Goodbye 2015

I can't believe 2015 is already gone. The years seem to go bye faster the more I grow older!

Anyway, a lot of good things happened this year, I'll just name a few:

1) New nephew (Otto Wilkins) who hated me for the first 8 months of his life and now tolerates me as long as I leave him alone when he's watching his favorite show.

2) Penelope Jones. My new niece! She at least loves her Uncle Matt, since I can always get her to calm down and go to sleep.

3) My trip to GenCon. It was incredibly fun and I'd love to go again one day.

4) Other Comic Conventions I visited. I met Dave Dorman at Pensacon and got some cool board games at the Fanboy Expo. Making them both well worth the trip!

5) Traveling with Chase brought me to Albany, NY Columbus, OH and Tempe, AZ. It was fun to visit and see each one. I hope to be back to them again in 2016!

6) My essay for the upcoming Star Wars book got approved and I did 2 of my dinner theatres. Quite a feather in my cap when I look back on it all.

Now we just have to what awaits in 2016!

Happy Birthday to the Bub

Here's Megan in one of her highlights of 2015, when she got to meet John St Austin (the Red Power Ranger)

Though her last 7 birthdays have been her worst, I'm proud to say I've been a part of each one! : )

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUB!!

Mountain Man (9)

 Life looks pretty good when you're on top!

Seriously though, it was a fun climb and I'm glad I did it.

I'm also glad I didn't hurt myself gong back down. It was pretty steep in some places along the path. But I can proudly state that I didn't use the railing at the top and made it all the way up there by myself. (like a big boy)

Next time I'm up...I think I'll skip this part of the tour.

C-ya later folks!

Mountain Man (8)

The top!

Pictures coming up next!

Mountain Man (7)

Seriously, I don't think southerners were meant to be in high altitudes!

Mountain Man (6)

Clearly at this point I'm getting tired. I didn't know it'd be such a long climb to the top!

Mountain Man (5)

You can't tell it, but that path I'm on was STEEP!

Mountain Man (4)

After making good time I wasn't tired...yet.

Mountain Man (3)

And so the trek begins!

Mountain Man (2)

On the way there, I saw this sign that looks like a man dancing across a road.

Not sure where they were going with that.

Moutain Man (1)

While staying in Az for a while, I decided to climb a mountain. Check back throughout the day to see how it went.

Neat stuff

 It's amazing the stuff you can find at Flea Markets. Like this old Beta system for instance. Classic! There's virtually ZERO use for this anymore and they're asking an astronomical price!

 The Death Star playset! I've never seen one in real life. I used to dream about having this as a kid. Of course back then the myth about it was it was SO big, Kenner had to stop making them because they cost too much. LOL

 Movie poster. Nice.

This took me back to my Cub Scout days! Man I thought being in the scouts was like the mini-army or something!

Merry Xmas!!!

Did anyone else see ghosts last night?

Best Xmas Presents EVER!

So today I wanted to make a list of what some of my favorite presents were for Xmas as a kid:

 Years ago Dad bought us our SECOND Intellivision system and we LOVED it! This was our favorite console as kids and we'd broken our last one so Dad asked us for Xmas whether we would want ours fixed OR a new Nintendo system....we shocked him when we unanimously asked for Intellivision.

After getting it fixed it lasted exactly 2 weeks until a fight around who's turn it was next, broke out and damaged the system once again. After a thorough round of bottom beatings, Dad then got us a Nintendo and the rest is history!

What a game! This has to be the Top Xmas present for me, ever. I was so excited I screamed around the house for hours. It's still the best Mario game out there in my opinion.

So that's mine. What was yours?

The Power Pill

While spending a few days in sunny Arizona, I was able to come across a store called The Power Pill that had a lot of interesting stuff to see!

 Intellivision game!! Too bad I don't have a game system anymore...

 Lots of arcade games in the store.

 A Super Mario Brothers digital watch that still works!! I didn't have one as a kid and for $100 it looks like I won't have one as an adult either!

All the arcades worked too! It was a pretty cool place. I'm glad I got to see it!

Vintage Toys (3)

Continuing our talks on great vintage toys (weird that my childhood is now referred to as that) here are a few more:

 The ole Mickey phone! I remember my cousins had this growing up. You'd punch in the 3 digit code to call up all your Disney friends. I thought it was an amazing piece of technology back in the day! Funny how its so simple now.

 Don't remember what toy line these came from but I played the heck out of them back in the day!

 Ah Duplo. An offshoot of Lego's I spent countless hours playing with these things. I remember having several adventures with the characters, pretending they were some super hero team!

 We had this very same playset as well!

 Remember the Omnibot?! Where we thought the future would consist of robots serving us popcorn and drinks as we watched TV? I remember thinking THIS was the future!! Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh man, if I could've let my younger self see me now!

Finally is the game, Got'cha! by Milton Bradly. I remember everyone having this game as a kid but using it as toy (someone pretending to be a prisoner) a lot more than playing the actual game.

Come to think of it, I wonder if it'd be fun anymore?

Vintage Toys (2)

 Remember pocket games like this?!

