Random As Rhyme

It’s been awhile since I have written one of these since I decided to do a few reviews what not on Thursdays. So as a treat I decided to bring it back Things I always wanted “T” days with what is probably the stupidest thing I ever wanted. The most embarrassing thing was I wanted it at an age where I should have figured out that it was ridiculous.

In 1997-1998 there was a Canadian Comedy series filmed in Burnaby British Columbia that ran on YTV. The show had a bunch of nobodies in it for the most part, aside from this guy.

It was your typical ridiculous teenage drama tv show that dealt with the “issues” in an unorthodox fashion. Now that I think of it the show was basically a bootleg Saved By The Bell on water. You see my friends this show was:

Breaker High.

Admitting to watching such a stupid show at the age of 12-13 is one thing (hey there were attractive girls on it so you can’t fault my logic) but thinking that it might be possible, and actually wanting to, go to high school on a boat is admittedly very stupid.

There was a certain amount of low budget TV magic that made it seem as though this idea were feasible. The idea was instead of your standard booze cruise vacation the open bar was replaced with classrooms where your basic highschool courses were taught to a handful of lucky (and probably rich) teenagers.

I can’t seem to remember any tests happening on the show so that would be a big bonus over traditional high schools and the girls were often bikinis or skimpy clothes (never really rained) so that was another bonus. Finally you were away from your parents so really no one could tell you to clean your room.

It all seemed glamorous then, since my pre-teen mind never really thought considered the fact that the never seemed to show any sort of lessons in boat safety on the show, or addres the fact that the food was probably not so good and the living quarters cramped and damp.

Also since such a small amount of privileged kids could go on the boat if you hated someone you were stuck with them in your class for however long it took you to return home. If you were one of those awkward kids with no friends in high school this would be torture.

They also never touched on the fact that the class size, and boat size, was actually pretty small or the fact that the ships crew consisted of a Captain and some whistle blowing, possibly gay, assistant. If that boat were ever to hit an iceberg everyone would have been doomed. Which should have worried me since rocks and I share the same amount of buoyancy. Let’s also not forget the very real life threat of pirates!

I also never factored in that in high school I was late for basically everything. I would have missed getting back on the boat first stop over. Getting stranded in Panama is probably only cool for the first five minutes, until you get robbed, shot, and thrown in jail a la prison break.

Yes going to high school on a boat with other students was an incredibly flawed, impractical idea but that didn’t stop it from being something I always wanted.

This one is an adult want, actually probably the first adult want I have written about thus far.

Yes, on rare occasions, I want things that people over the age of 13 don’t also want. Most of them should come as no surprise, as they are just big kid toys. They ones that parents won’t or can’t really buy you and you need a license to operate.

This particular one want was is a pretty simple; bad ass mini truck.

Back in the good ol days of no responsibility, before I had my license, I saw my first lowered Blazer and fell  in love. It was early to mid 90s at this point so the truck probably looked something similar to this:

A mild drop probably about 3 inches in the front 2 in the rear, no real body mods outside of a roll pan, reasonable sized billet rims with a decent amount of rubber on them, and a phantom grill. These were all pretty much staples of the mini truck scene around that time.

Blazers/Jimmys, were never particularly expensive, especially ones that were not Typhoons so that meant the likely hood of me getting one one day was way more realestic than me getting say oh I dunno this:

So I decided to do some research on them. Thanks to my 56k internet connection I was able to find an enthusiast site called “Blazin Low” that basically taught me everything I needed to know.

I learned 2 great, great things.

The first was that you could put relatively inexpensive small block 350 motors in them which turned them from a decent run about to a powerful hot rod. Heck, with enough money thrown at them stand on end and scream down the track when you stomped on the loud pedal.

The second thing I learned was that the suspension on these trucks was fairly simple and easy to work with. And with a few “light” modifications they could be made to go up and down via air ride. Then came something beautiful (to me) dragging!

