Console Wars: Mistakes Were Made (or were they?)

There's a weird part of me that thinks video game companies during the "Console Wars" of the 90s, especially Sega and Nintendo... were trying to market to dudes... and being very successful at doing it. I may be wrong, but... what do I know? Of course, chicks play video games too, and always did, but it's almost like these companies didn't know or something because... well... something about how these things were marketed... I can't put my finger on it... doesn't seem like they were trying to appeal to "feminine sensibilities."

Yeah, here's why that was a bad idea:

1. Bigger is better confirmed.

2. Haha sex!

3. Underwear is all you really need.

4. OK, a second pair of underwear is all you need... (cuz poop)

5. Haha! OK, this one still works. 

6. Not so much this one...

7. You can lose your masculinity. 

8. Uh... not sure how I feel about this one... give me a few minutes...

9. "Groveling, spanking, decapitation, nut bustin', flying spit... rippin' a good long stun gun fart... suckin' heads up Rhino butts, BALLZ... and all the other stuff that makes life worth living." 

I KNOW how I feel about this one!

10. Haha. Playing with yer worm.

11. And finally: 

Luckily, times have changed and this would totally not happen now... right?

The Enterprise and Other Ships

I don't know when my obsession with the original Star Trek show and movies began. Legend has it that it was the only show that could pacify me as a baby. I could just be half-Vulcan. But the first real memories of Star Trek that I have came from the original movies, that is, the ones I saw (3, 4, 5, and Generations). I've already talked about my early love for Star Trek 3 as a film, so it's time to explore my fandom a little deeper... (as "deep" as an 8-year-old boy was capable of going, that is).

What I loved most about Star Trek was the ships. Maybe it was because I was already into real ships and used to say I wanted to be a "ship captain" when I grew up, or maybe I was already into Star Trek when I used to say that, I can't remember which, but those two facts were true about me as far back as I can remember. And since most of my early memories of childhood are just the Star Trek movies (seriously go watch them, you'll get the gist of what I remember about my early childhood), it seems about right. I used to draw these ships in kindergarten even, and all of them contributed to my collective life enjoyment and over-active imagination for so many years afterwards that I'd be lying if I said it still wasn't true.

In any case, I loved the USS Enterprise, the good old NCC-1701, pre-op yes, but especially when it got its slick make-over for the movies. The REFIT (and the 1701-A). I loved that blue eye-like deflector on the front of the ship, the little lit windows around the saucer, the spotlights illuminating circles on the hull, the stern "engines" (or "nacelles") jutting out the back, and namely everything else about it. I loved the ship so much I used to imitate its basic shape with my fingers (middle and thumb forming the stern nacelles, index forming the "neck"), and would just fly my hand around making warp sounds forever in a day. If anything looked futuristic, smooth, or plated with neon lights (like in Star Trek 5), I used to just call it "the Enterprise." Anything with a round shape was "the Enterprise." I once glued a bunch of plastic cups together in an "Enterprise" shape, and even that was "the Enterprise." Mom's old Buick Century became an "Enterprise shuttle-craft" once I stepped in. If we stopped off at Home Depot, well, that was just the Enterprise's dry dock. The very word "Enterprise" meant nothing to me beyond "cool-ass star ship."

Klingon Bird of Prey

Star Trek 3 may have been my favorite film just because it was the first time we get to see the other kinds of ships out there, including the downright awesome Klingon Bird of Prey. This bad boy was a kid's imaginary "finger ship" dream come true, with its neck and wings, making it a whole lot easier to make with your fingers (by turning the "finger Enterprise" upside down that is). First of all, it was green, and it had phaser canons on its wings and big intimidating "football shoulders" built right into it. I loved how the wings went up and down like a bird... low for attack mode and up for speed. And being Klingon, the ship could cloak! The Reliant from Star Trek 2 did have a slow macabre menace to it as it skirted around, but the Bird of Prey was just all around badass. Swooping down with a roar, blasting its enemies to pieces and speeding off in a huff, it was straight up gang-banger. It was like something out of the Ninja Turtles, and for the first time in Star Trek, actually "looked" alien.

Science Vessel Grissom

Then there were a few other ships that left some impression on the 8yo me, such as the defenseless science vessel Grissom, the so-called "state of the art" Excelsior, and the new Space Dock. First of all, everything about the Grissom and the Excelsior looked 80's, but in a good way. The Grissom looked like the equivalent of the 80's "econo-car" in space... small, cheaply assembled, and fitted with a hydraulic hatch on the back most likely. On the other hand, The Excelsior looked like a bulky 80's home computer, very sophisticated and showy with all its fancy new features, but you knew it was probably buggy as all hell and wouldn't work at all, or that nobody could understand how to make it work. It was the equivalent of an over-sized 80's minivan in space: heavy, expensive, and easy to break. Maybe people were just scared of new technology back in the 80s. And then there's Space Dock, which was just a giant mushroom in space, but a stunning one at that.

USS Enterprise D

I'll mention TNG only because it was on television (even if I wasn't particularly interested in watching it). Following the trend of most good things Star Trek related, TNG actually began in the 80s and carried that smooth/bulky 80s aesthetic right through its entire run in the 90s. I never really liked the chunky "cruise ship" look of the Enterprise D, although it was the toy model I used to play with, four sound effects included (lasers, photon torpedoes, warp speed, random explosions). For some reason you could pop the plastic nacelles off the Enterprise D model toy even though the ship couldn't separate like that on the show. And even if they lit up whenever you hit the button for the torpedo sound, I still would've taken a toy Enterprise or Enterprise A any day.

Looks like I've exposed the extent of my dork-hood fandom once again. Oh well.

The Dreaded Sweater

Growing up in the 90s, I think we saw the end of the "holiday sweater" as a legitimate article of clothing, and especially the end of the fuzzy sweater. For a long while there, as soon as the temperature started dipping to the 30s around the end of November, you'd suddenly start seeing them. Young and old alike. Girl and boy. We all became Swiss in December.

