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Call me Lenny/Leni @lemm.ee

What's your most non-mundane possession?

I had a friend (still have the friend, though we don't have regular access to each other anymore) who liked to "show off" how obscure some of his possessions were, possibly to achieve the "wanderlust effect" (i.e. the reaction of "how did you get these here"). Something about the anticipation that his inventory was alien to whoever he showed.

One day, he was asked to bring games and a console and he brought one of those extremely rare knock-off bootleg gaming consoles they sell in Asia, which we're not even remotely near.

"What the heck is that" asked my other best friend?

"It's the Mega Duck. I brought CFGP with me too."

"Why can't you be a normal Upstate New Yorker? We literally got Playstation."

"What fun is that?"

It wasn't some small quirk either. One day he took a long walk and came across a part of the area nobody had been to in decades and took pictures with my camera which he happened to have. Also having hyperthymesia, he came back and was all like "I took these photos of a place that seems like it was out of a fantasy painting and also recognized someone there who was on the missing persons list when I came back". Like a boss.

In contrast, alas, ever since moving, my possessions have become overwhelmingly mundane enough you'd expect most of it to be in an 18th century post-colonial American home, the exception (if you could call her that), ironically, being my dog who is of a rare breed.

What's the most wanderlusty thing you own, something that would be the absolute opposite of mundane if in your possession?

80 comments

  • I went to the Ghibli museum and watched a short while I was there. The ticket to the short was a film strip from one of the movies. I have it framed.

  • I hoard weird dice. I've got crystal-shaped dice that roll like pins, dodecahedral d4s, dice with Roman numerals, two d30s, two d60s, a glow-in-the-dark d100 slightly larger than a golf ball, and I have spherical dice that I pull out when i want to give somebody an aneurysm. The only ones I regularly use is my glow-in-the dark sets and my liquid core sets with a floating eyeball inside them.

    Next up is metal spinner dice and roulette wheel dice, since regular metal dice are kinda loud when you chew on fidget with them

    Most relevant to your post is that i have dozens upon dozens of d10s. I have more d10s than d6s (and I used to play 40k as Orks so that says a lot). This sometimes gets reactions out of people when they see my dice box. I wish there was a cool reason, but the reason for it is that I ran a short campaign in Engine Heart as a high schooler and got a little too excited about its dice pool system.

    • Nice.

      I just bought a set of weird dice, and they're a bit of a disappointment. Someone made them by carving the right number of facets off a sphere at random and numbering them. They couldn't possibly roll fairly. Not what I expected from the photos.

  • I have a kaleidoscope for the blind.

    One of only 150 or 250 made (I forget which). The artist (Reinhold Marxhausen) got Alzheimer's in his final years, and is probably dead now. It looks like a metal blob, but the inside is hollow and it has are springs that vibrate and make tones to the slightest touch and heat change. Just shake it and hold it to your ear. It makes different and unique sounds depending on who is holding it, the weather, the air temperature, and so on.

    I got it from a kaleidoscope collector, who sold it to me because the small handmade box it came in was damaged in shipping, and it wasn't worth as much without the box. I keep it in a handmade suede bag.

    Edit: I made an Imgur post about it: https://imgur.com/gallery/kaleidoscope-blind-Ab8Xz

  • A pre-prohibition bottle of creme de menthe shaped like a giraffe.

    It's a bit higher proof than creme de menthe typically made today, not that you should drink it because it probably has dangerous chemicals coloring it green.

  • Signed copy of “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” by Ian Fleming. Not really worth much. Maybe $60? But as kinda a James Bond fan I think it’s cool.

  • Can't think of anything too outrageous. I have a 24U server rack in my garage which fits with mm perfection under the stairs.

  • I've got a small volcanic rock from Mt Vesuvius, a Polaroid Land camera 95A from the late 40s or 50s, and I built a magic mirror (which isn't that obscure, but lots of people find it fascinating).

80 comments