This was a very popular Swatch when I was in high school. I loved my Sir Swatch and I knew I had made the right decision, but I always wanted this one as well. I thought that it would look so good worn with Sir Swatch, but it was always considered secondary to my beloved one.

The watch is named after the McGregor tartan. Here is a sample of what the McGregor tartan looks like, so they weren’t too far off the mark. Senior year in high school, I had a plaid mini-skirt that I kept closed with a kilt pin. I loved wearing Sir Swatch with it, but I think McGregor would have matched much better.

As much as I loved that skirt, I don’t have even one picture of myself wearing it. I still have the kilt pin, somewhere, but the skirt is long gone. It’s funny that someone else’s watch could remind me of all that.

I found this group of Swatches on eBay and they couldn’t have gone to a more happy home.

I bought a collection of watches for Golden Tan. New in the box, this watch is worth $250, so I was willing to bid pretty high for the group. I ended up paying ten bucks for all four watches, so I’m VERY happy with the set.

They actually photograph very well and look much better in person than they did on the eBay listing.

GoldenTan 1985 Spring/Summer Collection

Vasily 1986 Spring/Summer Collection

Spiga 1987 Fall/Winter Collection

This watch reminds me so much of my Beauchamps Place watch. They are both brown and I’ve put the Spiga in the same band and I used to have on my Beauchamps Place, so it’s hard for me to tell them apart.

Ibiskus 1991 Spring/Summer Collection

I still need to get an original band for this one, but for now, it looks good in this cheery yellow band.

It’s funny, but my favorite of this group so far is Ibiskus. I haven’t even worn the Vasily or the Golden Tan because I don’t want to hurt them. The least precious of the group has won my heart and I’ve worn it three times since getting these. Isn’t that ironic?

Update 09-22-08: I bought a brand new band for Ibiskus and it looks lovely. I took the time to photograph it. Here it is now:

Seeing it look so good made me want to stop wearing it and keep it in a box. Once I realized this, I took off the floral band and replaced it with a blue one. Now, I have no qualms about wearing it.

Back in 1988, I dyed my hair black. It was a mistake and I immediately regretted it. Only a couple photos survive from the Tragic Black Hair Incident. Here they are.

After dyeing my hair black, I immediately regretted it. It took me a week working at K-Mart to earn enough money to get it un-dyed, but even then, my hair was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Doesn’t Stacey look adorable, though?

I had to live with that horrible black hair for a long time. You can’t tell from the photo, but my hair had grown out some by then. I had a large swath of light brown hair at the roots.

I eventually let it grow out about six inches (it took a year) and cut it all off to get rid of the black.

I have never dyed my hair since then, not even to add highlights.

Of course, when I bought Color The Sky, two replacement bands and a Swatch guard, I had spent enough money to get this one for half off. I love it when that happens.

“Jeu De Billes” means “Playing Marbles” in English. It’s a pretty self-explanatory title when you see the watch, unlike St. Germain, which is a mystery to me, even to this day.

I just barely bought this watch at the Swatch store in Las Vegas, so I have no memories attached to it yet. The band is so unique that I don’t want to wear it because I’ll hurt the band.

Maybe I’ll put a transparent band on it and then I can wear it without guilt.

After the guy in the Swatch Store restored my Sir Swatch to its former beauty, something inside me snapped. All the love for Swatch came back in full force and I wanted to buy more. Sure, I had spent almost sixty dollars just in batteries to bring all my old Swatches back to life, but I wanted a new Swatch that felt like one of the old ones, so I chose Color The Sky.

The bright colors, stripes and those funny numbers that look like someone wrote them on by hand all remind me of the Swatch of the 80’s, so I bought it. Even though I just bought this watch, I already love it. I have a clear blue Swatch guard that matches the body of the watch perfectly and I love the stripes. Most importantly, I bought two replacement bands for it, so I don’t have to worry about ruining the bands just by enjoying the watch.

I couldn’t think of anything to say on 9/11 this year. These people said it better than I could ever have:

When I bought my Heracles and Strawberry Jam watches, they said I could get another watch for half off at the Swatch store, so I picked this one. I’ve only worn it a couple of times in the last two months.

It’s a Skin Swatch, so it’s incredibly thin. It feels like I’m wearing nothing on my wrist.

