Mandelaed: What if it never appeared on TV in Flash Gordon in the 21st or Buck Rogers in the 25th century?

Has metal bucket head man “Mandelaed” me?

What if metal bucket head man, as I like to think of him, never actually appeared in the 25th century Buck Rogers black and white TV series in 1950 or 1951, or in 1954 or 1955 in an episode of Flash Gordon from the 21st century?

What if … none of it was real, or at least that there was no metal bucket head man (it’s hard to describe the appearance of the character exactly, but over his head, if he had one, or in lieu of one if he didn’t, appeared to be something reminiscent of one of those upside down old silver metal wash pails or buckets, yet the rest of him looked more humanoid than like a robot, although he didn’t speak in either case), but I remembered him from my childhood as real?

Well, never fear, the explanation may simply be that I was mandelaed and am displaying a classic case of the “Mandela Effect,” as it is called, although in my case it may or may not be a case of being privately mandelaed, rather than the collective misremembering of common events the phenomenon is usually identified with.

“This form of collective misremembering of common events or details first emerged in 2010, when countless people on the internet falsely remembered Nelson Mandela was dead,” notes Neil Dagnall, reader in applied cognitive psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University in England, in a Feb. 12 piece in The Conversation, based in Toronto. “It was widely believed he had died in prison during the 1980s. In reality, Mandela was actually freed in 1990 and passed away in 2013 – despite some people’s claims they remember clips of his funeral on TV.”

Paranormal consultant Fiona Broome, discussing the possibility of alternate memories and alternate realities, was one of the two people who coined the phrase “Mandela Effect” during a conversation in Dragon Con‘s “green room” in late 2009 to explain this collective misremembering, and then “other examples started popping up all over the internet,” Dagnall says. “For instance, it was wrongly recalled that C-3PO from Star Wars was gold, actually one of his legs is silver. Likewise, people often wrongly believe that the Queen in Snow White says, ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall.’ The correct phrase is “magic mirror on the wall.”

In an Oct. 13, 2016 article, BuzzFeed staff writer Christopher Hudspeth, lists 20 examples of the Mandela Effect, ranging from the common misspelling of Oscar Mayer, the famous brand of hot dogs and lunch meat, as Oscar Meyer, to the Monopoly board game mascot, Rich Uncle Pennybags, having a monocle, when he doesn’t.

In a similar vein, as I wrote here in a March 25, 2015 post headlined “If there was a biblical equivalent to a mondegreen, it might well be the famous 45th verse from the fifth chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew” (https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/if-there-was-a-biblical-equivalent-to-a-mondegreen-it-might-well-be-the-famous-45th-verse-from-the-fifth-chapter-of-the-gospel-of-st-matthew/) when you “mishear the lyrics to a song it is called a mondegreen, which is a sort of aural malapropism. Instead of saying the wrong word, you hear the wrong word. The word mondegreen is generally used for misheard song lyrics, although technically it can apply to any speech. A mondegreen is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near-homophony, in a way that gives it a new meaning.” Hudspeth cites the example of “We Are the Champions” by Queen where “many of those familiar with the song remember the final lyrics being ‘No time for losers, ’cause we are the champions … of the world!’ Guess what? There is no ‘of the world!’ The song just ends, and it’s driving people crazy because they feel 100% sure that they’ve heard otherwise in the past.”

Broome explains the Mandela Effect s differences arising from movement between parallel realities (the multiverse). This is based on the theory that within each universe alternative versions of events and objects exist.

“Broome also draws comparisons between existence and the holodeck of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek, writes Dagnall. “The holodeck was a virtual reality system, which created recreational experiences. By her explanation, memory errors are software glitches. This is explained as being similar to the film The Matrix.”

Broome has described the Mandela Effect this way: “The ‘Mandela Effect’ is what happens when someone has a clear, personal memory of something that never happened in this reality.

“Many people – mostly total strangers – seem to remember several of the exact same events with the exact same details. However, those memories are different from what’s in history books, newspaper archives, and so on.”

Other theories propose that the Mandela Effect is evidence of changes in history caused by time travellers.

