Go Dennis, go.
Archive for June, 2008
Doing the right thing
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008Barely memorable mid-1980s toy line: MASK
Sunday, June 8th, 2008This weekend, a friend brought up a vague memory he had of a 1980s cartoon: MASK. He had no idea what it was, only that it existed and he wanted to know more about it. Well, it just so happens that I have two members of the MASK toy line / marketing juggernaut.
The good/evil dichotomy of MASK was represented by two teams wielding somewhat-transformable vehicles: the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand (MASK) and the Vicious, Evil Network of Mayhem (VENOM). If battles could be won by acronym alone, I think the bad guys would have this one in the bag.
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During my formative years in the 1980s, there was a television show called Amazing Stories, which was aptly named: it was sort of like Twilight Zone only not creepy. If I recall correctly, Steven Spielberg produced Amazing Stories and it even featured a cartoon created by Brad Bird who would later gain fame as a big player at Pixar. Anyway, one of the stories was about a kid who didn’t want to throw his toys away, grew up to be homeless, then auctioned his mint toys for big money. That’s why I still have all the boxes to my Transformers (and related) collection, though my collection is much devalued since I played with all my toys.
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Here are the boxes, front and back. Click on the pics for largeness.
I love the description of Ali Bombay and his mask: “Ali Bombay of MASK with VORTEX mask that pretends to create a cyclone which can throw objects into turmoil or dig a deep hole.”
And Floyd Malloy: “Floyd Malloy of VENOM with BUCKSHOT mask that pretends to launch ball bearings.”
Pretending is the most valuable part of play. I like that the MASK lawyers did not forget this important fact.
Next we have Ali Bombay and his mask:
Ali Bombay wearing his mask. Couldn’t they have done a better job of coordinating his mask with his outfit?
Ali Bombay on his crotch rocket:
Is it a streetbike? Or is it a hovercraft? It’s both! But not at the same time. You know, Heisenberg and all that.
Next we have Floyd Malloy of the evil VENOM. Note his facial expression. He’s got crazy written all over him.
Floyd Malloy wearing his mask that pretends to shoot ball bearings. VENOM may be evil, but they get mega points for style. Is he a cylon? Is he a storm trooper? VENOM is all that and more.
Floyd Malloy makes the Hell’s Angels quiver when he comes to town on his touring cycle. I think I saw this guy at the end of Cobra.
Departing as a touring cycle but arriving as TOTAL DESTRUCTION. Or was that just vicious evil and mayhem? I get the two mixed up.
EDIT: If you’ve read this far, have I got a treat for you. The cartoon intro on youtube (video link):
Garfield minus Garfield
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008This has to be shared: http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/.
Exercise in… frustration?
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008Glargh. Last Sunday, I hopped on my bike for my weekend ride and as I was pulling away from my house heard a loud PWINGGGGG from my rear wheel, which simultaneously became very wobbly. Pulled over and I will now in the future be able to recognize the sound of a broken spoke. Done for the day. At least I hadn’t gone very far.
Yesterday, I went to the bike shop and got a new spoke, popped off the rear wheel, removed the cassette, placed the dork disk in the trash, replaced the spoke, and serviced the rear hub. Went for a test spin and things seemed ok, so I packed the bike in my car for my usual partial bike commute today.
Today, everything was running smoothly and I was feeling a bit proud of my mechanical skills when suddenly the pedals dropped out from under me. No power transfer to the rear wheel. I thought maybe I had not torqued the cassette lockring enough and it had come loose, but that was not the case. The freehub was not engaging the wheel at all. This time I was stranded at just about the midpoint of my ride. So I turned around and made the long lonely unpowered journey back to my car.
So now I’ve learned all about pawls and the ratcheting mechanism that allows the rear wheel to spin freely when the pedals are not moving. Which is good to know but I’m not even sure that my freehub is replaceable.
The bike commute has been less than ideal lately. The money I save on gas is more than offset by my repairs. And if I need a new wheel then I’m looking at a costly replacement.
My bike has been in and out of commission for the last three weeks. I may be doing more harm than good with my own repairs, but everything seems unrelated to what I’ve done. After servicing the front hub, a rear spoke breaks. Fix the rear spoke and the freehub body breaks. I just want to ride my bike.