Munchkin Tuesday: Little Professor

Raise your hand if you owned one of these as a child.

*Emily raises hand*

Raise your hand if you wish you still did.

*Emily raises hand again*

Raise your hand if you are pretty sure algebra scores would be a helluva lot higher if kids still had these instead of being handed calculators at age seven.

*Emily raises hand, waves it, jumps up and down in seat, stomps foot, grinds teeth, gives up, gets on eBay to find Little Professor for niece and nephews*

If there were an app to turn my iPhone into a Little Professor, you know I would be downloading it. Somebody needs to get on that, stat.

Emily

Munchkin Tuesday: A trip to the arcade

I went looking for ’80s video games through which to relive my childhood this evening. I hit the mother lode here.

You’ll have to access these from a computer, as they’re not smartphone-friendly, but what a collection — Frogger, Q*bert, Space Invaders, Zelda, and even Duck Hunt.

I assume no responsibility for your utter lack of productivity tomorrow….

Emily

Munchkin Tuesday: Spirograph

Remember Spirograph? I remember other people having one. Apparently they were expensive, because I always wanted one but never got it. Poop. 😦

They’re not expensive these days. For $1.99, you can download a Spirograph app for your iPhone. It’s called RotoDoodle Pro, and it’s getting good reviews. Now, if somebody would just make an iPhone LOGO simulator, I could relive my fifth-grade gifted summer school classes….

Emily

Munchkin Tuesday: Judy Collins on Sesame Street

Don’t even try to act like you didn’t see this one coming.

I wish somebody would post the clip of her singing “This Is a Song Without a Reason,” which is what I was trying to find when I stumbled across this video. I don’t remember this song at all, though I’m sure I must have seen it.

Is anybody else surprised these lyrics passed muster for a children’s show?

Emily

Munchkin Tuesday: Letterman

The talent pool on The Electric Company was truly phenomenal. Without cheating and going to the YouTube description, can you identify the voices of the narrator and Letterman?

I seriously have not seen this cartoon in 30 years, but I remembered both the Spellbinder and the entire lead-in to Letterman’s appearance. I have no idea what that says about me.

Emily

Munchkin Tuesday: Etch-A-Sketch

Some awesome person has made an Etch-A-Sketch simulator. Click here to play with it.

In related news, this is maybe the greatest iPad case ever.

Emily

Munchkin Tuesday: Woodward and Bernstein

OK, so maybe anecdotes about cigarette smoke, acerbic editors, and disgruntled sources aren’t your typical triggers for flashbacks to childhood, but my childhood can be divided into two eras: pre-newspaper and post-newspaper.

Thanks to one Patrick Will, who was maybe the greatest teacher in the history of education, I fell madly in love with journalism at age 9. I had my first byline in a daily newspaper at 10, and I supplemented my babysitting money by chasing stories for 50 cents a column inch at the local weekly from ninth grade on. The smell of printer’s ink still gives me a thrill I can’t fully put into words — it is, as I explained to one young colleague during a tour of the Southern Illinoisan office when I was 17, the smell of being done — and most of my high-school memories are a blur of late nights spent in a smoky, wax-scented newspaper office, burnisher in one hand, X-acto in the other, scrambling to make another deadline.

With that in mind, you can imagine how I felt when I learned that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein would be speaking at TU this evening. Ron and I had already purchased tickets to Glen Campbell’s farewell show a couple of months ago, but the more I thought about Woodward and Bernstein, the more I could smell wax and ink and stale cigarette smoke, and by the time I got home from work this afternoon, I was pretty sure that if I went to the concert, I would just spend the whole evening trying not to pout every time I thought about the fact that I was missing an opportunity to listen to some good war stories and maybe meet a couple of my idols.

My title these days may be teacher, but Ron knows my identity is still journalist, so when I asked him how mad he’d be if I blew off Glen Campbell in favor of Woodward and Bernstein, he just grinned and said he’d been expecting that question all afternoon.

That would be my battered old copy of All the President’s Men that Bernstein is signing.

If I close my eyes, I can still hear Mr. Will explaining the difference between libel and slander to a 9-year-old girl with visions of White House press conferences dancing in her head….

Emily

Munchkin Tuesday: Lite-Brite

I never had a Lite-Brite, but I had a battery-powered knockoff that worked just as well. Click here for an online version. It isn’t quite as much fun, but you don’t have to worry about losing the pegs in the deep pile carpet in your parents’ den, either.

Emily

Munchkin Tuesday: Counting Dots

This was always one of my favorite Sesame Street bits. Somebody has collected 11 of them and put them together in a single video. I thought I’d seen all of them, but several of these are new to me.

In completely unrelated news, I saw a skunk booking it across Route 66 as fast as his little feet would carry him this evening near the refinery. I had no idea we had skunks out there. I figured they were too shy to hang out in an area that busy.

Emily

Munchkin Tuesday: Simon

The plethora of electronic toys from my childhood now being replicated by programmers only reinforces my innate affection for geeks.

I never had a Simon, but my cousin did, and I played with it every chance I got, because it was pretty much the coolest thing ever.

Chalk up another one for the geeks: Now we can all play Simon for free, without having to beg our older cousins for a turn, thanks to this fabulous simulator.

I know what my 5-year-old nephew and I are doing next time I’m home for a visit….

Emily