[OLChemist]

OK, I'm a pop culture idiot, but what the heck is a Hatchimal? Apparently there is a Hatchimal shortage in the DFW area.

[milehighsalute]

Originally Posted by OLChemist

OK, I'm a pop culture idiot, but what the heck is a Hatchimal? Apparently there is a Hatchimal shortage in the DFW area.

remember the beanie baby craze? or the cabbage patch kids? hatchimal is just yet another stupid doll for people to assault eachother over at toys r us

[OLChemist]

Why?

I admit, I don't have kids. But I don't get the whole I must get this toy for my kid, at the expense of limb and sanity. I never had the Red Rider bb gun moment as a kid. My parents never allowed anything under the tree to be that important. That kind of materialism was considered a sin in my home.



Sounds like a play for a day present to me. In terms of sheer enjoyment and hours of play, the two best presents I ever got were: Two large moving boxes used to ship my mom some furniture from home one Christmas. And the hammer and hand drill my dad gave me in 4th grade. I played with those boxes for four years, before I got too big to get in them. The 42 year old hammer is still in my tool box and the hand drill is in my jeweler's bench. I built a bookshelf, albeit a crooked one, Christmas morning and many projects later hung my first picture in my first home with that hammer.

Maybe the above nerdishness is why I'm a pop culture idiot, LOL.

[milehighsalute]

you aint missin much

[subeeds]

Only 2 things I ever really, really wanted were a bike and a surfboard. Both were plentiful in our area-and toy stores really didn't exist back then. We had the Sears Wishbook.

[OLChemist]

Originally Posted by subeeds

We had the Sears Wishbook.

Oh, yeah I remember the Wishbook. Dad would tell me I could pick $10 worth of toys, "within reason," meaning if he thought it was "a good value." I would spend hours ruling out things, making lists and budgets. I would spend the weeks before Christmas trying to build things I wanted, so that if I succeeded then I could pick something else, LOL.

One year, I wanted the spin art machine. For those of you not alive in the 1970's, spin art was made dripping paint on to a spinning, heavy paper card that was mounted on a tray on a motor inside a box. I knew this machine would invoke in my parents images of paint spun onto the ceiling and would not be "a good value." So, I mounted a styrofoam meat tray on the head of the motor out of my erector set, and stuck the whole lot in a pampers box to contain the paint. I then spent a couple days mixing dry temperas with watered down white glue, trying to get paint with the right consistency. (Mom was an elementary school teacher for a private school where she had to buy her own art supplies for classes, so we had dry temperas and gallons of Elmers.)

I was busted when my dad found me in the basement behind the heater -- I knew way better than to do this in my bedroom -- dripping paint onto a motor in a diaper box. For some reason, the image of paint on the ceiling came to the fore during my reprimand. That year, grandpa gave me real artist's acrylics and a package of canvas boards the size of recipe cards. Probably a mixed message for a kid that was just punished for spinning paint on a motor.

[OLChemist]

OMG, they still make these:

Spin Art Machine

[subeeds]

Originally Posted by OLChemist

OMG, they still make these:

Spin Art Machine

Yeah they do. You can also find them at lots of carnivals.

[DaisyMaisy]

sounds too much like "hatch them all" which makes me think of hatching what - sea monkeys? Fleas? Chickens??

OLChemist, I think you could have been a Jackson Pollock type artist if only you'd been allowed to throw paint everywhere! My sisters and I got into a tube of our dad's oil paint one time. That stuff does NOT wash off, much to our dismay! We were pretty much covered in it, and frantically scrubbing with water at the sink when we were busted. The more we scrubbed, the more it spread.