Category Archives: Things I Like

The Shout ‘N Shoot was a voice-activated water gun released by CAP Toys in 1994. Back then, it was a water gun from the future, a hands-free, multi-directional electronic water gun. Except now we’re in the future, and there’s nothing like it. The Shout ‘N Shoot was ahead of its time, but it was also an idea precisely of its time: the 1990s.

I can’t believe I found one the other day, unopened and never used at the thrift store. When I saw the box sitting there on the shelf, my heart skipped a beat. But then I assumed the box probably contained a couple loose, damp-smelling hoses and broken headset pieces scattered in the box. Nothing to get excited about. Instead, upon inspection, I saw the toy had never even been opened. The neon green hoses were still twisty-tied up and wrapped in plastic. It was amazing. No, it was more than that. It was beautiful.

And it was only four bucks. There’s totally a collector’s market for vintage Super Soakers and other old water guns. I knew I could make a couple bucks selling it, but I wanted it for the personal collection. Never mind that I already have a small arsenal of vintage Super Soakers. I’m stockpiling. For the coolest backyard cookout ever. EVER. Where friends will come over and be handed a vintage water gun upon entering. Never mind that I fantasize about having fancy parties all the time even though I’m really a curmudgeonly reclusive person who writes in the basement.

Or I’d get it “for the kids.” That’s my new license to buy anything I want with zero guilt. For the kids I don’t have yet. But the wife and I are starting to think about having a baby. We’re in that stage where we say it out loud and introduce it into conversations to make it seem like something normal and realistic, instead of something absolutely terrifying and abstract. Or at least, that’s the stage I’m in. The wife is in the stage where she sighs at babies and small children and tiny socks. I’m still in a stage where everything that comes out of my mouth has utter disregard for basic sentence structure and ends with a question mark.

“Yeah maybe? We’re kind of in that starting stage? Where like maybe we’re starting to beginning to planning for something involving something like that? You know?”

Never mind that annoying drumming sound in my brain that just keeps saying TINY HUMAN BEING THAT YOU WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR FOREVER. TINY HUMAN BEING THAT YOU WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR FOREVER.

AND THEN IT WILL TURN INTO A BIG HUMAN BEING.

So yeah I’m going to be over there in the corner rocking to myself, fantasizing about that cookout party. I’ll have the Shout ‘N Shoot gear firing on demand from my head, and I’ll also be blasting away with a Super Soaker in each fist. It’s going to be so bad ass. FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

The history of water guns is a surprisingly menacing one. Up until the 1980s, water guns were simple squeeze pump plastic toys. Then a NASA engineer, a man named Lonnie Johnson, came along with an idea for a new type of water gun that used a battery-operated electronic motor. These electronic motorized water guns called Entertech, and released by LJN in 1986. At one point, the Entertech guns were even tied-in with Rambo due to the popularity of the film. Kids went bonkers for them.

The only problem was that they resembled actual uzis and machine guns. There were at least three incidences where people, including a child, were mistakenly shot by the police for posing a threat. Then there were criminals robbing stores and banks with them. Realistic-looking water guns were subsequently banned, mandating that all toy guns have neon and bright color schemes.

Then Johnson came up with another idea for a water gun: one that involved a pressurized air system. The first Super Soaker, the SS-50, was born in 1990, and was able to shoot water in a powerful continuous jet stream. By the summer of 1992, Super Soakers were the most popular and fastest-selling toys. They sold in the millions. Stores couldn’t keep them on the shelves.

From there Super Soakers only grew in popularity and size. Some could blast water up to fifty feet and could hold the amount of water equivalent to a small aquarium. The tanks were so large, kids could barely carry them. They required over the shoulder slings and belts to manage the weight of the water, leaving welts on the skin. These were no squirt gun fights. Shit was like ‘Nam.

Then the Soakers grew in controversy. As children begged and clamored for them, parents began to panic—because parents always freak out over insanely-popular toys.

“The Super Soaker craze may be the latest sign of a jaded society’s need for ever-increasing thrills: more drug use, more transvestites on Donahue, more fire power in our water guns,” one newspaper in Boston breathlessly wrote.

