Joseph Mallozzi's Weblog

February 9, 2014: Cleaning out a garage full of memories! Vote for our April Book of the Month Club pick!

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Today, my mother had me clean out some of the old boxes in the garage – boxes packed full of crap from my early days.  Well, mostly crap.  But a few gems as well…

1

Don’t suppose mom also has an equally obsolete computer to read these?

1

A bag o’ dice!  And not just your standard issue run-of-the-mill six sided dice either.

1

Happy memories of my days on the Enterprise.

1

A suitcase full of my old writing including the Irwin Allen-esque disaster novel, Hurricane, written when I was twelve.  Enjoy the excerpt.

1Drawing was never my forte – but clearly not for lack of imagination.

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My sexy grade 7 scrapbook.  Loni Anderson, of course.

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Sexy grade 7 scrapbook, next page.  I clearly had a thing for lustrous hair.  And…is that Charo?

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Elaborate Dungeons & Dragons map.  Try finding your way out of this one, adventurers!

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My first professional rejection.  I didn’t take it too hard.  I was only twelve.

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Some of my old favorites.

1

Hey!  It’s a copy of the Twin Peaks Gazette!

1D&D modules!  THESE take me back.

1While other second graders were drawing animals and space ships,  I was drawing cigars, pipes, and ashtrays.  WTF?

1Now this is a little more impressive.  It’s a spaceship, right?  Right?

1Ooooh.  Lava!

1What does the secret SHADOW folder hold?  Why, a file codenamed Project Nostradamus.  I can’t say more.  Very top secret.

1Terrible?  Come on, he wasn’t that bad!

1Signed by the Dark Lord of Sith himself.

1Creeped out by clowns?  You have good reason!

1Proof that time travel is possible?  A little something my present self apparently obviously left my past self.

1Obviously, I was a big fan of the horror genre.

1Not mine, but I include it because it so damn fascinating.  The six-banana Friday is a veritable feast!

Homeward bound tomorrow – and we resume our Stargate: Atlantis rewatch with…Underground!

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27 responses

  1. dasndanger Avatar
    dasndanger

    So, you go to Montreal to surprise mom, and she gets you to clean out the garage? Wow. She IS good. (I’ll hold off passing judgement on the art and so forth until after my nap…and maybe a bottle of wine. 😉 )

    das

    Reply
  2. gforce Avatar
    gforce

    Well, that post was both entertaining and, at times, vaguely disturbing. I couldn’t really read the excerpt from “Hurricane” though – what was it about? Also, given the quality of most TV these days, I say dust of that age 12 stuff and resubmit it as is. It’s bound to get picked up.

    Also, I’d love to see what’s IN the Star Trek scrapbook. For some reason, I didn’t think you were a Star Trek fan.

    Charo! Cuchi, cuchi!!

    Reply
  3. Chris L Avatar
    Chris L

    John Scalzi’s – Redshirts
    http://screencrush.com/star-trek-redshirts-fx-tv-limited-series/

    Reply
  4. Tam Dixon Avatar
    Tam Dixon

    Das: 😆

    About time you threw out some things. We have boxes of hubby’s D & D stuff in our attic too. I’m just itching to throw them away. Going to keep any of those treasures? A few months ago, I tried to open up a few picture filled floppy disks and our one disk reader wouldn’t work. 🙁

    I voted for Annihilation. It sounds like a mystery science fiction. Love those!

    Reply
  5. Deni Avatar
    Deni

    I’d also love to see what’s in the Star Trek scrapbook. 🙂

    Reply
  6. archersangel Avatar
    archersangel

    A bag o’ dice! And not just your standard issue run-of-the-mill six sided dice either.

    if you’re not interested in keeping those some time ago wil wheaton was trying to test the theory that you can never have too many gaming dice & had people give him their unwanted dice. (don’t know if he’s still doing that) the fact that these particular ones once belonged to someone connected with the stargate series probably adds to the “interesting” factor.

    Reply
  7. Janet Avatar
    Janet

    G’day

    Happy Belated Birthday Mum Mallozzi

    Sorry for my lateness. Busy here all the time lately. Only get to catch up every few days.
    Nice way to surprise Mum for her birthday. You are a good boy, Joe.

