I haven’t done one of my board game reviews in awhile, so I thought I’d write about a little treasure we found at the Goodwill tonight and actually had time to play – Totally 80’s Trivial Pursuit.  Since my husband and I were both children in the 80’s, we thought we’d enjoy this version of the popular trivia game – even though I threatened to kick some butt since  between the two of us, I’m the one who’s chosen to fill her head with useless knowledge (most of which I’ve forgotten over the years anyway!), but what I’m trying to say is that I usually win the trivia games in our family.  So we start to play the game, and the pawns are in the shapes of various pop culture staples in the 80’s.  There is a Care Bear, a computer, a Trapper Keeper, and a CD – cute!  And I loved how the pie pieces are stored in the bases of the pawns when players earn them!  My only complaint is that there definitely should have been more pawns – can’t believe there wasn’t even a Rubik’s Cube pawn?!?  How about some Jelly Shoes?  A banana clip?  Cabbage Patch Kid?  Atari console?  The list could go on and on…  Here are the ones they did include:
But anyway, my husband did end up beating me, but I have two excuses.  1.  The kids came down in the middle of the game and kept trying to play with the pawns which was distracting and I  lost my focus.  2.  My husband is older than me, and therefore he remembers more of the ’80’s – haha!  Ouch!  Ok, so I’m a little bit of a sore loser –  rematch tonight?

(I guess this didn’t end up being much of a review.  It’s a Trivial Pursuit game, nothing new there.  But if you were around during the 80’s and enjoy getting quizzed about the decade of excess, you’re in for some fun!)

I was talking today with my 3rd daughter and her husband about movies I have on VHS tapes. They remarked that they didn’t have a VCR, so they could not watch those movies. I casually remarked that they needed a USB VHS player. I never saw one, and wasn’t even sure if they did make them. Well, I found out that there is at least one company who makes them. So from
the company that brought you the usb turntable and the usb cassette player, ION brings you the VHS 2 PC player. Now you can watch your VHS tapes on your PC. You can also take your home VHS videos and put them on DVD. What more could you want? 😉

I didn’t see the 8-track to PC player. Or BetaTape to PC? Or Edison recording tubes to PC? Sheet Music to PC? Player Piano sheets to PC? OK, I’m getting silly, but what about the 8-track to PC. I had a few not too many years ago. I gave them to someone with a working 8-track player.

I noticed that they have a turntable that goes directly to an Ipod.

They have a 35mm slide to PC scanner and a few other items. Interesting stuff I ever win the lottery.

Well, school is almost upon us once again.  Depending on where you live, it can be a week or three, or maybe your kids attend an all-year school that started up again in July after a much shorter break.  In the two districts I’m signed up with, it starts in 1½ and 2½ weeks.  What’s that you say?  Two districts?  That’s right.  I am only in hometown and supersized districts this year due to my continued job of shooting pictures of cars.  I have chosen to work three days a week on the cars for now leaving two days to teach.  Of course it will likely be another month before I am needed as a sub, but that’s the plan.  As you probably figured out already, these two districts are where I have gotten most of my work in the past and so I stuck with them, losing the less productive ones, even though near-urban paid me the most.

So how is the new job going?  Well, I got my first store finally- unfortunately it’s 45-minutes away!  The one who had this store didn’t do a very good job so he was replaced.  Not the best way to start, but I’ll take whatever I can get.  Today, in fact, Kim (one of the owners of the company I work for) and I spent much time fixing the stickers on the cars that were tilted, stuck over unremoved adhesive from previous buyer’s guide (warranty info which by law has to be in the window even if just handwritten) or otherwise placed with a lack of care.  I think we did no less than two dozen.  The rest of my time was spent in doing four cars that were ready for me.  Not a lot, but the idea is to have three dealers (four if they are small like this one) in one day to shoot a reasonable amount.  The most I had in one day training with Rene was 42.  At $7 a car that was nearly $300 for the day for her.  Of course that was three large dealers, and even then that number is rare.  My goal is eventually 20-30 cars per day.  Another trainee may be leaving as his school just gave him a reality check- no, it is not possible to graduate in a reasonable time if you only have classes two days a week.  If he leaves then I am hoping to get one of the stores promised to him, but not the other one.  There is a dealer that is way over toward Chicago (strike one for the bad traffic).  They require the cars to be shot in their warehouse a mile away, meaning the cars have to be driven from their lot to there, adding a tremendous amount of time (strike two).  Also, the warehouse has bad lighting with three of the five lights burnt out the last two times I was there making it difficult to take pictures inside the cars (strike three).  I am scheduled to do new cars every other week, but the one who has been doing the used cars while Pat was training to take it over can keep that part as a punishment for his bad performance at the dealer he lost (yes, same guy)!

In the meantime, all this work has meant that I haven’t gotten the DVD done yet for my kids from camp- I’d better start on it soon, or just do what I did the first year- give them a CD with all the pictures, but that’s no fun and can’t be viewed without a computer.