Robot Claw

Bird of Paradise

May 10th, 2022

It’s time for a new LEGO kit:

This is the third in their ‘botanical’ series, and as a child of the jungle myself, naturally this called to me!

It’s the biggest of the botanical kits so far, mostly because (unlike the flower bouquet) it comes with a pot.

It also came with a number of tiny (~ 5 mm) golden rings. These are dazzling, and apparently somewhat special (the kit mentions it has more of them than any other LEGO kit) but they are embedded inside the pot and you can’t even see them in the finished product!

The pot is dense and heavy, and wouldn’t be fun to dismantle. Obviously the bulk is required to prevent the piece from falling over when made.

The stalks are made from smaller pieces joined together, rather than very long axles, and therefore the plant would be very customizable. I followed the instructions perfectly 🙂

Speaking of which this was a very easy kit to make, even if you’ve not done LEGO before. It was a pleasant build as we watched Japan walking videos on YouTube, and dreamed of our next visit to Japan…

Doesn’t this resemble the real thing!?! I expect as I scampered around the dense jungles of my place of birth I saw these flowers often as I listened to the singing of real life birds of paradise!

The last step was to add the soil, which was hundreds of small brown circular pieces. I expect if you bought enough of these it would make good cat litter.

And here’s the finished piece! It’s lovely isn’t it? It’s also very large, but looks great on a mantle. As with the other two botanicals, I think this one will find a permanent position in our home.

Posted in Blog, Garden, Miscellaneous, Nature, Toys | Comments Closed

Retro Wax Packs (Part 3)

May 7th, 2022

It’s time to open the last five retro card packs that I got for my birthday. Once again, this set includes some I would have bought myself as a kid.

Superman 2 (Topps, 1980)

This is a good set. For starters each pack is stuffed with cards – 12 in total including the sticker:

The cards depict a high amount of action scenes are included (always a positive to a young buyer) and I love the character and die-cut sticker cards:

The backs however are a little disappointing. The plot is relegated to a summary on 15 cards, a few others had random info about the film, and the rest were puzzle cards from at least four puzzles. I prefer detailed plot summaries describing the scene on the front of the card, which Topps was still doing in 1980 although obviously not for this set:

Of note is the gum: It’s easily the biggest I’ve seen in any pack I’ve opened so far, and is almost as big as a card!

I definitely bought a few packs of Superman 2 cards back in 1980. I bet I loved them 🙂

Trivia Battle Game (Topps, 1984)

This came out in the middle of Trivial Pursuit mania and is an obvious cash-in, but I think works as a card set. Each pack includes 7 question cards containing 70 trivia questions and answers:

Two of the cards contain rules and a ‘board’ on which to play:

The questions are very dated now and probably harder than they were in 1984, and to my shame it took me 47 questions to beat the one-player game. I guess therefore I’m ‘fair’ at US-centric trivia from 38 years ago!

I think this would have been a fantastic product in 1984, and an inexpensive way to scratch the trivia itch for kids.

ALF (Topps, 1987)

Alf was a short-lived phenomenon in the late 1980s. He was a sitcom alien puppet that told bad jokes to adults. Inexplicably he became very popular and highly merchandised, and this is the second card set based on him and his show.

The cards are well designed and manufactured, and I’m particularly impressed with the quality of the images considering this was a tv show (was it recorded on film?)! But the jokes – as they were at the time – aren’t funny and the appeal is lost on me.

The cardbacks contain absurdist ‘humour’ that seems like it was aimed at kids but probably missed its target.

The pack also contained a die-cut sticker and a fake baseball card obviously inspired by Topps’ successful Garbage Pail Kids cards (which I despise).

Overall this is a decently produced set, if a bit short on cards in the pack, but I wonder who bought it?

Michael Jackson (Topps, 1984)

Similar to the Cyndi Lauper and Duran Duran cards I’ve shown previously, here’s another set based around a pop star, although in this case the biggest star in the world!

The cards are as you would expect: standard press photos of ‘Wacko’ with empty blurbs on the back:

The gum stick is incredible though, and I reckon would be of interest to a collector today:

Overall a predictable but acceptable set, and had I been a fan of Jacko (or Bubbles) back in the day I would have been happy with these.

Gremlins 2 (Topps, 1990)

Nine years ago I posted a few snaps of some Gremlins cards from the first film, and now it’s time for the set from the sequel. KLS and I watched both of these recently and the first one holds up quite well, but the second is a very strange film…

The cards are nice enough, although the white borders look unfinished. The images on the ones I got are heavy on character photos rather than scenes from the film, but each card has a plot summary on the back:

The stickers aren’t die-cut (once again this is in the final days of Topps’ wax packs) and while the back refers to a puzzle, I didn’t get a single card with a puzzle back in the entire pack!