    Reply
  8. thornyrose01 Avatar
    thornyrose01

    vicious little dungeon there. I approve. And the lava ….. all that before the third episode of Star Wars came out!. Got you on the sheer number of dice though, two bags to your one. nah nah nah!
    Thanks for sharing this memory lane moment with us. As an adult of too many years, it’s fun to look back and try to remember what we were seeing, and thinking, and doing. So, how much of this came home with you?

    Reply
  9. Mike from Canada Avatar
    Mike from Canada

    I’ve been on a banana diet for years, and trust me, it hasn’t helped a bit.
    Maybe I should switch to peaches.

    Reply
  10. Ponytail Avatar
    Ponytail

    Very interesting time capsule you unearthed in your mom’s garage. I wish you would make it so we could click on it and make it bigger. I’d love to read all of it.

    Reply
  11. JeffW Avatar
    JeffW

    @Joe:

    I clearly had a thing for lustrous hair.

    Didn’t just about every woman in the 70’s have big hair? Heck, the men did too! The Bee Gees, Tom Selleck, Leif Garrett, all the members of Kiss, and Fabio, just to name a few. Now I’m just waiting for the cue-ball, follically challenged look to come in to fashion.

    And I’m still waiting…

    I’m traveling tomorrow too (back to Chicago), so I’ll wish both of us a safe flight.

    Good night y’all!

    Reply
  12. Alexis Avatar
    Alexis

    Your mom is really nice. My mom made me take all my stuff with me when I moved out. :p

    Reply
  13. Sparrow_hawk Avatar
    Sparrow_hawk

    Safe travels, all.

    And that really was a blast from the past, Joe! Especially the D&D stuff. Except that I’m still doing it. (and you can’t have too many dice!)

    Reply
  14. dasndanger Avatar
    dasndanger

    1. I hope you’re saving most of that stuff – it’s priceless! You need to have kids now so that they can laugh at you like I just did. 😀

    2. Charo?! 😆 !!! Now I don’t feel bad for my crush on Tiny Tim. 🙂

    3. My ‘time capsule’ (i.e. mom’s attic) contains a complete collection of Agatha Christie books, a model of a Plains Indian lodge (made of cowhide since I couldn’t get my hands on buffalo hide), each individual ‘hide’ sewn together to resemble a real lodge. I should try to rescue that one. There’s also my Johnny West horses, tack, and buckboard, a box of stuff I saved from high school, souvenirs from my trip to France, an original series Klingon Bird of Prey (model I built), and a beer bottle collection. One of these days I’ll get to sorting it all out. Mebbe.

    4. @ Sparrowhawk – Hubby didn’t finish the book yet, I just commandeered it. AND finished it. (Possible SPOILERS for Terms of Enlistment ahead!) Didn’t care for the beginning too much, liked it a lot better once the military stuff got started, and LOVED the last third…couldn’t put it down! 🙂

    That’s all (for now!) folks!

    das

    Reply
  15. Ganymede Avatar
    Ganymede

    yeah, well… for ONCE I didn’t have to SHOVEL – [snow anyway] – so, I just spent about 10 hours sorting through *SOME* of my YARN STASH! – We’re talking 100% wool. About 6 storage buckets worth… Well over 300 balls. And there’s more bins that I didn’t get to… BTW, this was done in a very tight space with just enough floor space to put down only 2 buckets at a time! – But, what really bites, is that now, I have NO room for the densely-filled containers! Their contents only freed up a few cubic feet of AIR-SPACE. – [I have this FULLY-FILLED 8×10′ room… Think – “STORAGE WARS: VALLEY OF THE KINGS” — pre-grave-robbed!]
    Meanwhile, would ANYONE like to BUY [I need to pay for the Bins!] a lovely WOOL-TOQUE? Maybe a Scarf..? I do THROWS too… 😀

    Reply
  16. Line Noise Avatar
    Line Noise

    Underground? Argh! The DVD has Home next so that’s what I watched! Looking at the liner notes it says Underground is supposed to be on this disc but obviously someone messed up!

    I wonder what is on those floppy disks? I’m sure I could find a drive in my collection somewhere if you want to find out!

    Reply
  17. Debra From The South Avatar
    Debra From The South

    Insomnia, gave up, got up mad about it, read your blog and saw those pics and laughing. Thanks. And yes, Charo. ROFLMAO.

