More toys

Just went to Goodwill with my brother and he picked up a Hotwheels electronic Powershift Garage Playset, which I get to keep until my nephews birthday.  I am definitely going to have to get this puppy assembled and put on the decals.  Unfortunately the only electronic part to this thing is sounds, I believe.  It is outfitted with a joystick and it would be awesome if you could actually control something with that.  The box also makes it look like it came with track pieces that lead away from the garage, but if it did those are gone now.

Speaking of my nephew, he has started to figure out the diverter switch and trap door on his wall track.  Which is great, but he likes to line up about 10 cars and let them all go at the same time.  I am more of a "let it go and do not touch it until it reaches the bottom or flips off the track" player.  Therefore we get into these scuffles.  Which is mostly him just yelling at me for not doing it exactly how he wants it, then I pick him up, lift him as high in the air as I can, and pretend I drop him.  He then asks if we can do that again like it was the best thing ever; to which I reply, "No, can you focus on watching me play cars.  Mkay thanks."  Okay, that is not really true, I mostly just pick him up a few more times and then set a car on the track in the hopes that he will be too distracted to catch it  He catches it every time and then he tells me to help him line more up behind that one.  The funnest part is that after I have helped him line the cars up, I sometimes have to pretend to snooze with my body at the bottom of the track.  Therefore I can jump after the cars crash into me and say surprised, "Hey what just happened!"  The command to do execute this is "sleep".

It is rough not getting your way.  It is even worse that I cannot bring my own toys to play with because they will get claimed.  That is not all that has got me down though.  After a little thought, I have started to realize the Hotwheels wall tracks are not as interchangeable/connectable as they first seemed.  They use a common wall mount/connector piece that pretty much every piece of track will lock into, whether it slides over it like a vintage track piece or hooks in with a matching + connector.  From the tracks I have seen they also all seem to be designed to be laid at the same angle.  Therefore if you have two wall mounts on the wall to hold a piece of track any piece that does the same basic thing from another track will snap into it.  The four basic pieces are left to right straight pieces, right to left straight pieces, left to right corners, and right to left corners.  Left to right describes the direction the car travels down the track and straight or corner is the shape of the piece.  A straight piece could easily be replaced by a flat piece of track while corner pieces are a little more complex.  They basically drop the wall track down a level and invert the direction of the straight pieces.  For example, if the track starts out left to right straight piece and runs into a left to right corner, the next logical piece would be a right to left straight piece This would basically create a sideways V on the wall with the open end facing the left.  Although after having said all that one could theoretically create a track that goes left to right straight, left to right corner, right to left corner: in which case the track would look something like a 7 except the top would be more slanted and the stem would be more zig zag or wavy.  I will probably have to explain that better, but it would require pictures.

My point is, the track designs are sometimes too tight.  And despite quite a bit of interchangeability some corners might need to be redesigned to maintain functionality in an elongated system.

Twinked

For Christmas I received an unopened box of Hostess Twinkies.  I know what you are thinking, great gift for the fat guy, and you would be right.  Except obviously the reason they were a gift at all is because what is going on with Hostess; therefore no more Twinkies.  To be honest, I am skeptical.  I am sure Twinkies will be back, maybe someone will buy the brand or maybe Hostess will sell to itself in some way that is legal, but questionably ethical.  I am not a lawyer, so I do not know how it could be done; however, I am fairly certain it could happen.

My point is, I believe Twinkies will more than likely be back.  The dilemma then was, do I profit of some poor imbecile that believes the extinction of the Twinkies has increased their value?  I mean really has the price of substitutes increased or especially of knock-offs?  Nope.  I do not think they are worth more than what you could buy them for at Wal-mart if they still have stock.  Nevertheless, if there is a willing buyer out there that will pay more than they are worth, then why not take advantage of that person?  My brother suggested I put them on craigslist.

After hearing his advice, I planned on doing just that.  I looked over the box to check out the condition and I needed to find one pertinent bit of information:  expiration date.  Much to my dismay, the Twinkies are best used by December 16.  Well that is a bummer.  I cannot in good conscience sell a food product that has exceeded it's date of expiration.

Well there was only one thing left to do:  A little stale, but still delicious.  Hopefully, they are still this good when they comeback.

Update (12/1/2014: Just read this, got to say: And how long were twinkies gone for? like two months or what maybe three? Ha! People are crazy.

Stuffed.

My stomach may explode while I try typing this, at least that will give me a sense of urgency and maybe this won't end up as a draft (never to be completed).  I had dinner at my brother's over an hour ago and I am still completely bloated.  I did not think I ate that much food.  It was enchiladas and rice though so it may have been the rice.  I only had 3 enchiladas.  Never would I have thought three would have made me so full.

Here it is though:  I finished my first plate, two enchiladas with a side of rice, and I was feeling done.  However, as I was sitting there, having finished my plate and feeling satisfied, my brother's wife told me there was more.  To which my retort was pretty standard, a basic statement of acknowledgement; but neither affirming nor denying that I would be having more.  My brother laughed as if I had responded with a strong, possibly enthusiastic affirmation.

The wheels had already been spinning, before he laughed.  Would not having a second plate send an unintended message? Would it be rude or inconsiderate?  Would it not just be better to just eat more, just in case?

If I wasn't so ready for bed, I could probably sit here and complain about it for another hour.  I'll feel better in the morning.