There was even an incident involving a Super Soaker filled with bleach and a drive-by bleaching of innocent bystanders who had their eyeballs burned out. This caused many cities to outright ban the toys.

And yet somehow, the water gun—and a generation of violence-craving fiends—survived. There are still some great water guns out there, including electronic ones that can shoot multiple bursts per second. Check out these Waterguns at ToySplash.

Even so, today’s Super Soakers are emasculated in comparison, with smaller water reservoirs, less-powerful air-pressure pumps, and far less range. This has opened up a market for vintage Soakers. The “Holy Grail” of Super Soakers, the beastly “Monster XL” from 1999, regularly goes on eBay in the hundred or two range.

There were dozens of imitators with different gimmicks. I even reviewed one of these knockoffs way back in 2009 when I found an unopened Super Stinker water gun.

I guess it’s just my luck—or fate—to find and review unopened Super Soaker knockoffs. Which brings us back to the Shout ‘N Shoot:

It was definitely one of the more inventive and cool knockoffs. A voice-activated, hands-free water gun. It even won some awards because it enabled kids with certain disabilities to play with water guns, too. Like I said, a water gun of the future. But just like flying cars and food in capsule form, perhaps it was just too futuristic for us Luddites.

The Shout ‘N Shoot had two parts: the water reservoir that attached to your belt, and a head set, connected by a neon green tube running between them. The headset had a small cannon that could adjust and shoot in multiple directions which triggered upon voice/sound into the headset’s mic. The thing required six AA batteries.

The commercials made the thing look super rad, showing kids perched in trees guerrilla-style and soaking their victims with gallons of unrelenting water. In real life, the Shout ‘N Shoot’s range probably wasn’t quite as impressive, and you probably looked like a chump running around with water-squirting head gear on.

Like most toys, the Shout ‘N Shoot was probably cooler in lore than it was on the playground. Yet there was always some story about that one kid who had one somewhere. Perhaps that kid even went down in the local history books of modern water warfare on some hot summer day. Like every kid, I’d wanted one too, but suspected it probably sucked. The mic probably didn’t pick up anything unless you screamed your throat raw, and the water probably only spit out in a feeble little stream.

As tempted as I am to rip open the packaging and settle the decades-old mystery once and for all, I think it’s better to let it remain a playground legend. And anyway, it hardly seems worth it to rip open plastic that has remained intact for the last eighteen years for something like that.

But maybe one day, if I ever throw that cookout party. Or maybe one day, for the kids.

Because Valentine’s Day is awesome and deserves some blog love, I’m unleashing a load of Valentine’s Day reviews as my personal Valentine to you.

Let’s do it.

1. PEEPS!

A Peep doing an impersonation of a chocolate-covered strawberry? Oh yes, I’ll take it.

These are Strawberry Creme marshmallow Peeps dipped in milk chocolate. They are new to 2012 and also come in a dark chocolate variety. After learning these existed on the Internet, I knew I had to find them, and I had a hard time, too. I finally found the them at Target, and it was the very last pack!

The Peeps are a cornea-burning shade of red, and their marshmallow bellies inside are a fluffy shade of pink. The strawberry scent is fruity and sugary that’s apparent as soon as you open the bag. It reminds me a scratch-n-sniff sticker in the scent of strawberry. These things could double as strawberry air fresheners. The chocolate dip part is a crisp outer shell. They taste delicious, in a fake strawberry/sugar rush kind of way.

Here’s a tip. If you do manage to find them, do not tell your significant other or spouse. Just eat all three of them and hide the evidence. They’re delicious and you won’t want to share.

2. PEZ!

You may remember a post I wrote over the summer about the day I found over three hundred Pez dispensers at the flea market and bought the entire lot for twenty bucks. I kept nearly two hundred of them for myself and gave away the doubles as place settings at our wedding.

Since then, I’ve continued buying new Pez dispensers to add to my collection. Since Pez collecting can get out of hand quickly, I’ve learned it’s best not to buy any and all dispensers, but rather to focus on particular types. I focus on iconic characters, classic Pez, and holidays. So that’s how I ended up with a heart-hugging love-proclaiming teddy bear. Don’t judge me. I needed it since it fit into one of my Pez focuses. Needed.