So many of those gears and parts look like they are for show, but when I pull out the crown and move the hands around, all those gears move. They are actually working parts of the watch.

It reminds me of the Jelly Swatches from so long ago. Swatch never really stopped making the Jelly Swatches, they have just changed over the years. Now, it’s a Jelly Swatch that’s golden or maybe a Jelly Swatch that is incredibly thin. I kind of wish they would release the old watches again. I would buy 100 Sir Swatches if they did.

Back when I bought Red Vibration, I had been trying to decide between it and Strawberry Jam. A couple of months later, when I found myself at the Swatch store again, I splurged and got Strawberry Jam. I bought it the same day as I bought my Heracles automatic. The gadget appeal of the Heracles has won out whenever I choose a watch, so I have only worn this one about two or three times.

I’m sure this watch will get its day in the sun, but right now, it is still nearly pristine.

I’ve been reluctant to wear it because I’m worried about ruining the band, but Squiggly has new bands for Strawberry Jam, so I’m going to throw caution to the wind and wear it whenever I want.

What? This doesn’t look like a watch Laura would like: no bright colors, no day of the week, no flashy graphics. What was Laura thinking?! Before you judge this watch too harshly, you have to understand the gadget appeal of this watch. Heracles is an automatic watch, which means that it doesn’t require batteries and is powered by the movement of my hands while it’s on my wrist.

Here is a look at the back of the watch. It has a clear back so you can see the inner workings of the watch. It has 21 jewels, which help it keep time. That is the minimum of jewels you need for a good automatic watch. The half-circle metal piece twirls around the watch and powers it with my movements.

Over a year ago, my brother, Dan, got obsessed with automatic watches and I was unimpressed. They tended to cost more than a quartz watch. I LOVE gadget appeal, but not enough to pay an extra five hundred dollars. An extra fifty bucks, however, was completely within my range. When I found out Swatch had automatic watches, I immediately bought Heracles and have enjoyed it ever since.

This is my first automatic watch. I bought it at the Swatch store in Las Vegas two months ago. It came with a leather band (I still have it), but I wanted a metal band, so I bought one that day and the clerk at the store changed it for me. It keeps great time, but only if I wear it at least every other day.

When I first saw this watch, I was too cheap to buy it. It was $100 and I was used to only spending $60 for a Swatch. I bought the Crossiant Chaud instead.

Back then I was on a quest for the perfect watch. I talked about it here:

• Gadgets Page » I Hate the Watch Designers of the World

I wanted a digital watch that actually looked good. I had owned one that looked good, but it was broken, so I was looking for a replacement. Unfortunately, I expected a lot from my watch. Here is what I was looking for:

• Women’s watch
• Digital
• Metal case and band
• Time and Date on the display at the same time
• Stopwatch
• Countdown Timer

The Red Vibration didn’t fit the bill I was looking for. I was willing to spend a few hundred dollars on a watch that fulfilled all these qualifications, but I just couldn’t find it. I still haven’t found it to this day. I bought Red Vibration just a few months ago and it is the closest I’ve ever come to getting a women’s watch that is pretty AND functional.

Sure, there is no stopwatch or countdown timer, but now that my iPhone has those capabilities, I don’t necessarily need those functions on my watch. It would be nice to have a beautiful women’s watch that is digital and has all those functions, but the only one I’ve been able to find was the Phillipe Starck watch from Fossil. They no longer carry this watch and mine has finally died.

It was just an added bonus that Red Vibration was red, which is my signature color right now. It’s not the perfect watch, but it’s okay for now.

I got a NASTY scratch on the crystal, but last month the guy at the Swatch Store buffed it out for me and it looks good as new. Did you know that the plastic crystal on Swatches could be shined up? I had no idea and I nearly cried when I realized that my beloved Sir Swatch was just a buff and and a battery away from looking new.

I bought this watch in 2007 when I was looking for a good watch that displayed the day and the date. I wanted a women’s watch, but I settled for this one. In the end, I have loved it dearly.

This is the first Swatch I bought while I was blogging. I found it at the Las Vegas Swatch Store in the Caesar’s Forum Shops. When I got back home, I took a picture of myself wearing it for my daily Self Portrait.

