new imps are floating in strange places. they want me to fix it, I suppose!
=====================
Incididdly, the reason the monopoly piece took so long was because I was preparing this, and then removed it, and then this took longer.
Yes so Computer Banking Monopoly was discovered at toys r us.
No, not THAT place.
This one. The facade is undoubtedly fancy but indistinguishable from every other building in the future abandoned lot. It’s the only place where I’ve ever seen a Friendly’s and a Ruby Tuesday directly adjacent to one another, along with the world’s greatest Wendy’s.
Yes likely you’ve encountered enough lamentations decrying aesthetics from another era being replaced with uninspired modern sterility. However I think it must be said the old one has the look of a toy store with a specific identity all its own, whereas the newer one you might as well just call Chain Licensed Product Store. If you swapped the sign with that of Target or Sports Authority, other stores in the vicinity, it would not be apparent to anyone until they walked inside. And why would they? I can’t even say for certain that such a switch hasn’t been made between when I entered and took the picture because I’m not likely to go in again. The only indication that it is a real toys R us is the creepy void behind it. Even the old Toys R Us that I liked had a sleazy wasteland surrounding it, and according to that website I linked at, mine was the only store in connecticut that closed down before it could be reblanded. The author claims it was because the location was lousy and the building was “sinking” but I like to think it’s because the store had integrity. It was integritty. It would plunge to the depths of hell and have a crummy auto supply joint move in before it would submit to graphic design. I don’t necessarily mean good graphic design, but just any at all. Say what you like about East Haven (or just repeat what I’ve written about it through the years without reminding me that I wrote it), but of the two units in its structure it wasn’t Toys R Us who dared remind me of Battletoads.
I will be the first to say we should toss old, irrelevant characters aside and stop holding up progress by deifying irrelevant fictional commercial personifications, but if we replace them with something worse and call it the same then we’re missing the point. I loved that store, as trashy as it was. Does anybody love this place?
Yet I was glad it wasn’t the Toys R Us in that still at the end of Double Dare where the giraffe head had a huge, towering neck. I’d have never gone near that. It was so bad apparently that I entirely forgot about the frightful gremlins standing in front of it.
Much mystique I suppose lies in the fact that these places are mostly gone. Maybe I wouldn’t think this design so special had it not been nine years since I’d even passed one on a highway. In fact they are kind of tacky. If you pull out you see that no store ever bothered to keep up this facade the full length of the building and it comes across as lazy, too.
Toys R Us was the first store I knew of to issue its own currency. I can only assume employees were paid in this to discourage them from trying to escape the premises. However, with the volatility of the world-wide economiseep, those who have survived to become refugees have discovered a startling fact:
Geoffrey Dollars are now worth more than real dollars. 3.433 times more. Though America may have abandoned the gold standard, the people’s democratic republic of Toys R U.S. never lost faith in the dork standard, even if they tried to disguise it.
With that in mind I now intend to begin distributing to loyal bimshwel customers Mitz Bucks™,
the only true and consistent abstract monetary representation of this domain name. Bimshwel has been privately owned since 2002 and sells no advertising except when robots get in and they keep all their money, which is in useless US units anyhow. Unlike some international currencies, valued by nothing more than their relationships with each other, Mitz Bucks™ are backed by the unprecedented scumbaggitude and scoundrelity of nemitz. The only thing that would bring down their value would be if nemitz started being a decent person unworthy of scorn or contempt. Greater American Dollars rise or fall by how many people want them. Nobody wants nemitz around, so Mitz Bucks’™ value can only increase. We shall have the dollar on the run.
Aw nutf I didn’t plan on this! How can I arrest this fiend?
Great thinking! I will simply buy all the dollars before they escape.
Or send my army of flatulent marionettes in pursuit. I’ve been trying to get them out of the house, quite honestly.
RSS feed for comments, for they hunger.
This here`s me trackback!
Jumbi sez:
I am throwing all my money at you but I can’t seem to exchange them for any regrets.
Uvprimlurx sez:
The most efficient and powerful regrets are never apparent until later, which allows you to accumulate them for long periods prior to discovering them.
Dijkstra's Algorithm sez:
The internet does this thing, more and more it seems, where it starts by showing you something innocent or benign, then turns it into horror. Okay, maybe not as often as the word ‘often’ implies, but enough so that I’m on my guard all. the. time.
How strange that an alarm went off in my head on the picture immediately before the image of a postapocalyptic world with dancing giraffes. For once I was prepared.
And then I just had to read the alt text.
You win this time.
Derek Pineapple sez:
Somewhat shoddy, slightly trashy façades always do seem much more wondrous in the days of one’s childhood, don’t they? One’s vanishing ability to appreciate such is perhaps one of the more overlooked aspects of developmental-related loss of innocence.
PurpleSpace sez:
How many Bison Dollars can I exchange for Mitz Bucks?