Bitches love snozzberries.

Old Country Bear Jamboree postcard, Disneyland, Anaheim, California

http://www.gocomics.com/jimsjournal/2012/05/01

http://www.elastic.tv/director/AngusWall

While driving yesterday with kid two in Saint Paul, she says “Before I die, I want to go to an antique store.” A block later, we passed the Mall of St. Paul (aka the Antique Mall). Located on the corner of Selby and Fairview, I’ve probably driven by that place a thousand times, but never went in. Until now.

The place was huge – two sides on the first floor, plus a large basement jammed floor to ceiling with a lot of junk, er, treasure. The kid was in heaven, grinning from ear to ear the entire two hours we spent browsing.

We ended up only spending three dollars this time, but the kid said all she wants for Christmas is money to spend there. I was a little sad to find a lot of things there I remembered from growing up, but it was cool too. A few samples:

GIRL WHO ONLY EAT MCNUGGET FOR 15 YEAR IN HOSPITAL! BET THIS IS FIRST DOCTOR SHE EVER SEE NOT NAMED PEPPER!

South Park Studios Avatar Creator

We’re bringin’ brighter days, they’re all in line, waitin’ for you…

SO COLD! DRUNK HULK NEED AT LEAST FIVE DEAD TAUNTAUN TO GET WARM!

http://www.minnesotahistorycenter.org/exhibits/1968

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6648229/siri-argument

Not as bad as Star Wars Mickey, but still sort of wrong…

Is this Florida?

http://www.mtv.com/shows/beavis_and_butthead/video.jhtml?filter=fulleps

See I got this friend named Joey Joe-Joe Junior Shabadoo…

It’s alright to cry, crying takes the sad out of you.

http://online.wsj.com/video/mike-judge-on-the-return-of-beavis-and-butt-head/1BF77FE9-99C8-4417-9D3C-D662AA59764D.html

Great idea, great story.

From R.E.M. HQ today:

“To our Fans and Friends: As R.E.M., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band. We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening.” R.E.M.

After a while, it seemed like the newer R.E.M. albums all blurred together, but Automatic for the People, Life’s Rich Pageant, Document and even Monster played a huge part in my life growing up. I can’t remember how many times we saw them in concert (maybe just once), but I’ll never forget secretly following Stipey around the British Museum while trying not to look too much like a star-struck fan.

Cheers to you, Messrs. Stipe, Buck and Mills!

Plans for this fall:

• Hawaii Five-O, CBS, Mon@9PM
• Glee, Fox, Tue@7PM
• Survivor, CBS, Wed@7PM
• Modern Family, ABC, Wed@8PM
• CSI, CBS, Wed@9PM
• Community, NBC, Thu@7PM
• The Office, NBC, Thu@8PM

I’d also like to catch Boardwalk Empire and Hung on HBO, depending on when the replays air at the resort. Lots of Showtime series too, but we don’t get that channel here…

Dragonfire, Demon Attack, Beauty & the Beast, Atlantis, Swords & Serpents.

I really liked Imagic games back in the day. So much so, I guess, that I actually wrote them in 1983 (when I was 14) asking when their stock will go on sale. Kathleen Booth, Consumer Affairs, wrote back and said I should contact Merrill Lynch to see what information they could give me. She also enclosed an application for the “Numb Thumb Club.”

Such a nerd.

It’s sort of easy to see how I came to work in technology, isn’t it?

I really was spoiled growing up – I’m pretty sure I owned every one of these games at some point.

I remember how totally cool I thought this was when I first got it – “B-17 Bommmmmber!” That particular game was even cooler for me, as my grandfather actually was a B-17 bomber pilot in World War II.

Space Spartans and Bomb Squad were pretty lame and I don’t remember if that Tron game ever actually got released. I wonder if anyone has those sound clips somewhere now…

UPDATE: Of course there is, this is the age of the internets, after all.

A Mark Goodson – Bill Todman Production

My dad tried to get on this show more than once. I was always mad that I wasn’t old enough to be on it. Too bad that’s not the problem any more, eh?

