This is actually quite funny, i will post more video. This one really looks like he’s annoyed that we’re looking at him.
La Brea Tar pits
In Los Angeles there is an actual tar pit. In it they find fossils from up to 40K years ago. It’s quite interesting, and obviously smells a lot like oil and tar. One of the most interesting things, is that contrary to popular belief… there are no dinosaurs in the tar pits. The formed 60K years ago so all the dinosaurs had already died off. There are a lot of fossils such as Wolves, Lions and Sloths.
Universal Studios
Along the trip we also managed to spend a day at Universal Studios.
Doc Brown from Back to the future.
Minion from Despicable me
Ferrari from Magnum PI
Bikini Bottom
Bates Hotel
Amity
Jaws Attacking the car
Trip to Los Angeles
So, decided to take the children to LA for a mini-vacation. LA is about 2 hours (depending on traffic) from here in San Diego. We left Saturday morning and arrived in LA just after lunch. The traffic wasn’t too bad, but i can see why people talk about the terrible Los Angeles traffic jams because we saw a couple moving the opposite direction on I5 and 405.
First stop was the Griffith Observatory, i knew it from an episode of Star Trek Voyager that was filmed there a number of years ago:
LA City Scape from the observatory
Hollywood sign from Observatory parking lot.
Steve Austin with Hollywood sign in background
The EH! Team
Well, last night i did it, I went to my first movie since moving to California. It obviously had to be The A team .
For starters:
The Good:
- Carrie even liked it, which is rare when we go to the movies that I choose aka The Time Machine.
- It had some of the original music and ALL Of the original characters.
- BA Baracus Van was exactly the same model GMC from the early 80s.
- Qui-Gon Jinn did in fact play a believable Col Smith, however his accent kind of leaked through a lot. I was also constantly waiting for him to say in a Jedi Voice “There’s just something about this Plan that will bring balance back to the force”.
- Bradely Cooper was really really good as Face.
- Murdoc was good, but a little more over the top than the original.
The BAD:
- They kept calling BA “Bosco”…… Mr T is probably rolling in his grave( i know he’s not dead).
- Rather than the normal plot of helping shop keepers and taxi cab drivers, they had to help the US Gov’t find stolen money printing plates(LAME).
- Although Dirk Benedict AND Dwight Schultz did cameos’, they were virtually impossible to pick out – MR T chose not to appear at all which was just wrong because he’s who made the show so popular back in the day.
- Faceman was WAY too flamboyant, the real face was a lot more subtle in his scams.
- The only female in the entire movie was that girl who played Mary from Seventh Heaven. She may be nice looking but can hardly play a miltary strong man… A little poorly cast – i think they should have used Betty White instead.
Changes I would have made:
- BA Baracus had way too many inner emotional issues, he should have stuck with saying “I Putty the Fool” and so on.
- I would not have smashed up BA’s van during the opening sequence, it such a cool van and could have been more of a part of the movie.
- I would have stuck to what made the TV show so good, simple plots easy for people to understand. There were WAY too many people doing various things and it would be very hard for some younger kids to understand whats going on. Bad guys doing bad things to some guy and the team saving the guy.
- I understand that they had to update things and make the team Iraq Vets instead of Vietnam vets but its just not the same. They were very different wars and things didn’t really fit that well IMHO.
- Part of my favorite thing was when Col Smith would dress in disguise, something he didn’t do once!
The Myths about the US Tax system
This is an easy one to explain:
-If you are a family where 1 person works while the other has no income AND you have 2 kids you are in a position to really benefit by living in the US. If you also own a house, you benefit even more.
- If you are single or a dual income family with no kids… You get screwed.
Here is the contrast between federal income tax rates between the US and Canada. For an example with simple numbers we will use income of 50K from 1 income and 2 kids.
In Canada:
-Tax credit because of a non-income earning spouse 8K.
-Tax credit because of 2 children 2K.
- Taxable income would be 40K and total federal taxes + CPP + EI = ~13K
In USA:
-Basic allowances for spouse + income earner 4
-Basic allowances for 2 kids 4
-Total allowances for gamily 8.
-Taxable income is now down to under 25K so total Federal taxes etc = 0
So there’s your answer, a family of 4 pays 12K in tax in Canada and None in the USA.
Difference though is that if the person making 50K is not married and has no kids. The number of allowances drops to 2 and the person will pay 8K.
Carl out.
