Hot Root Beer From The Toaster

A&W Root Beer Pop Tarts
Kellogg's (2016)
I don't know what to think of these.  There's something off-putting about a hot pastry that tastes like root beer, so I wouldn't recommend toasting these, but they're not bad at room temperature.  I might try to make a root beer float ice cream sandwich out of these later on.

Desert Storm Showdown

World Wrestling Federation House Show
West Palm Beach Auditorium - West Palm Beach, FL

July 1, 1991

My dad brought me to my first ever pro wrestling show for my 11th birthday.  It's been 25 years and my memory is a little fuzzy, but if I remember correctly, the card on the ad above isn't exactly what happened during the show.

Mr. Perfect (aka: Curt Hennig) came out to wrestle Koko B. Ware in the opening match, but he allowed The Genius (aka: Leaping Lanny Poffo) take his place.  Tugboat turned heel in June and appeared in this show as Typhoon to wrestle The British Bulldog in the second match.  The third match featured The Mountie (aka Jacques Rougeau) vs. The Big Bossman.  These two would go on to wrestle at Summer Slam a little less than two months later in the infamous "Jailhouse Match".  The fourth match was the undercard version of the main event, with Hacksaw Jim Duggan inspiring chants of "USA" in his match against former WWF Heavyweight Champion The Iron Sheik, who was in the role of the Iraqi sympathizer Col. Mustafa at the time.

Two of my favorite wrestlers, Roddy Piper and Ted DiBiase, faced each other in a tag team match prior to the main event.  At Wrestlemania VII, Virgil had Piper in his corner when he faced off against his former boss, Ted DiBiase.  In the match tonight, Virgil teamed with Piper to face Ted DiBiase and I.R.S. (aka: Mike Rotundo) in what may have been one of the first times Money Inc. wrestled as a tag team.  I'm not even sure if they were announced as Money Inc. when they came to the ring.

The main event was a rematch of the Wrestlemania VII main event that took place just over three months ago.  If I remember correctly, Hulk Hogan threw a fireball at Sgt. Slaughter and won the match by putting Slaughter in his own Camel Clutch finishing move.

It was a fun show that included four wrestlers who wrestled at the first Wrestlemania (Hogan, Piper, Sheik and Rotundo).  It also featured two wrestlers who had held the WWF World Heavyweight Championship (Hogan and Slaughter) - three if you count the short title reign of DiBiase that has been edited out of the history books.

Results:

• Koko B. Ware defeated The Genius (with Mr. Perfect)
• "The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith defeated Typhoon
• The Mountie (with Jimmy Hart) defeated  The Big Bossman
• "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan defeated Colonel Mustafa (The Iron Sheik)
• "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and Virgil defeated Money Inc. ("The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase and I.R.S.)
• WWF World Heavyweight Championship Match
  Desert Storm Match
  Hulk Hogan defeated Sgt. Slaughter

Ecto Cooler Scrapbook

Ecto Cooler

Hi-C (1987 - 1999)

For the past few years, I've kept a folder on my desktop where I kept images of my favorite childhood beverage that I've downloaded from eBay, Flickr, Tumblr and various blogs that are are better put together than mine.  I've lost track of what images came from what pages so I apologize for the lack of sources, but here are a bunch of photos and scans of the Ghostbusters-inspired juice drink.

Dad's New Hat

My pop just got back from a trip to Jamaica and he's got a new hat.

It's Like 1995 Threw Up

This is one of the things I got at Grumpo's yesterday.  I've never seen anything in my life that screams mid-90's quite as loudly as the cover of this notebook.

King of New Old Stock

Grumpo's Warehouse
Race Street - Wilkes-Barre, PA
This is a remarkable store.  It's filled with treasures from the past at a reasonable price.  I could spend hours walking around here marveling at all of the new old stock items from the 70's, 80's and 90's.  Here are some of the items we saw today.

The People's Beeper

WWF Rage Pager
Motorola (1999)

The Rock may be starring in movies with Kevin Hart these days, but he was hawking pagers for Sam Goody at the close of the 20th century.  These WWF branded Motorola Worldline FLX Pagers were given away to fans who attended a live event during the WWF Road Rage Tour, but only if they signed a one year service contract that cost in the neighborhood of $150 with activation fees, taxes, and shipping & handling.

