Little Plastic Figures vol. 3

It's still very hot in our house without the air conditioning. Our house doesn't have enough windows so we're not really getting any cross-currents and it's just miserable! So, let's take another visit to the collection of Little Plastic Figures before they all melt!

Starting from the left we have Gizmo from one of my all-time favorite movies GREMLINS. I've mentioned my love of GREMLINS several times on the blog here before. Since I was 11 when the movie came out, I don't have much merchandise from the first time around. This little guy I picked up near the release of GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH when I was 17 and had some money of my own.

The fancy lady standing next to Gizmo is Ms. Pac-Man. She and her husband are enjoying a surge of popularity in our house right now as my 2 1/2 year old son is in love with everything Pac-Man (that's awesome!) Trivia Question: What is Ms. Pac-Man's first name!?? A: Pepper

Pedro is next in the collection. No, not Napoleon Dynamite's sidekick; this Pedro is the mascot of South of the Border a roadside attraction in South Carolina that is just about half way between the Baltimore/Washington area and Walt Disney World traveling on I-95. As you can imagine I've been to S.O.B. many times, and I was obsessed with it as a kid. In fact, it deserves it whole post all it's own! Let me just say that over the years the charms of S.O.B. have worn off and I now find the place absolutely disgusting!

The last two guys in our line-up are Elroy Jetson and his dad George. These toys are from the Wendy's Kids Meal promoting JETSONS: THE MOVIE which came out in 1990. Wendy's traditionally gets the short end of the stick when it comes to their Happy Meal toys. McDonald's and Burger King score all the big movies and popular characters, case in point Wendy's recently had Six Flag's Kids Meals. (We got a keychain of a penguin with the Six Flag's logo on it!???) Sometimes Wendy's lame Kids Meals fill the gap when the big boys are too busy promoting movies that make money. As for me, I couldn't have been more excited to see JETSONS: THE MOVIE when it came out. My mom let me skip summer school that day so I could ride my bike to the theatre and see the first show! Good Times!

It's Still Hot

Bob-Howdy! It's hot in our house! Too hot to come up with anything funny for ya again today! Our air conditioner is in the slow process of getting repaired/replaced. I did manage to get up all the pictures up from our trip to Ocean City over at Wonderful World of Pictures so you can hop over there if you like!

While staying with my mom over the weekend, Joey and I saw MONSTER HOUSE in 3-D which was excellent! Great story, creepy and funny...check it out! Last night I also managed to finally watch THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN which was also a fantastic movie! It's playing on HBO now so I'm sure it will be on another 400 times this month if you haven't seen it yet!

What if God Had a MySpace Account

Where Ya Been, Ed?

Sorry the updates haven't been as plentiful as you've come to expect from the Wonderful World. We were on holiday last week in Ocean City, Maryland. I had planned to do some audio-blogging from the beach, but I couldn't get a signal on my cell phone, then I ended up not getting around to doing it from our beach house until Thursday.

Last night we got home very late to a home with a broken air conditioner. It was just simply too hot to sit there and think and type. It was also too stressful with two kids in the high humidity, so I packed them up and came down to my mom's house (with air conditioning) for the rest of the weekend.

She's got the internets but I'm a bit busy to give you a full report on our trip....plus the other wacky things I've got up my virtual-sleeve. Hopefully the Wonderful World of Blog officers will be back up and running by mid-week. In the meantime, check out Wonderful World of Pictures for a small handful of some of hte pictures I took at the beach...and I'll have more of those also when I return. You can also use this time to check out some other great sites in the links column on the left hand side of this page, or support Wonderful World of Blog by signing up for Netflix through the link on this page. Ed South and family gets a little ol' kickback everytime a new member joins through this website! Thanks for visiting!!!

