I usually win that too. But I’m bad on the sports questions.
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My sister and I are forbidden from being on the same Pictionary team because of our apparent Pictionary Mind Meld. (We do not meld minds in any other domain.) It goes something like this:
Me: draws 1/2" straight line
Her: Matador
Them: GODDAMMIT
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I need one now, but scaled for a short adult. I think I’d much rather walk in a circle and watch the “popcorn” while I try to meditate than mess with that damn cross-legs-and-watch-a-single candle-flame-over-there thing. I keep dozing off!
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How many points do you get from the word “quagmire”?
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11 points.
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I think we’ve got the next big thing! All we’ve got to do is get some influencer to start doing it and we’ll corner the market on meditation popper… things.
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Okay, but only on the condition that there’s none of that FitBit-type crap involved. Once you attach those things, you’ve attached a grade: making your former object of desire into an assignment, instead of a genuine toy.
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Oh, no, it’ll be completely non-digital. What’s the point of a relaxation/meditation device that feeds into social media? Who would be that shallow?
Huh? I’ve just been informed that I don’t know what being an influencer is all about.
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Before Super Soakers existed there were only little tiny squirt guns with little plastic plugs in the back that you filled up laboriously and were empty in about ten seconds.
… until THIS came out…
The Cosmic Liquidator was the first ‘tank’ based squirt gun that held like 32 ounces of water and you pumped up for constant pressure. It was like nuclear warfare in squirt gun fights until Super Soakers came out in the 90s.
Then there was Marvel’s attempt to create a fantasy version of GI Joe…
The Visionaries were actually pretty cool and had a hologram gimmick sort of thing. The cartoon wasn’t awful, but the toy line appeared and vanished in just a year or two.
Another fun toy line we had a ball with were these little guys…
These were like Proto-Pokemon in that there were dozens of them and you had to ‘collect them all’ and “grow into an army”. Each had a hologram on the chest (Wood, Water, Fire) and you’d rock-paper-scissor fight and in hardcore agreements you could actually win them from other kids. Most people didn’t do that though… 
But the toy that sucked up most of my time has to be…
The C-64 was the gaming device of choice where I grew up. Other kids could have their Nintendos and their Ataris … but WE were sophisticates.
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We had candy ciggies as a kid (I think you can still find them in the retro candy shops), but including a lighter (Even if it is just a little light bulb that blinks)? That’s … yeah that might be a step too far.
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Jarts? Dangerous? Pssssssh. This one was powered by dihydrogen monoxide, one of nature’s deadliest compounds!
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I had a water rocket that looked like a Saturn V and went really high.
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Thanks, that brings back some fond memories! The rocket, not the dangers of the Devilfish’s Liquid. That stuff creeps me out: swimming and bathing and dancin’ in the rain are all fine, but water has no flavor. And cold water makes me nauseous, thanks to a few crossed wires from an emergency appendectomy. Never mind the serious dangers of the stuff, like liquid-phase inhalation, water damage and erosion, and encouraging overgrowth of flora and fauna (lol). It is amazing we survived childhood with this particular ticking time bomb in the toybox!
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It was probably a coincidence, but one of the neighbor kids had one of these, and one time we were playing with it, shot it up in the sky, and it immediately started raining.
Like we seeded the clouds, man.
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The ones I remember best now are the Yogic counting sequence from Sesame Street and Pinocchio’s reunion with Gepetto as a real boy, Disney-style.
To this day, I love Indian ragas and Indian show tunes. Also, Pinocchio is still my favorite Disney movie.
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The Battle Beasts appeared in the Japanese Transformers Headmasters series. It received a horrible dub that I love to riff on.
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That was fun to put together!!
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