iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

So Dr Pepper dry rub on chicken tenders is better than Dr Pepper inspired sausage. But it tasted less like Dr Pepper.

Exclusively at Slim Chickens

Dr Pepper BLASTED TENDERS

A one-of-a-kind sweet and savory
DR PEPPER DRY RUB

Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I never expected to make such a close connection to my childhood comics reading the Rosa collection . Here's the bits of the story Barks wrote that Rosa retconned a beginning to decades later. Amazing! 7/7

Scrooge retrieves his long-ago hidden shares: 10th bottle from the floor, 8th row from the right.

Scrooge confronts the last McViper. And demands $2 for the two patches he had to make for McVipers shooting his hat: once in 1898 and again in 1965. Apparently inflation didn't affect the price of hat patches.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

A couple weeks ago, I found that 1975 comic in my parents' basement! I thought it had been taken out by a basement flood. It reprints an Uncle Scrooge story from a decade earlier by Carl Barks, "the Good Duck Artist." #CarlBarks 2/

Uncle Scrooge #122, dated September 1975. Art by Carl Barks. "Enhanced colors" by school-age me. It reprints Uncle Scrooge #65 (March 1965).

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Reading the stores in this Uncle Scrooge collection I bought a couple months ago, I got to this sequence of Scrooge hiding railroad stocks in a bottle of a bottle house. I thought, "Wait.... I'm pretty sure I had the comic where he retrieved those when I was a kid." #ComicSky 🧵 1/

In 1898, Uncle Scrooge hides $50 worth of shares in the Goldopolis and Boom City Railroad in a bottle of a bottle house so the McViper Clan won't steal them. He forgets to go back for them. (Bottle houses are real things, although I don't know how frequently they've ever been built.)

Then he discovers the McViper Clan shot his hat and chases them, demanding $1 for the patch he'll have to buy for it. By Don Rosa.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I found a Marvel Legends @romspaceknight.bsky.social figure at a closeout store last week. I ordered two—one to open and one to stay in the package—as soon as it was released, but I still haven't opened one. This one has already had the package cut, but was complete, so....

Marvel Legends Rom meets Parker Brothers Rom.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

#VintageToyTuesday Hot Wheels Streex. This short-lived Hot Wheels* line came out when I was in college. They intrigued me enough to buy. Then I just never got rid of them. *Ironic, since they don't have wheels.

Three Streex "cars" (purple, orange, and black) with two launchers. They have no wheels, just flat bottoms, and glide just over the floor when launched.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Hey, @cartoonistcorey.bsky.social, I've seen Big Boggle in person now! (Didn't buy it.)

A photo of Big Boggle: The Classic Edition. It's a 5x5 puzzle instead of 4x4.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

That's kind of how I felt when I spotted a familiar logo on a video tape recently, but then actually read all the text.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

It turns out just because you like two foods, it doesn't mean they should be combined.

Johnsonville Dr Pepper Inspired Sausage (brats).

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

This arrived yesterday from an eBay seller. A version of the "Pac-Man Fever" 45 from the U.K. in a picture sleeve. I'VE NEVER SEEN THIS SLEEVE BEFORE. As far as Google and Discogs are concerned, THIS DOESN'T EXIST! If you can prove otherwise, please do.

Pretty standard "Pac-Man Fever" screen photo, except the title text is white instead of yellow. And the "Buckner & Garcia" is placed differently than any other I've seen (IIRC). Someone marked it "31689," presumably for some sort of tracking.

It goes off the rails on the back. Most of the sleeve reproduces the "Life in Mazeland" section of the Atari 2600 game manual.

The white label version of the U.K. single with a giant, orange A on it. I presume to tell you this is side A. It also has "31689" written on it.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

#MazeMonday in honor of #PacMan! I saw these headphones at my local Five Below this weekend. (But didn't buy them.)

Front and back of the box. They're black headphones with yellow paint around the ears and a yellow center on the underside of the headband. The center of the outside of the earpiece features Pac-Man and the ghost monsters in part of the maze.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Listening to disco and getting all the innuendo and double entendres that went over my head as a child, back when these were on the radio.

