Robot Claw

LEGO Pac-Man

September 9th, 2023

Kristin bought me the LEGO Pac-Man set earlier this year, and last week I assembled it. I went into this set ‘spoiler free’, and it was a delight to discover it’s special feature!

You first built the (removable) character display on top, which features Pac-Man and two pursuing ghosts. At the push of a button the all turn around to replicate what happens when Pac-Man eats a power pill. It’s a nice trick, but just a side dish to the main act. Oh and see those tiny Pac-Men and ghosts at the bottom? They’re printed tiles:

The main cabinet took me several overs over a few days and was an intriguing build because for a while I couldn’t see how the set was coming together. As mentioned I was initially oblivious of the special feature so half-way through the build of the main ‘screen’ I had no idea why I was adding a chain drive:

Then adding an axle attached to a crank on the back made it clear this set had hand-powered animations:

But I still wasn’t prepared for how smooth the movement was once finished, and how good the ‘screen’ looked:

Pac-Man, all the ghosts and the cherry all animate in some way, moving in various cycles around the board. There are two chains and a lever attached via different gears to the crank axle, so they don’t even all move at the same speed. It’s incredibly well done, and needs to be seen in action to appreciate it. I’ve made a lot of legos over the years, including some gigantic technic sets, but the engineering on this one surprised and impressed me more than any I’d ever seen.

There’s a few other nice little touches, like a moving joystick and light up ‘coin slot’, and even a cute little diorama hidden behind the back panel:

One interesting aspect to this set was that it’s slightly on the ‘harder’ side as far as assembly was concerned. A few steps required a second or even third look to make sure I was doing them correctly, and I was extremely careful for the screen part itself since errors there may have taken a long time to fix! Overall assembly was fun, and I the only real negative I can think of is the usual one: I wish LEGO stopped using stickers entirely.

The success of this set is just how great it looks assembled, and how smooth and wonderful the movement is when you turn the crank. This is one I’ll be happy to leave on display for many years to come 🙂

Posted in Blog, Crafts, Models, Toys | Comments Closed

Ramen 23: Let Us All Chook Together

September 8th, 2023

The ramen review madness continues. I’ve lost track of how many it’s been. Is it over 50? Let’s go…

Maruchan Instant Lunch Select Chicken (280, 12 g fat, 730 mg sodium)

I was initially put off by the flavor dust being obviously baked into the noodles, since in other products this has produced an unsatisfying broth, but once I added the water and let it steep for a while I was rewarded with an acceptable taste and nicely cooked noodles. However the dehydrated veggies remained a bit flat and chewy, and I think this product may have benefited with fewer of them. Also the cardboard cup (obviously they’re trying to phase out styrofoam) wasn’t very insulated and it got a bit too hot to hold, which may be a strike against it for some. I’d eat this again: 7/10

Pho’Nominal Bowl, Chicken (200 Calories,1 g fat, 649 mg sodium)

It had loads of flavor powder and herbs, and was attractive before I added the water. But as with all pho products I have tried, it stunk of cut grass when made, tasted even worse (like greasy dirt) and the noodles had the consistency of elastic bands. Abysmal: 0/10.

Sapporo Ichiban Chicken Flavour (270 kJ, 10 g fat, 730 mg sodium)

I used to love Sapporo chicken noodles, and until I discovered Gefen it was my ramen of choice. But that was a brick ramen and I was surprised to see they now do a cup. My first thought was it took longer-than-usual for the noodles to soften, and the smell was unpleasantly strong. The taste was solid though, if a bit salty, and in a world without Gefen I believe I’d eat this one regularly. A respectable 8/10.

I’m not stopping the plain chicken ramen reviews since I’ve learned that as long as the world turns I’ll still occasionally find new versions. But I’ve grown to love reviewing food, and think it may be time to expand my culinary review talents into a new product category. Stay tuned…

Posted in Food | Comments Closed

The Mysterious Soup Fish

September 5th, 2023

She said it was good 🙂

Posted in Food | 1 Comment »

Stardisc Trek

August 27th, 2023

A few weeks ago I purchased this in an antique store:

A sealed box of Star Trek: TNG ‘Stardisc coins’! Released in 1994, this was a product I don’t remember but likely would have ignored at the time since ‘stardisc coin’ is just another synonym for ‘Pog’. Yes, this is a box of Star Trek Pogs!