In fact, I’ve learned through browsing the various Pez forums that the bear is scarce this year and hard to find. A set of four of them even sold on eBay recently for $45. The bear is hot, yo. So even though the wife assured me she would get me the bear as part of my Valentine gift, I sort of freaked out and jumped the gun and bought it for myself last week. You know, just in case she couldn’t find it. This is the saddest paragraph I have ever typed.

3. DARTH VADER!

Darth Vader on a Valentine probably shouldn’t exist. It’s inherently lame and I just contributed another dollar to the further dilution of the Star Wars brand. But admittedly, the Vader-shaped gummys are pretty cool. And so is the fact that the front of the Valentine says “You Will Be My Valentine,” and that’s just plain bad ass. There should be more declarative statement Valentines.

4. BRIDE BEAR!

This bear isn’t really a Valentine thing, but if this isn’t a love story, I don’t know what is. I won her in a claw machine. I was depressed that day. My wife says I don’t know how to distinguish between depression and having a bad day, but she’s also a therapist and says I shouldn’t use the word depression unless I meet the clinical definition of a two-week period of having an episode everyday. Anyhow, I ALWAYS win claw machine prizes when I’m depressed. And this is the most hilarious prize I have ever won.

There’s a mystery behind this bride all dressed up in her wedding dress and veil, only to be found tattered and dirty in a claw machine at the local burger joint.

She’s oddly detailed for a claw machine prize, from the pink rouge dabbled on her cheeks to the glamour eyelashes, right down to her carefully-chosen wedding jewelry and matching slippers. She definitely wasn’t born to be a novelty arcade prize. She was born to be a collectible, sitting on some rocking chair in a grandmother’s house. But somewhere along the line she got a bit tattered, her face smudged with dirt, and her wedding slippers torn.

What’s her story?

I think she ran away, which is why her slippers are ragged and ripped. Or perhaps she was stood up at the alter? Is her heart broken? I’ll never know. She’s a lady who doesn’t reveal her secrets. She’s been living on the hutch in our living room for the last two weeks. My wife keeps saying “get that thing out of here, she’s really freaking me out,” but she’s just jealous.

5. DAZZLE!

The old-fashioned pastel sugar hearts with conversations just got a new variation. Now they dazzle, which is exactly what the world has needed. I was most excited to review these. I mean, look at the box. Any rational person would expect these things to be mixed with finely-ground shards of glass the way they’re sparkling. And that’s fine by me because I think I speak for most people when I say this: I will gladly risk my esophageal lining to eat glittery, sparkling candy.

Except they don’t sparkle. At all. They look exactly like every other conversation heart I’ve ever seen. What the hell? I feel ripped off. Apparently by “dazzled” they mean sassy sayings. They’re trying to appeal to hip teenagers with relatable sayings such as “JK,” “LOL,” “HOTTIE,” “CRAZY FUN,” and spelling girls as “girlz.” Also the flavors are hipper, too, like “Sour Strawberry” and “Blue Raspberry.” The colors are just a tad bolder.

I know what this is. We’re witnessing the New England Confectionary Company, a 145-year-old company, trying to be in-the-know and hip. I can’t be too hard on that.

6. PAPER PLANE VALENTINES!

While I was perusing the Valentines at Target looking for things to review, I noticed that all the boxed Valentines today had something gimmicky and fancy. They remind me of pouncing puppies in the pound, all screaming “pick me!” Back in my day, Valentines were plain and simple with pictures of my favorite characters and punny sayings. Today, it’s like Valentines on steroids. They come with erasers, holograms, stickers, magnets, candy, and more. It’s a new breed of Valentines, which can cost an upwards of twelve dollars a box. Hell, if you’re a kid today and you don’t give out one of these Gucci Valentines with a 3D holograhic card and adjoining lollypop, you’ll be shamed and humiliated.

But then I went to the Dollar Tree, where I found a lovely selection of old-fashioned Valentines, including these charming paper plane ones. I love the simple three color scheme of the sheets of paper, which smell pulpy and inky like construction paper. And there’s punny sayings galore! “You make my heart soar!” “You’re PLANE AWESOME!” “I’ll Dive At The Chance to be Your Valentine!”