Rhino Special Editions Disco Hits Vols. 1 and 4-6. The thrift store didn't have 2 & 3.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Congratulations, <spoiler>, on your #LoganAwards win!!! (Hopefully the image is hidden for those of you that haven't watched yet.)

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Yes. Bought it cheap to see what it was like. Not particularly enamored, but have kept it so far partly because I'm a Marvel Comics fan.

A copy of "Fantastic 4: The Album" on CD.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Well, I think it has minimal Super Game Boy support. I think it's got two, subtly different, custom color pallettes. Both of which look like, "Oops, All Blinkys!" And it lets you switch between them with the X button.

Pac-Man: Special Color Edition title screen on a Super Game Boy

The closeup—can't see the whole maze—default view.

Full maze view, palette 2. All the colors are subtly darker than palette 1.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This would have gone great with the regular, orange Hot Wheels track. But my Thundershift 500 came with white track with red and blue stripes. Since that was my very first set, it forever set that as the default in my brain of what Hot Wheels track should look like.

Photo of the red, white, and blue track that I stole off the Internet because I no longer have any of it to take a photo of.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

What's your "origin" video game? Most gamers have several favorite games, but there's always one that basically 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴 you. Although I played earlier games, Pac-Man was certainly the 1st big step, but it was Donkey Kong that cemented it. I wrote about it years ago. home.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/cvg...

Jumping the first barrel in a game of Donkey Kong.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

On the bottom, you can adjust the tension on the springs connected to the speedometer levers. I didn't have the instructions, so I honestly ignored those as a child. This somehow unwittingly survived when I sold almost my entire Hot Wheels car and playset collection back in the 1990s. 3/3

Bottom of the speedometer. The slots in those two circles are where the straight end on the speedometer lever springs poke through. There are teeth in those circles that let you adjust the tension on the springs by moving the end.

I have no idea why the two circles aren't symmetrically placed.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

My grandmother bought me this at a yard sale—upon my request—before I even started collecting Hot Wheels. But I had the Thundershift 500 race track & it went well with that. Standard track attaches along the angled inserts in the center. Cars hit two levers, 1st to reset & 2nd to get the speed. 2/3

A view from where the cars enter. The long white pieces extending from along the front are the reset levers that let the second, speed levers return to their start positions as the car enters.

What looks like a flat piece at the end of the first lever is actually a second lever on a round gear. The gears only let them rotate with the direction of the cars (until the reset lever is hit). The faster the car goes, the further it makes the second lever travel, giving you a speed. The levers, and therefore the needles attached to them on top, lock in until a car comes through again.

As far as I know, no claim is made as to how accurate these speeds are to the scale of the cars. It's just a cool thing for children to get pumped about.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

#VintageToyTuesday I was surprised to find this Hot Wheels Dual-Lane Speedometer in my parents' basement earlier this month. It still needs detailing, as it's gathered some grime over the years. It's supposed to have some stickers, but I got it used and it didn't have them then. 1/3

Top of the speedometer. The arrows are supposed to have blue stickers filling them in and the thin, vertical rectangles by the outside of the dials are supposed to have black on yellow stickers saying, "Dual-Lane Speedometer."

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Ah! If you press the joypad left or right on the player select screen, it toggles a "1/2” icon on the right. This lets you play in full screen mode. Unfortunately, that makes the dots hard to see. (Although it might be better with brighter light. And eyes better than mine.)

The Pac-Man player select screen. The tiny little icon to the right of "1 Player" indicates full screen mode.

Full screen mode on an original Game Boy.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Spotted a mailbox in a local shopping center I hadn't noticed before. Sadly, it's not in service, but it's the oldest one I've seen: 1942! (Refurbished in 2016.) That's older than the shopping center. Cc: @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social, whose post made me aware of these dates.

In Huntsville, AL, a mailbox pushed up against a wall and with yellow tape across the door saying, "Do not use."