The box contained 36 packs, each of which has six Pogs. I paid $21.75 for the box, or $0.10 per Pog. Would you have bought it?

The packs promise much: “A must for the true Trekker”! Note also the spelling of ‘colour’ and the tease of rare gold versions. I tore open the first pack with some dread…

Each pack contains three cards, each of which has two Pogs. Immediately this seems to be a second-rate product, since you need to punch the Pogs out yourself. This is tedious, and even after opening only two packs I hardly wanted to start.

Each pack also includes a checklist and instructions on how to play a ‘game’ with the discs. These are of course laughable, and I very much doubt the writer ever believed anyone would play it.

The checklist is important since the Pogs themselves don’t have any name on the back, which is unusual since they are uniquely printed (with a number) so they could have easily added the name. Also it’s worth mentioning that the quality control wasn’t great, and more than a few of the ones in my packs were damaged:

The back of the wrapper includes this laughable statement:

At a 1/72 rate, I had a 50% chance of opening the gold Pogs, so I was surprised that I got them in only my third pack! Here they are:

At this point you’re noticing that each card contains two Pogs, which means that for the set of 60 there’s only actually 30 unique cards (since the same two are always on the same card). So in the box of 36 packs, there are 108 cards which could – in theory – net more than three full sets. These statistics seem to hold up, since I was able to complete the set in half the packs, and I completed a good quality (no damaged Pogs) set in about 2/3rds of the packs:

This is a terrible product. The print quality is high, but who wanted these? No one ever played the game with them, and ‘collectors’ would have just put them in a box and forgotten about them immediately. They’re just a ‘thing’ that has no use or even purpose, manufactured and sold simply to profit from that bizarre Pog craze of 30 years ago.

I’ve got a few unopened packs left. If you want one let me know. Even if you don’t, maybe I’ll send you one anyway 🙂

Posted in Collecting, Miscellaneous, Trading Cards | 4 Comments »

Ramen Universes Beyond: Final Fantasy

August 26th, 2023

Some weeks ago, when I was sorting through boxes to prepare for the sale of my Star Wars figures, I found these two ramen cups:

The packaging features characters from the Final Fantasy Dissidia game and buying them allowed the unlocking of in-game content. I bought these many years ago, and had intended to send the chicken one (featuring Cloud from FF7) to Florence as a gag gift one time. Obviously, I never did. Sorry Florence!

They’re attractive aren’t they? In preparing this post I learned there were two others as well: a shrimp flavour featuring Lightning (from FF13) and a multi-pack featuring Sephiroth (also from FF7). Given I only have two, I imagine I never saw the others.

The mechanism for getting the game content was a bit archaic: couldn’t they have just printed codes on the packaging? I never actually bought the game itself (I had played it on the PSP) so wouldn’t have even claimed the content even had I opened these over 4 years ago.

Yes, four years ago! Look closely at the above pic and you’ll note they expired on Dec 2018 and Jan 2019! I’m a real straighty-one-eighty when it comes to ‘expiration dates’ (yes I know they are technically best by these days) so it would require a bit of bravery to try these…

Removing the outer packaging removed shows these are just normal cup noodles, but when I removed the plastic wrap from each I discovered the seal on the lid had weakened to the extent the beef one just lifted right off by itself!

This was what they looked like before adding water. Doesn’t the flavoring in each look darker than normal? A quick google search revealed that if the seal had been good, they (in theory) may have been edible although chemical changes in the flavour may have rendered them both unpleasantly salty. However since the seal was compromised there was a risk of mold, which I was not prepared to take. Apparently Nissin themselves advises throwing away noodles more than three months after the ‘best by’ date.

So, alas, I didn’t try them. Rest assured they gave me joy for the nearly five years they were forgotten in a box in the attic, and I’ll certainly keep the outer packaging so I can reblog it in a decade or so 🙂