My Two Yen Worth: The Thing

Showing posts with label The Thing. Show all posts

2025-10-19

It's SO Cute!

I went to a little local festival yesterday, mainly because it also had a flea market.

There were no fleas worth buying (all practical stuff like shoes and clothes, no toys to be found!) I ended up getting a pair of socks and some cans of fish (not sure which fish, but they were cheap).

Really crowded too and the only Halloween related table was this guy and his balloons.

Outside, I found a vendor with some delish dishes; I had a chicken kebab.

I had missed the musical performance and there wasn't another for an hour, so I walked home. I stopped at a Department store and bought a cactus and some KitKats.

Then I spent several hours just milling about the apartment, I decided to rewatch a South Park episode because there was a topic I wanted to talk about. Labubus! There appears to be a Popmart (Somewhere? May be online only, click the link if you dare.) Prior to the SP episode, I had never heard of a Labubu, now I see them everywhere, but only behind glass, and not in their blind box packaging, and certainly not cheap.

You can try and randomly win one in a lottery. Spend 1000 and you're guaranteed a key to a little locker with the prize inside. What you don't see are the 200 lockers behind this, thus your chances of winning are about 20:1.

Another option to get them is on the secondary market, in this Mercari. Also not cheap.

I saw one in a UFO Catcher outside a music shop and tried my hand unsuccessfully. The claw tends to just pick it up enough to get your hopes up and then dash them. A little eight-year old boy was hoping to win and his grandfather dropped several coins in an attempt to so. (SO DID I!)

SPOILER ALERT for a month-old episode:

Anyway, back to the South Park episode. One girl is showing another girl her recent acquisition of a Labubu. (Serenity Labubu)

It's SO cute! The other girl showed off hers, (Loyalty Labubu).

It's SO CUTE! Yet, in order to show off, she brought out her big guns, (Chestnut Cocoa Labubu, super-rare). The first girl commented that it must be a knock-off and a brawl ensued, one wailing on the other until the school counsellor (piss off autocorrect, that's the Canadian spelling; as an aside, the counsellor is Jesus Christ) broke it up.

Later on, a gal named Red, manipulated Butters into buying her a super rare one for her birthday. She already has a few, but MUST HAVE the rare one,

and texted him the one she wants.

Butters goes to the Asian PopUp store (run by the guy who used to run the Chinese Wok place) and charges him 85$ for a blind-bagged one. The proprietor blames the TARIFFS as to the high prices. He got a common one. He leaves and comes back with another 85$ only to be told it now costs 125$ because the TARIFFS rose again. He had no choice than to try and win one in the crane game.
Of course he did! (After innumerable tries.)

Red opens her gift and is shocked to see that she got the one she desired and offers to go upstairs with Butters. She then asks him to video film a ritual in which they call up demonic forces. (More than what Butters had in mind.)

It begins to rise up and metamorphose into a demonic version of itself.

Wow, Cool! and then a demon appears. (YOU can check out the episode for the rest.)

This is not just a funny little ribbing by a cartoon satire show, it has been happening in real life!

Hmm. Maybe I don't want to get one just for its novelty sake.

Okay, last night I was going to write the above when all of a sudden I got distracted by a John Carpenter movie I've never seen AND Halloween one after the other on my Twitch Channel. So I watched them and went to bed at 2:00 am.

The movie in question is a TV movie that came out right around the same time as Halloween. "Someone's Watching Me!"

Pretty good movie in the Stalker phones at midnight genre. While watching Halloween, I noticed that when babysitting, Jamie Lee Curtis and the kid were watching Howard Hawke's The Thing from Another World! Four years later, he directed the excellent remake. ('Yuusei kara no Buttai X' (遊星からの物体Ｘ in Japan.)

Here's another Oni. Datsueba lives on the banks of the Sanzu River and judges the gravity of the sins of the dead and steals their clothes?

Here's a little video about her.

Kind of discourages you from going skinny dipping, eh?

Check out Cult of the Great Pumpkin for more Halloween treats. Speaking of which...

That's it for now, I somehow managed to miss another days worth of blogging. I have some time off after tomorrow, maybe I can do some catching up.

2021-10-02

I'm a little late to the ballgame, since having a dude's night out last night and having a lazy Saturday Morning. BUT here we go. The Countdown to Halloween 2021 has begun! First up, I scammed a badge from the head honchos at the previous link.

Now I just need to figure out how to add it to my blog. I'll do that later. (Widgets and Gadgets and Navbars, oh my!) In the interim, click on my 2019 badge to go directly to the other participating blogs. I'm using the crow because of the stupid Crow-na virus also known as Corvid 19.

Speaking of participating blogs, the first one I usually link to is the Wonderful Wonderblog, I have a THING for his first entry.

That's a copy of the poster for the Japanese version of the Thing from Another World. For a few more details and an old blog entry of mine about its John Carpenter remake, click A Thing or Two.

Now onto new business. I hope to link to a Ukiyoe painting daily IF I can find the set of postcards I bought when I went to an Art Museum showcasing the creepier paintings. (See disorganization mentioned above.)

That cute skeleton is (thanks to Wiki) is called 相馬の古内裏妖怪がしゃどくろと戦う大宅太郎光圀 or "Takiyashi the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre" by Kuniyoshi.

As you can see, the collection was way back in late spring at the Koriyama Museum of Art. So no wonder, I've buried my booty amongst a ton of other loot acquired since then.

I hope to watch a horror a day so the most recent one I watched was Royal Jelly. It's a real stinker, so only watch it if you have a high tolerance for bad Bee Movies.

Today's trick and/or treat, is a treat bought from Aeon Supermarket in Natori. These individual chocolates are darned expensive but incredibly tasty.

Ah heck, it's my first entry so I'll add a trick.

It's a pack of Gachapin/Mukku toilet paper!

Now I have to try and track down my set of postcards...

Oops, just remembered. I decided to add a Loot Fright Crate item daily as well. Here is yesterday's t-shirt.

2020-08-02

Blue Steel!

Sad to report that Wilford Brimley has taken the final flight to the planet Antarea from Cocoon.

As recounted here, I met Mr. Brimley and we were seated near each other at a banquet. In between takes, he'd chat up the waitresses and used his line from Cocoon, "Blue Steel. A cat couldn't scratch it." We scammed one of the above flyers, I only wish I'd gotten it autographed.

I'm one of the hardhats at the 30 sec. mark who gets in a tussle until saved by Charles Bronson, and I'm at the congratulatory banquet at the 1:13 mark but good luck espying me.

I think I'll start watch a bit of 遊星からの物体X (The Thing) before I turn in.

RiP Wilford, you defender of Endor!

2017-11-13

The Thing From Planet X!

This will be my first post with my brand spanking new (used) DELL computer and it is already far easier to utilize than my decade old cheap-ass PC. I was planning on posting this during the Countdown to Halloween as part of Carpenter week, yet since today happens to be the 35th anniversary of the release of The Thing in Japan, here ya go.

As you can see, the Japanese title of this movie is The Thing From Planet X. Is this a term in John W. Campbell's original novel? Is it the same Planet X that sent us King Ghiddorah? Is it because it sounds cool? We may never know.