Unboxomania! Rip Clutchgoneski waiting!

Short post, late night.
Got a great shipment from US-collector and cars-friend Tom.
More to come here tomorrow!

Another hidden toy - NOW REVEALED!

So yes, this blog is about me collecting childrens toys, hiding them for my own kids in the garage. My semi intellectual psycological profile of myself has proven that this is something that I primary do to obtain control when my life is shaking.

It began almost at the same time we found out that V has a brain disease. 

You can read more about this here (in case you don´t believe me or just want to read more stuff when I dig deeper into my twisted mind).
(And if this is new for you, you´re probably a new reader to this blog. Then it might be useful to read this too, that way the pics down below makes a bit more sence)

But the cars is not the only toy I´ve kept hidden from my own kids.

This Christmas I finally decided to "give away" the ol´Nintendo Wii. I made it a present from Santa to the whole family - and never before has a kid (A) been made so happy with such a small economical effort (none, well, I bought the game five years ago but it seems like free now).

V doesn´t get the hang of it yet. We only got New Super Mario Bros. and he can´t understand the connection between the Wiimote and the character on the screen. I should probably try Wii Sports, that´s more easy, I guess. But we really don´t need another game right now, A is playing enough as it is. We actually had to make a schedule for him with 30 minutes slots and an egg timer next to the game. 3x30 minutes on weekdays and 5x30 minutes on holidays. Max.

That has helped. He now can control his behaviour and temper much better.

As to V...

He tries to copy what we do. Shaking the Wiimote desperately. But often facing the wrong direction. And when I play with A and V are forced to either "play" together with us or do something by himself - he cries. He is in a period right now, when he dosen´t want to share things. Neither his toys or the attention of his dad.

But most important - revealing this toy to my kids - has been a success! 

It has made me wonder - should I do the same with my Car Collection?

Greetings from the Snowy North

I don´t know what weather you all´re having out there. But in Sweden it is still winter - and that means snow.
I live in the area close to Stockholm and we have a lot of it - and it´s been like this since November.

But yesterday we had a glimpse of heaven.

Don´t get me wrong, I like our winters and I like the snow. It´s great to see the kids excited when the first white powder fills the yard. And I love making snow balls and put them together in circles to form an igloo around a small candle - that is some magic light in the dark night!

But after having this cold and dark weather for over three months we´re longing for sunlight and the warming glow in your face. So this sunday when the sky was clear and we we´re sick of staying inside I got the family on a climbing expedition to a rocky shelf I´ve seen from the car.

It was great. We found a spot with a great mountain wall, well lit by the sun and nice to lean the back against. My wife had made some hot chocolate and we brought home made (My wife again, well assisted by V) cinnamon buns. We put the boys on a fur close to the rock and with a cup of chocolate and a bun in each hand the were more than pleased.

Got me a nice picture from it - new background on the iPad! (Then you all understand it was a nice pic, huh!)

Error cars - Tubbs Pacer

It wasn´t until I saw my friend Tom´s comment that I realised I had my first Error Car:

Dude! Did you even notice your Tubbs is also an ERROR CAR?!? His left tail lamp/turn signal assembly and his AMC badge are missing! Nice score!

Even though I had taken the photos, placing the car around, made a few adjustments in Photoshop and finally put them on my blog - I still hadn´t noticed that the left rear light was missing.

The cars go by the name Error Cars among us collectors - you can see more at the excellent Take Five a Day - and they are the result of plain errors made in the factorys that make Mattel cars.

I also e-mailed the picture to Cars Drive In Gallery - a page trying to keep track on the known Error Cars. Impossible, it seams, but a nice blog!

Soo, to the question with a Q: Is there any money in those Error things?

Well, a quick glance at eBay says... no. A few cars above 30 USD, otherwise it´s just a slightly higher price than a normal car would cost.

Or, have I misread this?

Unboxing Rod Torque Redline

I got my first gift car!

Well that´s not really right, I got quite a few cars at christmas from Tom! But this one I got from a friend back home who went to New York and called from a toy store just to check I didn´t already got this one. And he is not a collector himself, so this is a breakthrough!

This is not the most interesting diecast modell in Cars 2 - but it is maybe the most interesting character. It is actually quite a rare character. Because he dies. And for a character in a kids movie - that is rare.

According to Pixar Wiki:

• Rod's design is a mix of a 2005 Ford Mustang GT and a Dodge Challenger R/T.
• His license plate is M1911A1 which is also a name of a gun.
• According to his license plate, he is from Michigan. Michigan is the birth place of actor Bruce Campbell who voices Rod. 

For me, not being a US citizen, it is almost a shock that a kids toy has a reference to a gun. I know that Americans have a fondness for their right to bear arms. But this is almost shamefull. Why connect toys with guns?

