Category: Retro & Vintage

International Blog Cup “Competition” Results

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I know all of you were waiting with bait-breath to find out if Tacky Raccoons made the first round cut in the “International Blog Cup” competition. We didn’t, even though I, Bunk, voted for myself twice each day for a week.

On the plus side, TR won well over 48% of the votes against a dopey music video advertisement website that takes no talent to post. Bill Clinton got elected President by a smaller percentage. Bunky regards the loss as a bittersweet victory.

34 to 32 is the final count, and TR conceded to our worthy opponent last night at about 11:55PM.  34 votes for our worthy opponent equals only five people who voted each day for a week and who like music videos posted on a bland website that gets it’s material solely from YouTube, and posted without commentary.  Oooh. Beat me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar.  Smacked down by a bot.

But we have more fun, don’t we. Heh.

[Image above from Hanuman showing all 32 TR hits. All in fun. –Bunk]

Saturday Matinee: Past Future & Present Past

Vodpod videos no longer available. from s166.photobucket.com posted with vodpod

No Way. Can’t happen. Get outta here. [Via Snopes.]

1960 precursor to Star Trek from East Germany, according to the U-to0bage description:

Here’s a look at “the world’s largest supercomputer” in the socialist utopian future predicted by a 1960 East German science fiction film

The movie is “Der Schweigende Stern,” released in the west as “First Spaceship on Venus.”

Like other Soviet-bloc films, it forecast a utopian future in which socialist scientific advancement led the world.

In this scene, the scientists are using the supercomputer to decipher an alien message recorded on a device ejected from an alien spacecraft before it crashed.

And speaking of Star Trek, one of the funniest Saturday Night Live clips, (with William Shatner as Captain Kirk, Chevy Chase as Spock, Bill Murray as Bones, on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise after the series was canceled) should have appeared below. But NBC apparently convinced uT00B and g00ggle to drop all the video links for copyright violations. It’s as if NBC wanted to erase all evidence of the years when Saturday Night Live was actually funny.

So here’s this gem [originally scheduled for a later post]: The Dap-Kings featuring Sharon Jones. Music & video uses 1960’s technology for recording and taping this modern band with the stylings of early R&B. “Almost Aretha” is a pretty good compliment.

Virtual Airbus

Lookee here for some cool 360 degree pans of the interior of an A380 Airbus. Click on the left hand thumbnails for the interior views, then spin around and up and down. The only things missing are stewardesses in 1967 hot pants and boots, or 1967 day-glo miniskirts and boots:

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Women as objects? Naw. Women in boots. They’d hit on you if you asked them for peanuts, spill coffee in your lap if you thought they were hitting on you. (Bunky was too young to understand it but old enough to appreciate it.)

[Panorama link from Growabrain, images via Dark Roasted Blend.]

Saturday Matinee: Ken Nordine’s Word Jazz

Ken Nordine… the voice, the guy you’ve heard, but never knew it…

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Best of Word Jazz is available on cd via Rhino Records. Ken Nordine’s late 1950’s and early ’60’s work is bizarre. Here’s Bunk’s review [from Amazon] a few years ago:

“Late at night, toss this into your cd player, press pause.

“Turn off the lights.

“Turn on the TV. Turn off the sound. Flip to channel 3…

“Static…

“Hit play attention…

“Ken Nordine is the comforting yet oddly disturbing voice in your head that you try to ignore, but can’t; he’s the Twilight Zone for your ears.”

But don’t take my word for it. The liner notes include this gem of a description:

“Ken Nordine, yea I know that guy. I heard his voice 1000 times, he’s the guy in the bus station that says “go ahead I’ll keep an eye on your stuff for you,” and you see him the next day walking around town wearing your clothes. He broadcasts from the boiler room of the Wilmont Hotel with 50,000 watts of power. I know that voice, he’s the guy with the pitchfork in your head saying go ahead and jump, and he’s the ambulance driver who tells you you’re going to pull thru. He’s the guy in the control tower who talked you down in a storm with a hole in your fuselage and both engines on fire. I heard him barking thru the Rose Alley Carnival strobe as samurai firemen were pulling hose. Yea he’s the dispatcher with the heart of gold, the only guy up this late on the suicide hotline. Ken Nordine is the real angel sitting on the wire in the tangled matrix of cobwebs that holds the whole attic together. Yea Ken Nordine, he’s the switchboard operator at the Taft Hotel, the only place in town you can get a drink at this hour. You know Ken Nordine, he’s the lite in the icebox, he’s the blacksmith on the anvil in your ear.” –Tom Waits, 1990

For some reason, I have this subtle urge to buy 501 Jeans…

Mr.T Done NeeNo JibbaJabba Boutis Socks.

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1. Done gimme no jibbajabba, foo.

2. See Commandment above, foo.

3. Ah pity da foo done unnastan nummas ONE an TWO.

4. Ah done harley wanna touch dis green-shirt-wearin foo. He smell funny. An keep dose joov-nall-matchin-sock-foos behinda fents.

[Excellent album cover find from (the late) Your Daily Awesome. More Mr.T excellence may be found here and here. Oh yeah. Here, too.]

How to Make Hats: 1776

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Seems pretty easy to me. All the tools you need are illustrated, including a flat iron, a nipple gauge made from a sassafras twig, a hand grenade, a broken rubber band, some shelves with hats on them, a cat brush, a kybo seat, and a toaster. The other items are optional. Another gift-giving problem solved, courtesy of your friends here at TR.

Of course, if you decide to become a “chapelier” you’ll need a certificate from an approved training center, a qualification test to get licensed, a business license, a conditional use permit for your business location, approval by the EPA, workers compensation and liability insurance, and then the union thugs will prolly shut you down before you produce your first “chapelle” unless you sign up.

I’m goin’ for it. You in?

[Image via Hanuman.]

Another One Bites the Ducks: Daily Awesome

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Yeah, I know those are geese, not ducks. That’s not the point.
It appears that one of my favorite websites, Your Daily Awesome, has turned off its lights for good as of last Tuesday. In respectful memory, here are a handful of my favorite YDA posts, in shout-out fashion, and not in any particular order:

Animaris Rinoceros
Model Railroad Slums
Three Songs by Ledbelly
The Andy Kaufman YouTube Motherlode
The Picture of Everything
Koalas Aren’t Hard They Some Little Bitches
Hidden Messages in Leave It To Beaver
Mingering Mike
Ricky Jay & His Amazing Cards

Many others can be found in the archives. Thanks for all the awesome daily entertainment, Chas. Although I never met you, it still feels the same as if I never had. Here’s to last Wednesday’s yesterday, and we wish you well on your long road ahead.

TGIF: The .gif Friday Post 13: Staring Contest

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“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, (DON’T BLINK) 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13…”

[You blinked. The guy is a quality control engineer for this.]

When the Carp Hits the Fan

A long time ago…

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…one of Bunk’s friends got the “Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots” for Christmas. Bunk was filled with envy, until he saw what a stupid piece of carp it really was, but it was cool for 15 minutes until my friend and I decided to take it apart to find out why it was really a piece of carp. That’s when the carp hit the fan with my friend’s Mom. Bunk realized that his mom was calling about the same time and had to go. Yeah, Bunk acted like a woos, but Bunk wasn’t stupid either.

[Here’s the link, via here, for the guy who specializes in great detailed illustrations of carp: Robots and Donuts.]

Tastes Like Chicken

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You might think that’s pork, but it snot.
Future Senator/Congressman in training.

[Photo via Growabrain.]