This bottle made me a little sad as I realized that Disneyland is celebrating their 55th anniversary this year. The 1980 penny inside is still shiny and kid two wants to know how they got it in there to begin with. Good question!

As some of you know, my family members have been big Disney fans as long as I can remember. The first trip I can remember to Disneyland was 1975 during the bicentennial celebration. With my mom working at Northwest, we pretty much just alternated between California and Florida for many, many years.

I really like the old Disney souvenirs. I found a bunch of older postcards too that I’ll scan soon. Stay tuned…

How many nerds out there can say they have one of these bad boys? That game was pretty terrible, too, if I remember correctly…

This weekend I did some cleaning in the basement and found all sorts of fun stuff. I’ll start posting photos here this week, starting with this this excellent Northwest Orient egg plane. I think the “Orient” name was dropped in 1986 after the Republic merger, so I’m guessing this is from the mid-80s.

Yesterday Colleen and I made our annual trek over to the Walker Art Center to see the British Television Advertising Awards in the beautiful McGuire Theater.

Before the show, we spent some time going through the galleries, including the new Benches & Binoculars exhibit. The layout reminded me of museums we saw in the UK and was well done. Be sure to pick up the handouts if you go – they have a lot of great info in them.

After the galleries, we had lunch at Wolfgang Puck’s 20.21, which was surprisingly crowded for that time of day. Colleen tried the tasting menu and selected pot stickers, salmon and chocolate cake (with a 20•21 bellini to drink). I had the Singapore style street noodles with masala braised short ribs and the cookie sampler for dessert. Pastry chef Corinne Sherbert helped us select the desserts and brought them to our table. They were all good, but I really liked the cheesecake brownies.

As for the awards, it seemed to be an average year. I had already seen the advertisement of the year online and didn’t think it was very good. As usual, the public service announcements were shocking and effective, while VW had some of my favorites:

The show lasts about 80 minutes and tickets are $10 for the general public ($8 for Walker members). The last screenings are on Saturday, January 2, but many of the remaining dates are already sold out.

Colleen and I went to the Walker Art Center on Sunday to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary by watching a favorite of ours, the annual British Television Advertising Awards.

The 2008 edition had a number of ads that we liked a lot, but here is my favorite (semi-NSFW):

Many of the ads are funny, but as always, the PSA’s were hard hitting:

The best commercial of the year was a let-down, as we’ve seen it before many times. One other weird thing happened – during the show, the cane of a person sitting behind me slipped and hit me square on the back of my head. It scared me more than anything, but it was one of those canes with a brass duck head, so the impact was more than just a love tap. Ouch!

My wife says she’s never seen so many geeky men so excited about anything before. Yesterday we went to the Science of Minnesota to see the Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit.

They had a large selection of props and costumes from the various movies and a number of science-themed kiosks to explain the science behind the fiction. We also waited for the 30-minute presentation on robots that featured that “shiny guy that worries a lot,” but skipped the extra-fee hyperspace simulator.

The selection of Star Wars items in the gift shop was a little disappointing, focusing on a lot of regular junky toys, Halloween costumes and, rather surprisingly, a bunch of Family Guy Blue Harvest items. Not much in the way of exhibit guides or merchandise specific to the Science Museum either. They were selling unwrapped Star Wars trading cards, though, for $8.50 per pack (with a warning to *not* eat the gum).

Worth a visit if your childhood included Luke, Leia, Han and Chewy. Anakin et al. don’t count…

UPDATE: Photo gallery of low-res iPhone shots

Last Friday I picked up a print we finally had framed after about twelve years in storage. We picked up this Frank Kozik print on one of our visits to London (I believe at the no-longer-open Vinyl Experience store off of Oxford Street). It’s a signed, limited edition (28 out of 75) print of the Kansas City band Season to Risk’s 1992 self-titled album cover.

