Greetings!
A few shipments arrived
this week. If you log
into your account at www.toywonders.com, before clicking on any of the links
below, approved wholesale accounts will see wholesale pricing.
Forgot
your password?
Having
trouble viewing this page?
Missed
a previous week's newsletter?
DIECAST Collectible
Model Cars And More
| Item# |
Description |
Stock
Status |
| AMM927BK |
Round 2 ERTL Elite - Plymouth Duster 340 Hard Top (1971, 1:18 scale diecast model, Black) AMM927 |
New |
| PMSC06BK |
Precision Miniatures Sunset Coach - Cadillac Series 75 Limousine (1959, 1:18 scale diecast model, Black) PMSC06 |
New |
| 39278BK |
RC2 ERTL Elite - Mustang Saleen S281 Hard Top (2004, 1:18 scale diecast model, Black) 39278 |
Restock |
| 39282R |
RC2 ERTL - Chevy Camaro Z/28 Hard Top (1969, 1:18 scale diecast model, Red) 39282 |
Restock |
| 51105KGN |
RC2 Johnny Lightning - Pontiac GTO Hard Top (1968, 1:24, Green) 51105KZ |
New |
| 51105KBU |
RC2 Johnny Lightning - Chevy Chevelle SS Hard Top (1969, 1:24, Blue) 51105KZ |
New |
| CP5588 |
Round 2 Auto World Authentics - NHRA DSR Valvoline / MTS Funny Car Jack Beckman (2009, 1:24, Blue) CP5588 |
New |
| 92364 |
Jada Toys Toon Garage - Ford Mustang GT Hard Top (3.5", Asstd.) 92364 |
New |
| 92364P |
Jada Toys Toon Garage - Ford Mustang GT Police Car #12 (3.5", Black) 92364P |
New |
| 92373 |
Jada Toys Showroom Floor - Chevy Bel Air Hard Top (1953, 1:24, Asstd.) 92373 |
New |
| 90999 |
Jada Toys Showroom Floor - Chevy Tow Truck 66 Highway (1953, 1:24, Asstd.) 90999 |
New |
| 90998 |
Jada Toys Showroom Floor - Chevy Tow Truck 66 Highway (1953, 1:24, Asstd.) 90998 |
New |
| 90793YL |
Jada Toys Bigtime Muscle - Dodge Charger R/T Hard Top (2006, 1:18 scale diecast model, Yellow) 90793 |
New |
| 91200P |
Jada Toys Bigtime Muscle - Dodge Charger R/T Police Car (2006, 1:18 scale diecast model, Black/White) 91200 |
New |
| 91461P |
Jada Toys Dub City Heat - Chevy Camaro Concept Police (2006, 1:18 scale diecast model, Black) 91461 |
Restock |
| 92194W |
Jada Toys Dub City - Nissan GT-R Hard Top (2009, 1:18 scale diecast model, Beige) 92194 |
New |
| 90054GY |
Jada Toys Dub City Bigtime Muscle - Shelby GT-500KR Hard Top (1967, 1:18 scale diecast model, Gray) 90054 |
Restock |
| 11228/01 |
Castline M2 Machines - Drivers Release 1 (1:64, Asstd.) 11228/01 |
New |
| 301/2D |
Friction Mini Racer (4.25", Asstd.) 301/2D |
Restock |
| 5071D |
Kinsmart - Mazda RX-8 Hard Top (1:36, Asstd.) 5071D |
Restock |
| 5309DD |
Kinsmart - Mercedes Benz ML-Class SUV (5", Asstd.) 5309DD |
Restock |
| 9808/4P |
Super Power Friction Construction Series w/ Big Wheels (10.25", Asstd.) 9808/4P |
New |
Toys
Please do not reply to this email address.
Any questions or comments, please email us at [email protected].
To unsubscribe to this newsletter, send an email to [email protected] and put the word 'unsubscribe' on the subject line.
Thank you
Lu Su
Toy Wonders, Inc.
www.toywonders.com
201-229-1700
God and the Art of Toy and Diecast Marketing
Where are your Qwerty Morals? (part 1 of 2)
By Lu Su
My daughter asked me an interesting question the other day. At the age of twelve, she's got slender fingers like her mom and she without looking at the keyboard can type really fast -maybe even faster than myself. We were seated at the computer table together. While pointing at the keyboard she asked me, "Dad, why are the keys arranged this way?"
I explained that the name for the keyboard layout is called, "qwerty" and started to point to where that arrangment of letters can be found.