They’re relatively easy at folding into planes that fly well. The paper is just the right weight and the directions are easy to follow even for easily-frustrated and impatient first-born children like me. So yeah, I FOLDED THIS PLANE ALL ON MY OWN! I should get a sticker for that.

7. NINJA TURTLES VALENTINES

Finally, these Ninja Turtle Valentines. To recap, the wife gave these to me as my “big gift” at Christmas. She was all excited because it was her first year using eBay. She spent hours mulling over a cute username, exploring the world of possible gifts, and getting into pretend bidding wars in her mind. In this fury of excitement and discovery, she somehow found this vintage 1994 Ninja Turtles Valentines kit, which for some reason, she just thought was the greatest eBay find OF ALL TIME.

I’m particularly fond of the cardboard pail for collecting other Valentines. It’s a sweet, if painfully dorky touch. Which is how I’d describe these Valentines in general. And how I’d describe myself at thirteen, the year these Valentines came out. But you know what? We’ve aged well. Now I’m totally awesome and cool, and that’s what these Valentines are, too.

I think my favorite is the “slice of heaven” one, but I also have a special place in my heart for the Splinter teacher card.

8. HEART-SHAPED PIZZA AND CINNAPIE

Papa John’s is selling a special heart-shaped pizza for $15 today with a free cinnapie. They do it every year. It’s silly, but it’s kind of our tradition to get it. I mean, a heart-shaped pizza is something really special. Throw in a free gloppy, sticky pizza-joint dessert, and I’m all over that. The wife is, too. We can go out to fancy dinners anytime we want, but a heart-shaped pizza only happens once a year.

Alright, happy Valentine’s Day!

I’ve done something bad. Or more accurately—I’ve bought something bad. It had to happen eventually. I’ve reached the nadir of my collecting, my personal rock-bottom. If there’s a line one crosses between a fun collecting hobby and an indiscriminate hoarding problem, I may have just crossed it.

But first let me explain what happened.

In the heart of the winter months, with the lack of yard sales and flea markets, I’ve been resigned to hitting up thrift stores to do my treasure hunting. And recently, I’ve had a couple of scores. I’ve found a couple of vintage MOTU figures, a G1 Transformer, some vintage Universal Monster bendys, and even a Harry and the Hendersons Bigfoot bendy.

Each of these guys is worth a couple bucks each. The Transformer is Override, a triggerbot, a figure that sells for $15-$30 loose on eBay. The MOTUs are worth about $2-$5 each. The Universal Monster bendys are worth at least $5-$10 a piece. And who knew? Harry and the Hendersons has a bizarre cult following, and the toys are sought after and high-sellers on eBay. This is at least $50-$80 worth of figures that I’ve found rooting around in the thrift store, paying about $5 total for all of them.

By the way, I’m completely in love with this King Hiss figure.

He’s missing all his outer body armor parts, but I like him better this way. It’s a snake with arms that are also snakes. Let me say it again. A SNAKE WITH ARMS THAT ARE ALSO SNAKES. That’s my new reason for living.

If I was smart, I’d already have those things listed on eBay and sold, but I’m not smart. I’m a collector. All my friends have retirement accounts. I just have a basement full of toys and a running mental inventory of things that sell on eBay.

Thanks to all these sweet toys I’ve been scoring lately, I’ve gotten a bit addicted to checking out the thrifts. It’s gone from the occasional weekend activity to a twice-a-week binge. It’ll be a Wednesday night and I’ll find myself fiending for a hit of Goodwill cooked up with a bit of Value Village.

But don’t let me mislead you; most of the time, there’s nothing there. Just the same old Myrtle Beach coffee mugs, George Foreman grills, and a VHS copy of Free Willy. So sometimes I get desperate. Real desperate. This has lead me to start peeking into the darker and lesser explored sections of the thrift store. Like the cassette section. Oh yes, I went there, and it’s a scary place. One word: cassingles.

All of this was the brewing of the perfect storm, an aligning of things that led to me to buy the WORST THING I have ever bought. Right there in the cassette section, next to a 1990 Cassingle promo version of Wilson Phillips’ Release Me.

I bought THIS:

A sealed 1990 cassette album of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Coming Out Of Their Shells tour. I couldn’t get over the fact that it will still sealed, and that alone was worth a dollar to me, and possibly more. But let’s not talk about that. Ever.