As you can tell, I had already replaced the leather band with a transparent one. I liked the leather band, but I was worried that I would ruin it (just like the St. Germain), so I immediately bought a transparent band, which are easily replaceable. I’ve since found a couple of leather bands as back ups, so I feel comfortable wearing it with the leather band now. I think it might look really good with a metal band, though and might try that.

I bought this Swatch in 2002 and I’ve worn it maybe five times. It came into my life right when I was changing from wearing gold jewelry all the time to wearing silver jewelry all the time, so it ended up in the back of the drawer.

That makes me sad for this watch. Maybe I’ll wear it today to make it feel better.

Ever since the mid-90’s, I have been obsessed with Egyptian art, so when I saw this watch in the Swatch store back in 2001, it took no deciding at all to buy it.

I bought it at the Swatch store in Las Vegas back when they used to be in Fashion Show Mall (now they are at Caesar’s Forum Shops). Mike and I were staying at the Luxor hotel and I remember thinking how lucky I was to be able to have an Egyptian watch from Swatch.

I had completely forgotten about the Horus Swatch from back in the 80’s. And I didn’t even know Osiris and Amneris even existed.

Here are some photos from the Luxor Hotel back in 1996. They were remodeling the hotel and my heart was breaking because they took out the Nile River Ride. Little did I know how far the Luxor depths could reach.

• Starling Travel » Luxor Hotel Remodel 1996

It’s funny how this watch represents so much to me. It’s not just about Egyptian art. It’s about a hotel in Las Vegas. It’s about the REASON we went to Vegas, which was Comdex. I look at that watch and can see the first Dot Com boom. It’s so much more than just a silly little watch.

I love this watch. I am ALWAYS early to everything, so I thought this watch was so funny! If you notice, the face is shifted five minutes clockwise, so it looks like it’s later than it really is. On this watch, it looks like it’s 10:30, but it is really 9:25.

It NEVER fooled me.

This watch was also part of a collection. The other watches in the collection were called Always Late and Always Now. Always Late had the dial face rotated the other way, and Always Now was some non-sequitur that didn’t match the other two.

Personally, I think the watch dials should have been rotated in the opposite directions. Us people who are always early, bug normal people who show up on time. Our watches should make us a little late so that we end up showing up at the right time. The people who are constantly late need a watch like Always Early, so that it will fool them into showing up on time.

I always call this one my “Polluted City Swatch.”

This is another watch that I didn’t want to wear the band for fear it would get damaged. For most of the life of this watch, I have worn it with a transparent band. Unlike Le Poeme, however, Oxygen keeps the art, even when the original band is long gone. I put the original band back on for these photos, but I will be removing it and replacing the transparent band so I can continue wearing this watch without guilt.

This watch was part of a collection of three. Each watch represented an element. Oxygen represented air. There also was a water Swatch named Chlorine. Zerkon represented land. Squiggly.com has photos of what they look like: Chlorine and Zerkon.

They actually have these watches for sale, but no replacement bands. I don’t want my Oxygen band damaged any more than it already is, so I guess I’ll be wearing this one with a transparent band.

I bought this watch in 1996, thinking it was part of the watches that Swatch made for the 1996 Altanta Summer Olympic Games. It kind of looks like an Olympic watch with the figure on the face in laurels.

I knew that the watch was about Dante’s Inferno. For years, I called it my Dante Swatch, but when I looked for its real name, I couldn’t find the watch in the 1996 collection. That’s because it wasn’t in that collection. It was part of the 1994 Spring Summer Collection.

The quote encircling the face reads,

“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita.”

It is from Dante’s Inferno and means,

“In the middle of our lives.”

The separation of the angels on the top of the watch and the demons on the bottom strap is a pretty good illustration of the concept of heaven and hell. When I wear, it however, heaven and hell become intermingled at the inside of my wrist. I always found that ironic and loved wearing the watch with its original band.

After the cracking of the band on my beloved St. Germain, however, I was reluctant to wear this watch with its original band. I replaced it with a plain black band and I ended up not liking the watch as much in the process. Despite removing the band, there is still some aging to it. Notice the yellowing behind the angels. I don’t think it looked THAT yellow when I first got the watch.

Fortunately, Squiggly.com, specializes in providing bands for Swatches. I have two brand new bands for this watch on the way from them, so I can wear this watch with its original band as often as I want now.