I always had a thing for low riders, 64 impalas mainly, but for whatever reason the idea of a super slammed truck that could throw sparks at anytime was overwhelmingly appealing.

I think the main reason I liked it so much was that it was wrong, it was the complete opposite of what any sane person would want to do with a truck.

I had to have one.

I looked at them for awhile for my first vehicle until my uncle gave me my e30 instead.

Lucky for me I could keep myself busy modding that car for some time to keep the want for a mini truck at bay. Everything was going well until a friend of a friend took me for a ride in this sweet little number he picked up in Florida.

Now someone I knew, my age, had a sweet truck. Suddenly it was all achievable, and within reach. So I set forth to make it happen.

Little did I know it would be one of the worst, most expensive, and ill fated projects I have ever embarked on in my life.

At some point I will go into complete detail about the horror story that was my blazer. But until then just let me assure you pretty much anything short of it catching fire or getting washed away in a river happened.

Here are just a few of the shitty things I had to deal with:

Running after it while it was being towed? Check.
Rad explode on the way to work? Check.
Alternator Die on the way to work? Check.
Stolen? Check
Brakes fail? Check
Broken into? Check

I dumped a decent amount of coin into this project, not wanting to give up until it was taken away from me (some would say for the best).

I learned a few things, and when (not if!) I start my second mini truck project I am going to start with something a little newer, and a lot cleaner (probably from the south) until then a sick mini truck is just something I have always wanted.

Blah!

Good riddance?

When I originally got the idea to start the “Thing I always Wanted”  feature here on Random As Rhyme, one of the items I knew I would write about was this one. I wanted still want this item so bad it hurts, I almost more have a vendetta with it. One Christmas I asked for it, and after I opened all my gifts there was one surprise gift from Santa. I was over  joyed I knew this would be what I really wanted. I shredded the wrapping paper as quick as I could and was greeted by a globe. A friggen globe.

If the fat guy in the red suit was real he would have known that I didn’t care where Turkey was all I wanted was the Tyco Typhoon R/C Hover craft.

Thanks to X-Entertainment (which is an awesome site and one of the reasons I started this blog) I am able to  share with those of you that may have forgot, or have never seen the commercial that made me want this thing  more than pretty much anything else I can remember.

Ya I know, the volume is really low, but you don’t need volume to appreciate the action shots. What sane person would not be interested in driving this thing for five minutes let alone owning one?

None of my current remote control cars worked to well on sand, snow, or wet pavement, while the Typhoon could do all of this with ease, and look cool in the process.

I never encountered one of these hovercrafts on my block as a kid, which is good because I would have stole it from whoever had it no matter how dangerous and stupid.

Thanks to the internet though I have been able to track down a little bit of information on it. Like most things advertised back then it wasn’t quite as  amazing as it seemed. While it did actually work on all surfaces the battery didn’t last much longer than 10 minutes, and if the battery died over water it sunk.

Charging R/C vehicles in the early 90s was always a huge bummer,  especially when patience and attention spans were low. I bet a lot of R/C vehicles ended up in the backs of closets due to the inhumane 4 hour charge time of the battery packs.

Seriously think about that, four hours of charge time for ten minutes of use. How did we send people to the moon again?

Anyway lucky for  my wallet the  only one currently on ebay has a ripped skirt (so pretty useless) otherwise I would have already bid on it and mapped out a course in the pool at Lyndsey’s condo.

I have noticed though that there sure are a bunch of different remote control hover crafts out these days that I could probably pick up for not too much… hmmm maybe this something I have always wanted will turn into something I have.

This one actually kind of interests me, I have never seen a remote that works via twisting.

Until next time.

As I look back into my past I am starting to realize that I was a pretty envious kid, I might have even had green skin, because this is another thing that one of my friends had that I wanted.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog even half the time that I big Transformers fan. Most of my wants were firmly planted on the Autobot side though. Not really so much because they were the good guys but more so because they were cars, and I like cars quite a bit.