The X-Files, appropriately enough, had a fine real-time nod to fake news and the Trumpocalypse, while at the same time staying campy and conspiratorially self-referential in its treatment of the Mandela Effect this year in season 11, episode four, “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat,” which aired Jan. 24. Writes Brian Tallerico on Vulture, the culture and entertainment site from New York magazine: “We’re introduced to the Mandela effect through the story of Reggie Something, played by Brian Huskey. We meet him in full Deep Throat mode, chewing sunflower seeds in a parking garage, having a clandestine meeting with Mulder. He knows he’s going to seem crazy, so he gives Mulder a very personal example of the Mandela effect, revealing to him that his favorite episode of The Twilight Zone, “The Lost Martian,” doesn’t really exist. Of course, we know it doesn’t, but Mulder is convinced that he saw it when he was a kid. He rummages through his belongings to find it, leading to the great line when Scully suggests it might be a different series: “Confuse The Twilight Zone with The Outer Limits?! Do you even KNOW ME?!?!”

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Blogosphere

Soundingsjohnbarker: ‘You can write that?’ You bet

https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/) debuted as a WordPress blog two years ago today with a small post headlined “Labour history: Mine-Mill v. Steel” (https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/labour-history-mine-mill-v-steel/) on September 3, 2014 about Mick Lowe’s The Raids, a 295-page fictionalized work centred on the epic battle in Sudbury in the late 1950s and early 1960s in relation to the Cold War, international politics, McCarthyism, Communism, and the inter-union rivalry between the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) and the International Union of Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers Local 598, which had just been published that May by Robin Philpot of Baraka Books in Montreal. Here in Thompson there is a still partially untold story of that same inter-union rivalry between the Union of Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers and United Steelworkers of America between 1960 and 1962. Mine-Mill was the first bargaining agent here in Thompson when Inco workers unionized and had negotiated a contract with Inco that ran through 1964. But the USW was certified by the Manitoba Labour Board as the bargaining agent for Inco employees in Thompson on May 31, 1962. Because the USW itself went on to merge five years later with the United States section of the International Union of Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers in Tucson, Arizona in January 1967, a lot of that nastiness has been papered over, at least publicly.

There was also a post that day headlined “Black Death: Not so bad?” (https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/black-death-not-so-bad/) which went onto explain a new study in PLOS ONE, an international peer-reviewed journal, authored by University of South Carolina anthropologist Sharon DeWitte, which suggested that people who survived the medieval plague, commonly known then as the Black Death, lived significantly longer and were healthier than people who lived before the epidemic struck in 1347. The Black Death killed tens of millions of people, an estimated 30 to 50 per cent of the European population, over just four years between 1347 and 1351, which, it turns out, may not have been such a bad thing after all.

Finally, on Sept. 3, 2014, soundingsjohnbarker had a third posting headlined “A bigger picture,” (https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/a-bigger-picture/) which focused on Samaritan’s Purse’s “Operation Christmas Child,” which was started in 1990. By 1993, it had grown to the point it was adopted by Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian organization founded by Dr. Bob Pierce in 1970 and now run by Franklin Graham, son of 97-year-old Asheville, North Carolina evangelist Billy Graham. While “Operation Christmas Child” has its share of supporters and critics with meritorious arguments on both sides for and against its “shoebox” gifts collected and distributed in more than 130 countries worldwide each Christmas [each shoebox is filled with hygiene items, school supplies, toys, and candy. Operation Christmas Child then works with local churches to put on age-appropriate presentations of the gospel at the events where the shoeboxes are distributed], Samaritan’s Purse is about much more than Operation Christmas Child, whatever your views might be on that, I pointed out. In the midst of the deadliest Ebola viral hemorrhagic fever outbreak recorded in West Africa since the disease was discovered in 1976, Samaritan Purse’s Ebola care centre on the outskirts of the Liberian capital of Monrovia was right on the front lines. Dr. Kent Brantly, the medical director of the centre, contracted Ebola and was medically evacuated to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, the first patient ever medically evacuated to the United States for Ebola treatment, where he was given ZMapp, an experimental drug treatment produced by U.S.-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical, while Nancy Writebol, who was with Serving in Mission, (SIM), which runs the hospital where Samaritan’s Purse has the Ebola care centre, was also medically evacuated to Emory University Hospital and treated with ZMapp. Both Brantly and Writebol survived their brush with death Ebola experiences and returned to Liberia.

