90's Toys That Rocked My World

So I'm not that old, but it seems like a lot of the things I loved when I was little aren't even around anymore! So for those of you who were also children of the 90's I've compiled a little list of things I miss from my childhood and would potentially be interested in buying/finding/ using again without shame.... can't believe we're already 11 years out from the decade of greatness:( but seriously these toys were the best ever no matter what anyone else says... hope you enjoy...

N64 - Are you serious? Of course this is #1.  I wish I still had mine because I would play it.  Best thing Nintendo ever did.  Old favorites - Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros., Every Tony Hawk Pro Skater Game, 1080 Snowboarding, Legend of Zelda ( not the 2nd one though... it sucked), Mario Golf, and obviously Mario Party

Sit and Spin - This was never a good idea.... but I would totally do it again right now.  

Beanie Babies  - Don't act like you didn't have these.... I had like 200 in my room. Remember when they said they were "collectibles" and they'd be worth money someday... well the massive containers collecting dust in my basement tell me that's not remotely true.

Tomagachi/ Gia Pet- these were so cool until they died like a day later.... stupid... i had like 10  of them though. 

Cabbage Patch Kids - wow this takes me way back.  I couldn't leave for daycare until I said goodbye to Charlie every morning and sat him in the window to watch me drive away. 

Easy Bake Oven - how great were these!?! until i burnt myself and was able to eat the entire cake in 2 bites.... ugh.

Light Bright - I have nothing bad to say about this amazing toy. i freakin loved this. 

Gak - how genius was Nickelodeon on this one... all these complex toys and all we really wanted to play with was this crap so our parents had to buy it :) 

Legos - omg... legos may have been the love of my life.  I had so many sets ... my favorite was the castle one where I had my own little wars and locked away prisoners! Did I mention I was a boy when I was little???

YoYo - What else do i need to say but "shoot the moon" and "walk the dog"? And you were nobody unless you had a Duncan...

Moon Shoes - at one point in my life i wanted these so bad... i never got them. Now i understand why my mom said no. 

Slip and Slide - The best "worst idea ever".  Seriously every person that's ever tried this has gotten hurt in some way.  

 

Trolls - WEIRD!!!!! I loved Trolls.  I once had a dream that a Troll like the one below but 7 ft. tall was trying to break into my house... ever since then they really creep me out. 

Hot Wheels  - I had so many of these little suckers.  They were so awesome!

Pez - in elementary school you were defined by your pez dispenser.... i had this one... clearly l was very popular.

Pogs - "Stack em, Slam, em, Collect em All! "one of the greatest 90's fads.  I think there was actually a game with these, but lets be honest no one really cared... its was all about the holograms baby.  

Stretch armstrong - how great was this toy?!? If you didn't have a stretch armstrong your parents must not have loved you.  

Don't wake Daddy - One of the best games ever invented.  Something about it seems kind of wrong though..... why is waking daddy seen as such a horrible thing? If you never played it.... let me know because I'm thinking about buying a new one.  

Guess Who - Is yours a girl? Standard first question... if you had to answer yes then you are definitely going to lose.  Girls were so underrepresented in 90's games.

Dream Phone - Best sleepover game ever.... until people discovered that they could actually call real life boys and talk to them and not a computer phone.  Still, I always knew I had a good catch when he wasn't at the mall...

Despite the amazing games and toys we played with, we can't ignore the total failures.  Here are a couple toys/ games that I will always and forever hate... 

perfection/bop it/ operation - stressful and timed games with loud buzzers were the WORST.  Perfection really pissed me off all the time.  Seriously what a rediculous game... or how about bop it.... I said twist it and i totally twisted it and it still ended my game.... stupid. 

mousetrap - i'm sure this would have been fun if i wasn't always missing one of the bajillion pieces necessary to set up the game.  

Well I know its not an exhastive list... so i apologize if I forgot your favorite game ever.... let me know and I can always add it.  Unless it was a stupid game like Sorry... in that case I'm not adding it because no one wants to remember a game where kids first learned cruel sarcasm"SORRY!!!" You just won don't pretend like you're sorry you a-hole.  

