36 years in the industry -- most likely he started in a lower position and worked his way up to "executive" level.

the toy industry is comprised of two huge companies, (hasbro and mattel and their subsidiaries), "new" young, hip companies (like spinmaster -- not that many of this type of company out there actually), a zillion little companies akin to mom-and-pop operations and then the asian low-cost toy makers.

this fellow probably was an exec at one of hasbro's companies (they're in RI) or maybe Fisher-Price (in upstate new york, maybe a 90 minute train ride to NYC). after 36 years in the industry, he can't easily be shifted around. the east coast companies that could pay his salary are few -- and he may have left the hasbro family and would then have few other options other than moving to los angeles. he might have been at tyco, acquired by mattel some time ago but they recently shut down the n.j. offices and almost all the staff was let go.

most execs at toycos are under 50 at this point -- a fellow in his late 50s would most likely be considered old and "un-hip" by the younger management and executives. he was most likely laid off with a good package -- probably 6mos salary and extended medical coverage. let's hope so at least.

and he's probably used up all his contacts, tried every headhunter possible, etc. the toy industry is just as likely to hire someone from some other field when filling open positions -- especially in non-design related fields -- like marketing and sales.

BUT -- he has no online identity -- there is a hastily launched site just up today but no resume -- no resume on monster, etc.

the story sounds interesting, maybe sad, maybe with a positive ending, who knows -- but the back-story is unknown at this point -- what toyco? what type of job (beyond "executive" -- was he an accounting exec? marketing? etc.

looks like a spinning whorl -- here are some links:

http://www.butser.org.uk/iaftex_hcc.html

(snip) "The archaeological record contains a wide variety of "disks", with central holes, and which are of the form necessary to give a "drop spindle" when a shaft is inserted through that hole. The drop spindle is known from times when no record of the spinning wheel exists and is presumed to be the earliest device for producing a continuous thread."

the above link contains illustrations of similar objects to the one found in the russian dig.

here is a link to a pic showing how the whorl is placed on a spindle:

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_sA0GMJLjzis/R59FNcXJkCI/AAAAAAAACm8/o8Wd_YesKq4/Soapstone+Spindles+a.JPG

this link is to an illustration of a modern woman from tibet using (an ornate) drop spindle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tibetan_spinning_wool.jpg

and finally, here is a mayan using a drop spindle for spinning cotton -- note the truncated cone whorl at the base of the spindle -- (the upper-right image):

http://www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/cmspnwev.gif

gender can sometimes be skewed -- females with atypically high levels of testosterone, babies born with two genetalia (one of each sex) and so forth.

but if any baby animal is evaluated in terms of its gender, a female is a female and there's no way around that. human animals are really no different in terms of identifying gender.

society does impose gender roles and it would be better not to limit anyone's potential based on their sex. sexual orientation is not something that fits into tidy boxes such as bi, straight, gay, etc.

a child should be given all the support and care during development including the right to determine their own orientation. but one cannot choose their sex any more than one can choose their race, or height. if someone sees themselves as a man, though they have all the sexual characteristics of a female, they can have their gender REASSIGNED.

transgendered males and females are just that -- transgendered. a transgendered female is not a typical female, nor is that person a typical male. the primary sexual characteristics of a male include an XY chromosome pair, a set of testicals and a penis. secondary male characteristics include facial and body hair and so forth.

when a genetic female develops some secondary male sexual characteristics, through the use of hormones, as well as cosmetic appearance of primary sexual characteristics through surgery, the individual is something of a gender chimera -- neither male (due to the lacking of male sexual reproductive organs and chromosomes) and no longer completely female (due to an abundance of testosterone and cosmetic verisimilitude with males).

but they remain a transgendered female while functioning in society as a male.

flak, regardless of the derivation, first meant bits of shrapnel. the WWII flak jacket was designed to minimized wounds from...flak. "catching flak" first meant getting sprayed with bits of exploding metal.

replicants are synthetic "humans" -- virtually indistinguishable from "natural" humans. cyborgs are a meld between human and machines -- like the flesh and blood layer over the mechanical skeleton in the terminator series.

scavenger animals often eat the tongue first -- it's soft, accessible and pure protein. people find dead deer and other animals in the woods with no tongues...little field mice can eat those very easily down to a clean nub.

a different version of this famous tune (featuring similarly insane trumpeting) was used in one of the Kill Bill movies.

join the entertainment business -- weeks and weeks of all-nighters are the norm for the behind-the-scenes crowd (like f/x crews). no autopsy is cited, so one wonders what the cause of death was...

Japanese men:

endowed with smallest "purple dragons"

nation-wide preoccupation with prepubescent girls

require all women to be submissive to males (except in anime where the heroine is a badass-yet-non-sexual she-wolf)

of course, this could be all overly stereotypical, but read Mishima's analysis of his countrymen...oh, and watch any number of anime or read pretty much any manga that support the above.

"don't stab him, bro"

pretty sure the lyrics are by poet/kid's book author Shel Silverstein...who also wrote the Johnny Cash song "A Girl Named Sue".

Scorsese was channeling Woody Allen. His performance in the archive room with the white preservationist gloves was borderline This Is Spinal Tap. Really great.

They pretty much got all of the big Hitchcock works in there -- even the lustrous blue suit.

Oddly, the name of the vinter never sunk in at all -- even with close ups of the label and the cork...

there has been a recent wave of inventive tots and their new gadgets. the ideas all seem perfectly in-line with what you'd expect from the mind of a kid, but the execution of the concept appears to be more in-line with what you'd expect from the mind (and abilities) of an adult. all of which is fine, but the impression that the article suggests is that this sweet six-year-old generated a working prototype on his own as well...which is very, very unlikely.

for all of those who have come to the comments to see if this snippet is real or not, rest assured, the whole thing is fiction.

fun, but fiction.

got to 49 ...then with a lot of back-and-forth to 50 -- but it takes more correct answers to go up one level than the number of misses that drop you down. when you finally make it to 50 the words are things like "weeg" and the definitions are "indebtedness; probable;orphanage; distill" -- etc. the lower level words are much easier to move through because many of them are latin/greek in origin and one can puzzle out the derivation...and thus word meaning.

but, apparently it takes 1M grains to eqal 1Kilo of rice...