Blog From the Beach

Odd Children's Books

One of the fun things about having little kids is that they don't know what's cool or hip, they just like what they like. Which is cool because I get a kick out of buying completely outdated kids books at yard sales and on E*bay. Before you pass judgment on me let me also point out they we have tons of "real" literature in our library: Dr. Seuss, GOODNIGHT MOON, THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD...we've got all that stuff too. And I make sure to balance the licensed character books with the classic kids-lit stuff. But right now Elias is loving PAC-MAN AND THE GHOST DIGGERS, a little beauty from 1982 that I picked up on E*bay. Elias got all excited about Pac-Man when he saw me playing a few games on GameCube. He laughs uncontrollably everytime Pac-Man gets eaten by a ghost and makes the little "bloop-bloop" sound. Then I made things worse by showing him some of the old Pac-Man cartoon (on a DVD I also got from E*bay). Obviously he was very excited when this book came in the mail the other day. It quickly rose to the top of the "most read" list.
So here's a couple of other silly books I've acquired over the years. I saw Donny and Marie: The Top Secret Project online and knew instantly that Elias needed that in his library. Don't ask me why I was looking at Donny and Marie stuff on E*bay or I'll give away what the top secret project is. I'll give you a hint: It's a robot that cleans Donny's room! And who can forget the great old show PINK PANTHER AND SONS!?! The great thing about Little Golden Books is that they are always there to catch a little pop culture memory and immortalize it in book form.
THE PINK PANTHER AND THE FANCY PARTY is actually the second Pink Panther book we have. I still have a copy of THE PINK PANTHER AND THE HAUNTED HOUSE from my childhood that I read to Elias at Halloween time. When we were still reading it everynight at Thanksgiving time, I tracked down another P.P. title that also does the trick. This Mickey Mouse book might not seem to out of the ordinary, but it's actually based on the short-lived Mickey Mouse Club of the mid 70's. THE MOUSEKETTERS TRAIN RIDE features all the forgotten Mouseketters in their day-glow disco uniforms with bellbottoms. Elias doesn't care...Mickey Mouse and trains equals a good read in his world!
Here's two more that I wanted to throw in. I haven't actually read either of these to Elias yet, but some day. If you're not familiar with ACE VENTURA PET DETECTIVE, a major plot point in the movie is that the female police chief is actually a man. It's funny how they sort of gloss over that fact in this kiddie adaptation!

Random Walt Disney World Photos

I was missing Disney World today and looking at some pictures online. I thought I'd grab a few and repost them here. I didn't snap any of these photos myself, they are just some pictures I found of some of the many things I love about Disney World. Like this shot of Cinderella's Castle taken from the east. The landscaping around the castle is beautiful and extends all the way down to the entrance of Tomorrowland with lots of waterways, flowers and hedges. There was briefly a Swan Boat ride that traveled this lake, but it's been gone since the 70's. The station for the ride can still be seen behind Stitch's Great Escape on the other side of the castle.

Here's the tram for the Backlot Studio Tour at Disney/MGM Studios. When the park first opened, the tram ride was over an hour long. Nowadays, you're only on it for a short time.

This is the checkout area at the food court of the Pop Century Resort. This is where I've stayed the last two times I've been to WDW. So, it's like a second home within my second home to me! We've had many a meal here. This is also where we were in 2004 when we discovered hurricane Charley was heading right for us!

Another great food court, but this one is no longer with us. The Sunshine Marketplace inside The Land pavilion in Epcot was one of my favorite lunch spots. Besides having a nice atmosphere, they had a neat selection of fast food including BBQ Sandwiches and Cheese platters. They tore it all up and redid the whole area when then put in the new Soarin' ride last year.
Obviously, I've also got food on my mind. You're looking at the All You Can Eat Skillet at the Whispering Canyon Cafe inside the Wilderness Lodge. I've been here several times for the awesome ribs, chicken, sausage, potatoes, beans, corn and more...! Plus, they just added the bottomless Milkshake! We did that too last year, but it cuts down on the amount of food you can take in! That's where they get ya!

Nothing special here...just a cool shot of the loading platform for Pirates of the Caribbean. I have a weird thing for stations and loading platforms!?! Just one of the many off-beat things that I love at Disney World.

Past Demons

PAST DEMONS is an independent horror film shot in the Baltimore area that is currently seeking some sort of distribution. The film centers on Emily, a college student who becomes the target of an insane man who wishes to do many R-rated things to her and then kill her...but not necessarily in that order! Emily has been sexually assaulted before and is not going to let it happen again. When Emily's attacker finds his way into her house, instead of fleeing Emily decides to fight back.

What makes PAST DEMONS noteworthy to Wonderful World of Blog readers is the casting. Emily is played by Jen Kersey, who also played Jessica (Devon's girlfriend) on several episodes of THE ED SOUTH SHOW. Jen has also played Velma in a live-action Scooby-Doo stage show at Kings Dominion a few years ago, which I think is pretty cool. The other main character in the film, Emily's attacker, known simply as "the man" is portrayed by yours truly...Ed South!

