Hungry?

More actual food products here and here.

Source: Buzzfeed

Now That's What I Call Boob Rock!

"Seattle-Tacoma's Boob Based Active Rock"

 http://www.thebrew1049.com/main.html

Cristy Lane

 Someone asked me a question the other day "Who is Cristy Lane?"

Well, damn good question really. It seems like the only place people ever know her from is her TV ads. And one might even compare her to a vanity act like Dora Hall. But even though that wouldn't be totally accurate, there's no denying the ubiquitous TV direct marketing campaigns she's had over the last few decades.

But a primer.....

Cristy Lane was a country singer from the '70s. And while she's considered a one hit wonder, peaking with her only #1 in 1980 with a cover of a song called "One Day At A Time", she actually had a few other lesser country hits.

But then she began marketing her gospel music side on TV. And that seemed to be where the money was, as she only had 11 studio albums and 26 compilation albums.

Most of which were sold on these TV ads. All of them featuring "One Day At A Time", either her original recording or a re-recording

But here's another fact, the original version of that song is by Marilyn Sellars, who made it famous in 1974 (the song was actually written by Kris Kristofferson.)

Most people assume Cristy Lane made the original version. But after Cristy Lane had her #1 with it with her relentless TV promotions of that song, that's probably to be expected.

It's not the only song she's covered and promoted to the point of confusion. She covered ABBA's "I Have A Dream", retitled "I Believe In Angels".

She owns a theater in Branson, Missouri and continues to perform today.

Super Rare Rolling Stones Album

Viva released a Rolling Stones compilation in the Asian market, using the same label blank as the US issues.

http://www.bsnpubs.com/warner/distributed/viva.html

Bossa Nova

"The smooth Bossa Nova sound somehow gets horribly lost and ends up in Newark, New Jersey for this low-budget Diplomat release. If you’re looking for some kind of Stan Getz Verve samba, you’ve come to the wrong place. This record is best played on a big wood veneer stereo that’s the size of a small car. It’s one of those records that my parents might have picked up at the grocery store while they were buying cocktail weenies for the big “grown up” party Saturday night. There’s a real nice b-movie vibe going on here......." - The Thrift Store DJ

http://www.records.fruityfamily.com/?p=19 (Download on link)

And who were the Brasileros?

They were some pretty notable jazz musicians, brothers Bill Barron (tenor sax) and Kenny Barron (piano), Ron Carter (bass) and Charli Persip (drums) They were successful individually and as session players on many classic jazz albums and recorded for Diplomat during a pretty lean time in their careers. This was all I could gather on this particular 1962 album.

"Brasileros....Brazilians....They're all the same....."

But this was never printed on the jacket. Synthetic Plastics Co., like most budget record labels, never printed much in the way of liner notes and nothing on session information (but for some reason, they always made sure you knew the engineering data on the bottom of the back cover!)

I had to research the rest.

Very few albums released under pseudonyms on budget labels have any real stars on them. This group, Lou Reed and a few others are the only ones that come to my mind.....

Enjoy!

Super Creepy Love's Baby Soft Commercial From 1975

Classic Pioneer Receiver....They Do NOT Make 'Em Like THIS Anymore.....

Halloween Hits: "Walking With A Ghost" Tegan & Sara (2005)

Creepy Abandoned TV Station

Last month, I wrote about abandoned radio stations.

Here's an abandoned TV station. KVVV-TV Channel 16, Galveston, TX has been off the air since 1969.

Here is what remains.......

http://s220.beta.photobucket.com/user/InvisibleTexan/library/RUINS%20OF%20KVVV-TV%2016

Cool African Record Sleeve

Pringles Can Speaker

"The Best Man In The World" Ann Wilson (1986)

Ann Wilson (of the superstar rock group Heart) released this lost classic in 1986. Her only non-duet solo single. It appears on the soundtrack to the Eddie Murphy hit The Golden Child.

This song also reminds me of "Little Queen" .........

(Ghost) Riders In The Sky

 Burl Ives (1949) The Original

Vaughn Monroe (1949)

Bing Crosby (1949)

Peggy Lee (1949)

Spike Jones & His City Slickers (1949) - This was CLEARLY a BIG hit in 1949

Halloween Hits "Oops! I Did It Again"

Imagine this body........

.......with this voice.

Sweet dreams guys.......

