Lego Pirates Ships

One of the frustrating things about Lego was the choices! We'd get to the Lego aisle and be instantly overwhelmed, wanting it all and coming away with one, but knowing all the while that whatever we came away with wouldn't disappoint, even if it was your standard Renegade's Raft or Battle Cove (both of which I know we had). Every little piece added to the Legoland mythos we were slowly building up in the bedroom. The Lego Pirates were always my favorite Lego system because they had the coolest boats and I was really into boats. Introduced in 1989, the Lego Black Seas Baracuda (pictured) had to be one of the classiest Lego products ever assembled, with its striking red-striped sails and stern-side cabin (complete with little windows), raft, real-working pulley and anchor system, plank (as in, "walk the plank!"), and two canon ports, it really just doesn't get any more cool from Lego (and that's saying a lot).

That was of course until the even more impressive Skull's Eye Schooner came along in 1993. On this one they really outdid themselves, decking it out with all the above (minus extensive stern-side cabin although it's still there), but adding taller masts, black-striped sails, and four canon ports. They even threw in a shark for good measure. So if you were lucky enough to get your hands on the best of the Legoland universe, it was still sure to be the choice of "I want both."

Then there was the more battle-rattled Red Beard Runner, which featured some more movable parts and torn up sails for combat action and functioned as the the pirate's response to the Armada Flagship. For those who don't know, the Lego Pirates system included a few spinoffs with its Imperial Armada and Islanders collections designed to give the pirates some foes to contend with and ultimately some more sets for you to buy to complete the saga. The Imperial Armada were supposed to be the "good guys," but as any swashbuckler will persuade you, the pirates were always the real good guys with the heart for adventure while the Armada was just "the Man" trying spoil the fun. That "man" (so to speak) was called Commander Broadside, the archenemy of the fierce Captain Red Beard, or so we are told. This was the equivalent of Treasure Island on my 8yo me's imagination. 

Many of the Imperial Armada sets had something to do with brigs and jails for the pirates, but they also had their own fleet of ships which weren't as impressive as the pirates of course, like the Armada Flagship (also called the Royal Warship), which only had one main mast and stern sail, one canon, and movable masts for combat, so of course you just had to have both to get any high-seas adventure going. Despite this, just the contrast of the blue-striped sails and feather-hatted, stuffed-shirted soldiers clashing with the patch-eyed reds made this also a must-have, and it's actually not as small as it looks. It was joined by the more striking Imperial Flagship, which had two canon ports and was obviously designed more to go ship-to-ship with the pirates. 2010 apparently also saw the release of an even more impressive Imperial Flagship to rival its pirate archenemy, showing just how much progress they made the first time around. You can't beat the pirates, but you can certainly try!

Tramways and Gondolas

Every couple weeks I search out more and more odd things just to give the couple dedicated readers I (probably) have yet more insights into everything that was quintessential me as I was growing up. Nothing quite says "8yo Me" like the excitement of a gondola ride up a mountain, for the highlight of any trip north to the White Mountains all those Precambrian years of my life was undoubtedly the five minute ride along those waves of cables and towers. 

If I'm not mistaken, I believe Mount Canon was the one with the tramway, which was like a bus-sized lift bringing people to the summit and back, and Mount Loon had the more intimate gondolas, which I liked better. I remember the tramway actually had only one big tower post in the middle doing all the heavy lifting while the gondolas had them marching up the side like a ski lift. Mount Wildcat also had the gondolas, but that was more of a skiing destination, so we didn't ascend that one much. Ironically the biggest one of them all, Mount Washington, is a drive up, which is also the most harrowing ascent of them all for reasons those of us in the know will know! "This Car Climbed Mt. Washington" is a popular bumper sticker up here for all those who've done it and survived. But at least they give you an audio tour guide when you're driving up that is both informative and hilarious to play along the way if you should ever find your front end dangling off a ledge! "Make sure to take this opportunity to view the beautiful vista to your left..." Ahhhh!  

When riding the gondola though, I actually wasn't so much interested in the views my dad was constantly trying to get me to "stare out at." Like most boys, I was way more interested in the mechanism of the actual lift itself, its lonely outpost towers sticking up the blinding-white snow slope like advancing high-tension lines every here and there, that slight "bump-bump" I'd hear every couple minutes, and of course all the waving at the other gondolas passing on the way down. Once at the top, the excitement cooled as we'd enter that Enterprise docking bay, although coming up on it was always a contest of "who could spot it first." "Oh I see where we're going now!" I'd usually spend the whole time at the top just dreaming of the way down, and at the bottom be all like "let's go again!" 

Now all this was rather odd because I had a deathly fear of heights, but something about taking off in one of these guys was more exciting than fear-inducing, probably because I figured if they ever fell off at least the enclosure might break the impact a tad. This love of riding the lift itself (and never the actual skiing experience, for I have never skied) may seem rather trite now compared to all the grandeur going on around it, but you got to imagine what these things were to the proverbial 8yo Me. When these guys came sliding down the line into place and those futuristic doors opened, they ceased being a mere lift device and became Enterprise shuttlecrafts! You step in and it's nothing but "God help us in the hands of engineers!" and "warp speed ahead!" It was nothing but a little futuristic escapism in the great middle of nowhere. 

McBoo Halloween Pails

Sit down kids and listen to a scary story: Every once and a while back in the day, around Halloween night, McDonalds would give kids Halloween-styled pails with their Halloween-styled Happy Meals (frightening stuff in there!) to go trick-or-treating with, so you got to know that for a dork like myself, this probably had my name all over it, and it sure did. Despite how dorky you may have looked carrying one these around trick-or-treating, at least the old McBoo pails they used to send us home happy with actually had something to do with Halloween. Usually it was a pumpkin, a ghost, and witch, and I know I definitely had the pumpkin one with the queasy "ga-harsh!"-looking face, and probably still do somewhere, burred out in the garden, waiting to rise again!


But here's the real scary part. The new 2013 McDonalds Halloween "McBoo" pails (which aren't even called that now) are just crass marketing tie-ins for Angry Birds and some other junk they think girls will go for. What a shame.

Happy Halloween!

Forgotten 90s Kids Movies III

We watch a lot of movies as kids, the good, the bad, and the forgettable, and they all kind of just exist as facts of life at the time. We don't know any better, or maybe we do, but we don't care. I've said it before and I'll say it again, kids aren't as dumb as they look. They can discern trash from gold, they just don't always care and usually find something to like in anything. I guess that's where I come in, because I actually remember being disappointed by a few movies even as a kid, and that's got to count for something, even if it was rarely for grown up reasons. Here I'm going to look at some kids movies I spent hours of my life parked in front of back in the 90s, some of which I remember liking and some of which I remember being disappointed by, but still coming away like "eh, it exists, so it couldn't have been bad." Most of these are of the "inspirational" variety. You know, the ones with lots of title cards and stock movie scores in the trailers and deep-voiced men saying "Paramount Pictures presents..." very slowly. That's the kick I'm on now.