I agreed to do the film (without having seen a script) shortly before I found out that I was going to be a daddy. We started shooting about a month after the life-changing discovery and was then a little upset about doing and saying some of the gross things in the script. It is however just a movie...it's all pretend...so I went along with it and ended up having a pretty good time doing the film. Most days of shooting involved me sitting in a make-up chair for about 45 minutes while my scars and blood were applied. There was also alot of physical demands including stunts like falling off the roof of a car and also climbing through the window of a car while it rolled down a hill into a tree. It was low budget so there were no stunt doubles. There was also a good deal of fighting that had to be choreographed and then acted out convincingly, which was challenging for me since I'm not really the fighting type.

PAST DEMONS isn't a film that I would sit down and watch with my kids (or anyone else's kids for that matter) but it is a pretty skillfully crafter little thriller. Bill Rollins produced, wrote, directed, and edited the film. Bill's job now is to find distribution for the movie. A number of people that worked on PAST DEMONS also worked on the film GHOST WATCHER which was picked up by Lion's Gate Films and led to a sequel. So, hopes are kind of realistically set high that PAST DEMONS will see the light of day sometime soon. Until then, enjoy the first trailer for the film and if you know somebody who is the head of a movie studio please forward the trailer to them!

Who Killed the Electric Car - Trailer

Invisible Text

Sometimes when a picture on this site is centered, or just large, it will make some of the text invisible. It might happen when the page first loads or if you scroll down and then back up the page again. Either way, I'm not quite sure why this happens, my guess is that it has something to do with the template I use. In order to retrieve the missing text simply highlight the area with your mouse by clicking and dragging the cursor from the top to the bottom of the area...this should bring back the text.

If you continue to experience this problem (or any other) please let me know! Thanks for visiting!

Mouse Around the House - Volume 2

A while back I took you on a tour of our house to show-off various Mickey Mouse items around our home. We just had a new piece installed that I'm excited to show ya, so I thought we'd take another quick walk around the house. We'll start in upstairs bathroom which is actually Mickey themed, so it's not too hard to find stuff in there. But this shower curtain is new, so I thought I'd add it to the tour. There is a whole line of bed and bath items that this curtain comes from, but we've got so much stuff it's all mixed and matched in our collection!

These are two other cool items in the bathroom. The Mickey-shoe soap dispenser, because who doesn't want to clean their hands with a liquid that's been sitting in the bottom of a mouse's shoe!? And the Mickey-pants toothbrush holder, because nothing says oral hygiene like digging a toothbrush out of someone's pants!

This Mickey Mouse cordless phone is similar in design to our television set. In addition to just looking cool, and having the unique Mickey head button, it also have five different ringer types. When there is an incoming call it will play "It's a Small World", "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah", "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo", "Mickey Mouse Club March", or the voice of Mickey singing and saying "Oh Boy!" I think they still make the Disney Princess version of this phone, but I haven't seen the Mickey for quite a while. They sell the whole line of Disney Electronics at Sears.


I realize this one ain't too thrilling, but they are kind of cool. These kitchen utensils are a new design. We picked them up at World of Disney NYC a few weeks back. There are more kitchen items that match, but we just grabbed these two.

And now our latest addition to the homestead. This great piece was actually my wife's idea, but I obviously think it's awesome too. Her step-dad, Mike, came over the other night to install it for us. It might take you a minute to find the subtle Mickey, but check out our new dining room chandelier....




How sweet is that!? It's actually just like a regular chandelier that Jen wanted from Lowe's and then we found this on-line before we bought the Lowe's one so of course the Mouse won out!

Vintage Commercial

Check out this very 80's commercial and I'll have more funny for ya tomorrow, promise!

Crappy Direct-to-Video Sequels

I don't even need to write any jokes for this. Here's some DVD titles already available or making their way to your local video store:

• I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER
• ROAD HOUSE 2: LAST CALL
• BRING IT ON: ALL OR NOTHING
• BROTHER BEAR 2
• DR. DOLITTLE 3
• LIKE MIKE 2: STREETBALL
• ULTIMATE AVENGER 2
• THE FOX AND THE HOUND 2

And that's not even mentioning BASIC INSTINCT 2, FINAL DESTINATION 3, and SCARY MOVIE 4.

Potatoes of the Caribbean

The much anticipated PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST opens in theatres across the country today. I thought this would be a good time to share some of the stuff that we picked up at World of Disney in New York City last week, like this Pirates of the Caribbean Mr. Potato Head. His hat even has a Potato-Skull and cross bones, ladies and gentlemen! And check out that peg-leg! He's one tough tatter! They also have tons of PIRATES stuff at your local Disney Store too, so check that out!


