The Joystick From Heaven
The other night I was perusing the toy section at Kohls while my lovely wife was taking her sweet time looking for some new clothes. To my surprise, I stumbled upon a couple of extraordinary items in this small haven of jubilee.

To begin with, I found my first ever Hot Wheels Treasure Hunt car. I almost couldn't believe my eyes! I've spent most of my life checking out the Hot Wheels section of most of the stores I enter to see if any of the fanatics happened to let a Treasure Hunt car slip through their fingers. Unfortunately, I had never found a Treasure Hunt car of my own (since I'm not crazy enough to camp out in the toy section of every department store and wait for the Hot Wheels stocker to come out with the brand new case of cars), until now! Granted, it's a Jeff Burton NASCAR Hot Wheel (I kinda like NASCAR, but I've never been a Jeff Burton person per se), but I still think it's pretty cool. Plus, it was hanging in the very front, for all eyes to see! I guess there aren't many crazy Hot Wheels fanatics that frequent the Kohls in Lawrence!

Now, on the my next, and perhaps most enjoyable, find of the evening. With my Hot Wheels Treasure Hunt car already in tow, I began to scan the games section. I noticed these old-school, Atari-like joy sticks in little shaped plastic (HDPE #1) containers. I picked one up that had Ms. Pacman featured as the main attraction. I knew my wife had a weakness for Ms. Pacman and I also knew that her birthday was coming up on Nov. 17. Upon closer examination, I also realized that this joystick contained other classic games from the 1980's. What were they, you ask? Well, hold yer horses, I'm gettin' there! This joystick also contained Galaga (this just might be my favorite game of all time), Pole Position, Xevious and Mappy. Wow! Upon reading this, I realized I couldn't wait a whole week to give this to my wife as a gift. I had to play this now! There were some serious childhood memories to be relived! So, I took my finds and found my wife and she graciously allowed me to purchase both of them. She really kicks ass! Did I tell you that the joystick just plugs directly into the video inputs on the TV? That's all you have to do. The games are all inside the joystick. Just plug it in and play! It sure has made me a happy camper for the past couple days. I've already worn out the first set of batteries!

- posted by Jason @ 9:09 AM