Andre - I was massively disappointed by this as a kid. First of all, the movie bills itself as based on some inspiring true story about a seal named Andre that got adopted by a family in Maine in 1962 and then kept returning to shore every year or something and went on to a life of fame because of it. But all of that "inspiring true story" I wanted to see seemed to be condensed to the last two minutes. The rest of it was Free Willy, happening before all that took place. It was instead the touching story of a girl and her seal doing stuff together like blowing copious raspberries and getting into mischief, until the big bad fishermen try to put an end to all the shenanigans because shenanigans shouldn't be had and they got fish to catch. I think it suffices to say that I don't remember anything much about this movie, and so it probably is truly forgotten. And just doing a little reading reveals that the animal in the movie is a sea lion, not even a seal! "He's just a friend!" "A bad-smelling, fish-eating, raspberry-blowing friend??"

Fly Away Home - More girl power. Yay? On the flipside to Andre, when it comes to "girl and her animal" movies, this one I saw with the lowest expectations, even laughing at the premise, and then actually came away much impressed with. I mean, the story sounds ridiculous: a girl becomes mom to a bunch of geese chicks that grow up and need to do what Canadian geese do (fly away home...), so she gets her dad to build a giant flying goose to lead the way for them north or at least back to their homeland Canada before their visas expire. Despite that, this film actually works as a story. The characters are pulled together in this common cause, this girl and her dad become closer during the experience, she learns what being a mom is all about (I don't think she had one, or something), and we even get these spectacular flight scenes. Overall, not totally forgettable, except that it was largely forgotten. And now thanks to the wonders of the internet, I no longer have to feel crazy for calling it "Flying Wild!" Apparently that was its original name. I KNEW I saw it in the commercial once! It took me 20 years but I finally won that argument! "You are risking your daughter's life for a bunch of geese!" 

Angels in the Outfield - This movie could not disappoint, because it was exactly what it seemed. A young foster-care boy longs for the affection of a father who pins his entire acceptance of parenthood on whether a baseball team will win the pennant. So said boy doesn't just wish for this to happen, he prays for it: "God, if there is a God, do you think you could help them win a little?" And because it was a prayer and not just a wish, God responds to it by sending "angel Christopher Lloyd" to do just that for the team, and they do just that, but wouldn't you know it, the kid had a family all along! This movie actually wasn't that bad, and even had some funny bits involving the slapstick physics of the angels ("There was an angel in my Coke!" and the gut-busting scene where a guy sits down on one!), but it also had a heart in there somewhere. Not too many kids films deal with foster care, although maybe Free Willy also had something to do with that. You also don't see too many mainstream kid movies actually deal with religion, even if this is about as saccharine and non-denominational as it gets. I still liked it. Little known fact: Joesph Gordon Levitt had to start somewhere! "Even though you can't see us, we're alllllways watching!" 

Balto - This movie really disappointed me, but only because I was so looking forward to it. The trailers made it look like this epic, mature, beautifully made adventure film based on a true story of the Idig-a-dog snow teams and how they saved Nome Alaska with a shipment of "antitoxin" during an epidemic. Imagine my disappointment when all those beautifully animated scenes in the trailer weren't so amazing in the context of the story, like the trailer's "aurora borealis scene" which turned out to be just... broken glass shining on snow wall... that kind of thing. While there is quality animation at times and the real life story elements are treated pretty well, I wasn't expecting just how much of the film was going to be so "kiddied-up." I didn't care for the live action parts, although I suppose they explain all the fantastical elements, and I actually didn't care for all the slapstick for once, which normally would've been my thing, but maybe I just expected more from Balto... although I did end up loving the polar bears just for being funny, despite their uselessness. "Wolf-dog! Better get back to your pack!!" 

The Indian in the Cupboard - Politically incorrect title aside, this movie was kind of the same as Balto in that it promised much and delivered little. The whole thing is full of strange scenes, like a kid getting a cupboard for his birthday for one. I don't want to see that. I was embarrassed for him! Then there's the long scene where the older brother steals his precious cupboard only for it to be found in the crawlspace two minutes later, and, oh now the key is missing, so now we got to get the key, and it's just goes on and on. Mostly the movie just underwhelmed me. If I had a magic cupboard that made my toys come to life, I'd be bored with a little Indian real fast. I'd be sticking my dinosaurs in there! Let's get some toys to eat the other toys and then we'd be talking. I wanted this cupboard to become a threat to civilization, but no such luck. I don't even remember what the plot to this was. But I will give it credit for depicting dorks in a true and positive light, because this kid and his circle of friends could've easily fit in with my friends back then, real horror-show. "You should not do magic you don't understand!" 

So there we have it. Until next time, wait for next time.

Camcorders and "Home Movies"

Okay everyone, say 'Griswolds!'
Nowadays we can take pictures and video with a few taps of the touchscreen, but I remember a time when we actually dreaded making what we used to call "home movies." I remember how dad (usually dad) was always whipping the big-honking thing out every Christmas, birthday, and just any day he felt like being an amateur filmmaker, propping it up on his shoulder and gathering us all together to be the main attraction, whether we wanted to or not. I remember the "squint" in the view-finder, the ever-present JVC or Panasonic logo, the assortment of big glass lenses covered in fingerprints, and (though it may be total anachronism now) I remember a time when you really did see the little white lines and the blinking red "REC" in the corner when you recorded something. This is where it all comes from kids.

At least these days you can delete horrible shots, but there was a time when your dad's film ambitions would be stuck down on celluloid forever, whether they were picture-perfect Kubrickian high cinema or (more likely) Michael Bay shaky-cam clip show. How many of us have reams of celluloid devoted to us flipping the bird on vacation, getting pukey-faced after too much ice cream on our birthday, or the ever-popular "sitting on the toilet" voyeurism they used to torture us with? Home movies were always more of an interruption. How annoying was it to have to stop tearing into your presents on Christmas morning to announce "what you got" and "show it to the camera" every five minutes like the camera was a person and gave a damn? In fact, I will go out on a limb and say the camcorder was a weapon of psychological destruction... even if it couldn't have been any worse than what these "Disney World! Nah, just kidding..." Youtube parents do these days. At least our humiliations weren't broadcast for the whole world to see! So I guess you could say the camcorder has screwed up two generations of kids, or at least, the people wielding them have. "Daddy did it" indeed.

