:: August 2, 2003
When I was younger, my mother wouldn't let my brother and me have pellet or BB guns. She was right in doing so, of course. The first time I laid my hands on my neighbor's BB gun, I turned it on my brother. As he ran down the street from me, I shot him in the back, twice. No honor. Not a second thought. I just wanted to shoot him, and that's all I knew. This was not the only instance in my childhood of my coldly inflicting pain on other kids. There were many more terrible crimes perpetrated by me as a boy (and some committed much later than that). I have my ideas about the psychology behind my actions. But honestly, I cannot fully explain them now. Maybe I was just a little murderer and that's all there is to it. Or maybe, you know, they deserved it because they were looking at me.
Since my brother and I were denied "real" guns, like pellet guns, we resorted to building rubber band guns. We made them from stool legs and bed slats, rulers and broom handles, all fashioned with clothes pins as triggers, of course. Some that we constructed were able to fire four or five rubber bands quickly, one after the other. Our richer friends had store-bought guns which never matched up to the firepower of our rigged guerilla pieces, probably so the manufacturers could avoid lawsuits. However, last night I saw this exception to the store-bought guns. It's a beauty. If I were eleven, I would cry and start saving my allowance, working weekends mowing the neighbor's lawn to get it. I'm thirty years old and part of me wants it more than health insurance. I fully realize that this makes me an official loser, and I'm O.K. with that.
"The turret effortlessly spins a full 360 degrees and tilts from 45 degrees up to 22 degrees down so you can easily keep a moving target in your sights, no matter how they run."
Oh, yes. "No matter how they run." It's art, is it not? Yes, I think so. I think it is.
Check out the rest of the site. They should just call it, You'llPokeYourEyeOut.com. ::
:: April 9, 2003
Jeremy Dennis loves his toys. I like that he has a section called "tragedies of scale." (Via Speckled Paint)
Now might be a good time to tell you that we've owned the domain dioramarama.com for a couple years now and intend to do something similar with it. Maybe by making this announcement, it will induce proactivity. ::
:: April 6, 2003
(Mold-a-rama wombat)
Mold-a-rama machines made fresh plastic action figures for you on the spot! Collectors here, here,here, here, and here will tell you all about it. See a clip of a machine in action, albeit with an unhappy ending, here. Happily, a new day is dawning for miniaturized plastic injection factories! ::
:: January 14, 2003
Starcade, an early 80s game show involving Geoff Edwards (above) asking trivia questions about arcade games to pimply faced kids then pitting the contestants in hand-to-to hand arcade game combat, is online and on the new and superfluous cable television channel G4!
(via Lots of Co.) ::
:: July 25, 2002
In case you don't ever read the comments: In response to the One Thousand Blank White Cards post, Chrisboy shares another game in the exquisite corpse (<--warning: scary monkey pictures) family called Eat Poop You Cat. It's Pictionary and Telephone rolled into one! Here are one two other pages on it, again, with some excellent works of art to be enjoyed. This one has potential to be played on the web, perhaps on this very site! How about it, huh? ::
:: July 22, 2002
Via Lots of Co.: The freeform card game called One Thousand Blank White Cards. It was written up in Games Magazine recently (that's a link to people talking about it being written up in Games Magazine -- Games Magazine has no web site). It seems that the only way to really get it is to play it, but here are the rules nonetheless. The card galleries that people are posting online (the above from Lots of Co.'s deck) are mighty enjoyable. ::
:: June 19, 2002
View-Master Fantastic!
I would like to take this opportunity to announce that I am now a rabid View-Master collector. I don't have anything yet, but you wait, oh, you just WAIT.
View-Master Resource: many excellent scans of old manuals and reel packets.
The View-Master Ultimate Reel List: Fascinating facts gleaned from this list include "During World War II the U.S. Armed Forces commissioned View-Master reels for use in various training activities."
View-Master Information: Cool but sometimes badly scanned images of all the models of viewers, projectors, and accessories.
I hope you're as excited about my new hobby as I am. Thank you, and good afternoon. ::
:: May 19, 2002
PONTIKI, the mini Japanese Mr. Potato head. He's expandable, and only one "o" away from sounding dirty! ::
:: May 4, 2002
M.U.S.C.L.E. Men were a cross between Lucha Libre, Pokemon, and erasers and I loved those damn little fellas! This guy has named them well (Mr. Planet, Mr. Peanut's Son, Frog-Tongue-Head Jack, Baby Spiff, Chet, Happy Pudding, Crossing Guard Wally). (Via Metafilter). This collector has had dreams of finding new MUSCLE men and renders them for you here. He also made a crazy movie starring two of the action figures. ::
:: April 22, 2002
 Sawdust Village is where Dream Pets (Japanese stuffed animals from the 1950s-60s) live. See them in their natural setting.
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 Every model show rod from 1960 to 2001
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:: April 13, 2002
Yesterdayland talks about them in the past tense, but Yes & Know books -- those invisible ink puzzle books meant to pacify you during family road trips -- still exist. I just bought one at my local doomed K-Mart, and I am happy to report that they haven't been overhauled to meet the youth market's evolving tastes over the decades. You can buy them online at leemagicpen.com.
Speaking of K-Mart: the K is for Kresge, the family that endowed the college with which I was associated at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC is divided into 10 colleges, all with different architecture and socio-academic flavor). It was rumored that the Kresges either hated this hermaphroditic sculpture adorning one of the buildings or disliked the college's evolution into radical wacko hippiedom and withdrew funding because of it. There appears to be some truth there, according to this article, which debunks a number of other UCSC urban legends (the second part, covering the east colleges, is here). Non-alumni might find the urban legend aspect endlessly fascinating, or maybe not. You tell me. ::
:: March 27, 2002
1/87 scale car dioramas. (Via Sharpeworld)
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:: January 25, 2002
Journey Arcade Game, 1983 (Yesterdayland link)
"The instruments of each Journey member have been stolen. You must locate each band members equipment, once you have obtained the instrument you must return to space ship while avoiding alien obstacles. Once all instruments and band members have returned to the ship, the band blasts off and plays a concert at the galactic stadium. At this time the internal tape deck kicks off and play the Journey Song "Separate Ways" the band members are up on stage jamming, and you assume the role of the body guard. You must hold back the fans as long as possible. Once the fans rush the stage, the instruments are confiscated, and the game plays restarts at a harder level." ::
:: December 23, 2001
Build your own Shockwave slot car track and then race your car against one controlled by a cockatoo. This one is especially meaningful to me since so much of my California youth was spent at the track with my dad and brother. SLOT CARS TOTALLY RULE. Too bad I shunned being a racer myself in favor of playing Donkey Kong and Crystal Castles. (Found via Coudal Partners, also I think the slot car site doesn't work on Macs but I could quite possibly just be stupid) ::
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