Kids today - they don’t know they’re born, eh? I never had a Wii, cell phone or the internet when I was growing up. But I don’t envy the toys and gadgets available to today’s kids. Well, maybe I’m a bit jealous. As a kid I would have happily sold my pet hamster for a cool Japanese robot or for all that Star Wars merchandise. It’s not fair!

When I was a child all I wanted in the whole world was a Star Wars light saber. Every Christmas I’d beg my parents for that glowing plastic sword. And every Christmas I got Barbie dolls and Fuzzy Felts. That was great, but I reaaaallly wanted a light saber. A cardboard tube painted bright blue just wasn’t the same.

Starved of futuristic weapons and plastic movie merchandise, I had to make my own intergalactic entertainment.

Pee-aaawwn, Pee-aaawwn

Every weekend my little buddies and I congregated in my bedroom with a tape recorder, two plastic ray guns and a huge bottle of tartrazine-laden orange soda. We wrote, directed and starred in an awesome space adventure show called, well, Space Adventure.

I played a Princess Leia-type heroine with a flowing white gown and an alarmingly bloodthirsty outlook for a seven-year-old. My friend Sam was the ship’s commander (it’s not fair, I wanted to be commander - so much for women’s lib) and snot-nosed little Danny was DZ-7 the robot. He didn’t really relish the part as he had to spend the whole afternoon speaking in a monotone American accent. “Beep…power-failure-in-reverse-thruster-four…beep”. In hindsight, I think he would have preferred to have played Princess Leia.

We spent the whole weekend running around my bedroom, I mean Starship Eagle-5, battling fires in reverse thrusters and zapping menacing borgatron robots (also voiced by Danny in a snuffly monotone voice). “Pee-aaawwn! Pee-aaawwn!” we squealed as we pretended to fire our ray guns. Commander Sam shouted “We’re coming down too fast!” way too many times.

Aren’t Kids Irritating?

My poor parents. Their peaceful weekend was shattered by the sound of screams, thudding feet and pee-aaawwn pee-aaawwn. They were then treated to our evening presentation of Space Adventure, and were forced to listen to a three hour recording of what they’d just heard all afternoon.

If only we had been able to spend our free time glued to the internet or playing video games my house would have been a lot quieter, not full of rampaging small children waving ray guns and spilling orange soda on the carpet. But what a dull childhood that would have been! I wouldn’t have swapped Space Adventure for anything.

Strangely enough, I recently discovered that snotty little Danny now works for a major electronics company… that makes production line robots. I hope he’s not secretly working on borgatrons.
Pee-aaawwn!

They’re coming down too fast and need to fire their reverse thrusters over at Humor-Blogs.com

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The internet’s great, isn’t it! I can’t believe humans survived 200,000 years without YouTube or lolcats. But the internet is addictive! A recent report estimated 10% of Americans were addicted to the internet, wasting precious hours goggling at Google and pretending not to look at porn.

But how to kick the net nerd habit? The only thing to do is replace it with another addiction. I’ve tried out a few alternatives for you.

Gambling: Why spent hours glued to internet poker when you can visit a casino and do the same, but with free cocktails? In the interests of doing my research properly, I headed to Las Vegas to indulge in a week of hedonistic one-arm-bandit compulsion.

Unfortunately I ran out of quarters within the hour and spent the next six days pretending to play the machines with bus tokens so I could get the free booze.

Religion: Religious addicts who spend all day going door-to-door to preach the Word of the Lord don’t have time to muck about on the net. So why not get hooked on holiness? Who knows what interesting people you’ll meet and cups of tea you’ll be offered by sympathetic old ladies.

Armed with a few stolen copies of Watchtower I roamed the streets looking pious and in need of tea. Result? If you are thinking of becoming a religious zealot a) make sure you can outrun large dogs and b) don’t expect many cups of tea.

Stupid Puzzles: You often see people on the train or driving to work with their head buried in a book of Soduku. They just can’t get enough of writing numbers in boxes! And it’s an addiction that may improve your brain, not mince it all up.

Sadly, not being able to add up severely impeded my enjoyment of this game and I’m still not quite sure what the rules are. Pac Man was a lot easier, wasn’t it?

