It’s mostly Halloween stuff on sale there this week. But for stampers, they’re also having a 30% off sale on all Ranger stamping products. This includes the Tim Holtz stuff…Distress inks, alcohol inks, embossing powders, etc.
Happy shopping!
A few weeks ago, I blogged about how lame many of today’s toys are. I also talked about how lame many kids’ TV shows are these days.
One thing you don’t see on TV anymore are local kids’ shows. They always came on in the afternoon, after school hours. I was a little kid back in the 60’s, in Brooklyn, New York, and there always was plenty of good stuff for kids to watch. usually they’d have some kind of host, and they also showed cartoons, or Three Stooges and Our Gang/Little Rascals shorts.
I remember that Officer Joe Bolton was the host of such a show, on WPIX, channel 11, in New York. Reading that article sure brought back a lot of good memories. Anyway, I remember Officer Joe telling us that when Moe hit Larry and Curly on the heads with a hammer, or poked their eyes, or anything, that they were “just pretending”, and that we should not imitate them. That they were professional actors and not really hurting each other. Nowadays, a lot of stations won’t even show the Stooges anymore at all, because they’re afraid that kids will try to copy what they do.
Over on channel 5 (WNEW), there was this guy named Sandy Becker who had a similar type of show. I don’t remember his show as well as I remember Officer Joe, but what I DO remember was that he had a character named Norton Nork. I didn’t even remember that much about the character until I Googled to find out. But what I do remember was how much I liked tosay that name, over and over again. Norton Nork. Norton Nork. Norton Nork. I think that if we ever get another cat, and it’s a male, I’m naming him Norton Nork.
Another show I remember well was Winchell-Mahoney Time. I think that was actually nationally syndicated, not local to New York. I loved Knucklehead, he was my favorite character, and I so wanted a Knucklehead doll. I don’t remember now if they ever made Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff dolls…they probably did. But I never got one…sniff…
Speaking of other cool stuff I never got…I well remember Winky Dink and You. I wasn’t born yet when the original 50’s version was on, but they revived it in the 60’s with new, color cartoons. Those are the ones I remember. They used to sell these “Magic Kits”, which consisted of a clear “magic screen” that you were supposed to put over your TV screen, static cling held it in place. It also contained a box of crayons and a cloth to wipe the magic screen clean.
The idea was to help Winky Dink get out of trouble by drawing something on the magic screen to help him. Say he’s running away from the bad guy, and he comes to a cliff. You would then save Winky by drawing a bridge for him to cross, and then you erase it before the bad guy gets there, thus making him fall off the cliff.
I so wanted one of those kits, but I never got one. Now, they are selling new kits that contain the aforementioned screen, crayons and cloth, as well as a DVD of Winky Dink cartoons. I saw this on Amazon, and of course, I bought one. So now, I’m 47 years old and I still like to “save” Winky Dink from the bad guys. So bust me! 
When I was a teenager in the 70’s, we moved to southern New Jersey. There, we got all of the Philadelphia TV stations. Channel 6 (WFIL) had Captain Noah and his Magical Ark. This was actually a morning show, and I was really way too old for it, but I watched it anyway. What I remember most was this song:
Send your pictures to dear old Captain Noah
Send today, send right away
Send your pictures to dear old Captain Noah
We’ll hang them high, in the TV sky…
And the camera would pan over all of the drawings that kids sent in, hanging high in the TV sky…
They just don’t make shows like these anymore. Most of the kids’ shows on today are crap. Even the cartoons are unfunny and unimaginative, for the most part. I do like Spongebob, though.
But as I said in that other post, I would NOT want to be a kid now. Both toy-wise and TV-wise, I had it so much better than kids today do! 
I don’t have the machine (yet), but I have a lot of their dies and embossing folders. They have some really cute designs. I use them in my Sizzix BigKick machine with the multi-purpose platform, and they work just fine in that. Smaller dies can go through the SideKick or Tag-A-Long, a smaller machine which will be a part of the grand prize for my contest, which will be launched next week.
But I’ve been thinking of buying a Cuttlebug machine anyway. Not that I NEED one, mind you…but I can get one pretty cheaply by using a coupon, so what the hey. It’s all for the sake of fair reporting on this blog, right? 
The advantages I see to Cuttlebug is that the machine is much smaller, takes up much less tabletop real estate and all. Also much easier to tote around if you travel, go to crops, and such.
It is supposed to work with all other brands’ dies, and I hear it works quite well. But the BigKick that I have works well with other dies, as well. But as much as I love it, I’m thinking it might be time to store it away until we can move someplace where I can have a whole room for crafts, and try the smaller Cuttlebug instead.
I will let you know what I think if it, if and when I do buy one!
…because there’s this guy who’s been hammering all over the place in our building. Upstairs in the landladies’ unit, and now, as I type this, he is down in the basement, right under my desk here.
It seems that this is an endless thing here…the constant workmen here doing stuff, being loud and annoying. I decided years ago to not let any of them in here to do stuff, partly because they are annoying and obnoxious, also because when we sis let them in to do stuff, they did a dogawful job of it. I told the landladies years ago, NO MORE! And they have respected that…so far.
Seriously…it seems like the landladies have had some sort of workman or another in this building, every day, for YEARS now. How can they live like this? I sure as hell cpuldn’t! I like my privacy, and peace and quiet…what little I get around here. The workmen she hires seem to all be of the skeevy variety…nope, don’t want them in MY house, whether I’m there or not. We agreed that if anything needed to be done, we’d take care of it ourselves…even if we had to pay out of pocket. It’s well worth it to stay reasonably sane.
I swear…if we weren’t so hell-bent on moving to Maine, we’d be looking at Arizona real estate, just because it is VERY far away from this crap.
But we do need to move away from here, and we’re planning on doing just that in the next few years. We’ve decided that we want to move to the Munjoy Hill area of Portland, Maine…we’d enjoy that. We’d buy our own house and not have annoying workmen around all day and night screwing things up and making noise, hammering under my chair as they are doing now. And if we did have workmen in for any reason, they’d have to be nonsmokers…that assclown downstairs is smoking, and I can smell it. Mike is in the bedroom and he can’t smell it. But if he does, and starts having an allergic reaction (he is allergic to cigarette smoke), I am so going down there with a cast iron skillet and beating that guy upside the head with it.
I hate this damned place, and can’t wait until we can move.
…I ain’t got no cigarettes…LOL!
Many of the craft magazines I read have sections where people showcase their craft rooms. I talked a couple of days ago about Martha Stewart’s craft room. But as I said, she’s richer than The Donald and has a ginormous house.
Anyway, some people have craft rooms in a separate building on their property…maybe a garage, or maybe just a large storage shed. That idea is appealing to me, because it would be away from the rest of the house, and I’d be undisturbed by the phone, food, and pets. Yeah, I adore my kitties, but they tend to get into my craft stuff, so my dream craft room needs to be a cat-free zone.
When we do buy a house, and if we have enough land, I would consider one of these steel buildings. One of those would make for an excellent private craft studio!
