15.4 cents in 1940 = $3.44 per gallon in 2024 dollars.
[Un-colorized photo found here, inflation calculator here.]
Category: Retro & Vintage
Photos Of An Unknown Family Who PROBABLY Owned A Liquor Store
In 2005, someone named “BENBENEK” found a box of photos at a Southern California swap meet and realized he’d found a treasure, a glimpse of unknown history. The photos were bland and banal, yet oddly endearing, so he set up a website to share them with the world: HouseplantPicturesStudio.com.
Unfortunately the site is defunct, but via the Wayback Machine we can still enjoy Photos Of An Unknown Family Who PROBABLY Owned A Liquor Store.
The .Gif Friday Post No. 846 – Nancy & Sluggo
Ernie Bushmiller‘s ubiquitous comic strip has intrigued me since I was a kid. It was rarely funny, sometimes creepy, and the drawing style was unique and constrained. Bushmiller was more of a draftsman than a comic strip artist, and it’s obvious that he used tracing templates, photography, and in his later years, photocopiers.
One day in the early 1980s, this panel showed up in the Sunday funnies. I was hooked, and I began paying closer attention to the Zen of Nancy.
The .gifs above have been posted here previously, and scraping them into a pile seemed like the proper thing to do. The one in color was an early experiment with Jasc Animation Shop v.3.11, a program I acquired in 2012 (thanks, Possum). Most of the panels were lifted from Nancy strips posted on X/Twitter by @JohnnyCallicutt and re-used with minimal editing.
[For more Nancy, Sluggo & Aunt Fritzi stuff visit The Nancy & Sluggo Archive.]
Turbulence on the NCC-1701
Vehicle Mounted Manipulator 1956
“Popular Mechanics (Sep 1956, p.90) drawing made by Frank Tinsley from designs by Lee A. Ohlinger of Northrop Aviation, Inc. of a robot mechanic for the proposed atomic-powered airplane, a star-crossed project that stumbled through 10 years and $500,000 without ever getting off the ground.”
Other designs were developed based on the concept, including the GE “Beetle” of 1961.
[Images & story found here.]
The Amazing 1951 Hoffman
“There’s something to be said about a car company that after 73 years, 100% of its cars are still running today.”
The Hoffman was a German three-wheeled microcar created by Michael Hoffman, a shop foreman from Munich. It features an aluminum body with asymmetrical roof/windshield, rear wheel drive and steering, a pivoting single-cylinder 6.5 hp engine, and many more questionable design flaws.
Only one exists: the only one ever built.
Images (and more) found here, test drive video via Road & Track.
Dentiloquent Hot Links
Radioactive Flesh, Los Sinners (1964) From the nightclub scene in Luis Buñuel’s film Simón del Desierto (1965). St. Simon Stylites is sitting at a table with the Devil and asks “her” for the name of the dance. The Devil replies, “Radioactive Flesh.”
[Scene begins at 41:18.]
This video AND those comments.
Crêpe [via Mme. Jujujive]. Sound up.
Useful inventions [via Bunkerville].
“Mercy on us!” [via The View From Lady Lake].
Miss Frozen Rabbit Meat [via Memo Of The Air].
Decommissioned nuclear reactor guts [h/t Paul Y.]
[Top image: Houston Elvis fans, story here.]
From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago. 15 years ago.
The .Gif Friday Post No. 842 – Dancing The Radioactive Flesh, Vintage Tagger & Jake Blues’ Brows
[Found here, here and I messed with Joliet Jake’s mugshots just because.]
More about the top one: From Mexican surrealist producer Luis Buñuel’s film Simón del Desierto (1965), the final scene in a nightclub (Café Milleti). Saint Simon Stylites is present, and so is the Devil. St. Simon asks “her” for the name of the dance, and the Devil replies, “Radioactive Flesh.”
The band is Los Sinners. [Scene starts at 41:18.]
Stuff I Do When I’m Bored
[Update: Re-arranged gallery, added Shut Up Helmet. All images previously posted elsewhere, click for larger.]
Space Bimbos
Collected from all over the internest. More Space Bimbos here.
Tacky Raccoons 