I bought this watch during the heyday of the first Dot Com boom. There was a Swatch store in Fashion Show Mall in Las Vegas. I remember wishing that we had our own Swatch store in Salt Lake City. We DID get one at the now defunct Crossroads Mall. They set up the store right before the 2002 Utah Winter Olympics and closed it soon after. This is the ONE watch that I bought at that store. Mostly, I just bought bands, guards and batteries there to keep my Swatches alive and beautiful.

I wonder how big Salt Lake City will have to become before we can get a Swatch store again, because the Olympics aren’t coming back any time soon.

I bought this one at Costco. Mike and I were married by then, so it must have been in the 90’s sometime. The original band was colored like the face of the watch. I still have it, but it is so damaged it was impossible to photograph.

Update 09-04-08 3:24 pm: Today I pulled out the original band for Beauchamps Place and I was able to flatten it out enough to photograph it.

The funny thing about this watch is when I was looking up its name, I mistook it for Borgo Nuovo. I even ordered a new band for it. Unfortunately, the Borgo Nuovo is the Gents size version of this watch, so now I have a band for a watch that I don’t own. Sadly, there are no bands available for Beauchamps Place, so I’ll have to be happy with it just the way it is.

Update 09-22-08: I found a brand new band for this watch and it is back to its original beauty. I also found a Borgo Nuovo. It hasn’t arrived yet, but I can’t wait to photograph them side by side.

Back in 1989, when I bought my St. Germain watch, it was a choice between that one and this one. It was a difficult choice, but I went with the St. Germain because it was black and white and I thought it would go with more of my clothes.

I bought this watch on eBay two weeks ago. Now that I’m an adult and I can afford it, I was able to buy the other watch of my dreams from my teen years.

I’m scared to wear this watch. I can’t buy new bands for it, so I don’t want to wear it with its original band. Maybe I’ll replace the band and wear it. Why is it so hard for me to think about wearing a watch that I have wanted for so long?!

Update 12-07-12

I just received an email from Cam in Australia:

Hi Laura, love your blog.. I searched for ages to find a photo of my long lost Swatch, turns out it was the “Coloured Love” model you feature below.

I received it for my 13th birthday, mine had a bright pink face guard attached, my mates ribbed me about it, but girls loved it, good conversation starter!..

Unfortunately on a night of silly behaviour when I was about 16, a friend of mine became seriously drunk in our small town here in Australia, long story short; the local police locked us up to teach us a lesson.. They took all of our possessions, including my swatch, and held them until we got out. When they were signing us out, my watch was gone, as was my friends fathers Vietnam Zippo, I protested and received a short jab to my stomach, whoops, haven’t been in any trouble since, Haha!.

Oh well, looks like my chances of replacing “Marilyn” have improved now that I have the model name and photo reference.. Thanks.

It made me so happy to hear this story about Coloured Love that I just had to share it with you. Cam told me that he has found a Coloured Love on eBay and is planning on keeping it for posterity instead of wearing it. I have yet to wear my Coloured Love Swatch because it was new in box. I did find a beat up one later, however, and I wear it from time to time, even though it just has a black band instead of the original.

This is the second Swatch I bought. Back in 1989, the money to buy a Swatch felt like SO much and I spend days deciding which one to get. I only consider two of my Swatches to be “beloved,” and St. Germain is one of them.

I must have looked at that band a million times. I had this watch when I was in college and I remember thinking how mature it was: the handwriting, the French words on the face, and the mysterious picture of a girl in a long coat. Depending on how the hands swing, the watch can read one of twenty four things:

• Tu es magique. – You are magical.
• Je te veux magique. – I want your magic.
• Tu es absolu. – You are absolute.
• Je te veux absolu. – I want you absolutely.
• Tu es univers. – You are universal.
• Je te veux univers. – I want you universally.
• Tu es temporel. – You are temporal.
• Je te veux temporel. – I want you temporally.
• Tu es espoir. – You are hope.
• Je te veux espoir. – I want you hopefully
• Tu es rever. – You are a dream.
• Je te veux rever. – I want to dream about you.
• Tu es enigme. – You are an enigma.
• Je te veux enigme. – I want you enigmatically.
• Tu es illusion. – You are an illusion.
• Je te veux illusion. – I want your illusion.
• Tu es obscur. – You are obscure.
• Je te veux obscur. – I want your obscurity.
• Tu es desir. – You are desire.
• Je te veux desir. – I want your desire.
• Tu es hasard. – You are chance.
• Je te veux hasard. – I want your chances.
• Tu es vertige. – You are giddy.
• Je te veux vertige. – I want your giddiness.

