Yabba-Dabba-Bandz!

PG-13 Flintstones Shirt...and other goodies

I'm not really a fan of taking classic cartoon characters and making suggestive merchandise with them, but seeing as how The Flintstones are near-extinct in the current pop culture landscape I couldn't help but be a bit excited when I saw this new T-shirt at Spencer's Gifts in the mall! For those of you out of the loop, the shirt actually references a song by rapper Lil' Wayne called BedRock. Among the song's other sexually charged lyrics are the line: "Call me Mr. Flintstone...I can make your bed rock." Suggestive? Yes. Obscene? I don't think so. We've all seen shirts with cartoon characters doing much worse stuff with drugs....or in the case of poor Calvin and Hobbs - relieving themselves on anything under the sun (but mostly the Ford logo.) Anywho...cool shirt! You can't blame a caveman for making a pun! The shirt isn't available yet on Spencer's website, but it can be ordered from Stylin Online.

Another really cool item I saw at the same store was this super neat Sesame Street Character Diaper Bag. I'm not sure I'm down with this new trend of slapping Cookie Monster's face on everything from keychains to beach towels and Snuggies. The music store in our mall is filled with new Cookie Monster stuff and I'm not sure punk kid out there with a blue Cookie Monster shirt is a true CM fan. My die-hard Cookie Monster fan roots run very deep! But again, who cares...this diaper bag, with the faces of other characters on the smaller pockets is totally cool...and alot more attractive than the diaper bag we carried around with Baby Elmo and Baby Big Big petting a baby elephant. (Seriously.)

So, next time you are at your local mall make sure you stop by Spencer's Gifts and pick up some great gift items. And while you're there - why not also throw into your shopping cart some novelty toilet paper, a walking cane with a rear view mirror and a horn on it, and some black light posters!

House of Straw

My wife and I recently spent an extended weekend in the Bahamas on beautiful Grand Bahama Island. Mrs. South was a bridesmaid in a beautiful beach wedding, we also took a tour on a glass bottom boat and enjoyed some fine local cuisine. One of the highlights of our trip was spending the day at Port Lucaya Marketplace which is a neat little shopping complex made up of little shops, eateries, and bars. One of the other attractions at the Marketplace is known as the Straw Market.

If you've been to the more famous Straw Market in nearby Nassau you haven't experienced quite the same thing as the markets in Grand Bahama. In Nassau the markets are filled with rip-offs of designer handbags and other name brand goods. In Grand Bahama the markets are way more low key. There are over 100 little booths where islanders sell handmade goods and other simple souvenirs like t-shirts and hats. One of the most popular items that you'll find for sale at almost every vendor are straw bags. They come in all shapes and sizes and each is handmade. You can find a bag decorated with almost anything you can think of. It was pretty cool to find tons of bags with the (unauthorized) likeness of several cartoon pals. Of course, I took some pics:

This vendor had a large assortment. We saw alot of Mickeys and Doras...this was the only place we saw Muppets and even Bratz.

This was one of the better looking Disney bags I found.

I was hoping to find a Flintstones bag and spotted this Wilma tucked away in the back of one booth. I took a picture and then turned around and found a Fred bag which instead of taking a picture of, I forked over ten bucks and bought it. I guess I could have taken a picture of it still, since it's sitting in my bedroom now, but for now just enjoy the Wilma.