1942 stamped in the metal at the bottom. Plus a sticker saying:
REFURBISHED BY
STEEL CRAFT CORP
2016
106 STEEL CRAFT DR
HARTFORD, 53027- 1631
(262) 673-6770
CONTRACT# ICDSEQ-08- 80021

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

But another problem is that on an actual GB screen, it's hard to tell the blue ghost monsters from the regular ones. (Apologies, I didn't get an actual photo of the screen to show that.)

Non-Special Edition Pac-Man on a simulated Game Boy. Screenshot from MobyGames.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I understand the technical limitations, but original Game Boy is not a great way to play Pac-Man. I was going to say I'm not a fan of being able to see the entire maze at once, but I found out it has that mode! Apparently the option is hidden somewhere.

The default mode is to only show about a quarter of the maze around Pac-Man. Screenshot from MobyGames.

Here's what full screen mode looks like. Screenshot from MobyGames.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

#RandomGameSaturday A recent acquisition: a bare copy of "Pac-Man: Special Color Edition" for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. Sadly, I don't have a GBC. And while it's not labeled as Super Game Boy enhanced, I'm curious what it'll look like on it.

Pac-Man: Special Color Edition title screen on an original Game Boy.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

2nd point: One option is "add patty," which costs extra. I suppose it didn't specify the toppings would all be free. 3rd point: There are indeed 17 options, but the 17th is "Plain." If you select plain, it deselects everything else selected. So either way, unlimited or 17, the math doesn't add up.

17 "topping" options, but one is "add patty" for $3.80 and another is "plain."

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

1st point: "Unlimited" apparently means 17.

Ordering a bacon cheeseburger. The screen says, "Select unlimited toppings." But it also says, "Select up to 17."

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Hee hee! I'm reading "Fantastic Four: The End" by Alan Davis and company. Part of the story takes place on Mars, where this sound effect happens. It also happens to be the name for Mars in the John Carter stories. Was it Davis' idea or someone else's? #ComicSky #FF

BARSOOM!

"FF: The End" by Alan Davis (story & pencils), Mark Farmer (inks), John Kalisz (colors), and Dave Lanphear (letters).

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Eating ghost monsters. It was a clear case of self-defense.

High score board for "World's Largest Pac-Man" showing Lee S. on top with 65,660 points. Sadly the rest of the board is default scores.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

It's #MazeMonday, celebrating #PacMan! I found an import food store at my local mall and one of the items they carry is Pac-Man Candy Can soda, Cherry Candy flavor. The gimmick is there are 45 unique designs on the tops of the cans. I do not care to try to collect them all. A sampling will do.

Three cans of Pac-Man Candy Can soda arranged so you can see what the whole can side looks like.

Three different tops: 17 (I think), 29, and 20. I forgot to actually look at the cans and the number of the first one is hard to make out in the photo.

Sadly opening them removes past of the art. The first one is a perfectly spherical Pac-Man that said "Waka waka!". The second a pixelated Pac-Man eating a tiny, pixelated, flashing ghost monster. And the last is a stylized Blinky with even the whites of his eyes done in red.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

It’s #StarWarsSunday! I picked up these two R2-D2 candles from a local bakery going out of business. They'd apparently been on their racks for decades. Yes, one is white and the other gray. They're not just different batches of wax because only one has "R2D2" on the top left corner of the back.

White candle on the left, gray on the right. Both have "The Empire Strikes Back" branding on the card of the blister pack.

There are subtle differences in the fonts on the back, but the main difference is that in the top left corner the white one says, "2811-608" and the gray one says "2811-608 R2D2™".

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I won a Doctor Strange card from this "Avengers" redemption game today. He's nowhere on the machine itself, except the list of 9 cards you could win. Need this, @sanctumblog.bsky.social?

Avengers token drop redemption arcade game

Close-up of the 9 possible cards you could win.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

My father, R.I.P., put these models together when I was pretty young. He became a major Star Trek fan in the '70s. They decorated a shelf in my room for years. I rediscovered them in a box at my parents' last year. They need a little refurbishing. #StarTrek60

Small models of a TOS Klingon cruiser, Romulan Bird of Prey, and Enterprise on a joint base.

