Robot Claw – Page 503 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Open Market

August 13, 2012

San Jose is home to a massive Flea Market, which claims 1500 stalls on Sundays. We went yesterday, to check it out. I had high hopes for this place; I dreamt of walking out with such esoterica as an FM Towns gaming system or maybe unopened boxes of trading cards. Instead, I walked out with only this:

But I skip ahead! More on the above later…

The Flea Market is a mostly-permanent-stalls place where you can go to buy just about anything for relatively cheap. Yes they probably have 1500 stalls, but many of these sell the same old stuff you’d see at flea markets world round, such as clothing, toiletries, kitchen supplies and cheap toys. The ‘garage sellers’ are in their own section, and basically drive up and sell anything they like from tarps on the ground. In theory, this is where true gems may be found. In practice, it’s a lot of tools and, well basically garbage 🙂

As with most places like this, occasionally items unlike anything you’d see in a ‘real’ shop can be found. Cockfighting enthusiast items for instance:

Or pinatas of questionable license:

It was brutally, mercilessly hot at the flea market, and this photo shows the genesis of an illness that gripped me later in the day:

The corndog (and fries) were fine, but glimpse that orange soda there? Well even as the guy who sold it to me apologized for not having mountain dew in stock for a guy wearing a mountain dew t-shirt, a thought had begun in the back of my mind that drinking orange soda in such heat may be a bad idea since it makes me sick even at the best of times. When, a couple of hours later, Bernard got me a second, gigantic, second cup of orange fanta AND I DRUNK IT ALL INSIDE 5 MINUTES, well then at that point the damage was done.

As we left the flea market I felt no small amount of nausea, and upon arriving home I was forced to lie down for a while to combat the rising gorge 🙂

So the flea market – poor drink choices notwithstanding – was a fun trip. But given I was the most enthused, what was funny was how little I spent compared to B & L. I purchased only the one item shown earlier: a solar bobbing head unofficially licensed ultraman knockoff sitting on a crapper. And it only cost me $3.

Bernard came in second, buying two LED watches:

And Lakshmi beat the both of us into the ground with a decent bag of stuff and a beautiful piece of furniture:

There’s a lot of furniture stores at the flea market, and the prices are good and the delivery was quick and free.

Speaking of Bernard & Lakshmi, watch this:

Pictures From Yesteryear

August 12, 2012

These past few days Bernard’s been scanning in some old photos. Here are a selection, in approximate chronological order…

Mum and Dad in 197X. I’m guessing Dad’s goal on that day was to look as much like Grinderman-era Nick Cave as he possibly good, and he succeeds well. A beautiful photo of our parents!

Taken at our home at the time, a flat in Jamieson street in Gateshead. Obviously that day our family had plans to either go for an alpine hike or spend the afternoon at a Bavarian beer festival. I appear female 🙂

Part of an audition for an ad campaign for a popular brand of soda. Ultimately we were not chosen. One of the selector’s comments said “The youngest child has a suspiciously large head”.

Here we are riding a horse, with dad watching. This would have been before 1975. The horses name was ‘Horsehorse’ according to my brother, but I seem to recall calling him ‘Hecatonchires’.

Probably about 1978 or 1979. In those days school photos would also include brothers and sisters, if they went to the same school. I’ve got no jokes with regards to this shot; I actually think it’s pretty good. At that time Dad was still cutting our hair 🙂

In Canberra in the late 1970s. This remains the only time my brother has ever seen snow, and was (obviously) the first and only time before I came to the USA. My shoes look gargantuan, and I’m using them to ski-without-ski’s. Even then I was an exceptional athlete.

Back in the 1980s yellow was my favourite colour. Given a choice, it was always yellow for me, including a yellow Sharp tape deck. In time this love of yellow worked it’s way into my clothes, and the above shot is perhaps the quintessential example. This was taken at my Dad’s 50th birthday in 1985, and is representative of what I chose to wear when told to ‘dress up’. Have you ever seen a yellower 13 year old?

Unquestionably the worst family photo ever taken. So bad in fact, that it is sublime in it’s beauty. There’s just so much that jumps out and punches the viewer in the face:
– My coat (which was woolen, and which I once wore to a school dance)
– My hair & glasses (I’m surprised I wasn’t instantly punched in the face every day when I got to school)
– Bernard’s tie & faux tweed coat
– Mum’s shirt & hair (she looks like the lead singer of REO Speedwagon)
– The composition (dad’s head is growing out of mine and he looks hydrocephalic)
And I could go on. This abysmal shot was taken in the late 1980s.