As kids of the 90s, we spent half the year swimming in our massive t-shirts hanging lower than our shorts, and the other half choking ourselves behind itchy wool. That is, when we weren't already choking ourselves in itchy wool the rest of the year (yes, sweaters were once considered casual clothes!). The sweater beast usually came in vomit colors, grey-ish neon fibers all meshed together in fuzz, or came stark and contrasting enough to blind you in sunlight. There was no in between. Then there was the dreaded holiday sweater, usually dark red, with knit-work reindeer, Santas, or snowflakes, all assuring its immediate termination after the holidays.

They got me too!

What can I say? The collars strangled me, the sleeves rode up my arms, the elastic-y bottoms gave me a draft whenever I bent over, and the sleeves caught on everything! I can't tell you how many I tore through just trying to walk out many a screen door! Plus there was always that static cling to worry about. If you weren't careful, you might be going to the Christmas party with a sock or pair of underwear stuck to your back. And I can't tell you how many girls I saw plagued by the sweater's anti-gravity qualities when it came to standing their hair on end! And how's the Christmas party supposed to be any fun if you can't poke the girls without getting TASERED by their sweaters!? Seriously! (That's how I think I lost my virginity.)

I'm sure somewhere out there people still wear sweaters. Heck, I wore my raggedy old black sweater straight on through high school. But something tells me that this fashion statement is going to be hereto referred to as "that thing we wore back in the 80s and 90s." Maybe the sweater beasts were hunted to extinction, and now it's just, "hey, why are you wearing a sweater? And why does it have to be fuzzy? That's so 90s. Even caterpillars are wearing different styles now."

...Oh who am I kidding, you know I mock 'em 'cause I love 'em.

Jurassic Park Cars

Since I've been shopping around for a better car, I've of course been checking out the specs on the cars from Jurassic Park. I was never really into cars, but if you asked the 8yo Me what my favorite car was, I probably would've said "the Jurassic Park car", and since there were two great cars in Jurassic Park, let's see how they stack up.

They see me rollin'...

By "Jurassic Park car," I probably meant "the one with the no doors." They were just so cool and rugged, and door-less, and could purr away through the mud and ferns quite nicely when outrunning a T-Rex. They were actually Jeep Wranglers, and yes some of them had little doors, but any car that was rugged and could outrun a T-Rex would've had me sold, and I'm apparently not the only one. It seems that turning your Jeep Wrangler into a JP Jeep, with decals and all, is an official hobby, and there's even a fan club about it. "What dinosaurs does it outrun? Perfect, let's sign the papers!

It was the other JP car though that made the better toy... that being the tour cars that drove themselves. "Look it! A ghost! Ahh!" These turned out to be Ford Explorers, and boy did they shine up pretty in the movie with that yellow-green fade and the red "Dino" paint on the hood. Plus they had that awesome sun roof that was just like one big window. They also had the miracle of "INTERACTIVE CD-ROM! Just touch the right part of the screen and it talks about whatever you want!" Join the future... these were the original touch-screen "smart cars!"  Unfortunately it didn't hold up against the T-Rex very well, but it was a damn tough nut to crack! People also deck out their Ford Explorers to look like the Jurassic Park tour car too.

The reason I said that the tour car was a better toy was because they merchandised it (like anything they could slap a JP logo on). The toy came with a cool rocket launcher on the back and a front section that could pop off.. (No mom, I didn't break it, that's "Dino Damage!"). It was called the Jurassic Park Jungle Explorer set, and I definitely wanted it, just like I wanted anything with a JP logo, but I never got it. You can find it though at this really cool collector's site JPtoys.com, where I also quickly learned how much money these things were, and why "spare no expense!" didn't work on my parents.  

Leafblowers Rule

Here's me in the leaf corpses.

When given the task as a kid to name my favorite season and draw a picture of it, I thought for a while, and chose "all of the above." I know that's not a season, but there was just something about each of the four seasons that I liked. I probably got a C-. Okay, maybe when it comes to autumn, I get it, it's crisp, it's colorful, but I don't go nuts over the season like most do. Screw pumpkin spice creamers! And screw pumpkin-spice pie scented candles! (Well... okay... I will admit that that autumn-loving apple-pumpkin-cranberry-spice-smelling Yankee Candle store we got around here sure is a great place to make a quick stop in to mask a fart when you're at the mall with your girlfriend... Amirite fellas? True story.) So, okay, point taken. 

Anyways... What? Chick stuff... autumn... making it more cool. Oh yeah! So... is there any hope for autumn to be as awesome as the other seasons, as in, something even the 8YO me could like?

Well, when it comes to autumn, of course, the big thing on my mind is the leaves literally dying all around us, their copses being raked into piles to be trashed, burned, and jumped in by small children. Suddenly all that stuff "up there" hits the ground, you get crispy leaf corpses underfoot and blowing around, and they need picking up. It's payback for the free air, I thought. Well, you could rake them up, but come on, that's not nearly fun enough. Mankind has not always done a great job making life easier on this planet since the time of the mammoths, but one of our greatest achievements since our glory days of prehistory has got to be the "leafblower."

Don't get me wrong, it's not that they're completely useless. They may never actually get the lawn clean, and may actually end up making it worse at times, as you go scurrying around to chase after leaves in every which direction, but no, they do have their purpose, and it's a purpose that could've only been originated in a guy's head. That their actual use, and therefore why they were invented and why we continue using them, is more about, how shall I say this... allowing their users to have the most fun being an idiot while still making it look like "work" was being done. For that, I'd say the leafblower is a level of genius worthy of a Bud Lite commercial.