Before Yahoo! Babelfish, I used to just sit there looking at the face of the watch, trying to guess what each phrase meant. With a good training in Latin languages, I was able to figure out almost all of them.

The original band for my beloved St. Germain finally cracked and broke (I still have it). Luckily, I was able to find a replacement band (shown here).

In the end, this is STILL one of my favorite watches to wear, either with this band or a plain black one.

I wrote another entry about this watch here:

• Pick Me! » The St. Germain Swatch: What Does It Mean?

I remember deciding against this watch because it was orange and I had no orange clothes. Back then, that was really important. Now, the fact that it’s an Egyptian-themed Swatch is WAY more important. I didn’t start becoming obsessed with Egyptian art until the late 90’s, so this watch was disregarded almost immediately back when I was a teenager.

I won this watch on eBay two weeks ago.

I knew this watch only as the paisley Swatch. My friend, Dawni Burton, had a Swatch just like this. A boy had given it to her as a gift. I remember wishing that there was a boy that liked me enough to give me a Swatch.

Mike won this watch for me on eBay. I finally got my wish.

I won this watch in an auction last week on eBay. It represents the 80’s to me more than a lot of the other Swatches because of the primary colors, shapes and design.

This design of this watch reminds me of Mondrian paintings. He did his work in the 30’s and 40’s and it took that long before he became a design fad. Honestly, I still love the primary colors, thick black lines and basic shapes of that style of design. I know it’s out of style now and represents the 80’s, but I still love it.

In 1987, I used to spray my hair with Studio Line hairspray from Loreal. The bottle was decorated just like the Mondrian paintings. I swear I just used that hairspray because it was cool, not because it worked any better than any other hairspray.

Here’s a commercial for Studio Line Hairspray:

I think this is the commercial that Sigue Sigue Sputnik sampled from to create their commercial between the two of their songs on their album Flaunt It. They actually auctioned commercial time between their songs on their album. Loreal was one of the companies to buy time and the other was i-D Magazine.

You can hear that commercial here:

• Pick Me! » Studio Line by Sigue Sigue Sputnik

It’s funny how this watch represents a painting style, and the painting style represents a hairspray and the hairspray represents a band. It all is mixed up in one big soup in my mind. Back in 1987, I wanted that Swatch, but in the big scheme of things, I couldn’t afford to buy all the ones I wanted when I was a teenager. Now, however, through the power of eBay, I can.

Update 12-04-12

Speaking of Mondrian, Nailasaurus just did a manicure that I would have LOVED in the Eighties:

She said it was inspired by this painting by Piet Mondrian:

My sixteen year old self is salivating over that manicure and I would have LOVED to be able to do that back then! Why can’t it be 1987 again, but with all my memory and skills I’ve earned since then?!

Valkyrie by Laura Moncur from Flickr

When I was deciding which watch to buy in 1986, I chose my beloved Sir Swatch. This watch, however, was a close second. It didn’t win out because it was pink. The primary colors of Sir Swatch won out in the end. Plus, I was going through an Anne Lennox phase and I was much more interested in wearing a men’s watch.

I just got this watch on eBay, so now I have BOTH. I’m such a lucky girl!

Sir Swatch by Laura Moncur from Flickr

This is most my beloved of my Swatches. When I found out that I had spent my money on a counterfeit Swatch back in 1985, my mom said she would help me buy a REAL one if I saved up for half. It took me weeks of going to ZCMI and looking at their selection to decide on this one.

If you look closely, you can see that I am wearing Sir Swatch in my graduation photo. I must have looked at the face of this watch for hours and hours, waiting for school to get out or work to be finished.

If you notice, the crest on the face spells the word Swatch. There is an “S” on the upper left, a “W” on the upper right, an “A” on the lower left, a “T” divides the four areas of the crest and the “CH” are on the lower right.

God, I LOVE this Swatch. For the last few years, I thought this watch was broken because I had replaced the battery and it still didn’t work, but when I took it to the Swatch store last week, the guy there was able to get it going.

I was so happy I hugged him.