Taken in 1992 by KLS when she visited Australia before we were married. Bernard is holding our then-cat Momus. We look like a homeless family. Even though I was quite skinny then I look tubby, and Bernard’s hair is a sight to behold. It’s a funny shot indeed, and I have good memories from that time so I like it 🙂

Do you like this post? I have other photos I may blog, including a few from my first trip back in 2000 and some of our cats back in the days I was growing up.

Seaside Rendezvous

August 12, 2012

Everyone on the west coast went to Santa Cruz yesterday, so naturally we joined them. This meant that a 40 minute drive actually took 90 minutes. Then we had to find a carpark, which was not easy. But eventually we succeeded, and made our way to the shore.

That’s the pier there (or ‘wharf’ as they call it), and the less popular side of the beach. We walked to the end of this pier, filled with fisherpeople, souvenir stores, restaurants and homeless guys. We had a nice lunch in a restaurant with a view, although B & L looks like they weren’t having much fun:

Must be my company 😉

At the end of the pier, Bernard’s mood had clearly not improved:

It’s almost like he was faking it isn’t it? 😉

Bernard took a panorama of the wharf on his phone. Strangely, I seemed to end up in it multiple times. Once again, it’s almost as if this was done on purpose!

As you walk along the wharf, you can hear suspicious sounds emanating from underneath. At several points mysterious stairs lead to platforms underneath, where visitors can view the source of the sounds. They look like this:

California sea lions! Cute little buggers; this photo was taken by noodling my camera around a chain link fence. I was about 2 feet from this guy, who I suppose could have nipped my fingers off in a millisecond had we not become fast friends on sight!

After we’d spent enough time out on the wharf to guarantee beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had sunburned my cheeks and the top of my head, we started back toward the shore and the Santa Cruz boardwalk.

As you can see the crowds were quite large. The lines for the rides were particularly long, and in most cases in the open, hot sun. Needless to say, I joined none of them. Lakshmi headed for the sand, while Bernard and I zoomed toward the principle reason we’d headed to Santa Cruz – the arcade 🙂

We had a tournament! The rules were simple: Play games that gave scores, and for each game won (ie. higher score) that person got a point. The overall winner would be the one with the most points. The following fifteen games were played: Track & Field, Soul Calibur 2, Strikers 1945, Kung Fu Master, Tempest, Dragons Lair, Pac Man, Street Fighter Alpha, Tetris, Asteroids, Ripleys Believe It Or Not (Pinball), an old-timey arcade light-gun game, Panic Museum, a very terrible DC comics fighting game and one other I can’t recall.

Kung Fu Master is still fun. It had been aeons since I last played it!

Strikers 1945 is an awesome shooter. If I lived in Santa Cruz I’d play it all the time. I wonder if AW recalls the time he and I beat this on two player in a tiny little arcade in the Randwick mall?

The overall results of the tournament was 13-2 in my favour. The Schmitz arcade legend it seems survives in only one of us these days ;P

So effortless were my victories in most of the games that when it came to Pac Man, in which I went first and set a score that Bernard deemed undefeatable, we agreed if he scored 25% of my total he would win. Even then I prevailed! In fact on one of his lives it was almost like he was demonstrating the absolute shortest path possible into the jaws of the red ghost 🙂

Note the advanced “one hand leaning on the cabinet” pose I adopted for Pac Man!

Right after I had beaten Bernard in SF Alpha, a guy who had been watching joined in and challenged me. He was about my age and (I suspect) planning to impress his younger daughter who was wit him. In Bernard’s words, here is what happened:

“What happened? Well he was destroyed! (laughing) He didn’t stand a chance. He was destroyed. He didn’t seem to enjoy it at all. (laughing) He was destroyed pretty decisively. I think you perfected him actually on the first round.”

The guy returned for a second game, in which I played sub par to give him a chance, but rapidly defeated him again. He looked crestfallen. Such is the fate of all who challenge a master 😉

You’re wondering which of the two games Bernard was victor in? Well the first was Track & Field. Were I a sore loser I may be inclined to mention I may have prevailed had my jump button actually worked. But the other game? It was this arcade light gun game.

Bernard beat me convincingly in this game. 20 shots were provided for a dollar. I hit 7 targets, he hit 15. He actually played the game three times and did well in each. Had our tournament consisted of 15 rounds of this, the results would have been reversed 🙂