Ocean Apes

It was our wedding anniversary the other day, and naturally I purchased KLS a gift. To be specific, this:

Just add water for beloved pets! Of course we’ve done these before (and maybe you have too since I’ve given some as gifts) but it’s been many years. But who can resist their own aquatic humanoid shrimpy friends?

Instructions were read:

Water added:

And waiting began:

Now we – and probably you – know that ‘sea monkeys’ are just a form of brine shrimp, and the first packet (the purifier) contains the actual (water activated) eggs with subsequent packets – including the one labeled as eggs – being just food for the little guys. So it wasn’t surprising when only one day after we added the supposed egg packet we saw our first pets!

They are shy and difficult to photograph, but I succeeded more or less in capturing images of two of the half dozen or so that have already joined our family. So with pomp and ceremony let me introduce:

That little guy (circled in red) is Emperor Titanus, aka first-among-monkeys. As the firstborn he is naturally the undisputed leader, and his reign has started off well although his fuse is short and I worry he tends toward authoritarianism. Luckily his more primal urges are kept in check by:

High-Ambassador Alkarab. Third-born he may have been, but he quickly established a seat next to the emperor and attends to matters of state whilst keeping the masses distracted. As his name suggests it seems his true loyalty rests with another colony somewhere, and I fear this distraction coupled with his many day-to-day obligations may make it hard for him to resist the machinations of the unnamed second-born who hides in the depths, whispering madly.

The colony increases daily, with the monkeys simultaneously growing in size. We’re on the edge of our seat watching the politics evolve, and waiting to see if the rumors of a prophet emerging from the proletariat come to pass.

Stay tuned…

Selling The Collection (Update)

Yesterday I went and sold these two for a lot of money:

I immediately spent some of the cash on these:

They’re the old Dragonlance modules collected into book form. They’re all in top condition and the prices were good. Also he threw these in:

With a pocket full of cash I then headed straight to the store and purchased this:

It’s both the sixth model of the 3DS and coincidentally my sixth 3DS! However I have multiples of some rather than every iteration. This is the ultimate version (2D only!) since the announcement of the Switch Lite essentially means the 3DS is now obsolete.

But my day wasn’t over! Turns out there was a retro game convention on in Albany yesterday and – after a quick stop to buy Magic cards so I can make an unbeatable deck to beat both BS and AW with – I headed over to check it out!

It was decent. Lots and lots of games, but very little I needed or was even tempted by. Looking at the prices I’m glad I’ve sold what I had and feel good about the amount I received.

However I couldn’t resist these two:

I’ve been looking for the second NES Ultima game for a while and had never seen it boxed in this condition, so I was very happy to find that. The other game is Wizardry 1 & 2 for the PC-Engine, a Japanese CD based console I’ve never owned and never will. Yes, I paid $40 for a game I’ll never play! For those of you that was ‘worried’ I was getting out of game collecting: that should rest your souls 🙂

Oh and I couldn’t resist this lot either:

All sealed! Some of these packs are over 40 years old! I reckon you’ll see some of these on the blog again in the future…

This shopping bender was fun but only used up a portion of the cash I got for the two games. I think the rest needs to go toward airfare…

Cracker Night 2019

Yesterday was July 4, which meant fireworks! As usual we invested heavily:

Probably the most absurd of the bunch:

Once the sun went down, the usual celebration ensued:

As you can see ‘the Kims’ joined us for BBQ and fireworks, and they even performed a (fake) ‘ritual Korean dance’ for our amusement using the handheld sword fireworks!

Halfway through us setting up fireworks, a guy ‘just down the street’ started launching incredible rockets and mortars into the air from his front yard! We walked a few driveways down and enjoyed a show that lasted for over nine minutes!

It was incredible, with endless skybursts and massive booming explosions right down the road! It may end up being one of the most amazing fireworks displays we’ll ever see!

It was a great evening. Not only was there good food (thanks Jessica!) and hours of fireworks, we were also surrounded with fireflies and even saw a beautiful big fox run along the edge of our backyard just before sundown!

I’ll have to put the wildlife camera out again…