My fleeting memory of this is my father in his undershirt mumbling “sonovabitch” toiling with C3-PO until the wee hours. I awoke to a fully assembled kit and a warning not to borrow other kid’s toys. I was saved!

I didn’t learn my lesson and when Andrew traded me for my “Incredible Hulk” treasury edition for his hardbound editions of “Superman and Batman: From the 30’s to the 70’s” I just let it go until the eight grade. I realized Andrew was just not that interested in his material possessions. 

Pssst Andrew, I still have your books…

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When I think about 1982, my mind drifts to three things, action figures, Doctor Who novels (mostly written by Terrance Dicks) and VIDEO GAMES.


My then eleven year old brain had Pac-Man fever bad, I was a total junkie. I bought terrible magazines about video games where even i could point out the grammatical errors, drew pictures of them, pretty sure I even bought that weird “Atari Force” comic book that DC comics made.


My parents were not shelling out for a home system and they forbade Grandma to help in anyway but my dad knew of a job opportunity in printing that only a kid would take.


So, the winter of 1982 was the year i toiled for weeks tearing misprinted sheets out of 35,000 Ottawa tourism booklets for exactly one penny each.


 Nights, weekends, I spent the entire March break tearing watching day time TV and tearing out that same page out of that damn booklet.

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We’re finally back after a few bumps in the road with our second mini sode (remember when we planned to do these monthly?).

To make it up to everyone, our second mini is all about bearing our souls. We get into some personal cringe worthy pain from the days where being a geek wasn’t something attractive women dressed like Powergirl loudly proclaimed.

We talk about cosplaying at middle school, getting caught with toys by girls or even worse, your entire grade nine class and the lengths you’d go to keep our fandom on the DL.


Join us for 30 minutes of pain and shame, just in time for the holidays?

Topics Include: Kenner Super Powers, Doctor Who, Scarves, Star Wars, Mom, The Mall, fist fights, shame, Shogun Warriors, punch out books, shame, geekery, Colin Baker, 

Hit us up on our facebook page with your feedback.

The post PodStallions Mini Sode 2: Nerd Horror Stories appeared first on PS.

The only problem was according to my parents, ordering things from the United States was
a real hassle. You had to go to the bank and change your money and then to the
Post Office and change it into a money order, somewhere in the middle you had
to fight a giant spider, it was a nightmare.

The opportunity came pretty quickly,  we were in some sparse Florida mall and they had a magic
shop. I could take my kid to every town for 200 miles and not find a magic shop but they were so commonplace during the 1970s, that my family found one
first try!

 I snapped up the X Ray specs super quick and waited for one of the clerks
(seriously business was good enough that this tiny magic shop had two clerks)
as he was showing a customer a medicine bottle.

They didn’t work, at all. I guess if you squinted, you could see like, a shadow but I didn’t need to spend three bucks to squint, I was and remain pretty good at it.

The post Nerd Therapy Session: X-Ray Blechs appeared first on PS.

This one goes back  to 1977, a spendy new toy, the
burning curiousity to know what’s inside and the misery that’s always certain to follow.


More after the jump…..

Kenner’s Stretch Armstrong took the world by
storm in 1977. Well, that’s how I remember it anyway, seeing as I was six at
the time, that was the front page news.

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This week, my pal Sharry is guesting the NTS spot and describes something we can all relate to, unrequited toy love (why don’t you love me Stretch Monster?). Even as an adult, it’s sometimes hard to get what you want.

More after the jump:

When I was a kid growing up in NYC, just about every kid on my block had a Big Wheel.

Since I lived just outside of Harlem, and bikes were a little expensive, Big Wheels were a little easier for most parents to come by. Every afternoon after school, or on Saturdays when the cartoons were over, you could always hear the clickety click sound of those wheels rolling up and down the street.

 From the time I was about 5, every Christmas and birthday, I would ask for a Big Wheel. Would I get one? No! My mother was adamant, and always thought she had good reasons; “You’ll outgrow it too fast”, or “We don’t have room to store it”. The best I could hope for was to bum a ride from another kid.

A favorite game of the Big Wheel crowd was chicken. Since we lived on a hill, some kid would be standing at the bottom, while the kid on the cycle would come speeding down the hill, barely missing the first kid who would jump out of the way in the nick of time.

