Fun with Toys

So I had to get my hearing aide adjusted the other day. And I'm sitting in the waiting room. And I pick up a magazine. And I start reading it. And I'm like, "Why is this font so out of control?" Then I flip to the front cover and I see that I am reading a Reader's Digest (a 2001 issue) that is LARGE PRINT. Ya know, cause I'm in a HEARING AIDE place. And usually those with hearing aides are of the age that also requires large print. Whatever.

I caught up on 2001 and thought I'd steer clear of the 1999 People magazine. Instead I picked up the 2007 Holiday catalog from Sears:

I flipped through and I got to the toy section. And then I prayed for our poor country in 40 years when it's being run by the idiots playing with these ridiculous toys today. Here are some of my favorites:

First Kenmore Toys! Hot damn. If this doesn't scream fun-filled childhood, I just don't know what does! My first Kenmore sink and wash machine? Really? Why not just point the kids to the REAL Kenmore wash machine and at least get some chores out of the way while they are having good old times with appliances?

Hmmm. Perhaps we shouldn't point Jr. towards the real version of this toy. My First Craftsman Chainsaw? Sweet Mary. Is this to go along with My First Dismembering of an Accidental Homicide?

Wow. A touch screen ATM machine. Somewhere there is a pile of piggy banks weeping in obsolete depression.


This is really one of my favorites. It's a Smart Cycle. "A workout for both brain and body!" But then that line is followed by "Plug into you TV..." Anything that involves "Plug into your TV..." is not going to be a workout for your mind and most definitely not your body. Please. Remember when kids went OUTSIDE to ride bikes? Wasn't that a fun time? Here is what is printed on the description:

Holds up to 200 lbs. Ages 3 to 6. Um. Yeah. So if your 3-6 year old is 200 pounds I'm thinking that you are going to need a little more help than just the Smart Cycle. Sweet Mary, GO OUTSIDE AND RUN AROUND ONCE IN AWHILE!! Kids these days...

Good God. McDonald's Drive Thru Food Cart. Really? Has it come to this? First of all, can I just comment on how uncreative we are making the next generation of children? I mean, kids are able to take a box and a piece of ribbon and make an entire universe in their little brains. These friggin toys that have everything already made up for them are for the uncreative parents, not for the kids. Give your kids some crayons and some construction paper and they will be able to make up everything they could ever need to play happy. Four chairs and an old sheet and the kid will be in a midevil castle for 10 hours. And if they are going to play Drive Thru Window, at least make them build the drive thru or something, because when you just hand them the drive thru window and tell them to play, all you are really doing is putting career options in their heads. And that can't be your intention.

Nevermind. Let them play drive thru, hell fill out the drive thru application for them, just please keep them away from this god awful toy. Do you think the little boy is down low hoping the young starlet isn't wearing panties?

Dream big kids, dream big.

Cartoon

Hello Out There

Dude. It has been sooooooo long since I last wrote. I got an e-mail and a call from friends today commenting on my lack of blogs. One insisted I call back for fear I may be dead. I am not dead. Tired, yes. A lot of other things, yes. But dead? No.

I am so sorry that I’ve been out of the blogworld for quite some time now. There is no real excuse. I will tell you that I’ve been thinking of you all, and every time something blogworthy happens I think that I will in fact blog it. And then I’m laying around and can’t quite get the energy up to get on the computer and type the inspirational and entertaining words you all long for. I do so apologize.

Oh! I do have sorta an excuse. I just remembered. My computer took a poop last week. It caught a virus AND the hard drive was ready to blow up. Lovely. Slowly all my programs stopped being able to be opened. Dear lord. I called a tech guy from the internet and he was so nice as to come pick up my dying computer from me at work. The only real problem was, that he was a small Asian man. I do not care that he was small or Asian, really. But he didn’t speak the English so well and as you know, I’m hearing impaired, so I don’t hear the English so well. Not a good combo when standing on the side of the road trying to get your computer to a man to fix it.