    Reply
  18. Maggiemayday Avatar
    Maggiemayday

    A lot of my childhood is gone, Navy family moving around and all. But once Dad passed and I had to clean out the house, I unearthed my own treasures, a Lord of the Rings poster from the 70s, some notebooks of awful poetry, and even a tiny travel diary which I’d made into Monster Magazine.

    I have a bag of those discs sitting around too, not from when I was a kid, though. Going to make art from them at some time. Yep.

    Do not toss out the D&D stuff, sell it. Or donate it to a charity auction. Hubby still has books and a bag of dice.

    @JessW… the 70s had fabulous hair, but more long locks than big hair. Big hair was more of an 80s thing, and involves more ratting and hair spray.

    Reply
  19. Sparrow_hawk Avatar
    Sparrow_hawk

    @das: Have you read John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War? If you liked this, I think you will enjoy that one, too.

    Joe, I think you should save one box worth of those memories and donate the rest to a good cause.

    Reply
  20. DaveD Avatar
    DaveD

    I have to laugh because just last week I found MY Darth Vader signed pic! That guy was busy. I lived down in Florida.

    Reply
  21. Randomness Avatar
    Randomness

    Speaking of anime, there’s not much new stuff airing this season that screams quality, Kill La Kill is easily the best series currently on the air, though its on its 17th episode, I remember how utterly amazing Episode 3 was, the battle had a series finale feel to it, despite it being the 3rd episode of 24 lol.

    This being one part of the fight scene.

    Reply
  22. shinyhula Avatar
    shinyhula

    Your mom is awesome! My handwritten Star Wars prequel has been lost to time, and my older brother still searches the closets when he goes home, hunting in vain for comic books that my mom threw out years ago. This treasure trove of memories plus the Q&A with your buddy Cas will make an awesome project; Wonder Years meets Big Bang Theory, or Wargames meets Stand By Me.

    How cool was that editor to recommend a that publisher that published works by kids? You gotta get a USB powered floppy reader and see what’s on those old disks.

    My mom bugged us for years to take our stuff, but I think we thought if we didn’t take it then we could stop time somehow.

    Reply
  23. dasndanger Avatar
    dasndanger

    @ Sparrowhawk – Not sure I could have a steady diet of this sort of book – mainly because my nerves can’t take it. *whimpers and curls up with Hamish Macbeth…* 😛 This was different from Pendergast – those tend to just scare the crap outta me. With ToE it triggered my ‘fight’ response and I swear if I had a MARS launcher I would’a blown a hole clear through my looming china cabinet! 😛 Age of Sail books can do that to me, too. It’s something about battle scenes, I suppose, that makes me wanna join in the fight. And me, a ‘make love, not war’ sorta gal. Go figger. 😛

    das

    Reply
  24. dasndanger Avatar
    dasndanger

    Just a reminder for anyone who’s interested: The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show airs tonight on CNBC (in the US) and tomorrow night on USA channel (I believe there’s a repeat of tonight’s show tomorrow morning on USA as well). Looking forward to it!

    Over the weekend they had the Mixed Breed Agility Competition, with Roo (a shelter rescue dog) winning the day:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC8U5972ZCc

    🙂

    das

    Reply
  25. Jay Avatar
    Jay

    I’ll take those diskettes off of your hands. 🙂

    Reply
  26. fsmn36 Avatar
    fsmn36

    Who could eat that many bananas?! Unless it is drowning in peanut butter, I get bored halfway through one banana.

    Reply
  27. PBMom Avatar
    PBMom

    Your mom may not have the “obsolete computer” to read it, but I have two sitting here right under my desk. One in my 2001 Windows XP computer (first year XP was out–actually it wasn’t really XP then. My operating system apparently was called Whistler (yes THAT Whistler). And I have a Windows 98 computer being used to hold up my satellite box under my desk. I have to get some things off it before I smash the hard drive. I did have a Windows 95 computer still in my closet but when I turned it on it wouldn’t boot up. I’m having a problem getting the hard drive out of that one, so I’m going to have to get some help so I then can smash it. And, not joking, my DOS computer was in my closet up until a few months ago when I got its hard drive out and smashed it and sent the rest of the parts to the recycling center.

    And that spaceship you drew is oddly the very gross estimate of the shape of the Destiny.

    Reply

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