Every kid, raised in a temperate climate has memories of raking a big pile of leaves and jumping in them, throwing them around, and then generally needing to rake them back up... so I won't bore you with the details of that. Trust me, there was a lot of it. My dad did have some pretty ingenious ways of raking leaves though, involving a leaf blower and a big tarp. Hell yeah. So you pick one of those up as a kid, rev it on, and have yourself a little mini Wizard of Oz in your front yard. Find a pile, blow it to pieces. Make it rain! Get those leaves cornered and make it tornado! Play volleyball with a leaf, blower style, and see how long you can keep it in the air! Stick the nozzle between your legs backwards and pretend that the sheer power of your retro-rockets are blowing the front yard clean! Blast the nozzle in your brother's face and watch his mouth gape open, his eyelids curl up, and his hair fly back in the breeze! Chase your sister and really screw up her hair from behind! The possibilities are endless. The yard never gets clean, but it's sure fun.

Anyways, something about autumn (November included) always reminds me of childhood and family... perhaps it's because Halloween is around the corner (for childhood that is... I assure you, my family doesn't make me think of Halloween!), and perhaps it's because this is the time my family used to start getting together (...nice save!). Something about the fall made me think of the mundane routines in life--going shopping, going to the Laundromat, going to school, raking the leaves... and as the weather got colder, how we'd always start paying attention to things that could get us out of the cold... like all the big sales.

The second thing I picture is a gourd... not for any particular reason, other than it being a funny word, and the fact that you just can't think of autumn without picturing gourds. I have no affinity for them or eating anything involving pumpkins, and actually had a pretty daunting experience with one that I'd rather not relive (so definitely expect a post on it soon). Maybe it's just because I like the word "gourd."

You know what? I take it all back. I love the fall.

Sweat Pants are Cool

Clothing really isn't that important to me, and the same was true for the 8-year-old me (except underwear choice, of course, which is top priority). If I was dressing fancy, like the "Jr. Mr. Executive" thing I had going, that was one thing. But if I was going casual, at school or at home, just a pair of sweat pants, some velcro sneaks, and a dinosaur or Indian t-shirt was all I needed (in the winter, exchange dinosaur or Indian t-shirt for dinosaur or Indian sweatshirt). And yes, I will defend sweatpants till my dying day. 

I'm a guy, so I don't know the first thing about the first thing about this thing they call "fashion," nor am I going to pretend like I do. But I know what I used to wear back in the day, and I can tell you right now, it was probably not of this Earth. Here's a little rundown of the typical getup I used to assemble on a daily basis, head to toe:

Head and accessories: a blindingly neon-ed out bicycle cap with patterns, and designs, and inevitable checkerboards. The idea was to be seen from a mile away, or boss mode, from space. Add some cheap plastic neon-green shades to these and you were styling in a way you'd never come to regret later for sure. Fanny packs only for the not-so-faint of heart (yeah, even back then). 

Sonic or Nintendo watch was also a must, especially to make your friends jealous. Might also go with a sharktooth necklace or something if you wanted to kick it all surfer brah. 

Upper body: inevitable sweater. If not, then inevitable T-shirt. Baggy clothes were in, in, in. They were everywhere, from the sweaters with the extra fuzz that the girls used to wear, to the bulky "Fresh Prince" rapper-style white T's that hung down to the guys' knees, and the cotton windbreakers you could wear around the house. They usually came in a few basic colors too: white, neon green/yellow/pink (even for guys), and girly "pastel" (if you squint your eyes, it could be any color). Mixed in were random shapes or patterns, black splotches, or some other middle-class "urban" pastiche.

Lower body: sweatpants and velcro sneaks, because shoelaces = work. I wore sweat pants probably 90% of the time, but don't you mock. It was actually fashionable, and really fun to fart in. Everyone was wearing sweatshirts and sweatpants (and headbands) because... we all just became joggers I guess. My sweat pants cache came in a variety of colors I could hopelessly mismatch with my t-shirt colors (again, not a problem in the 90s), basically comprising all the primary ones (except yellow, I was NOT that dorky!). I preferred black though... after all, it goes with anything. The waistbands were snapable and perfect for a good old fashioned wedgie. Although I will say, looking back, sweat pants were never much help in the restroom.

Clothing back then sure was comfortable, and in any situation, no matter how awkward. And that's what being a guy is all about, being comfortable no matter how awkward, just like the Hanes commercial said. Maybe that's what being a 90s kid is all about too.

School's In Session

Whenever the school year starts up, I'm reminded of why it's good to be 24 (...because I have to be reminded). School really is "out forever," and the kid-in-me's dream is realized. However, I wouldn't have been a true dork as a kid if I wasn't also slightly excited about going back. Granted, I wouldn't have complained if summer went on forever, of course, but if I had to leave it anyways, I used to figure I might as well embrace the change. And admit it, sometimes getting back to the grind, showing off your new jeans and pencil sharpener, and flopping down on a plastic seat before a chalkboard to "learn" (rather than a couch before a TV to "veg"), has its own charms too. Learning is vital to..... Oh? What's that? The teachers are gone? ...

The coast is clear! ... School can kiss my Pog-pocketed BUTT! Woo-hoo!

I liked school, because I was a dork and I enjoyed getting teased, but back in the 90s every kids commercial made school out to be "capital-L-amo bro" and "totally not radical brah" where every male teacher was half asleep like Ben Stein, every female teacher was a decrepit relic crow of the 19th century, every bus driver was out to kill you for "the things he did in Nam" and every lunch lady was out to poison you for her own sick pleasure. NOT cool! Those adults? They just don't GET it man! "WORD!" Every kids movie made it out to be Auschwitz ("Be quiet or I'll lock you in the CHOKEY!"). It's a place where all you boys get to be "ex-cel-lennnt!" and "bad!" and "on a mission... without permission!" ...only to end up living in the principal's office (me) ...and all the girls get to be chatty, ditzy, frizzy-haired, elitist, snotty "Mean Girls"... only to end up crying in the bathrooms. Listen to Sonic: "School is LAME-O... bro!" So eat Bubble Tape!

