Can Collection Update

July 31st, 2023

I’ve posted about my can ‘collection’ twice before, which you can read here and here. It’s been five years since the last one so here’s an update.

Let’s start with dinosaur cans from the last Jurassic Park film. Once again these were available in various flavours of Dr Pepper and as you can see I only found five (of seven). Interestingly I recently learned that a similar promotion occurred in Australia! I wonder did any of my Ozlandian friends get any cans?

Here we have a selection of game-related cans. The Coke one I got in Japan, and the other two (both energy drinks that I didn’t drink) were bought in the USA. The Sonic can is pretty cool isn’t it?

These four One Piece themed cans – all for various coffee drinks – were all bought in Japan. Licensed cans for this series are common and you could probably fill shelves with them if you were a fan. I’m not, but I can’t resist a licensed can and KLS drinks the coffee πŸ™‚

Some more anime-themed cans, both picked up on recent Japan trips. The Coke was sickly sweet and ended up being poured down a drain!

Even more anime-themed cans, this time for Uma Musume (‘Horse Girls’). The big ones are energy drink and came out of a machine in a Game Center, and the smaller one is coffee I bought in Akihabara.

Three Ultraman themed items. The two cans were bought in an Asian grocer in NYC, and I don’t recall where I got the Ultraman shaped bottle, which I’ve had for almost a decade. In Japan I saw an Ultraman can from many years ago, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was another series with a rich history of licensed cans.

This coffee can featuring Jin from BTS was going to go to Bernard, but I’ve inexplicably kept it. I probably should just throw it away…

Likewise this Black Adam energy drink can, which I believe is the only licensed item in our home featuring Dwayne Johnson. I like this one, since the film was a flop and I haven’t seen any other merchandise.

Lastly we have these six Mountain Dew cans featuring art from various themes. They’re all from 2007/2008, and during this time Dew had several different promotions where aluminum bottles were made featuring designs by various artists. There seems to have been a lot of these (dozens) and some of mine are from the ‘green label’, ‘stars and stripes’ and ‘nascar’ (!) series. According to what I read retail distribution of these was very poor so perhaps it’s surprising I found this many.

As I was taking these photos and writing this post my intention was to recycle most of these cans, but in the end I… didn’t. They went into a box and into the attic, there to remain forever.

Funspot (Part 2)

July 26th, 2023

I had a novel idea: play some games at Funspot, do as well as I could, and then compare my scores to the world records. It turns out this was more difficult than I anticipated!

For starters, it’s often difficult to find any high scores for certain games. The obvious source would be Twin Galaxies, but that’s a site with a lot of baggage and it’s hard to judge the accuracy of many of their records. Even worse, it’s hard to even find records on their abysmal webpage!

Secondly, since most arcade games have dip-switches that allow the operator to adjust difficulty, it’s not always as easy as comparing a score to one recorded online since I may have played a different version of the game. I think this is likely for Funspot, which (obviously, and understandably) seems to set their games at the hardest mode.

Thirdly, certain games have ‘tricks’ that seem to disqualify high scores when used. The enforcement of this seems dubious to say the least: Pac-Man for instance has patterns that every master player uses, but the ‘t-block’ in Qix is apparently frowned upon if used in a high scoring run. Suffice to say I didn’t know any of these tricks, and used none!

I played dozens of different games at Funspot, but for fourteen of them I recorded my scores (some of which came from multiple attempts) to compare to the records. For three of these (Gaplus, Galaga ’88 and Marble Madness) I was unable to find reputable high score info, and for the remaining eleven here are my scores plotted as a percentage of the world records:

Overall, I’d say I did fairly well! Sure my 9,545 points in Missile Command wasn’t too close to the world record of almost 104,000,000 but I only played for a few minutes where the record took 72 hours! And my ten minute score of 128,552 on Star Wars wasn’t bad since the world record (300 million) took 54 hours. I’d say everything from Qix (a game which becomes incredibly difficult very quickly) upwards is impressive, and Track & Field is, if I may be so humble, a stupendous achievement!

I’ll be the first to admit I’m a little rusty. I used to be able to effortlessly defeat Black Tiger on one credit, but this time my game (2.1% of the world record) only reached stage two. I only destroyed two Death Stars on Star Wars and I didn’t even use the legendary ‘triple flapper’ method on Track & Field! But I’m happy with my results after only a few attempts and will refer back to this post when next we visit to try and improve on each game πŸ™‚

This post also gives me a new topic to ponder: compared to every other player in the world, I wonder which game I’m the best at?

Funspot (Part 1)

July 25th, 2023

We went on a cruise of Lake Winnipesaukee today. The weather was lovely and the breeze as the boat glided along was a nice break from the heat. The shores of this large freshwater lake are full of enormous and very expensive home and all I think when I see them is “How long does it take to clean a home like that?” Of course those that can even afford a house ten times larger than ours can also afford staff to clean it!

Afterwards, and for the second time in two days we went and spent several hours at Funspot. This is – once again – the principle reason we’re here. Last time was during the pandemic and they seemed to have fewer machines but I’m very pleased to see things have turned around and there’s now more than ever!

A new inclusion are several super-rare games such as this ‘Mystic Marathon’ cabinet. Only five were ever made and Funspot has two of them! The other is playable and I can assure you the game is awful πŸ™‚

I played lots of games both days – more on this tomorrow – and as always it was extremely nostalgic and a good even-more-retro follow up to my time spent at Hirose in Akihabara six weeks ago.

