Archive for the ‘Toys & Gadgets’ Category

Posted by //
Sean

Date //
Jan 27, 08 - 10:27 pm

Categories //
Geekery
Google
Toys & Gadgets

Comments Off on 50th Anniversary Of The Lego Brick

Check out the Google tribute logo to the one of my favorite childhood toys, Lego bricks which is celebrating its 50th Birthday!

50th anniversary of the Lego brick

Taken from the official Lego website:

The 50th birthday of the LEGO brick is in January 2008 and there is plenty to celebrate. Children all over the world have played with LEGO bricks for the past 50 years, and LEGO is still right at the top of many wish lists, just as it always has been.

Industry and trade associations also recognize the LEGO success. Just before the turn of the millennium the LEGO brick was voted “Toy of the Century”, one of the highest awards in the toy industry, by both Fortune Magazine in the US and the British Association of Toy Retailers.

Legos are awesome! For those of you who missed it, check out my post about Monty Python and the Holy Grail in Lego.

Man, I could spend hours upon hours playing, building and just geeking out with my giant box-o-legos. I was fond of the little Lego people too.

My box of Lego bricks are long gone… first handed down to my younger brother, then later sold at various garage sales.

I think sometime this coming week I need to hit a local toy store and see about getting some Lego bricks for old time sake… maybe build myself a Lego laptop or robot?


In recent months I’ve been taken over by a new found love for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. I’ve been digging through childhood boxes in storage and in my garage and came across my NES system.

I blew the dust off, gave it a nice wipe down, installed a new 72 pin connector and the thing runs like new. All my games work too. It’s like being back in the early 1980’s again.

So in my quest for Nintendo pirate treasure, I’ve also located both original NES controllers, the grey (the original) Zapper light gun and the rare Power Pad.

Everything works like it did back in 1985. Kick ass. Now that’s playing with power!

As an added bonus, I also have an Original Game Boy in almost mint condition, complete with box, Tetris, headphones and link cable. Basically how it was first released. Yeah, I’m a geek.

Over the weekend I plan on taking some pictures of my geektastic NES collection of gaming goodness and posting it for your viewing pleasure.

I’m also in the search for any original Nintendo “stuff” you might have and don’t want… it doesn’t matter what it is, just let me know as I might want it. Your trash could be treasure to me.

For those readers that are feeling in a “giving” mood, I’m accepting donations to my Nintendo addiction and more then willing to cover shipping fees and maybe a little extra for you depending on what you have.


Two of my favorite things growing up as a kid were playing with my Lego’s and watching Monty Python.

As time passed and I was no longer a kid, my Lego’s got passed down to my younger brother and I found new things to do with my time. Computers and girls :)

Even though I didn’t have my Lego’s anymore, I still had Monty Python. My VHS tapes are pretty much toast now but they’ve since been replaced with modern DVD’s.

This morning I went on a quest… a quest for the Holy Grail… hehe… run away! run away! and I found this awesome nugget of two of my fondest memories as a little geek:

Yeah. My day will now be complete that I’ve had my fill of both Lego’s and Monty Python.

Side note, for those who care, today is also my birthday. Feel free to send Lego’s or back up copies of Monty Python videos.


Posted by //
Sean

Date //
Dec 23, 07 - 4:47 am

Categories //
Technology
Toys & Gadgets
Videos
Wireless

Comments Off on 1980’s Brick Mobile Phone Updated

Wireless company Motelona, a play on the name Motorola has gone old school and copied the Motorola brick phones of the 1980’s.

The GSM-E158 is only old on the outside, however. Once you’ve slotted in a GSM SIM, you’ll be able to enjoy an MP3 player, a color screen and video.

The handset only seems to show up on eBay pages, however you can buy one new from Analog Hero.

They have all types of retro-tech for sale, and the site itself is so willfully sparse it makes Geocities look Web 2.0.

You can buy the Motelona there for $129.00 USD. I want one :)


Posted by //
Sean

Date //
Aug 27, 06 - 4:04 pm

Categories //
Technology
Toys & Gadgets
Wireless

Comments Off on My Hardware

From time to time people ask me what kind of computer equipment I use in my personal and work life and I always answer them with a detailed reply.

Well today I decided it was time to add a dedicated page to my site where I can list my hardware.

Why you ask? Well this way for all the people who are curious, they’ll have just one page to check and when I upgrade something, I can add it to the page. Simple, clean and nice.

You can get to my new hardware specifications page directly from my about page.

For good measure, here is a direct link to my computer hardware page as well.


Posted by //
Sean

Date //
Jul 4, 06 - 12:43 am

Categories //
Photography
Toys & Gadgets
Travel

Comments Off on Pasadena Rose Bowl Parking Lot Fun

On June 30, 2006 I posted about spending time with family, friends and playing with my Radio Controlled Cars and of course I had my digital camera in hand to take a few pictures.

As seen in the pictures below, we went out to the Pasadena, California Rose Bowl parking lot for a nice wide open space to race the cars around without crashing into anything or anyone. Yes, it does happen. A couple years ago I broke my right front wheel off in the first 5 minutes of racing when I smashed into the curb on a small residential street, so now it’s all about huge parking lots.

In the first picture, you can see the Rose Bowl has a huge American Flag hanging below the sign to celebrate the 4th of July. America is celebrating 230 years of freedom and our independence:

Rose Bowl Parking Lot

In the next picture you can see my fast car. I think the top speed for it is around 45 miles per hour. It’s 4 wheel drive. Woot. The 10 turn electric motor really makes it fly. Gas powered or Nitro powered cars to me are a lot more maintenance:

Fast Car

Last but not least in the next picture you can see me off roading with my truck kicking up a nice dirt cloud. I was doing donuts and jumping rocks. It was a lot of fun. My truck could use a new motor for some needed increase in speed but for now the 15 turn motor works just fine:

Off Road

As a side note, the weather in Pasadena was in the low 100’s. Yeah, it was very hot. The motors were running really hot so we had little fans to blow on them in between switching out battery packs.