This cassette was available exclusively at Pizza Huts. Take a moment to admire that cover, with Michaelangelo busting out of a shell, the bits and fragments gone flying. The funny part is, turtles die when their shells are broken. This is a metaphor.

It’s a low point for me—and the Ninja Turtles. In 1990, the Turtles had their own breakfast cereal, video game, school supplies, linens, towels, cameras, and even shaving kits. And after the massive success of the first Ninja Turtle movie, that the denim-clad Turtles would go on a multiple-city rock and roll concert tour sponsored by Pizza Hut only made sense.

It was bad. These weren’t the same puppets made with loving care and artfulness of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop featured in the movie. These were the bargain basement Turtles that looked strung out on nightmare fuel. But the thing about the Ninja Turtles brand is that it’s kind of amazing. It has been diluted, milked dry, drained of every last of drop of blood, and left for dead more than once. And yet like a phoenix, it always rises from the ashes for another movie, another cartoon series, or another line of action figures. And kids still LOVE it, even to this day.

The storyline for the tour was that music was more powerful than any weapon. There was also some plot about how Shredder was trying to steal all the music in the world by building a machine called a De-Harmonic Convergence Converter, but all you really needed to know was the part where April sings was a good time for a bathroom break or concession stand run.

The tour was in fact successful and popular with kids. It spawned no less than two home videos—a recorded concert at Radio City Music Hall and even more inexplicably, a making-of documentary. The thing is, I don’t remember the thing at all. Maybe it’s because the tour didn’t come to my town. Maybe it’s because I was turning ten that year and thought I’d become too old to indulge in my Turtle love in public. I’d become a closeted Turtle fan and wanted nothing to do with a Coming Out tour.

So I have absolutely no nostalgia for this thing, which makes the fact that I bought this tape so much worse.

I love the song titles. They’re intriguing and zen-like in their simplicity: “Sing About It.” “Tubin’.” “No Treaties.” I think it’s hilarious that the producers obviously held the part where April sings in such low regard that they didn’t give the song a name other than “April Ballad.” They couldn’t even be bothered to punctuate it possessively.

I asked the wife if she thought there was something that might be missing in me, “some kind of gaping hole that I’m trying to fill by buying crap like this.”

She shrugged disinterestedly. “Nah, that’s just the kind of weird stuff you like.” Then she added, “By the way, I happened to see the neighbors put their trash out, and there was a box for a salad spinner. Just so you don’t think I’m the only one who has all these extraneous kitchen gadgets — the neighbors have one, too.”

“Wait what? You were stalking their trash?”

“No,” she said defensively, and went back to reading a magazine article about one woman’s relationship with a slow cooker.

Then I realized we all have weird gaping holes that we’re filling with stuff. And apparently, the neighbors have this particular hole, too, and our neighborhood is like a Salad Spinners Anonymous meeting. Because life is life, and sometimes it pokes holes in you, and the only thing that makes sense for it is to buy a giant contraption of a spinning bowl that dries lettuce. Or a Ninja Turtle tape. Or whatever.

Attention: The rest of this post will have nothing to do with this artful green-frosted Toaster Strudel, but sometimes when you “do” a good Toaster Strudel, you just have to show it off. #bragging #picasso

This past weekend was the Greater Baltimore Toy and Collectible Show that’s held at the state fairgrounds twice a year in the winter and summer. The night before, an ice storm dumped about two inches of ice and snow sludge on the ground. The dread of scraping and chipping out my car on a Saturday morning almost stopped me from going—and in fact the thought of going outside at all on the windy white-grey morning almost stopped me, too. Still, I trooped onward. There were toys. Besides I’d had a cruddy week, and I was in desperate need of some toy-hunting endorphins.

The fairgrounds was surprisingly mobbed with people and parking was at full capacity. There were crowds of people in cowboy hats and tasseled jackets carefully gliding across the parking lot which was covered in a sheet of sludgy brown ice. There was some sort of horse convention going on in another building—the “Horse World Expo,” whatever the hell that is—which apparently involves roping contests, mounting demonstrations, and “Equi-tainment! – A Musical Equine Variety Show.”

Horses and musical variety shows? Whoa. No wonder weather does not stop horse show people. Those people are CRAZY HARDCORE.