When A Problem Comes Along, You Must Reddi-wip It

Reddi-wip (1989)
Don't lie... you'd eat it and you'd love it.  [source: Reddit]

Previously Used Liquids

Perrier (1984)
When you consider how many different species of dinosaurs there were and the number of years that they existed on earth, statistically speaking, everything you ever drank in your life was at least partially made up of liquid that was once dinosaur pee.  Bottoms up!

The Atari Deli

Sears Atari Video Game Selection Center
Koppa's Fulbeli Deli - Milwaukee, WI
There's a grocery store and deli in Milwaukee that has one of their endcaps set up as a late 70's living room where shoppers can stop and play Atari 2600 games on a vintage demo unit from the earliest days of the console's release.  You can see more photos of the deli and their Atari station on Google Maps and City Voter.

A Giant Among Men

André the Giant
70 years ago today, André René Roussimoff was born in northern France.  He would go on to become the most recognized athlete in the world of his time; perhaps of all time.

Smells Like Strawberry Nesquik

We're in the process of switching up our teams at Nestle Consumer Services.  Prior to this change, I was the trainer for Confections, Baking and Ice Cream.  Going forward, I will be the trainer for Confections, Beverage, Ice Cream and Global Foods.

In tribute of this change, here is a photo of Kurt Cobain drinking a carton of Strawberry Nestle Quik.  I'm guessing this was taken in the late 80's by a friend of his who had no way of knowing that a Nirvana fan would one day incorporate this into a Power Point used to train new hires at a call center (Courtney, please don't sue me).

Black Diamonds Aren't Forever

Black Diamond Antiques & Collectibles
Schuylkill Mall - Frackville, PA
Photo Album / Video
This store truly was a treasure.  Going to Black Diamond was like walking through 50,000 square feet of eBay.  I've seen a little of everything here: records, VHS tapes, video games, toys, comics, advertising signs, arcade machines, even phone booths from the early 20th century.  The store was broken up into over a hundred separate booths.  Some of them had a theme, like vintage music or collectibles.  Others were a random assortment that looked more like a yard sale.  Just about every booth had pretty cool stuff, most of which was less expensive than buying it online.  It's the kind of place you could spend a full day just walking around, even if you didn't buy anything.  Sadly, after 14 years, they are closing for good at the end of the day.

For some reason, Black Diamond was really touchy about cameras, but I managed to take about 300 photos and a video walk-through to share, so at least some small parts of this incredible store can live on.

80's Cereal Aisle

This photo came from a textbook from 1986 called Connections For Health and was shared in an article by Matt from Dinosaur Dracula.  I've eaten at least half of these when I was a kid, but the main one that caught my eye that I never got to try is OJ's cereal.  According to the commercials, it was supposed to make the milk taste like orange juice.

Liquor and Pinball

Satin Doll - Williams (1975) and
Spin Out - Gottlieb (1975)
This photo was taken in a liquor store in 1976.  In the 70's and 80's, it wasn't uncommon to see arcade games and pinball machines in pizza parlors, grocery stores, mini marts, laundromats and just about anywhere else.  This photo was shared by Beatnik Daddio - not sure of the source.

Ting-A-Ling Double Play

Ting-A-Ling Double Play (1975)
Dave Cash and Larry Bowa
I posted Phillies Fever yesterday, and it wouldn't be right if Ting-A-Ling Double Play didn't have its own entry.  It's about how the Phillies middle infield are inspired by food and drink to turn a double play to end a game that has gone to extra innings.

In the first verse, it's an ice cream truck outside of Veteran's Stadium in the bottom of the 14th inning.  A hot dog vendor gets their attention in the bottom of the 17th inning in verse two.  Finally, a member of the cleaning crew knocked over a soda can in the bottom of the 23rd inning, which sent our beloved 2B/SS combo into a cola-induced, bag-tagging frenzy to end the game with a double play.

Just listen...

Phillies Fever

Phillies Fever (1976)
Dave Cash, Larry Bowa, Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski and Garry Maddox
There are plenty of frightening things about this song, but the scariest part to me is the fact that this isn't the first time Dave Cash and Larry Bowa cut a baseball record.  One year before "Phillies Fever" introduced disco baseball to the world, our middle infield recorded "Ting A Ling Double Play"  It's difficult to say which is worse, but they're required listening for any die-hard Phillies fan.

