Robot Claw

Went shopping with mum yesterday. Not much of note happened, we just had fun at the mall.

There’s a bookstore there (Kotara) that has a display of used books and one entire bookcase and two adjacent shelves were entirely filled with Star Trek paperbacks. I bought the two most insane classic trek ones I could find and as I was cashing out the girl told me the remaining stock was about half what they originally had donated and that one customer had bought 110 in one transaction. If you want an instant collection, head over with a few large boxes 🙂

The shops are the same as ever here, but food certainly seems more expensive. Much like the USA there is a ‘cost of living crisis’ driven by inflation but certain aspects seem worse than the USA (the economy of which has been largely sheltered). Lollies and snacks in particular seem notably pricier than in recent years, and believe me I should know!

On the way home I did a simple taste test between McDonald’s and Burger King Hungry Jacks frozen cokes. They’re each $1 and they taste more or less identical and are thus virtually interchangeable except for one key point: the straws. Both are paper, but the Hungry Jack’s straw gets soggy quickly and doesn’t even last the duration of the drink! This is reason enough to favour Macca’s if you’re after a delicious frozen beverage.

I always do craft here when I visit. Postcard art, jigsaw puzzles and on this trip one of those Japanese 3D papercraft dioramas, as you can see above.

This post was a little late due to exhaustion. I’ve been going nonstop for two weeks now. I think perhaps I need to have a restful few days before the second half of this vacation…

Sue and I went antiquing yesterday, which meant almost buying Bernard stuff like this:

Jokes aside, one of the reason I enjoy visiting antique/op shops is the occasional bouts of nostalgia they trigger.

Back in the 1980s there was a calligraphy fad sweeping Australia, and we used to own the above kit (or one very much like it). I remember dad used to do it quite a bit, and we even still have examples of his work in our family Bible. I’m sure childhood me scrawled some nonsense in flowery script somewhere, but today I look back at it with the question “Why?” Of the countless fads back in those days, how did calligraphy become one?

Going somewhere and seeing a bowl full of promotional matchbooks was like winning the lottery. Not only were they free, they were also easily secreted on one’s person and could be used to start fires! For a young teenage boy, this was a dream item. Naturally I always took one (or several) when I saw them offered – often in clubs or hotels – and I even had a meagre collection of favourites I liked enough to never light. Usually this was due to the colour of the match head (bright orange or green were exotic!) but sometimes just because the book had a fancy cover. I still regret the ‘big burn off’ sometime in late 198X when I lit them all at the same time in a short but spectacular mini inferno.

Everyone had a coke yo-yo. I even had a Fanta one! I mused about this yesterday, and Sue reminded me that ‘they’ came to our school selling them. This raises so many questions: why were obvious advertising items sold directly to children and how the hell did the company get permission to come to the school? We didn’t care since we were so happy with our yo-yos as we spun and dangled them like maniacs day after day for at least a week! I have such fond memories of those yo-yo days, and if the above was $5 instead of $75, I would have bought it.

The above small sticker was my favourite item I saw in the antique warehouse yesterday. Almost 30 years old, it was presumably given to workers in a now closed (I think) mine. The photo barely does justice to how flashy and reflective the prism effect is. Of course the price is absurd, and at $5 or less this would have already been attached to a postcard winging its way home 🙂

I’m going to make a prediction here you can hold me to: VHS tapes are never coming back! Of course I know records have – and indeed the used stores are now full of them – but the technology behind VHS is completely obsolete and no-one is ever going to mass produce the players any more. So the apparent increase in the number of cassettes I see in used shops must surely be just for collectors? Who’s going to buy the above? (And yes, I know I should have since it would have made a fine Christmas gift for Bernard.)

Speaking of which, we have this fine tome. Now I’m a man that has paid over $150 for a used book – and even over $50 for a 1980s magazine in Japanese I can’t even read! – but I speculate the list of people on Earth who would be interested in buying the above would be incredibly short. I wonder if there’s a wave ski book collector out there that dreams of finding this book like I do one of Jun Suemi’s Wizardry artbooks?

I enjoy the antique shops, and there’s a few others I’ll visit before I leave Newcastle. What will I find?