I feel like I need to do a follow up blog about tv shows... maybe tomorrow if i decide not to do my homework again.  If you have any good ideas let me know.... In the meantime I'm gonna go find an N64 to play with.  

Pa Pa Pa Paws UP!

On St. Patricks Day I went with my sister to see Lady Gaga's Monster Ball Tour in Omaha.   Here are a few of the videos we took of the concert.  Sorry for any shakiness.... its hard to dance, sing your lungs out, and still hold a camera straight :)

Opening of the show - lead into Dance in the Dark

Lady Gaga talks about the sweet success of her single Born This Way and makes fun of all the drunk people on St. Patricks Day.

Born This Way - Piano Only - Definitely one of my favorite parts of the concert.  If nothing else you have to respect what a great artist and singer she in this video. 

Teeth - One of my favorite Lady Gaga songs.  Wearing the famous blood soaked outfit and all...

Alejandro what else can I say but "Paws Up Little Monsters"

Paparazzi - This was another of my favorites... the whole fame monster in the background really took this one to another level of crazy.  I felt like I was at a broadway show or something.  Oh Lady Gaga.

The first Encore - Bad Romance - Amazing performance. Such a great concert.

Born This Way Dance Version - The Final Song and 2nd Encore-  I've never heard a crowd go so insane in my life.... I was also going insane with everyone else.  There was so much to capture we had to take 2 videos... enjoy.


Needless to say I had an amazing time.  Here is my sister and I getting all Gaga-ed up for St. Patty's day.

Musical Soapbox

I feel like I’ve read about and heard a lot of inspirational things lately… It got me thinking about the power of inspiration, motivation, and hope.  Now I don’t want to get all sappy on you… not my style Jk… but I thought about what inspires me the most, and I realized that what inspires me most is the exact same thing that inspires most people in the world but in completely different ways.  This is a crazy concept… and obvi I love crazy concepts so that’s what I’m gonna blab about today. So what am I talking about?

Music

Well duh.  Everyone is inspired by music.   If you’re not inspired by music you suck… joking. But really you’d have to be dead to not be moved by music at all.  Why? Well depending on whether you’re the audience or the artist there are many reasons

1.   1.   Music is an outlet to express and feel emotion in a completely isolated but social way.  What do I mean? Emotions are universal… everyone knows what it is to feel love, loss, fear, hope, inspiration.  Emotions are universally felt, but many people don’t express them to others whether this is a voluntary or involuntary choice.  Musicians express emotion better than anyone in the most organic, raw way possible…. Through their voice and body (playing an instrument).  When you listen to music, you are invited to share universal emotions in a completely personalized way.  Without saying a word or interacting with a single person you can fully indulge in any emotion via music.

2.     

    2.   Music is a source of immense power to create something from nothing.   You literally have the ability to fill silence with whatever you want.  I would never say I’m a musician, but I love the guitar and it really is true that when words aren’t enough music can complete what you are trying to say in a magical way.  Yes I said magical…. deal with it.    When you compose a verse, a riff, a piano piece, or whatever, it’s the same as writing a story.  There is a story behind it, no matter how deep or compulsory it is.  The song is a journey, a means of transporting you somewhere else. However, unlike some traditional stories, there aren’t limits to the meaning.  The music blooms into a different journey for every person that hears it.  No two stories are the same.  This is my favorite part about music.  I love to listen to someone sing a song or play an instrument with such passion and think…. What are they thinking about? What story has this song taken them into? Okay I realize that sounds creepy but you got to admit, music is unlike anything else in the way is permeates into everyone differently. 

3   3.  Music creates an amazing connection between audience and artist.  As a listener you most likely have never met the artists you listen to…. But don’t they seem to know you better than anyone else?  Because of the universality of music, music can create that eerie and overwhelming feeling that this artist has revealed to the world emotions or thoughts you guard so tightly that no other person even knows you have.  Have you ever heard lyrics that gave you paralyzing shot of self-consciousness? “This is me!” “Surely everyone can see that this is exactly what I’m feeling.” Well relax…. No one knows this song is a mirror into your mind or probably even cares.  This is the beauty and power of music.  However, when we have these moments its only natural that as humans we try to create an emotional bond with something in order to share the moment.  Despite what we think, no one really wants to share powerful moments alone…. So what do we do? We create a connection between the artist and us.  This is why people are so passionate about musicians they like… it’s because it’s an emotional/personal/defensive subject.  Does this explain Kanye’s outburst at the VMA’s? Was he just so emotional about what Beyonce’s song did to him that he had to go defend her? Ha… no he’s just an idiot.  But I think you get the point.   

