Carleton Adventures

This is the final installment of the Honeymoon Adventures. I appreciate the WWPD shoutout and comment from fashion blog star (pun intended) regarding my vacation wear, because I had fun with it and perhaps put forth more effort than usual. Food is always a good thing to document, as well. But here is another perspective that should not go untold.

"Are we there yet?"


"We'll guard the Travelodge room."


On the way to New Buffalo.


"It's raining."


"..."


"It's sunny."


An entire extra bed for the Poppersteins & Memu!


"A penguin, like me! I'm cuter."

If we took a plane to Detroit and I took all the Poppersteins, I'm absolutely certain TSA would dismember all of them to see if I'm transporting drugs. Thankfully, you can take as many bags as you want and put whatever you want in them when you're just driving across state lines.

Friend? Enemy? Frenemy?

Weekend Wrap Up

On Friday, Mordecai, Joe and I visited Nickel City. Three more Poppersteins were collected. I need three more to have a complete baseball team! I'm like "the crazy cat lady" but with stuffed penguins instead.

On Saturday, the three of us again investigated baseball card shops. AU Sports Memoribilia moved, but has yet to open in Skokie's Village Crossing. Big John and Little Debbie's was nice, but they don't seem to carry 2008 Stadium Club. Meijer was not an option on Saturday because we went to Long John Silver's for late lunch/early dinner, which meant we'd go home afterward to shrivel up like rasisins from astronomical sodium intake. I had the chicken and fish basket with coleslaw on the side. I couldn't eat the hushpuppies, and I'm not sure I would've if I could've. I don't understand their existence.

On Sunday, Mordecai, Sayaka and I went to Mitsuwa. I had ramen and natto (fermented soy beans) for lunch. I previously underestimated Santouka's ramen, which is reportedly famous in Japan. This shit is good! Will I return to udon next door? Also, Gabutto Burger is going to open soon in Mitsuwa's food court. I'm not sure what they're up to, but it looks fun. Meijer was an option after Mitsuwa, so off we went. Heritage packs were nowhere to be found, and being unable to leave empty-handed, Mordecai got the $4.99 pack of Topps '09. I got my Stadium Club pack, which yielded a David Ortiz Yankee's Stadium Slice and a Chris Perez auto that I had to redeem online. I also got a regular pack of Topps '09 for the sake of it. I love Topps.

The Poppersteins, part I

Back in I think 2005, Mordecai, Joe and I made a trip to Nickel City in Northbrook, Illinois. Half of their games require nickels and give you tickets as rewards, like at Chuck E Cheese's, which you can redeem for various crappy prizes, like at Chuck E Cheese's. The other arcade games cost many more nickels but are played for pure pleasure, like music simulation games, sports arcade games, and fighting games. There's a corner of free games, which are generally kind of pathetic, but it's a nice touch anyway. I have to go in the free corner every now and then to play Pac-Man just to force myself to take a break from spending money.

I won a bunch of tickets by playing this game:

I'm glad I have this old photo from my previous cell phone, because it's hard to explain. Basically, your nickel is supposed to cause a chain of reactions where in the end, lots of nickels fall off. At arcades in Japan, I've played this where you end up with more coins. (It's kind of like pachinko.) Here, you get tickets. I get hooked on this game pretty badly each time I go to Nickel City; Joe pointed out to me something along the lines of, "You'd probably like casinos" or "You should go to casinos." Given my addictive nature, the answer to that is, I should stay away from casinos.

Joe won a ton of tickets by playing the Speed Demon game, which I will not and cannot attempt to describe. All you need to know is that Joe is really good at this game, and that he won a lot of tickets and then graciously donated them to me. I fed these tickets into the counter machine thingie while little children watched with awe and envy. One day, you too can be in your twenties, freely spending your own money on arcade games at Nickel City!

So, what "prize" did I redeem? I had never had so many tickets. My eyes went to the stuffed animals. I'm pretty sure I was thinking, "Damn, what a sad selection." I picked a stuffed penguin and in the parking lot, named him "Carleton" after Carlton Banks of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." Not sure why the "e" is there, but there it is. I wanted to give him a last name of his own, "Popperton" or "Pepperton," but Mordecai insisted that he was Jewish and that his name should therefore be "Popperstein" instead. And thus, Carleton Poppperstein was born. I like how the philosopher Karl Popper's name is somehow contained in Carleton's full name.

I can't believe it's been almost four years since acquiring Carleton. I'm pretty sure that I take better care of him than many people take care of their children and/or live animal pets, and this is a sad fact on all kinds of levels. Anyway, his belly can no longer be called "white" and he's gone through a number of small "maintenance" operations. Above all, the tag on his cute little toosh has disintegrated, and his exact origins can no longer be discerned from this tag. All I remember is that he's made in China and that the company is based in Cleveland, Ohio.

When I named my fantasy team "The Poppersteins," I became curious as to whether there were still more Carletons being made. I made Mordecai contact Nickel City and ask about whether they knew of a stuffed penguin with orange and yellow cheeks that they once got, and the lady refused to give distributor names but said she'd contact him if they got any stuffed penguins in the future. Two weekends ago, the lady called and left a message saying that they got a stuffed penguin with yellow cheeks, available for redemption. She always seemed kind of moody, but I was very happy that she had followed through.

The following Monday, we went out to Nickel City to check these penguins out.

EYES ON THE PRIZE

LOOK AT THE ONE IN THE BACK--LOOK AT THAT NOSE! QUALITY CONTROL, WHERE ARE YOU AT? I LIKE THE OTHER THREE THOUGH.

TICKETS!

I GOT THE TWO ON THE FAR RIGHT, BOTTOM ROW!

Each one cost about $12.50. I consider this a big bargain! However, there seems to be no consistency in producing these penguins. "As long as you can recognize that it's a penguin" seems to be the company principle or motto. In addition, they are significantly smaller than Carleton. RECESSION MODEL! Can we get back on the Excess Model?

We are a happy family.

Neglect

I have been sort of neglecting this blog, mostly because I'm obsessed with baseball and also because I have other duties, like giving a presentation on Hegel. Yikes. But now that we got that out the way...

I have been toying with the idea of starting my own baseball blog even though I occasionally contribute to Third Base or Bust. Baseball has taken over my life, and I feel my heart and head will soon implode if I don't channel this energy properly. I don't want to impose my nonsensical and rather selfish fantasy ramblings on the audience of Third Base or Bust (namely my hatred towards the team "arbitup" and my anger at their manager, ANDY). But I imagine that what I post on this other baseball blog of mine would not be all that inappropriate for Third Base or Bust, either. I'm not quite sure what to do yet though, so I'll still think about it. Afterall, there are still twenty-something more weeks of fantasy baseball. This is only the second week of the season! It feels like ten seasons went by last week.

In the meantime, I will work on my post about the real Poppersteins.