The toy show on the other hand was completely dead. There were maybe fifty to one hundred customers there, and about two hundred seriously depressed dealers who were sweating out even making back the cost of renting a space. This meant the dealers were either really willing to make deals or even more hellbent on sticking with their jacked up prices. It also meant I could palpably feel the dealers desperately watch me and hang onto every single item I picked up to look at.

As usual, I was in the hunt for random oddities and unloved toys. And as usual, I succeeded in my mission.

1. GODZILLA KOOSH BALL:

At first I thought this was a Jurassic Park dinosaur Koosh Ball, but it’s actually from the 1998 Godzilla movie starring Matthew Broderick. A Koosh ball tie-in to a notoriously awful 90s movie definitely falls under my category of “random oddity.” The dealer even laughed when I picked it up because he’d told his friend it would be the one thing he’d never be able to sell. In fact, the guy was so giddy that someone was buying it that he gave me these dinosaur bendys for free:

2. FREE DINOSAUR BENDYS WHAAAT!

Amazing! Getting free dinosaur bendys would be the pinnacle of some people’s toy show finds, but I was just getting warmed up. But I might have bought these things anyway! I love the unrealistic color choices, like red eyes and blue stripes. Plus I could tie that Brontosaurus neck into a bowtie!

The Koosh and the bendys made for perfect additions to my gorillas vs. dinosaurs shelf:

It’s a classic battle!

3. Z-BOTS!

Z-Bots were little figures that ran from 1992-1994 under the Micro Machines line by Galoob. I’ve collected a whole bunch of these in the past year, so it’s always fun to find new ones I don’t have yet. I love love love that orange alien dude.

4. ROBOTS!

The guy on the left is a 1978 Tomy Rascal Robot windup, which I got for a total steal for a buck. The other guy is another Z-Bot, who I also paid a dollar for. I had an idea to add my robots collection to the gorillas and dinosaur battle, and then it would be ROBOTS vs. gorillas and dinosaurs. The gorillas and dinosaurs would probably have to team up in order to stand a chance again the robots. I’d totally do this, but a sinkhole would probably open up under my house because of the sheer weight of awesomeness.

5. VOLTRON LIONS!

Paid two bucks a piece for these. These are the 1981 die-cast metal ones. This is one of the toy lines that EVERYONE wants and collects, and since I’m kind of a toy-collector hipster in that way, I don’t really collect this stuff. But for two bucks a piece, I figured I could probably resell and make profit on eBay, even if these guys are in heavily-played-with condition.

6. VAMPIRES!

These are my absolute favorite thing I bought. I even paid a whopping ten bucks for it, which probably doesn’t seem like a lot to some/most collectors, but you’ll notice I rarely pay more than a buck or two for most of the things I buy. Not only am I the annoying hipster of collectors, I’m also just cheap. But these Vampires were a totally different story for me. Look at that amazing packaging! That awesome bat! That font!

I’d actually seen the exact same pack and same dealer at the York Toy Extravaganza back in December. I’d passed on them thinking I’d be able to go home and find them online for cheaper. But then I went home couldn’t find a single mention of these things anywhere online, which made me hate myself for not buying them. So when I saw them again this weekend, I knew it was fate, and sometimes fate costs ten dollars.

They’re from 1992 and made by a now-defunct toy maker, Happiness Express Inc.

I’m thinking these things have got to be ridiculously rare in the package like this. I am going to worship them forever and ever amen.

7. GIRL GREMLIN!

Here’s another thing I broke my “two dollar rule” for. I paid five bucks because I needed this. I really, really needed this, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to see why. LOOK AT HER. If my house was burning down and I could only save one crappy PVC figure from the early 1990s, it might just be this one.

This toy also achieves an important accomplishment in my collection, being the HOTTEST toy that I own, surpassing the ET-in-drag figurine, the girl California Raisin in hot pink heels, and even the bride Ms. Pac-Man. Yeah, I said it.

Yowsa.

8. MORE TMNT CRAP!

I was happy to find these figures, Tattoo the Sumo Wrestler and Mondo Gecko, two of the many strange non-Turtle figures in the Playmates Ninja Turtle line.