At the World of Disney NYC that have plenty of items that are exclusive to that store, all with a New York theme. We picked up this classic looking Mickey in his NYPD blues! There's a little hidden Mickey in his uniform cap! Below is one of those preschool shape sorter toys with lots of blocks in different shapes that match up to the different holes in the ball. The blocks all have different Disney character pictures on them like Mickey's ears, Goofy's hat, and Donald's shirt. Four of the blocks are extra cool and set this toy apart from what you'd find in any regular old toy store...

...Four of the blocks have Walt Disney World theme park icons on them! The Magic Kingdom Castle, Epcot's Spaceship Earth, Mickey's Hat from the Disney/MGM Studios, and the Tree of Life from Animal Kingdom. That's awesome! My favorite is the Epcot block. It just warms my heart to see my 6 month old son chewing on a miniature replica of a ride that celebrates the history of human communications!

Bean Bag Dummy

So I go off cracking jokes about some dudes playing bean bag toss in a parking lot on the 4th of July, and it turns out I'm the one that's out of the loop. After posting about being witness to a silly bean bag toss tournament, my brother sends me an e-mail setting me straight on the whole ordeal. He writes:

"Pretty funny post! This is actually a huge phenomenon. The bean bag game you saw is VERY popular in the mid west...Especially in Ohio and Illinois (Chicago colleges). Further in the south it is very popular too, but we play a slightly different game called "washers" where you basically chuck oversized washers into holes or leveled pits. I've seen many many many a game, and as you know I am a game whore. We will often measure the pits for consistency sake...as there are often times cash riding on the games. Also, landing on the platform may be some points...and making it in the hole can be another score. very horseshoe-esque. Anyway, washers (and whatever the bean bag game is called) are VERY VERY popular across the country...Especially in college/tailgating towns."

So it looks like perhaps I should keep my trap shut and stick to yapping about things I know about like TV shows no one cares about, prizes in cereal boxes, and Herbie the Love Bug!

Beanbags Aren't Cool

So we're getting ready to watch the fireworks...we got our blanket spread out, we've got chips, we've got a cooler full of Wal-Mart brand Diet Cola, we've got toys for the kids...we're set! Other people have lawn chairs, some are sitting on top of their cars or in the back of trucks...we're all good. And then, down the hill from where we were sitting we see these two big "man-ly" men putting something or other together in the parking lot. They've got tools out and they're constructing two little orange platforms. "Why did these guys bring a bean bag game?" I jokingly said. Then they take the two orange platforms, lay them out in the parking lot, grab a tape measure and measure the distance between them and then....

...they start playing Bean Bag Toss like a couple of 2nd graders trying to win a Scooby-Doo poster at the local church carnival.

WHAT????

Since when was Bean Bag Toss something dudes do to pass the time??? How bizarre!? And the whole time they played I only saw maybe two bean bags make it into the holes!? I think what bothered me the most was that they measured how far apart the bean bag holes were! Was this to make sure they were playing a regulation bean bag toss game in accordance to the National Extreme Bean Bag Toss Conference?

Next week the guys are getting together for a Duck Duck Goose tournament.

Happy 4th of July!

Be Safe! Have Fun! Take your kids to see some Fireworks!

Two Movies in One Weekend!

This weekend a phenomenon in nature occurred so unexpected that even Al Gore was caught off guard! That's right folks, I got to see TWO movies in one weekend...At the theatre, even!

Saturday night my wife and I saw An Inconvenient Truth at the newly remodeled Majestic Theatre in Gettysburg. Al gores internationally seen "slide show" on the effects of global warming is turned into a feature length documentary in this eye-opening film. The basic point of the film is the world is headed for disaster faster than anyone had ever dreamed of, and we ALL need to get our act together and make some changes to save Planet Earth. (It's a feel good summer blockbuster!) Ice Caps are melting, lakes and rivers are drying up, the average temperature on the planet keeps going up! We're already begun to see the effects we've had on the planet's climate in the form of stronger storms...Hello Katrenia!

From a content stand point, the film is chock full of interesting facts and fascinating photos of what's going on around the world. From a film making standpoint, the movie could have used a little more excitement. There are enough charts and graphs in the film to choke the editor-in-chief of U.S.A. Today. There are also a number of break away segments where we leave the slide show and see the personal side of Al Gore!? I'm not sure what all that was supposed to illustrate or prove, but it certainly broke up the continuity of the message.