However a few Decepticons stuck out as being pretty bad ass. Soundwave was one, but Trypticon was most def another.

Trypticon was the Decepticons answer to an equally awesome (and want worthy toy) sentient city Metroplex.

I never had the privilege of seeing a Metroplex toy in person, so I convinced myself that they didn’t actually exist, however my older friend Chris had Trypticon (cant imagine how much that must have cost his parents) and it was pretty gosh darn amazing. It was basically a giant Grimlock, and as we know .

Trypticon took Grimlock’s badassarey and multiplied it by however much bigger he was. Two major things stuck out (other than having rockets where his tongue should be) the first being was that Tryp transformed from giant awesome T Rex into a giant awesome city play set.

Only a handful of Transformers shared this ability, but Trypticon was not content with having one awesome ability, oh no he was ready to shove his size 100000 foot of awesome up your ass and break it off by being able to walk.

He was actually the ONLY Transformer I ever saw as a kid that could walk as illustrated below:

A walking Trypticon was clumsy and loud, and looked really funny if he fell over but was defiantly an awe inspiring site to behold.

Oddly enough I seem to remember this as being the only Transformer Chris had, as he was a big Lego guy. This meant in my mind he didn’t deserve it and I plotted to remove it from his grasps.

However he was at least 3 years older than me so I never dared put my plots into action lest he send me down a flight of steps head first.

Too bad they probably fetch a large number on ebay as otherwise I would have one today. But I reserve my big ticket Transformer purchases to Autobots pretty exclusively.

The video below proves that Trypticon was also the mightiest of all walking Transformers, and that the guy below has lots of disposable income and is kind of my hero.

I want one.

This weeks object of perpetual desire is more a class of device than something brand specific. It was the child size vehicle. Sure bicycles were cool, and much faster, but everyone had one. Not everyone had a child size vehicle.

The hierarchy of child sized vehicle went like so:

Home made deathtrap, know known as a Box Cart
Pedal car
Power Wheels
Go Cart (not bloody likely and will be omitted for this blog)

I made a few skateboard or wagon based Box carts as a youngster and every time they were used someone got hurt. Picking rocks out of your knees sucked but none of us had anything better at the time so we kept making them.

That was until some kid’s (I think his name was Corey) dad bought him this:

Corey was instantly pedaling driving around in the damn holy grail. Every kid on the block, including myself, was super jealous at this point. However when anyone asked to try the pedal car, Corey responded with he child equivalent of fuck off and get your own.

I forget exactly what he said in response but the long and short of it was unless you killed him, pried his cold dead fingers from the wheel, and drove this thing off some sweet jumps before getting hauled off to jail you were not getting a turn.

As karma goes, Corey swiftly got his popularity jacked when Brandon from round the way rolled up with his girlfriend on one of these bad boys:

You see, Brandon had his cooties shot, room for a passenger, and didn’t need to pedal. This meant he got all the women little girls and the pedal car General seemed silly in comparison. I mean, scroll back up and look at the wing on the back of it the real general didn’t have that, stupid in accurate human powered pedal car.

No matter how slow and loud power wheels were as they were rumbling down the sidewalk I wanted one. Actually I would have taken the Barbie Countach and called it “salmon” and rocked that.

Sadly though I never got one and once I got my license I never really thought about it again. I figured, sure, I missed out on a little bit but all and all I didn’t miss that much.

Until….

Wait a minute here… you can modify power wheels?

Nobody told me!

Now I defiantly feel like I missed out. I am sure if I had one my dad would have modified it for me.

Actually he most defiantly would not have.

But a guy can dream right?

Anyone reading this, if you have a kid and they have power wheels I would like to borrow them for an afternoon. I promise the power wheels will return in better shape then when you gave it to me.

The child is your problem.