 

WTF? Anwyays... it was inevitable, but it certainly wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Every year you just had to get back into it... back to TI-108 calculators and Weekly Readers, to colored notebooks and Trapper Keepers... back to cafeteria followed by recess, plastic trays and tater tots followed by short rope swings and blazing metal slides... back to girls with their Lisa Frank backpacks and boys with their Sketchers Hot Lights... back to classroom fish and "Great Job!" stickers, to strange clapping games and sitting on the carpet, to Crayola 45-packs, scented markers, and Sharpies you can get high from smelling... back to dorky, colorful cutouts of happy ethnically and capably diverse kids gracing the covers of everything like no other reality is allowed...

Get back to music class "recorders" and maracas, art class scrubs and sponges, gym class bean bags and "stretching stations"... back to having a desk with your name on it and a tiny shelf space underneath where you can store your notebooks, glasses case, retainer, and used gum (for later)... back to "show and tell" where the only act you really care about is your own... back to a place where the bathroom is officially called "the boys'/girls' room" and you have to sign a piece of paper just to go to it, or "bring along a friend"... 

So get back to the pecker-order, to butthead boys and know-it-all girls, to jocks who were untouchable and nerds who probably should've worn a cup that day (...ouch...) ...back to class clowns and the girls who tell on them for drawing penises on worksheets (true story), to popular girls who inevitably wanted you dead and popular boys who inevitably stole your erasers... back to front row teacher's pets and back row Kurt Cobains-in-training, to dorks who picked their nose and ATE IT and preps who sanitized their own desk every day and refused to ever step foot in the bathroom... back to quiet kids you have to keep an eye on, shy girls with no name who sit in the corner, and true aces who raise their hands in class only to burp... LOUDLY.

Yep, that's school, and you had to go back there... back to learning stuff you'd be forgetting in time for next summer.

The Greatest Scene In 90s Movie History

Sorry, but even the T-Rex breaking free in Jurassic Park can't top this... and it's not all that different anyway. It's still a better love story than Twilight. So beautiful, so universal, so poignant. Finch's struggle is our struggle. We feel it through the screen. Such tension. Such climax. Such absolute relief! It transcends time and place. It is humorous. In fact, from the song "Run, Don't Walk" by the Ventures playing to the tension-inducing, holding-it-in schadenfreude of watching this poor sap, to the inevitable explosive emptying of the chick's bathroom, to the whistling ending, it may be the funniest constructed scene ever in movie history (no joke!). It got my vote for the 1999 Oscar... by far. And still does. 

And yes, I've been there.

Shark Week

Better get mako?

To the 8-year-old me, Shark Week was second only to Christmas, and even at that, it was a loose second, in the highlights of my year. Hell, Christmas is a day, Shark Week is a week! It cooled me off so many a hot summer afternoon. Splashing down in the blue with the makos, blues, tigers, hammerheads, and great whites... with only one of those flimsy bird cages for protection, was the best part of any summer... second only to fireworks. But then again, the 4th of July is also a day. Shark Week is a week.

Why did I like sharks? Because it rhymes with Mark. In fact, I was often called "Mark the Shark" growing up, but this is not the only reason. I think it's because sharks are mindless eating machines who just "swim, and eat, and make baby sharks"... and you know, you gotta respect that. You better. When I was a teenager, you could say I too was a mindless eating machine, so maybe there's some affinity there. The point is, sharks are the very embodiment of the word "predator" ...besides the actual Predator. They are probably the most macho animal in existence, and certainly in the sea. Hoo-rah! URRRRP!

Don't judge me.

So if we could catch it, we watched it. If we couldn't see it, we taped it. One portrait of how cool this programming block was to a kid like me back somewhere around '95, involved just a remote control sinking to the bottom of the ocean with a bite taken out of it. "Just when you thought it was safe to turn on the TV..." the caption read. In short, this was TV so intense, I was having second thoughts about going in the plastic pool.

If all the girls in the 90's vowed to become marine biologists after Free Willy, all the boys got into it because for one week every summer, some guy was on TV, in a cage, underwater, swimming with the sharks, poking tracking devices into sharks, taping sharks feed, feeding sharks, or being fed to sharks. It was like watching Jaws without the boring parts. A bunch of people go out on the water, you see them from underneath paddling on their boards in silhouette, someone says "I never saw it coming," and then a dash of red food coloring rolls up the screen in the water. "Whoa! I can feel that in my arm!"

Of course sharks aren't just killing machines, and dorky boys like me actually did find the sciency stuff interesting, like how sharks can't stop swimming or else they die, or how sharks have been around since the time of the dinosaurs, or how they can sense a drop of blood a mile away, or how sharks in a feeding frenzy will bite anything, even themselves (which I found amusing). I learned a lot from Shark Week, and I already had my survival plan ready should I ever come face to face with one. It began and ended with a good punch in the snout. That being said, scrawny me wouldn't have had a chance. 

A Boy and His TV

Wait... Tails isn't brown?!

All the other boys in my kindergarten class spent most of the year making a 200 piece Ninja Turtles puzzle in a side room, but I opted out of it. Ninja Turtles were the biggest thing around at the time, but they weren't my thing, and the same went for that whole Transformers/ G.I. Joe/ He-Man programming group. Maybe the cars, guns, explosions, and pizza did appeal to me on their own, but not with all the muscles and guns. I was a sheltered boy. My mom was against such things. Plus, I was always scrawny and therefore easily intimidated by anything burly, and I just thought all that chest thumping and general badassed-ness was too intense and not nearly saccharine enough. 

