Category: ToyBox

Previously, on Scribblings From The Public Restroom Stalls Of The Gods… I revealed that Little E is gettin’ a bunch of cool stuff for Christmas. He’s old enough for his first “action figure Christmas,” which, in my childhood, was just the best thing ever. I don’t have nearly the budget (or the helpful economy) that my folks had when I was growing up, but by golly, this year’s toy haul is gonna be pretty close to an “extravaganza” rating thanks to some judicious shopping.

There’s just one hitch: a bunch of Super Mario figures I got him were already opened. So how do I wrap those? … Read more

To talk about what Little E is getting for Christmas, one has to realize that in some respects, the boy lives in a little bit of a time warp. He likes old cartoons (to give but one example: he’s a sucker for the animated segments of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, which I dug out simply because he’s so crazy about the games… he’s not quite so crazy about the Captain Lou live-action segments.) This time warp is a bit of a bubble that he’s entered simply by spending a lot of time in my room with me. We play Super Mario and Pac-Man on the computer and on the Wii. He watches Pixar movies of an older vintage than Cars 2 (his favorites: Wall-E and Toy Story 2).

Of course, toys tied to a specific thing like a movie or a game have a very specific shelf life: as soon as the thing’s off the market and no longer making money for the studio, it’s very rare for the merchandise to stick around. Not everything has the seemingly eternal staying power of Star Wars. And this… is what drove me to eBay to do some Christmas shopping this year.

In my previous blog entry, while ruminating about not wanting to saddle someone else’s kid with toys built around a super-violent story, I also mentioned being keenly aware of the risk of saddling someone else’s kid with something completely lame. This Christmas list for Little E was derived from listening to him talk about what he’d like to get over the past year. Everything here is something he’s said he wants. Other family members will get him clothes and books and stuff, and believe me, I’m grateful for that. That leaves me open to get the cool stuff for him. Everything was paid for by me eBaying off some of my own stuff to raise funds.

Here’s the cool stuff. … Read more