WTF was happening in sandboxes in the 50's?!

Have a look at this bucket loader toy.  Seriously, look at this thing!  This aint your daddy's sandbox toy.  Actually, if your dad was a baby boomer, then it might have been, but that's beside the point!  This incredible toy was manufactured by Doepke Model Toys from Cincinnati Ohio in the 1950's.  It's BIG, heavy, made of rusty steel, and it has dangerous pinch points and sharp edges.  All these wonderful features, combined with a sophisticated chain-driven mechanism, make it so damn cool that I get mad just knowing that I was deprived of toys like this in my era.

I decided that pictures alone didn't capture how awesome this toy is, so I made the following dorky video to illustrate the point.  Enjoy!

Happy Back to the Future Day!

The big day is finally here.  Today is the day that Marty McFly arrives, when he travels to the future in Back to the Future II.  The exact date: October 21, 2015 at 4:29 pm, exactly thirty years after his adventure in 1985 took place as portrayed in the first film.

When Back to the Future (BTTF) part II was released in 1989, it was definitely a must-see for me.  After all, I was a huge fan of the original movie.  Unfortunately, I wound up feeling a bit betrayed when it wasn't really a complete story and I got a big "to be continued..." slapped in my face.  It turns out that the director, Robert Zemeckis, actually fought with Amblin Entertainment about this.  While Amblin wanted to advertise the second movie as a complete story, Zemeckis insisted that they honestly portray it as the next installment of a continuing story.  In the end, Zemeckis lost the fight and Amblin released trailers that gave no indication of the continuing saga.  Many BTTF fans were put off by the surprise up-sell to make us watch the third film.  I really think that if Zemeckis had prevailed, it would have changed my feelings about the second and third films.  Perhaps I wouldn't have felt as "nickled-and-dimed."   Either way, I have finally warmed up to these movies years later.  

Since I am a fan of steam engines, it is hard not to enjoy the final part of this trilogy.  The climactic action sequence In BTTF part III takes place aboard a steam locomotive that is being used to push the time traveling DeLorean up to 88 mph.  That's pretty f-ing cool, and so is today's toy.

This toy is made by the company Diamond Select.  It is a 1:15 scale representation of the DeLorean time machine as it appeared in the third film.  This is the version that is equipped with railroad wheels.  When I heard about this toy I crunched a few numbers to determine what gauge (distance between the rails) of railroad track it might fit.  If this model was true to scale, it would fit a track gauge of 3.7666666666666666."  I happened to have a garden railroad with two "ride-on" live steam track gauges: 4.75" and 3.5"  I figured that the Diamond select toy would fall somewhere between these, so I went ahead and ordered one.

When it arrived, I quickly opened it up and grabbed my ruler to see how accurate the toy designers at Diamond Select had been with the track gauge.  It turned out, not very.  It was clear that they made decisions based on how they thought the toy should look, instead of actual scale measurements.  The front wheels had a narrower track width than the rear, which made absolutely no sense for a railroad vehicle.  The good news was that the rear axle measured out to exactly 4.75" gauge.  While this is way too wide a gauge for the scale of the vehicle, it did happen to be one of the gauges on my railroad.  The front wheels measured closer to 4.5" gauge.  With some twisting and pulling, I was able to spread them to match the rear axle.  The other problem was that the front wheels were smaller diameter than the rear.  On the actual movie car they used rail-car wheels that were the same diameter front and rear.  This again seemed like an aesthetic choice on the toy at the expense of accuracy.

Aside from these minor issues, this toy is pretty nice.  The detail level is good and it has some fun lights and sounds that simulate time travel and other movie "moments."  I shot the photos for today's post on my garden railroad.  I'm probably the only lunatic out there who has a railroad on-which to display this toy so I hope you enjoy the pics.  The nice thing about displaying this toy on my railroad is that it doesn't matter what era my modeling depicts because a time machine is always "period correct."  Full steam ahead!

Traditional Chinese Aliens Brush Painting

  
It is an unexpected melding of genres that somehow, just works.  No, I'm not talking about Indian curry burritos or Korean short rib tacos, (why am I not talking about those things?) I am talking about this incredibly bad ass Aliens brush painting by Taiwanese artist Peter Lee which blends traditional Chinese painting with a legendary sci-fi creature design.

This year I celebrated my 40th birthday.  Many people this age are busy researching what sort of ball cap they will be wearing to prevent sunburn to their balding scalp whilst driving their Mazda Miata.  I, on the other hand, was anticipating the arrival of my wife's generous gift of this original commissioned painting.  That's right, this beautiful (and huge) original painting is now officially part of the expanding Toy of the Week art gallery.

Mr. Lee has done several of these Aliens paintings.  This video shows him in action creating a similar masterpiece.  

The fluid and gestural brush strokes of this type of traditional painting work incredibly well with the forms of the alien creatures.  It takes a skilled and deliberate hand to execute these types of paintings.  When a stroke goes down it cannot be removed or reworked.