9. Q*BERT!

Finally, I picked up this Q*Bert figurine for another eight bucks, which is hard to turn down because Q*bert stuff is just so damn cool.

Here’s another look at the some more of my video game stuff:

Oh yeah, I also got that big Sonic recently at Toys R Us. They have a new line of “Sonic Through Time” 20th Anniversary figures which includes the 90s versions of Sonic and not just the sucky 2000s version of Sonic. They oughta do the same thing for Mario, because he looked better in the 90s, too.

Anyway, that’s it. The show delivered on the toy-hunting endorphins. Worth trudging through the snow sludge. Almost as worth it as horse variety shows. Almost.

We live across the street from the saddest yet somewhat endearing Christmas display ever. At least they tried. Those icicle lights are hilarious. Those things hung droopier every day. The neighbors actually had to duck underneath of them upon leaving and returning home. Then there were the candy canes, which hadn’t stayed upright all month. While the red one was a trooper, the green one was a bastard. (The green ones always are.) It fell over every day. You’d think those folks would have finally given up on it, and left it on the ground as it was in this picture taken on Christmas Eve.

But you know what? The day after Christmas, that green one was standing upright again—sort of. And THAT’S THE SPIRIT. It’s Christmas, damn it, and again this year, WE MADE IT. Now, we deal with the aftermath—and all of those maddening strands of tinsel we keep finding everywhere. My God man, we didn’t even put tinsel on the tree this year.

Now, before I start to review the items in the haul, I should mention the wife joined and navigated eBay for the first time this year. All year she stores up a special resentment for me not being easy to shop for, which she then turns into a super-power come December. “I’m going to find you things YOU LOVE this year,” she threatens.

So she signed up for eBay, which for most people, is a quick and easy five minute process. For the wife, it was an emotional and daunting journey. It’s partially my fault. As a grizzled old eBayer myself, I’ve imparted all sorts of tales about last minute bid sniping and sellers profiting off of shipping costs.

Every day, I’d get the play-by-play on how her bids were going.

“I’m still the high bidder!”

“I’m going to have to watch it the last thirty minutes so the snipers don’t get me!”

“You are going love this thing!”

She clearly believed she was winning a grand prize.

“I can’t believe I won it!” she said. “And they didn’t charge me a lot for shipping,” she added proudly. Even the old grizzled eBayer had to muster up a “well done.”

Then I started to get pretty excited. eBay combined with Christmas is the entire world of possibilities. I mean, it could be anything. And so imagine my surprise Christmas morning when the ENTIRE WORLD of possibilities brought me this:

The uhh… NINJA TURTLE VALENTINES KIT! I’m not making fun of it. I swear. I just think it’s hilarious that she fretted EVERY SINGLE DAY over the potential bidding war she might get into with someone over this thing. And I didn’t know whether to be mortified or flattered that she was so confident I’d love it. Vintage action figures are worthy of adult geek love. But an elementary class Valentine kit with 32 unpunched cards and heart-shaped stickers with Michaelangelo’s face on them? Is that okay to love? Is it?

“You’re the one who wanted that box of Ninja Turtle Band-Aids that was at that toy show,” she said.

Oh yeah. That. That I can explain.

“Band-aids are different,” I said.

Oh screw it. I LOVE IT and I’ll save a review of it for a special Valentine’s Day edition of the blog.

Also, she won that awesome 13 inch Donatello figure. Which came shipped in this really disturbing box:

I’m sort of a OCD germaphobe, so this box REALLY creeps me out. What the hell is a vacutainer? I don’t like anything that combines the words “vacuum” and “container.” But that’s not the only creepy thing. Donatello also smells really strongly of bleach. As though he were fully submerged, preserved, and pickled in a tub of bleach for days. The question is why? And does it have to do anything with blood collecting?

Let’s just say I placed Donatello high up on my Ninja Turtles shelf and promptly washed my hands afterwards. Ten times. Which is a nice even number.

But the wife wasn’t done on eBay yet. Here’s the other awesome thing she won:

CHEESEBURGER MICKEY. It’s Mickey Mouse! In cheeseburger form! How awesome is that? It’s one of the Vinylmation figures, sold exclusively in Disney Parks and stores. According to the Disney site, Vinylmation is “a collectible designer toy created by Disney Theme Park Merchandise.” That’s another way of saying “money grab,” and Walt Disney churns out anything and everything for a buck.

