A trip around my room

I’ve been planning this post for quite a while. It all started when I got the idea of sharing some of my favorite things with IDK readers (in a virtual sense). Most of these things are tangible and are on display in my bedroom. I started taking pictures of them with my digital camera and this is what I came up with (don’t mind the date I never got around to setting it)

I’ve had this toy ever since I was five years old. Back then my cognitive abilities were pretty shotty and the only reason I asked my dad to get this for me was because it looked pretty. I had fun playing with it making roaring sounds as it ate my sister’s Barbie dolls flip open the wings add some swooshing sounds and its flying across the jungle canopy in search of its next plastic prey. Of course making all those sound effects got tiring and they sounded kinda dopey.

I noticed other toys had compartments where you could stick batteries in and they would make the roaring and swooshing sounds for you. So I insisted on getting a pack of double A batteries. I was told that they wouldn’t make a difference there was some talk about the lack of circuit boards and digital chips. All of that sounded like gibberish to me and by God I wanted a pack of batteries. After much ranting and raving and the occasional hunger strike I was given my beloved batteries. I placed them into the toy and waited. Much to my dismay nothing happened, must be something wrong with the batteries I thought. Oh well I chucked the batteries and continued with the dopey sound effects.

Only recently have I learned that this action figure is from the Voltron cartoon series. It was popular in the 80’s, many claim that this show was the precursor for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Because each of them have a group of do-gooder robots that can combine into one mighty robot when the going gets tough. I haven’t researched the classic cartoon show so I don’t know the name of this robot, he has the number one on his shoulder blade. Miraculously the twenty-year-old figurine is still in good shape, I wonder how much it’ll fetch on ebay?

This is something from my adolescents; notice how the pretty and shiny is still an important factor in my decision making process. However this time around I did not shove any foreign objects into places that they did not belong nor did I make any dopey sound effects. Beamers are fun; will I ever be able to afford a real one? I don’t know.

This was something that I geek such as myself couldn’t resist. It just so happens that my senior year at high school coincided with the turn of the century and the beginning of the new millennium. Each year our high school gives seniors the option of buying custom made class rings. This year and this year only you could have your class ring all tricked out with spacey decals commemorating the year 2000. I simply had to get one and luckily my parents approved and put up the money to get one. Here’s a closer look:

Jostens is a pretty active in the class ring industry they do all the colleges as well. I am told they also make rings for the winning team at the super bowl. Does anyone else have a ring made by them?

Now we’re heading into more recent times. This was when I became a full-blown SF nut and actually started writing this stuff. While writing my first novel I drew inspiration from others to keep me going. The biggest influence would have to be Arthur C. Clarke you can see the well-worn collection of short stories to the left. The enraged entity from my story is loosely based on the gas creature from Clarke’s “Castaway”. There’s my copy of King’s “The Long Walk”. A couple of Michael Crichton books, the entire legends of Dune trilogy a Tom Clancy book which I found terribly boring and a couple of Star Trek books. And where would I be without my copy of the Quran it’s the big black book to the extreme right. Interestingly enough this is the English translation. I can read Arabic but I can’t derive any meaning from the rhythmic words of the Quran. I am dependent on the English language for understanding my religion. The descriptions of the Universe in this Holy book are breathtaking and best of all it isn’t fictional.

You’ll notice that my Spiderman thermos is serving as a handy dandy bookend I suppose I could fit in two or three paperbacks in that cranny. Does anyone want to make a donation?

This is my excellent DVD collection. I also take a lot of inspiration from watching sci-fi movies. I suppose that watching movies has had a greater influence. Because I always find myself trying to verbally describe a scene. This helps me write actual scenes for my stories. Also I first have to get a mental image of what I want to express before I can write about it.

You can probably tell that this is a picture of two photographs merged together. I couldn’t do a seamless job this is just a sorry attempt at Photoshop wizardry. Any who I have all six Star Wars episodes; naturally I had to have a marathon. It took all day to get through all six movies. The middle column of DVDs is made up of hard core SF movies including Contact, Solaris, Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy etc. The column to the right is all super hero movies that first started out as comics or video games. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have always been a favorite of mine. These are propped up by lowly VCDs you can fit 45 minutes of a movie on one CD that’s why they give you CD A and CD B in each pouch. Well at least most of the time.

All of this rests upon my box of Legos. This is a special Star Wars edition of the Mind Storms robot building set. You can create Sith robots from all six episodes. The biggest robot you can build is the AT-AT walker, which requires all 500 pieces.

Well that’s a wrap up all my favorite things! Hopefully taking the tour was fun and you learned a little more about me. Now it’s time for you to head on home (“I think I hear your mom calling you”) make sure to close the door on your way out. When’s are next play date? Well that depends on you…