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? 

Snowmobile and Sister

Actual photo.

February in my 8th year of life was consumed by two things: snowmobiling around my great uncle's farm field, and the birth of my sister. When I came back to school from that monumental February break, my teacher asked me, "Something big happened over the break for you, I heard. Tell us about it," and my response was, you guessed it, "Yes! I went snowmobiling!"

Now I know what you're thinking, "typical guy!" But in my defense, it was a Yamaha Phazer II. I mean come on.

Me... on snowmobiles.

Okay, don't get me wrong, my sister's birth loomed over my life from then on out, and I was the best big brother in the world to her, but up to that week, I was still just a kid living my normal life and enjoying it. Ripping up the snow across the field with dad was exactly my idea of fun back then.

Actually I seem to remember another trip to some snowy place for snowmobile fun waaay back before I had brains enough to compute where I even was. All I do remember is... "hell yeah!"

But uh... seriously, I don't even remember my mom's pregnancy. It all seemed to just happen one day. One day I was a kid sitting in front of my dad on a snowmobile, flying off the hills, riding over the bumps in the thick snow, hearing the howl of the engine in the frosty wind, watching the snow explode on impact... and the next, I was laying in the hospital bed next to mom with a baby sister between us. She was born on 2/19/94, and I met her first in hospital room 219 (coincidentally). I got to be the cool kid that month, regaling all the boys of the adventure with the snowmobile, and at home I got to be something else.

The TI99-4A Computer

The main screen on the first computer we owned. Check out all those colors.

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.

A Real Lego Maniac

Screw Zack, that Lego Maniac. He had nothing on me. My brother and I were Lego freaks. End of discussion. Who does he think he is claiming to be better than us just for being a Lego obsessive? Never was a kid more deserving of a swift kick in the groin to set him straight. Truth be told, my brother and I had thousands of those things called Legos all mixed up in draws from the hundreds of sets we'd built, demolished, and scattered to the floor ten minutes after tearing open. Okay, maybe not ten minutes, but they never lasted all that long. Playing with Legos was as much about the joy of creation as it was the folly of destruction. It was an activity where we got to play God, bestowing civilization on our own little Lego towns and disaster upon our annoying younger brother's. Legoland was at our mercy, and sadly, didn't survive, but its golden age was beautiful.

The most important thing that Legos ever taught me about life was... how long my digestive system takes to do its thing. See, I accidentally ate a Lego once (don't judge me) and ended up waiting with anticipation for the inevitable... the day we would meet again. And it was like, a mini-advent just awaiting the return of the swallowed Lego (I think it was a Lego coin), with days and nights of expectant curiosity, counting them on my calendar, each successive toilet excursion another adventure, with the coin's golden reappearance at the other end seeming more and more inevitable with each passing... pass... until finally... nothing. No treasure. To this day I don't know if that little Lego coin ever made its way out of me, but I certainly hope so. So yeah, Legos rule.

But my dad hated Legos. He wanted to go fisticuffs with whatever "jerkoff" invented those little plastic bricks. Not surprising, because he was the one who had to step on them in the hallway at 3AM. And what a cruel irony it was that in the early years he was usually the one building the bigger sets for us. Now if only most instructions for things were like Lego instruction manuals... just pictures, no words, no seven different languages... some of us maybe would have been able to program VCR clocks or assemble Swedish furniture. Those instruction manuals were made for boys, just simple pictures because they know words are not our strong suit. And how right they were, seeing as I was calling them "constructions" for the longest time, rather than "instructions." At least I had the excuse of being six (dad didn't). ;p

Here was my castle: complete with draw bridge and the "gnarliest dungeon!" :

Once that Lego catalog came in, I was guaranteed to not want to pick up a book for at least a week. I used to sneak the Lego catalog into school and gloss over it whenever I had a spare minute. One day after the first Lego CD-ROM game "Lego Island" came out, my brother won out in the fight over who was going to bring that particular issue to school that day. I remember it as the day I took the longest "bathroom break" of my life without having gone to the bathroom. I signed out, and was off to the other end of the school, digging through my brother's cubby just to get my hands on that computer animated Lego Island comic strip it featured. But drats! The stinker had made off with it, and was smart enough to keep it on him.

The catalog was page after page of the latest sets in elaborate set ups. They always brought the world of Lego to life, leaping off every page (except the girls section) with excitement... cannons firing from the battleships, snakes hissing on the desert sand traps, and spaceships that fired pretend lasers! None of that came through out of the box, but I didn't care one bit. They always had a page toward the end where you could order parts if you were missing pieces, along with the Lego real-working Train and Technic series (for older kids).

Sometimes we'd take a trip to the toy store just for being good on errands or doctor's appointments, and mom would just have us pick from the tiny boxes at the end of the aisle. Even the cheapest little "pirate and cannon"-like set was enough to pacify us, although we got plenty of the big expensive sets as well. My brother and I both had the Lego castles. I had the black one with the draw bridge and my brother had the white one with the trap door. That's the only way you can reason with brothers, each one has to get a castle with something cool or else a real joust will go down, and the black and white knight have nothing on two jealous brothers.

We loved the pirate ships (but never got them), anything from outer space, the castles, the ninjas, and all their little themes, but then Lego started getting way too into merchandising. Lately they've been coming back with themes like "City" and "Town," and the Lego "Games" is an interesting idea, so I have faith in a Lego future beyond Lego Harry Potter. There is life after Lego Indiana Jones, thank you God.

Robie the Banker

No, he couldn't win on Jeopardy, but if you stuck a penny in his platter-like hand, he'd raise it up, drop it down his gullet, rock back and forth as he chewed, and then stick his red tongue out to lick his chops. He was a clever little robot, taking a cue from his Coke machine and pay phone ancestors, only this time designed specifically to eat your money. And yet, with a face like that, it's exactly what you want him to do. How could a kid resist this Radio Shack classic?

Of course you could just push his hand and he'd go through the whole spastic rigmarole without you having to lose a quarter. And yes, there was an opening in the back where you could gain access to his digested stash, for better or worse, leading to all the typical jokes. Saving money was never more hilarious. The only regret, he didn't burp.

Thank You Don Bluth

I stumbled across this chestnut in my semi-conscious late night wanderings. This film may have choaked me up once or twice, but you can forgive the 8-year-old me, it was pretty damn hardcore for a kid (even Bambi didn't have to sit there and watch his mother die!) and yet, it still seems to work on me. Perfect in every way. Let's take a moment to just mourn the unsung death in the movie... that of the tree star.

It's from The Land Before Time btw. The one and only.

This is just the end, but those in the know, know, and are probably still crying. Thank you Don Bluth for all you have given this generation!

The best part of being a 90's kid is knowing what's good.

[update: RIP James Horner, 1953-2015)