It was easier said than done anyways. I could never get camcorders to work right. Nobody ever seemed to know if they were actually recording when we thought they were recording, or not recording when we thought they were doing what they were doing when we thought they were recording, or just not recording. If that's confusing, then yeah, that's kind of what it was like. There was always some little "blinking light" hidden somewhere on it that would tell you, nevertheless, I can't tell you how many vacation videos were void of any of the sights and full of hour-long bouncy shots of the interior of the camcorder case. There'd always be that moment after we all got together in front of some landmark, all grinning like a bunch of fools, and dad (usually dad) would go, "Hmm... that's funny... it says the tape is out... I put a new one in two hours ago... just hold still family... got to figure this thing out here..." Better was sitting down later to see your dad's short shorts in a whole new light... for a half an hour.

Not only did I not care very much about making or viewing home movies, I don't know anyone who did. People even used to host parties and invite people over to watch their home movies, embarrassing the hell out of all involved, so I made sure whenever I got the spotlight, I'd make it worth it. I'd usually do things like smooch the camera lens or do a funky dance, just to give the people something. Likewise, my uncle used to play games with it, like turn it upside down randomly so that we were jumping on the ceiling, and my dad used to do "magic tricks" with it when we were little, using jump cuts to make us suddenly "vanish" from a shot. Those were always fun. And I got to say, every time I got to play around with one of these camcorders, getting to prop it up on my shoulders, it never failed to make me feel like an amateur Spielberg. If I had a touchscreen camera as a kid though, I'd probably be an amateur Spielberg by now.

Can I get a boom mic on this?

The Greatest Birthday Gift

Desk lamps: The birthday present
of champions!
I will not tell you when my birthday is for obvious reasons, but I have video document evidence of myself on my actual 8th birthday tossing aside clothes, games, and then virtually flying into pure elation hysterics over getting a desk lamp. This was the home movie I saw years back where I throw aside a birthday card to get to the present, only to be redirected back to the card. "You got to read the card!" "Read the card first!" 

Of course, who can forget having to be told to stop and "read the card" when you're in the middle of tearing open presents? Your eyes fixate on those words you can barely read and yet still find their way back to the new game or toy sitting on standby, waiting for you to decide when enough "card time" was enough, especially with everyone watching you "stare at it." I was all like "Are they still looking? Screw this... can I just put it down now? What's in that box?"

So once that duty was over it was on to the presents, apparently I had my heart set on a desk lamp that year for some reason because my eyes just blew open wide with amazement at this ordinary white desk lamp and I just couldn't stop talking about it. Even long after, I can be seen very visibly sneaking peaks at this desk lamp. Now if that reveals anything about me, it's that my excitement threshold for the mundane has probably always been exceedingly low.

The major thing I remember about that desk lamp was it was white all over (like the picture) and I ended up putting a green light-bulb in it so that all those late nights would be lit in a green glaze, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. This was the case until the early morning when my milk looked like orange juice (I shouldn't have to explain how eyes work). Red had always been my favorite color, but I think I blasted green into my brain so many nights that green just took over. How groovy was it that I got to spray our bedroom green every night as I crawled into that top bunk (much to my brother's chagrin down below)?

Even today if you saw the way I live, you'd say this guy is all about green. Not only is this time-waster of a site decked out in green, but I even have green sheets and towels (yes, I bought them for college). My walls are green. My desktop is green. I even like green tea. And I guess I have my 8th year of life, and one very funky birthday present, to thank for it. You know what else is green? No, not money. The Klingon Bird of Prey!

The "Soda Bark"

Fun fact:
Sprite cans
don't look like
this anymore.
*Mind blown*
To this day I am addicted... URRRP! (aw yeah) ...to all things fizz. Even plain old water, just put some bubbles in it and I'm good to go. These days I'll usually be in the process of finishing off a can of something or other any given hour of the day and my palette changes a lot (I've switched sides in the Cola War... sorry Pepsi, I still like your diet though), but when I was a kid my thing was Sprite, maybe because it was sweeter than 7up. I lived on the stuff. I drank it like water. You know how when people can't sleep they usually go for a glass of water or a swig from the ol' milk carton at 3am? I was not one of those people. When I was wandering the house in my undignified attire at 3 in the morning looking for fluids, I was gunning for the Sprite, because hey, it's "caffeine free" after all. That means I could have it before bedtime and not have to worry about being up at 3am and unable to sleep... which obviously didn't happen.

And not only did all this carbonation excess from the Sprite never fail to induce a powerful spell of deep-throated and continuous burping, it also made those burps taste their very best. That is, like pure monstrous awesome. And I don't care if you're going to hate me for saying it, but if you were ever your 8-year-old self once, you should know what I mean when I say that the second best part of putting soda into you was what it causes to come back out of you! I might polish off a can and lay back bobbing my head for minutes as the "rolling thunder" was wrought, or I might go a whole minute, the pressure building like a volcano, and then just release it like a beast! Loud and proud enough to make Simba blush, and especially if there were other maturity-impaired persons in the area, or just anyone who can appreciate art when they hear it. 

Later I moved on up and outgrew such silly pursuits. I mean, why practice such an immature pastime as the "soda bark" once you've figured out how to burp loudly on command? My friend Nick taught me how to burp on command in the 3rd grade, and at school no less! It was like learning a super power. Now my burps were no longer tethered to food and drink, but anywhere and anytime, and with some practice (and a lot of accidental puking), I was able to make them at least as loud as the good old "soda barks" of yore. I know, it's a useful skill for any boy, but then again, seen any mammoths lately? We gotta do something to feel like true champions of manliness in a world with no mammoths! This is what we have to work with.

The only problem, besides the fact that girls avoided me like the plague (either grossed out or genuinely scared of the fucking TIGER I had roaring in my throat!) and teachers either thought I was just priming myself for the principal's office or about to explode ("are you okay Mark?), was that burps on command never came with that sweet, fresh, lemon-lime zest that just made the soda barks all the more special. But no worries, that's what burp-talking was for! And that usually consisted of me saying "penis" over and over, delivered in the key of tiger roar level belch. I was just a few letters away from the full alphabet.