A few times though, I got hit by these, (when I wasn’t even playing the game!), and once it even happened while I was walking w/ my mother! After that, I wasn’t even allowed to mention the phrase, “Big Wheel”, (though it didn’t stop me from asking for one when Christmas rolled around).

  The only riding toy I had when I was little was a plastic and wooden Tiger scooter that my mom got from the thrift store, hoping this would satisfy my need for a riding toy. As much as I loved that scooter, it just wasn’t the same. And I couldn’t even take it outside, b/c my mom was afraid someone would steal it from me.

When I was 7, I got a bike, and that was great. But since most of the kids had Big Wheels, (only the older kids had bikes), I still couldn’t go riding around the block w/ my friends. Sadly, I never got my coveted Big Wheel, and it’s just something that’s left a little empty place inside. When I heard they were making adult Big Wheels, I thought that was great! But I was living in a studio apartment, and didn’t have any place to put it.

 Now that I’m living in a house, all the adult Big Wheels are sold out. It’s just as well. None of the kids (or grown-ups) who live around here ride them anyway. So to all you 70s kids who had one of these beauties when you were a kid, consider yourself LUCKY!

Thanks Sharry! If you have a nerdy story that you need to get off your chest send it on down!

The post Nerd Therapy Session: Big Wheel Blues appeared first on PS.

This one takes place in 1977 and involves vacationing, towels, a slightly embarrassing confession and I guess an overall  reluctance to grow up. Go figure on the last one….


More after the jump:

On Christmas morning 1977, my parents woke me up at 4am and threw me (and my newly acquired Oscar Goldman doll plus several volumes of peanuts books) into the car and made the 24 hour drive to Florida.


That particular trip has not only given me a lifelong love for the state but a penchant for hopping the border. The states was like visiting Valhalla for seven year old me. American’s had different candy, their toy stores were bigger and all that stuff I`d seen on channel 29? They had it!


I vividly remember sitting in a dumpy motel room in Miami eating “cookie crisp” and watching a rerun of “HR Pufnstuf” thinking I’d died and gone to heaven.

Orlando especially seemed like some sort of Technicolor wonderland what with Disney world, the mold-a-rama machines at rest areas and the various touristy bric-a-brac shops, it just captivated me. That’s where this story takes place.


You see, mom forgot to pack our towels and that meant we had to drive to one of those “beach junk” shops to pick some up. I remember the store had a towel with this image in the window.

Oh yeah, that’s the towel for me, the “New Adventures of Batman” was my favourite show at the time and it looked exactly like the Mego doll box. Only one problem:

“I’m sorry we’re all out of Batman” said the clerk, which my mother then turned to me and said “They’re all out of Batman” like I didn’t hear it the first time. I immediately said “Superman” because well, he’s just as good and I could see that one hanging in the window.

The clerk countered “uhhh, we’re out of Superman, all i have is Wonder Woman” and my mother again, repeated exactly that. In a knee jerk reaction, I said “Ok” but immediately regretted that decision.

I spent that entire vacation laying on that towel making sure to cover every inch of that image, lest someone saw my shame. At the time, I couldn’t begin to figure out why I felt this way, I was thousands of miles away from anyone I knew.

What I realize now, is that it wasn’t that I didn’t like Wonder Woman, far from it, it was because I had a crush on her. I wanted that towel.

Oh and don’t assume it’s because of Linda Carter, that’s a safe bet but not the case. This was the apple of my eye in 1977:

Yup, you’re looking at one of my first loves, Superfriends Wonder Woman. Who can blame me. She’s probably the reason I’ve always been a fan of the brunette. (image borrowed from http://www.hannabarberaworld.blogspot.com//)


The towel lasted me decades and eventually just disappeared around college (I still have a terrible, raggedy Star Wars one I can’t bear to throw away). So it brought me great joy last year to find this on Ebay, my number two choice finally in my possession. Eventually I’ll track down all three, how I’ll display them I do not know……

Thanks for reading, if you have a bit of nerd shame you’d like to face please send it on down.

The post Nerd Therapy Session: Towel Redemption appeared first on PS.