Counterfeit Swatch by Laura Moncur from Flickr

In 1985, I bought this watch at Smith’s Food King for $20. I was so excited! My friend had a Swatch and I wanted one SO bad, but they were $45. When I saw this one at the grocery store, I jumped at the chance to buy it.

When I took it to ZCMI to buy a new band for it, however, the clerk there told me the sad truth. It wasn’t a real Swatch.

You can tell it’s not real because it only has one thing on the band instead of two. Click the photo to see the notes on Flicker so you can tell a fake Swatch from a real one.

My mom felt so sorry for me, she said she would help me buy a REAL Swatch if I saved half the money.

Just seeing the Atari logo fills me with joy. It represented so much fun to me and honestly it never failed to produce. Unlike amusement parks and dance clubs, I haven’t grown out of my love for video games. They still fill me with joy, even the olds ones that I loved so much like Adventure and Centipede.

Here is a video of someone playing Adventure on Level 1:

Did you even know there was an Easter Egg in Adventure?! This video shows you how to access it:

I found this history of Atari and just clicking through made me happy.

• Gamasutra – Atari: The Golden Years — A History, 1978-1981

Now, the Nintendo logo has replaced my beloved Atari, but the love of the game is still there.

Via: WWdN: In Exile: have you played atari today?

At the reunion last week, they took us on a tour of Kearns High. The first part of the tour was through the auditorium. The school got all new seats and the tour guide was pretty proud of it. She walked us through the dark auditorium. I remember thinking to myself, “She’s not going to turn on the lights? Someone’s going to trip over something in this dark.”

I realized that this was a negative thought and reassured myself that we would be just fine. There was light from the doors leading to the hallways and we had been in the sweltering heat of the auditorium for so long that surely our eyes had adjusted. Just when I neared the end of the trek through the dark auditorium, I felt like I had been worrying for nothing. I could see by the light of the door leading out and we were almost there. I felt stupid for worrying about tripping in the dark and scolded myself for not thinking positively.

Then I tripped on the seam between the floor and the orchestra pit.

As Mike gently picked me up from the floor, I thought to myself, “So much for positive thinking.”

Plaid Stallions has done it again and have brought a cherished memory from my childhood to life in vivid catalog color.

Sceverenia’s parents had a bar that looked just like this in their basement.

We played for hours at that bar. It wasn’t a bar. It was a storefront. It was a government office. It was a checkout counter. Heck, I think we even did homework up at that bar a couple of times when the kitchen table was full of rowdy drinkers.

That was the funny thing about the Kubota house. There were never any drinkers at the bar in their basement. I’m sure her parents bought it with visions of fun parties in the basement, but the parties stayed around the kitchen table. Honestly, the kitchen table was much more adept at handling all the people who came to their parties.

Ironically, the only place where you couldn’t get alcohol in the Kubota house was the bar in the basement. Scev and I had a lot of fun there.

Always Something There To Remind Me by The Naked Eyes was of my favorite songs from the Eighties. I LOVED this video and I thought it was absolutely PERFECT. The final scene where he is stalking the places where he had seen her and then flashes of what he saw when he was there was genius to my fifteen year old mind.

Now, not so much…

I HATE it when something that I loved doesn’t hold up to my memory of it. It’s as if my memory of the video made it far better than it actually was.

The song, of course, it just as wonderful as it was when it was released. They really did an excellent job of updating the classic and I still love it to this day.

After a tour of the school, we’re sitting in the cafeteria. Mr. Treseder is still teaching in the television lab. I found my old locker. They took out the senior bench. The ramp has a huge sign that says, “No Loitering.” The current SBOs say that there are no longer cowboys to sit on the ramp.

I couldn’t help but think of Calvin when they showed us the gorgeous baseball stadium.

I’m glad that we came. I remember dancing with Brian Ard in this cafeteria at a stomp. It’s like I can see ghosts everywhere.

When I saw this photo, a flood of memories came back to me.

My mom bought this Supermax hairdryer when I was in junior high. I remember looking at the lady on that box, wishing the hairdryer would make my hair as smooth as that lady’s hair. It would take me six more years before I learned how to straighten curly hair.

Via: Found in Mom’s Basement: Supermax hairdryer, 1970s

Wiped from my memory. Seriously. I don’t know how I blocked it so thoroughly.