It really is an art. And like any art, anyone can do it (anyone can pick up a paintbrush or bang on a piano too), but it takes talent and practice to REALLY rip 'em out loud and proud, like beautiful crescendos of throaty bullfrog blasts. I was never a prodigy, but I could hold my own. I mean, nothing was funnier sometimes than being around mixed company, like other parents or teachers, sitting there and letting out this ear-piercingly loud monster URRRRRRRRRRRRP!!! like a fucking subwoofer blitzing out, a tire popping, a lion roaring, or whatever else a deep-throated, full-throttle, earthquake-inducing, rip of esophageal man-thunder could be compared to... only to follow it up with a cute little "excuse me!"... like, you know, because that makes it all okay. And then do it again! Ah... memories.

Sometimes I swear I sucked so much air in, some of it would go missing inside me, only to come out as a fart instead. I mean, you'd be sitting there just clenching up again and again, sucking in air, putting stress on your whole body, and suddenly it would come out the other end.... FRRRRPF! And then it's like, wow, that was an unexpected treat! Yeah, nothing was wasted! Me and Nick both got a kick out of that, and wondered if it could work the same in reverse, or if we could master burping and farting at the same time, which is to be living the dream. We never reached that level though. That's beyond manly. That's God tier.

Still, with a little more practice...

Favorite Chapter Books

I really liked to read as a kid, maybe only because I didn't grow up with a GameBoy for a hand, but I'm sure I'm not the only one. Any book that had a big shiny Newbery Medal embossed on the cover had to be legit, and that was good for me, because how would I have known if a book was good or not without it? When it comes to Newbery medals, there were books like Hatchet. I remember picking up Gary Paulsen's Hatchet in the 4th grade and regarding it like "high literature," like the kind of thing "adults read." Here I was thoguh, I didn't even know what a "hatchet" was (even long into reading the story), but I knew at least that the cover had a howling wolf and teen guy, a giant ax, and a plane. It looked like it was shaping up to be a great outdoors adventure story, so of course I dove into it. "I can read," I figured.

Like most kids, I loved adventure books and had grown up on really obscure book series like The Ladd Family Adventures and Adventures in Odyssey, and so this book really was right up my alley and even looked so much more "mature" about it's adventure, so I knew I had to give it a look. In fact, it may have been the first so-called "adult book" I ever attempted. And I really mean "attempted," because the first time around I never finished it. My un-diagnosed dyslexia that I don't have (I think) was causing me to call the main character "Brain" rather than Brian, and I just remember thinking what a weird name "Brain" was for a guy. Whether Brain or Brian, this book really was a good adventure story of a youth going down in a plane crash and having to survive in the wilderness completely alone and with nothing but his trusty hatchet (which I only later figured out was an ax, since the cover didn't clue me in). I enjoyed it so much that I still find myself calling any weird berry I see in the woods "gut-cherries." Remember kids, red and sweet.

There was another book a teacher read to us about a young graffiti artist's daily romp for survival and his mad dashes to avoid the cops that I just drooled over, but for some reason I can't find any record of this story's existence and don't remember any details about it (even the title or anything) other than a thrilling shopping mall chase scene where he skillfully paints his insignia and manages to avoid security. He goes on to become a famous graffiti artist in the process. Now despite vanishing from existence itself, that story about the besieged graffiti artist may have been the first time I said "I want to WRITE one like that!" in response to a book, and that inspiration has never left. But then there definitely was yet another book that definitely does exist that I didn't so much read but had read to me (the teacher during story time in the 4th grade), but it has come down through the years as one of my all-time favorites and one that I still tell people had a major influence on me wanting to be a novelist and what kinds of novels I wanted to write. This was Dear Mr. Henshaw, by Beverly Cleary. 

I had read Cleary's Ralph S. Mouse books, or maybe had them read to me in story time, throughout the 2nd grade, but when it came to Dear Mr. Henshaw, I just remember being so captivated (even as a kid) by the drama and realism of that book. The story is a compilation of letters written by a boy over the course of several years to an author "Mr. Henshaw" who had visited his class when he was just a tyke. The first letter the kid writes is a class assignment and reads like a small child wrote it, but then for some reason this kid just keeps writing letters to this same author over the course of his life and that's where we get to see him grow up, we get to hear about all the turbulence in his family, his obvious need for a role model, his mood swings, the ups and downs, and his letters even start becoming long and detailed as he gets older. The book was all about growing up at an age when I thought I'd be 9 years old forever. I mean, this was pretty heavy stuff for a kids book, like LMN-heavy stuff, but it was the realism about life that got me, and that's why I said "I want to write books like that." 

The Rescuers Down Under

I had previously said in ages past when I did my reviews of "Great Forgotten Kids Films of the 80s and 90s" that I hadn't seen 1990's The Rescuers Down Under since I was a kid, and since the quality of the film is often cited (Nostalgia Critic hath decreed), I decided to have it added to the Netflix a few weeks back to see if I could rediscover the lost glory that is this film. Dare I say, it actually didn't disapoint. What can I say? This is funny as hell: "These are NOT Joanna eggs!!"

I will admit that the story was a little 'slight' (particularly with the mice), but that was true with the first one too, probably only because there isn't enough story here to support a premise this interesting. But the movie is still a riot and a roller coaster from start to finish. In fact, it may be one of my personal favorite Disney films, maybe because I just love everything about this sumptuous idealized Australian outback landscape we get to go joy-riding through, and I know I did when I saw it as a kid too. I mean, just take a gander at this incredible scene which comes hot off the equally-awesome opening credits sequence which I'm sure we all have burned somewhere in the back of our minds just waiting to be rediscovered. Boy did I want to be having these kinds of exciting wildlife adventures:



They don't make 'em like that anymore.

Super Soakers aren't "Squirt Guns"

Who you callin' "Squirt"?
For all of human history, guys have taken joy in shooting things at other things... whether it was the bow and arrow, the slingshot, the cap gun, the paintball, the BB gun, or... whatever other long, cylinder-shaped, obvious-metaphor-for-something-else your mind will inevitably (and correctly) include. The joy of it goes back to our origins as hunters (I'm guessing), but over time it evolved into sport, and then into shooting harmless substances at each other for kicks. A useful skill, I know, but then again, seen any mammoths lately? (And yeah, before I get gunned down, I know girls are into projectile weaponry too, it's just... for some reason it's just dumber that guys are, like pretty much everything.)

See, besides the obvious built-in "gun appendage" strapping young lads could always have fun squirting off with (distance contest anyone?), they might've also been given the classic slingshot, usually so they could make themselves useful killing small rodents on the family farm. When this was no longer necessary, the weaponry became more of a toy... all the fun of sling-shotting rodents but without the unnecessary cruelty. Besides, now you could take aim at your friends! And so, in the 1950s, we had the introduction of the cap gun, the "burp" gun, the "BRAAP!" gun (both ends represent!), and the BB gun as the quintessentially sexist "boys toys." But despite the look, the sound, and the feel of a death machine at your fingertips, the fire power was still all imaginary. So in the 80s, Sega and Nintendo developed video game shooters, and most notably Duck Hunt, using a gun-based controller to make the carnage look a little more real... but still, nothing actually came out of the gun. The evolution of toy weaponry had yet to mature beyond making funny noises, broken skin, and make believe. We were still shooting blanks.

