In Honor of the Sochi Olympics: C64 Winter Games and Nikolai Volkoff !!

In honor of today's opening ceremonies in Sochi, Russia; I offer you two of my all time favorite memories:

 

A Vintage Star Wars Inflatable Lightsaber or Expensive Flashlight ?

WAAAAYYYY back in the day, Kenner's Star Wars line of toys was an all encompassing imagination bonanza. The first line of figures and toys came through in 1978 and what kid didn't want a LIGHTSABER !!!

 

Kenner's offerings that year gave us this:

 

The Star Wars Inflatable Lightsaber !!

Its Wrasslin Wednesday with Classic Piper's Pit Footage - The Coconut Incident !

Its Wrasslin Wednesday !! While there has been a Blizzard up here in the Buffalo area, I've been warming my thoughts with classic WWF footage.

 

This is an absolute gem !!

 

A classic episode of Piper's Pit with Roddy attacking Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka. This is Roddy Piper at his best, antagonizing the "Face" and enraging the fans.

It would not be Christmas without looking through Transformer product catalogs !!!

Yes, for a few years Transformers took my attention away from GI Joe. Really they were just a gateway between GI Joe and WWF LJN which would soon take over my entire attention. Anyway, I remember leading up to Christmas staring at this catalog thinking about which ones I wanted and how I could use them. I mean really, if you have new troops coming in you have to think ahead and have a plan for their insertion to the battle, right. Too much Sun Tzu too early ......

 

This was the first year that TF hit and I was caught in the excitement. There were cartoons, commercials and comics promoting them, how could I resist ?!?! These were the offerings .....

 

Super Thomas the Transformer ??? or is he a combiner .....

OMG, the horror.

Yes, in a freakish, twisted universe where Thomas the Train is a Transformer, there exists this.....this .....toy.....

 

The Day of the Doctor brings me the Tenth Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver

We had a little party for the Day of the Doctor celebration and I added a new accessory for my costume. A new Sonic Screwdriver !!!

Based on David Tennant's Tenth Doctor version, its a sonic screwdriver and more ..... 

 

First off its packaged awesomely, beautiful display and card art. The backer describes what you are getting to a tee, heck it even comes with batteries !!

The Vintage Metallica Backpatch I used to wear .......

Yep.

 

I was one of THOSE kids.

 

I had the uniform: jeans, concert shirt, hightops, leather jacket, but most important:

 

             a jean jacket - sleeves cut off and frayed - with patches.

 

Of course all the patches were Heavy Metal bands.

 

Back then a GI Joe patch wouldn't have cut it. It was Slayer, King Diamond, Celtic Frost; although I would have loved to have a Joe patch .....

 

The most important patch was the backpatch. It was a giant billboard for your musical taste and let everyone know it.

 

Now, just about everyone had a Metallica patch. But this one is the one I wore:

 

I loved this patch. Because of my superior sewing skills this one rotated with Slayer, but I always came back to this one. Not being the typical fare that was found in my area, this patch was different. Image aside, which is beautiful, the colors and detail are striking. Only a Manowar patch would have supplanted this one which was unfortunately never available.

Back then you had to go to the Flea Market or a small retailer like "T-Shirts n Stuff" to find these. No eBay. This style of dress wasn't exactly marketed back then either .......