If I could've gotten this for Christmas

[vision63]

I would have probably passed out and never been able to play with it. There was always the one kid in the neighborhood that would get the baller versions of toys. We'd all go over to his house and watch him play with it. His name would be something like Sterling. Everybody would call him Stearl and snicker about it. We'd go back home to our Hot Wheels.

One day, after you've grown up and finished college, you'll go visit your mom in the old neighborhood. You'll stop at the gas station near her house and some bummy guy will shuffle over and ask you if he can pump your gas. You'll automatically say "no" but then when you look at him you'll say "Sterling?" He'll say "hey hey man, how you doin?"

Then you'll say to yourself "This phukin sucks." Demoralizing. You'll just give him some money.

[hal]

I blew my wad demanding a Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots and was hoping that I'd be the Sterling of the neighborhood, but that thing sucked!

If I then demanded this thingy (luckily it was just a few years late for me), I would have been laughed at and I would have known that I deserved it!

[wurm]

Your post made me smile, Vision. Thanks.

It also reminder mo of the one or two slot car racing joints that were around the area back in the day. We could never afford to buy our own cars, but would sometimes go to hang out and watch the big kids race. Then we'd go home to our HO size cars and track and have a blast anyway.

[RAMd®d]

I had a slot car set by Eldon.

It was a lot of fun.

Then I moved up a bit to run at a local slot car track, and that was fun too.

Then it was off to a place with two huge tracks and three smaller one.

And everybody there was a die-hard racer with tons of kit and insanely fast cars, and even custom multi layered, multicolored controllers.

It was just too much money to have any fun, so I sold and gave stuff away.

A few months later, the tracks were all gone, nobody was racing them anymore.

Too bad.

[vision63]

hal wrote:
I blew my wad demanding a Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots and was hoping that I'd be the Sterling of the neighborhood, but that thing sucked!

If I then demanded this thingy (luckily it was just a few years late for me), I would have been laughed at and I would have known that I deserved it!

Plus you had to have another person play it with you. There were nuances to Rock 'em Sock 'em. Eventually, it became another game in your toy box.

[vision63]

RAMd®d wrote:
I had a slot car set by Eldon.

It was a lot of fun.

Then I moved up a bit to run at a local slot car track, and that was fun too.

Then it was off to a place with two huge tracks and three smaller one.

And everybody there was a die-hard racer with tons of kit and insanely fast cars, and even custom multi layered, multicolored controllers.

It was just too much money to have any fun, so I sold and gave stuff away.

A few months later, the tracks were all gone, nobody was racing them anymore.

Too bad.

That was my big brother's world. He had his own slot cars and would go to the slot car place. I'd go with him. I remember the metal brushes underneath the car. They way that they groomed them as if that made a performance difference.

[btfc]

AFX!

[RgrF]

A generational thing. I also got Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots...






...for my kids. Hal's correct - they sucked.

[RAMd®d]

They way that they groomed them as if that made a performance difference.


POMTL!

Oh, yeah that was a thing everybody did.

Guys would 'pit' and examine the brushes as that that was the reason they were getting lapped.

[rgG]

I remember my dad having slot cars when I was a kid. I think he made/bought one for mom, and I think her car was usually faster than his, which did not make him happy. My mom always had good luck with stuff like that, not skill, it was luck, which made it even harder to accept. Lol