…these nursery rhyme playing cards. Made around 1880 the artist is, unfortunately, unknown.

The full deck (minus the 8 of clubs) can be seen on Peter Endebrock’s Playing-card Pages.

When we were kids we used to play this game where you had to navigate the room (or rooms) without ever touching the floor. You can imagine the wackiness that ensued.

We lived in a huge old three story rowhouse that had thick plaster walls, heavy doorways, and mantlepieces. Those mantlepieces REALLY came in handy.

Good times…good times.

This video reminded me of that time. (Oh, hi mom )

Enjoy!…

Kids get it. Life is not a dress rehearsal. It is meant to be tasted and enjoyed. It should be crammed full of fun and laughter. Somewhere along the way life starts to wear us down and we begin to forget that. That’s when a little reminder is in order.

Here are a couple  joy-filled photos of some of my awesome nieces and nephews to help us remember.

Now admit it. They made me smile didn’t they?

(Click on images for larger versions.)

I am not an electronic music aficionado. Fact is I know little about it and the scene surrounding it. But about a year or so ago in my near manic web surfing I ran across a YouTube video that grabbed my attention. It was a remixing of Alice In Wonderland (Disney version).

For obvious reasons I tend to be drawn to Alice in Wonderland related things. But this was more than that. Round about the third watch and listen, not at all normal for me since I have the surfing attention span of a gnat, I realized I had been hyp-NO-tized and I dragged myself away.

I of course favorited it and went back and watched it a few times whenever it simmered up to the surface to rear it’s earworm head. At some point the sound on the version I had favorited was switched out to some god awful ear damaging sound and the video slipped out of my consciousness.

Today in my still manic surfing I ran across a blog at Crackunit featuring a couple of “bootleg” videos made by borrowing material from movies. I clicked on the first one Scrumdiddlyumptious and my ear instantly informed me that the same guy was behind this video and the next one in the post as well.

With some half-hearted research on my part I found out that the videos are the work of an electronic music artist from Perth, Australia by the name of Pogo. Pogo has a Facebook page and a MySpace page as well as his YouTube channel.

Perhaps it is because these tracks and videos feature some of my favorite childhood films that I find them so mesmerizing. But whatever it is I love them.

Thanks to CrackUnit for reintroducing me to the Alice video and these wonderful new ones!

Must be the rainy weather bringing up some old memories.

I have always loved movies. Many of my happiest memories revolve around them. I have countless favorites from my childhood. But there are two films that are firmly entrenched in my childhood experience and forever entangled with my memories of elementary school.

Childhood memories can play tricks on you and can be a bit murky. But I truly believe that every time we got a little rowdy or out of control (often on rainy days when we couldn’t go outside for recess) in elementary school the teachers would show us one or both of these films and we would calm right down. I have no idea if this is true or not. But this is the memory that remains and I am inclined to believe it.