I didn't go hungry though, because the 90's served up so much sugar on TV it's a wonder I still have all my teeth. Let's just say, my brother and I had "less badass" interests on lazy Saturday mornings in 1990, and shows like Maya the Bee, The Littl'bits, Shining Time Station, Fraggle Rock, Eureka's Castle (sadly) and Sonic the Hedgehog made up the bulk of it. Anything clean, colorful, mindless, and utterly devoid of muscles was good enough. These shows didn't activate my urges to break into random sword fighting during commercial breaks, but they were sweet enough pieces of eye candy to chew down between commercial breaks and turn my brain off to (which has never been hard for me). They may have been trying to instead stimulate that seldom-used thing called a brain, but then again probably not. If my brain couldn't be compelled by cars, guns, muscles, and pizza... then it probably wasn't going to be compelled by hedgehogs, stupid dogs, exploding eyes, and pizza, either.

So I didn't like Ninja Turtles, Street Sharks, Biker Mice From Mars, Dino-Vengers, Gargoyles, Transformers, He-Man, Thundercats, or even the dang Cheetahmen... sue me! But did I watch them? Well, of course. Who didn't? Who doesn't know their Raphael from their Donatello? Who doesn't love Ripster and Streex? Who can't name T-bone's signature move? Come on. But give me Rocko's Modern Life and Pete and Pete any day. Look, it was a conscious choice. I traded bulging muscles, Kung Fu turtles, and underwear being worn on the outside, for fuzzy puppets, claymation puke, and cartoon animals who go commando... without PANTS! Take that! No, violence was too intense for this little dork, but I could stomach a good "Sonic Sez Says" whenever required. Give me BURPS ("Aw yeah!"), farts ("Awesome!"), toilets ("Elite!"), corn dogs ("Excellent!"), roller blades ("Radical!"), pizza ("Tubular!"). Give me cartoony Loony Tuney violence ("No DUH!"). Give anything that goes good with a couch, my butt on it, and the crunching of Cheetos.

And of course whenever this came up during this schlock, somebody had to say it, and that somebody was ALWAYS me:

So did I watch the girly shows then? Of course. (Once again, who didn't?) They were on TV were they not? When that box is lit up, you obey. And when the commercials play, you beg. That's all there is to it.

So I watched the Care Bears... mostly at daycare when I had no choice in the matter... and I survived. Once again, if the TV was on, my eyes were glued to it, whatever it was. Period. I watched My Little Pony (the old one... the new one I currently watch of course). I watched Clarissa (what kind of name is that anyway?). At daycare I may have had to tuck certain parts in while these shows were going, you know, just to hope I blended in with the rest of the audience, but trust me, my mind was so zonked out by that point I never seemed to notice when the colors started going more soft, more pastel, and the animals started getting more cutesy, more plush and Lisa Frank-ish, with bigger eyes and high-pitched migraine-inducing voices... and the presence of such things like "kindness" and "sharing" and "friendship" and other things that corrode the Y chromosome, and the absolute banishment of all fart jokes, and then that strange conspicuous scene in the middle of every girly show where all the characters would just stare at you and say, in a robot voice, "Okay, now that those boys have left the room, let's roll out plan 67B for world domination!" (Always thought that was a little weird.)

That's my confession. But who the hell cares? In the 80s and early 90s, all children's television existed for the sole purpose of selling you toys. That was what it was all about, whether it was a new Transformer, a new Sonic game, or all the ponies on their way to Flutter Valley for the "Sun Tuesday" celebration (hell yeah I know what that is). And there are just two different types of boys wanting those toys... the "hoo-ra!" ones who dream of driving a jet across a desert at high speeds only to morph into a robot that can shoot lasers from its shoulders, and the "uber dorks" like me. In the end, it was all good, because it was all cheese... worth biting into so long as you held your nose. And if you waited for the commercial breaks, you knew just what to pester your parents for. See? That makes it simple. Kinda how I like it. 

Pretty Sneaky Sis...

Let me drop some knowledge on you. I'll be honest (that's what this blog is all about after all), I'm an attention hog and always have been. Anything that could get me some attention, good or bad, I was down for. Whether I ended up everyone's hero (like the time in gym class I was a goalie and stopped a hockey puck with my CROTCH!), or was heralded as the best kid picked to lead the class in the "pledge of allegiance" ever (yes, I said "one naked, undergarment, in-the-visible" ...),  I was desperate to prove myself worthy of the stuff of legends. And of course, legends are usually built on fibs. So like most kids, I was very good at fibbing, and at being stupid... and for having a groin of steel. It came easy to me, and now it's no surprise to me why I never knew why.

All kids are pretty dumb... (heck, so is everyone...) and I don't think I'll find much argument there. Another statement I'm probably not gonna receive any argument about? The fact that, even among kids, girls are (and always were) little EINSTEINS ... compared to the average boy.

Yes, growing up male makes you dumber. That's science talking. I don't make the rules, I'm just a hapless crotch-scratching victim of them. We can be genius level IQ and still be pretty darn limp-brained where it counts. If we're not dumb in the classroom, we're dumb when it comes to relating to "fellow humans." If we're not dumb when it comes to book-reading, we forget to bathe, but if we remember to bathe, we don't know how to tell if we're using too much cologne. It's always something! We either struggle to read a book, or we read a book and struggle to remember our names when a pretty girl asks us. We can either recite the periodic table, or all original 150 Pokemon. We can either put our pants on the right way and flunk math, or we can ace math and forget how to zip up. We simply can not do both. And this is one area where I can say I don't just speak for myself. This was settled a long time ago. Girls can be mean or conniving or bitchy, sure... and sometimes not... but they're definitely not as dumb as the average boy. 

And not only is this not a problem, it's actually the best part of being a dude. We get to say that the opposite sex is smarter than us! It's the only thing we can do that girls can't. Can girls say that? Nope! Like being called a "moron" or a "dumbass," and a whole slew of other words for "idiot" (you never hear these things said for chicks)... it's the ultimate "boys only" thing! But forget what science says about how "girls mature faster" and "get better grades in school" (and other things that are actually true), because as many a dude has said before me: I got one better than science. I got 90s movies to be my guide in this. 

