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PenguinMan At Toy Show & Letterman Show Wednesday, February 18th, 2008 3:10 – 7:30 Woke up at Big Apple Hostel New York City

Take a cab to the Javvets Convention Center about a mile away ($7). I registered as a Media Pres person online, the Bolinas monthly Coastal Post, who I work for, WEB master for 17 years ($75 an issue) and occasionally write an article for. They print me out a badge, no problem. Good saved $100. I was worried they would want to see a Press Pass. They said they wanted to see that and a copy of a recent article in print, no online bloggers. Though they were boasting AOL was sending a blogger.

On thing I did notice about toy show, There were no kids there. Also that people weren't really playing with the toys, just showing them,

I do want to write an article about green toys. Keeping my eye out for green toys.. Recycled materials, rechargeable batteries, corn based plastics, whatever. There was some but very few. Organic cotton dolls, soy based inks (big deal). One puzzle had embedded flower seeds so you can plant your puzzle in the ground when you are done and it will grow. Even companies touting their green toys, it was 1 line out of 20 toy lines they sold that were not green.

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There are new regulations this year that toy companies have to conform to, have their toys tested and certified and it costs $1,000's per toy. Even people who make their toys out of certified organic materials have to be tested. There are new alliances for politically correct manufacturers in China, kind of fair trade, etc...

I keeping my eyes out for light toys. Not much that I saw. I did not have much time and this show was big. 1,200 toy companies. One company I was dealing with in Washington State, Play Visions, had a City Lights product line that they are discontinuing. The other big one was Fantasmics, I never head of and while at their booth, they had a dark booth for showing their glow stuff, a guy says come by my booth 1354. OK His name is XXXXXXXXX His company is XXXXXXXXXXX. Turns out his booth is all light toys, Cheap stuff you see at country fairs. He sells to Disney, etc.. has a factory in China (he is Chinese) and a distribution in XXXXXXXX. All he ever got to see was a FireFly like both Betsy & Robin have. He liked what he saw and wants to see more. Problem is, there is 1 hour left in the show. He is leaving right after the show and I have more booths to see. He will be in SF soon and wants to meet more and will sign a disclosure document. Great!!! There was another Chinese manufacturer that I met also, but they don't specialize in light toys, but make them and much larger. They don't distribute either. So We You was great match. We were lucky. I wish I was here yesterday when I planned to. We could have spent more time together while we were around. but then maybe I would not have met him yesterday or at all.

Go by Can You Imagine who makes some nice light toys I like. Like the Orbs I bought in a toy store in Fairfax. They are glow rainbow eggs that are rechargeable. They wer tearing down their booth. Like everyone else was. Did get a name and they are in LA.

3:30 We have about 30 minutes left and PenguinMan wanted to play. He went to the action figure area and was talking to people about licensing out PenguinMan image into action toys. No takers, but the booth from Japan seemed amused. Who knows. A little on that later. People did like PenguinMan though. He always makes people laugh and do crazy things they normally would not do. Wish I had more time.

I take the shuttle back and it drops me off just outside Letterman Show which is being taped. Donald Trump is guest and not too many paparazzi. Only 4 autograph seekrs. One is an old lady who gives them to a guy who owns a bar and he puts them on the wall and gives her money sometimes. The others are like vultures that sell their stuff on eBay and make a living doing it. It is great because the true fans can't make it to the streets on NY, stand in the rain and hope to get an autograph. These people do and they get paid a little money for it. It is win / win and helps the image of the stars. The stars that don't sign get bad reputations among fans.

Donald Trump comes out and I can't get close enough to him to give him a high fin. I gave the camera to one of the autohounds and no picture :( I still don't have a real picture of Robin & PenguinMan.

PenguinMan walks back though Times Square to his hostel room 7 short blocks away. I wish I had more time for Times Square too. People there love him. My biggest audience is 16 year old girls. They swarm PenguinMan and want pictures. I had one group of 7 girls an me and their chaperon was taking pictures with their cameras and I gave her mine and she tried to take a picture, but it was in the wrong setting. I fixed it but she decided it wasn't a good idea for me to have pictures of these young woman that might make it to the Internet without their parents permission The girls were real excited that I was going to post it to PenguinMan's FaceBook site. MySpace is so passe already. The girls said they would email me a copy of one they took. That never happens.

Back to hostel, check email and have a couple of minutes. Grab some food, was lucky and found a cab to take me to the bus terminal. It has been raining and it is 7:30 rush hour and all cabs are full. This one cab had a broken meter, could not take credit cards and I said I would pay cash. Great. Got the 8:00 bus on time ($30) and back to Hartford by

10:45 Cab it to Manchester, $25 and meet with sister Sheila who is here from Cape Cod with her son Julian. We talk a while, he sleeps nad

1:15 She goes to sleep and I work on journal.

2:05 0 miles biking.

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