Han Solo

Growing Up 90’s: Blink-182- “A New Hope”

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In honor of this week’s much-anticipated release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens,  which is the seventh volume of every nerd’s favorite cinematic saga, The No Seatbelt Blog will remain in kind, by presenting a most appropriate song for this newest edition of “Growing Up 90’s.” From Blink-182’s seminal 1997 pop-punk album Dude Ranch came “A New Hope,” a deep track on the record about a pubescent obsession with Princess Leia. The band’s Mark Hoppus leads the listener through his fantasy about falling asleep and waking up next to the heroine from those legendary first three films. Continue reading →

A Day With The Toy Hunter

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Last Saturday, in celebration of my friend Jack’s 30th birthday, we embarked upon the most glorious part of our mission to reclaim our childhoods, one toy at a time. With our friends and fellow nerds Andrew and Cory in tow, we took the long trip up to Westwood, New Jersey, to visit Hollywood Heroes, a vintage collectibles shop owned by Jordan Hembrough of TV’s Toy Hunter. The store is only open for a handful of hours on Fridays and Saturdays, as Hembrough travels around the world looking for vintage toys of untold value. On Toy Hunter, which was the highest-rated show on the Travel Channel before the network inexplicably cancelled it, he would raid the basements and attics of other toy collectors, searching for rare toys to resell at his store, at conventions such as Comic-Con, or to his celebrity clients like Gene Simmons from KISS, or Kirk Hammett from Metallica.  Continue reading →