Thursday, February 10, 2000

by the Wunderland Toast Society

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• Kristin has upgraded the Mad Lab Rabbits pages
• Alison's recipipies page begins with an index
• Renee has updated her pages
• More pictures of Gina's pottery
• Another tombstoner: quixotic
• Another great review of Icehouse
  

The deadline that's been crushing our skulls this week is Toy Fair. This very important event takes place next week, which means that the deadlines for getting our materials ready for the show have all been hitting us this week. So, we've been busy making signs, wrangling furnishings, and in particular, creating printed matter like catalogs, business cards, forms for writing orders, and other handouts.

Key among our new propaganda is a set of tear sheets, one for each of our products. Kristin's been trying to get me to make these one page marketing documents for almost a year now, but until this week there's always been something more important for me to do. Kristin's so happy to finally have them that she doesn't mind their late arrival... now when a store calls, wanting info on one of our games, she has a handy one page sheet to fax out to them, with customer testimonials and plenty of other info on the games. More importantly, by stapling a color cover on top and a retailer terms sheet at the end, we finally have an up-to-date catalog again! (Note to Mad Lab Rabbits: If you're trying (or planning) to get your local game store to carry our games, then check out the updated Rabbit pages for info on getting a copy of the new Retailer catalog.)

Preparing for Toy Fair is a momentous occasion for us. In fact, it's something of a rite of passage. Toy Fair, you see, is The Big Time. Eight years ago, back in the rustic early days of Icehouse Games, we attended Toy Fair as mere industry guests, and found it very intimidating. As we walked past the occasional stark booth, staffed by a sad-looking Dreamer exhibiting a solitary product (or worse, simply a prototype, in the case of Dreamers hoping to find publishers), we were acutely aware of our own microscopic size in this overwhelmingly vast ocean. Determined to avoid looking like the operators of a lemonade stand on the floor of the stock exchange, we stayed away from Toy Fair for years, meanwhile growing our business, biding our time, until we felt ready to perform, with confidence, on the big stage.

Last year we attended as guests once again, this time not as trembling novices but as a recon party, scoping out the event with an eye to actually exhibiting the following year. And now, that year has gone by, and the event is suddenly upon us! But we're ready. We've got a great looking catalog and five delicious flavors of lemonade. We're psyched! Tune in next week for a report on how it all went, but be warned: the update will likely be a day or two late.

I think all this happened in under a minute, but it made my brain hurt for hours afterwards. What exactly was Batman's great plan? I guess it was simply to create a diversion, so that Robin (or perhaps Wonder Woman - she was also involved somehow) could make the real attack... but even if we assume that riding a roller coaster is a good way of attacking a Super Villain, how was he able to instantly get the coaster operational? I'd be surprised if it worked at all, given that it's in an abandoned amusement park. The same problems present themselves with Robin and the bumper cars, but on top of that, bumper cars get their power from the mesh of wires in the ceiling, so there's no way Robin could drive out of the bumper car arena. But all of this is as nothing to the real trick: getting 9 bumper cars piloted by inflatable dummies to follow you, in attack formation, out of the building at once! OK, let's assume even this could happen. Don't you think a super-genius would be able to discern which of the drivers was a human, and which were inflatable dummies? But here's the real question: why would anyone ever abandon an amusement park?

The event was held at a hotel downtown, and at first glance, it looked like any other boring assembly of men and women in business suits. But then you notice the content of the speakers' remarks, the pot leaves here and there on the handouts, and the occasional attendee wearing tie-dyes, and you realize that the marijuana law reform movement has gone professional. They're well-organized, and they're getting things done. Within this movement, there is a genuine sense that the tide is turning, that our side is starting to win. In California, where medical use was legalized in 1996, an Amsterdam-style tolerance is apparently developing, at least in places like San Francisco and Oakland, where Cannabis Buyer's Clubs are now thriving. (Some even sell things like games on the side.) Half a dozen other states have followed suit with similar laws, and in Alaska, a full scale legalization initiative will be on the ballot this November. Our side is rapidly gaining numbers, while the prohibitionists are losing ground, and one by one, even the politicians are starting to change their tune. (Governor Gary Johnson's call for legalization a couple of months ago was seen as a major development.)

Of course, there was ample pessimism on hand as well... there's a lot of concern about a bill currently in congress, misleadingly named the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act, which seeks to make all "pro-drug" information illegal. (This would potentially strangle free speech on the internet and beyond.) Then, right at the end of the conference, there was a heated exchange between those who had crafted the Alaska proposal, and those who regard it as a mistake (thinking that it's too soon for such a broad measure, and fearing that if it fails, it will be a setback), and we were all admonished not to lose focus now, lest we have a repeat of what happened in the late '70s, when legalization seemed imminent, just before Reagan declared his War on Drugs.

Anyway, it was a very inspiring conference. This is a great time to be a part of the cannabis law reform movement... I think marijuana prohibition is finally starting to crumble.