Good Toys and Bad Toys

I was reading the paper this morning trying to get motivated to go into work on the day before Thanksgiving (really, can we just skip ahead to the turkey and football part?) when my son came down to watch television.

This is a special father/son bonding time for us. I wish him a good morning and he ignores me and stares at the television and, really, I have to admit that the Simpsons rerun he had Tivo'd was definitely more entertaining than me at 7 a.m.

I glanced up to see a commercial come on screen for Doggie Doo. If you haven't seen it, then you'll be impressed where ingenuity has brought our great nation. This is a toy dog that poops. And, when it poops, the children in the ad go wild with delight. Once again, and I know I say this too often, I'm not making this up. You can order your very own pooping toy by clicking right here.

This is when I glanced down at Roscoe, our mostly ignored dog who provides his own Doggy Doo sensation in our back yard on a daily basis. Could I be sitting on a Doggie Doo Disneyland franchise and not even know it? Could my back yard be the source of joy for thousands of children that want to see an actual dog poop complete with smellivision? If they can get $19.95 for a toy pooping dog, then Rosoe must be worth a fortune.

I have this great mental image of children lined up outside the gate to my back yard. Each one hands me a $20 bill and then I hand them our Pooper Scooper. They happily skip (Oh yes, skip!) into our back yard to pick up real live poop. I stand there with my stack of $20s and I admire my clean back yard. Maybe some of these visiting kids would actually like to play with our dog. How cool would that be?

Last night I saw some toys that actually made me excited. I went to the International Auto Show in San Francisco. I like to see what's coming to our highways next year. Usually, it's something similar to what's already on the highways. Not this year! There's a whole raft of new cars with new approaches coming. There were several plug-in electric and hybrid cars there and their body styling is downright exciting. I'm sorry, but if you own a Prius, your car is about to go from cool to ugly in a matter of months.

It used to be that people would drive their Priuseses (what is the plural of Prius, anyhow?) in the Novato 4th of July Parade to show how cutting edge and environmentally aware they were. It was sort of bizarre seeing this group of Priuseses go by before the veterans riding on tanks. Based on what I saw last night, the Prius is a dinosaur. New cars like the Nissan Leaf are going to demonstrate that cars can be both efficient and, yes, fun and stylish.

Now, if I had to pick a toy for myself this holiday season, it would have to be the Fisker Karma. This is a hybrid that has two electric motors on board that generate more than 400 horsepower. It also gets 100 miles to the gallon should you need the motor to kick in and extend your range. And it looks like a Bond car! Really, I would be surprised if the next James Bond movie does not have a Fisker in it. Oh, by the way, it costs $109,000 and I'm not sure if that includes the floor mats. And, hey, it's four doors so this is the perfect car for our middle school carpool. It's not like I'd be buying this car for myself. It's for the kids!

So, I guess today's message is sometimes you don't know when you have a toy that's in demand ("Keep up the good work, Roscoe!") and sometimes the toy you want is just a little out of your reach.