So that was Day 1 for soundingsjohnbarker on Sept. 3, 2014. And in some ways it set the tone for the 226 posts that have followed since over the last two years. Some of them tell Thompson stories but many don’t. Some (OK, many) are offbeat and the range of topics that has struck my fancy to write about has been eclectic, if not downright eccentric at times. I explained some of my thinking behind how I choose what to write about in a blog post March 7 headlined “Tipping points and blogging by the numbers” (https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/tipping-points-and-blogging-by-the-numbers/) where I noted, “Write local if you want some big numbers on a given day. While I do from time to time, if some local issue or story interests me in an unusual way, I stay away from that kind of writing for the most part. For one thing, those kind of stories, I find, have little staying power, with three or four rare local exceptions (an unsolved murder story; a story about Dr. Alan Rich’s retirement and local lawyer Alain Huberdeau’s appointment to the provincial court bench; and several Vale stories come to mind). But most of them are one or two day wonders. It’s the more eccentric pieces on other places and even times that have a deeper and wider audience in the long run. Fortunately, I prefer to write on more eclectic things these days without any particular regard for geography or subject matter if the topic strikes my interest. Thompson city council may well make decisions that affect me in myriad ways, not the least of which is in the pocketbook as a local taxpayer, but even that can’t remove the glaze from my eyes long enough to write much about local municipal politics, although our water bills are tempting me to make an exception. But reading newspaper accounts of such goings on is usually painful enough. Mind you, I realize what strikes my fancy to write about when I don’t write local, is not for everyone, and I have no doubt that I’ve created some eye glazing of my own especially when I write on eschatology or some other arcane to some of my local readers religious topic.”

That’s not to say I’ve lost my interest in local affairs. I live here after all. But I don’t have the inclination, or time even if I had, to write about all of them. So, pretty much like everyone else in Thompson, I rely on the local media, including the Thompson Citizen and Nickel Belt News, CBC Radio’s North Country, Arctic Radio’s thompsononline.ca and Shaw TV to keep me informed with occasional stories about Vale’s proposed Thompson Foot Wall Deep Project, at the north end of Thompson Mine, previously known as Thompson (1D), and what the chances of the 11 million tonnes of nickel mineralization, which form a deep, north plunging continuation of the Thompson deposit, have of being developed into a new mine that will sustain the Thompson operation for up to 15 years when nickel is selling on the London Metal Exchange (LME) for US$4.5269/lb, with the refinery and smelter, which opened March 25, 1961, set to close sometime in 2018, resulting in lost jobs – don’t kid yourself and think otherwise – as more than 30 per cent of Vale’s production employees in Thompson work in the smelter and refinery.

Take away nickel mining, which isn’t destined fortunately to happen for at least several decades yet in even the most pessimistic scenario, and there’s not much reason for Thompson, at least as we have all come to know it, to exist, all mindless happy talk from politicians, newspaper publishers and other spin doctors aside. Mind you, I have admittedly been a tad critical of newspaper publishers in this space before, writing on Sept. 14, 2014: “In the old days, publishers and newspaper owners would from time to time ‘kill’ a writer’s column before publication. Despite their ballyhoo and blather about freedom of the press, publishers and newspaper proprietors are almost universally in my long experience with them a timid lot, if not outright moral cowards at times, always afraid of offending someone.”(https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/retroactively-spiked-the-post-publication-killing-of-msgr-charles-popes-blog-post-on-new-york-citys-st-patricks-day-parade/).

But if you think being a regional hub for Northern Manitoba, or tourism, or even both, is going to give Thompson a new raison d’etre for continued existence at its current size and state in a somehow magically more diversified local economy sans nickel mining some day in the near-to-mid future, I’m afraid you’ve been drinking too much of the Thompson Economic Diversification Working Group (TEDWG) Kool-Aid.

I’m a bit of a contrarian when it comes to the local good news peddlers of all stripes. So it’s perhaps best for everyone’s peace of mind, mine included, if I stick these days to writing mainly about the faraway and eclectic. Bad news prophets have a short best-before date at home.

And besides there is something just plain fun about writing about the weird and whacky. It’s a good antidote to taking either yourself, or life for that matter, too seriously. Hence I’m just as incorrigible when it comes to posting stories or links from others about the offbeat and odd on Facebook, as I am about my own blog post writing, I must confess. “The internet has been aflame this summer with predictions the Antichrist was coming Aug. 30,” I mentioned in a Facebook posting Aug, 31, noting I had forgotten all about it until the next day. “Me bad,” I wrote. When my old friend from Iqaluit Michèle LeTourneau found herself among those who couldn’t resist joining the thread to comment, she observed “OK. I think I just officially outed myself as a weird nut that posts really weird things on Facebook. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not.” I reassured her by replying, “I think I could give you a bit of competition for the ‘weird nut Facebook poster’ title, Michèle!”

Locally, the Thompson Citizen was moved to editorialize Aug. 31 that “Northern Manitoba’s summer of woe turned [a] deeper shade of blue with the announcement Aug. 22 that Tolko was shutting down its operations in The Pas.”