Disney must pipe in subliminal messages through the theme park music to get you to part with your money easier, because when we were in Disney World on our honeymoon this past September, I became mildly obsessed with the Vinylmation figures. I’d seen a picture of Cheeseburger Mickey somewhere, and became singularly focused on it. I had to check every last store, even though all the stores were exactly the same.

When we got home, and I was no longer being constantly exposed to the brain-washing subliminal Disney messages, I mostly forgot about my fling with madness and the Vinylmation figures. Even so, I’m proclaiming Cheeseburger Mickey as my favorite Christmas gift this year.

GODZILLA SLIPPERS. I’m not gonna lie. I put these on my list. Right on the top of it. It’s something you see and immediately realize there is no way you can live without them knowing that they exist. I already stomp around the house. Now I can do it with purpose.

They’re HUGE. As someone already prone to falling up stairs, these increase my chances to about 100%. The wife made a rule that I can’t go up and down the stairs in these, but I already have because I’m a rebel. I like to live dangerously. I’m gonna die. Doesn’t matter. Having Godzilla feet is WORTH IT.

REMOTE CONTROL HELICOPTER! I had this on my list because I can think of all kinds of times when I really wish I had a remote control helicopter to fly. Like, while I’m trying to think of thoughts. Sentences. Words. Stuff. It’s way better than staring at walls. Walls are so unengaging.

Well, except for wallpapered walls. Sometimes those patterns can really suck you in like whoa.

BOOKS! My mother gave me these. I love books like this even though the target audience is eight years old and I’m thirty one. There’s lots of good stuff in the Giant Cool Book. For example I’ve learned that a squid has the largest eyes in the world. At birth, a giant panda is smaller than a mouse.

And Optical Illusions are awesome. These are great additions to my library of “fun” books, where I have books about dinosaurs, sea creatures, mammals, UFOs, etc. These are the things that first sparked my curiosity as a kid, and they still do.

THE WORLD’S MOST GIGANTIC BOX OF CHOCHOLATES! From my sister, who always finds the most unique gifts every year. When she plopped this wrapped package in my lap on Christmas day, I already knew what it was. This long, lightweight rectangular package was obviously a board game. I confidently boasted that “I know what this is.”

I’m a notorious guesser and I’m right nearly 99% of the time. It’s somewhat deflating to the gift-giver when I guess it before I open it, and of course, I relish in earning that deflation. Except my sister wasn’t deflated. Instead, she looked at me with a challenging glint in her eye. “I dare you to say it out loud if you know what it is then.”

Sister: 1. Me: 0.

STAR WARS FIGURES! From the wife. I really dig all the retro re-issues out there. In some ways, walking through a Toys R Us aisle today looks just like it might have twenty-five years ago.

I opened R2-D2 first, and immediately guessed the other similarly-wrapped package would be his counterpart, C-3PO. The wife smirked. Boy, was I off. It was Princess Leia in the SLAVE OUTFIT.

0 for 2 on my guesses this year.

STOCKING STUFFERS! Is this the most perfect assortment of stocking stuffers ever? The wife gets special bonus points for finding that Dressed-as-Santa-Mr. Potato Head-Viewmaster tube topper. That thing is a load of awesome.

TOY STORY CARS! I love things in the form of other things! Like Cheeseburger Mickey. Or Toy Story cars! The wife got me these. She has a good eye for under-the-radar cool stuff. This set is perfect, except we’re both kind of disappointed there’s no Hamm car. But she’d fight me for that one. It’s a pig, after all.

ANGRY BIRDS! BOWSER HAT! I recently had an affair with the Angry Birds. I discovered them about two years after the rest of the world. I don’t have a smart phone. I finally discovered the game through the Google Chrome browser. I obsessively three-starred all the levels in about a week, and now I have these plush birds to forever represent that lost week of my life. And that Bowser hat—I love love love the strangely minimal, bootleggy, old-school hand drawn look of the design.

So that’s my 2011 haul. WE MADE IT! But we’ll still be picking up that tinsel ’til next year. ‘Til next year indeed!