As to the killing scene. Rod is an American secret agent. He is SPOILER ALERT DOWN BELOW
tortured when he´s captured by the Lemons. You could not se him die directly, but you see his reflection blow up.

According to Pixar Wiki:

Rod's interrogation scene was criticized by many as surprising or even inappropriate in a kid film. In an interview, John Lasseter said that the scene was necessary to explain efficiently and visually the working and high danger of Professor Z's camera. It also enabled to get in the movie a certain tone of the spy genre. Story Supervisor Nathan Stanton said that while "watching spy films, where your character is basically tortured and it can be a really horrifying scene, I remember thinking that if we could just get five-percent of this in one of our scenes, if we could just get a little of this in what we want, it would be great. It would go a long way."^[2] Lasseter, and supervising animator Dave Mullins, mentioned that the scene as it had originally been conceived was much more dark and cruel, and that several people of the studio reacted to it.^[3] They say in consequence they "backed off tremendously"; the changes included making Rod a "tough guy".

I was surprised when I saw this scene. This is farther than any Pixar film has gone before. And as a father, I didn´t like my 4-year-old (A was 4 at the time) to see it. But He hasn´t mentioned it, I think he thought it was exciting. And it IS very "spy genre". It helps building the badness in the bad guys.
But Pixar has managed to do that before in nicer ways.

Don´t go there again, John & Co - you don´t need to!

Unboxing Tubbs Pacer

Yep - I´m back in the loop. Here´s my latest treasure: Tubbs Pacer

Tubbs Pacer is the head of the Pacer-family, one of the four bad gangs in Cars 2 (the 3 others: Trunkov, Hugo, Gremlin). According to Pixar Wiki the name Tubbs has to do with the negative nickname that the Pacer car has - a bath tube turned up-side-down.
Is that true? Fun in that case!

This is one of my favourite cars! (YES I KNOW, I write that about lots of my cars...) But in this case I really mean it! (And I mean in it in all the other cases too, yeah yeah...)

But just the two colors... I mean, beige AND brown? could it be more 70´s? Or maybe that´s just my feeling. When I was 8 and we had a beige Volvo 240 I hated that color. You love bright colors as a kid. Red. Dark Blue. Or Green. Beige? That´s for boring grown ups. Like my parents...

But now I´m a boring grown up my self. And I could easily fancy a Pacer in this color scheme.

Here´s my Lemon-corner. Very symetric. Two Gremlins. Two Trunkows. Two Pacers. And Two Hugos. AND Two bosses!

Maybe I won´t get any new Lemons?

Ahahahahahahahaha! Now... seriously... ahhhh.... haha...

I already long for Petey Pacer and J Curby Gremlin.

Back in the saddle

Today it's been 48 days since I last bought a car. This is the farthest break I've taken since I started to collect. But the break ended today.

Tomorrow - unboxing day!

Acknowledgement - being a parent to a disabled IS hard

Sometimes when me or my wife complains about the hardship in being a parent to a disabled kid, our friends tells us something like "But it is hard for EVERY parent who has more than one kid!"

I guess that most time someone says a thing like this, it is with the very best intention. They want to comfort, to say something that plays it down. Make it less dramatic or less severe.

But I never take it that way. All I hear when someone says a thing like that is "Ok. He/She doesn´t know SHIT what we´re going through"
And then I feel a little ahshamed. I know the person means well. And things aren´t that bad.

(Actually, last week, when I picked the kids up from the daycare center, I thought:
 - What the heck, I have one perfectly healthy boy. What do I need another for? It´s better this way. Now I got to learn what a ride with a disabled kid could be like!
And I meant it too.)

But it was a great relief and a feeling of total acknowledgement when me and my wife went to a lecture in "How to talk to your kid about his or hers disability".

The lecturer said, in the very begining that we have a Increased Parental Responsability. So good to hear that from a person who is a professional. We already knew, of course. But sometimes it´s just good to hear something spoken out loud.

***

Today was a good day out in the Swedish winter!

V has a new hobby

V is developing a new hobby. When me and my wife cook or bake, V loves to help. This is something that we appreciate. V is happy and it works well, he seems to got the hang of the first elements of counting. We can tell him that we need three coups of flour and most of the times he stops at three.

Many sundays my wife bakes just because it´s the most fun thing to do together with V. Not because we need more cinnamon buns.

But hey! We always need more cinnamon buns!

The disfavor with V´s new hobby is that he has started out on his own. When I´m home alone with the kids and visit the restroom for more than two minutes he brings out the pans and pots and starts pouring spices, salt and sugar. Basically everything in small plastic bottles or glas jars, that he manages to open, is in danger.

We tell him to stop. Several times a day. But either he doesn´t care. Or either he doesn´t understand.

Right now we´re running low on salt and cinnamon. And my time at the restroom has shortened considerably.

At the same time... He´s darn cute when he does this!