WII Time
I did it, finally bought a WII. The latest deal at gamestop was pretty good, a WII with a controller that has the wii motion on it AND 2 games for 199. I did have to buy a 2nd wii motion controlle for another 50 bucks so in total about 279. The only downside of the deal is that the firmware on the WII is the newest version that currently can’t be soft modded. It won’t be long until the hack comes out and currently the kids like to make “Mii’s” and bowl anyways. Advantage of the older systems was that it was exceedingly easy to hack. The funniest thing is that people selling used WII’s on craiglist usually want more money than what the new ones cost!
The WII has been around long enough that you can pick up used games for like 10 bucks so its not an exceedingly expensive thing to get it. My biggest problem with the whole thing is that the kids will be playing on the big tv all the time now. There isn’t enough room in their rooms to have the WII so i’ll have to figure some kind of TV watching arrangement.
Biggest issue I foresee is the Bruce Banner(Incredible hulks alter ego) type rage that Morgan gets when she loses. We’ve already had to ban the kids from playing against each other. They can play us or solo, no competition because the people who live in the condo below probably can’t take the noise.
Carl out
There goes the neighbourhood
View from the hill
Despite the lower right corner being blocked by a phone clip, you can see the neighbourhood we live in. Its quite scenic, as much of California is. We live in a nice area surrounded by mountains, some day i figure we’ll have to flee in Von Trap fashion over the mountain due to a wild fire, but until then we’ll enjoy the view.
I’m not saying the neighbourhood is anything like Blackburn, mainly because instead of Civics and Ford Focus wagons – there are Beamers and Mercedes. Other key difference is that everyone seems to have a gardner. I guess when you have to take care of the exterior of the house 12 months of the year a gardner becomes appealing.
They don’t have an arena here, but they do have an outdoor roller hockey rink. It’s got the rubber surface thing and there is a sizeable league. I’ve not started playing in it, however i’ve been running to try and ge back into game shape to be able to play. There’s something that seems a little off though about playing outdoor hockey in January and having to put sun tan lotion on. We’ll see how things go, the workout centre in our condo is pretty good so if i can keep at it i’ll be in game shape in a few more weeks.
All for now.
Carl out.
Something to buy
I haven’t been able to add anything this week. Work has been nuts. I’ve been trying to get another page all about the various playsets (Mobile command, oscars office etc) but i haven’t had a chance.
SO… The debate is, do i buy an Atari 2600, Intellivision or an Odyssey 2. One thing thats been pretty neat about moving to SoCal is that all of the ebay shipping prices are cheap relative to Canada. It’s possible to buy something that weighs a lot and end up only paying 7 or 8 dollars shipping. It really does make buying stuff on ebay a lot cheaper. The big question is, what game console should i get. The Atari 2600 obviously has the most games. It’s also the most readily available and quickest to get. It has all the big game titles that i played at Dennis’s house when i was a kid(Kaboom, Pacman, frogger, indiana jones etc) and i did always want one.
The Odyssey 2 is what we had when i was a kid. I think it’s a little more interesting than some of the Atari games because it had a very primitive ability to customize that the Atari or Intellivision never had. It’s also got some nostalgic value because it’s what i used to own. The disadvantage is of course that it’s more expensive AND harder to find games because there just weren’t as many made. It also didn’t have some of the neater games such as pitfall or kaboom.
The Intellivsion is a pretty neat system, I only knew 1 person who owned it(Ian). It had some neat games and was quite popular. There are lot’s of these systems available and I have always wanted one. It was my least favorite of the 3 systems so probably won’t really be a candidate.
I run emulators to play all of the games on my arcade machine(I will do a detailed post on itsome day). I actually have NES, Playstaion, Intellivision, coleco vision and Atari in emulator form. They are still neat games on the arcade however part of the experience is using the original controllers. The rubber handle on the Atari joystick was pretty revolutionary in its day.
The Oscar Goldman Action figure
He’s one of my favorites, he’s the Six Million Dollar Mans Boss.
Oscar Goldman is the director of the OSI (Office of Scientific Intelligence). His office is located in the pentagon and he’s in charge of a lot of top secret scientific projects. He deals frequently with “Mr. Secretary” however I’m not exactly sure which “Secretary” he is… It could be the defense secretary or if this was in the 2000’s it would be the Homeland Security one.
The Oscar Goldman action figure is an interesting one. 
He comes with an exploding brief case which will actually explode if you don’t open it the correct way. I was able to accidentally break one a couple years ago when i over turned the handle(20 dollar mistake). The content of the brief case is a couple of files on Steve and Jaime.
The amazing thing to me, is how much the action figure actually looks like Richard Anderson. They really did a great job creating the action figure.
Carl out.
Holy Grail of a Bionic collector
Most people who have watched the Six Million Dollar man will probably remember the Death Probe episode.
