I spent the past week at a “How To Be A Better Webmaster” bootcamp/seminar deal, and though I expected simple solutions like “update more often” or “remember that you own a website,” I was instead instructed to resonate with you by talking about one of my favorite stones in the entire stone kingdom: JADE.

I love jade. I really do. I look at jade, and I wish I could be magically transformed into a hippie new age housewife, just so I can get away with gluing random pieces of it to my belt. Though there are hundreds of things that I love without any clear remembrance of the origins of said loves, with jade, I actually know the precise moment that I became its #1 fan.

It was the summer of 1985. During my family’s annual trip to Wildwood, the inevitable vacation-ending activity commenced: It was time to cash in all of our casino arcade tickets and obtain whatever lousy prize we could get from spending thousands of dollars on skeeball and Pop-A-Ball poker.

For as much as I loved those Wildwood casino arcades, I have to admit that there was an unmistakable level of suck to the prizes they offered. 25,000 points for a knockoff Lots-A-Lots-A-Legggs doll? The fact that only three of you know what real Lots-A-Lots-A-Legggs dolls are only punctuates how ridiculous it was to spend 25,000 points on a bootleg version.

In the end, I usually picked whatever toys I could find that were from officially licensed brands, even if I wasn’t a huge fan of those particular brands. And that’s how the “Rambo Survival Knife” came into my life.

If you’re wondering what any of this has to do with jade, I promise, all will be revealed.

The “Rambo Survival Knife” is actually more of a “Rambo Survival Kit,” consisting of much more than the crude rubber blade shown at left. Also included is a sheath, which is so unbelievably thin and flimsy that the knife simply cannot fit inside it, whittling the sheath’s potential uses down to landfill or a condom you wear when you want children.

More alarming is the toy watch. It isn’t functional, of course, featuring a cardboard dial which dictates that the time is now and forever 10:05. To help sell the toy watch as an official Rambo item, they went through the trouble of adding “RAMBO” text on the dial. If nothing else, it’s succinct. I might be more forgiving to this piece of shit watch if it had the ability to stay in one piece. Just by touching it, the watch explodes into several plastic pieces, each more annoying than the last. Then again, I’m not too familiar with Rambo’s films. I know he had guns…can anyone confirm if Rambo ever had an exploding trick watch? I suspect he would’ve called it a “time bomb.” But he wouldn’t have chuckled after saying it, because that’s cheesy.

At the casino arcade, this dumb Rambo toy was on display in a high-up window case. Almost everything seems ten thousand times cooler when on display in high-up window cases, but this is one of the few items in history that was done a great disservice by such a method of display. Nobody could see it from the floor of that arcade, but lurking deep within the “Rambo Survival Knife” set was something so holy and so GREEN that I’m honestly tempted to finish this entry in this horrible font color.

It was…THE AMULET. I would’ve been excited enough to own an amulet that was apparently based on a combination of Buddha and a Martian Popping Thing, but when my mother noted that it “looked like jade” and explained what jade was, I just about lost my mind. I had no reason to suspect that the amulet was simply forged in plastic, and in my mind, I was the proud owner of a million dollar gem, left to wonder how such an immensely priceless objet d’art could’ve possibly been packaged with a lousy shoelace for a necklace.

I cannot impress upon you the love I had for this amulet. I wore it everywhere, or at least, I did until the fateful day came when the charm fell off and vanished from the face of the planet. The entertainment industry had long taught me that amulets were magical good luck charms capable of delivering their wielders incredible powers. So, not only did I look freakin’ cool with my freakin’ sweet jade amulet…I had godlike powers, too!

So began a lifelong love affair with jade. To this day, no street fair vendor hawking poorly crafted animal statues made from jade or other rocks green enough to pass as jade has met my gaze without meeting my wallet soon after. To this day, I still contend that most of the walls in our apartment would look really great if we painted them bright green. To this day, I let that bitch from Mortal Kombat II beat up Scorpion without ever trying to fight back, sheerly out of respect. Jade wins.

Kind of an odd story to be telling you on a Friday night, but I feel better having done so.

The “Rambo Survival Knife” was made by a company called LarGo, which reads like the screenname of the Tampa-area old lady who I totally pummeled in Yahoo Checkers just the other day.

In other news:

I’m back in ToyFare with an article on M.U.S.C.L.E. toys, covering their past, present and future, with every accessory and Nintendo game in-between. Actually, the feature was in last month’s issue, but it took forever for me to find it. When I finally did, it was at a comic shop on the way to my bus stop by the office. During the ride home, I couldn’t keep from thumbing through to check out how the ToyFare’s artists handled the layout, and also to see how much of it survived their editing process. (Not complaining…they edit for the right reasons, not just for the heck of it.)

So I’m sitting there reading, and I catch some guy across the row staring a hole through the magazine pages and my head. He didn’t seem like the type of person who would’ve been a ToyFare subscriber, and I couldn’t figure out why all of this seemed so interesting to him. Finally, it hit me: A glossy black magazine page with “THINK PINK” written on it in giant neon lettering, footnoted with a shot of a cartoon character wearing a leotard. Feeling sufficiently leotarded, I tucked the magazine back into its brown paper bag and quickly zipped into iPod mode. Whatever. I get sick when I try to read in cars, anyway.

I hope you’re all doing well. At least, I hope you’re doing well enough to answer this SURPRISE SURVEY — WHOA!

Survey: Look at the picture below. It’s of four sandwiches. Put these sandwiches in your order of preference, and explain your reasoning. Your decisions must be based on these sandwiches and these sandwiches alone, exactly as shown. You can’t add mustard or whatever else you would usually add. I don’t know why, but I’m honestly curious about your responses.

I’d go with the roast beef sandwich as my top pick, and actually, it’s the only one that I find somewhat palatable. Totally crushing on the sea of radish slices.

Next up, I guess the luncheon meat. I’ve never had luncheon meat, but it looks kind of like Spam. I can’t remember if I’ve ever eaten Spam, but I find it interesting. I’m also intrigued by the scale portrayed here. From what I know of green pepper rings, their relative size means that the meat slices are approximately seven feet long a piece.

Ham would be third, even though I don’t eat ham and have an aversion to cucumbers. Why? Because I’d sooner fry bugs up with dog shit than eat a tuna salad.

Great survey, right? X-E is so awesome.

PS: Did Rambo really wear a jade buddha amulet? If the answer is yes, he’s so great.

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!