As I said Gremlins 2 is a weird and difficult to watch film (Phoebe aside…) and I doubt anyone was enthusiastic about this card set when it came out.

So that’s it. Are there any other retro wax packs I haven’t yet opened on this blog? Well yes, but these days the packs are prohibitively expensive (original Star Wars, Raiders of The Lost Ark, Moonraker etc) so it’s unlikely you’ll see them here. Never say never though!

Posted in Blog, Collecting, Miscellaneous, Retro, Trading Cards | Comments Closed

World Book

May 5th, 2022

Back in the late 1970s dad briefly worked as a door-to-door salesperson for World Book encyclopedia. In those days World Book was sold exclusively via door-to-door sales and the company actively recruited teachers since the encyclopedia was marketed toward families with children in schools. Dad apparently wasn’t great at the job, but it led to our family receiving a full set of World Book, which would have likely been prohibitively expensive for us otherwise.

Recently I found in an ‘abandoned book’ pile a copy of the 1964 edition of the F volume of World Book. Flipping through it brings back a lot of memories since when we were kids this was our Wikipedia. If ever we needed to know anything, the answer was in our World Books!

F is 512 pages long, most of which are black and white, and the above is representative of most entries. The writing is succinct and the vocabulary easy, and it’s clear this attempts to be a comprehensive reference that doesn’t bog down with technical details.

Since it’s catered (if not aimed) at children, the entry for fractions is many times longer than the one for force and organizations such as 4H and Future Farmers of America have much longer and detailed entries than I would have expected.

As a child I read all the volumes voraciously, and especially loved the lengthy showcase entries with lots of colour. Examples in this volume include flag (there’s more than a dozen pages like the above), flower and fish:

Farm has a long and comprehensive entry, but perhaps surprisingly the longest one in this volume is furniture with 16 pages.

The most spectacular entry is frog, since it includes an anatomical drawing featuring transparent overlays. I remember several volumes had these in them and as a child these were dazzling (and the plastic hadn’t warped as it has in this nearly 60-year-old volume).

Of course this was a legitimate encyclopedia, and not just intended for school report projects. As such it includes plenty of entries perhaps not of interest to the average child:

It’s also a time capsule of 1960s America. I only skimmed through it, but I found quite a few items that would likely be different in a 2022 edition, such as this introduction to fur:

Or a six-page article on fallout and fallout shelters:

There’s also an article on faith healing that very nearly flat-out says it is legitimate medicine, and the entry on Florida mentions (factually, in 1964) that it was the most politically democratic US state. An article on factories discusses how they can beautify neighborhoods and the free enterprise article goes into some detail about how Americans are the most prosperous, healthy and happy citizens in the world…

Warts-and-all, World Book was an incredible resource to us as children, and I have many happy memories of reading the volumes almost cover to cover. In preparing this entry I was astonished to learn it still exists as a physical resource, and you can buy the 2022 edition today for a mere $999!

One of the joys of using these as a child was reading all the other articles you pass by on the way to the one you’re looking for. I hope that kids today, with Wikipedia likely the principle resource for their school reports, haven’t lost the joy of learning just for it’s own sake by browsing through an encyclopedia.

Posted in Blog, Books, History, Retro, Time | 3 Comments »

Frozen Novelties (Part 3)

April 30th, 2022

Since the second installment was six years ago, I think we’re long overdue for another post about licensed Australian ‘ice blocks’ from the good old days.

I remember these well. We were of course excited to have a new Star Wars themed ice block to suck on, but the inclusion of ‘Jedi jelly’ was a misstep! It was a strange semisolid material, half gummy and half jelly/jello and I recall it was very unpleasant to eat. I’m sure I preferred the older Star Wars ice blocks, and from what I read they were still available alongside the newer ROTJ version.

I have a very dim memory of the above, which was a standard choc-top style ice cream with doctor who branding. Apparently this was released in the 1980s and exclusive to ice cream freezers in shops (you couldn’t buy a box of them at the supermarket). That’s the wrapper on the right, with a stunning likeness of Tom Baker!

This is an interesting item since it was unique to Australia (the UK Who ‘ice lolly’ was different) and representative once again of how important licensed products were back then and how popular Doctor Who was in Australia.

Stickers were a polar inclusion in several series of iceblock, including Buck Rogers, The Bionic Man and the above (that’s one of the six spider man stickers on the right). It seems if you bought a box at a supermarket there would be a sticker inside, but if you bought an ice block at a corner store the owner had to give you the sticker. I’m sure I had a few, and possibly even still do in my sticker collection up in the attic!

