Daniel is travelling tonight on a plane I can see the red tail lights heading for Spain Oh and I can see Daniel waving goodbye God it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes That one goes out to my sister who should be Madrid, Spain right now. She’s off to do a few months of study abroad. I remember when I did my own trip almost 6 years ago, I remember walking off the plane into a place (a continent!) I had never been to before, I didn’t speak the native language … it was all so new, so daunting, and so exciting.

Now, my faithful readers, I have already told you how my mother was in tune with the genius that is the half-pint performer of brilliance: Prince. Now where was my father? Let me tell you, Dad was demonstrating the future revolutions in commerce! How so you say? Well there is a certain point where a young man starts to wonder about the world outside. The gentleman learns that the best way to get in communication with this bigger, wider world is to check the mailbox. This truth was canonized in “A Christmas Story” where we see Ralphie check the mailbox daily for precious treasures from beyond.

The world knows that Ms. Bartlett in elementary school gave me a minus in art. The trouble for me is that I always conceived art, the class, as art, like all the other classes. This means that I am out to get my work done and then move on. Art is not at all like that. Apparently you’re supposed to achieve some sort of existential satisfaction from Art. Somehow nobody ever told me. Occasionally I can create a bit of a pop art riff. My co-worker Mice is a fan of Disneyland in a majorly big way. Big. Way. We’re talking about a cat who probably actually believes that this place in the middle of Anaheim actually is the Happiest place on earth.

I’m working on my yearly performance review. Damn. I didn’t get the inspiration to write well about myself until after I had a really good conversation with my boss. It would figure, this would happen on the day it’s due. I’m browsing through my iTunes library and I came across a classic, Jane’s Addiction’s Nothing’s Shocking. It’s a great album with amazing and beautiful and psychedelic guitar work by Mr. Electra himself, Dave Navarro. First time I heard the guitar riff to “Stop” i fell off my bed (it was played by a kid i knew in High school named Andy).

Back in the early days of cable (dating myself here), the then-fledgling MTV networks did not have the means to produce its own content (20 years later, it produces too much crappy content). As part of the MTV Networks Umbrella, Nickelodeon (now “Nick”) imported a great amount of content from our friend across the pond, the BBC and Thames productions. What the Hell? They also imported many Canadian shows like “Pinwheel:” Aside: T’was on Nickelodeon’s Today’s Special that I first saw the mysterious word “Ontario.” Today’s Special, You Can’t Do That on Television, and Pinwheel are all pivotal childhood media milestones and worthy of their own post elsewhere

The League, he about to retire from this blogosphere, has rekindled in me memories of Verbot: Tomy’s miraculous robot for kids toy. Let me take you back to the Christmast of 1984 (or was it 1985?) on a not-at-all-snowy Christmas day in Houston, Texas. Ah, Verbot, you cute little guy, with your hard plastic shell head, your friendly pseudo-Japanese visage, and your weird white microphone with a dangling black cable antenna… Thanks to incessant advertising during Transformers, everyone knew the sacred name of this proto-Cylon. Verbot was undoubtedly the toy of aspiration in my 4th grade Christmas year. I even recall in art class that the Y bechromosomed were DRAWING verbot on those vast expanses of manilla paper.