"Gentleman, we can rebuild him."

Back in my day, er 1974, the original Robocop was Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man, which was one of my favorite action figures growing up. Though this one was more like a doll. It had a magnifying glass in his eye that you look through from a hole in the back of his head. It had robotic parts in his limbs. And the best part, it came with an earpiece and a wire clip that you attach to the metal part on your rotary phone. When connected, you had a real working transistor radio! Wow! Little known fact, Richard Donner is credited as one of the directors in the series and he went on to direct such faves as The Goonies and Lethal Weapon. And Lee Majors? Well, he went on to his next series...the FALLLLL guyyyyy.

Kerboomm?!

We all remember Battleship as a game near and dear to our hearts. All of us at one time or another has mimicked that whiny kid crying out "you sunk my bat-tle-ship!" How great was it then when Milton Bradley released this electronic version complete with sound effects! Of course, it was a pain in the ass to setup the game since you had to pre-program into the "computer" where your ships were. But after that 45 minutes you were lost in a world of seek and destroy. Until the next time when you bypassed the setup and used it just like the classic version.

Was I actually born before mechanical pencils?!

In honor of Super Bowl Sunday, I present to you one of the best things about being a kid...pencils. Ok, not just any #2 pencil (anyone ever find a #3 pencil?!) or that gigantor 1/2" thick pencil (for 8 year olds with carpal tunnel?!), but NFL team pencils. These came in an assortment of colors to match your favorite teams and had the name embossed on it. My favorite? The Miami Dolphins pencil. I didn't even watch football and yet I loved these things. How else would I ever know the Cardinals used to be in St. Louis?