"Delia's Gone" Johnny Cash (1962/1994)

 Gotta have a little Johnny Cash. This is the original version of his classic "Delia's Gone" from 1962. The younger crowd are probably more familiar with his 1994 remake of this classic

Halloween Hits: "Horror Movies" Bollock Brothers (1983)

Halloween Hits: "The Haunted House Blues" Bessie Smith (1924)

If there is one person who can rightfully claim to be the TRUE pioneer of rock n' roll, it's Bessie Smith.

She had attitude, she had an opinion and she had one hell of a voice. Her blues recordings are not only legendary, they've set the standard for all great blues singers to come. And her influence has spread far beyond the blues. Janis Joplin idolized her. So have contemporary stars like Melissa Etheridge, Bonnie Raitt and Susan Tedeschi. And for good reason - she opened the door for all strong, independent people in blues, pop, country R&B and rock music to come. And her influence reverberates to this day

But tragically, Bessie Smith never got the appreciation she really deserved in her life. In fact, in 1937 when she was in a horrific auto accident that claimed her life, her right arm was nearly severed and needed to be amputated. She died from blood loss. Bessie Smith's Wikipedia entry claims she did not die as a result of not being able to find a "coloured" hospital in time. I have a hard time believing that personally, as time was of the essence in such a life threatening injury. A closer "white" hospital could have saved her (and contrary to the "separate but equal" rule of Jim Crow, black hospitals were also grossly underfunded, under equipped and understaffed compared to the white hospitals - especially in the South.)

And to add to this injustice, she was buried in an unmarked grave and forgotten for decades until Janis Joplin personally bought a proper headstone.

Halloween III: Silver Shamrock Commercial

It's almost time kids.......

Early Colour Film

If you never knew colour film existed this long ago, there's a reason.

The earliest movie film stock was made of cellulose nitrate. There were not many other materials that were feasible for film making. However cellulose nitrate had a couple horrifying drawbacks.
 
First, it was extremely volatile. If not stored under carefully controlled conditions, the film would deteriorate rapidly

Fact: 90% of all film before the late '40s is lost forever due to deterioration of their nitrate film .

If the film lamp was too hot, the entire reel would instantly burst into flames or even explode. And the fire/heat would ignite other film reels in the projection booth. This caused several theater fires.

So the early theater industry came up with a horrifying solution. Should the film catch fire (as sometimes did), some theaters had an automatic shut down mechanisms that would not only close the projector portholes, but also in some cases actually locked the projection booth door, incinerating the projectionist alive or suffocating him (it was usually men who were projectionists. Female projectionists were very rare) using them as a sacrifice to save the theater. Until safety film became standard in the 1950s, it was truly a dangerous job and only for the highly skilled.  

I volunteered as a projectionist at an old theater (and luckily, this was modern safety film I worked with) and I remember seeing the old portholes and the shut down doors above them. It truly is creepy. And those booths were HOT!

Growing Up Skipper

 

She's two dolls in one.

You just moved her arm to make her an inch taller.....And her breasts grow.

Amazing what passed under the radar in the '70s...... 

Cooking With The Stars: Food Products Made By Pop Stars

Frank Sinatra was one of the world's greatest pop music singers. So when Ol' Blue Eyes decided to come out with his own line of spaghetti sauce, the world wildly licked it's chops. Sinatra has often told of his family's famous pasta sauce recipe (and with Sinatra's family hailing from Sicily, you KNEW it HAD to be absolutely DELICIOUS.) Unfortunately, the spaghetti sauce bearing his name was a commercially processed sauce not much better than the Classico or other mid-level sauces. While fairly good, it was a disappointment. And a look on the ingredients label indicated why. They had pretty much the same artificial and preservative ingredients as any other of these sauces.

 

The late Linda McCartney had a wonderful idea - make a line of convenient and healthy vegetarian food products that didn't taste like nuts and twigs, the biggest fear of any foodie. That's easier said than done. Because you have to remove things like meat and anything resembling flavour. And usually replace them with tofu and strange things like oats and mushrooms to give it some texture. Her line was available in America for a few years in the '90s, but was discontinued (I haven't seen it in years in most food co-ops). However, you can still find it in the UK. The Chili Non Carne was surprisingly good.

http://www.lindamccartneyfoods.co.uk/

Country singer Dwight Yoakam came out with a line of microwaveable snack foods called Take 'Ems. They also come in cheeseburgers and pork rib sandwich varieties and chicken fries and rings. I've tried some of them and I'm pretty impressed.

 http://www.bakersfieldbiscuits.com/products.html

Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo Tequila - I got a bottle of this a few Christmases ago. Pretty good stuff.

http://www.cabowabo.com/age-gate?url=/

It's An Outrage!: Pepsi Products Available In Japan, But Not In America

Pepsi Flavoured Cheetos

Shame on Pepsi! Don't they think American foodies wouldn't love to try these here?