This week’s guest submission (keep ’em coming folks!) comes to us from Kirk AKA “Donkey Hoatie” on the Mego Museum message boards.


It’s a tale I think we all can relate to and that is your first crush on somebody and how it rarely goes well.

The other night, my wife and I were talking and she mentioned that her teaching partner, our daughter’s current teacher, had noticed that she was spending more time around the teacher’s desk than usual. Apparently, there’s a boy who sits in her cluster of desks that’s been bugging the shit out of her. So, a couple times a day, my daughter goes to the teacher and tells her about how much said boy is getting all up in her business.

I told my wife that it was most likely that the boy just had a crush on the our girl and school was almost over, so it’s pretty much a non-issue. Well, we asked herabout it and I told her that the boy is probably bugging her so much because he likes her, to which she responded, “Yeah, he asked me today to give him a smoochy-boochy, but I wouldn’t. And he gave me a note that said, ‘I Love You.’”


So, there you go, the Donkey isn’t a total idiot.


My daughter and I talked about her issue some more on the way to school today and I told her that even though the boy likes her and she doesn’t like him back, she should still be nice to him. She said she would and I said that was the right thing to do because, he may be annoying, but it’s no reason to treat someone badly. She nodded her head and demanded that I turn Radio Disney back on. So I did.


I guess what I told her is true, but what I really wanted to tell her was the real truth. Never getting a chance with your first crush really hurts. Odds are, it will haunt you throughout your life. I remember being a 2nd grade boy and getting my first crush.


Look, I wasn’t always the smooth Donkey you happen to know right now. For the better part of a decade, I was crippled with anxiety and shyness any time a girl walked into a room. From about the age of 7 until around 15 or so, I don’t think I ever strung more than a sentence or two together in front of a girl. And most of that was because I didn’t get the girl.


The first time I saw her I was smitten. All I could think was, “She is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” I couldn’t stop thinking about her and her long hair and blue-gray eyes. The song, Most Beautiful Girl, would come on the radio and once he’d start singing, “Hey, did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world?” I’d think to myself, “Yes. Yes I did.” Then, I’d wonder what I could do to make her mine.


I’d close my eyes and picture us together, married, living happily ever after. I’d write her notes about how much I loved her, how often I thought about her, and ask her to send me something back if she felt the same.


She never did. It’s like I was invisible.


I concocted a plan to become a rock star, sure that would be the way to her heart. I imagined myself on stage, guitar in hand, crooning to her as she leaned in at me and smiled. Throngs of admiring girls would be worshipping me, but I’d only have eyes for her. I’d lean in and lasso her in with my eyes and my songs. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a guitar kicking around at home. All we had was a piano. So, I took lessons, hoping that it would at least lead to a glamorous musical career with the keytar.


It didn’t.


My notes wouldn’t change her mind. My songs wouldn’t either. Every plan I came up with was foiled. And, after nearly two years of incessant grade-school wooing, I had to face the harsh truth: it was time to give up.


But, just because I gave up didn’t mean that the hurt went away. After all, that’s why they call it a crush. I’d see her with other guys, smiling and laughing, and wonder why it couldn’t be me with her. I’d wonder what she saw in them, when it was so abundantly clear that we were meant to be together. I was her prince, she just didn’t know it. I’d take a bullet for her, but she just deflected all my advances. That’s the kind of pain that comes with your first crush. In fact, every time I’d hear her name, I’d die a little inside. When I see her now, the pain is there, just as raw and open as it was back in the 70s.


Yup. Lynda Carter, I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you.

The post Nerd Therapy Session: Crushed appeared first on PS.

The thought that kept my entirely too sentimental five year old brain going was that some kid would find my toys, clean them up and take care of them. They would be okay.

Believe it or not, I’m not really much of an Aurora model collector. I only own one vintage kit, however my kids and I treasure “Model kit day” every October where we put together a mess of re-issued Aurora monster kits and use them as a center piece at the dinner table.

As for my sister, I never held it against her, it’s also not the last time I would see her throw up but those stories probably won’t make it on here.

I sometimes see some of my younger self in my daughter, she’s very sentimental about her toys and has a long memory. I don’t know how many items I’ve spared from my wife’s (much needed) Value Village donation boxes.

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