What Was That Email Address Again, Ma'am?

The unfortunate side effect of auto-generated college email accounts  [source: Twitter].

More Music For Your Money

Gallery Of Sound
Laurel Mall - Hazleton, PA

I love all the neon signs in my local music store.  The DVD sign on the right hand side of the door used to say "Tapes" back in the day.  They also were the only place to get foreign and underground CD releases in the days before online shopping, like Nirvana: Outcesticides and Smashing Pumpkins: Black Sessions.

Schnoodle In The Sun

Little Harvey is enjoying a nice, warm day in the yard.

What A Wonderful World

Joey Ramone
What A Wonderful World
From the album Don't Worry About Me (2002)
One of the best songs ever written was covered by Joey Ramone and released posthumously on his only solo album.  The icon of punk rock died 15 years ago today.

Turn Me Off

Light switch cover sticker
Quisp cereal toy - Quaker Oats (1977)
Children (and adults) could collect all three light switch stickers in specially marked boxes of Quisp cereal in 1977.  Each sticker featured the quazy alien with a message that encouraged the reader not to waste electricity.

Sunset Over The Golden Arches

McDonald's
Mountaintop, PA

Please Don't Break My Atari

Please Don't Break My Atari
Weird Paul Petroskey
Thick Syrup Records
I heard this earlier today on the latest episode of the Super Podcast Bros, which I highly recommend to any fan of retro gaming, or video games in general.  The song is absolute comedy cheese, but it's also actually pretty catchy.  I've had it stuck in my head ever since.

Rose's Ring

MLB Opening Day
April 8, 1981
Pete Rose and Larry Bowa with their World Series Championship rings 35 years ago.  This photo was taken before the start of the 1981 Opening Day game against the Cincinnati Reds.

Richie Rich For GM

National League Centennial Comic Book
Harvey Comics (1976)
To celebrate 100 years of National League baseball, Harvey Comics released a special baseball themed comic.  There were a number of variant covers with different teams featured at the top, including the Phillies, Giants, Astros, Dodgers and Pirates, as well as a standard version without no focus on any one specific team.  The stories featured Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich and Wendy the Witch.

George Nada Takes On The Fascinators

Alien Encounters: Issue #6
Eclipse Comics (April 1986)
This comic anthology of science fiction stories came out 30 years ago.  It included a seven page story called Nada, which is an adaptation of the 1963 Ray Nelson short story "Eight O'Clock In The Morning".  Both the comic and its source material inspired the 1988 John Carpenter film "They Live".

This entire Nada comic is hosted online by SAP Comics. Click here to read it.

Five Years Without The Comet

Blue Comet
Route 309 - Hazleton, PA
This iconic diner has now sat vacant for five years after closing their doors for the last time in April 2011.  The images above show what it looked like in the 80's and 90's, with the stone front, red brick, and the plants on the right hand side of the building, and in the 2000's after the remodel, with the box-like chrome storefront and the flagpole.

source: Blue Comet postcard  (year and photographer unknown)

source: Donna Esposito (October 12, 2008)

I'm still hopeful that this place will reopen someday.  It's a local landmark that dates back to 1939 and I have a lot of happy memories here.  One of these days, I'm going to do a write up on its history.

Luke, This Is Not The Cake You're Looking For

Sir Alex Guinness turned 62 during the filming the first Star Wars movie in 1976.  This photo was taken on his birthday (April 2nd, 1976) in Djerba, off of the coast of Tunisia, where they were filming the Tatooine scenes.  Mark Hamill and Alex Guinness (in costume as Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi) are celebrating with producer Gary Kurtz and director George Lucas.

The Book Of Murphy

"We're 24 morons and a Mormon."
- John Kruk describing the Phillies of the early 90's after the team acquired Dale Murphy from the Atlanta Braves in an August, 1990 trade.

Test Kitchen Tuesday

Butterfinger Baking Bits, Toll House Triple Chip Blend and Toll House Cookie Mixes
Nestle (2016)
It's always a good day in the test kitchen when we have new products to try.  These should be available in stores this summer.