There are undoubtedly other explanations for why music moves us and inspires us so much, but I don’t feel like thinking anymore.  So what’s the best kind of music? 

 When you don’t hear instruments or voices at all.  What?!? Let me finish yo…  The best kind of music is when you don’t hear music…. its when you experience pure passion and the music literally sounds like life and feelings not just words and sounds.  It’s when you see someone making music and radiant colors are literally forming out of the sound, or when you can’t even sit still because music is running through your veins so forcefully.  The crazy thing is that while the feeling is the same…. Different genres of music do this for different people. I don’t get rap or country for that matter… but I know that many people don’t get my music.  I guess it doesn’t really matter.  The universal end we all find justifies our various means, in a way.  

Obviously I’m pretty passionate about the subject as are many people.  Here a couple videos of songs that inspire me.  Maybe they’ll do the same for you…. Or maybe you should go listen to your Justin Bieber cd instead, whatever. 

K'Naan Wavin Flag - South Africa World Cup Song.... a pretty cool video too.

You knew you weren't going to get a music blog from me without seeing a video like this... Streetcorner Symphony and the other 3 finalist groups cover Coldplay's Fix You in the show's finale number. 

Joshua Radin and Ingrid Michaelson are amazing on their own, but nothing beats this collaboration.  Sky is definitely one of the greatest and most beautiful songs out there. 

It was really hard to pick just one Boyce Avenue song to post. Here they cover Bruno Mars' Gerenade in a really interesting way.  I love all their stuff and they have an awesome YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/boyceavenue so check it out.  

Okay I’ll get off my musical soapbox now…

My Hiatus

So I haven't been able to write a new entry in a few weeks.  The main reason for this is that I still don't have a computer.  Apple ended up charging way more than I expected, so at this point I'm thinking I might as well just get a new one.  However,  I don't really have money to just buy a computer at this point... so we'll see when that all gets figured out!  The other reason I haven't been posting is because I have been on spring break the last 10 days.  I'm sure there will be a good post regarding Panama City spring break in the coming days.... but for now I'll just say I didn't spend much of my time doing anything but living the lazy beach life.  It was a great senior spring break trip, and now it's time to power through the last 8 weeks of my college career.

So, the short of it is that I haven't had time to document this crazy exciting lifestyle of mine recently, but I'll be sure to step up my game on the homestretch.  I feel like a hypocrite because I always complain about TV hiatus breaks in the winter and in March before sweeps, yet here I am doing it with my blog :) See I really am a TV nerd. Anyway, a lot can happen in 2 months, and hopefully some of it will be post-worthy. For now I'll just give you a short preview of the two most exciting things coming up this week.

1. Most importantly Thursday is St. Patricks day and I will be living it up at the Lady Gaga concert all night.  this is by far the most exciting part of my week.

2. Coming in at a close second is the massive amount of schoolwork professors dumped on us after spring break this year.  I'll be reading a bajillion case studies and writing even more useless reflection papers over the next two weeks. Thankfully, 9 weeks from today I'll be a college graduate with nothing to worry about but real life from then on.

I've been told that real life is much harder than college, that I should stretch my 3 years out much longer.  Maybe I'm just ignorant and young, and don't get me wrong I've loved college, but I'm so ready to be done.   I'll really miss my friends here, but for the most part I won't miss college student, Omaha and the bs that goes along with classes.  I'm ready to live on my own doing a job I love and hang out with new people.  But.... that's living in the future.  I'm going to do all I can to enjoy these last days as a college kid.  If anything actually exciting happens.... you'll be the first to know.  If nothing exciting happens... well then my posts are about to get even more boring.