So enter the early 90s, and the generations'-long desire to shoot your friends in the back for fun (without causing injury like a paintball or BB does) was finally unlocked! Yes, there were "squirt guns," but please. Please! Mine's bigger! The early 90s did have one major innovation in the history of toy weaponry, and it was the SUPER SOAKER. Way better and badder, and therefore more awesome, the original Super Soaker, released in 1990, could hold about 1 liter of water and fire it a good 50 feet! It also finally looked like a pretty badass futuristic "gun" like you'd expect in a Predator movie or something. The major innovation of the Super Soaker was that, unlike squirt guns, it had a "pumping action," which not only made you look like a badass Rambo-warrior when you were out prancing around the backyard with it, but also compressed the water so that when it actually did fire, it would explode like MJ at a Chuck E Cheese! And when you got hit with these jets, you were bound to be streaked and squishy-heeled in short order!

Thus, the ultimate in toy weaponry was finally achieved in our lifetimes, and the world was not safe from the chemical warfare about to be unleashed. Sure, H2O is recommended, but you could put anything in them things, even piss. The male psyche never surprises, and the circle was complete.



Over the years these things just got bigger and meaner, holding more water and firing it farther and farther distances, with all kinds of accessories, like lazor guides and multiple shots with less pumping and easier "pump" refill (much easier than having to take the water jug off!), but whatever form they took, these things just about ruled whatever birthday party I was ever invited to. Once the guns were dusted off from the garage, there was no stopping the blitzkrieg... until they had to be reloaded of course. And so it was that after decades where toy weapons were only for target practice, kids were finally allowed to use other kids as the bullseye, thanks to this device. Boys will be boys, but only because a little water never hurt anyone.

But do yourself a favor and stop calling these things "squirt guns." I had many of those small see-through plastic pistol-shaped squirters with the push-button trigger, and I don't even see how they can be compared. Every squirt gun I ever had only carried about a cup of water at most, and it only fired it about a foot or two. Please. Totally not manly. You maybe got one or two decent tiny squirts out of it before you had to pour water down that impossibly tiny hole in the top or submerge the thing and wait for it to "glub glub" its way to being stocked. There's no question that the Super Soaker and its band of clones blew the squirt gun out of the water.

Wetter is better indeed. And bigger is better. 

Stick Stickly Summers

People in the know know how zany Nick used to be, and how the idea of a popsicle sick announcer didn't sound weird at all. Stick Stickly was his name, googly eyes and felt mouth, and he was there for us at least a few summers back in the 90s announcing all the shows, doing commercials, and chilling with his popsicle and spork homeboys and girls all those sweltering summer afternoons of yore. There we could find him hosting a segment block called "Nick in the Afternoon," usually occupying some kind of miniature set featuring a prominent outlet in the back while constantly imploring all the shenanigans to "simmer down!" He also had his very own autobiographical special. I mean, this guy got to hang with celebrities, throw parties in the streets, and do whatever he was contracted to do to fill up 20 seconds at a time during commercial breaks, and I got to say, he was a welcome addition to the summer fun while it lasted.



Yeah that stick was alright... but now he's definitely in the "where are they now" file. 

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Clothing as a kid was... justifiable. It beat being naked. The choice of clothing though was, at best, not always ill advised, right? It was the 90s, which meant nothing matched. Hey, If the good Lord had intended clothes to match, he wouldn't have invented the word "radical"! There were a lot of bold, primary and neon colors, whites, and blacks. There were patterns and random designs, all competing for attention. Clothing was just one big billboard of designs, lettering, and color swabs. It was "fresh" and "urban" and "rad." It was bulky and swooshed around a lot in the wind, and usually layered. Your body was somewhere inside it at any given time, but exactly where was often hard to tell. It was cool. Jeans were usually stonewashed or bleached, or were either so baggy dudes looked like clowns, or were so high-waisted you could get your belly button lint caught in your zipper (Pre-faded? More like "pre-wedgie"). And I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't caught alive in all of this crap while growing up.

Before we begin on our head-to-toe safari of 90s artifacts, I have to preface this with an admission: I wore visor hats a lot back in my early years. Mine was a green plastic visor though. It never really kept the sun out of my eyes but I always thought it was absolutely stylin', although I could never, ever, ever, ever, ever keep the thing on my forehead.

And speaking of head gear, what could be more "all-American boy" than the classic backwards hat? It may be the most iconic "boyish thing" there is that doesn't have to do with being a dumbass or pumping out some kind of bodily function. Needless to say, I was the all-American boy (in every uncomfortable sense), so at times (when I wanted to look cool), I admit I wore a backwards hat. But you can still do one better. See, you wear it forwards, you're uncool. Dweeb! You wear it backwards, you're cool. Ex-cel-lennnt! But... if you wear it sideways, that was just... "too cool." Show off! Yeah, it was all too easy to fly too close to that sun. You could only get away with rocking it sideways if you were black, because they really are superior to us whites. Heck, that's why it's the whites who need their own wash cycle! Bring on the bleach.

Moving south, there was also a strange thing back then that I never even really noticed until I got older and started looking back on all this with a more observant eye, mostly because it was just Earth as I knew it back then. There was a strange thing in the 90s with color block designs on clothes, usually asymmetrical and once again, restricted to primary and neon colors, although purples and teals were common. It infected everything, T-shirts, button-downs, pullovers, coats... you name it, and it usually took the form of at least four realms of colors divided up arbitrarily on the apparel. It was like, sure, we'll have all the colors at once on the shirt, but they are not to intermingle! Each sleeve, each pocket, a different color! Like, let's just stitch together any random piece of fabric together, make it look like it's patched together, because that's just gnarly brah.

For example, you might have a color field on the chest divided in half (and not down the middle), with one side being blue, the other side being yellow, the sleeves being green, and the pocket being red. Or, you'd have a blue sleeve on one side and a green one on the other. Or you'd have a four-way split on your shirt, with one shoulder being green and the other being yellow. Or, you'd have one half being red and blue vertical, horizontal, or diagonal stripes and the other side being solid green...etc.  I don't know if it was just a Tommy Hilfiger thing, or what, but I definitely wore it.

