Introducing the Robotarded way of choosing your next vacation destination OR: Chromes and gleams are music to my eyes

I'm not doing too good when it comes to finding other internetters that will help me out with my vacation planning. Before Botcon '08, I searched blogs and boards and every other social network style site I could find in the hopes that somebody in Cincinnati would tell me about good independent music stores before I got there. Instead of wasting time searching for CD shops myself I wanted to waste time doing what I was really in Cincinnati for-to find old toy robots ads on the library microfilm machines. Everyone I emailed didn't write me back, though. Why do people list their contact information on their message board profiles if they don't want to be contacted about their interests and experiences, and more importantly, help me out? I know if some guy I never met before who calls himself Evil King Macrocranios emailed me looking for stores that sell Helloween CDs in my neighborhood I would be wanting to email him back immediately. (Either that or I'd be wanting to erase all my personal information from the internet immediately.)

I'M NOT WITH THE ROBOTARDED OLYMPICS COMMITTEE, I AM THE ROBOTARDED OLYMPICS COMMITTEE

This October I've got an opportunity to squeeze in one last city on Vintage Space Toast Tour 2008. I have it narrowed down to either Denver, Colorado, Sioux Falls, South Dakota or Omaha, Nebraska. For most people choosing a vacation this would be a no-brainer because Denver is a sexy exciting place, but the reason for my visit has nothing to do with vacation, sex or excitement. This is all about getting more material for the Vintage Space Toaster Palace. Old toy robots newspaper ads is serious business. This is like the Olympic committe choosing the next city except criteria like tourist attractions or friendliness of the natives doesn't matter to me-the only thing that matters is how many Children's Palaces they used to have and when did they get their first Lionel Playworld.

YOUTH (AND CHEAP GAS) IS WASTED ON THE YOUNG (TOY ROBOTS FAN)

My travel plans almost went down the crapper when I saw some Japanese guy is auctioning off his chrome Soundwave with a starting bid of 60,000 yen-that's around 600 dollars America money. Chrome Soundwave is another one of those roboplasticos fantásticos of dubious origin that's so shiny I think to myself, "Yeah, my wife and son wouldn't mind eating Ramen Noodles for three months". Coincidentally, 60,000 yen in America money is about how much I'll need for the last stop on Vintage Space Toast Tour 2008. There's no question now that I'd rather hit the road than bid on the robo, but if this were the 1990s and I was in my twenties I would probably have gotten in a ridiculous bidding war and paid crazy money for the chance to stay home every weekend with chrome Soundwave. Which is stupid because if this was the nineties and I was in my twenties, gas would still be 89 cents a gallon. I look at all the toy robots I bought when I was in my twenties and cry because in my youth I could have traveled and experienced so many things with that money. Also, strippers.

CHROME SOUNDWAVE PROVIDES A REFLECTION OF WHO YOU ARE

I am not trying to diss chrome Soundwave or justify to myself the reasons I won't be getting it. Chrome Soundwave is truly a fantastic piece of great value to toy robots anthropologists everywhere but my priorities have changed over the years. I look at this toy and I see where my priorities are now and how much I've changed and it's pretty crazy. I used to eat this stuff up! What trips me out is not that I'm passing on this, but that I'm okay I'm passing on this and I'm excited about spending time in a library instead of buying another robot. It's like I was once one kind of person and now I'm another kind of person. Is there a name for this process?

I'M NOT MATURING, I'M TRADING ONE CRAZY TOY ROBOTS OBSESSION FOR ANOTHER

Although I expected to be totally ignored, I emailed some internet people in Denver, Sioux Falls and Omaha and the Denver guy got back to me! Holy hell the internet actually works. He said he thinks he remembers Playworld being open in Denver around 1983. He may as well have been Kaycee Kangaroo checking my luggage and handing me my boarding pass because those were the magic words. I think that's gonna do it unless I can get confirmation that Sioux Falls or Omaha had both Playworld and Children's Palaces in the early 80s. Wherever I go, I know that when I'm in the library getting dizzy from the microfilms I'll be thinking about chrome Soundwave. And if I won chrome Soundwave I'd be thinking about the library I could be getting dizzy at. And if I paid strippers $600 to dress up in aluminum foil Soundwave costumes I'd be thinking about, well I'd be thinking about something else.