Tolko Industries said they were going to pull the plug Dec. 2 on their heavy-duty kraft paper and lumber mill in The Pas after 19 years, leaving all 332 employees unemployed. The mill in The Pas has been a money-loser for years. It was conceived by the Progressive Conservative provincial government of premier Duff Roblin in 1966.

Less than a month before Tolko pulled the plug on its mill in The Pas, OmniTRAX, the Denver-based short line railroad, which owns the Port of Churchill, announced on July 25 it would be laying off or not re-hiring about 90 port workers, as it was cancelling the 2016 grain shipping season. OmniTRAX bought most of Northern Manitoba’s rail track from The Pas to Churchill in 1997 from CN for $11 million. OmniTRAX took over the related Port of Churchill, which opened in 1929, when it acquired it from Canada Ports Corporation, for a token $10 soon after buying the rail line. The Port of Churchill has the largest fuel terminal in the Arctic and is North America’s only deep water Arctic seaport that offers a gateway between North America and Mexico, South America, Europe and the Middle East. OmniTRAX created Hudson Bay Railway in 1997, the same year it took over operation of the Port of Churchill. It operates 820 kilometres of track in Manitoba between The Pas and Churchill.

At the time the cancellation was announced, OmniTRAX did not have a single committed grain shipping contract. Normally, the Port of Churchill has a 14-week shipping season from July 15 to Oct. 31. When the Canadian Wheat Board lost its grain monopoly, creating a new grain market several years ago, and was renamed G3 Canada Ltd. by its new owners, the newly-minted G3 Canada Ltd. began building a network of grain elevators, terminals and vessels that bypasses Churchill and uses the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence River and West Coast to move grain to foreign markets. Surprise.

While OmniTRAX accepted a letter of intent last December from Mathias Colomb First Nation, Tataskweyak Cree Nation and the War Lake First Nation to buy its rail assets in Manitoba, along with the Port of Churchill, the deal has not been completed to date, and its future looks murky to non-existent. Rail freight shipments measured by frequency along the Bayline have been cut in half by OmniTRAX this summer.

“Government announces more grant money to develop tourism during visit to Churchill” headlined the Nickel Belt News in an unbylined front page story Sept. 2. Don’t get me wrong. I love Beluga whales and polar bears. I’ve seen both visiting Churchill (known as Kuugjuaq in Inuit.) And guess what? While Beluga whales and polar bears will support some local tourism and related businesses, it’s still not enough to make for a local sustainable economy of any scale in the community of less than 800 permanent residents now along our Hudson Bay coast.

That’s about as likely to happen as calling itself the “Wolf Capital of the World” is going make a game-changing difference to Thompson’s economic future. A difference, sure. Great. But don’t bet Northern Manitoba’s future on tourism. We’re still either a resource-based economy or no economy to speak of. If it’s any comfort that remains largely true for most of our provinces and territories and Canada as a whole. Sure there’s the capital cities and a few other kinda largish provincial cities – Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal, Québec City, Moncton, Saint John, Halifax and St. John’s (this is a very generous reading BTW) – and even a few more genuine high-tech areas such as Gatineau, Québec and Kanata, Ontario on either side of Ottawa, along with Kitchener, Ontario and elsewhere in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, all of which are exceptions to the hewers of wood and drawers of water reality, but the exceptions are few and far between.

Oops … did I say that out loud? Me bad.

Kool-Aid anyone?

I may need to quench my thirst unless I intend to pen my next post on UFOs, eschatology or perhaps some virulent disease, preferably a safe distance from Thompson.

You can also follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/jwbarker22

Christmas, Toys

Denmark’s LEGO® has two entries on top of Dream Toys Top 12 list compiled annually by the Gainsborough-based Toy Retailers Association (TRA), representing toy retailers in the United Kingdom and Ireland

LEGO®, the 83-year-old bricks-and-mortar Danish company famous for the LEGO brick, its most important product, which was twice named “Toy of the Century,” keeps on building its reputation for being one of the world’s best toymakers, with two entries – City Deep Sea Explorers 60095 Exploration Vessel Building Kit and Kylo Ren’s Command Shuttle – on the Dream Toys Top 12 list compiled annually by the Gainsborough-based Toy Retailers Association (TRA), representing toy retailers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The list was released earlier this month.

The privately held LEGO Group in Billund, Denmark was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen. The name ‘LEGO’ is an abbreviation of the two Danish words “leg godt,” meaning “play well.” The company has passed from father to son and is now owned by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, a grandchild of the founder.

