When I Grow Up

When we were growing, up we all had dreams of becoming something really cool when we were older. There were some of us that wanted to be doctors, astronauts, a sports icon, and even the first black president. We all had dreams, and of course we changed our minds every now and then.

Here is what I wanted to be:


7-7:30 – Scrooge McDuck
7:30-8 – Inspector Gadget
8-8:30 – Captain Keith, Commander of Voltron (Black Lion)
8:30-9 – Any of the My Little Pony Ghostbusters crew
9-9:30 – Grumpy Smurf
9:30-10 – Michelangelo, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
10-10:30 – Spiderman
10:30-11 – Superman
11-11:30 – Zack Morris

Lunch

3:30-4 – Snake from G.I. Joe
4-4:30 – Optimus Prime
4:30-5 – He-Man
5:30-6 – Lion-O from Thundercats
6-6:30 – Samantha Micelli’s boyfriend

Dinner

5:00-7:00 – Hulk Hogan
7:30-8 – Denise Huxtable’s boyfriend
8:00-9:00 – “Face” from The A Team


What about you guys??


Read more ...

Where The F*%k Is My Hoverboard

Dear Science,

Where the fuck is my hoverboard? Nearly 20 years ago I was blown away as I watched Marty McFly shred pavement to escape the grips of his nemesis, Griff Tannen in Back To The Future Part II. You remember the hoverboard, it was just like a skateboard with one crucial difference: no wheels.

I spent countless hours during my childhood daydreaming about how it would work and what it would look like… surely it would come in other colors and not just pink. There were rumors that Mattel had actually made hoverboards, though they couldn’t release them due to saftety concerns from parents groups. (I hate parents…. I promise to never be an “asshole parent” and let my kids do whatever they wanted.) Then my dreams were shattered by the director of the movie, Robert Zemeckis himself. Apparently Michael J Fox has claimed that Zemeckis grew tired of questions about the special effects, and began to answer with such responses as, “What do you mean, how did we do it? It’s a real hover-board. It flies. Michael [J. Fox] just practiced a lot.” Wocka Wocka, thats hilarious asshole.

So hoverboards weren’t in existence then, but its been apx 20 years since the movie came out. According to the movie we should have them by 2015, but the closest things we have are lame hoverboards from Future Horizons, and Hammacher Schlemmer’s even lamer levitating Hover Scooter. They are great starts but I want the holy grail of hoverboards, the one from Mattel.

So I implore you scientist of the world. Please! Please, make me a hover board! Sure I might look like and idiot at 36 years of age trying to keep my balance on a child’s toy, but I want one! Maybe I’ll just get one for my kid and use it in the backyard myself when no one is looking. Anyway, you have 6 more years to make the fantasy of millions a reality.

Sincerely,

WhoIsMookie


P.S. The blow dryer jacket and self inflatable Nikes, can you work on those too!

Read more ...

The Golden Age Of The Mixtape Is Over...

My wife asked me to re-create the first mixtape I had made her in an iTunes playlist for her iPod. Could I recreate a mixtape I had made nearly six years ago for her? Yeah, I could do that. Had she asked me to take out the trash, or to get my clothes off the floor and into the hamper, I probably would have said "in a minute," then forgotten about it. But creating a playlist for her was something I was willing to do immediately. (Now I know six years ago the digital revolution was well under way, but I was a romantic of sorts and made her a mixtape on a cassette she could play in her old Nissan's tapedeck anyway.)

It didn't take me very long to put the playlist together, seeing as how I had most of the tracks on my own iPod. I simply exported the tracks from my iTunes library and imported them to hers. Viola! A perfect digital replica of an analog cassette mixtape. But there was something unsatisfying about this. It was too easy. I thought about the time it took to create the original and all the thought that went into it. I couldn't just drag and drop then re-order and be done with it.

There was an art to making a mixtape... the specific order of the tracks was crucial to the delivery of the message of the mixtape as a whole. Choosing the right bands and even the tempo of the tracks was a skill learned over time. Back in the day making mixtapes for a road trip, that one month "going together" anniversary, for a buddy that moved out to the west coast to let him know what music was jumping on the east coast.... and of course for the house parties, all required a great deal of thought. There was no "instant" skipping of tracks like on an iPod. There was something cool and romantic about the idea of a mixtape. Now making a mix was hard, it required a good read of the person for whom you made the mix for. And sure having all your music at your fingertips on your ipod is great but listening to a mixtape that was made personally for you was a special experience.

That first song was cruicial in trying to convince them to listen to the rest of your masterpiece. After that the trick was to ensure good flow from one song to another. Over the next 60 or 90 minutes (depending on your tape choice) you were telling a story of sorts. When you felt the pop of the play button realigning itself with the others, you knew your journey had come to an end.

Maybe I'm just being nostalgic, but I liked the idea that when you gave a friend or your crush a mixtape it would, over the next few weeks and months, become the soundtrack to their lives.

Read more ...