If you like documentaries it's worth checking out. It's a shame Al Gore couldn't verbalize all this and get his message across back in 2000. Maybe George Bush would have had a harder time fooling the country into thinking he won the election!

Last night I got to see SUPERMAN RETURNS and it was awesome! The beginning was a little slow, a bit confusing and probably even somewhat self-indulgent. Then Clark Kent goes back to work at the newspaper and things start to pick up. It might be maybe 40 minutes into the film before Superman finally appears, but the build up is fantastic. Superman saves Lois Lane from an airplane that is falling out of the sky and that's where the music kicks in. They used the John Williams score from the earlier films, and it was so cool to hear the Superman theme blaring in Digital Dolby Surround after all these years.

They could have gone so many different directions with the movie since Superman hasn't been on screen in 29 years, but they stayed true to the old movies that everyone knows and loved back in the day. Well played Superman, well played! I'm not much on super heroes but I had a great time! A great summer movie!

How Them Kids, Ed?

In one of Joey's useless classes at school they had to design and make their own t-shirt, a skill that everyone will need later in life! Joey made this awesome shirt as his project. He's a chip off the ol' block...ain't he? Also at his school there is a talent show on the last day of classes. For the past two years Joey has done stand-up comedy. He's taken bits from some of his favorite comedians and performed them with much success. This year, Joey made a brave move and performed all his own material. It was awesome! It takes a lot of guts for anyone to get up in front of an audience and try to make them laugh, especially a 14 year old in front of his entire school. There is no way in the world I could have done that at his age! His show was hilarious and a big hit with the school. We were very proud of him! Next year he moves to High School where he'll be continuing on the football team. He's got football practice three days a week all summer!

Elias is completely talking in full sentences now. And he doesn't have a problem telling you what he wants and when he wants it! He's been testing the limits as to what he can get away with, which has been very frustrating...but he's a good boy! The other night we got Tanner to bed early, so Elias and I sat down and watched TOY STORY together. It's now the new obsession with him. I dug out a bag of Joey's old TOY STORY toys and Elias took to them immediately. Elias is also getting more comfortable around Tanner. He enjoys going into Tanner's room each morning and waking him up...even though Mommy and Daddy are still asleep in bed!

Tanner just mastered sitting up on his own. He's also reaching for anything he can get his hands on. His favorite things to grab are the telephone and any remote control. He's a very happy baby, he smiles and laughs more than he cries. (I wish we could say the same for Elias.) Tanner's spit-up issue is still a day-to-day affair. Somedays there is no spit-up at all, other days we all go through a few changes of clothes. He's very easy to put down to bed every night, and he is a joyous addition to our family.

Barn of Thought - 10th Anniversary

It was ten years ago this week that I made my debut as a playwright. My first full length play, BARN OF THOUGHT, opened June 27, 1996 at the Catonsville Community College Barn Theatre produced by the Down South Independent Theatre Company. The show's main character Ed (played by me) was a twenty-something aged guy goofing off at junior college and hanging out with his friends at his favorite bar. Ed starts to reevaluate his life after he learns that his best friend is getting married and that "grown-up" changes are happening all around him. The show was based on a bi-weekly column that I wrote for the school newspaper, and many of the topics and jokes from the column found their way into the play.

The entire first act of the play takes place at Senior Pete's, Ed's favorite neighborhood watering hole. In addition to Ed we meet Cliff (Greg Aldape) a crazy mailman that hangs out at the bar all day; Sherry (Terri McHargue) the owner of Pete's; Jennifer (Amy Belschner) a slutty girl that frequents the bar; and Ernie (Keith Mack) another of the bar's regulars. We also meet Jeff Goldblum (Brendan Hines) one of Ed's best friends and we meet Scott Young (Nicholas Gough) an old friend of Ed's who announces he's getting married. See....his last name is Young and the show is all about getting older...Isn't that clever!???

The first act also has a dream sequence where the "dating scene" at the bar is imagined as a war movie. Later in act one, we meet Scott's fiance' Cindy (Corinne Chellis) and her friend Kelly (Diana Corley). Ed has a hard time dealing with the fact that his friend his exact same age is getting ready to settle down and raise a family. At the time I wrote the show, I really did have a good friend that was getting married, but the show is only loosely based on those events.