Collecting Stuff: Stamps, tea pots, garden gnomes or cock-shaped vegetables - there’s so many things to collect! Some people have to live in their car because they’ve filled their house with so many glass clowns or Royal Wedding plate sets.

I decided to start a collection of panda finger puppets. Unfortunately there are only three panda finger puppet shops in Nova Scotia, so once I’d cleaned them out I was finished. I want eBay back.

Sex: This compulsion should be an attractive prospect for most net addicts, considering how much porn they’ve viewed over the years. However, reliving those steamy internet sex scenes is not easy.

If you don’t have a significant other (and let’s face it, most net addicts either haven’t or forgot about their spouse long ago) where are you going to find all those oiled-up musclemen and hot blonde babes? Not down the Legion on Saturday night, that’s for sure.

I think I’ll stick to my internet addiction for now. At least on the internet I don’t get my pockets emptied or attacked by dogs. And look out for 500 panda finger puppets for sale on eBay soon.

They have the world’s biggest collection of panda finger puppets at Humor-Blogs.com

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I went to my first hair band gig last week, admittedly 20 years late. The aging rockers put on great show with their squealing guitars and screams of “Are you ready to ROCK?” Yes we were. Happily the middle-aged metal masters left their skin-tight spandex pants at home.

But when I was a kid, we treated those Hair Metal Gods with contempt and rejected their call to Rock. With their flying V guitars, bouffant hair and cheesy anthems, they looked more like psychotic Barbie dolls than hard-lovin’ macho rockers. Trying to be cool, we turned to The Smiths and those shoegazing guitar bands DJ John Peel told us to like. But did we make the right choice? Let’s consider the facts…

1. Style

Hair band: Musicians and fans alike dressed like it was Gay Parade Day every day, with glittering spandex, wild makeup, lumpy crotches and enough hairspray to destroy what’s left of the ozone layer completely.

Indie: Only grey baggy clothes were permitted. We were too sad and lonely to bother brushing our hair. What was the point? No-one cared. Only Morrissey styled his hair, but he was probably doing it, like, ironically.

2. Lyrics
Hair band:

Gimme an R! O! C! K!
Whatcha got? ROCK!
And whatcha gonna do?
ROCK YOU!

(Rock You - Helix)

Every lyric was about being ready to Rock, how hard they Rocked and how they were going to Rock all night. Other themes included hot ladies wearing lacy undies (also Rocking), rides in fast cars (while Rocking) and parties full of hot ladies, fast cars and Rock.

Indie:

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such as heavenly way to die
*sob*

(There Is A Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths
Sobbing - Tiggy)

All songs had to contain references to grief, grey skies, gravestones, girls in graves and gravy. Oh, maybe not gravy. That would have been way too colourful.

3. Gigs

Hair band: Every gig was packed full of explosions, fireworks, flaming guitars and thrusting crotches. Hot ladies in lacy undies would try to have sex with the drummer. While he was still playing.

Indie: Every gig was full of kids shuffling and staring at the floor. Girls in the front row swooned over the skinny singer hoping he may cast a shy glimpse their way. Even the haze of marijuana smoke failed to lift our spirits because we weren’t supposed to be happy, dammit. And if we looked stoned and happy, we were just being, like, ironic.

4. Parties

Hair band: Ozzy and Axl’s barbeques must have been one awesome metal meat-feast with all those mangled bats, doves and pigs. Champagne poured by hot ladies in lacy undies! More coke than Amy Winehouse could shove up her nose in a million years!

Indie: Meat is murder, right? And you can’t eat when your heart is broken. Nothing but menthol cigarettes and a big bowl of despair kept everyone going. Besides, we had to keep skinny.

Realizing I made a huge musical error in my youth, I have decided to make amends with the Hair Metal Gods and head down the Road of Rock. It looks like so much more fun!

Having said that, these lacy undies are killing me…

Sparkly spandex crotches are order of the day over at at Humor-Blogs.com

And don’t forget to head over to the spanking NEW humorbloggers.com - more fun than a boozy metal pool party! Probably!

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