If you had asked me a couple of days ago about Kidd Video, I would have shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. Kidd Video? What’s that? A video by Kid Rock, maybe?

Then you would have shown me this video on YouTube and all the memories would have come flooding back to me:

That crush I had on the lead singer? Yeah, it all came back full force.

“One sneeze and I’ll save you!”

My pre-teen mind never questioned the idea of a fairy dressed up as Olivia Newton-John with sneezing superpowers. I never gave it a second thought.

Kidd Video was a COOL show when I was in junior high. I liked it almost as much as Kids Incorporated, which I very vividly remember, no memory blocking there.

I SO wanted to be in a band and be cool like the kids from Kids Incorporated. I LOVED that show. Where are those kids now?

• Marta Marrerro went on to become Martika in the late eighties.
• Stacy Ferguson became Fergie from The Black Eyed Peas.
• It looks like Rahsaan Patterson is still in the business as well.
• Renee Sands provided the singing voice for Princess Fiona in the Shrek movies.
• Jerry Sharell is managing American Idol artists now.

I’ve just spent a half hour looking at all the videos on YouTube from Kids Incorporated and I’m truly surprised how BAD they are. I LOVED that show and now I can barely watch it without cringing. How did my tastes change so much? I guess I’m glad that I’ve grown up, but I’m surprised that I ever liked that show at all. I feel almost betrayed by how cringe-worthy it is. In twenty years, will I feel the same about all the things I love right now?

To this day, I am still haunted by this conversational interlude at the beginning of the song:

Dad: Where are you going?
Divine: Out.
Dad: Out where?
Divine: Out to have a good time.
Dad: Oh? Can I come?
Divine: Only if you’re into it.
Dad: Into what?
Divine: Twistin’!

Whenever anyone asks me “Where are you going?” I ALWAYS answer with the word, “Out,” in the hopes that whomever asked will respond with the rest of the interlude. Never, not once, no one has ever known what the heck I was quoting.

I saw this album cover from Divine’s single “Twistin’ the Night Away” on the list of Worst Album Covers here:

• Worst Album covers

Alongside rancid beehives of the McKeithen’s and the unseeing eyes of the Braillettes, I was angered and appalled that Divine’s classic remake was numbered among them. Don’t they know that EVERY time I hear another version of that song, I think to myself, “They’re doing it wrong. DIVINE knew how to sing that song!”

Of course, Divine would be so happy to see his album cover listed among the Worst. He was the best at being the best at the worst. Here is a photo montage of Divine to the song:

Where have all the drag queens gone? I remember when Divine came to Utah to perform, celebrated and loved. UTAH! Sometimes I hate reminiscing about the eighties with a passion, but times like these, I miss them.

I saw this ad and I immediately thought of fifth grade. That was the year Bonne Bell’s Lipsmackers were THE most popular thing.

This advertisement doesn’t do them justice because you can’t see how freakishly large they were. They just look like a normal chapstick-sized lip gloss. But NO, they were at least three inches tall and an inch in diameter. They were large and the cool girls would have them sitting on their desk like a plastic column of Dr. Pepper scented popularity.

Dr. Pepper was the cool flavor, by the way. If you were unlucky and your mom bought you a 7-Up Lipsmacker instead, you might as well leave it at home. The Hires rootbeer flavor was a close second, but I never saw the Tootsie Roll or Good N Plenty flavors.

When my grandmother was starving me in Montana, I used to put on the Dr. Pepper Lipsmacker on my lips and pretend I was eating something sweet. I was tempted to eat it so many times. If you licked your lips, they tasted sweet.

I can almost smell it now…

Photo via: Stuck in the ’70s — 1970s products

This postcard from PostSecret showed up last Sunday:

It was 2003 and it’s a 840 square foot house, but other than that, ditto…

PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

Andy Baio really outdid himself the other day. He converted an old BBC program that he had sitting around on a VHS tape and uploaded the hour-long show to Google Video for all of us to see:

He also did research on everyone who was in the video telling us where they are now:

• BBC Two’s Horizon on “The Electronic Frontier” in 1993 – Waxy.org

In 1993, I had just graduated from college and was working at a biomedical testing lab. I used a Mac to work every day. By 1994, we went to our first Comdex, so seeing this video is like a walk through memory lane for me.