"I already know that dad," she stated "but WHY are they arranged this way?" I like questions like this from my kids. It signals to me that they are actually thinking about why something is the way it is and not just blinding accepting it.
"Like why don't they arrange the letters on the keyboard alphabetically?", she asked. "Or at least put the most common letters we us under the fingers at home position, " she added.
I explained that this particular layout of the letters was by no means the most efficient way to lay out the letters, but in the end this inefficient layout allowed people to type faster. My daughter didn't understand that explanation. I didn't blame her because I barely understood what I had just said. But to understand why someone laid out the keyboard that way, you need to understand the origins of the keyboard. The next part got a bit comical as I did my best to describe what a typewriter is/was to a person that has never seen one.
I reminded myself that my generation was the last to use the typewriter. There was this strange look on my daughters face (like in between puzzled and about to burst with laughter) as I described about loading paper onto this roll (platen), ink ribbons, and what a carriage return was.
"The typewriter made a very unique while you typed on it," I said. "And when you got near the right column of the paper, the typewriter would make a 'ding' sound to warn you that you need to do a carriage return."
Last week I was watching Conan, the new host of NBC's Tonight Show, do his monologue. I noticed that he's a very good mime. Notice how quickly he launches into this clown role by miming something, after a bad joke. It immediately distracts your mind so that you are too busy to critique how bad that joke was. Anyway Conan told a bad joke, got no response, and starts miming typing on a typewriter. Every few seconds his right hand would stops typing, he would lift it up, and wave it from right to left (to mime hitting the carriage return on a manual typewriter). Well this mime routine went on just a few seconds too long and his younger sidekick Andy Richter asks him, "What are you doing? Hitting your word processor?". I thought that comment was funny -funnier than the joke Conan had told which I forgot two seconds after it was delivered.
I then got to describe to my daughter the joy of what happens when you made a mistake on the typewriter. I explained that you either started all over with a new piece of paper or you got out this tiny bottle of paint called white-out. You would scroll up the paper, blot out your mistake, and then start blowing on it to make it dry faster.
Wow, when is the last time you saw a bottle of white-out somewhere in the office? I know many older toys have made a come back, because of their nostalgia. Maybe if all of us, who were born before the 70's, united we could get white-out back onto the market. So maybe all of us next week, let's call every office supply store ten times (with disguised voices each time) asking why they aren't stocking such a basic and important office product. I just wish we could then capture a picture of all the store clerk's faces after their 8th call.
"The real old fashion typewriters would often get jammed if you hit two keys at virtually the same time." I explained. "This was because when you pressed a letter on the keyboard, this metal rod with its letter attached to the very end of it would raise up from a resting position and like a hammer strike the ribbon against the paper." I used my two index fingers and kind of swooshed them back and forth, like I was playing a drum. "Because all the letters were set up to strike at the same location, this set itself up for a traffic jam," I explained while crossing my fingers.
Some smart person realized that if they just laid out the letters differently on the keyboard, it reduced the chances of congestion. They did it in a way so that common combination of letters like "TH" , "SH", "FL"would be split up. If the common combination letters were right next to each other, on a manual typewriter there wasn't enough time for the first metal rod to get out of the way before the second metal rod came up and hit the ribbon. The two levers would then cross and either cause the incorrect letter to strike the paper, or a metal rod jam would occur.
Because people of this world are so interconnected these days, something that happens to a set of people on one place on this earth can in a very short time affect people all over the globe. The typewriter was only invented 135 years (two generations) ago in a small town the the United States and now look at how many people on earth have been affected by its design.
After I reflected a bit on this, the first conclusion I came up with was that I am getting old. You know you are getting old when you are describing devices that you used, but the next generation has never seen. Like my son about a year ago asked me what film was. The second conclusion I made is that that the inability to pass certain things down to the next generation can really be problematic for our home, local community, and world community -particularly when it comes to our morals. Remember that thought. I'll eventually return to it.
It doesn't happen often, but every once in awhile, I'll get a person who is thoroughly offended that I would dare share my faith through a newsletter. So their email besides instructions to unsubscribe will typically contain a comment to strike back and cause a little pain. (e.g. "I'll never buy from your company", "You should keep your morals to yourself", "You ought to keep religious views out of the work place").