Now, any casual viewing of the medium will probably confirm this thesis easily, and the only thing you might have to say about any of what I've said is "well, yeah." As in, the "the sky is blue," "grass is green," "boys are idiots"... so what of it? However, some dudes out there might hop off their seats exclaiming "nuh-uh, that McCaulay Culkin kid from My Girl was pretty smart!" And you'd be right, when it came to school there's no doubt he had book smarts. The glasses tell you that. The hole in the theory? He died! Here he was actually getting a girl to like him, and I mean, really like him... and then he decides to just go and die one day. Not too bright if you ask me. And then he was too dumb to even keep his glasses on at the wake! I mean, come on. He can't see without his glasses! 

No. For this battle of wits, I realized I'm going to have to pull out the big guns, the two most intelligent movie kids from the 90s: Kevin McCallister from Home Alone, representing all boys, and Matilda Wormwood from Matilda, representing girls. Now, granted on the surface they are both "smarter than average." Kevin is practically a small adult who can manipulate anyone, not to mention rig a whole string of houses with traps to thwart bad guys across multiple movies. His drawback (besides, you know, not being psychokinetic... we'll get to her) is that he's very good at luring particularly indestructible bad guys into his traps! No matter how many electrocutions, sticky floorboards, paint tins, or toilets filled with explosives he hucks at them, there's always going to be a point where he's out of traps and the bad guys are still coming. And who's fault is that? Besides, how smart could he be if he's constantly getting left behind by his family?

Matilda Wormwood on the other hand is a math and reading savant who doesn't even need school to function in the genius level, and she can even move shit with her friggin' mind! Now that's "GIRL POWER" for you! Both Kevin and Matilda are very capable of taking care of themselves, as Matilda is basically self-taught in everything and Kevin does all his own chores and shopping. BUTT... Matilda also reads profusely, everything from classic literature to tax law, and absorbs everything, so she can figure out more "mature" and "grown up" ways to bust an opponent than silly little dumb boyish Matchbox cars on the stairs. And what about Kevin? He reads Playboy and watches gangster movies. Matilda's downside though is that she needs to get emotional before she can use her powers to their fullest extent, and it takes quite a torrent of Danny Davito parental abuse to charge up that battery!

So basically, you know where this is going...  In a battle royale between Kevin and Matilda, I'm still going to have to give it to the Matil-dog. She could easily out-maneuver all of the Kevlar's ingenious and psychopathic traps with just her mind, and also chuck heavy objects at him as well, without any preparation, so it's no contest. Girls rule. Boys drool. Case closed.

(And don't even get me started on Minkus vs. Harriet the Spy... She is a spy after all, she can sneak up on that obnoxious dork! Case closed.)

But fear not, being dumber is not necessarily a bad thing guys! All those nutshot challenges and off-the-roof trampoline jumps may look dumb, but it just means we take more risks. For some, it means you go off and build the first airplane or invent the first jetpack. For most, it means you get your head stuck in a chair in the 1st grade. All those idiot jokes we make? That just means we aren't so self-inhibited. For some, that means we're unafraid about what people think of us. For most though, it means that when you raise your hand in class and get called on, you will then proceed to let out a looooooong burp... loudly. Maybe we need all that brazen, reckless, death-defying, annoying stupidity so that eventually nature will randomly produce the one (and only) male Einstein. 

Me. Jr. Executive.

Don't worry though. I hold myself out as the archetypal example for the entire thesis about why's it's actually rad to be part of the dumber half of the populace. At school, the 8-year-old me had this "class clown meets Jr. Mr. Executive" thing going on, which is like, the epitome of showing off. Around the boys I wanted to be cool with, I was a rebel, a kid who'd eat the classroom fish food if it would cause a couple laughs (I don't know how fish eat that stuff). Around boys who already thought I was cool, I'd suddenly become more mysterious and entertain them with tales of the Cub Scouts I'd never witnessed (I made it sound like recruit training... like any of those all-time great war movies like Full Metal Jacket, swearing included!). I once wore an elastic band around my leg and claimed it was to show where "I'd lost a limb" in the "war games." Lies! The closest to war I'd ever come was to sit through all 90 minutes of Major Payne. ... (8yo me loved it, by the way.)

And no, it's no excuse for douchebaggery, I know. Around girls at school I liked, I basically just answered all their "what is your favorite animal"-type questions and watched them swoon whenever I randomly interjected "dolphins" (all the girls back then wanted to be marine biologists after Free Willy). What did us boys get out of it? "Haha... "free the willy!!!"... HAHA!... But that's no reason to be a douchebag, obviously. The point is, I had some sensitive sides... but I assure you, all my girl cousins got to see was the Ace Ventura part of me whenever my brother and I were around regardless. And, try as I might, I just never understood why girls weren't as impressed as I was about how I could make zany animal noises, stick things in my nose, crack good ole' penis jokes, and bend over and "talk" with my buttcheeks... 

Oh well. Their loss.

Around girls at school I didn't like, I was still eating the fish food, but for the opposite reason (although the little marine biologists among them might have dug my "sensitivity" for the fish). I guess the girls liked them because dolphins, like girls, are also animals that are "smarter than boys." And they are probably right... 

But what would I know? 

Candy Etiquette

Candy. You know that whether sour or sweet, chewy or hard, gummy or goopy, it's all sugar, and sugar is sugar is sugar. Therefore, how you eat candy is often just as important as what it tastes like (surprise surprise, it's sugar!). Do I have a problem with this? Heck no. I'm a sugar addict as much as anyone else. I like my frosting with a layer of colored sugar coating on top. I like my sugar gummy worms rolled in sugar. I will not rest until they somehow find another place to stick yet more sugar into sugar itself (and won't rest for a few years after that). As a candy aficionado though, as you're shoveling in gobs of the stuff and your mind starts going in fast-forward, you start to realize that the way you put it in your mouth enhances the novelty of it long after the sugar rush has already set in.

