My husband is currently working on a project that involves pinball machines, and last night he let me tag along on one of his research trips to an East Village bar. Yes, it’s a charmed life.

We lucked out, because not only did this bar have pinball, it had Family Guy pinball! (It also had Spider Man pinball, but we quickly got over the thrill of that predictable movie tie-in.)

Family Guy has been my favorite “viewer discretion” show for a while now—I think I might be a bigger fan than John at this point, though I still feel compelled to sigh disapprovingly at a vulgar joke every once in a while.

The pinball version of the show is simply charming, though, with little vinyl characters and even a tiny “Stewie mini-pinball” built into the top right section of the playfield.

John was a master at the game. Me, not so much. We switched off on the balls, his turns taking upwards of ten minutes and mine usually lasting less than one. Still, a good time was had by all.

There’s something about the 3-dimensionality and and physicality of pinball that makes it so engrossing, especially now that we’re all used to video games. It’s like there’s a little flickering world inside the machine, full of unexpected obstacles, lights, and noises. And there’s something called “fart multiball” in the Family Guy game, which is as much old-school fun as its name indicates.

John tells me that in his research, he found that pinball was banned from New York for a good number of years because it was seen as a gateway activity to booze and gambling. Now it’s not easy to find anywhere, but for different reasons. But the shining beacon of novelty that is Family Guy pinball gives us hope.

Plecky the pleco made a rare appearance today on top of his rock.

He usually prefers to adhere himself to the aquarium glass, or, on some occasions, wedge himself upside-down under his rock. But today he was on top of the rock, staring at us with his little beady eyes, probably thinking sarcastic thoughts. Too cute!

It was all cold and wintry today. Time for something cute!

We picked up these little Frog Style bank toys in Japan a couple years ago, and they’re still one of my all-time favorite toys. They came out of a capsule machine, for just about one dollar.

The tiny charming key opens the “vault.” It’s a rather sturdy mechanism, for a little plastic toy.

Playing with these again has got me thinking about knitted piggy banks…

If you can believe it, here is an even more awesome Frog Style capsule toy:

This frog tells fortunes with teeny tiny baby frogs of various colors hiding inside him, which you receive with a twist of the crank. (Sort of a meta capsule toy, if you will.)

You decode the colors into messages by the key on the back.

These frogs came in several different varieties, to tell your “work luck,” “money luck,” and “love luck,” respectively.

Check out the Frog Style website to see more cute frogs. (I love their nonsense slogan: “Can a frog save the world?”) It looks like they’re concentrating on t-shirts these days, instead of amazing capsule toys. That’s a shame, but the shirts are pretty cute too.

There’s now less than a month left to enter the Mochimochi Photo Contest. To tempt everyone into entering, here are a few more of the goodies in the first prize box!

iPod-listening Rirakkumas:

Yummy Japanese fabric:

Toy-related craft books:

And a cute little holiday creature!

You know you want all this fun stuff! Check out all the entries so far at the Flickr group, and see full contest details here.