…is that Jason gets a stress fracture on his heel.
In V-Town to help set up some stuff for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week, and all the walking coupled with my bad arches has given me the "excrutiating pain", as the kids call it. But thanks to my friendly local super Walgreens I was able to hobble down the street and pick up some icy/hot cream, a big bottle of ibuprfen, a few instant cold packs, and $50 worth of shoe inserts to play with (I wasn’t going to hobble back 5 blocks if one didn’t work).
As with any trip to a new town, I limped over to the toy aisle once I found my pain relief items. Does anyone remember when you used to be able to go into any drugstore and find a world of wonders? Super Powers, Master of the Universe, Star Wars gum cards…it was like a trip to kid’s paradise! But now it’s just some lame generics and maybe a Hot Wheels or two. When did all the old school toy distribution completely disappear?
Was it when TRU and Wal-Mart undercut these guys so much that the prices in a drugstore are too insane to carry mass market? I don’t know. But it did make me sad not to find anything worth looking at. Especially since my poor feet hurt way too much to explore Vegas much (it’s my first time in Sin City). My client did put me up at the Wynn, so I can’t complain too much (checked in next to former Spurs’ star Avery Johnson, so that was neat to this San Antonio boy). Too bad I have to fly out before CES starts, as it would have been nice to see some of the new products.
I will say that while walking the con floor today I spied a booth setting up a HDTV that was running a clip from The Empire Strikes Back in HD…just stunning looking! But that was about it for coolness…
I remember walking into Woolworths in New York with my Mom, as a child, and loving all the Mego’s displayed in their boxes. My first one was Shazam and when I got him home, I would open it up, play with Shazam, and then put him back in the box until the next day. But, I digress…
At one time, Walgreen used to be a good “hidden” toy mecca from the scalpers but I am suprised how things have changed as well. I remember finding HTF Animated Batman, Resuarus Speed Racers, etc. A little pricey, but worth not having to hunt some things down from time to time…
Man, I remember walking down to Sav-On on the corner of Sepulveda and National circa 1979/1980 and buying Star Wars figures for like $2.50. I too still check the toy aisle EVERY time I’m in a drug store, because you honestly never know what you might find.
For example, some years back the Japanese Transformers SCF were repackaged by Hasbro on single cards and sold solely in drug stores, and I bought a number of those at the time just for fun. Also I remember way back when Galoob was still doing Micro Machines, they would single card individual Star Trek/Star Wars and Babylon 5 ships, and those were freaking rare.
I have seen Star Wars figures recently, nothing truly special though. I still check every time however.