Oh! And I was also only able to hear out of one ear because my hearing aide went out previously in the week. Overall, fun week for Extremely Important Electronic Equipment in my life. When I told my aunt of my mass blow up of all things electronic and important she said, “Mercury is in retrograde.” Who the hell knows what that means. She has said that before when things blow up and I wish perhaps she would think to say it BEFORE Mercury retrogrades, so that I might prepare and perhaps put all electronics and my head in some sort of protective area.

So anyways, the tiny Asian man came and all I really understood was, “Hard drive no good. Need new one.” Ugh. By the by, new hard drive no fun. Cause new hard drive means need new programs to put on hard drive and well, I might have borrowed some of the programs that are on my computer. Maybe. I’m not saying for sure. So then. I spent a couple days making new hard drive usuable and trying to get back to being able to use my computer without fear of it exploding. Good times.

More good times were when another Tiny Asian Man came to my work and I brought my computer downstairs and he worked on my computer while I waited on the side of the road. I am quite lucky that the both of us didn’t end up in some sort of detention facility, never to be heard from again. The Tiny Asian Man had a tiny car that was a convertible. The license plate on the convertible said, “When it gets hot, the top comes off.”

Awesome.

So.

I am very sorry I’ve been out of touch. I will try to do better. I promise. I must finish eating my sushi now and then go back to work. How I would get through the work without the promise of sushi, I just don’t know.

The Friendly Skies

I was listening to the radio this morning and that dude Richard Branson (is that his name?) was on. The dude that founded Virgin years ago and now is a katrillionaire who has a katrillion dollars but still enjoys random ass adventures like a tea party on top of a hot air balloon. He seems sort of fun actually. Although his teeth scare me a bit. But he does have a British accent and that makes up for quite a lot. I enjoy a British accent.

But I digress.

Branson is also a big aviation dude, apparently, and so he was talking about the future of aviation. He said that within the next ten years his company is going to develop technology in which you can fly from LA to Australia in 30 minutes. Awesome. The way they are going to do this is by putting you in a pod or something and blasting your ass into space, then dropping you back down in Australia. Even more awesome.

Now, I’m thinking that this technology, or at least the development of it, is probably going to result in a lot of dead things, whether they be monkey, rats, or people. And I’m thinking that even after the technology is approved and normal people (who have an extra 20 or so grand probably) can go it is still going to run a very high risk of explosion. But see, if you’ve tried flying anywhere in the past year or so you will agree that risking explosion doesn’t sound so bad. If they could make up for that risk with a promise that my luggage wouldn’t be lost and my flight wouldn’t be canceled and I wouldn’t be told, “I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do, the flight is cancelled” I’d be willing to take the risk.

Oh! And I’d still like to have my own personal TV with DirectTV in my space pod thing. If I’m going to explode I want it to be while having the option of watching 720 TV stations.

Yay technology.

Random

Random #1:
There is a gate at the front area of the park where I take my dog to frolic with other dogs. This gate cracks me up:

Notice the many, many locks. Notice the sign warning you to stay out. Then notice that the gate doesn’t extend much further than those locks and that sign. A mere two steps away you can go around the gate and to the other side of it. Methinks this property used to be private and now it is a park, but dontcha think they would have taken the extra two seconds to tear down that last piece of gate? Weird.

Random #2:

This isn’t exactly random, because not only have I seen this sign a million times, but I’m actually related to the person who owns the business. Blake is one of the many names in my family. (It’s always fun to sit around the table with 10 people who all have different last names as you, but who are all either an aunt, uncle or first cousin. My family tree is interesting.)

I just think this picture is funny because it says, "Since 1973" then it says "31 years of dependable service." Yes, I think it’s time for Blake to update his sign, but I get a kick out of the fact that it reads like 3 of those years since 1973 Blake’s wasn’t so dependable. Ha. My family and their signs.

Random #3:

I can’t remember if I posted this before.

But I do remember that it cracks me up every time I’m in the McDonald’s drive thru (unfortunately my family doesn’t own this business, no McDonald’s on the family tree. But give us time, we branch off pretty frequently.) I just think it’s hilarious that they are asking you not to use a cell phone. A cell phone from the early 90's that is. All other phones are fine, apparently.

Radio Superstars

I’m easily entertained. I think that much has been proven in the past. I tend to have friends who are easily entertained as well. It just works out better that way. We tend to have a lot of fun together, as fun comes pretty easy when you are easily entertained.

