Rushin' roulette

This year I went Christmas shopping for my nephews, ages 2 and 9, at the last minute. It's hard for me to remember what entertained me at those ages, but they were closer to Johnny Human Torch. Toys and games have come a long way since then. When my brother Brian, 2-year-old Tytony's father, said I could buy him computer games, I thought he was just trying to get them for himself. Then I remembered that Brian is virtually computer illiterate. His son, however, is quite dexterous on a PC (I've seen it myself), and although I have more than 40 years on him, it looks like he's catching up. Still, he is just learning his alphabet and numbers. I settled on a Sesame Street-type counting game, as well as a DVD version of Harold and the Purple Crayon.

But growing up I also remember having fun with Fisher Price toys. When my brothers were young, we used to play with the old woman in the shoe and all the "little people," as we called them. Lego. Etch-a-Sketch. Slinky. Play-Doh. Lite Brite. Such simple things, but they taught us a lot. In crotchety uncle fashion, I asked my brother if there was anything physical I could get Tytony: Legos? A dump truck? A ball? My brother agreed that he wanted Tytony to have a balance between the kinds of toys we grew up with and video games, Tytony already has Duplos, which are like Legos, and tons of toys. I went to a toy store in Park Slope that was crawling with little tykes tugging at their mothers' coats, begging them, "buy me this, buy me that." Did they not know Santa was coming the very next day with all the things they wanted? And from the way some of them were acting, maybe Santa was having second thoughts about visiting them.

I looked at various toys in the store, trying to imagine Tyler playing with them. There was some ball-like thing made of interlocking open rings that looked like it was made of plastic six-pack soda can holders. Was he too young to play Operation? Monopoly? Maybe he could learn Po-Ke-No and acquire gambling skills. Tytony loves Thomas the Tank Engine, but I had already gotten him a railroad set for his birthday that his father cursed me for buying. I was about to call it a day and buy Play Doh when I heard a cute little blond boy, maybe about 4, tell his dad that he wanted a dinosaur puzzle. Dinosaurs! Puzzles! What little kid doesn't love dinosaurs and puzzles? I had my third gift.

My 9-year-old nephew, whom I call The Great Brandini, is a video game junkie. He is the envy of every techheaded kid--and possibly most adults: he has Xbox, Game Boy, Play Station 2, and the new Play Station Portable. He can tell me the subtle differences in racing games on each system, and why the graphics are better on one system over another. At 9 I'm sure I was just getting the hang of A Barrel of Monkeys. Brandini is also heavily into soccer, baseball, and hockey and has an encyclopedic knowledge of player stats, game stats, and team stats. "Does Brandini like books or any kinds of non-video games?" I asked my brother. I might as well have asked if I could get him an abacus. "You could get him books and games," my brother said hesitantly, "but he'll always go back to the video games."

I went to the local video game store and looked for some Play Station Portable titles, since that was Brandon's preferred format. I had absolutely no clue what to buy. I ruled out sports, since I figured he already had everything. So I decided to get what looked interesting to me. There was a game called Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects. Superheroes: Iron Man, Spider Man, The Thing--what could be bad about that? There was also a cute Japanese-y game called Tokobot, the cover of which showed cute robots trying to jump, fly, and shoot their way out of predicaments. It reminded me of a Super Mario game, which Brandini loves. Perfect.

I was proud of myself. Maybe I could reverse my reputation as the unhip uncle. On Christmas Eve my brother had us all over to dinner, and both my nephews were there. Sitting on his father's lap, I watched as Tytony tore the shiny green, red, and gold paper. "Dinosaur!" he said to his father. Yes! His eyes lit up over the dinosaur puzzle.


Tytony peeks inside the sparkly wrapping


He likes the gift from his Luddite uncle

He was just about to open up the puzzle when he noticed the cool racing track his other uncle had brought him, dropped the puzzle on the floor, and asked me if I would put together his racing track, which I did. So much for scoring.

I gave Brandini his presents later. He took one look at the Marvel game and without hesitation said, "This game got the worst rating." Great. Ingrate. He seemed intrigued by the Tokobot game.


Brandini ponders the suckiness of Tokobot

But I guess since I had rushed around without doing my homework I took a chance on my presents. All week I've been telling people how deflated I was by my nephews' reaction. When I was a kid did I ever tell an adult that I didn't like a toy or game? I don't know. But I did briefly think I should have gotten the boys a Letitia Baldrige book on etiquette or "How To Break Things Gently To Your Sensitive Gay Uncle."


Still unhip after all these years

The other day I told my brother what Brandini had said about the Marvel game. "Don't pay any attention to him," he said. "He's been playing that game all week and loves it."

OK, so maybe I didn't do so badly after all. But just in case, for next year I bought each of them A Barrel of Monkeys.