My brother had a bike on the cover of Custom Chopper. I’ll see if I can find it and post.

I think the proper term these days is Ninja Boot

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A lot of songs get copied and rewritten.

Here is the Beach Boys singing Kokomo. Just nice breezy song you can sing to as you walk along the beach, or wherever.

You gotta love youtube.

And here are a couple of wags who kept the music and rewrote the lyrics ( Tell your kids to leave the room ). You might want to wait until your wife is not around, too. You can sing along with the lyrics.

Yes. I'd like to see.

Back in the day, everybody was cutting up their Harleys, putting on flat fenders, 12" over on the front forks, removing the fat bob tanks and replacing with a Sportster tanks, etc.

I stayed old school with mine in 1973. Bobbed Knucklehead rear fender with tombstone taillight, stone stock '57 straight bar frame with the tool box ( I had all the tools in this teardrop toolbox needed to completely dismantle the bike, if it ever became necessary). I kept the Harley horn on.

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In summer of 1971, while in the Navy, I was going to be flying back to my duty station in Texas from one of the many naval installations in San Diego. I had been doing bit of commercial flying back then and had a favorite seat on the plane that I liked to sit. I asked for that seat and the airline ticket agent said I was going back on a 747. I'm like yeah, a 747 !. I'm cool with this; 747s had only been flying for 1.5 years and were still new so felt privileged It was a super smooth flight and the 747 had these stereo earphones you could stick into your ears. They sounded great, but what impressed me most is that the headphones were flexible tubes and the sounds were pushed through the tube by air ( I forgot about these air-phones until just now).

And now, 52 years later, Boeing is delivering its last 747. To me, it is the end of an era. Even the most unknowledgeable about airplanes could ID a 747 with that big hump on top.

https://news.yahoo.com/boeing-deliver-last-747-saying-110818597.html

"Boeing to deliver last 747, saying goodbye to 'Queen of the Skies'"

Kool......... you bought your own 747

Even though he retired years ago, my old man was on the 747 engine assembly line in the largest single roof building ever built.
As a kid, growing up across Puget Sound from Sea-Tac, we would often hear those Pratt Whitneys starting up. No mistaking that PW whine. Then a short time later, the unmistakable shape of the 747 would ascend the treeline and confirm, yep, that was a 747 starting up.

End of an era!

I love the part where the 747 test pilot takes the President of PW up for a test flight, I can see a test pilot pulling that off. Approx 36 min into the video.

And how could I forget: All through the 80s I worked at Boeing's Wichita plant. And then one day, for reasons are still beyond me, the company took a a high number of employees for a airplane ride in the company's own 747. Not everybody got to go for this ride; I don't know I lucked out and made the cut.

There were two flights for the plane on this day. I was on the first flight. We took off from Boeing's runway, flew 6 miles west to the commercial airport to make a touch-n-go to get the compasses set.

For the next hour we had the run of this 747. The pilots flew us at 7000 feet across the city and a few miles beyond. Then we flew north to the colosseum where all the rock concerts were held. Then we flew to the south side of town. All the while we were crossing back and forth across the plane looking out the windows, ( no one said they saw there house on fire ). If we had of flown over my house I would have been able to pick it out.

So, for one hour, a guided aerial tour of our city, at 7000 feet. In a 747 ! The plane was not full and we had plenty of room to move around and get our eyes full. We (most of us ) had a blast.

But there is always a negative Nancy in any group and as we were disembarking, some sourpuss made the comment of, " Well shit, we didn't even get to fly to Kansas City" (180 miles away). He did not seem to realize the magnitude of the freebie he had just experienced.

There’s one in every crowd. Great story. I had a friend who got to ride a final voyage on one of the good year blimps out of Long Beach ca. I was so envious. It was past tense when he told me about it.

Back in 85 I wanted this ATC so bad, but Dad said no, but he did get me an old Yamaha YZ 80. Just a few months ago I found this locally and bought it on the spot. Insane condition and now I am teaching my 12 yr old to ride safely.

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My grandparents had a shuffleboard game layout painted on their long driveway. The whole family used to have a blast playing this game in the 1960’s. I still remember the scraping sound of the discs as they slid over the cement .
Here’s a Google Maps image of that same driveway today, 60 years later.
Shuffleboard long gone.

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Cool. Who is the lady in the swimsuit? I have to say that times have changed. Today she would be wearing a thong.

That’s just a random image I grabbed off the internet of people playing shuffleboard.
The site says she’s Carolyn Brown in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1952. What a dish!

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Hubba Hubba!

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Way cool. And now...a 21st Century Google search puts you in the driver's seat. Sort of.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/26862/why-goodyears-illuminated-tires-were-way-ahead-of-their-time

There are 2 video in this link. You can see these tires today. You will also see a car that probably weighs 10,000 lbs. And there is a car museum I'd like to visit.

""Goodyear's translucent tire can be produced in any color to match the car...or perhaps the wife's new outfit,'' Goodyear's development manager John J. Hartz said in 1962. ''Someday a wife may tell a husband: 'Charlie, go out and change the tires. I'm wearing my blue dress tonight."