Didn’t know that at the time–just thought it looked sweet…

How cool is this? Purchased on eBay last week and now a part of the office hockey shrine. Now I need to get the McDonald’s Canada mini hockey stick collection for 2007-08…

Viva La Canada!

Colleen and I went to see Warm Beer Cold Women at the Guthrie’s Dowling Theater this weekend. The theater was set up the exact reverse way from when we saw Phil Callen in Pen this fall, which threw me off at first.

I’ve liked Tom Waits for a long time, but realized I’m not much of a Waits expert. This show had lots of songs I’d never heard before, but we still had a good time. Katy Hays was our favorite performer, but Dennis Curley had his moments and Robert Berdahl (who also wrote, directed and produced) did an admirable job with his torn Achilles and crutches.

The musicians were very strong and we really liked Dan Chouinard on keyboards and Mark Stillman on accordion (his entrance at the beginning of Rain Dogs was a highlight of the evening).

Complete list of songs from the program after the jump.

Warm Beer Cold Woman

• New Coat of Paint (1974)
• Ice Cream Man (1973)
• Fumblin’ with the Blues (1974)
• I Want You (1973)
• I Never Talk to Strangers (1977)
• Warm Beer Cold Women (1976)
• The Tango (1982)
• Ruby’s Arms (1980)
• Xmas Card from a Hooker in Mpls (1978)
• Picking Up After You (1982)
• Broken Bicycles (1982)
• Take Me Home (1982)
• Rain Dogs (1985)
• Tango ‘Til They’re Sore (1985)
• Frank’s Wild Years (1983)
• Jockey Full of Bourbon (1985)
• Yesterday is Here (1987)
• Bend Down the Branches (1998)
• Temptation (1987)
• Johnsburg, Illinois (1983)
• Telephone Call from Istanbul (1987)
• Time (1985)
• It’s Over (1999)
• I’ll Never Let Go of Your Hand (1992)
• Reeperbahn (2002)
• Mr. Henry (1981)
• Down There by the Train (1994)
• Buzz Fledderjon (1999)
• Walk Away (1995)
• That’s the Way (1993)
• The Briar and the Rose (1993)

Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, Minnesota
January 31st – February 17th, 2008

Yesterday my wife and I went to see the 1pm screening of the 2007 British Television Advertising Awards at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. We’ve seen these a number of times the past few years, but this was only the second time we’ve seen them in the new(er) McGuire Theater, which has a really great interior design.

Before we went in the theater, we checked out the Frida Kahlo exhibit next door, as there was absolutely no line. The exhibit was great and I learned a lot I didn’t know about the artist. We saw all three of the actual paintings shown above, two of which had pretty twisted stories behind them. Ms. Kahlo was one interesting personality, that’s for sure…

Found this during the excavation of my parent’s basement. Copyright on the bottom reads 1970…

It’s been crazy busy at work the past week, but we’ve managed to take in a few diversions. Last weekend my wife and I went to see Grindhouse at the local theater in Eagan. I’m a big fan of past Tarantino and Rodriguez movies like Pulp Fiction and El Mariachi, but this one just didn’t do it for me. It was way too long and I didn’t like the actors nearly as much as the other films. The distressed look got old after a while too. The car scenes were great, though, and I loved the ending. My favorite part of the whole thing was the opening trailer for the “mock” film, Machete. Danny Trejo rocks! I hope they really do make that movie.

Tonight I stopped at the local Best Buy and picked up the new Son Volt CD, The Search, and the new Tanya Donelly CD that I didn’t know about, This Hungry Life. It’s been a long time since I bought any new music, so I’m anxious to add these to my iPod.

Lastly, I’m a late convert to the show 24. Via Netflix, we started from the beginning and tonight I started disc five of season two. Some parts (and characters) are hokey, but overall it really draws you in and keeps you watching. Only 78 more hours to catch up to this season!

Following a meme passed to me by Chuck Goolsbee (and following the instructions here), I present my Mini at Mount Rushmore.

My awesome wife waited in line for an hour to get me this last week…DK

See, Greedo’s gun didn’t even work–George broke it…DK