Money Saving Hints – Tacky Raccoons

Freddy Heineken’s Contribution To The World: Beer Bottle Masonry

…The idea of turning waste into useful products came to life brilliantly in 1963 with the Heineken WOBO (world bottle). Envisioned by beer brewer Alfred Heineken and designed by Dutch architect John Habraken, the “brick that holds beer” was ahead of its ecodesign time, letting beer lovers and builders alike drink and design all in one sitting.

This is masonry. Each course is restrained by the male/female neck/punt connection, but the glass frogs (the bumps on the tops and bottom sides of the bottle) don’t provide a lot of friction, so some method of vertical reinforcement is required. Can’t tell how they anchored it to the foundation, or how they attached the roof framing.

I suppose it works in regions with few earthquakes, no serious windloads, and for people who really like green beer bottle natural lighting.

[Found here via here.]

“When Death Rides the Rubber” – Popular Mechanics, December 1932

Okay, so who the Hell gave Death a drivers’ license so it could pull this crap in the first place? Why is he selling used tires?

The used tire business has been around for decades, and there’s deceit involved. Check out this recent video:

[Found here via here.]

Saturday Matinee – Basic Mud Hut Construction, The Clash & CTA

How to build a shelter without modern tools in under 15 minutes. Okay, it’ll take a while longer (“The whole hut took 9 months from start to finish“) but it’s still cool. BTW, every Boy Scout knows an easier way to start a fire.

The Clash‘ “Charlie Don’t Surf” was not featured in the 1979 movie “Apocalypse Now” as it was recorded a year later for their 3-record album “Sandinista!“

When their earlier LP London Calling was released in 1980, critics said that Springsteen’s upcoming double-disc album The River would outsell the Clash effort and wipe away any impact. Joe Strummer‘s response was: “Right Bruce. Suck on this!” The band then expanded Sandinista! into a triple album.

The song was based on a quote from the movie, and the groove is a good one.

Classic percussion funk-jam-rock by The Chicago Transit Authority (aka CTA, aka Chicago) from 1969 as performed by founding member Danny Seraphine in 2006.

Have a great weekend folks, and keep us up to date on your mud hut progress.

WE GOT COUPONS.

Click on the ones you like, right-click and save them full size; use a photoshop tool to square and crop, print them out on glossy newsprint, trim them then cash them in.

Valid everywhere groceries are sold, good through 7 August 2016.

[h/t Amy Oops.]

Do Women & Children Keep Borrowing Your Pen Knife? Here’s A Solution.

With a cast iron frame designed to be screwed down to the desktop, this machine eliminated the need for whittling and sanding pencils, and saved businesses countless hours in lost productivity.

It’s called a “Planetary Pencil Sharpener” because it relies on planetary gears revolving around a sun gear, and all are held in place with a ring gear.

Spirograph worked on the same basic principal, but it sure as hell couldn’t sharpen a pencil.

[Top image found here, via here. Bottom image from here.]

1910 Stropper

Both my grampas had stroppers in their bathrooms, and they weren’t used for disposable blades. They used straight razors with a cup of hard shaving cream and a brush. Put a little water in the cup, brush up a lather, then pay attention.

For those of you who grew up later than I did, the strop was a strip of leather hanging by a ring adjacent to the barber’s chair. Barbershops still had them when I was a kid, and they were used to get rid of a used blade’s microscopic burl: