Can you believe we’re coming up on the 20th season of The Simpsons? I’m getting to be an old man now and I was still in high school when I watched my first episode. And yeah, I still love the show. I kind of feel like I’ve grown up with them and have spent many nights working with one of the earlier season DVDs playing as background noise. Anyway, the below is a list of the quotes you see Bart writing on the blackboard in the intro of each episode. The Simpsons Archive has a much better list with clickable episode links and much more information. I just think the quotes are funny and find myself smiling when reading them. And I like to try and catch the current event reference when I can. Read some quotes and then come back and check out my educational toy store if you’re going to be in the market for any best selling christmas toys this year.

I will not waste chalk
I will not skateboard in the halls
I will not burp in class
I will not instigate revolution
I will not draw naked ladies in class
I did not see Elvis
I will not call my teacher “Hot Cakes”
Garlic gum is not funny
They are laughing at me, not with me
I will not yell “Fire” in a crowded classroom
I will not encourage others to fly
I will not fake my way through life
Tar is not a plaything

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Okay, my guess for the top three without looking was: the New York Times, LA Times and Chicago Tribune. I had no idea that the WSJ and USA Today would be higher than all of these. The top 10, with their circulation in 2006 are:

1. USA Today, 2,528,437
2. The Wall Street Journal, 2,058,342
3. The New York Times, 1,683,855
4. Los Angeles Times, 1,231,318
5. The Washington Post, 960,684
6. Chicago Tribune, 957,212
7. New York Daily News, 795,153
8. The Philadelphia Inquirer, 705,965
9. Denver Post, 704,806
10. Houston Chronicle, 692,557

There you have it. I would have also expected to see the Atlanta Journal to show up in the top 10, at least higher than the papers in Philadelphia, Denver and Houston.

Posted by admin for the best selling toys of 2008.

Okay, so I told myself I’m going to flip to a random page of my top 10 list book and write about the first one I see. Unfortunately, tonight I landed on top 10 cosmetic surgeries. Here’s my process… first I look at the title of the list and then try to think what the top couple of spots might be. For this one, I could only think of about three cosmetic surgery procedures, so I picked the following as my guesses: 1) nose job, 2) liposuction and 3) breast implants. Not knowing anything about any of these, I think I did a nice job of guessing. These three were in the top 4, but what the heck is cosmetic eyelid surgery? And who would ever need that?? Anyway, here are the top 10 cosmetic surgeries performed in the United States. (The numbers represent procedures performed in 2006).

1. Liposuction, 403,000
2. Breast augmentation, 384,000
3. Cosmetic eyelid surgery, 210,000
4. Nose reshaping, 142,000
5. Tummy tuck, 172,000
6. Breast reduction (women), 146,000
7. Facelift, 138,000
8. Breast lift, 126,000
9. Forehead lift, 54,000
10. Breast reduction (men), 24,000

Worth mentioning is that Americans spent $7.6 Billion on these procedures. Throw in non-surgical cosmetic procedures such as botox injections and the total is $12.2 Billion. this is amazing. And I think speaks a lot either about our level of disposable income or maybe our vainness. Posted by admin for the educational best selling toys of 2008 at Atomic Elephant Toy.

The following are the top 10 largest cities in the world, based on “urban agglomerations” as defined by the United Nations. This method of counting disregards administrative boundaries of the more extensive areas that stretch across densely populated suburbs.

Rank, City, County, Population (in millions)

1. Tokyo, Japan, 33.4
2. Seoul, South Korea, 23.1
3. Mexico City, Mexico, 22.0
4. New York, US, 21.8
5. Mumbai (Bombay), India, 21.1
6. Delhi, India, 20.8
7. Sao Paulo, Brazil, 20.3
8. Shanghai, China, 18.6
9. Los Angeles, US, 17.9
10. Jakarta, Indonesia, 16.9

These are the populations recorded in 2006. Source: http://www.citypopulation.de. Find the best educational toys here.

Okay, this Top 10 list is of the world’s religions with the most adherents. The list is sourced from a book called “The Top 10 of Everything 2008.” I found the book in the bargain bin at Barnes and Noble and since I’m always on my quest to beat my wife at Jeopardy, I thought it would be a good source. Some of the below I would have expected until we get to numbers 4, 6 and 10. Chinese folk religions? And Spiritists? What the heck are those? The list shows the religion and number of adherents.

1. Christianity, 2,135,000,000
2. Islam, 1,314,000,000
3. Hinduism, 870,000,000
4. Chinese folk religions, 405,000,000
5. Buddhism, 379,000,000
6. Ethnic Religions, 256,000,000
7. New religions, 108,000,000
8. Sikhism, 25,000,000
9. Judaism, 15,000,000
10. Spiritists, 13,000,000
11. West Virginia Rattlesnake Worshippers, 132

Okay, so I just added the last one but it makes about as much sense to me as some of the others. I’m sure anyone reading this list is probably also looking for some great educational toys so check out my store’s list of best selling toys here. Thanks!