A very quick summary:
- The Russians(Though really the Soviets) launch a probe that is supposed to fly to venus and explore it.
- The probe circles Venus but doesn’t land, instead it returns to earth and lands in northern Montana.
- The probe thinks its on venus and starts terrorizing the country side.
- Only Steve with the cooperation of a Russian agent are able to stop it.
So, kenner released a toy, it was a small model of the death probe.
The toy was expensive when it came out so it wasn’t widely purchased. The other problem was that it was released a little late in the shows run so a lot of kids just didn’t particularly want it. End results of all of that is that the Death Probe sells on ebay for as much as $700 or $800 dollars. It’s also very rare to appear for sale.
Carl out.
The difference in the Steve Austin Action figures
It’s a little known fact that there were three different editions of the Steve Austin action figure. The value of these 3 different action figures is actually quite different.
Edition 1:
This is what started it all. The first edition and most widely purchased was the 1st edition Six Million Dollar Mac action figure. It came with an engine block that had a little handle so Steve could lift it up and down using his bionic arm. In the episode Little Orphan Aiplacne Steve had to repair an engine from an airplane. To do this he had to lift the engine out of the plane. Why Kenner decided to use this as an accessory i can’t really explain… but they did it.
The other thing to note about the 1st edition is that the arm is a normal skin color. This is me holding the 1st edition action figure 
If you want to buy one on ebay, a loose one (not in the box) will run you about $40 dollars if you want to have all the clothes and the engine block. It gets tricky when it comes to boxes because it depends what kind of shape the box is in. If you buy a really really nice one it can be upwards of $250!
2nd Edition:
The 2nd edition action figure wasn’t nearly as popular(I think because Lee Majors grew a mustache the year it came out). Biggest difference between the 2nd edition and the first was the bionic arm. This is me holding a 2nd edition, you can see that the arm is now grey and has a “Kung Fu” type grip so that steve can now grab stuff and hold it.
In terms of value, 2nd editions aren’t really worth any more or less than the 1st edition. The go for about the same amount. The accessory that came with it was a steel I beam. There are fewer of these available, however there are still enough that they are not overly expensive and the average 37 year old can buy one of their very own.
Edition 3:
Right off, notice the pictures of the 3rd edition i use are taken from other web sites as I don’t actually own one. This action figure was released towards the end of the six million dollar man run. The show really wasn’t very popular anymore and lee majors spiral downwards towards the “Bionic Hearing Aid” had already begun. The 3rd edition featured the “Biosonic Arc” which was essentially a spring loaded “judo chop” type action. It no longer had the button on his back to make the arm go up and down(Like 1st and 2nd editions). It also came with some little grey bricks so you pretend you were breaking down a wall.
In terms of value.. Sky is the limit, loose they can be well over $100. In the box they can be upwards of $300 or $400. Too much for a 37 year old to justify to his wife.
Carl out.
Odyssey 2 – Greatest classic video game
So back in 1980 in the prime of the Atari 2600, we got an Odyssey 2. It was different than an Atari because it had a keyboard and was really a more advanced home game system. I think the biggest problem though was that Magnavox entered the game system market a little late and Atari had already dominated the market for a year or two already. The number of games were limited, however in terms of quality they easily matched anything the atari had.
My absolute favourite game was one called 
KC Munchkins. It was your typical pac-man clone however it had one extremely unique thing – you could program your own mazes. Meant you could build very easy or very hard mazes. The other thing you could do was enclose the the area where the ghosts appear after you eat them, trapping them in. Pretty much unlimited high scores were now available if you were willing to spend hours of time eating 8 bit dots.
A collection without a home
I used to have a really nice display case. It made the action figure collection much more impressive that it is now. Unfortunately i can only display about a dozen of them in a small shadow box type thing i bought. It’s just not the same as it used to be. The old display case had glass shelves and was painted in true six million dollar man red. I could arrange the action figures in drammatic action sequences without fear of the children moving them around or playing with them.
I once let mason play with Steve Austin and within 2 seconds he ate one of his socks, a sock that had remained intact for nearly 30 years. Morgan likes playing with the action figures but insists on looking at all the underwear all the time. She did take a funny picture of Jamie Sommers though.
Birthday Party California Style
Mason got invited to the birthday party of one of his school chums. In true SoCal style a stretch Hummer Limo arrived at the school to pick up the 23 skinny, big headed kids. Destination was of course, Chuck-e-Cheese.
Fri - Clear, 16 - 29 Degrees
Sun - Partly Cloudy, 14 - 28 Degrees