For Christmas every year I give Aaron a set of legos. Nothing huge, just a little kit, it’s something nostalgic that he really enjoys. This year I gave him a kit that could be put together to be one of 3 vehicles, a sports car, a go cart or a Humvee. Aaron had been saving this kit to put together with Justin and this past weekend we all got together for dinner and the two of them worked on it quite happily for hours. Justin voted for assembling the sports car option. There are a couple of photos of Justin and the finished product. Both Justin and Aaron really seemed to enjoy themselves. Pretty cute.

So, one of Justin’s favorite things to do now, is to play and build with blocks. Back in early December Aaron and I spent an evening with Amy, Joe and Justin. We went out to dinner together and then had a leisurely night, just hanging around and playing with Justin. As you can tell from these photos, a good portion of the evening was spent on the floor playing with blocks. Click on the image above to see the small album of photos.

So this is just a small collection of photos of Justin from June, highlighting some of my nephew’s current fancies: (1) School buses, (2) His remarkably real toy kitchen and (3) STOP signs. Although he has many stop sign related toys, his favorite seems to be the one pictured above that he treats like a friend. He gives it sips of water out of his sippy cup, he holds it up so that it can look out the window with him, he introduces it to his other toys – it’s pretty damn cute…not that I am biased or anything :)

When I was 11 the Omnibot 2000 was at the top of my holiday list (catalog description). It came with a remote control with a built-in microphone. It had a digital alarm clock and a cassette player that could play normal audio tapes, but you could also use it to record and play back programming commands. So you could program the robot to wheel itself up to Fido and freak him out by playing your voice remotely. Also important was the included beverage tray which would have been great for being served Tang at ankle-height. All of this nerdy awesomeness came at a hefty price. Sadly, costing $500 in 1985 put it solidly in the same category of attainability as an Apache attack helicopter, which I also wanted.

Star Wars Millennium Falcon Spaceship. Use with mini-figures (not incl.). Battle alert sound, landing gear folds up. Cockpit canopy opens. Entrance ramp folds down. Radar dish swivels 360 degrees. Rear deck area lifts off to expose laser gun with seat that swivels 360 degrees and “clicks.” Game table. Secret floor panel. Remote force ball for Light Saber practice. 17x6x23 in. Plastic. Ages 5 yrs and up.
ORDER INFO: Unassembled. Uses 2 “C” batteries, order pkg. below.
79C59472C–Shipping weight 3 lbs. 12 oz…$24.77

Source: 1979 Sears Wish Book

Note: $25 in 1979 is like $1.4 million in 2007.

Presto Magix was a piece of paper with a setting drawn on it like this:

And it came with a plastic sheet that contained rub-off transfers like this:

Here’s how it worked:

When you were done, you’d have a scene populated with transferred characters in various poses. It was pretty much a one-shot deal. So it was fun for fifteen minutes, then you’d hang it on your wall and ignore it until you got another Presto Magix. They were disposable, but they were also very inexpensive.

I loved those things for the ephemeral fun that they provided, but they had another meaning to me. They introduced a valuable concept: payola! That’s right, bribery. See, my mom would take my sister to ballet, and I would go along for the ride. If I behaved well, I would be rewarded with a Presto Magix from the local Zayre’s department store. Of course, I was the paragon of good behavior, so I got lots of Presto Magix.