Act Two finds Ed, Scott and Jeff zipping through all sorts of pre-wedding preparations like renting a tux and the bachelor party. Ed also finds romance with a young girl by the name of Samantha Godwin (Heather Beck) who happens to be a little younger than Ed would like. On a date, Ed and Samantha meet Blane (Donald Canneti) a very enthusiastic (and gay) waiter who also pops up later at Scott's bachelor party. The guys also meet Clarence the Angel (Brian Kaiser) who shows them what girls talk about when guys aren't around.

Two zany characters also in the show are Don the Comic Guy and Gordon the Tux Guy both played by Kevin McCrum. The scene with Don the Comic Guy also involved my character and Jeff played by Brendan Hines. Kevin, Brendan and I were all very good friends at the time and it was very hard to get though that scene every night with a straight face. All three off us enjoy the occasional ad-lib and inside joke, and it all made for a very different scene each night.

The show ends shortly after the wedding of Scott and Cindy. Every character in the show gets a nice little happy ending of their own! There was even an original song written and performed by Terri McHargue at the wedding reception.

The whole production would not have been what it was without our fearless director Aaron M. Polun. Aaron took my idea of putting on a little show in the old theatre on campus and turned it into a big production that we were all VERY proud off...and still are to this day! Aaron had been involved with some other theatre companies in the area, and had even worked on a couple of shows in New York City prior to working on BARN OF THOUGHT. He had really nice programs (with advertising) printed up for us, he brought in people to be our crew, and he pulled together everything that we needed so that the rest of us could concentrate on being funny!

Also...this trip down memory lane would not be complete without mentioning the enormous talents of Jennifer Lyn Wadford. Jen served as Costumer and Props Coordinator on BARN. She custom made me two really cool shirts for the show. One had citrus fruits all over it, the other was sky blue with kites and hot air balloons. They were supposed to be tacky, and they were awesome! Jen went on to become stage manager for Down South's three other productions, none of which would have been possible without her!

BARN OF THOUGHT ran for two weeks and was a big success. Audiences enjoyed the humor and laid back style of the show. We received a good "word of mouth" as each performance was better attended than the last. The entire production was completely financed and created by my friends and I! All the box office receipts were blown on pizza and beer each night so I couldn't tell you how much we made, but we weren't in it for the money. We all worked together, had insane amounts of fun, and loads of good times.

NOTE: All names mentioned here are as billed at the time of production.

Who Wants To Be On TV

This past Tuesday I had an audition for WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE in New York City. It wasn't because I think I'm some kind of brainiac or something like that...I just wanted to be on TV! My audition was at 6:30pm, Jennifer and I arrived in NYC around 1:30pm so we had a little time to do some sightseeing.

First we ate lunch at some little Italian place where we paid sixty bucks for two sodas, a pizza and a small bowl of green pasta. After lunch, I discovered that I've never hailed a cab in my life! So once we figured out the fine art of getting a cab in New York we figured we would visit one of New York's greatest landmarks, World of Disney! It's basically a Walt Disney World gift shop right in the middle of New York. They had lots of great stuff that you can only get in Disney World and Disneyland and they have some exclusive NYC stuff. They also have characters there, Minnie and Cinderella were in town but had the day off!

After we dropped $100 at Disney, we walked a few blocks over to Times Square and saw some of the sights that you always see on TV like the ABC News Building, MTV's TRL Studio, and the huge Toys R Us store! From there we grabbed a cab back to where the audition was.

There were about 150 people there for the audition. We were all led to the commissary which was exactly like the fake ABC Commissary at the Disney/MGM Studios in Florida. We were all handed scantron sheets and a test and the next few minutes went pretty much like the moments leading up to the SAT. We had 10 minutes to complete 30 questions like in the show. My pencil broke after answering the first question, but I was supplied with a second pencil. The questions on the test were completely random: music, television, politics, fashion, the internet, science...there was a question about something that happened in MEN IN BLACK II and a question about the sun. There were questions about Viagara, the Pope, Gwen Stefani, daylight savings time...they were all over the place.

The tests were collected and quickly checked, and they read off the list of about 11 people that passed. The rest of us were thanked for coming and then dumped back onto the streets of New York City. My total auditioning time was about 18 minutes. I was just doing it for the experience so I wasn't that disappointed, but the guy sitting at my table that flew in from Tampa for the same 18 minutes I experienced was a bit let down!

So don't look for me on MILLIONAIRE anytime soon - Final Answer!