Afterwards Sue and I went to a club for lunch and to play the pokies. We threw money into this machine with gay abandon, and like mad fools didn’t cash out when we were 50% up. We kept going and going to see the ‘feature’ but when we finally got it (on a $1.25 bet) we won only five cents. The machine was dead to us then and we walked away in disgust. I won’t say how much we lost, but it may have been better spent on a yo-yo 😉

Yesterday I mailed a box of mostly biscuits and chocolate home. It was big and a bit heavy (11 lbs) and cost a small fortune to send but it should arrive in only a few days. Fingers crossed it does!

I then lazily walked up Hunter Street, a walk I do at least once every trip. This is one of the more nostalgic parts of these visits, but the truth is the endless development and restructuring of the Newcastle CBD from retail into expensive residential has rendered the street almost unrecognizable from my youth.

Every old haunt is now gone – even the buildings – and I’m not sure how many more times I’ll need to follow my old steps. I continued to the beach.

The day was lovely with people even sunbathing, which is remarkable since it’s winter in a few days. Seagulls were everywhere and swarming anyone that looked like they had some food.

The work on the Newcastle baths is (more or less) complete and it’s wonderful now, with a very retro look. I stood for a while amongst the gulls and watched the waves.

The brave guy in the above pic dove off the rocks and went under immediately. Look closely and you’ll see he’s wearing flippers but no goggles or snorkel. I watched for a while but didn’t see him come up, so I image he was diving to see the underwater life. Was he opening his eyes in seawater without goggles? I always hated that and the thought now makes me itch!

When I got back to mums I was ruined. I haven’t rested since arriving and maybe I’ve pushed myself a bit? I should probably take a day off.

The evening was very relaxing: a visit to Kirsten’s for dinner (sausage sandwiches!) and to see Juliet. Three friends of 40 years catching up with each other. It was wonderful 🙂

Yesterday I went with Sue to see Koalas in the wild.

The place was a ‘koala habitat’ near Nelson Bay, which is to say a narrow strip of bushland between a residential suburb and the bay itself. There’s a well maintained path that winds through the bush, which is inhabited by koalas, bandicoots, echidnas and many different bird species.

From what I had read I figured we had a decent chance to see some, and as we walked we constantly looked up. But our efforts were in vain, and aside from plenty of birds we saw none of the furry beasts. Regardless the walk was lovely, and it would be nice to live locally and be able to do it often, and perhaps one day see a koala! (We found out later there are only 3 or 4 koalas in the habitat, and the last sighting was over a month ago.)

Next we headed to a small amusement center run closer to the bay. Called ‘Toboggan Hill Park’, this is essentially a toboggan run built down a hill with a few other things like mini golf or roller skating added on. Sue said it’s been there forever, but I don’t remember it and doubt I had ever been.

The run is 1 km long, and you start by getting winch-pulled up a hill for a couple of minutes to get to the top. This stage was surprisingly strenuous, because the toboggan has no backrest and you’re supporting your own weight against the slope! Once you reach the top gravity takes control, but you can adjust your speed with a handheld brake.

I decided I’d go at full speed since this would likely be the only time I’d ride it. This would mean no braking at all, and about 40 seconds to the bottom. There’s about ten turns (the above photo I found on the internet) but they’re not particularly steep and the toboggan doesn’t ride up much. I ignored the brake and had developed impressive speed by about halfway, but then I misunderstood a suggested braking sign for a required braking sign and – like a fool – slightly applied the brake. This single incident reduced my speed a lot, and even though I once again reached a good clip by the end I wish I had completed the entire course like a bat out of hell!

It was a lot of fun, and I dearly considered a second go. But at $10 a ride it wasn’t worth it twice.

Afterwards we went to Boat Harbour for another walk. This was part of a longer 20 km walk all around the end of the bay and as you can see the weather was beautiful. In fact it’s been warm enough here (about 70F at noon) it’s hard to believe it’s winter this weekend!

The walk wound around the scrubland on the cliffs and right up along the rocks. I imagine whales and dolphins would be visible from the walk but we didn’t see any. Aside from the ever-present birds, the only wildlife we saw was a (deadly) small brown snake on the path, which we kept well away from as it slid into the brush!

The above is a pic of my dinner almost every night: a ham and salad sandwich. It’s delicious with a fresh roll, shaved ham and beetroot.