The same models from the underside so you can see the Romulan decal.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Guess it's time to share my Hembeck commission again. #Hembeck #RomSpaceknight

A cover redo of ROM #25 by Fred Hembeck (after Al Milgrom) fearing Rom vs. Rom. Except they have mouths indicating the one on the left is surprised and the one on the right is mad (and probably evil).

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

#VintageToyTuesday Remember Yes & Know invisible ink books? Picked up at a Stuckey's by your parents to keep you distracted for a little bit on a long car trip? Because we didn't have Game Boys or smart phones yet! This is a Y-K Fleet book, undoubtedly not called "Battleship" for trademark reasons.

Cover:
Yes & Know Invisible Ink Game Book
Fleet
By-Yourself Enjoyment

Lee Publications - U.S. Patent No. 3826499

The book open to two completed games. You have 32 shots to sink a fleet made of a battleship (5 spaces), cruiser (4), destroyer (3), and submarine (2) in an 8x8 grid.

A pair of unused games. Anybody got a working Yes & Know marker?

Back cover:
Yes & Know Fleet
Printed with invisible ink that is revealed instantly by the Yes & Know pen

A game of luck and logic. You attempt to destroy all the ships in the hidden enemy fleet in the 32 shots you are allowed.

...Great for you—A perfect gift

Lee Publications, 815-825 E. Market St., P.O. Box 32120, Louisville, Ky. 40232

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

#MazeMonday Because after all these years #PacMan still rules! Post an item from your Pac-Man collection. I found my long-missing Pac-Man coasters recently. These came out a few years ago.

Front of Pac-Man Coasters package. "Contains 1 x Pac-Man and 3 x ghost silicone coasters."

Back of package with official Bandai Namco seal.

Pac-Man, Blinky, Inky, and Clyde coasters. Alas, poor Pinky.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Found the 1982 Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog at my parents' today. For just $20,000, you could get the LaserTour by Perceptronics, a computerized system that lets you bicycle different routes via an exercise bike and laser disc player connected by a specialized computer.

The cover of the "Neiman-Marcus Christmas Book 1982" featuring cartoon art by DePaola of a line of people in medieval costumes and domino masks. The night sky above is filled with five-pointed stars and a line of angels with their backs turned.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Yes! Bought it used shortly before seeing them live in 2022.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Assuming you mean the rub-off games, the mazes weren't on the back of the stickers, they were separate cards, as it says on the wrapper.

The back of sticker no. 2 (which you showed the front of).

The wrappers, in white or yellow, stating they included "3 stickers, 3 cards, & 1 stick gum." By cards, they mean the rub-off games. I didn't keep any of the gum.

Top row: the back and front of an unscratched game.
Bottom row: a played game and a completely scratched card.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

One problem with this quiz is that I am old and my words for some things have changed since my youth. I have lived in my southeastern state (not Florida) my entire life, but never closer than 200 miles from the closest of the three cities they identified. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

A heat map with red (most similar) concentrated in Florida, but spreading upward across the America Southeast.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I was not *collecting* comics in 1979. I started in 1981 with Star Wars and Rom, so I had to buy Rom #1 as a back issue. I paid $5, which seemed like a lot back then. That issue is now worn, but signed by EIC Jim Shooter and cover inker Joe Rubinstein. Happy comic birthday, Rom!

A copy of Rom #1 signed Shooter and Rubinstein.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

#VintageToyTuesday I think this is the original version of the Koosh Flingshot before the launcher took on more interesting shapes.

A simple stick launcher with two mini Koosh balls each with an elastic band ending in a loop to go around the end of the stick for launching.

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Lunatic Lee @eclecticlee.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

And yet I just saw this for the first time yesterday.

Galaga Assault arcade game by Raw Thrills. The flashing, color-changing rows of LEDs down the sides are probably more likely to trigger epilepsy than the screen, I think. (I didn't get a photo of the epilepsy warning it displayed.)

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