You don't just eat Oreos, you "have sex with them" (Seinfeld Oreo joke). Seriously though, am I right people? Oreos are ripe for experimentation, innovation, and reverse engineering for the sake of your increased dining pleasure. You eat an Oreo by pulling it apart, lifting the top layer off with a gradual twist so that it doesn't break, and licking the frosting center before downing the bottom layer. If not, you twist off the top, take another cookie and twist off its top, stick the two layers of cream together, and have yourself an early version of the Double Stuffed (kids these days are so spoiled, in my day we had to make our own Double Stuffs). Or, if you're really dedicated, you can attempt to rip a few Oreos apart, carefully peel or slice the cream layers off, and make yourself an inverted Oreo (two layers of cream, cookie in the middle). Any way you do it, you're basically playing Frankenstein.

On the other hand, there's really only two ways to eat a Reese's (regardless of what the ads say). You either bite off the chocolate fluted sides first so that you have a wheel of peanut butter (or whatever that stuff in the middle is supposed to be), or you skillfully poke the wheel out of the center and eat that first, leaving a ring of fluted chocolate you can then put on your eyes like glasses. Any other way to do it is nothing short of Philistine.

Gummy worms are probably my favorite candy, not just for what they taste like, but for what you can do with them. They work best because you can stick them in your nose, and eat them at the same time. The effect of this is obvious. You are literally eating your boogers! And not just eating them, but "chewing" on them (think about it). This is especially true if the colors happen to be yellow and green, although red takes it to a whole other level. Needless to say, I grossed out a few peeps in my day. BUTT seriously, is there any other way to eat a gummy worm other than to just shovel them in like nothing? These candy makers know what they're doing. It's entrapment. They want kids to stick these things in their noses.

Okay, maybe there are multiple ways to eat the candy of your choice, but there is only one way to eat a lolipop: to bite it. Nobody has licked a lolipop since the 1930's. Whether it's a delicious Blow Pop, a mediocre Dum Dum, or one of those awful Tootsie Pops... you go for the crunch. You suck on it for a minute and then chomp down, like good ole' Mr. Owl. As a young dork though, I once declared that figuring out the Tootsie Pop quandary was of vital scientific importance for humanity. How many licks does it take to get to that god-awful Toosie Roll center? One day back in my kidhood, I forwent convention and licked my tongue dry for a good hour in the backseat of the car on a day of errands. I was young. I was brash. I was bored as all get out. But in the end, my count came to 309. Hey, at least I had a cool story to tell my friends. 

I was confident I'd figured out what nobody else could, that is, until recently. The other day I did some research and learned how Purdue engineering students actually built a licking machine to scientifically test how many it would take to get to the center. Their count came to 364. Other licking machines made it to 411 licks. Studies of people licking them have averaged 252 licks. Non-scientific challenges have averaged 144 licks. It was discouraging, even if it does prolong the quandary, as indeed, nobody seems to know just how many licks it takes, but perhaps, Tootsie Pops make you think too much. You might as well just be a Dum Dum... like in the commercial. 

Nerds are better anyways. They too fit in your nose.

Boxers or Briefs?

It ain't easy being a guy. We have it hard too. There's so many issues we have to deal with, so many hardships we have to endure. The hardest one by far comes at that time in every guy's life when he's forced to pick a side. Forget political ideologies, right and left, right and wrong, underwear choice is one stance you can't afford to waffle on. You have to make a choice and live with the consequences, and the consequences can be many, and last a lifetime.

Girls have it so easy in life. Their underwear's best use is when it's worn as outer-wear, with nothing else on... obviously. Especially when it's lacey and and comes with a Star Wars logo right in the front (or better, Superman!... no wait... Jurassic Park!!!) (Aww yeah girl). For a guy though, underwear's best use is functional, to be doing what it needs to do under the covering we call "clothes." To not be seen as much as ... assumed. This is why we wear the same pair for days (erm, weeks) on end, and why (when we're alone), we wear nothing else. We know a lot can be deduced from what underwear we choose to wear though, and we won't compromise once we've made a choice. Underwear loyalty is everything, which is why the question about what we go for in underwear is actually quite a test of intelligence, maturity, character, and (sometimes) what 80s Saturday morning cartoon still inspires us. Forget 20-question quizzes in "Does he really love you?" magazines. If you want to figure a guy out, just ask him: "boxers or briefs?" You'll know all you need to know. If he says briefs, marry him. Trust me, as a guy, this is a good litmus test of guys.

Now I've spent a long time thinking about this, as all guys do, and this was the best I could come up with to explain my rationale for continuing to answer the question "BRIEFS." And it's because while we may not win the battle, we win the war. Sure, boxers give you room, they're loose, comfy, and let you move and "readjust," and they are great to wear on their own as if they were shorts, because they come with a front flap (which just makes life easier). But they have a lot of flaws. One, they bag up under your pants and you got to keep adjusting them. Two, clothing makers decided that since men were wearing them like shorts anyways, they might as well start putting buttons to fasten them, which just makes "life" more of a chore than it should be. Why put buttons on the boxers if the whole point is easy access down there? We could live without those pesky button flies all together, we don't need another set on our underwear!

Briefs on the other hand seem to solve a lot of the problems with boxers. If Superman, Batman, and He-Man can wear them on the OUTSIDE, then maybe there's something to be said about their qualities on the inside. Maybe just wearing them will make YOU a superhero too! (Captain Virgin!!) They are nice and snug, and fit tight enough to ensure everything stays in its own little package. They're elastic, so they conform to your legs and waist, which means they don't bag up, and gaining access is always simple... just flip the flaps! Perfect! But I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge there are some disadvantages to briefs too. They're not as comfy as boxers (they're called "tighties" for a reason), they don't allow any "swinging room" (so to speak), the elastics on the legs and waist give you rashes and indentations. Their slim and tight style also means they can't double as outer-wear either, EVEN if you're by yourself eating Cheetos on the couch, and perhaps especially if you're alone. Tighty-whities are a bit too embarrassing to wear by themselves, and should never be worn by themselves. Unless you're female, then please do so.

