Photos from Bob Monaco’s Flickr page.  Check out the Arto Monaco Historical Society.

I guess I expected a slightly more raucous party at the dream home for Barbie’s 21st. But I supposed that both Astronaut Barbie and Ballerina Barbie are already on the roof with the sun still out – and Malibu Barbie only just arrived to really bring the party.

This makes me super jealous of little British kids. Wish we had these growing up. Seen about a year ago at the wonderful V&A Museum of Childhood in London. A slew of photos I took are here.

An awesome vendor at Brimfield had rescued boxes and boxes of mid century novelties from a Philadelphia joke shop that was going out of business. I’ll post our own puchases soon. There are tons more photos after the jump for your enjoyment!

Apparently being Scotch meant being cheap back in the old days?

These displays were incredible, but the old guy was a crank.

Waving hello.

Costume jewelry is king.

Bright beads.

Brimfield Market is an overwhelming, huge affair in central Mass. The next one takes place July 14-19. In the course of the four hours we spent there, we picked up some pretty neat items, including this demon/naked lady mug and some amazing vintage novelties.

Which rhinestone critter do I want?

Cheap and great Pakistani jewelry.

We liked her.

Didn’t think I could get away with wearing this without incident.

Vintage state fair game.

And its brother.

Mayan sacrifice carved on a bench.

Various armor, including chain – if your player class allows it.

Still life with horse, tank, and dirt.

African stuff.

More great displays.

Nurse Fiction.

Briefcase with pink and green.

Toy fun.

Robot son.

My parents’ house is a treasure trove.

Room-a-vroom-vroom!

This is about things I get to my email address ‘marcus.smith’ @ xxxx.com.  Having a fairly common name and being lucky enough to get in on the ground floor for my email address I tend to get a lot of things meant for people who are not me.

Sometimes these emails touch me in some way and get my mind wandering…

The other day I got this in.  Apparently I’m the parent of a boy of Hot-Wheel-lovin’ age who was gracious enough to get me in on the action.

Dear Parent,

We are writing to let you know that your child has signed up to join www.HotWheels.com. Our site is the ultimate online destination for boys (ed: interesting assumption I wonder if the barbie site says ‘girls’) to experience the thrill of Hot Wheels® cars and to play great games, compete with friends, track their car collection and stats, and get the latest Hot Wheels® news.

When kids register, we ask them to provide a username, their e-mail address, AND the e-mail address of a parent so we can send this letter!

We invite you to visit the site and check it out. Monitoring where your kids go on the Internet is part of your job (ed: ha, I guess if you don’t care about HotWheels.com you’re obviously a bad parent) and we want to assure you that www.HotWheels.com is a safe space for fun online! We’ve taken every precaution to partner with you to keep your kids not only safe, but also engaged, entertained and challenged.

Please view our privacy policy at www.hotwheels.com/PrivacyPolicy/index.aspx We care deeply about personal privacy and any and all information we collect is used to help us improve our site, our services and our products.

As a parent you have the right to ask us to not contact your son online and to remove him from our e-mail database at any time. If you do not respond we will send your child e-mail newsletters and updates periodically. If you choose to remove your child, they will not receive future e-mails from www.HotWheels.com. Unfortunately, they will also be unable to enjoy lots of exclusive content available with membership which enhances the experience and makes it more fun. (ed: still not too late to be a bad parent) To remove your child from our email database click here http://www.HotWheels.com/common/optout.aspx?request=EMIlvzXTXiPrWMI%2ffg7DOA%3d%3d

You may want to save this e-mail for future reference.

We really appreciate your time and we hope you and your child will visit us at www.www.HotWheels.com soon!

Sincerely,

www.HotWheels.com

P.S. Please do not send a reply to this email.
Unfortunately, due to the volume of mail we receive, we can’t respond to individual e-mails. Thank you.

P.P.S. If you are having trouble using links, cut and paste or type the entire link into your website browser address line.

© 2009 Mattel, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The hotwheels.com site itself is gaudy, plays the stock photo equivalent of rock (or ‘juice-box-commercial rock’ if I had to put a genre to it), and opens with a video game montage of giant purple sharks.  In other words, exactly the sort of thing I’d love if I were a 12 year old boy.

http://www.hotwheels.com/registration/index.aspx

I remember long ago establishing Hot Wheels as my standard kid currency.  They were traded like marbles on the open after-school market.  My personal favorites were the classic ones w/ the soft tires and metallic flake paint.  GI Joe’s were too expensive, had parts that could go missing rendering them of more questionable worth, and were badass soldier personalities complete with cardboard profiles so you grew way too attached to them to merely trade away.  Hot Wheels however were these perfectly encapsulated units of awesome rolling power that was easily transferable and lacked the complications of GI Joe attachment.  What?  Trade my SEAL and Lady Jane for a Destro and Arctic Trooper?  You must be out of your mind.  I’d much rather sit back and covet your toys while thinking about how my father didn’t love me enough to help me complete my set then even dream of eliminating from my precious supply.

The email goes on to assume said kid’s excitement in their exclusive content and “latest Hot Wheel news”.  So much that they seem to be making not only a desperate plea for the parent’s approval but the establishment of a firm belief that they are essential for the customer, um, kid’s development having now found the ultimate boy destination.  Like this 7-12 year old had discovered a secret much too powerful to be tempered with.  Dunno if I remember ever caring about latest Hot Wheels news, I guess there was a time when I wanted to be that first kid on the block with that new racetrack where they would do a flip.

So, sorry Marcus Smith.  I truly hope your kid can remain a loyal follower/patron of Hot Wheels dot com and never miss out on their new developments.  Otherwise it would make me a bit sad despite the shameless hubris exhibited by the Mattel corporation.

bag of plagues, the toy!

bag of plagues, the back!

Incase you want to teach you kids what passover is really about, perhaps you should invest in this bag of plagues, the toy! a little pricey at 12 bucks, but well worth it! its got all your favorite plagues, and a toy for each one! there’s the fake blood for the plague of blood, the sunglasses for the plague or darkness and even the puzzle for the “plague of the death of the first born child”. saddly i didn’t sell out the 12 bucks, so i don’t know the glory that the image on that puzzle must be.