Emmys

Dr. Horrible won an Emmy (although they don't air for another week, the ones that don't get air time have already been announced!) Although Buffy got shafted before Joss is being recognized for the wonderfulness that is Dr. Horrible.

If you haven't checked out Dr. Horrible, you should. Dr. Horrible is a great musical staring Neil Patrick Harris as the lovable Dr. Horrible who wants to rule the world and get Penny to fall in love with him. Captain Hammer, the "hero" of the story, stops the Dr. from only one of these.

Great songs.
Wonderful Acting.
AND NEIL PATRICK HARRIS!!!

More Reminiscing: 10 Toys I played with as a child

Here are the 10 Toys that I loved as a child (some as an adolescent) (again, none of the picture are mine)

10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: I was a turtle foot all the way. In a previous post I talked about how I used to bring my indoor toys outside; well these were my favorite. I used to have them in a TMNT bag, and I saved the cards that were on the back of the figures' and vehicles' boxes. I had the Turtles, Splinter, Shredder, Craig (The Brain), Bebop, Rocksteady, Several Foot Soldiers, April, KC Jones and about a dozen other random turtles (like Shogun Leo). I had the Turtle Van and boats and pizza shooters. These were some of the few action figures that I would play battles with.

One random TMNT thing I had was a 3D Sticker book (and if you ever had one of these books, you know how amazing they were). But the most random part of it, was/is that I actually can't see 3D, but I would still wear the glasses and pretend I could!

9. Power Rangers. Ok, if you've been to my apartment, you know that I love PR. From 93 - 98 they consumed my life. I loved the idea of transforming and saving the day from Rita. I have almost all of the zords from the Zordon era (but stopped watching the show when the Ranger cast would switch each season).  I did not play Power Rangers with these toys though (at least not the whole time). Most times I would play house or the zords would have to solve mysteries that would require them to come together. (In addition to all the zords, I have all the Auto Morphing Rangers; the Collectible 3'' figures; some weapons, and the Command Centers (yep, both of them))

8. Pogs. They were huge in early middle school. What's really funny is my cousin, Tim (5 years younger than me) would usually introduce me to a lot of these things on my list. And after a visit with him I became obsessed! This is most true with Pogs. And this, I would play and battle and Win! These were so much fun, I probably had 1000 of them and would collect them from anything that they came "free" in.

7. Disney Toys. This was my big collection. I have/had toys from most of the major Disney cartoons. I have hundreds of them and every time a new movie would come out, my mom and I would got scouring the city looking for the versions I preferred. (I didn't like the rubber ones, nor the actual action figures, but rather hard plastic, non-movable ones with no seams!)

6. Stretch Armstrong. (Actually his dog). I went through like 5 of these toys! They were great.

5. Monopoly. Particularly with Tim, his brother and sister and my brother. Every time we got together we would play. We'd start right after dinner on friday night and then around 3 or 4 we'd close out! I don't think I ever won, because if you fell asleep, you lost!

4. Barbie. OMG I loved playing with Barbies. Luckily I had 4 girl cousins (The Penny Club) and we would routinely play with them. My favorite this was to dress them up in gaudy outfits and have them go "out" on the town looking for Ken (who was usually topless!).

3. Dolls. More "House" and dolls. Again, my cousins and I would get together and when not playing other make believe games like "work" and "school" or "traveling" we would play house. Most of the time we would pretend we weren't related (meaning I wouldn't have to be married to any of them), and all of our spouses were elsewhere at the time). I remember though, than many times I would be a single dad! I would also always choose the youngest Cabbage Patch Kids! (I know, I loath babies now, but I always wanted the babiest of the baby dolls). One of my Aunts had given me my own cabbage patch doll (she's actually my great-great aunt on my mom's side - her only living relative other than her brother).

2. Littlest Pet Shop. OMG, these toys would amaze me. I loved that they used magnets to make them work. I had the entire 90's collection, including the actual pet shop! I used to carry the petshop around like a brief case!

1. Ironing Board. I know, weird right. But I loved to pull the ironing board out and play all the toys listed above on it. It would be extend the counter space where I played and give me a 270 degree playing area while I sat on the kitchen stools!

0. Bonus. A toy I had but never knew why? Thundercats! I never liked this show, never really played with the toys. I think I inherited these from my brother.

GLBT Round-up

It seems that the old Gay Marriage horse, hidden the past few months, is rearing it's head (ugly or not) again.

Here's a couple things I've come across:

First is a clip of a new anchor making a comment on how gay-marriage is actually promoting long-term marriage in Massachusettes; divorce is down.



And the second clip is an adorable Adge-prop (not sure if I spelt that correctly) from Ireland, following the story of a man who is seeking permission to marry his love.