 Before they invented the Gameboy, this is what we had to keep us entertained. And back in the day I was blown away by the "technology" of the time! LOL

 Like this one, the background was on a roller and as the road moved by, you had to steer the car through the finish line! I used to play the HECK out of this game!

 Finally, there's Fold-a-copter. I'd totally forgotten about this toy!!! I folded from a van...

...into a helicopter!! I have no idea why, but I enjoyed the heck out of this game!

Last batch coming tomorrow!

Vintage Toys (1)

As Xmas approaches I think back to when I was a kid and toys were the number one thing on my list! These days you don't see many kids playing with toys anymore. It's all about the electronics. And though that's not a bad thing, it's still sad not seeing the younger generation, using their imaginations as I did, in the back yard with a couple of action figures.

So for the next few days I'd thought I'd share with you a few toys I remember from my past. Some I owned and some my neighbors had.

Here goes!

 I used to push these down and race them across my mom's kitchen floor!

 I can't recall the name of these but they were cool for building monster alien spiders for my action figures to battle!

 Ah the "travel" games! This one was fun because when you wound him up, you never knew where it would go!

 Remember this thing? You put paper on top rub a pencil over it to make the design you wanted! I'd forgotten all about this one, until researching for this post!

I remember this guy too. From Tomy Toys. It was called "High Rolleys" they even had a Giraffe (which I believe we had as well) it was one of those push down and roll toys.

I'll show more next week!

Sweet ride

Look what someone did in a Mustang on the road in AZ!

Who would drive over 100 mph in such a beautiful vehicle?!?

I am aghast at this reckless regard for the law! Why the mere thought of it chills me with excitement and maniacal laughter  I mean...disdain!

Grand Canyon Tour (6)

And here's another view of the canyon...without rails. It was my favorite spot in the whole park, hands down!

K, that's all for today! I'll see you with more stuff from AZ tomorrow!

Grand Canyon Tour (5)

The 3rd floor...this tower felt like it went on forever but the view at the top was breath-taking!

Grand Canyon Tour (4)

The 3rd floor of the tower...to be honest, my phobia of heights was starting to kick off when I made it this far up...

Grand Canyon Tour (3)

Here's the 2nd floor of the tower.

Grand Canyon Tour (2)

They had a watch tower you could enter to look out over the canyon. Here's what it looked like from the inside.

Grand Canyon Tour (1)

Oh boy! Are you in luck today!! I'm going to save you $30 and show you the beautiful scenery right now! (you can thank me later)

More videos coming later today...

Grand Canyon pics

 So last weekend I decided to stop and see the Grand Canyon!

 It was beautiful!! More incredible than I thought it would be!

 And very quiet too for some reason.

 Oh and here's a tip, they charge you $30 to enter into the "park" to see it. Yeah, a little bit of a rip off if you ask me.

 It goes on for miles!

I have a few videos I'll post them tomorrow!

On the Road (2)

I know I look like a total tourist here, but we don't have mountains like that back home.

I'll post more tomorrow!

On the road (1)

Here's the beautiful scenery I got to look at on the ride over.

Mountain man

Living below the sea level in Louisiana, it sure was a shock to be this high above it!

Sunny AZ!

 Welcome to Arizona! My home for the next week or so.

 I took these while driving.

It's a rental car, but pretty sweet. Videos coming later today...

Santa Bowl 2015 Review

What a sad day for the Santa Bowl. I had to miss it because I'm away at work but when I called to see who won...I found out the answer was "Nobody"

Looks like interest died out and no one wanted to play. I can't believe something that I've kept going for 15 years would suddenly come to a halt, just like that?!

I'm going to work hard to ensure the same thing doesn't happen in 2016. It'd be terrible for the Santa Bowl's legacy to come to an end so quickly!

Day of Thanksgiving 15 (continued)

It came to my attention that I didn't compete my last thankful day of Thanksgiving all the way thru, so I wanted to continue it today!

After speaking on my brothers and sister (who I now take back as being thankful for) I forgot to add my in-laws who I love and am thankful to them part of the family as well. (even Kajsa)

 I'm also thankful for the little munchkin's they've produced. I love my nephews to no end and I'm always happy to see their smiling faces, like Mr Otto's here!

Most importantly left of my list last month was the Mrs. My little buddy, who shares all her adventures with me and even tolerates mine (from time to time) I'm thankful for her putting up with this guy most of all!

I'd planned to end the posts this way last month, but guess I stopped in the middle of it and left some of the most important off the list by accident. But as we approach this holiday season, let us all be thankful for the ones around us.

Merry Christmas!

Latest Flea Market finds

 Look! It's a card with REAL fur from the costume!

I also, remember these from my childhood. I don't know if they were cereal toys or something else.

Anyway, I stopped by another store while on the road with Chase. Where am I now? I'll let you know tomorrow : )

Flipsiders commercial

Do you remember Flipsiders?!?

 Holy crow! I came across these by accident last week, searching around Ebay!! I even HAD this one as a kid in fact!

 I'd totally forgot about them!!!

They were mini games within a tape! And the markers were magnetic so you could play them in the car. And you clicked the bar at the bottom of the tape to "roll" for your number. Genius!

Did anyone else have these as a kid?! They were SO cool back in the day!