Pac-Man For President

Yesterday I was schooling Joey in some "real" classic video games (I'm talking before Nintendo) and we were playing the greatest video game of all time, Pac-Man. Hearing the sounds from Pac-Man (or Space Invaders) for the first time in a while, I'm always instantly taken back to Ocean City, MD - Summers of `81 & `82 and every single arcade in the town with it's rows of Pac-Man and Space Invaders machines. I remember the arcade at the Frontiertown Campground had nothing but Pac-Man and Spaced Invaders and you had to wait for a machine to free up. (Back in those days, your quarter placed on the cabinet of the game secured your right as the next player!) Anywho...I got to thinking about how Pac-Man was not just a video game but a way of life for so many of us back then. So, I dug up some Pac-Man memories and thought I'd share them with you.

This watch was awesome because you could actually play Pac-Man on the watch. You were able to take the awesomeness of Pac-Man with you everywhere you went. This is before Game Boy and all that nonsense. Pac-Man! On your watch! I was happy to toss aside my R2-D2 digital watch for this little gem. Sadly, I also remember this baby being my only company at a party in the 7th grade while everyone else was slow dancing in the dark.

One of my all-time favorites from the great legacy of Saturday Morning Cartoons! The Pac-Man Show was the bomb! Pac-Man was married to Mrs. Pac-Man (or Pepper as he called her) and they had Pac-Baby and their dog and cat, Chomp-Chomp and Sour Puss. They lived in a little house in Pac-Land where all the other Pac People lived. Pac-Man had a job at the local Power Pellet Farm where he had to protect the crops from the stupid...but evil Ghost Monsters! Man...that was a great show. You can still catch the Christmas episode on Cartoon Network every December.

Again, before Game Boy, Tomy Pocket Games were awesome! They were little hand held games that did not involve electronics of any kind, just good old fashioned moving parts! We had a horse racing one, and my brother had some sort of motorcycle one too. I got this Pac-Man one for my birthday one year. The little marbles bounce down the maze a'la Plinko while you maneuver Pac-Man and catch all the balls. Great fun! This could keep you busy on a car trip for hours!

When you're 8 years old in the early 80's...it simply just doesn't get any better than this. I'm quite sure the entire time this Pac-Man brand pasta was on the shelves at the grocery store, we had a cupboard full of every variety imaginable. Cheese, Meatballs, Chicken...we had `em all! This is good eatin' right here, my friend!

There were only a few trading cards that became popular in my neighborhood. Gremlins, Garbage Pail Kids, Dukes of Hazzard, and Pac-Man. (Oddly enough actual baseball cards were never really that popular with us!?!) The Pac-Man cards were also stickers, so you could actually put your doubles to good use. There was a Pac-Man sticker on pretty much every toy and plaything in our neighborhood. Each pack also came with a scratch-off game where you had to rub off the dots in a Pac-Man maze and you could win prizes. Nobody I knew ever came close to winning, but we hoarded those things like pick axes during the gold rush!

Since everyone didn't have a video game system in their house at this point, for some kids the only way to play Pac-Man at home was with this board game. This was another birthday gift I received and LOVED! Even though the game took well over an hour to set up the thousands of marbles involved in playing, it was alot of fun the one or two times we played. A big plastic Pac-Man went around the board gobbling up the dots/marbles. The player with the most marbles won! It was essentially a more complicated version of Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Nowadays, fads come and go quicker than you can organize your Pog collection. But for a few years in the early 1980's, Pac-Man ruled this country...and our hearts!

Who Doesn't Love a Good Carnival

One of the things I like most about living in a small town is the number of little carnivals that pop up all summer. There are two that are under a 5 minute drive away, and at least five more within a 15 minute drive. Growing up in Howard County, MD the only carnival like attraction that we had near us was The Columbia Fair which is now called The Howard County Festival of Wine and Arts and Interior Decorating...or something gay like that!? These rural "fireman's carnivals" are the real deal with home cooked foods, high-levels of white trash roaming the grounds, and carnival employees dripping with the latest in sexualy transmitted diseases!

So, last night we packed the kids in the car and visited the first of many carnivals that 2006 will offer. We played lots of games and won lots of crap! We had lots to eat (carnival pizza is some of the best pizza you'll ever eat!) And we went on some rides. Elias had a fit because he couldn't ride the giant swing ride (kind of like this one) but he did love the Fun House and all the other kiddie rides he rode.

