If you live in or near Mercer County there’s a good chance somebody in your family bought a major appliance from Mrs. G (www.mrsgs.com). Your kids, if they stay in the neighborhood, will probably be shopping there too.

The locally owned superstore has supplied dishwashers, refrigerators, ovens, outdoor grills and the like for more than 70 years, stubbornly defying recessions, inflation, and the huge chain stores that tried to gobble up customers.

The very real Mrs. G is Beatrice Greenberg, who is 94 years old and still comes to work most days. But this month, she’s officially passing the baton to her equally energetic granddaughter Debbie Schaeffer. She literally grew up in the store, trailing her grandmother from the time she could walk.

They both know the secret to years of success is a woman’s touch. It’s embedded into the store logo, the perky fifties blonde that perches on the “G”.

There’s also the personalized service — Mrs. G, and now Debbie, know their customers. And their kids’ names. The store’s been willing to extend credit, even in the toughest of times. Mrs. G also supports local charities and sports teams.

The Mrs G. transition will be marked by parties featuring local and state politicians, and will bring even more customers. Which is good because the store has expanded its line of luxury appliances, showcasing high end brands like Viking, Wolf, and Sub-Zero. It’s got one of the largest and loveliest simulated kitchens you’ll find anywhere.

Debbie says her grandmother may cut her seven-day-a-week schedule back slightly. But chances are, if you stop by, Mrs. G will still be at the desk by the door, greeting customers like family.

Once upon a time, boys played with toys they didn’t have to plug in, turn on, or reboot.

“Captain Action was my very favorite toy,” recalls 50-something Ridgewood resident Ed Catto.  “I vividly remember opening it up one Christmas, and having him fight GI Joe. We got all the neighborhood kids to play. We used to build an entire city in the yard.”

The Captain was a superhero’s superhero. He had the ability to change into other superheroes (if you bought the kit) like Superman, Batman, Captain America, Spider-Man, the Lone Ranger, Flash Gordon. But all his powers could not save him. In 1968, just two years after it had been introduced, the Ideal toy company discontinued Captain Action. A return to toy store shelves in 1998 also lasted just two years.

Now the Captain is back in action.

Catto, an advertising executive who has worked to market brands like Oreo and Lysol, and his partner Joe Ahearn, a Hawthorne resident and toy developer who led the 1998 revival, founded Captain Action Enterprises hoping third time’s a charm.

The launch was last Wednesday, and Catto says they have already almost sold out the 1,000 figures his company ordered from toy maker Moebius Models (www.moebiusmodels.com). A comic book will be released next month (www.moonstonebooks.com/CA.asp), and there are already t-shirts, hoodies and mugs with the Captain Action logo for sale at www.captainactionnow.com.

Catto says one key to success is to license characters such as Batman and Spiderman like the 1960s Captain Action, something the 1998 version failed to do. He says his company is in negotiations with the likes of DC and Marvel comics.

He also thinks nostalgia for boyhood toys will be a plus. Captain Action kits have become prized collectibles: his 1960s Superman uniform, still in the original box, was going for $800 at e-Bay yesterday.

The new figure can be yours for $34.95. You can play with it, or leave it in the box and check back 30 years from now.

Armand Cucciniello of East Hanover is a witness to history. The 28-year-old Seton Hall prep graduate is a press officer at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, working for the State Department.

He is a important source for the dozens of reporters covering the conflict. For more than a year and a half he has lived and worked in the Green Zone, the protected area of the city, which includes the American embassy and the main palaces of Saddam Hussein.

Last week, Cucciniello came home for some R&R. What does he miss the most about New  Jersey? He is blunt: “Feeling safe and secure.” But like many who face the Iraq conflict on a daily basis, he also finds it hard to let go. “It’s always on my mind,” he told us, from the living room of his parent’s comfortable home.

To say Cucciniello has a stressful job is a bit of an understatement. The Green Zone, while fortified by the military, has come under frequent attack. The quantity of news is enormous, the demands of the press insatiable.  Cucciniello describes his seven-day-a-week-job as  “a race to keep up with what’s going on.“

Cucciniello is poised and seems wise beyond his years. He acknowledges the impatience and frustration surrounding the war in Iraq — but, perhaps predictably, he advocates patience. Cucciniello talks of a “different side to the war”— the drama that Iraqi civilians face each day, and what could happen to them if the United States withdraws too quickly.

As for his time off, Cucciniello plans to travel and visit friends before returning to Iraq in two weeks.

He says, “As crazy as it may sound, it’s home now. Home is where you put your head.”

Think “psychic,” and you imagine somebody in a polka dot schmatta with a crystal ball, calling up the spirits. That’ll be $29.99 for the first ten minutes, please. Credit cards accepted.

Joyce Keller (www.JoyceKeller.com, where she sells her books, CDs, DVDs and even a board game) believes she has special powers, but she likes to call herself an “intuitive counselor.” She listens to you and, maybe, she’ll help you figure some things out. And she won’t rip you off.

You just have to get a call into her radio program, which her producer-husband calls “the country's longest-running paranormal show.” From her studio in Weehawken, Joyce has been hosting “The Joyce Keller Show” on WGGB radio, 1240 AM, since 1987. It airs Wednesdays, from 11 p.m. to midnight. No charge for advice. You may have trouble getting the signal beyond northern New Jersey, but you can stream it live at www.am1240wgbb.com.

Joyce says that as long as she can remember, she has “seen” things other people don’t. “Even before I went to school my mom would tell me about numerology or astrology, so I thought it was normal.”

Her first day of kindergarten, she recalls, she called her teacher over and said, “You have to go home because your mommy is very sick.” The teacher told her to be quiet.

But the next day, she says, the teacher took her aside and told her that her mother actually had gotten sick. The mother got better but the teacher asked, “So, am I going to get married?”

One day recently an “animal communicator” was her on-air guest. Callers wanted to know how to reach their pets — not all of whom were alive. One of her most memorable on-air moments, she says, was when she was on the old Soupy Sales radio show and a man who had leukemia called to say he was starting chemotherapy the next day. Joyce told him he was going to be fine.

“Soupy was so shocked he stopped throwing water balloons. ‘How can you say that,’ Soupy told me,” she says. “The following week the man called back. He got a clean bill of health.”

Some hard-bitten reporters we know can’t help but be skeptical about people who say they can predict the future. “I tell people I can’t prove anything,” Joyce says. “I am here to make people feel better, to let them know they should not be depressed about life, to send a message of hope and courage.”