would have been the feature cards of the set.

The backs are ugly and hard to read, but they tell a first-person account of the events of the film. An interesting approach that I think works well, but I wish the design had been more suitable for the theme.

Like other early 90s sets there’s no chase cards, and the budget feel of the material is probably indicative of the publisher. But this set is notably worse than the original Topps Alien set from over a decade earlier, which shouldn’t have been the case.

From 1996, this is a pack of Independence Day cards from Topps. We’re in the chase card era now, and the wrappers says I have a 1 in 9 chance of a hologram card!

I didn’t get one. The above were the six cards in the pack, and you can see they’re in a 16:9 aspect ratio which Topps used for their ‘Widevision’ cards for several years back then.

This is a very poor set. The screenshots are all blurry and pixilated, which is unforgivable in a set that is focused around displaying the images at a larger size. Some of the cards even look like they were photographs of a screen, rather than taken from film stock. Awful.

Furthermore, every card in the pack had ‘edge wear’ along the bottoms, which was likely caused by the machines that cut them. This is of no matter to me now since they’re going directly into the recycling bin, but imagine paying a premium for these packs 29 years ago and finding all the cards were damaged?

A very disappointing product, and another example of how Topps had fallen by the mid 90s.

I got this 1990 Classic WWF pack for KLS about a year ago and today is Wrestlemania so it seemed a good day to finally open it. She’s got a large collection of wrestling cards but since Topps sets have become overpriced she no longer buys any new ones.

Every card in her pack was A-rank wrestling royalty, which is amazing considering the size of the set (>130 cards)! How are there no forgotten or C-rank guys here?

The answer was poor collation. In her 15 cards she actually got 1-14 (and 136), and since card sets like this usually put the ‘big guys’ at the front, she got all the biggest stars. This is objectively bad collation, but in this case it ended up giving her a dream pack 🙂

The photos and bios are good, and the cards sturdy and well cut. This is a high quality product, and I imagine was quite popular with wrestling fans 35 years ago. I’m curious about the other 120 cards, but considering the steep price of the individual packs these days (I paid $10) I’m sure we’ll never open another.

I’ve still got a few more packs stashed away aging in a closet, and three unopened boxes of 1980s era cards. Over the summer I’m sure I’ll finally open one of them 🙂

The Grinning Man

April 19, 2025

One of the more bizarre incidences in UFO lore is eerie because of how unusual it is, and because to this day those that investigated it have never been able to provide a conclusive explanation.

It was November 2, 1966, and sewing machine salesman Woodrow Derenberger was driving home at night on an empty road in rural West Virginia when he saw a UFO (although he didn’t use the term when he reported the incident) blocking the road ahead. He stopped, and watched a man emerge from the craft and approach his car.

Derenberger would later say the man – who was smiling – was entirely normal in appearance and “courteous and friendly”. But he never moved his face when he spoke: all communication was telepathic. The smiling man identified himself as ‘Cold’ and said he came from “another country” and was not harmful. He told Derenberger he would contact him again and asked him to tell others he had been contacted.

Derenberger did exactly that, and reported the encounter to police the same evening. A media circus followed, including a live TV interview and reports in newspapers nationwide. Others would report seeing UFOs in the area, some said they’d even seen Cold but driven past without stopping and two children claimed to have seen a grinning man fitting Cold’s description several days before Derenberger’s sighting.

In the years that followed, Derenberger gave a full name for the figure – Indrid Cold – and claimed that not only had Cold continued regular visits but that he had identified himself as an alien from a planet called Lanulos, and even taken Derenberger to the planet multiple times. Derenberger gave talks on his experiences, and even co-wrote a (poor selling) book about it in 1971 entitled ‘Visitors From Lanulos’.

In time – mostly due to attention from paranormal researcher John Keel – Indrid Cold entered the UFO mythology, and would become linked with the Mothman cryptid. As these things do, the character evolved in myth and has become somewhat of a cryptid himself (called ‘The Grinning Man’), since appearing in movies, TV shows, books and games. Indrid Cold has long outlived his ‘creator’ and the character’s identity these days runs the gamut from friendly space alien to extradimensional devil.

In some ways Derenberger seems like another George Adamski or Howard Menger – two men who had obtained a measure of fame and fortune from their alleged alien encounters. But Derenberger had apparently not heard of either, was not particularly interested in UFOs, and those that interviewed him at the time found him genuine and not motivated by profit. Furthermore, Derenberger most decidedly did not benefit from his tale: the notoriety and attention made him paranoid and depressed, lost him his job, ruined his marriage, and eventually left him delusional.

And yet he never recanted, and to his grave in 1990 always claimed it was true. He seemed to genuinely believe he had been visited many times over decades by a mysterious smiling telepath named Indrid Cold, who had shown him wonders other men could only dream of.

Fancy, madness or the truth? With Derenberger gone and Cold now part of folklore, does it matter?