I think I understand what these people are saying. I am free to communicate anything as long as it does not make them feel uncomfortable. After all, people don't want someone else's morals foisted upon them. So I guess before coming to the office, I think a handful of people would prefer that I leave my morals at home. So when I step outside my front door, I should become a person devoid of morals. But what if my morals tell me that I need to try hard to treat all human beings with respect and honesty? Leave that at home too?
I would venture to say that as Americans we have more personal freedom and choice than probably any person on this earth. I think this then causes many Americans to have this incorrect perception that since we are a free people, nothing should interfere with MY freedom. You know, no constraints or restrictive rules like "keep off grass"; and certainly no newsletters telling them to love their neighbors.
But is that freedom? The ability to do anything you want? I would argue that freedom is NOT the ability to do whatever you want. Show me a society where its people are free to do whatever they want and I'll show you a society that none of us want to live in.
So when I am told that I should not impose my morals on them, are they not attempting to impose their morals on me? Whenever you hear the words, "should", "ought" or "need to", these are keywords that signal that a moral statement is about to be made. You should call your mother on her birthday. You ought not date someone half your age. You need to avoid eating yellow snow.
I'm certain that none of these people, who prefer that I keep my own morals to myself, are advocating for a society devoid of morals. Places where the people have either no morals or misguided morals tend to have a lot of anarchy -and death will shortly follow. Concentration camps, Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq (right after our invasion) come to my mind. Peaceful societies actually have a lot of rules, regulations, and laws. And what are laws? Laws reflect the moral values of its citizens or its dictator.
So if everyone is in agreement that we definitely don't want is a society devoid of morals, then the question becomes whose morals should we use? What the majority wants? The group that shouts the loudest? The group that has the most political or financial clout?
Let's take the subject of morality out of the abstraction and into something each of us can directly relate to. I think everyone would agree that fraud is damaging and that it is something considered morally wrong. Fraud has been happening for a long time and every government has a certain amount of it. Now if we were to measure fraud in dollars, the amount of fraud being perpetrated by Americans onto other Americans and citizens of other countries is getting worse.
1989, financier Michael Milken was indicted for 98 counts of racketeering and securities fraud as a result of insider trading. Shortly after being convicted, the firm that Milken had worked for Drexel Burnham Lambert filed for bankruptcy. Drexel sued Milken for the $1 billion he had received in compensation while working there. He ultimately had to pay out $1.3 billion to Drexel's creditors. Milken was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.
2004, former CEO and Chairman of Enron Corporation Kenneth Lay was indicted by a grand jury on 11 counts of securities fraud and related charges. Enron's bankruptcy the biggest in U.S. history when it was filed in December 2001, cost 20,000 employees their jobs and many of them their life savings (pension); moreover, investors lost billions.
2005, former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years in prison for his role in the telecommunications giant's $11 billion accounting fraud.
2009, former CEO of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC was sentenced to 150 years in prison for what a federal judge called an 'extraordinarily evil,' multibillion-dollar scam that victimized charities, celebrities, pension funds and average investors worldwide for his orchestration of a 50+ billion ponzi scheme. One thing you need to realize is that these are the names of just four individuals who got caught. What about "legalized " fraud occurring in countries by their own government? Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it isn't fraud (immorally wrong) right?
How are we as a people going to address this growing issue of fraud (immorality) and the damage that it causes in people's lives? We need to do something because each decade we appear to break new records. Like the qwerty keyboard, the effects of fraud is not just a local problem; it proliferate throughout the world quickly. Perhaps we should make more SEC rules? Pass more laws? Enact stiffer penalties? Perhaps instead of 150 years in prison, we should double the penalty?
Last week, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine appointed members to a new Ethics Committee. I guess that was in response to an FBI sting operation that has ensnared 44 people on corruption or money-laundering charges. Several of those charged were mayors or other elected officials in NJ municipalities. Perhaps the key in stamping out fraud in our government resides in Ethics Committee?
From my observation, we are taking a band-aid approach in dealing with fraud (immorality). More rules, regulations, and stiffer penalties might help deter; but it doesn't even come close in addressing the root of the problem. If we as a people are sincerely interested in reducing fraud, shouldn't we at least look at the root of the problem?
Just like the problem that the American people cannot drill its way out of its oil addiction, we cannot legislate fraud out of our businessmen and public officials. Is an ethics committee going to set standards or teach people on how they should behave? If the problem was taht these businessmen and public officials didn't know right from wrong, then maybe an ethics committee could guide them. But I don't think that the case here. I think they knew exactly what they were doing.
Next time, let's see how God diagnoses the problem and see what his recommended treatment is.