What makes this piece even more astoundingly bad ass is the calligraphy of a Chinese proverb on the left portion of the painting.  The ancient proverb roughly corresponds to this quote from Ridley Scott's original Alien movie:

Ash: "I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality."

The proverb basically says it is the right of every living thing in this universe to seek survival and carve out a niche for themselves in the world. It is a very pure pursuit. The quote wishes whoever receives the painting to have luck in the goals and pursuits in their own lives.

In the movie Alien, Ash also described the creature as a "perfect organism."  This beautiful painting by Mr. Lee is also perfect.  The only problem is, at approximately 60" long, it is so damn big that I think I my wife and I need to buy a new house to display it!

Re-enact the excitement of the worlds largest wholesale fish market!

Let's face it, Japan is the mecca of interesting toys.  For geeks, it is one of the most magical destinations imaginable.  The truth is though, Japan is magical for many reasons.  Any place where sushi is available for breakfast, ninjas really existed, and beer can be found in vending machines, has got to be special, right?  I have countless stories to share about how unbelievably awesome Japan is.  Today's toy scratches one of those stories off the list.

My wife and I arrived at Narita airport at an absurdly early hour on Sunday, June 24, 2007.  It was probably 4:00 am.  We were delirious from travel.  In the train station at the airport, I'm pretty sure I saw the seats in an adjacent train car completely rearrange themselves with no human in sight, although my sub-par state of consciousness made me feel like I could have been imagining it.  When we finally got to the hotel, I think I hallucinated seeing a pink and blue chicken on the streets of Tokyo.  I would be convinced that this was travel stupor- induced delirium, if not for the photographic evidence.  

"Am I actually seeing this? Oh... that's right, I'm in Japan, so, yes."

We attempted to grab some sleep, but in the end, we were too jet lagged and too excited.  So, we packed up our gear and headed out to the world-famous Tsukiji Fish market in central Tokyo.  It is not only the biggest wholesale fish market in the world, it is one of the biggest food markets of any kind.  Tsukiji has become infamous for record-setting tuna auctions.  In January 2013, the all-time record was set when a single tuna sold for $1.76 million.

The alleyways of the market are swarming with people and activity.  Large tubs of fish and ice are everywhere, and you must constantly be on alert not to get run over by forklifts and small 3-wheeled utility trucks.  The design of these utility trucks is pretty clever.  Imagine a surfboard-sized platform on three wheels with a large trash can-like housing on top.  Inside the "trash can" is a small motor attached to the single steerable wheel under the front part of the platform.  The driver stands atop the platform gripping a large steering wheel mounted to the rim of the "trash can."  This setup allows the vehicle to maneuver effectively through crowded alleyways of frozen fish.

These quirky and clever conveyances captivated me.  I shot the above video to document the interesting design, but I also wanted to illustrate how many of them occupied a small area of the market at a given moment.  My wife and I had to wait for several minutes before a small opening appeared between the zooming vehicles so we could dart across the roadway.

After we successfully made it across, without being run down, we began walking the aisles of retail shops and restaurants, looking for a place to have breakfast.  As American tourists, we copped out a little, and settled on a place that had an English language menu.  In the end, the fear of hacking our way through ordering with our broken and disjointed Japanese language skills actually led us to another great experience.  It turned out that the proprietor of the restaurant had lived part of his life in Hawaii.  He proceeded to spend more than an hour feeding us the freshest sushi we have ever had in our lives and teaching us conversational Japanese.  When we finished, he took a photo with us posing on some random delivery scooter that was parked on the street.

This surreal visit to Japan's national hub of seafood pretty much cemented my expectations that a visit to Japan would be like some weird and wonderful dream.  I can tell you without hesitation that Japan met or exceeded these expectations in every conceivable way.

Leave it to the Japanese to invent the quirky little utility trucks that swarm Tsukiji and also to make a detailed miniature of it in toy form.  This toy is part of the Tomica line of die-cast vehicles.  They are similar to the Matchbox cars and Hotwheels that we are familiar with.  The Tomica cars tend to be more detailed and realistic than the ubiquitous small die-cast vehicles available here in the U.S.  

There are many interesting details on this toy.  The main vehicle comes packaged with two 4-wheel accessory carts.  The carts are loaded with seafood tubs.  The blue colored tubs on one of the carts have a nice detailed representation of six little fish on a bed of ice.  The best detail of all is the "tuna" that is included, as cargo, on the main vehicle.  The "tuna" is molded in a rubbery material to give it a more seafood-like texture.  In typical Japanese fashion, the packaging is nice as well.  This little die-cast toy comes in a small box with detailed artwork representing the actual vehicle.

Have a closer look at the Tomica Mitsubishi Nichiyu Forklift Eletruck and re-enact the excitement of the world's largest wholesale fish market.  It's the toy of the week.