Some website called Pica-Pic has assembled a playable collection of largely circa-80's era Game and Watch handheld gaming systems which I remember being obsessed with, but seem like they should be from the Stone Age considering the quality of games you can get on your phone these days. Still, if you had the Donkey Kong Jr. game (or coveted the one your friend had), playing the games online is fun bit of nostalgia.

The latest update from the Cactus Drive-In Theater Project's Charles Spillar:

Good news! We filed the paperwork for our nonprofit corporation last week. It is the Cactus Drive-in Theatre Foundation, Inc. Fundraising will be able to commence soon. The new website should be up within the next two weeks if not sooner. Things are beginning to move forward. I am working on a business plan at present.

I will keep you up to date with our progress. We will need lots of help getting the funding needed so be putting on your thinking caps for ideas that can generate large amounts of money at one time. The sooner we can get the capital needed the sooner our drive-in will happen.

Charlie Spillar

PS Also the more supporters we have on our facebook account the easier it will to obtain funding. The WestWind Drive-in that reopened in Goleta (near Santa Barbara) had over 7,000 facebook supporters. Some other drive-in sites have over 10,000 and these are located in smaller communities than Tucson.

The project's Facebook group page is Cactus Drive-In Theater Project.

Ummm, this is disturbing:

I found it in an old stack of children's books we had in storage. It's from a book published in 1981 called Tortillitas Para Mama and Other Nursery Rhymes. From the introduction:

These familiar rhymes, which kindle feelings of warmth, security and love, are gathered in this book to both preserve them for the Spanish community and to acquaint others with their charm.

Another poem explains that good tortillas go to papa, while the burnt ones go to mama. Were things really that fucked up in 1981?

It’s a cold day at the North Pole when we stop believing in Santa Claus.

• Photo Ryn Gargulinski
• Santa Claus is one cool dude.

Santa symbolizes the warm, cozy spirit of the season’s generosity. He is the magical man with big hugs and an even bigger toy sack. He’s our early white knight in shining armor, the one who secrets us away from the worldly woes to a place we can sit around all day eating bonbons.

We later yen to marry such a person, especially since it would mean we could quit our day job.

When we learn Santa is merely a myth, a piece of our innocence dies.

My revelation came around age 10, when I noted the handwriting on Santa’s thank you for the cookies note was suspiciously similar to my dad’s. My cousin confirmed my suspicions by later admitting his Santa wrote like my aunt.

If my cousin said it, it had to be true. He was always the crafty one who knew where grandpa kept the beer and where his mom hid her cigarettes.

Although my cousin and I got over the Santa blow fairly quickly — we were fine as long as we still got our gifts — some kids don’t take it as smoothly.

Some react with rage, Psych Central warns, livid that Mom and Dad lied to them all those years. Others become crushed and weepy. Some run to the playground to share the news, often getting beat up by kids who still want to believe.

Still others express relief. “They needed to have their perceptions of reality confirmed,” Psych Central says.

Those kids are probably pretty boring.

Confirming reality is nothing we need to rush. It’ll confirm itself on its own in a really big way with really big bills and even bigger headaches.

Santa lets us linger in a fantasy world, one where magic and goodness still freely exist. This is provided, of course, we stick with the cheery version of St. Nick and not some of the scary Santas of late.

Charlie Spillar, who's leading the charge for a new Tucson drive-in theater, sent out an update recently on the October brainstroming meeting, and what the next steps and possibilities are for the Cactus Drive-In project. Want to get involved or have ideas on property locations and potential investors? E-mail Spillar at [email protected].

At the “brainstorming meeting” last month we exchanged many new ideas. We are looking at potential new property locations and researching their potential.

We have confirmed with Michael Keith of the Downtown Tucson Partnership to have a Spring Mini Drive-in event downtown Tucson in early March of next year. I am working with Rebecca Roupp, principal planner in the city Department of Urban Planning and Design and Demion Clinco, Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation to arrange other locations within Tucson for our mini drive-in fundraisers. Everyone will be informed in advance of the dates and times.

The advanced dynamic web design class of the Arts Institute of Tucson will have a new creative web presence for the Cactus Drive-in by the end of the year.

Some bumper stickers and uniquely designed tee-shirts promoting the Cactus Drive-in are being developed. Eventually we will have a store on the website for product sales.

A local attorney is filing for our nonprofit 501(c)3 status.

Yesterday was Carl Sagan's 75th birhday. If you don't know who he is, then you need to check him out here. When I was a kid, luckily we didn't have Bill Nye the Science Guy. We had the real thing in Sagan, a planetary astronomer and writer, who made science and the stars cool in his show Cosmos.

Close Encounters with the Sixth Kind with Eddie Gallego
By Blair Kurland

The vanishing cowboy pays a visit to the Old Town Artisans.

Spiritual Confirmation with Eddie Gallego
By Blair Kurland

This final piece of video gives proof, if you choose to believe it, to the existence of the unearthly visitors.

Grandmother Returns
By Blair Kurland

Another unearthly visit recounted by storyteller Eddie Gallego.

"They are so damn 'intellectual' and rotten that I can't stand them anymore. ... I (would) rather sit on the floor in the market of Toluca and sell tortillas, than have anything to do with those 'artistic' bitches of Paris"
—Frida Kahlo on Andre Breton and the European surrealists.