I recall eating one of these at Charlestown Pool. I don’t remember the flavours, but I seem to remember the shapes lacked the detail shown in the marketing photo, and the colors ran when they melted. It was always fun to eat a messy ice block at the pool or beach, get it all over yourself, then go for a swim to wash it away 🙂

The Agro ice block is quintessentially Australian, and based around a wisecracking TV puppet popular with kids. It’s an obvious Bubble’o’Bill knockoff, but apparently was successful enough that Agro even had a second licensed ice cream!

As for Garfield… that damn cat was everywhere in the 1980s, including apparently in the ice block freezer! Toffee ice cream was a popular flavor in those days, and I reckon I must have ate one at least one of these once.

The more I looked the more I found, and the stranger and more unlikely the licenses became. The Mash ice block is particularly bizarre, and isn’t that almost Bob Hawke on the wrapper?!?

Some more licensed examples from the late 1970s and 1980s (apparently the fad lasted until about 1985). The Dracula one ‘bled’ and was similar to a product of the same name sold in the UK. The Space Invaders product reused old molds of ice blocks from the mid 70s named ‘Moonies’ and the Ultra Magnus one may not have actually made it to market (that’s an advertising sheet).

As for the Skippy one… it is apparently a product from the 1960s but that one image is all I can find on it! There also seems to have been Australian ice blocks for Happy Days, The A Team, Pac Man and King Kong but I can’t find any images (and suspect they were all identical to versions sold in the UK).

Not licensed, but nostalgic. Mint choc wedges were best, and I recall ‘Pepe’ well but would never have remembered the name! In fact I don’t eat much ice cream these days but wouldn’t say no to a frosty Pepe right now!

The above is a photo of an ad for a British ‘ice lolly’. I include it since I have a strong memory of an Australian ice cream also having a shaped stick, but I can’t find any evidence online. Do any of my readers recall anything of the sort from our youths?

And lastly in the previous post I mentioned my memories of an ice block with heat sensitive wrapper that displayed monster pictures and I’m pleased to say I’ve found it! This image is from a British advert for ‘Wall’s Magic Monster’ which suggests it was a similarly-named product by Pauls in Australia.

I vividly recall a day at Charlestown Pool digging wrappers out of garbages to collect the monsters, and ending up with quite the collection. I recall there were three different pictures, and I believe I cut them out of the wrappers and traded extras with friends for who-knows-what? I kept three good examples for many, many years, possibly right up until I left Oz. I used to keep them pressed between the pages of a book, but have no idea which book or what happened to it.

I bet they’re still there today…

Posted in Australia, Blog, Food, History, Miscellaneous, Retro, Time | 1 Comment »

Ramen 15: Let All The Children Boogie

April 28th, 2022

Three more chicken noodle reviews! Perhaps I blur the ‘ramen’ definition a bit this time…

Myojo Udon (Artificial Chicken Flavor) (210 Calories, 0 g fat, 2100 mg sodium)

I used to buy a chicken udon product years back and enjoyed it a lot, so I was hopeful for this one. The fact it’s zero fat and very low calorie was interesting, as was the preparation instructions which were simple and just required a microwave.

When it was ready it had virtually no smell, and I was concerned I had another flavorless product on my hands, so I was very surprised when I had a mouthful and discovered how absolutely repulsive the taste was. I’m not exaggerating here: a taste of dirt and death very nearly triggered my gag reflex and I had to spit it out. My notes (yes I keep notes for these reviews) say ‘tastes like poison grass’ and ‘made by devils in a factory controlled by Satan‘!

One of the very worst products I’ve reviewed, and I’ll give it -9/10 with just the fact the noodles cooked well keeping it from -10!

Maruchan Yakisoba (Chicken Flavor) (510 Calories, 21 g fat, 1300 mg sodium)

This is another microwave product, and as with the previous one was very easy to make. But even though I followed the instructions perfectly (I’m an expert chef after all) I wonder if perhaps the finished product needed a bit more water?

The taste is strong but very salty, and there’s perhaps 30% too many noodles for the low-eater I have become. But it’s satisfying overall, a thoroughly decent product, and in a pinch I’d eat it again: 7/10.

Hello Kitty Chicken Noodle Soup (300 Calories, 12 g fat, 810 mg sodium)

This – which was purchased at a toy/collectible store – is easily the most expensive ramen I’ve reviewed at $6! Obviously the cost all goes into the license, since the taste left a lot to be desired.

One flavor packet contained revolting toothpaste-consistency fat, and the sharp smell of the finished product almost made me gag. It didn’t taste anything like chicken, and I’m informed by KLS (who liked it) that it was more of a curry soup. Absolutely not worth the money, and barely worth 3/10.

That’s an astonishing 39 products reviewed, and it may be time to conclude that I have exhausted every type of chicken-only instant noodle product available where I live. If I wanted to continue this series, I’d probably have to go on a trip to distant shores of hitherto unseen chicken ramen…

Posted in Food | Comments Closed