Click for larger img, if you so desire.

I'm slightly toy-addicted, but I'm getting better ever since I got carried away a few years ago, then figured out that a house full of plastic just isn't feasible. My "Where y'at" photos where full of toys, and toys even ended up in my "Hands and Feet" photos.

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These are actually really small. The skeletal paratrooper is an inch-&-a-half and I bought a few dozen of them from a discount catalog a few years back. Someday I'm going to paint them all perfectly. And take photos. Or something. Then there's little Charlie, looking nervous next to his buddy. (But he always looks nervous).

Nervous Charlie is from my childhood when there were still places in tiny downtown Painesville like Toyland, a small shop with metal shelves all the way up to the high stamped-metal ceilings, an entire aisle filled with cardboard boxes full of cheap rubber spiders and snakes and monsters and soldiers and dinosaurs and exotic animals, all for a nickel or a quarter, or maybe fifty cents (for something really BIG.) It's gone now, of course, but it was a kind of childhood paradise lost, like a shop out of a Harlan Ellison story that looks small on the outside but expands magically and infinitely on the inside, full of young dreams, enough to keep Jeffty five years old forever.

For some reason Charlie's hair is a separate piece. It comes off and his head is hollow. His head is flat too, and with that little body he's more comfortable upside-down than standing on his tiny feet.

And then there's my 1969 or 1970 Astronaut G.I. Joe, standing next to my Universal Monsters Wolfman. 'Nuff said.

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Pic and story here.

I ran high-schl CC, sciurus. That sounds like our CC highjinks!

it's friday?

Both a toy and a meaningful object for me:
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Full of Matchbox and Hotwheels cars and trucks:
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I keep this hidden away in my closet. I expect to give it to my children some day. It's not valuable in an Antique's Roadshow sense, but to me it's priceless.

I actually hemmed and hawed over whether I should even take it out to photograph, because of the memories it invokes. But now I'm glad I did.

I lost my favorite childhood toy- a little stuffed dog my Mom bought me when we went to the "new PX" on base in Okinawa for the first time. It was a little white dog made by Russ, wearing a blue jumpsuit with a ruffle around it's neck and hands. It had a little brown eye patch. It rattled when you shook it. I took it to school with me one day in the 2nd grade, and it disappeared. I still think that snotty Melissa girl stole it. I would do anything to get another one.

Wow. Great stories! Pictures or no.

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Here's Tige. My mom got him at my baby shower the April before I was born. He's been with me my entire life (except for when I was away at college). He's still around now, a little dirtier and a little worse for wear. I don't sleep with him anymore, as I'm scared I'll destroy him.

His official birthday is exactly two months before mine (which makes him an Aries!). I no longer celebrate his birthday with twinkies, ding-dongs, or cupcakes, but I remember it every year. He's not really like Hobbes (and I've had him for longer than Calvin's had his), but he is a trusted companion and a sage advisor. Mostly because whenever I'm having problems or doing something silly, he just looks at me with that same expression until I realize I'm being stupid, immature, or a fraidy-cat. He's my best inanimate friend!

This little chickadee was given to me by George's stepdad, Bernard, who's 92. He started whittling when he was in his late 70s, and has made some really fabulous pieces.

I love this little bird. Although it doesn't show so well in the pictures, the feathers are really well-defined and the proportions are just right. I always smile when I look at it. It's sweet.

It's very precious to me - one of the things I'd rescue if the house was burning. It symbolises me being made to feel a part of a large extended family - something I'd never known before.

Loving this so far!

I can't believe I forgot about Photo Friday. Will you guys still be paying attention after work this evening? Hmph, didn't think so.

I can't believe I forgot about Photo Friday. Will you guys still be paying attention after work this evening? Hmph, didn't think so.
posted by mike9322 17 March | 12:30

THEN IT SHALL BE BUMPED!
;-)

Bucephelus.

I love the film The Black Stallion. Alec's father gives him a small bronze horse similar to this one and tells him the story of Alexander the Great's horse. I found this a few years ago at an artist's coop. Although I couldn't really afford it, I had to have him.

Flickr is having problems, so he's here as well.

This is my wooden alligator. I still remember when Jerry, a friend of my parents' from college, gave him to me when I was three. I only recently found out that Jerry didn't actually make the alligator (I don't know why I always thought he did), but that does not diminish the toy's charm.
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This is my first gargoyle. A scanned picture for my last apartment in Seattle, about 10 years ago. He has a name, but has yet to tell me as he just keeps laughing. I found him in the midst of a tough period about 15 years ago. Distractedly wandering the U District in Seattle after a particularly bad day, I saw him in a shop and burst out laughing trying imagine the absurdity that would make a gargoyle toss back its head and roar in laughter. He's been with me ever since.

My second gargoyle, Boris I don't know where I got Boris, but he's supposed to sit on your desk and think heavy thoughts for you. He's a deep ponderer. Instead, I have him by my bed to work through bad dreams so I can sleep in peace. Or make me smile. He does an outstanding job at both.