I think that it's time for all this shit to give way, and just give every tax paying American the same rights. Enough with fucking taboos and the "institute of marriage." Like Blitzen said in The Eight Reindeer Monologues " by Jeff Goode "An institution doesn't feel./ An institution doesn't suffer./ An institution/doesn't have to look in the mirror/and see how pain has changed it's victim's face./The victim does." Why uphold an institution that has denied so many people so many rights for so long (Interracial Marriages) (hell even women in the Renaissance were just commodities!). It's time that the government got out of the whole marriage business and just issue Civil Unions to all!!!

Poor Pluto...

So I love Outer Space! It's one of my favorite subjects to teach, so I was devastated when Pluto was demoted.
But life goes on and I've since come to expect that all books be changed. One series of books that I became really fond of, still marked Pluto as a planet, so I refused to buy it.

Short post today. Look for more tomorrow.

Top 10 Things I miss from my Childhood

I've been reading a lot of lists today, so I've decided to make my own. This is a random list of things I miss from my childhood... spurned on by the fact that I'm broiling food for the first time in over 10 years!

They are counting down, but not in any order. (None of the pictures are from my childhood though)

10. Wall Oven. My parents' double wall oven with the broiler on the bottom. I used to make the best tuna melts in that thing!

9. The Front Stoop. Playing on the stoop. I had a few neighborhood friends (two next door and one across the street), and we used to play in front of our houses (despite me having a giant back yard and a pool and a basketball hoop). We'd bring out indoor toys (action figures, comic books, etc) and just play on my stoop. Now by stoop I mean two steps. Occasionally we'd play ball games and running games, and we had a strict limit placed by our parents (or at least my mom). We could go down to the corner (about 100 feet away) and up to just past the factory (50 feet).  Mrs. Broken was the house on the "corner" (not really a corner at all because the cross street didn't go through 67th but started on 68th (my block)), and her dog Penny! BTW, there was never adult supervision unless Mrs. Broken was gardening in her front yard!

8. The Penny Club. My grandma used to have a jar of pennies. HUNDREDS of pennies, so on rainy days she'd pull it down and we'd go into the hallway and build pictures. Giant, complex pictures. Art of pennies. My cousins and I now call ourselves the penny club!

7. "Sick Days" My mom was an awesome mom (still is). When we were younger, she would allow us to play hookie from school one day a marking period! We would have to let her know the night before and it just couldn't be on her day off AND it couldn't be a "test" day. These sick days were just great rest days.

6. Christmas. Now I know that Christmas is still around, but it doesn't have that magic like it used to. When I was 5, it took 1/5 of my life to get to the next Christmas. Now it's only 1/26 of my life. That's significantly smaller! So the magic of Christmas time (although it still brings me great joy) is lost because it seems to happen more frequently.

5. Weekend Trips. My mom used to take my brother and I on weekend trips! They were educational (Like Williamsburg) and random (like Caves in North Carolina) and fun (Day trips to the beach). Of course I still take weekend trips, but nothing will beat the red "Taurus" with Joey in the front (because he could read the road signs - he does have 4 years on me) and me laying in the back with my Highlights Magazines.

4. Movie Nights. My dad worked late hours often, but about once a month, I was allowed to stay up late and wait for him to close the restaurant. He'd call before he'd leave and ask what snacks I wanted (always a Cherry Coke). Then he'd come home and we'd watch a movie of my choice. (I seem to remember many showings of Mary Poppins).  Dad and I revisited these in High School on snow days (when we'd watch Sopranos all day).

3. Night Swimming. Again, my dad worked late, but in the summer, I could stay up much later. And when dad would come home, Joey and I would be in our bathing suits hoping Dad would want to go swimming. He'd pull our legs and pretend he was too tired, and we'd get disappointed, but then he'd run down the hall in his trunks and jump into the pool, with us trailing behind him!

2. Bergenline Avenue. When I was younger B-line was (and still is) a few miles long shopping district with discount stores. Mom, Joey and I (in a stroller) would start at 68th street (our block) and just walk down; generally to the 30th street bus depot (when the district would dissipate). If Joey and I were well behaved, on the way back Mom would let us buy one thing. We'd walk into the discount store and pick out a toy (usually under a dollar!) and be happy for weeks with these toys. (God I had hundreds of toy "collections" from these stores. I had so much fun with them!) (P.S. That is actually a pic of B-line, after the modernization with black street signs and that cool clock)

1. Gift Budget. On those weekend trips with Mom, we were always on a tight budget (this was before cell phones and atms) so mom had X amount of money and that was it. But no matter how tight the budget was, she had a rule (again as long as we behaved) that we had a gift budget of $5 a place! (She even used to say, she'd pay for the tax, so we could get up to $5). So at every place we visited (even if there were multiple places in a day, when we got to the gift shop we had $5 to spend! I remember I'd always buy post cards and maps and then any money I had left went to a toy or guide book (yeah I was a looser). Sometimes our budget would be extended, or we could carry over the $5 to another gift shop, but we were in charge of keeping track of how much was left in our budget.

So those are things that I miss from childhood.