More importantly, I’m surprised at how spot on the predictions of some of the people interviewed were. When Denise Caruso is talking about the two-edged sword of the “Information Wants To Be Free” debate, I was sincerely awed by how forward-looking she was. We are still in a conundrum concerning copyright laws and online privacy. She predicted it fifteen years earlier.

There is an interview with Howard Rheingold where he mentions the loneliness he encounters writing in his room every day and how he combats it with a UseNet addiction. Today, building community online AND offline is still a major focus. He was social networking before social networking was cool.

Thanks for posting this video, Andy! You can’t imagine how much I enjoyed watching this!

Discarded Honor by Laura Moncur from Flickr

I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was a valedictorian medal at Thrift Town. Jessica L. Eriksson graduated valedictorian from Viewmont High School in 2005 and just gave her medal away to a thrift shop. It made my heart ache to see it there.

When I think of how hard I worked to get as far as I did, it makes me sick to see it. Our school was so competitive that a 3.96 GPA wasn’t good enough. Neither was a 4.0. You had to take all the AP courses that were weighted and still we had two people with a GPA over 4.1. Suzanne Clark and Aracelli Rojas were our valedictorians at Kearns High in 1987. I wonder if they got a nice medal this shiny and clean with their names engraved on the back?

Two bucks. That’s what it cost me to buy a valedictorian medal. Is it just easier now? Did Jessica not care about it? Did it somehow get lost with the old clothes and end up at Thrift Town on accident? If it had been me, there would have been no mistakes. That thing would have been framed and mounted on the wall. There would have been no way for me to lose that accolade.

Jessica, I see you won fourth place in the State Finals for the FBLA in Accounting in 2005:

• FBLA STATE CONFERENCE WINNERS 2005: Who’s Who in FBLA

I also noticed you ran the 5K in 27 minutes and 38 seconds in October of 2004.

• 5A JV Girls 5K Results

You finished in 64th place. Is that good? Is that bad? You beat my best 5K time by three minutes. Three minutes and 0.3 GPA points. That’s the difference between a winner and a loser in these little races of human competition, but how fast do I need to run in the race of life?

Jessica, if you want your valedictorian medal back, you can’t have it. I’m pretending it’s mine now.

Bobka’s Eggs by Laura Moncur from Flickr

Over thirty years ago, my great-grandmother, Dora Klem, made these Ukrainian Eggs. Some of them have survived well. Others have cracks and holes. They all smell like rotten eggs a bit.

When my grandpa died last summer, Stacey found a stash of these eggs in the basement. It has taken this long for me to photograph them, precious as they are to me.

You can see the entire set here:

• Your Bobka’s Eggs slideshow on Flickr

I just found this website showing how to make these eggs. I think next Easter, I shall have some of my own to display:

• LearnPysanky.com: How to Make Ukrainian Easter Eggs (pysanky)

This video shows some of the video games from 1972 to 2007.

I’m offended by only one of the omissions. He included Viva Pinata, which was a game that was merely a derivative of Animal Crossing, which was not included. Other than that, it was an enjoyable walk through memory lane.

Via: kev/null – History of Video Games 1972-2007

When Mike did his book signing for SAMS Publishing back at Comdex 1996, we had no idea that it was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. They used to have a booth at Comdex every year and give away piles of books for free to the people willing to wait in line. The very next year, they stopped doing that so Mike’s book signing was a unique experience for us.

Here is the line of people waiting for Mike’s book.

Here is the board with the schedule of author signings.

Here’s Mike sitting at his table with a nice board telling the world who he is and which book he wrote.

This is a photo of the first guy in line at the signing.

Here is Michael signing books and me handing them to him.

They ran out of books before these guys got one. It was the first day and they could get one tomorrow, so I didn’t feel bad asking them to pretend to look really sad that they didn’t get one of Mike’s books.

SAMS did so much promotion for his book that they even had a huge copy of it on the side of the Comdex Bookstore. I was so excited about it, but Mike really wasn’t. I forced him to stand next to the book cover for a photo. Can you tell?

Looking back at that time makes me feel happy and wary all at once. I took all these photos with my beloved 110 camera that I got from my grandma in fifth grade. I recently scanned in all the Comdex 1996 photos for a series that I did on the Gadgets Page, but I thought I’d share these personal favorites with you.