BEST VALENTINE'S DAY GIFT I EVER GOT

A commercial grade popcorn machine! It can make 2 gallons of popcorn at a time! I think it's about 5 feet tall.

Watch it go!

DANG! (Number 8)

I didn't have a single bad meal in Thailand. In fact every place we went was my new favorite.
I remember each time I ate somewhere I'd think, "I gotta remember to come back to this place!"

We never got the chance to eat anywhere twice, but it didn't matter. Everything was equally delicious.
So delicious I would say "DANG!"

While we ate at this place called Dang(?) a frog jumped through the entire restaurant, coming in one end of the dining area, hopping between the customers' feet and out the other side of the restaurant. Everyone saw it, and no one cared.

It started raining really hard so they let us stay there after hours until it stopped. It was an hour after they'd closed before we could go outside. While we were there they gave us some soup on the house.

ASIAN FRUIT : The Good, the Bad and the Disgustingly Hideous

This is probably the greatest and most delicious food discovery I've made in all my adult years. This fruit is called "Hong Mao Dan" which translates into Red Hair Egg.

I find them in Chinese groceries once in a blue moon, but they're never as big as these I found in Thailand.

The skin breaks off pretty easily, like peeling an orange. You don't eat that part.

Inside is something which is about the size, shape and texture of an eyeball. Mmmm.... eyes...

It's very sweet and slightly tart, somewhere in the range of strawberry tartness. There's a seed inside. You'll wanna spit that part out. I've been told by my grandpa if I swallow apple seeds an apple tree will start growing out of my belly button. I don't want to chance that! Anyway, these are pretty delicious. I could eat them all day long.

Even though they sell the delicious Hong Mao Dan in Thailand, it is also possible to buy...... (shudder).... THIS!........

DURIAN!!!! (wretch!) Just look at it's prickly evilness!

Look at all of them laying there, like rotting, (gag!) stinking dead animals... (choke!)

I defy anyone to tell me there's a worse smelling fruit in all the universe. Even if there was a fruit called "Granny Smith bung apples flavored with infected pig feces" it couldn't top this. I can smell these things blocks away. When I walk, I mean RUN, past them and I'm blocks away I can still smell them in my clothes. The smell is like a mixture of rotting animal, spoiled and rancid sour fruit, poisonous hair permanent solution, Satan's fart after he ate something he was allergic to, and just some general extra rot thrown in on the side.

Mei and I got some popsicles on a hot day. I got cherry-flavored and she got durian-flavored. I'm not kidding I could not each my popsicle  because I kept smelling durian odor coming off her popsicle. I walked a considerable distance away from her and could still smell it every time I tried to take a bite of my cherry popsicle. Even if you try to man-up and brave something like that it just can not be done. I felt like a failure but I eventually flung my popsicle into the trash, and accepted the fact that I was just going to have to be parched.


These were pretty nifty. These Chinese characters are grown into the skins of the apples. I wonder if they put stickers on the apples, and the apples tanned in the sun, and then the stickers were removed leaving tan lines.

UNUSUAL CHINESE STUFF I SAW

I saw these all over China. They were small plastic boxes located in every nook and cranny, every where I went, even on little boats. At first when I saw one I thought it was some kind of funny joke product like you'd find in Spencers: a man in a business suit, in a clenched-fist action pose, with either a robot mask or space helmet. But it wasn't that! It was real!

Inside is a fire escape hood. These were in all the apartment complexes too, located where you'd normally find fire extinguishers. The odd thing was I never saw any fire extinguishers. They never had enough of these though. If there really was a fire only a small percentage of the people would be able to get out alive.

These were popular too. Kung Fu restaurants with Bruce Lee as the mascot. Sadly I didn't get to eat at one. Maybe next time.

See the girl in the white t-shirt in the lower right? What's her shirt say?

Here's another angle. I suspect she doesn't know what it says. Mei says Chinese people like English lettering the way we like Chinese characters. Sometimes Mei will whisper to me when she sees an American with a Chinese character tattoo. She will tell me the meaning and I'm sure the person with the tattoo doesn't know that's what it says. One time it said "smell" and another time it said "hooker." Mei said sometimes it takes a second character to clarify the meaning. Some characters are used for a variety of meanings. It looked cool though in spite of the actual meaning.

SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN LUNCH BOX

Here's a new prized possession. I remember being a 2nd grader in the school cafeteria, and all my friends had colorful and exciting lunch boxes like Six Million Dollar Man, Planet of the Apes, Korg 70,000 BC and Scooby Doo, and I only had a dumb ol' blank one with a plaid pattern on the thermos. I hated that thing and was kind of ashamed of it. But now look at me! I'm as cool as all those other 2nd graders now. Ha! I bet they don't even have theirs anymore!

Why is Oscar Goldman running alongside Steve? He's not supposed to be on these missions! He's the brains of the operation! Maybe he just thought it would be cool to watch Steve bat some dudes with a tree. Maybe Steve told Oscar ahead of time he'd be doing that.

Since that one guy is already on the ground and the tree's on the other side of the standing guy, it means this is the second swing. That means the standing guy watched Steve bat that other guy with a tree, and it didn't scare him off. Man is he dumb! And the one on the ground, is that Davey Jones? Does Oscar hate the Monkees?

I figure this is where the meeting took place before the previous incident. It probably went something like this:

OSCAR: You know Steve, these two guys you're going up against, they're a little crazy.

STEVE: I've been thinking about that, Oscar. I figure I'll lure them into the woods where all the trees are, and pull up a tree and bat them with it. It's a pretty good plan because they aren't bionic, and would be unable to pull up trees to bat me.

OSCAR: Man! That plan sounds REALLY good. You know, Steve . . . I'd kind of like to see that, if you don't mind.