But what really made the tire compound unique was the ability to allow light to pass through. Engineers fitted the tires with 18 light bulbs wired into the center of the wheel, creating an electroluminescent-like glow on the ground and in the car's wheel wells."
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All I can think is that this car would be impossible to drive.

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Hey, I'll be selling a bunch of nos leds from biz...I bet we could make these today!

Had to look up the "Cat Mew". They were made and sold in Japan in 1963.
https://www.vintag.es/2021/07/cat-meow-machine.html

59 years ago today....The world changed.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/day-history-feb-7-1964-050256387.html

"The Beatles were greeted by the deafening roar of thousands of screaming fans when they arrived in the United States for the very first time on this day in history, Feb. 7, 1964...."

Who remembers these?
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When I was a kid we had about a dozen of these Pyrex mugs. If I recall, they were a give away at Mobil (possibly Texaco) back in the late 1960's.
Had been looking for one for years. Couldn't find one even online. Was in a thrift store in Bellfower CA. today.
Was walking towards the exit, and there it was on a shelf!

How about this McDonald’s coffee mug.
Some long-lost freebee which was in our kitchen cupboard at home in the 1970’s.
Fast-forward to the 2010’s.
My co-worker was drinking coffee from one of these mugs, freaking me out.
I hadn’t seen it in 40 years.

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The stackable kind of coffee cup.

Many years ago I came to a fork in the road.

One road led to American wholesomeness, mother, apple pie, the two story house with white picket fence and they lived happily ever after----and church: Sunday morning service, Sunday evening service, Tuesday night visitation, Wednesday night prayer meeting, Friday night social gathering, Saturday afternoon rummage sale, and back to Sunday morning service.

The other road led to sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And pinball

Which road did you take?

You really want, MY answer?

Here is my current reading!

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I smashed it all together, mixed it all up in a jumble, then threw some stuff out and kept the good stuff in.

That's kind of how they're described on Etsy and eBay: Stackable.
The one I found cleaned up nice, but unfortunately the tan color has faded somewhat. It's actually much lighter than it looks in the picture.

I do remember some McDonalds Pyrex cups like that, but it seems like the ones I remember had different artwork.

So over the week end I was up in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles. Anime Jungle has a small "arcade that has just Bandai Gashopon's in it (probably about 40) with all sorts of capsule toys. I couldn't get in because there was a huge line.
Next to it is a another arcade that has banks of miniature cranes. I'll post pictures later.

Edit: here's the pictures:
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If anyone decides to go there, be advised that they are closed Tuesdays.

Hey Art,

I believe that is an excerpt from a larger work, "The Gnostics and Their Remains, Ancient and Medieval" by Charles William King. Published in 1864.

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Gnostics_and_Their_Remains_Ancient_a.html?id=hKoTAAAAYAAJ

This is the mug that melts my heart.

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The inspiration for the cover to my short horror collection about to be published. Arkham house books. I am drawing the new cover myself.

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The other covers in the artists set.

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Not Neccesarily the News Sniglets!

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Thank you very very much!!

Same period in the second reformation period! Charles Waites book still used in Seminary Colleges, all without the Net!

Call it Express Lane inflation: In 1987 it was 8 items to use the express lane. Now the stores are up to 20 items. At the same time, the packages still keep getting smaller.

What a difference 35 years makes.

Who bought Valentines chocolate boxes for their sweetie? Did you get your money's worth? Or was the box empty?

I refuse to pay $2.25 for a Snickers.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/14/business/valentines-day-deceptive-chocolate-boxes/index.html

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Several years ago I found one of those after a long search. I got it as a Christmas present for one of my brothers that had been looking for one.
I added a bag of A&W root beer jelly beans to go with it.
Most of the mugs i found were either new, or didn't have that logo on it.

Edit: Just checked in Visual Search. Most pictures linked say that style and logo are from 1960, but a few say as far back as the 1940's.

Currently in front of me:
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My mother found one of these years ago. Finally looked it up on the internet. It's a Robotech Coffee mug.
Apparently, decades later you can still get a pair of these (a second one is the same except dark blue).

I still have a set of these in a box somewhere.

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I vaguely remember those. Aren't they from about the mid 1970's?

There was an A&W stand on the corner of 27th and Central in NE Minneapolis just down the block from my Mother's bar. Building is still there, been a used car lot forever.

Nothing like a cold frosty mug of A&W root beer with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on a hot summer day.

LTG : )

There are still A&Ws around in some places...this one is just a couple of miles from my work.

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ROBO 1 by Tomy…

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I used to have one here in Norwalk that's log gone. and there was one in Fullerton CA. for many years that had car-hop service, also long gone.
Not to long ago a couple of local malls had A&W locations in the food courts, also gone.
Now the closest one to me is almost a two hour plus drive away. The last one I saw in California is in Baker off I-15 heading to Las Vegas... two plus hour drive.

Robotics did fully happen too. Still happening.

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These robotics systems are about 25 million installed today. And up.

Pays my bills and for my pinball machines.

A friend of mine took this photo of our hometown A&W a couple months ago. It's the only business that I can think of that has been there since we moved to Edgerton in 1981.

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