Robot Claw – Page 348 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Fire In The Sky

June 23, 2016

It’s almost July 4 and once again fireworks are back in stores. Last year was the first time they were sold here in NY in many years and we had a great time setting them off. This year the selection is incredible… and we’ve invested heavily!

That’s the haul so far. I don’t want to calculate how much we’ve spent already but I think we’ve layed the groundwork for two fireworks shows to celebrate JAF’s birthday in a little over a week 🙂

We’ve got big ones and small ones and sparklers and cracklers and smoke bombs and even a frog! Still no launchers though; they’re still not legal here. We’d have to drive to Pennsylvania to buy some of those…

That’s the biggest we’ve got so far. It cost $25, stands about a foot tall and judging by the disco ball in the art will probably dazzle us with holograms and shooting stars and maybe silhouettes of dancers made of living fire! The little guy next to it was only $2 and is similar to most of what we had last year. We’ve upgraded 🙂

This is a two pack: “Rocketman vs Rage Monster”. They’re both quite large, and (again) judging by the art I’m expecting cybernetic warriors made of flaming smoke and a terrifying monster radiating purple fire and bellowing curses from the deepest pits of Gehenna!

We accidentally bought two of these two packs. So double everything I just said 🙂

This is the most expensive one we have so far, at $35. It’s a large fanning fountain, which means the showers of sparks will not just go up but also out to the sides. If I position it carefully in KLS’s parents backyard I may be able to incinerate trees on both sides simultaneously!

It’ll be a night we’ll never forget!

Sparkzilla. Sparkzilla! I don’t know who named this but he was a genius. Although fairly large in my hand, this isn’t even in the top five of biggest fireworks I’m waiting to ignite. But it has to be the best, based solely on that name: Sparkzilla!

Im expecting a titan of ash and cinders rising out of this box, trumpeting with the joy of freedom as it mercilessly rains destruction down upon us. I wish you could be there to see it!

And then we have the ‘Fiery Frog’. Like a green Pac Man from hell, this one boasts of glowing mouth and eyes as the purifying flames issue from its head. I’ve never seen anything like this and cannot wait to set it on fire.

That’s just a portion of what we have so far. And I don’t doubt there’s more to come. Yes it will all – quite literally – go up in smoke, but watching it happen is going to be glorious!

The $13 Gamble

June 14, 2016

I bought this the other day:

It’s one booster from the brand new Magic expansion, and it cost me $13. That’s right, thirteen dollars! This is by far the most I’ve ever paid for a booster, so you’d imagine it would be worth it correct? Every card is a reprint, and the set is known to contain a few highly sought after cards. Let’s see what was inside my pack…

There are the commons, a mixed bunch to be sure. Few of them are playable, even fewer have a spot in any of my decks. Even better/worse: those that do I already own. In fact I already own multiple copies of all of these. So for me, the above cards are essentially worthless.

But what are they actually worth? Let’s use the Star City prices (a popular MTG reseller) and add them all up. Going through their list, 7 of my commons sell for $0.15, two for $0.49 (the mongoose and drake) and one for $0.99 (Kird Ape). That’s a total of $3.02 in commons if bought separately.

These were the uncommons. Again, disappointing in that none are attractive to me (or my decks) and I already own multiple copies of each. In the order of the photograph, the values from Star City of the above three cards is $0.25 + $1.49 + $0.25 which sums to $1.99.

That’s a decent card and is playable, but it’s not flashy or exciting in any way. And you guessed it: I already owned one. Even before checking the price online I knew it would be a ‘dollar rare’. I was wrong: Star City sells it for $0.69. It’s one of the lowest valued rares in the set.

So it’s not looking good: The ‘value’ of the cards in my pack if bought separately is only $5.70. And that’s assuming I even would buy them (which I wouldn’t). Looks like this gamble didn’t pay off so far.

But what about the other two cards?

There they are: a foil common and a soldier token. The Screeching Skaab foil sells for a quarter; the soldier isn’t even listed (but is worth maybe $0.10). So no last-minute save here folks!

My $13 turned into less than $6 of cards I already had. Needless to say I’ll never buy another booster from this set.

Some of you at this point are wondering why I bought it in the first place. Mostly it is because I buy at least one of every MTG booster, but even then the price didn’t discourage me for two reasons:
1) I like supporting my local game store
2) There are some very sought-after and pricey cards in this set. Had I been lucky to pull a foil Wasteland or Force Of Will I would have ended up with a $200+ card that I could have resold to the store or traded for many other packs 🙂

Wildlife XIV: The Cage

June 10, 2016

I placed the wildlife camera on the back patio over my trip, carefully aimed at one of our bird feeders, which itself is cleverly designed to keep the squirrels out via an impossible-to-penetrate cage.

Here’s one of the first photos it took:

As you can see, the cage works imperfectly!

All told 191 photos were taken in a single day. This was because the seal on the camera had apparently failed and water had gotten inside, which seems to have prevented it from taking photos for most of the time it was placed. I’m not sure if it is permanently ruined or not; I’m drying it out now before trying again.

At any rate, in the several hours of the first day it was out almost every single one of the photos was similar to the above, featuring suspicious squirrels:

Brave squirrels:

Friendly squirrels:

And even in a few shots – thankfully! – a bird:

That little bird is a wren (named ‘Kylo Wren’) who is currently building his nest in our wren house and singing for a mate. We assume he’ll be successfully; many little wrens have been hatched in that house over the years.

Also, you’ll note the chipmunk in the last two shots. This is the first time I have gotten clear, focused shots of chipmunks on this camera. This is no small achievement since they spend most of their lives invisible and moving at light speed. I guess the lure of the 110% delicious cracked cown and sunflower mix I put out was too much for them 🙂

My neighbour recently told me she has seen groudhogs (yes multiple, possibly a parent and child) wandering in our backyard. They will be the next target of the camera assuming it still works.