A couple weeks ago I said to my friend Rafael (of ChrisKwanziKah and Vlogging fame on this very blog), “We should do a radio show. We could totally do an entertaining radio talk show.” He got excited about it and a couple days later we had a slot on the local public access station. Ha. Good times. So every Friday night from 6 till 8pm we’ll ramble on and on about whatever we find entertaining. Perhaps others will find it entertaining as well. That is, if they ever actually listen to it. Not a whole lot of people listening in to public access. The Public Access Dude came in during our show and said, “You have one solid listener, they’ve been on the whole show!” To which I answered, “Yeah, I told my mom to go turn the computer on, play some spider solitaire and listen to our show.” You gotta love mom, she’ll always be my one fan.

The greatest part about the public access radio station is that you can’t actually listen to it on the radio. You can listen to it through your computer: http://www.live365.com/stations/accesssacramento?site=pro and apparently if you live in Sacramento you can tune to channel 17 and then push the SAP button on your remote and get it. I love that. The SAP button is usually pushed to access the Spanish feed of whatever show you’re listening to. Or you can push it to access English speaking idiots on Channel 17. Love it.

So we’re having a good time with it and if anyone wants to tune in or call in they can between the hours of 6pm and 8pm PST on Fridays. If you want to be a guest, e-mail me, I guarantee we'll put you on. Just don't make fun of Soduko or Matlock and you'll be a hit with our listener. Or just call in and give us someone to talk to: 916.456.5199. My mother, although a loyal listener, refuses to call in. She’s no fun. She did send several e-mails though, telling us to stop making fun of her for not calling in. She also pointed out that it might not be a good idea to berate the one listener you have. Good point mom.

Lunch

I’m at lunch. It’s 3 o’clock. I think most people enjoy lunch around say, I dunno, lunchtime. But me? Not so much. First of all, my talk radio show goes until 2, with three hours of dead air in my brain after that. So why would I want to take a break before the dead air? Second of all, the later I wait for lunch the less time I have to wait after lunch before I get to flee the building. A couple times last week I had to take lunch at noonish and I about died in the post-lunch hours, because they were double what they usually are. I was ready to pack up and go home and it was only 3 o’clock. That is no good.

Forth, there is a sushi place downstairs in the building where I work. I imagine it is full during lunch time with people eating lunch. Whereas at 3, I’m the only person in here. On my computer, doing some work, eating some raw fish, minding my own business. With 5 sushi worker people hovering around me, giving me all of their attention. The attention is not so good, but the sushi is (2.3 seconds after I sit down at least two of them are standing, smiling, holding their order pad things, staring at me. “You order?” “Uh, I look at menu for another 4 seconds or so, then I order.” “Perma-smile with nod.” 4.5 seconds later, “You order?”)

And so I order. You know on those shows where they try to get you to get a handle on your spending by keeping track of every single thing you buy, so that at the end of the month you can look and go, “Good god, that’s a lot of danishes!” And then you start buying your danishes from Costco instead of Starbucks and in two months you’re out of debt? Yeah, I don’t do that. Because concentrating that hard on money is a sure-fire way for me to never see any come my way ever again. But if I did do that I think I would be looking into buying sushi from Costco. Even before I started working 200 feet above a sushi restaurant I spent a ridiculous amount of money on raw fish. It ain’t right. When I moved into my condo I was a bit worried that there was a sushi place right next door to it. This was not going to be good new for my attempts to pay my mortgage. I was quite thankful when I found that their tempura shrimp tasted like bunghole. So therefore I don’t spend my electricity bill on seafood. At least not that seafood.

But you know what else is in that damn parking lot? A Togos. That’s a sandwich shop out here. Are they national? I dunno. What I do know if that they are the devil because they joined forces with 31 Flavors, the ice cream shop out here. So when you walk in and you are going to be good and you are going to get a sandwich, bam! right in front of you is a friggin ice cream parlor. Jesus.

I have 6 pints of ice cream in my freezer right now. And 12 Mountain Dews. And that’s pretty much it. I have problems.

And I have to get back to work...