One of the earliest toy memories I’ve ever had was a barn with animals, which was the first time I can remember getting a gift where I said to myself “WTF?”. I also got a flashlight that would double as a Hanna Barbara film strip projector. The flashlight batteries died long after my interest in the barn. Moo.<\/p>\n

One year I got my own bike. No small feat for the youngest in a hand-me-down family of 7. <\/p>\n

I’ve told you about the Big Trak<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After my religious hajj<\/em> to Star Wars (8 times the summer it came out), I would get model after model of space cruisers, battle ships and star destroyers. In my tiny bedroom, the fumes killed off most of my brain cells. I would hang the damn things from the ceiling and line them up neatly on shelves to gather dust and discolouration. <\/p>\n

My last big hurrah of a gift as a kid was an Atari 2600. After that it was like I had matured and would get socks and shirts every year. Not that I’m complaining. I’ve had a banner year for gadgets this year and I’m quite happy for it. <\/p>\n

I’ll be away for the season so I want all of you, dear readers, to have an excellent holiday, no matter what or how you celebrate it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the earliest toy memories I’ve ever had was a barn with animals, which was the first time I can remember getting a gift where I said to myself “WTF?”. I also got a flashlight that would double as a Hanna Barbara film strip projector. The flashlight batteries died long after my interest in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":430,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9WjY-sd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1749"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}