While studying the physics behind the classic drinking bird can be a challenging task, as far as science toys go this little guy can’t be beat. This thermodynamic toy (sometimes called a dippy bird) has been around for at least five decades. If you’ve never seen one in action, do a quick search on youtube and you’ll find a few video clips. The Wikipedia page has a few references where it can be seen in popular culture. One memorable reference was when Homer Simpson used it to click a key on his keyboard over and over at the nuclear reactor where he works. And an even more interesting cultural reference was from a Tom and Jerry cartoon from sometime in the 1950s.

I’ve had one of these drinking birds on my office desk for the last several months and all he needs to keep dipping is for me to top off his water cup every couple of days. If you’re looking for an interesting demo for a physics classroom this is a nice choice. You can explain various physical properties such as capillary action, thermodynamics, Boyle’s Law, the ideal gas law and a few more. You can pick one of these up wherever science kits are sold and if you don’t know where that might be, just click on the link in this sentence.

If you haven’t played with one of these in a while, you may have forgotten just how cool this toy is. As far as educational toys go, there really are a lot of scientific principles at work here. Angular momentum, centripetal force, precession, and quite a few more. Here’s a crafty little youtube video showing a simple gyroscope at work. I’m not sure who this chap is, but he sounds English. The site the video points to shows where you can pick one up (if you live in England or don’t mind shopping with pounds). Of course if you’re reading this in the good ol’ United States, you can pick up Tedco’s Classic Gyroscope at Atomic Elephant Toy. I think they pretty much have the best prices out there.

Plus, they have an interesting article on the physics behind the gyroscope. You don’t need to go into all of that though, unless you’re a complete nerd. Just pick up a gyroscope and start playing. Don’t over think it; just have fun.

Holy cow, I love this commercial. What child of the 70s didn’t want a Mr. Microphone after seeing all the fun these characters were having with it? The funny thing is, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who ever owned one. Maybe I have actually met someone who owned one back in the day, but they just never told me that they did. I think that’s a shame. If I had one as a kid, I would probably still tell everyone to this day. Here’s how the conversation would go. Imagine me at a corporate staff meeting with lots of my peers from across the region…

Senior Vice President Larry: Hi Matt, I’m Larry. I’m glad you made the trip.
Me: Thanks Larry. Good to meet you. I once had a Mr. Microphone.
Larry: No way! I loved those commercials! Did it work as well as they said?
Me: Hell yeah it did.
Larry: Did you ever say, “Hey good looking, I’ll be back to pick you up later…”?
Me: That’s how I met my wife.
Larry: Outstanding. Why don’t you come down to corporate after the meeting. I want to give you a promotion.
Me: Sure thing Larry. Thanks.

There you have it. The kids who had a Mr. Microphone are probably still reaping all the benefits. Damn, I wish my parents loved me enough to have given me one for Christmas.

I’ve never been what folks in the industry call a gamer. I’m dating myself a bit, but the only two gaming systems I’ve ever owned were the Atari 2600 (in middle school) and a Sega Genesis (right after college). I’ve certainly been tempted to pick up one of the new systems whenever the newest, latest and greatest comes out. But alas, I’m too busy living my real life to get sucked into a virtual existence and spend too much time in front of the TV. Don’t get me wrong– I’m certainly not averse to gamers and gaming, but I just have too much else going on to devote any energy to something that in the greater scheme of things seems so trivial.

The industry however, from a business perspective at least, fascinates me. I did a little research today while searching for potential niche markets to get involved in and came across the Sony PlayStation 2 community. Arguably, this is the most popular gaming system ever introduced. A search for PS2 Games on eBay (where niche markets are prevalent) returned over 12,000 items for sale. Google returned 12 million pages, and I discovered that search term gets searched for over 100,000 times a month. This was kind of amazing to me. Consider this is more searches than either the PS3 or the Nintendo wii which is supposedly the latest and greatest. And this is for a system that is, what, six years old now? That’s ancient in the world of technology. Anyway, I finished my research and put together a quick affiliate site for PlayStation 2 Games. Maybe I’ll post some stats here about how it does. It looks like the answer to my initial question, is the video gaming industry dying, is going to be a solid “no.” At least for now anyway.

Hot buttered popcorn! Here’s a 19 second commercial from a 1960 Drive-In movie. Look at the well-behaved girl sitting in the back of the convertible. I just want to smack her. Of course she’s old enough to be my mother. I’ll bet in 1960 when she was filming this commercial, she never dreamed that people would be watching it 50 years later on flat-screen space-age monitors with video signals coming through thin wires into little black boxes sitting on our desks. But we are. And a special thanks to Al Gore for inventing this madness.