Robot Claw – Page 99 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Ramen Sidetrip

November 4, 2023

A little over ten months ago we visited the Cup Noodle museum in Yokohama and made our own Cup Noodles. Here they are:

Since they had a one-year expiration, it was time to try them. So we popped the tops, added water, and gave them each a taste.

Mine is on the left, and contained shrimp, onions, egg, chicken naruto and ‘original’ flavored noodles. As soon as the water was added an indescribably foul smell filled the room. And when I say ‘indescribable’, I mean perfidiously sulfurous like an evil boiled egg. As awful as the stench was it didn’t deter me and I bravely tried a forkful. It was absolutely terrible. It was perhaps the worst instant ramen I’ve ever tasted and almost immediately raised the gorge in my throat. Kristin tried it as well, and her disgust equaled my own. An easy 0 (or lower) out of 10!

Kristin’s was cheese, kimchi, onion and corn on a chili noodle base. To our surprise the cheese just melted and the noodles swum in a thick, creamy broth. She ate more than a few forkfuls, said the chili and cheese were a good match, and the remainder was ‘inoffensive’! She scored it 6/10.

Regardless of the taste, it was fun to try our own creations, and once again I’ll say that the Cup Noodle museum was a great place to visit.

But I’m not done with ramen news today… check this out:

What’s this madness? Cup Noodles / Godzilla socks? I found this at Walmart of all places, and naturally had to purchase it. Here’s some of the art on the packaging:

And here’s the socks themselves:

This is an insane product. To think this collaboration happened in the first place is wild (and as far as I can tell, no actual Godzilla Cup Noodles have been released) but why did they make socks based on it and why are they marketed in the USA!?! They seem like good socks though, so I’m happy with my purchase 🙂

And then there’s this:

It’s a mini ramen for dollhouses! Kristin bought this on Etsy a while ago, and it’s just the sort of weird item a chicken ramenologist such as myself would be attracted to. She actually got a few of them:

But it gets even more bonkers, since a different seller makes even smaller scale cup versions. Like this one:

Look at this thing: smaller than a single kernel of corn. And it’s a chicken ramen too! It’s almost LEGO minifig scale, and the cup is even removable from the outer packaging:

I can’t tell how it’s made. I assumed 3D printed but it seems too good, and the graphics on the cup appear to be printed on. A mystery!

I’ll leave you with this shot of a chicken ramen decoration in our tree and remind you that while it’s been a while since I found a new chicken ramen I now know enough to assume I never will. Let’s hope in 2024 we’ll see some more chicken ramen reviews on this blog 🙂

Comic-Con Haul

October 29, 2023

I just got back from Albany Comic-Con. I hadn’t been for many years, and last time I did go (pre-pandemic) it was disappointing. With a new, larger venue (and at $10, double the admission) I thought it was time to check it out again.

It only took me about a half hour to explore all the dealers tables, and here’s what I bought:

A 1992 issue of Dungeon magazine ($5). I took a gamble on this because I have a couple of dozen of these but happily I didn’t have this one. This is the TSR companion to Dragon magazine that features premade adventures, and I always enjoy reading them.

Two packs of Denny’s Solo Cards ($1 for the two). These were given out at Denny’s when the film came out in 2018, and each pack contained two cards and two coupons. I believe I had two of these packs, gifted to me by JF who got them at Denny’s back then, but I couldn’t resist two more at the price. The guy selling this had hundreds of them!

A ‘full set’ (or so the seller claimed) of Taco Bell Star Wars Plastic Cups from 1996 ($5 for the set), released as part of a promotion for the Star Wars special edition. These are a mystery, since I don’t remember seeing them before but they were released during a time I was mad about collecting Star Wars ephemera and surely would have got – and saved – them. Oh well, these are in fantastic condition and I own them now 🙂

A couple of Boris Vallejo Artbooks ($20 for the two). I’m not a great fan of Vellejo’s art, since I find his physiques to be a bit grotesque, but in recent years my appreciation for pulp sword and sorcery art has increased so I’m giving him a second look. These prices were very good: about half what I would have paid on Amazon.

A carded Star Wars ‘joke’ figure: R6-SNO ($18). This was a holiday 2022 Disney Parks special edition figure, and I got it for slightly less than it goes for on eBay. I only ‘collect’ astromech droids now, and this is in fact the first figure I’ve bought since I sold off my collection. It’s a travesty isn’t it?

Two Boris Vallejo jigsaw puzzles ($30 for the pair). These were unused and even shrink-wrapped, which is remarkable since they came out in 1979! I opened both and they’re in fine condition. While the art isn’t great – surely a female barbarian would have been a more logical choice? – I enjoy jigsaws and these are both 500 pieces which is believe is the ideal size.

And that’s that! Most of the dealers were selling exclusively comics, or modern toys, so there were perhaps fewer items to my interest than I would have liked. But this is a decent hail for <$100 so I think overall it was a worthy con. What do you think of my pickups?

Another Year Of Driving-In

October 28, 2023

This past season we visited four drive-in cinemas, including one in another state. One of these is quite special: they’re not far from our house, have a super high resolution camera and an amazing sound system. They only play older films and we look forward to visiting them again next year. All the drive-ins are now closed for the season, and as with last year we kept a chronology of films we saw, each with a five-word review. Here now, let’s see what we thought…

The Super Mario Bros Movie – We smiled start to finish.
The Super Mario Bros Movie – Still smiling the second time.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – Entertaining enough to overlook imperfections.
Terminator 2: Judgement Day – Easily the best Terminator film.

Guardians of The Galaxy 3 – Tugs at the heart strings.
Ant Man 3: Quantumania – Only the villian was good.
Guardians of The Galaxy 3 – A top tier Marvel film!
The Flash – Insane enough to be fun.

Transformers: Rise of Beasts – Absolute trash with robot animals.
Elemental – We both slept through it.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – Best film of the year?

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – A fitting farewell for Indy.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One – I reckon this was great.
Barbie – Fun and has a heart.

Oppenheimer – Thought provoking and immensely watchable.
Barbie – This is a great film.
Insidious: The Red Door – We left due to boredom.
Meg 2: The Trench – Aggressively stupid and almost unwatchable.

Talk To Me – A dark and disturbing masterpiece.
Adventures in Babysitting – A lovely slice of nostalgia.
Haunted Mansion – You’ll forget it next week.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem – The best ever turtles film!
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure – Its laugh out loud funny 🙂
The Equalizer 3 – A riveting portrait of sociopathy.

The Goonies – A near incoherent 80s classic.
The Lost Boys – Vampires that never bite anyone!
A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors – Freddy’s a parody by now.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers – Creepy and unnerving horror classic.
The Nun 2 – Just another demon nun film.
Blue Beetle – Predictable and tedious superhero film.

The Creator – Visuals far exceed the story.
Hocus Pocus – Sarah Jessica Parker was cute!

(We only say this last one once, but we felt it deserved five reviews.)
The Exorcist: Believer – A sneaky little Jesus movie
The Exorcist: Believer – Too much Jesus; insufficient Satan
The Exorcist: Believer – I wanted Satan, not Jesus!
The Exorcist: Believer – Should be titled ‘The Excretist’.
The Exorcist: Believer – Worst Film Of The Year!

That’s a lot of movies! I recently read that the average American goes to the movies about twice a year, so I think we’re a bit above average. With a season pass we’ll see almost anything, and even bad films are good at the drive-in! We’re already looking forward to the 2024 season.

Did you see any of these films? If so, what did you think?