Guess what!? I took a handful of pictures and they are all up over at Wonderful World of Pictures. Here's a little video for you to also enjoy...

Little Plastic Figures vol. 2

Today is the 100th post on "Mr. Ed's Wonderful World of Blog". I'd thought we'd celebrate by taking another visit to my little plastic figure collection and some of my favorite characters of all time!

The Smurfs probably started the whole "little plastic figure" craze. When the Smurfs made their U.S. debut in the early `80's there were more little Smurf figures than you could smurf a stick at! I probably had about 50 of these little guys...I'm sorry, did I say "HAD"...I mean "HAVE". I just can't seem to part with these little guys, even though besides this guy they are all in a brown paper bag in the storage room.

Gumby was very popular with my friends and I in the 6th grade. I'm not even sure where the whole thing came from except we used to call this one guy Gumby and then we discovered there was a cartoon of the same name. Gumby was the first character to make a "retro" comeback from obscurity. He hasn't been up to much lately, although they did do a Game Boy Advance game of Gumby not too long ago!

The Little Mermaid was one of the greatest movie going experiences of my life. I had loved all the Disney animated classics growing up, but they hadn't made any of the really good films during my lifetime. That all changed in 1989 when a couple buddies and I were laughed at for going to see a "girl cartoon movie." The Little Mermaid captured all that was magical and fantastic of the great Disney animated classics, and as a Disney fan, watching it for the first time was a jaw dropping experience. It was also the first Disney film in a long time to have a ton of merchandising!

ALF is simply one of my favorite shows of all time. It was a crazy concept back in 1986 to have a puppet as a character in a sit-com, and that's what drew me to the show. The show was consistently funny and a staple of my Monday nights for four years. Rewatching the shows season by season on DVD now, they have a wholesome timeless quality like The Flintstones and The Muppet Show that will keep them a favorite of mine for years to come!

When I was younger, I was always a fan of the cartoons that were harder to come by. The Pink Panther wasn't run as much as Bugs Bunny, Casper or Popeye, so he's always had a special place in my heart. I recently got a DVD set of all 130 some cartoons The Pink Panther made...having two kids, I've been able to watch about three of those cartoons.

Simply put, Mighty Mouse is the best superhero ever! He could kick Superman, Batman, Spiderman, and The X-Men all in the butt before lunchtime on any given day! We haven't heard anything from Mighty Mouse in a long time, with the exception of a Cheese commercial a few years back. I'd like to see a fully-animated big budget summer blockbuster Mighty Mouse movie! Of course I'd also love to see a big budget movie of the Snorks or Darkwing Duck....so who cares what I think, right!?

The Simple Things

Sometimes it's just a silly little thing that can bring peace and happiness to your day. This morning we had breakfast at Roberts Family Restaurant, a little no-frills place where the food is good and the prices are low. They put on a good breakfast with tasty little sandwiches, malted waffles, and fantastic smoked sausage. We don't go there too often, even though we all really like it. One time, years ago, I had a chili-cheese omelet there that was out-of-this-world fantastic, it was the special that day and I haven't seen it there since. Well, today when we walked into Roberts I was filled with joy when I saw the chili-cheese omelet as the special of the day. I ordered it and it was a delight! As stupid as it sounds, I was so happy to have the goodness of the chili-cheese omelet on my breakfast plate!

Not to go on about omelets here, but as you may know I am a HUGE fan of the Pizza Omelet at Ocean City's Dough Roller. Yesterday I was informed of another place in O.C. called General's Kitchen that serves up a cream-chipped beef omelet. This also sounds delightful and I must seek it out and try it on our next visit to Ocean City in a few weeks!

In the meantime, the projects at home keep coming! Not as elaborate as the swing set (see previous post) but today I put together this new swing in the backyard to replace the old one that was getting pretty gross. It only took an hour.

We Got A Swing Set

I just spent large chunks of the last two days building this gigantic swing set in our backyard. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present the
Durango Wooden Gym Play Center & Swing Set. There is no way this would be standing in my backyard right now without the awesome help of our good family friend Jimmy! Jimmy knows his way around a tool box a little better than I do. Let's just say Jimmy was Bob Vila and I was more like
some dorky kid in a Bob The Builder costume. The website said the playground would take 3 hours to build, the actual book that came with the kit said 12 hours, we did it in about 10 working hours!

To see lots of pictures of the finished project, and the kids enjoying the fruits of our labor, visit my Wonderful World of Photos site. Thanks Again, Jimmy!