This is going to be the first of many, many, remote control devices I wanted over the years. These things were like crack to me, electric wheeled crack. I wanted as many as I could get, and as soon as I got one I got a custom to it and then bored and wanted a newer faster better one. My suppliers tended to be Tyco, Radioshack, and New Bright as they put out the most gimmicky eye catching toy quality RC cars at the time, and my dealers were my parents.

One of the cars I remember wanting really bad was the XRC Ricochet (Tyco had a similar one called the Rebound).

The car was a 2 sided remote control car with big tires that allowed it to run upside down, right side up, on its side, basically as long as a wheel touched the ground this car would orient itself in a way where it could move. What the video doesn’t clearly illustrate however, was that for a toy it was fast as hell.

I remember one day running my mouth of at Jr high saying I had a car that could beat anyone’s and my friend Erran challenged me to a race. So we both ran home and charged our cars and four or so hours when our ‘quick’ chargers finished (whoever thought making kids wait 4 hours for 20 minutes play time is sadistic) the race was on.

I got crushed, ruined, destroyed, humiliated, and emasculated all at once. It was a sad day for my playground ego.

I quickly deemed whatever piece of junk I had at the time inadequate and used up whatever occasion I had coming up (birthday, Christmas, chore completion, passing marks whatever) to acquire one.

As was often the case my parents screwed up and bought me the wrong thing normally I would be devastated however, just this once what they did buy me happened to be better than what I actually wanted.

Instead of getting me the car they got me the bike version I didn’t even know existed. I scoured the Internet wide and far for a photo of this marvel but all I could find was the damn instruction manual.

The bike, like the car, had big tires went fast and could bash off anything and keep going. The big wheels made it stable enough to go on and off road, which was something most remote control motorcycles of the time could not do.

This thing was so much fun that not only did I hold onto it for years, but I also distinctly recall playing with it as recent as 5 years ago before giving it to a neighborhood child who lived near me at my last dwelling.

That kid no doubt soon broke it as after years of punishment at my hands it was starting to show some cracks. The thought of kind of that kind of sucks but I probably started his electric crack habit and the thought of that is kind of awesome.

I know this isn’t a Tuesday or a Thursday but what’s the saying? A day late and a dollar short… or something. Anyway I have been sick with a stomach flu since new years eve so I spent a great deal of time horizontal, actually, I just ate my first meal of 2009 a few hours ago. But while lying around I did get a chance to think of today’s thing I always wanted. The Lamborghini Countach.

This car was the postercar (literally) for anyone male (and some females) born anywhere around 74 to 84. I still have die cast models and posters of this car up in my room at my dads place, and had a few remote control cars of it over the years as well.

This car was regularly featured in movies, tv shows, and promotions until they mid 90s. Even Barbie had one (what did Ken drive though?).

The car had quite a few distinctive features which made it timeless and desirable, low cheese wedge design, insanely wide rear tires, 345s (your average car has 195s), a v-12 motor and the iconic scissor doors.

Funny enough, while I have sat in 2 replicas (one I helped build) I don’t think I have ever been within spitting distance of a real one.

But working on the replica made a few practicality issues about this car very clear.

The first, rear visibility is pretty much non existent due to the kick ass wedge shaped design, try finding the rear window in the image below and you will get a good idea of what I mean.

Backing out one of these bad boys meant opening the door and sitting on the door sill while working the pedals on the inside. Pretty unorthodox, but you gotta go what you gotta do, can’t always drive forward.

The second issue is that as you look while driving a Countach it is extremely difficult to look cool getting into or out of a Countach. Due to the low height of the car and the door design you basically fall into, and roll out of them. If you happen to be over weight.. well…

But impracticality issues aside the car was still named number 3 on the list of Top Sports Cars of the 1970s and number ten on the list of Top Sports Cars of the 1980s by Sports car International, and is still something I always wanted.

Here are some pop culture Countach’s to finish this post out.

Cannonball Run

Miami Vice (note trying to get in while looking cool)

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker from the Transformers

Judge Dredd Future concept