Toys

When I was a kid I got into modeling. Unlike most boys though, I wasn't really into cars or airplanes. My thing was STAR TREK. I tired several times to build a model of the USS ENTERPRISE. The first attempt was with a really nice, expensive kit that was WAAAAY too advanced for my skill level. It was also a piece of crap. I built most of the damn thing, but the warp nacelles would NOT stand up. I though that perhaps I had done something wrong, but just this past week I found out that I was not only one who encountered this problem.

Anyway, I bought a cheap $12 model kit that had a much small ENTERPRISE and I built it--but I never got around to painting it. So it sucked.

I remember playing with a model of the ENTERPRISE that my Uncle David had built when he was a kid (not the starship but the NASA space shuttle). I'd lay on the floor in my room and wage a campaign against the Klingon Empire (represented by numerous bent-up coat hangers). My sister Amber and I had a conversation about toys recently--we both agreed the best toys we had growing up were the ones we improvised.

Give a kid a big, expensive toy, and watch him/her fall in love...with the box.

Anyway, a month ago I was at the mall and I saw a toy store going out of business (imagine that, right?). This store was the home of a Godzilla figure that I'd been wanting for several years (but Leah always said "no"). I went in and got not ONE but TWO Godzilla's (Classic 'Zilla and the more modern variant introduced in 2000--but NOT the American piece-of-shit). Anyway, it was a great "waiting-made-it-better" moment.

Leah and I have been watching the first season of STAR TREK on our Netflix stream. Amazingly, we both enjoy the shit out of classic TREK...which has, along with J.J. Abram's TREK trailer renewed my interest in TREK. So I went online and saw pictures of the new STAR TREK toys--and I was really bummed (that I wasn't a kid). When I was a kid, there was no super cool toys for TREK (or STAR WARS--at least, not until about 1998 when I was almost too old for toys). Let me just say--kids nowadays have all the luck (don't get me started on the official LEGO STAR WARS models that I would have cut off my arm to have when I was 12).

But, being an adult means you have money--which while not always the answer, can often help one surmount hurtles of both time and space (pun intended). Thus, I went on Amazon and bought one hell of a toy:





It lights up. It talks. It has a Starfleet symbol for a stand. It's a sweet replica of the classic 60's ENTERPRISE. And I didn't get a headache from any stupid glue--because this MO-FO came 100% put together--thus, I get my ship...minus the failure. For ONCE I feel being an adult ain't so bad after all.