And let's not even get started on the "windbreakers" (because their name sounds too much like an easy fart joke, even for me). Usually they were so over the top with their flashy colors and patterns you could see them from a mile away. They were also always bulky and made you look 30 pounds heavier, draping on you like a circus tent (and often looking like one too) until out the bottom your stubby chicken spandexed legs were just sticking out. Pretty rad, although if you were light enough, the wind could potentially take you away. Seriously, on the water it would be called sail boating.

Now if you were doing the grunge thing, which I often inadvertently and advertently did, your options were fewer. Flannel was essential. It's not grunge without flannel. And even as a kid I knew the rules of flannel. I remember schooling myself on it... okay, you NEVER button flannel, you wear it as outerwear and just let it dangle. The more frayed it is, the better. Under it, a plain-white-T, or a black one, or some kind of rock design, with bonus points for week-old food and pit stains. If you weren't draping your shoulders in flannel, then it absolutely HAD to be tied around your waist. No exception. Kurt Cobain set down the rules, and who were we to change them? It instantly made you the cool kid in school, and the more like a slacker you looked, the better.

Moving even farther south, under your flannel shirt tied around your waist, you had these wrapped around your naughty uglies. They were invariably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Power Rangers, or if you were lucky like me, Jurassic Park. Once again, no exceptions. If you were a girl, they were probably My Little Pony or something. It was the 90s. But if you were unlucky enough to just have regular old tighty-whites, half the time they weren't all white anyways, if you know what I mean. Hey people, they call them "unmentionables" for a reason! There was a time when any glimpse of your underwear by others was the most embarrassing thing you could endure, especially if you were wearing shorts. But then sagging and low-rise jeans became popular, so now just flashing your TMNT underwear for all to see is encouraged.

Sticking around your waist also was an accessory even more dreaded and yet just as ubiquitous. The fanny pack. It's one of those things where the less said about it the better, and mostly it's been banished to the 90s, but any archive footage of the era will inevitably unearth its sordid existence. First of all, the name is terrible, but besides how questionable it looks and sounds, at least it had a pure intention behind it. I mean, a backpack you hang off your shoulders. A wallet you keep in your pockets. What is so gosh golly darn wrong with a strap around your waist where you can hold your daily things in? I mean, for 90s kids, those were typically Game Boys, Pogs, Pokemon cards, and maybe a Ninja Turtle action figure... but essentials nonetheless. Somehow, this innocent and practical idea for a body accessory in execution soon became a... "no, just no." Maybe it's because it became a bit too fashionable among fat moms and dads strolling around Disney World with these things belted around their massive guts.

Now, you typically wore things on top of your underwear (usually, except on Saturday mornings), so that's where we'll head next. Fair warning! I had a few pairs of hot neon tribal shorts as a kid. Wanna make something of it? Yeah, I had some in pink too. Absolutely mesmerizing designs. If I had pictures of my dorky self wearing them all hiked up around my thighs, I'd show you, but I think any shot the camera must've taken of me in them self destructed from the sheer intensity of the dorkishness it was taking in, fashion wise. Fun to fart in. Funky, "fresh," poppin', primary color explosions of shapes and lines on bright neon fields... I mean, I seem to remember an All That skit with this hilarious super villain dude. When carrying out his dasterdly deeds, he'd bend over and tell his victims to "now stare into my butt!" and they'd be hypnotized by this spinning, whirly pattern on his ass. Yeah. That's what they call satire.

But even that is way more defensible than most of what passed as leg-wear in the 90s. I mean, come on, unless you were hanging onto some spandex from the 80s, or rocking sweat pants, you were stuck with 90s jeans. And how on Earth did they screw up something as pure and beautiful as "jeans" so badly? For both sexes! The 90s had the most crimes committed in the name of "reinventing jeans" of any decade. Whether they were stone-washed or gigantic baggy JNCOs, bootcut, or pre-faded with rips, what the hell happened? Jeans were so simple in the 80s. Taut and functional. You could even run in them! In the 90s they turned into... I don't even know what... baggy, bleached-out abominations. They were either so loose they fell down (for guys) or had waists so high up and tight they were forever to be called "mom jeans" thereafter (for girls). The perpetual wedgie-wear or a new tripping hazard. I guess they were trying to be all urban, but dang dog, since when does "I'm street cuz!" mean you need parachutes around your ass? (And the less said about "parachute pants," the better.)

And so, on that note, we end our little journey at the bottom, with something the 90s finally did right. And they didn't just do it right, they perfected it. Sneakers! I mean, once you got tired of your unisex Zebra pattern Hummel loafers because they kept falling off your feet, man oh man you were either a lucky kid rocking some LA Lights or Air Jordans or Reebok Pumps or Sketchers Hot Lights or Chucks or Heelys... or you were going to bed dreaming up ways you could suck up to your parents to buy them for you. I mean, you showed up to school with these bad boys, you were a Class-Act. You could do no wrong. They were huge. They boosted you up another inch. And they turned you into a walking target (and not just because they lit up). Let's just say, some kids went home in their socks. And if you had to be kicked in the nuts that day, it was an honor to take the hit from a pair of these, because 90s sneakers are the sexiest of all apparel by far. They are nothing but just pure, absolute, sex. Heck, maybe I've just always been sneakersexual.

And oh yeah, socks were socks. They smelled like death.

So there you have it, the head to toe rundown, 90s edition.

The Shark Grabber

The annual Discovery Channel Shark Week is upon us! So in honor of my second favorite time of year, here be sharks! This one will be in the form of a toy which we all know for having made its big cinematic debut in the film E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial where it cameo'ed as "Shark Toy" in Elliot's fish tank. Truly Spielberg knew all too well Elliot's adage: “The fish eat the fish food, the shark eats the fish, and no one eats the shark!" That's all one needs to know when watching Shark Week. No one eats the shark indeed. They just blow the sucker up.

But when it comes to the shark grabber toy in my canon, I have a confession to make. One time in middle school we all took a field trip to a local zoo park, and upon visiting the gift shop, I saw one of those shark-shaped lazy grabbers. I immediately must've pictured myself grabbing distant things with it on a lazy summer couch potato day, and so naturally I had to have it just for the sake of awesomeness cred. BUTT alas, I didn't have any money on me. So I'm forced to confess that I stole said shark grabber thingy from the park... which was surprisingly easy to do, but yeah, a tragedy (and I throw myself on the mercy of the court!). Was it worth it? Of course not, because the thing couldn't grip anything, although it did annoy my girl cousins and my sister once or twice. Apparently shark grabbers are fond of short sleeves.