Rain Duckie and Devil Duckie Both I got on the same night of one my last big events in Portland before moving to SF. A bunch of people (60 or so) participated in a city wide scavenger hunt called Peachblow. It took over six hours and we went all over the city, overcame several unintended obstacles only to be brutally sabotaged by the preceding team at the last turn. Determined to actually finish honorably, we completed hunt after an 'agent' confirmed with HQ that we'd been burned and we were given the missing clue. Midnight, stepping out of the car and into a well lit, highly patrolled but deserted public park, Rain Duckie, half buried in mud caught my eye. I picked it up out of a newly acquired habit of considering anything to be a possible clue. We walked across the park and came to a pond. FULL of Devil Duckies. Weighted down, on the bottom of the pond was a packet with the directions to Peach Blow HQ. We all grabbed a duckie. They remain representative of an amazingly fun and surreal time together in the lives of a number of friends.

Blue marble I don't know exactly how long I've had this marble. Or why. I can lose my keys ten times a day, but somehow, I have managed to hold on to this marble for the better part of 20 years. It has moved from bags to pockets to drawers and back again, but it is usually very near me physically (it's been in my makeup bag for the past five or six years.) This wasn't brought to my attention until a year ago when a group of friends with whom my catch phrase of "You lose your marble!" had become a running joke, searched my bag when I was using the loo. I came out and they were uncharacteristically quiet. "We thought it was a joke, but you really DO have a marble!"

[On preview, great stories, guys!]

I forgot to make a critical point. The alligators jaw snaps open and shut when you roll him. It is imperative that you know this.

ej, that is one cute chickadee.

alligator's, not alligators.

Teddy

Teddy (w/Priscilla)

Suggestions for the week after next:
*Something that makes you smile (too close to this week? Can be very abstract, from a sunrise, to a person)
*Something that makes you proud (a trophy, something you saved really hard to buy, a smile on your S.O.'s face)
*Goofy clothes (take a pic of yourself in a goofy outfit, something you never wear anymore, a funny wig or hat)
*Sanctuary (a favorite place, a park, a cafe, wherever you go to relax/feel safe)

Frisbee - holy shit. Look here, Boris has a brother (gargoyle on far right). I got him at a sidewalk artshow in Everett, WA from the artist who made him.

I got the gargoyle on the left in The Heights in Houston, TX at a garden shop (he's my favourite and I almost posted his photo). The mister gave me the centre gargoyle (he's from somewhere here in BC).

What the heck. I've uploaded a photo of my favourite I took three years ago.

Ok, I'm going to geek out here and probably bore the shit out of you. But what the hell.

This is an AMD K6 200mhz CPU. It's the processor from my first computer, and one of the very first things I bought with "my" money as I went off to college.

The CPU ran on a "Baby AT" motherboard, whose manufacturer escapes me at present. It had a very pretty PCB, which was perhaps not the point of the device but couldn't hurt.

Here's the heat-sink. There was a little tiny fan on the top, which I'd almost forgetten. I eventually upgraded the machine to a K6-2+ 450, which was actually a notebook CPU and ran very cool.

When I ordered the machine (from Cybermax, a now-defunct online seller) they had to swap the STB graphics card out for a Matrox Mystique 220, which as it turned out was a fabulous stroke of luck. The Mystique had only marginal 3D tech on board, but it was supremely reliable and totally compatibile with any OS I threw at it. And with only 2mb of video-RAM onboard it was a faster 2D card than some 16MB cards I had later.

I did not, however, perform adequately as a gaming card, so I saved my pennies in college and upgraded to the now-legendary 3Dfx Voodoo2 .(picture) I can remember getting it installed (which involved running a passthrough cable into my Mystique) and being disappointed by the lack of new shininess in some shareware motorbike game I had. I then installed Battlezone (remember the "Large Assets" file?) and proceeded to giggle like a schoolboy for the next 24 hours.

The shining moment of this card was the original Starsiege: Tribes, which my best friend and I played non-stop for... about a year.

I eventually moved on to cards like the 3Dfx Voodoo3 (picture) and my current Nvidia 6600GT (soon to be upgraded, I imagine).

This is Ganish who sits on my desk. I bought him from a hemp clothing store run by an old hippy dude who sounded like he had just popped in from the summer of love. About a year later he was busted for selling small amounts of Marijuana. In searching the store basement the police found about $150,000 in cash in small bills in boxes. Seems he had been selling joints for years and years and just been saving the money.

I lurve my bike, even though it is garaged for the winter. It's a 1941-42 Schwinn, badged as a Firestone. It is pre-war, which makes it rare because many bicycles (and most other bits of metal) were collected to be used for the war effort. The bike is all original, although I have modern pedals and saddle and tires on it for ridings and whatnot.