Category: Cool

Hot Links of the Apocalypse

Wednesday Morning LA Traffic

Nice video: Los Angeles sans traffic.

Mrs. Straight Six has a nice collection of retromobiles.

36 years of family photos.

How to get a wash cloth wet in zero gravity and what happens when you wring out.

Serious crappy commercials. Serious.

It’s true. ESPN = PPPP.

Classic PPPLol.

RIP Nelson Mandela, who was not always an old man, nor was he a saint.

Nelson Mandela was the head of UmKhonto we Sizwe, (MK), the terrorist wing of the ANC and South African Communist Party. At his trial, he had pleaded guilty to 156 acts of public violence including mobilising terrorist bombing campaigns, which planted bombs in public places, including the Johannesburg railway station. Many innocent people, including women and children, were killed by Nelson Mandela’s MK terrorists. [via]

But then there’s always Little Isidore to lighten the mood.

Saturday Matinee – The Spotnicks, The Specials, Bad Manners & Buddy Guy

The Spotnicks’ “The Rocket Man” (1962). Pre-Devo awesome [via].

The Specials‘ “Ghost Town.” Too much fighting on the dance floor.

Ms. Wireways (?) a Jamaican radio DJ in Southern California in the ’80s, said this was the best reggae song ever. Bad Manners’ “Sampson & Delilah” fits the bill, even though the vid sucks donkeys. Close your eyes and listen instead – it is a pretty song.

Buddy Guy is one of the last original bluesmen. Here he is, backed up by G.E. Smith who is no slouch either.

That’s it for this edition. Have a great weekend, folks, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.

The .Gif Friday Post No. 309 – Da Vinci WTF, Lane Changer & Vandal FAIL

Mega Da Vinci

Lane Changer 1

Lane Changer 2

Burglar FAIL

[Found here, here and here.]

The Best Crappiest Speakers Ever Made.

RCA

They looked like armadillos boinking a mailbox, and yes, they were speakers. They were virtually indestructible. They hung on the inside of your car window when it was freezing outside and wouldn’t allow you to roll it up all the way.

They were also easily stolen with a pen knife. Lupe had a wall of them in his apartment, all wired together and hooked up to his stereo for a tinny wall of sound. Listening to Led Zeppelin through a dozen drive-in rattlebuzzers was truly something to behold. Truly.

[Found here.]

Another Great Gift Idea: Diesel Books

Diesels Tomes

Diesel, aka Robert Kroese, helped me to get into Big Time Blogging with cordial honest advice. Buy his books, read them, then donate them as gifts to the homeless. –Bunk

Crumbling Dice & Exploding Billiard Balls

decompsed dice

Cellulose nitrate was used to make dice from the late 1860s until the middle of the twentieth century, and the material remains stable for decades. Then, in a flash, they can dramatically decompose. Nitric acid is released in a process called outgassing. The dice cleave, crumble, and then implode.

From Dice: Deception, Fate & Rotten Luck by Ricky Jay and Rosamond Purcell, 2002.

[Via Wiki] Because of its explosive nature, not all applications of nitrocellulose were successful. In 1869, with elephants having been poached to near extinction, the billiards industry offered a $10,000 prize to whoever came up with the best replacement for ivory billiard balls. John Wesley Hyatt created the winning replacement, which he created with a new material he discovered called camphored nitrocellulose—the first thermoplastic, better known as celluloid. The invention enjoyed a brief popularity, but the Hyatt balls were extremely flammable, and sometimes portions of the outer shell would explode upon impact. An owner of a billiard saloon in Colorado wrote to Hyatt about the explosive tendencies, saying that he did not mind very much personally but for the fact that every man in his saloon immediately pulled a gun at the sound.

[Found here.]

Saturday Matinee: Swamp Edition – Talking Heads, Ry Cooder, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band & Swamp Dogg

Talking Heads‘ classic “Swamp” performed at the London Wembley Arena 1982. It was released the following year, creeped me out, and I became a TH fan.

Ry Cooder‘s swamp-rock cover of Elvis’ “All Shook Up” may have been posted here before but so what –  it’s awesome and it fits the theme of this post.

“Now, Amos Moses was a Cajun. He live by hissef in da swamp.”
This is the best cover of Jerry Reed‘s “Amos Moses” I’ve ever heard. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band took it and made it nasty. (This 1976 video is from the German TV show Pop Scop.)

Jerry Williams Jr. aka Swamp Dogg  at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam 10 June 2010. “Synthetic World” has a very cool 60s R&B groove.

That’ll do for this edition of The Saturday Matinee. Have a great shopping spree, folks.

The .Gif Friday Post No.308 – Hamster Eyeballs, Rambovine & Balancing Baby

Hamster Eyeballs

Rambovine

Balancing Act

[Found here, here. and here.]

Happy Thanksgiving

Retro Thanksgiving

It amazes me to think that in September 1620, 102 people were so fed up with the English monarchy that they were willing to risk a dangerous late-season voyage across the Atlantic (that lasted over two months at sea) to a new land to establish a free colony.

Disease, scurvy, starvation and weather exposure took their toll, and half of them died before the following spring. In March of 1621, the survivors sought to establish Plymouth Rock, ventured ashore, and met an escaped British slave named Squanto who spoke English.

His first words to William Bradford were:
“Dude. This is a swamp. You f’d up. Y’all gonna die an’ stuff.”
Bradford replied, “Bro, WTF?”
“Here. Plant some of this, but put a fish under it.”
“Dude, no way.”
“Way. Just do it.”
“K.  By the way, we got a plow.”
“Get out. You got a what? What you need a plow on a boat for?”
“We got one. You got an ox?”
“Ordered one on Amazon, but he ain’t showed up yet. They walk slow.”
“Cool. We’re gonna pop some pheasant for supper. Y’all wanna come?”
“Hell yeah. We’ll bag some Bambi and see you about 4.”

And the rest is history.

Have a great holiday, folks, and never forget the Reason for Thanksgiving.

[Image from here.]

The Curse of The Red Shirt

Red Shirt Curse

“Sorry, lil’ buddy, but it’s true. You’re a goner within 10 minutes of the first commercial.”

The only one who escaped The Curse Of The Red Shirt was Scottie. He was strong. He was invincible. He was Lt. Commander Scott.
[Image found here.]