If it's any consolation, our class took a field trip to the Boston Museum of Science in the 3rd grade (one of the greatest places on earth for a kid like me), and when we came to the gift shop, I bought this really awesome pen that was shaped like a tiger shark with a removable tail fin for a cap. That one I kept with me for a long time, and it may even still be kicking around in my drawer somewhere with my old key chains. The ink ran out forever ago, but I kept it just for the awesomeness. You don't just throw shark pens in the trash. You respect the shark. Nobody eats him! (except me, at the sushi bar.)

Squeezit Drinks

Everything about the "Squeezit" drink looks and sounds wrong these days, but there was a time in the 1990s when "Squeezit" literally just meant a sugary juice drink. They exist more or less as a fact of life now, but they were brand new back in the 90s, and that meant rather demented 90s advertising. Let's say it was a hot summer day. You'd rip off the wing-nut-shaped cap, suck out the little dab of juice that would always end up trapped in the cap, and the basic idea was you could squeeze the main contents out of the plastic container into your mouth. It was the drink that did the work for you, and to most 90s kids, that's all we really wanted. Because you know, "work."

Now if that sounds rather lame, that's because it was, but if you were a kid out there enjoying the perils of the backyard Slip-n-Slide, one of these could really hit the spot. The commercials on the other hand had these colorful and stylized animated Squeezit bottles getting suspiciously worked over by the kids and not having a good time in the process (or perhaps so, if you prefer it that way). I don't have to tell you what's wrong with this picture now, but I swear it didn't look like it at the time!



I remember the bottles actually had the faces on them too. 

Popsicles and Ice Pops

The northeast is in a sweltering heatwave, and that means I'm thinking popsicles, and all things cold and sweet. When it comes to summertime refreshment, three frozen staples come to mind fast, the first being the Fla-vor-Ice popsicle sticks. They came with that infamous "saw blade" serated edge that was damn near impossible to rip off even with your teeth, especially without hacking a lip or mascerating the end, and especially without at least having a little bit of air at the end to work with. (You know what I'm talking about.) Despite being hard to open, they still taste amazing. The red and the light blue were the best, and yes so was the pink one, even if it was socially unacceptable for me to get a pink one. They always came in those big sheets with like a hundred in the box, so if it took you some time to get one finished, the others would be nicely melted. I always enjoyed letting them melt right down to a liquid before sucking them down until all that was left were the little streams running up the sides. (Once again, I know you know what I'm talking about. I can't be the only one to see these things!)

The second frozen summer treat of the typical 90s childhood usually came in a fishnet bag. The were like popsicle links, with two tubular juice pops connected in the middle. Whenever they were passing these out at the daycare, I always wanted to be lucky enough to be given a whole stick, but often they had to be broken in half down the middle and split between us. If that was the case, they came in two genders. One had a rounded bottom with a smaller opening at the top, and the other had a lipped bottom with a larger opening. They didn't taste as fruity as the Fla-Vor-Ice pops, but the grape and the green apple ones were probably the best. Either way, I could down a million of them on a hot afternoon, and still can, and I will never forget the distinctive sound these made when you had to snap them in half. It was like breaking a bone: *thh-pop!*

The double-stick popsicle was probably the most frequent of my refreshment retreats all those summers of yore, and only because they were cheap at the local 7-Eleven. But despite being my most frequent treat, these actually annoyed me. Even a single stick popsicle is better than one of these, and that's what's annoying about it because you'd think doubling it should make it twice as good, but it doesn't. First of all, there's no way to really hold the thing. The sticks are too close together to hold both, but the whole thing is just too heavy to support it on one stick, so you end up uncomfortably groping your fingers longwise aorund two sticks! Secondly, they were always a million times too cold and rock solid to discern any flavor out of them after you broke a chunk off with your teeth and endured that instant brain freeze they'd implant. Lastly, there was no way you could evenly break one in half. It was like breaking a wishbone. They'd always crack off at the top, causing one side to be tiny and the other side to be this odd L shape. Now maybe it's just because I've had a million of them, but there's just too many things wrong with this whole concept to really win me. Besides, they came in like three flavors and none of them were all that sweet.

Going Native at "Indian Head"

Every summer growing up, our parents used to take us up to a popular spot in Franconia Notch NH called "Indian Head" just a few miles down the road from what (sadly) used to be "the old man of the mountain" natural monument. For anyone who doesn't know from your New Hampshire state quarters, "the old man of the mountain" or "profile rock" was a cliff side off of Cannon Mountain in the White Mountains that from a certain angle looked like a face. Sadly this New Hampshire icon fell down a few years back, but there's another profile rock worth checking out if you're ever in that "neck of the woods" (literally) called "Indian Head"-- a mountain cliff that looks like an "Indian's head." We used to stay at the Indian Head Resort up there, and while there's enough about that to warrant its own post (in time), I'm going to focus this one on something no less amazing to me, albeit far, far less grand. I'm talking about cheap paper hats, plastic bows, and rubber drum sets.

Flamingo feathers??
The Indian Head Resort had its own gift shop (just like everything does) where they sold various Native American-related gifts, toys, shotglasses and the like, and believe it or not, perusing this little overstocked alcove was the height of any four day stay in the White Mountains for me. The reason? Namely, cheap paper Native American headdresses, plastic bows, and rubber drums sets. These were a MUST have. There was no question about it. The headdresses were just a red paper front with an "eh, close enough..." Native American pastiche design on it tied around the back with an elastic string which always broke out of its staple 20 minutes after wearing it, and poised atop would be five or six colored feathers. I could put this thing on and feel like I was the "Brave Chief" for the day (as it said on the hat)... or at least for 20 minutes.

My parents usually passed on the drum kits and archery sets because they were expensive (and eBay doesn't lie), and you have to consider that getting one of anything always meant getting two of anything (because close-in-age brothers always want what the other one has!). But I do remember getting the bow and arrow and the drum kit at least once, and I even have photographic evidence of this fact. The archery set came with a couple of "suction cup" arrows that would get lost 10 minutes after they were torn from the package, a flimsy bow with a string that wouldn't send them any decent distance anyway, and a fake plastic knife that probably found its way under the car seat for the rest of the trip. The drum kit was one of those mock "hide drum" cans with some rubber stretched over both ends to make it look more "Indian" I guess. It wasn't loud enough to annoy my parents but was damn cool enough to keep us entertained in the backseat of the car as we jotted down the Kancamagus.

And I say that in all respect, because I don't for a second think any of these things communicate any significance about actual Native American history or culture, which I was genuinely interested in as a kid, but to the 8YO me, these little trinkets were just the coolest toys I could imagine having in a place called "Indian Head" up in the scenic splendor of the White Mountains. I may have once or twice walked all of "the Flume" with my feathery gear intact. If you don't know what that is, you're just going to have to check it out for yourself... or wait until I tell the tale.