The brick in its present form was launched in 1958. The interlocking principle with its tubes makes it unique, and offers unlimited building possibilities.

The Dream Toys Top 12 list is decided by a a panel of leading toy retailers in the United Kingdom, including Argos, Boots, Selfridges, Smyths Toy, The Entertainer, TK Maxx and Toys R US, and is considered one of the most accurate and predictive lists worldwide for annual Christmas toy popularity.

The City Deep Sea Explorers 60095 Exploration Vessel Building Kit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-EQ9dd7ZFE), recommended for ages eight 12, has 717 pieces and features a working winch, large wheelhouse, below-deck cabins and a lifeboat, and accessories that include include two mugs, walkie-talkie, binoculars, life preserver, welder, two boxes – and did I mention – 16 gold bars! You can activate the shipwreck collapse function and there is also a submarine. You should be able to pick up this bad boy out of your Christmas bonus for under $150 in Canada!

The eight-to-12-year old group accounts for 22 percent of toy sales, according to London-based The NPD Group Inc., a market research firm that tracks about 80 percent of the U.S. toy market, as well as working with the Gainsborough-based Toy Retailers Association in the United Kingdom. NPD says the eight-to-12-year old group had been ignored in recent years because they’re the biggest users of mobile devices.

Anne D’Innocenzio, the long-time national retail writer for The Associated Press in New York City, wrote earlier this month that the U.S. toy industry is expecting to have “its strongest year in at least a decade after several years of kids choosing video games and mobile apps over Barbie and stuffed bears.”

Annual toy sales are projected to rise 6.2 percent to $19.9 billion in 2015, according to The NPD Group Inc. That’s up from a four per cent increase last year, and the biggest increase in the decade since the group has tracked toys using its current system.

The growth is being fueled, D’Innocenzio writes, “by increasing popularity of collectibles, toys based on Hollywood blockbuster films and better technology that allows toys to do things like talk back to children.”

Kylo Ren’s Command Shuttle, which cashes in on the Star Wars theme with the upcoming premiere in Los Angeles Dec. 14 of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the seventh installment in the main Star Wars series, has 1,005 pieces, and is recommended for ages nine to 14, and will set you back about the same amount in that $150 price range. It includes spring-loaded shooters, storage bays and detachable weapon racks, which you can re-arm.

The Force Awakens story is set about 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi, which was released in 1983. And yes, Harrison Ford is back as Han Solo, as is Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker and Carrie Fisher as Leia Organa, more general than princess now. Thanks for asking.

LEGO® was also on the Dream Toys Top 12 list last year with the LEGO® Movie Benny’s Spaceship, one of only three toys on the 2014 list that were not battery-powered.

But for the many that are, toymakers are using chip technology, which is getting cheaper and more powerful, in toys.

Canadian toy company Spin Master Ltd. had the hit Zoomer Dino-Boomer last Christmas, which has an autonomous mode where via the sensors in his nose, Zoomer Dino-Boomer can go on the attack, or the same can be accomplished by picking him up and pushing his buttons, or using the control pod to send him on the hunt. He shows his moods through his colour-changing eyes and can even bust a move with his occasional dancing dinosaur routines. Spin Master is back this year with Meccano Meccanoid G15 that allows kids to build and program their own personal four-foot-tall robot that records and plays back audio and it learns from them. It has more than 1,200 parts and features 64 megabytes of memory.

Located on Front Street West in Toronto. Spin Master was founded in 1994 in a Toronto garage by college friends, Ronnen Harary, Anton Rabie and Ben Varadi, who had $10,000 between them. You know the type of entrepreneurial story. Twenty years later, Spin Master is an all-encompassing global entertainment, robotics, toy and digital gaming company, with a design lab in Los Angeles. It is currently the number three manufacturer in the games category in North America, with double digit growth.

Clive Shelton, owner of Clive Shelton Associates in Bromley, is a chemist and toy safety expert who advises the Toy Retailers Association. He says “there is more computer power in some of these toys than was used in the first mission to the moon. That is the age we live in. They prepare children for their future lives with technology.”

While updated versions of classic board games such as Parker Brothers’ Monopoly, the real estate game invented by Charles Darrow, an out-of-work heating contractor, which Parker Brothers’ began marketing on Nov. 5, 1935, and Mouse Trap, designed by Colorado’s Harvey “Hank” Kramer for the Ideal Toy Company in 1963, continue to do well year after year, experts said that they are more likely to be considered “family entertainment” and purchased as such.