STEVE: Sure, you can tag along. Just don't get in my way. I'll be swinging that tree after all.

As you can see in the picture above, on the way to the woods Oscar nearly drove over Steve. It's a good thing Steve has those bionic legs.

But even with the bionics, thanks to Oscar's bungling, Rudy still had to tweak Steve's legs a bit back at OSI.

Oh no! Steve! Get outta space! That's dangerous! Didn't you learn the first time?! This is another fine mess Oscar's gotten Steve into! It sort of makes you wonder who's side Oscar is REALLY on.

The insides have a few specks of rust here and there. I blame the previous 2nd grader who owned it. If I knew who he was I'd give him the shame routine. Then I'd tell him If he isn't old enough to take care of this precious piece of metallic joy then it'll be taken away, and he'll be eating out of a dumb ol' blank lunch box with a plaid pattern on the thermos!

This is not the thermos that grubby little 2nd grader brat was eating Campbell's soup from. The horrible little ingrate lost his thermos. I had to get this one separately off Ebay. Or maybe it WAS the same long lost thermos and I just reunited it with its metallic mama.

MELBA SNARCH'S SISTER comic strip #1

BIG LOTS NEEDS TO BE MORE SELECTIVE

I find the flavor to be highly offensive.

And they spelled "Pooping Candy" wrong.

CAP'N CRUNCH COLORING BOOK

Of all the cereals I think I enjoyed Cap'n Crunch the best, with the monster cereals at a close second. Cap'n Crunch had the best prizes and I liked the way they drew him back then, with the eye bags.

Here's a coloring book I found on Ebay. It's a strange image on the cover. Jean LaFoote is twisting the Cap'n's mustache. Is that a torture? It doesn't look like it hurts. Is it humiliating? Lots of times people will twist their own mustache when they are bored, or when they're thinking up an evil plot. This torture is a failure in my opinion. Much like if he were to twiddle the Cap'n's thumbs for him.

Some of the pages inside were colored. Look at it! It's obvious this kid has no understanding of human sclera! Now that I think about it this is a pretty violent picture for a kid to be coloring anyway. What's going on in the head of THIS kid? Why'd he pick THIS page?

For fun I removed the color. I POSTERIZED the drawing down to 8 colors so there wasn't a whole lot to have to deal with, and then I used the REPLACE COLOR feature, and changed everything (other than the blacks) to white. It only took a few minutes, and TADA!

It seemed too white so I replaced that tan background.

Upon viewing the bad stuff in the book I think, "Wow! That kid needs to do a better job!"

Some of the pages are colored by a kid with more expert abilities. He even did Jean LaFootes' whiskers. When I see this good stuff I think, "Wow! This kid is too old to be doing a coloring book!"
So sayeth a 41 year old guy who bought a Cap'n Crunch coloring book.

CAP'N CRUNCH PADDLE BOAT PREMIUM

This is a send-away premium from Cap'n Crunch cereal. It's the most elaborate cereal prize I've ever seen.

Some guy on Ebay is selling a bunch of them. He must have looted some abandoned warehouse. You get them in the original box they were mailed in back in the day.

I got this for $6 plus shipping which is a really good price. I saw some people selling this same thing for $35 and even $60. If you want one you should hurry up. He had a limited supply.

The instructions seem kind of complicated for a kid.

Yikes! Look at all the little finicky pieces! This is probably one of those projects the dad had to do while the kid sat and watched.


It came with 3 rubber bands and they are still in a worthy rubbery state.


Stickers for extra realness!

These paddle boats come in the original boxes and I don't think the parts inside have seen the light of day for decades.
I guess I'll eventually put it together. In the meantime if you want to see what it looks like assembled...

A guy named Jeff Pidgeon got one and put his together. Here's a picture I totally ripped off his blog. I hope he doesn't mind. He has bunches of cool toys and drawings. You ought to check him out by clicking HERE.

ADDAMS FAMILY CANDY CONTAINERS

I remember not liking this new version of the Addams Family back in the early 90s but I do like these candy containers. I got them for $1 each. They still had candy in them. It looked like something Uncle Fester would have eaten. It took me 30 minutes to wash them out. The heads are all hinged and the heads flip up for candy access. Uncle Fester is my favorite of the three.

They pale in comparison to the original characters, but until they make candy containers of the original guys I guess they're better than nothing.

The Original:



The new version:

GIANT FRANKENSTEIN PEZ DISPENSER

Two of my favorite things all rolled into one: Frankenstein and Pez.

I got this for $8. There are some on ebay but they cost a little more. This is what he looks like from the side.

And the front.


When you open his head, rather than releasing a single piece of candy, he dispenses an entire package of Pez. Also he lights up and groans and has various sounds which cycle through at each dispensement.

Sometimes he flashes red and sometimes green. That's just plain crazy! I'd have paid $8 even without the sounds and lights. It's above and beyond necessary but I do appreciate it.

MR. PEANUT SALT AND PEPPER SHAKERS

I found these at a flea market. I've been looking for Mr. Peanut stuff for a while.

My dad didn't like us having Mr. Peanut stuff when we were kids. Now I crave it because it was forbidden for all those years. My dad never liked Mr. Peanut and said he was bad. My mom didn't understand why he hated Mr. Peanut so much and asked his mom. My grandma confessed when my dad was a very young kid back in the 1950s there was a guy dressed up in a Mr. Peanut costume handing out packages of peanuts to the kids.

My overly protective grandma told him, "He's a stranger! Don't take those peanuts!"

Being at such an impressionable age, after that he grew up thinking Mr. Peanut was some kind of evil and demented sicko.

Next to a wiener dog for size comparison.

FOUND

This was laying on the ground outside the back door where my wife works.