Chinese Import Video Camera Glasses: A Review

A week ago on a lark, I ordered a pair of Chinese made video sunglasses. They only cost $16.49 - including shipping on eBay.

So I ordered and it did arrive. Quickly...A couple days ago. I got a package from Shanghai. (These photos were taken on my Android tablet. Bear with me.)

 

Comes with carrying case, USB cord and lens cleaning cloth.

"I make these look good..."

The instruction booklet

This also uses a 2 to 32GB Micro SD card (not included.) I pulled a 2 GB card out of one of my old cell phones and reformatted it for use on this.

I was more or less expecting the worst. But they were surprisingly good for the price.

The video quality isn't 1080pi HD (but what were you expecting for $16.49?) But a hell of lot better than what you'd expect for that price. I've seen worse video from $200 cell phones.

The downside:

The video files they record are HUGE in pure AVI format (a little over 1 GB for a 15 minute video shoot) The video here took about 180 MB. So to upload onto the web, you'll need video compression software. I used FFConvert for Linux and converted it to a 27 MB MP4 file. But there are a number of these available depending on your operating system.

The lens is just above the bridge of your nose on these glasses. So you will need to keep your head slightly tilted down (don't shoegaze.) I deliberately aimed my head lower to keep as many faces as possible out of this video (which was shot at a library. I picked it to demonstrate average indoor lighting conditions.)   

The built in mic is extremely sensitive in video recording mode (it encodes in uncompressed PCM.) And if you're talking in a normal volume, you'll overmodulate (cause distortion.) So keep your voice very low when recording.

For straight audio MP3 recording (no video), they're very bad. They encode at 8kHz at 128kbps and sound extremely muffled.

I don't know the overall battery life because first, the instructions say the red LED light will stop flashing when fully charged. But after 24 hours of initial charging, it never stopped flashing. Plus as it takes 1 GB for 15 minutes of video and my micro SD card was only 2 GB, I'll have to buy a full 32 GB card to really find out.

The photos are also pretty bad. And the problem is you have to make a time.txt file in the root file of this for the automatic time stamp on the photos (the time reads in 24 hour UTC and not in standard AM/PM. I tried this in every configuration, but I could never get it to read correctly.) It always read as the default 2008/12/31 00:00:00 (give or take a few seconds)

While the photo and audio capabilities are downers, that's not the BEST feature of these glasses, which is the video recording capability. These glasses have quite a few uses. I wouldn't recommend them for recording concerts, namely because of the sensitive mic audio issues as well as the mysterious battery life. But for quick on the spot video recording of public events incognito, they're PERFECT.

Rating *** (3/5 stars)

You can buy them here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/111137776719?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

(This review was made uncompensated and totally independent, based only on my own experience. - Larry)

"The Fox" Ylvis (2013)

 

Unquestionably THE Song Of The Year...............

Apple iPhone Prototype From The '80s?

In the early 1980s, Frog Design and Apple collaborated on this phone prototype with electronic check payment and a stylus for use on the monochrome screen.

Radio Hat

More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_hat

Circa 1949....

Thighmaster

One of the most memorable infomercials of the '90s, starring babe-o-rama Suzanne Somers and her new gadget, the Thighmaster.

You can see she was having a great time with this thing. And so does her doctor. Hmmm......

During the height of this infomercial's popularity, Alice In Chains released their classic Dirt album. In the opening lyrics of the first single "Would?", everyone thought they said......

"Help me/I've broken my Thighmaster....."

Pussy Pop

Yes this was a REAL product. In 1981, the Pet Beverage Company of Covington, KY made this. It was allegedly chicken flavoured. However, cats are persnickety and most don't like carbonation.

(And just what were you thinking....Hmmm?.....)

R.U. A Cyberpunk? (1993)

Hard to believe an average smartphone in 2013 can do all this and more.....

http://io9.com/are-you-a-cyberpunk-this-early-1990s-poster-explains-i-1231691511

Hlchop!

 

Imagine Sixpence None The Richer's 1999 pop classic "Kiss Me"......

.....now imagine it.........sung in Klingon.

 

You're welcome.....