There is much to be said for the charm of board games and train sets, and, indeed, toys– wood, metal and even plastic – from an older largely forgotten world now. I made my first visit to Toad Hall Toys on Arthur Street in the heart of Winnipeg’s Exchange District on the Saturday afternoon before Christmas in 2013 and it was simply, in a word, magical. And by no means forgotten by its loyal patrons.

Toad Hall Toys was established in 1977 by Ray and Ann England and is Manitoba’s largest and oldest independent toy retailer, priding itself, it says, “on our unique selection, old world charm, and friendly and knowledgeable staff. ”

The store, or course, takes its name from Kenneth Grahame’s classic children’s book, The Wind in the Willows. Today, the store is run by Ray and Ann’s daughter Kari. “We offer a vast array of products from over 50 different countries. Our mandate is to provide a unique experience that stimulates the imagination, rather than rotate through the latest mass market trend or fad.”

Indeed so.

You can also follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/jwbarker22

Christmas, Toys

Zoomer Dino-Boomer, Kidizoom Smartwatch and The LEGO® Movie Benny’s Spaceship: Top Christmas Toys for 2014 have more computer power than Apollo 11 moon mission in 1969, expert says

Toad Hall Toys photo courtesy of Jeanette Kimball

The Dream Toys Top 12 list compiled annually by the Gainsborough-based Toy Retailers Association (TRA), representing toy retailers in the United Kingdom and Ireland, considered one of the most accurate indicators of what will feature on most children’s Christmas wish lists, was released in London Nov. 5 and the association says “early indications suggest that 2014 is set to be the biggest for toy sales since 2010.” In the United States, toy sales have stagnated for years at $22 billion annually, according to Anne D’Innocenzio, the long-time national retail writer for The Associated Press in New York City.

But if the UK Toy Retailers Association and London-based NPD Group are right in their overall analysis, expect three of the toys you are going to be hearing a lot about this Christmas to be Zoomer Dino-Boomer, Kidizoom Smartwatch and The LEGO® Movie Benny’s Spaceship.

Right in the forefront this year with Zoomer Dino-Boomer is the Canadian toy company Spin Master Ltd., located on Front Street West in Toronto. Spin Master was founded in 1994 in a Toronto garage by college friends, Ronnen Harary, Anton Rabie and Ben Varadi, who had $10,000 between them. You know the type of entrepreneurial story. Twenty years later, Spin Master is an all-encompassing global entertainment, robotics, toy and digital gaming company, with a design lab in Los Angeles. It is currently the Number 3 manufacturer in the games category in North America, with double digit growth.

Kids can play with Zoomer Dino-Boomer from Spin Master in autonomous mode via the sensors in his nose, or pick up the control pod to send him on an attack. He shows his moods through his color-changing eyes and can even bust a move. With a price tag before taxes of $99.97 at Wal-Mart in Canada, Zoomer Dino-Boomer is the most expensive toy on the Dream Toys Top 12 list, but also perhaps the coolest in action. Just remember, cool has a price.

With the Kidizoom Smartwatch “wearable” from Chicago-based VTech, which can store up to 900 pictures, 15 minutes of video and boasts analog and digital clocks, built in games, an alarm and a stopwatch, kids can take photos and videos and use the touchscreen to get creative with photo effects, frames and filters. It includes an alarm, a voice recorder and four learning games.

The LEGO® Movie Benny’s Spaceship is among only three of the Dream Toys Top 12 that are not battery-powered. The name ‘LEGO’ is an abbreviation of the two Danish words “leg godt,” meaning “play well.” The privately held LEGO Group in Billund, Denmark was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen. The company has passed from father to son and is now owned by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, a grandchild of the founder. The LEGO brick, its most important product, was twice named “Toy of the Century.” The brick in its present form was launched in 1958. The interlocking principle with its tubes makes it unique, and offers unlimited building possibilities.

Benny may have spent too much time in space with a lack of oxygen, but, hey, he’s also a master builder. Kids can help him construct the spaceship of his dreams out of Lego, then use the control room to open the cockpit, shoot lasers and fire missiles in a bid to evade the Robo Police.

There is much to be said for the charm of board games and train sets, and, indeed, toys – wood, metal and even plastic – from an older largely forgotten world now. I made my first visit to Toad Hall Toys on Arthur Street in the heart of Winnipeg’s Exchange District on a Saturday afternoon last Dec. 21 – just four days before Christmas, and it was simply, in a word, magical. And by no means forgotten by its loyal patrons.

Indeed so.

You can also follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/jwbarker22