Just Goin' Fishin'

It's summer time again, and few things say the great outdoors like fishing. But when it comes to real fishing (or is it reel?), my knowledge of the sport ends with the Zebco Kids' push-button spin-caster rod and reel. This was one of those gifts that you loved as soon as you got but then "gave up on" as soon you got it caught in something on the first cast across the driveway to pick up the plastic fish. After that it was confined to the "floaty fish in the kiddy pool" kind of fishing, which usually meant the plastic hook was going in my brother's shirt at some point. Score!

BUTT... beyond the backyard "sword fights" and other shenanigans with it, dad used to actually take us out on the lake in the canoe a few weekends to put it to use. The best thing I can say about this rod and reel from these experiences, besides the fact of just "having" a cool fishing pole like every guy wants (especially when it's a nice long one... impressively long and... well, long being the point), is how the whole one-pound test on it was strong enough to snag even the flimsiest surface weeds! Watch the bobbers!

Truth be told, the only fish I think I ever caught, besides the plastic kiddy pool variety, were the feeder fish (which in the kindness of my heart I set free in the lake once... dad was not happy about that). Animal rights activism aside, there was nothing like being out on the lake with dad and bro, just us guys, playing with our rods, but that time spent with this one usually involved untangling the lines, unhooking the line from bushes, trees, clothing, and body parts, rethreading the lines, untangling the lines, and generally... untangling the lines. That and listening to my dad complain about how the lake had been overfished by "the Portuguese" (... yeah, to this day, I still don't understand it either). 

But despite my complete lack of luck or common sense when it came to fishing, I did manage to net me at least one good catch... a real live mermaid! And that may sound like one very unbelievable fish story, but I swear it's the truth. Once my brother and I showed up to some kid's Halloween costume party, and because we weren't all that creative in our costume ideas (and because we had probably just got our fishing poles so it's all we cared about), we came with our poles for some reason. Now, it just so happened that at this party was this girl from our daycare dressed as Ariel, the "Little Mermaid".... so naturally... it was only a matter of time before she was taking our hooks out of her costume. I mean, obviously it was going to happen, but for some reason she didn't think it was as funny as we did, until of course we were forced to put the poles away.

Speaking of fishing, I seem to remember being particularly good at this very "indoor" game called Let's Go Fishin': "the action fishing game where players try for the biggest catch!" You take your tiny fishing pole and hook the fish that circle around the pond bobbing up and down and opening their mouths. The first one to hook the most wins! You might remember this as the kind of game you usually found stacked up in that carpeted basement playroom at your rich cousin's house along with the NES, the robotic arm, and all the other cool toys you couldn't have. You'd slide it out of the box and, wouldn't-ya-know-it, half the fish would be missing from the pond (just like they would be on a real fishing trip).

The Amazon Trail 3

For a while as a kid I had a thing for rain forests. This was after my thing for deserts and before my thing for oceans, but it was the strongest of my biome "things" and lasted a good six or so months in the 3rd grade. I'm not exactly sure why rain forests, but I think it was just the beginning of me being a sucker for anything "exotic," which continues right to the present. (Heck you could shit in a cup, but if you want to sell it to me, you better call the coffee "Sumatran!") This is why I loved playing the little PC Oregon Trail game clone "Amazon Trail" so much. Back in the day they were giving the CD for this game out for free on Cheerios boxes, so we brought it home and quickly got addicted to it. Unfortunately "free" apparently meant the shipping had the right to rub the CD in sand before they sent it, so the game never really worked right, but we still played it all the way to the end at least once.

It begins with this talking jaguar on a very cool looking shield in a museum who proceeds to lay some very brief exposition on you about being the "chosen one" before whisking you away by ancient magic of some kind to the amazon river delta. There you chose your guide and are told to travel to this town at the end of the river called "Vilcabamba" to do something I was never quite sure about. It had something to do with trading and solving problems with the people you meet to gain special talismans or something, but the main point of it was, as with all educational PC games in the 90s, actually to "educate" you, and this game spent a lot of time doing just that. But with its jungle atmosphere, bird call sound effects, and pan flutes a-plenty, it really does make you feel swept away to some exotic place, which for me is an enjoyable experience.

Just make sure you're traveling in the right direction in the boat because every way on the river looks exactly the same (as if you're careening toward a distant shoreline at every turn!), while you also play pole position with the logs and other debris sure to "log" your canoe. I remember getting completely lost and going in circles for hours trying to find the "side" of the river for some bearings, but rest assured there are none. According to this game the Amazon river is endless fathoms wide, and you're just expected to "go forth" into unknown depths and careen towards a mirage of a shoreline that you are never going to reach no matter how much you try to convince yourself of progress made. Be sure to also check the map often though or you could be venturing down a tributary into jungle-nowhere, where you will be mysteriously unable to get back.

During the game you travel across time as you head down the amazon river, meeting people in very obviously computer generated settings, although at the time they looked very realistic. All of the people you run into in these sumptuous photo-still CGI environments are live action people performing 4-second gif-like loops, and half of them are either out to rob you, kill you, or educate you about the flora, fauna, and history of South America. Like any RPG you have response choices to communicate with them, so sometimes it was just fun to run around ticking people off by choosing the worst dialogue options before unloading your useless "trading packets" on them for some anti-malaria medicine or fish or some other. My brother and I ran across this conquistador who refused to let us leave until we gave him ALL our shit, answering everything with a "that's not bad...but I want MORE!!" We had to restart the game to get away from him, but it turns out that you can kill him with the "medicine" that the old medicine man gives you towards the beginning. 

Damn you medicine man!!

You could also go fishing in what appeared to be the clownfish pond at the local hotel by chucking spears at the fish-shaped shadows, providing that the pond was stocked with barracuda! They'd wait until you were starving and dying of scurvy to give you the one area of the Amazon completely devoid of fish. Then you could journey on land presumably and take pictures of the scenery as the moths and tropical birds flew by, because you know, it actually did beat going outside and doing the same thing. This was way more "exotic" than the backyard, and very computer-generated. After all this, we did make it to the end once due to the constant bugs with our version of the game, but found it to be completely underwhelming. The ending was just two hippies giving you the standard "save the rain-forest" and "protect the earth-mother" kind of stuff, but that aside, it was a fun little bit of tropical escapism while it lasted. And as one of the more grumpy people you meet whines:

"What else would a man be doing in this rain-soaked land of mosquitoes!" 
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