Of course they’ve still got a bunch of pinball machines, including several rare and unusual examples. Every time I visit I play Hercules and wonder how it ever got into production.

A new addition is the ‘pinball outpost’ which is a darkened alley with about a dozen tables. The low light lets the lights on the machines pop and makes it easy to marvel at the beautiful back glass art. Check out this table art too:

I played a few pinballs of course, but for me they’re a side-dish to the video games. Even the most thrilling pinball can’t hope to compete with a sit down Star Wars in the original cabinet πŸ™‚

Tomorrow I’ll have more info on some of the games I played and how I did. Stay tuned!

The Stones Of Blood

July 24th, 2023

This morning we drove north from Massachusetts into the town of Salem (not that Salem) in New Hampshire to visit this place:

This privately owned tourist site opened in 1958 and purports to show ruins of human habitation dating back 4000 years.

The ruins are somewhat expansive, consisting of many stone walls, several covered chambers and even a great stone ‘table’. Visitors self-guide themselves in and around the ruins, but today it wasn’t popular and we had the entire site to ourselves.

The guide sheet given out describes the notable sections, but is deliberately vague in certain details, not the least of which is how old the ruins actually are or who built them.

What is revealed – and to their credit they don’t hide this, although perhaps the language could be clearer – is that the known age of the stonework is about 200 years ago when a man (named Pattee) owned the land and built foundations and cellers himself using stones he personally collected. After his death his son sold the stones to a quarry, which left many of the structures in disrepair.

About a hundred years later (in 1937) the site was purchased by a man named Goodwin who had a strong belief it had once been settled by Europeans long before Columbus, and he probably rearranged and enhanced the ruined structures to better fit his narrative. And thus ‘America’s Stonehenge’ was born. Goodwin was not an archaeologist, and had no evidence of his beliefs (and there has never been any evidence of pre-Columbus European occupation of America) but this didn’t stop him from rebuilding the site to how he assumed such peoples would have used it.

These days the site has embraced the Stonehenge moniker quite a bit, and in addition to the original ruins has erected additionally ‘astronomically aligned’ stones in various places, as well as holding events on solstices and equinoxes. It’s all a bit mystical, as are the claims that parts of the site are aligned with polar directions (which I’m sure is a coincidence at best). There’s also vague allusions to rituals and mysterious meanings behind certain parts of the site. This feels like a deception to attract more tourists, and I feel the site would be good enough just focusing on the known history.

America’s Stonehenge used to be called ‘Mystery Spot’ but changed its name in 1982 to avoid association with those crackpot roadside tourist traps with ‘weird gravitational fields’. In the Mystery Spot era it was the focus of an episode of In Search Of, the infamous TV series hosted by Leonard Nimoy himself! Insanely, the episode (which doesn’t seem to be on YouTube) apparently claims the site is Minoan, despite the fact there’s absolutely no evidence for this! In honor of such madness, that’s me as a Minotaur above.

Before Goodwin bought the site, when it was presumably still in disrepair, one visitor was none other that Howard Phillips Lovecraft himself! It’s even been suggested the stonework influenced some of his florid prose. In his eyes, we could imagine, these cyclopean stones dug out of a field by a farmer not a century prior were antediluvian hints at a lost civilization.

There’s more controversy as well, about the spurious carbon dating, or the ‘sacrificial table’ or how the site was vandalized by a right-wing nut job a few years back. This is historical site that over the years has developed a history of its own!

Lest I sound too negative in this post, let me conclude by saying we greatly enjoyed visiting America’s Stonehenge. Although it was a bit hot, and every small flying bug in America was there to greet us, we spent an hour in real history, just perhaps not as old as some believe. And we followed in the footsteps of none other than Spock himself, and saw and wondered about the same views that sparked the literature of Lovecraft himself. I’m very glad we went.

Happy Anniversary!

July 23rd, 2023

We’re on a little road trip, and today drove the Mohawk Trail into Massachusetts. It’s a very old scenic road with a rich history.

The above is the ‘Hail To The Sunrise’ statue, which has stood beside the road in a small park for about 90 years. It commemorates the Mohawk tribes who were the native inhabitants of this part of the US.

This is the ‘Bridge of Flowers’ in Shelburne Falls. It’s an old tram bridge that was converted to a pedestrian garden a few decades ago. It’s heavily planted with a large variety of flowers and a lovely way to cross the river.

Not far from the bridge are the ‘glacial potholes’ that give the town its name. It was a very hot day and the cool spray from the waterfall was pleasant.

Just after taking the above photo we saw a tiny Pomeranian dog with paralyzed back legs using a set of wheels to get around, while nearby stood a handsomely dressed and well-manicured elderly Indian gentleman with hair and beard dyed a brilliant – almost neon – orange colour like Fanta! Neither were the sorts of things you see every day πŸ™‚

Our hotel is enormous! It’s a wedding venue but there’s no weddings this weekend, so there’s almost no guests. We were the only customers in the restaurant that seats hundreds, and since it had been years since I’d sat in a table service restaurant I was shocked by the insane portion sizes. The food was good though, even if we didn’t eat it all.

Tomorrow we leave Massachusetts and head north into New Hampshire to visit a most curious attraction….