Josh Holderbaum

Took up coin collecting recently (read: tried to organize the coins we already had and got more dumped on me). Crazy to hold something from 1792 and wonder how many hands it passed through. Brunswick-Luneburg 1 1/2 pfennig, 1792. #coins

Cover of an astronomy program book from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, with the words “this is big” in gigantic print that covers around sixty percent of the page, followed by a much tinier “this is small” directly below it. Designed to illustrate a “Worlds in Comparison” program.

The Astronomical Society of the Pacific knows how to design a program cover, even if it ends up sounding a bit passive-aggressive

Behold my dog, Jack, in a rare appearance where he is not sound asleep on his back.

Cover of Dell Comics’ Silver Age Frankenstein, with the titular character’s name in green block letters at the top of the cover next to the red Dell logo and large 12 cent price tag. The character himself is shown as a rather generic looking superhero with green skin and white hair, notably lacking any real visual identifiers as being Frankenstein. He is clad in a sleeveless red spandex bodysuit with dark blue superhero- style trunks over top, and a black belt with yellow capital “F” buckle. His bodysuit includes footies and his exposed arms are colored gray (an error, as they are pink flesh tone in the comic itself). He is pictured jumping and punching through a gray brick wall in an awkward pose, stepping through the hole in the wall as he punches. The left side of the comic reads: “The world’s newest, greatest and strangest super hero!” followed by “The origin of the new Frankenstein.” The bottom right corner has a spiky word bubble reading “Frankenstein meets Mr. Freek!”

Nothing like celebrating #frankensteinday with Dell Comics’ superhero reimagining of Mary Shelley’s monster. Definitely one of the strangest Frankenstein re-imaginings I’ve ever seen, really has to be seen to be believed.

The old Crimson Warrior Action Man, plus several others, all have that same kanji. Must not have been too much Japanese fluency in Hasbro’s European offices at the time, as Crimson Warrior has the kanji for “ninja” upside down and backwards on the back of the box

The white and green Sentai-looking ones were released in North America as ZAP Power Force, but the figures come from tokusatsu show “Dennou Keisatsu Cybercop”, originally released in Japan by Takara, I believe

Sorry, didn’t look that hard - one on far right is Magna Defender from Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, so one legit Sentai!

All villains from VR Troopers by Kenner, originally all from the Metal Hero Series, so Super Sentai-adjacent

2/2 She was absolutely zero help in resolving the issue, but she did ask me how my day was going and complimented me for not going berserk with rage during our conversation. I can’t imagine why that happens with her…

Screenshot of an iPhone text message on a black background. Top text, in dark gray with white text, reads “Is there anything else I can assist you with today?” iPhone owner replies, in light green text box, “I don’t think so. Thank you for your help and have a good day.” Recipient replies “Really glad that I am helping such a cooperative and kindhearted customer like you. I get very less customers like you over the chat so feeling really happy to be here with you (open smiley face emoji).” Recipient follows up, using no capitalization or punctuation, “you were so patient and calm while on chat”

Our cable has been out. So, I went down the rabbit hole with Comcast trying to report our outage. 20 minutes later, I was texting with my new friend “Anna,” whose mastery of capital letters, punctuation, and overall grammar varied from message to message. Just like a real person!

On my way home today, I passed a gentleman in a Batman T-shirt, cape and cowl holding a sign saying “Honk for Goths” at a major intersection. Most heartbreakingly, as I waited for my left turn, no one honked.

As a native Michigander who never heard about this, I find it shameful our state would choose to bury its pizza-related history as deep as those pizzas.

Photo of 20-pound, long-haired Maltese mix dog Jack, with white fur and black nose, laying on his side in a red plaid dog bed under a wooden desk while laying his head up against the desk’s hard-looking crossbar with square edges.

When you live in a house filled with dog beds and nice, soft blankets, but you’d rather lay your head up against the hard wooden crossbar on a desk. That’s relaxation the Jack way.

My aunt watching The Mummy Returns for the first time, coming over for dinner 3/4 through it:

“Which one is the mummy?”

Most complicated question I’ve had to answer in a while

As an Oxboxtra fan I want to watch this so badly, but as a museum professional I’m going to curl up in a fetal position if I see a small child climb atop a dinosaur skeleton like I saw in the trailer for the game

I get the same thing when I type Bryce in Messenger, it doesn’t autocomplete to Bruce, it goes to Brucellosis, a.k.a. Mediterranean fever, which is caused by consuming unpasteurized milk. On the plus side, now I see stories about that and think, “Hey! I know what that disease is!”

Same with me studying Japanese - my class never learned what a gerund was, so our Japanese teacher had to give us an impromptu English lesson. I still get confused looks any time I mention “gerund” to most other English speakers, including my parents 😅

Picked up the new Marvel Legends Chameleon the other day. Great figure, but struggling to get a good pose with the J. Jonah Jameson mask that says “That’s right, it was me all along!” Best I can get right now says, “Did someone drop this mask? If no one claims it I’m putting it in the trash.”

Shelf of 100+ Captain America figures, miniatures, and other assorted merchandise like a jack-in-the-box. Sorted roughly with classic Earth-616 cap on the left through center, with MCU Cap to his right and Ultimate Cap on the far right. A starkly anachronistic Madame Alexander Fan Girl Collection Captain America doll stands in the center rear.

Shelf of Falcon/Sam Wilson and other Captain America supporting cast, like Agent Carter, Union Jack, the Winter Soldier, U.S. Agent, the Serpent Society, The Patriot, and a lone Demolition Man lurking in a corner.

I’ve been doing more lurking here than posting, time to change that - I’m Josh, I collect action figures, work at a museum, and finally found time to wedge in a few new Captain America and Falcon figures today.
#captainamerica #marvelcomics #actionfigures #captainamericabravenewworld