Owning a dog

Sparky and So. In case you can't tell, one of them is a stuffed animal. Also neither look very happy to be getting their picture taken.

As a child there are few things one can think of that would be better than owning a dog. Sadly, this was not in the cards for my family.

Because of this, my brother would pretend to be a dog. This didn’t convince my parents to get us a pet -- just that we were weird.

Making a career out of cartooning

Thomas Paul, circa 1970. They just don't make them like this guy anymore.

 Every kid can draw. Few are world renowned, but every child, at some point, has put pencil to paper and created something.

7-year-old me thought he was better than everybody else and wanted to make a career out of it. I have probably let him down and claimed it was for practical reasons.

Comic-Con Special: Top 5 Superheroes

Yes please.

San Diego Comic-Con 2011 is in full swing. I, on the other hand, am by posting a story about it to to my blogger account from behind a desk in Ohio.

Go ahead. Be jealous.

Movies on TV

Of all the life lessons the movie taught, the best is that the greatest insult is telling someone they play baseball like a girl. Try it at a bar some time and see what happens.

Today I am a movie snob. Ask me about almost any big budget Hollywood movie and my response will be that I haven’t seen it, but do know its score on Rotten Tomatoes and a highlight from the Associated Press review and Roger Ebert. (Christie Lemire of the AP surprisingly liked it, but the score wasn’t great. Ebert absolutely hated it, and would have gotten to a really strong argument as to why, but became involved in a heated Twitter war instead.)

I love being a movie snob, although I’ll admit there are times when it can be a little baffling when you look at my DVD collection (an example: Movies I own that start with the letter “B” include “Batman: The Movie" (1966), “Being John Malcovich,” “Big Fish” and “Breakfast Club”). And I’m sure its frustrating for friends who want nothing more than to enjoy a couple hours at the theater, knowing I will complain during almost the entire ordeal.

Best part of waking up

How could any 7 year old resit having their mom buy this.

I don’t eat breakfast. If he were here right now, 7-year-old me would say it was the most important meal of the day.

OK, full disclosure, 7-year-old me probably would have been as skeptical as I am now, but at least he ate it every morning.

I have often been told the importance of breakfast, and I’m sure that if there are moms or health nuts reading this, they too will speak volumes about how important breakfast is. I have never been convinced.

Batman: The Animated Series

Sorry Chris Nolan, but your Batman barely compares.

My DVR is full of cartoons. It is probably one of a few things in my adult life that 7-year-old me would be proud of.
 

I had a special relationship with cartoons as a juvenile, one I will most definitely be touching on often as I continue to update this blog, but there is one in particular that always stands out in my mind - “Batman: The Animated Series.”

Mario 3

The concept may be silly, but Mario was at the height of cool when he wore ears and a raccoon tail.

I have not collected a leaf and turned into a raccoon.

As a child of the late 1980s and early 90s, I missed out on the Golden Age of video games when Atari and Nintendo fought for dominance over the many systems and campy titles that destroyed the gket. I however was just old enough to experience the excitement first hand when a little game called Super Mario Bros. 3 was released. It was like magic.

The Final Frontier

Truth be told, most of my knowledge of space travel is based on the movie "Space Camp."

Today was the launch of Atlantis, the final space shuttle launch for the foreseeable future.

As this blog is in its infancy, I feel I need to take some time to think about what this would mean for the 7-year-old version of myself, who may not have been obsessed with space travel, but it gave him a chance to wonder about the great unknown. I think many of us dreamed about the potential for space travel as children. It’s an incredible thing to not only think about the life that may exist on other planets, but just the vastness and not knowing what’s out there.

Legos

Every city needs an organization to patrol the streets and space. It's actually written into Legoland charter.

As an adult, I miss playing with Legos. And 7-year-old me is probably not too excited that I stopped.

Legos were one of the most played with toys in my house as a kid and we had a ton of them. This was in part due to my uncle from Germany buying us a set every year for a long time (and the range of sets were always a little strange, like the gas station, the space police jail ship and medieval castle), and my dad having some larger sets of his own that we were not supposed to touch (but most definitely did). At the height of our playing with Legos, we had built two or three towns worth of buildings, space ships and almost two police stations to every three “bad guys.” It was a world of multi-colored imagination that only ceased to grow when we ran out of basic building blocks, which was more often than not.

Ghostbusters

All I need is a phone call and I'd drop everything to join up.

By far the most egregious error in my ways that I am not a ghostbuster.

My obsessive fanboy personally started at a young age, younger than I probably realized or would own up to. My obsessions run deep, from my undying love of comic books and science fiction, to my rather snooty behavior regarding music and movies (all of which I plan to get into at a later time). But as a child I had only one real obsession: The Ghostbusters.

With Apologies to 7-year-old Me

The first day of school with 7-year-old me in the middle, trying to rock the Catholic school uniform shorts. This happens to be my mother's favorite picture of her oldest children.

I am a writer for a mid-size newspaper in my hometown. It’s a chapter in my life which has been mostly enjoyable, but has left me with a great deal of time to reflect upon what has lead up to this point.

In doing this, I have also tried to take some time to do a little writing for myself, something I will enjoy doing when not having to stare at the computer screen at work. It’s been rather difficult, especially as I force myself out of the mindset of “reporter” to “creative writer.”