Plus, the fact that they're so slim and skimpy makes them perfect for wedgie torture (which is good if you're the torturer, but very bad if you're the sufferer). You can't very easily give an atomic or nuclear or melvin, or any of the other forms of wedgie while your victim is wearing boxers, now can you? More surface area on the skin means less hem wedge up the cracks. Now, of course if you're a frequent sufferer of the wedgie you probably don't like briefs, but then again if you're a frequent sufferer and you're not going commando yet, then it's your own fault. Stop giving them ammo! 

Let's not forget to mention of course that they're easier to wear on your head as a makeshift ski mask than boxers are. You can more easily use the leg holes for eyes and the hole for your nose... or to eat through, especially when you're playing masked luchadores on the living room rug or super heroes in the backyard. 

So yeah, briefs aren't perfect, but the truth is, we briefs aficionados like them because they're more supportive and easier to wear, but we will wear boxers just because they look cooler and are comfier. This is why "boxer-briefs" were invented, and are the obvious compromise. They may just be the ultimate winner here, and the most ingenious idea ever, but we're not discussing the subtleties of the so-called "boxer-brief" because it's not a part of the dualistic question posed.

But enough about function. Let's talk about style. Obviously, boxers come in a wide variety of colors and pictures, and briefs have tried to make it with the colors but it just comes off as if you've color-coded your week. The funny thing though is, there's just something more "mature" about boxers, so many guys wear them just because of that, even if they have cutesy little pictures on them! It's like the life cycle of the average male's underwear goes full circle. We start out as kids wearing Ninja Turtles briefs and then grow into "tighty-whities," and then maybe we either go into the land of colored briefs or we go full-tilt into Boxers. We're constantly on the run from the tighty-whitey, and why not? It's tough to shake that "just escaped from the ward" look every time you catch yourself in a mirror when you're changing. But we still like having pictures on our underwear regardless of age, especially at the boxers stage.

Once you've made the decision to continue with briefs to their next technicolor evolution (one color for every day of the week) and take a step into that proverbial locker room, you're still not sure you're going to be dwarfed by the guys already jumping on the boxers bandwagon. But when they reveal theirs and they're full of all these cutesy "flying toaster" or "valentine heart" cartoons, you'll be glad you're a briefs-wearer. Of course anything flannel or plaid and you're screwed, but then again, at least you can easily get at the merchandise at the urinal quick without resorting to pulling down your underwear like you did when you were five.

So underwear is a complicated thing. Guys think about it a lot. It's on our minds. Our brains are constantly calculating comfort down there. We know we look like mental patients or complete losers in underwear while girls look, well, fantastic in it... so for us it's just about being comfortable, and ruling the world in our spare time.

But which is better? Who knows. What do I wear? I wear briefs. My eight-year-old self wore briefs. I was raised on tighty-whities, mostly around my waist, sometimes under my clothes, and a least a fraction of time on my head. Briefs have always been there for me, they gave me support and comfort through the hard times, they picked me up when I was...well, getting a wedgie, and whenever I adjusted my underwear in public... it was always a "snap."

That's why I was, I am, a briefs guy.

Portrait of the Writer as a Boy Dork

"I'm a fart-smeller!" 

Hello guys and girls! What you've landed on is not a blog about me, per-se. It's a blog about the eight-year-old version. It's about the little dork I was in all of his uncouth, untamed wildness, brainy stupidity, and humiliating openness. It's about a pleasure seeker, a treasure hunter, and a noble heart. It's a commentary on boyhood from someone glad to have lived it (and survived). We all had some strange ideas as kids, but the various workings and non-workings of this brain from the years 1990 and 1998 probably produced some of the "noblest" you've heard. So like I say, here I will post my (rather peculiar) kidhood thoughts straight from that freaky mind to your squarish screen, for your enjoyment and/or repulsion.

Let me introduce myself though. My name is Mark. I'm 24 years old [at the time I write this!], and I really don't have much to say that would matter. I'm whiter than Wonderbread, middle-class, and male... so what could I possibly have to complain about? Even so, that's as typical as I get. The rest of me is some odd mesh of book worm, writer, artist, audiophile (that means "music lover" you wingnut!), and classic movie fan. I read books about philosophy, wax on AND off, and enjoy the calm comforts of nostalgia, hot coffee (dark roast), food, sleeping, the company of chicks, and every now and then a good fart noise. Now that's quite a mix fer sure, but I'd like to think that I'm pretty much a "dork" through and through. I'm a simple guy. That's all. I like to joke around and always was a bit of a class clown. This site is really just a continuation of that. 

Now let me get something straight: I don't do the whole "anger issues" thing here... I celebrate my 90s childhood! "Dork" should not be a pejorative term! I wear it like a badge of honor (in a manner of speaking). It's a lifestyle. It's genetic... maybe. It's freedom to be what you are. According to Urban Dictionary, a dork is:

Someone who has odd interests, and is often silly at times. A dork is also someone who can be themselves and not care what anyone thinks.

Dorks are typically more noted for their quirky personality and behavior rather than their interests or IQ which may or may not be on level with traditional geeks or nerds. They tend to be more humorous and extroverted and don't mind laughing at themselves or with others at themselves, as the case may be.

So we got no reason to hate on the dorks. Bland is boring. If you can't laugh at yourself, then... well, you get that idea. I think we should celebrate what makes us unique. Are we dorks not human? Kick us, do we not say... "oof!"? Unique... yeah, that's what you can call it.

History will remember the name Enterprise. Welcome aboard.  --Admiral Mark