New Inventions - Forging tomorrow from yesterday's future of the past, today.

New aids for radio fans. Uncertain benefit for lamp fans. Radio is hidden in lamp base. Speaker in shade. Also has "big sleep" timer in the event that user dies during use (shown), to conserve power.

New optical device, when coupled with yard stick, measures safe distance to children, a common source of children. May also be used by persons of unambiguous gender identity.

Click for big.

Click for big.

Ship Interiors 1949 - Gangway!

1949's June issue of Fortune magazine had this feature article called "Modern Art Goes to Sea". It's all about the use of murals and paintings in cruise ships. Yeah the art is good but never mind that. Look how cool cruise ships were in '49! Never mind "a star to steer her by". I don't need to find my way back as long as I'm on one of these boats. Mind-hurtingly cool bars and lounges in three, two, one... mind hurt now!

Click for big.

Click for big.

Click for big.

OWW! My mind!

Wolf's Head Oil - Engine horror.

It is the burden of every oil manufacturer to educate the customer about what goes on inside their engine, and thereby, why they need to have a really good oil in there. This 1957 ad from Wolf's Head oil (which apparently exists) wants to shrink you down and stick you in your engine to see the nightmare of internal combustion first hand.

"Aaaaaaaa! FIRE! Somebody help m-" is what you'd think as your life was snuffed out before you could open your tiny mouth to scream. In case you thought your engine was basically a really big coiled spring, you need to know the truth - that there's fire and explosions, and maybe the Eye of Sauron in there, exploding your way to work.

Sauron; A leading cause of engine knock
and premature wear.

As any Guy Who Wears a Suit for a Living can tell you, nothing is real until it is either A) presented to you, double spaced, with a few charts and graphs thrown in for flair or B) you are magically de-biggened and teleported inside it and you burn and die.

I've noticed that any time anything even vaguely sciencey is explained to "laymen", the tone of the conversation immediately degrades to that of a toddler. Watch for the next mention of "science" on mainstream news networks (Bring a sandwich. You may be waiting a while.) and the anchor will instantly dumb it down to the level of a concussed orangutan, or... you know... the level of a news reader. Bam!

Any time something new kind of happens at Cern's LHC, they immediately use the completely retarded and inflammatory term "the God particle", so that people will understand nothing, but still get really angry at the researchers. Any time somebody at a university makes a tiny step forward in the development of metamaterials and radiation masking, the story will be tagged with the idiotic headline "Harry Potter- Style Invisibility Cloak Something Something". People talk about things in the vernacular that they understand them. In the case of science in the news, it's usually that of an eight year old. Mainstream news reporting: cherishing ignorance so you don't have to.

Anyoldway, Wolf's Head is still in business, I guess. I assume their oil is nice and oily with no aftertaste, but I've never seen it in any store. I was surprised to find their site. I hope they know more about oil than they do web design. If your site is going to play an annoying WAV of a howling wolf every time you view the home page, you should have a volume or mute button to turn that crap off. If you go to Valvoline's site, you aren't immediately assaulted with the sound of a valve leaning, are you? You're welcome, Wolf's head. Let me know when you're ready to send my check and I'll tell you where.

Click for big.

Trade School Sonnets - Model 60 8" Jointer

I will make for my love a box
and fill it with my love.
Will he know? The box shall be empty.
I will fill it, using the Model 60 8 inch jointer.

No! It will not be empty!
It will have the flattest sides
and straightest edges
for, the infeed and outfeed tables
are mounted on dovetailed ways.

It will be full of perfect angles
or unmatched uniformity
for the fence is full-length
and self-aligning.

The faces shall have no flaw
to make him doubt me
for the motor is driven by non-slip V-belts.

O! He shall know that the box is not empty
but full! Full of my love!
If he looks, he will see.
If he feels, he will feel.
O yes! I will make for my love a box
with the Model 60 8" jointer.

Also available with 3-phase motor.

The French Line - A cartoon of Frenchness, by Pierre.

I need to go to Paris some time. Friends that have been there tell me that the whole thing about the French being pricks just isn't true. Apparently, they're pricks to you only if you condict yourself like an Ugly American - you know, being belligerent, and getting irritated when France isn't exactly like the U.S.A. Also, I'm told that the people are even nicer if you go outside the city, where they're not bombarded with blowhardy tourists all the time. Makes sense.

This 1936 ad for  French Line cruise ships seems to portray a cartoonish parody of Paris. Really? Kids playing with circle-and-stick in 1936? This painting looks more like 1836 to me. At least the dogs aren't poodles. Maybe those wiener dogs are the first German invaders? They do seem to have that boy on a leash.

Here's a travelogue of Paris from 1936. It seems more modern than life in the painting.



Surely this painting must have been done by an American. nobody else would..... huh?

Seriously? "Pierre Brissaud?" That name can't be real. It's got to be a jo... Hey, wow! apparently old Pierre was big in the deco movement, born and trained in France. Nice work, Pierre. Actually, I like his other work even better than the watercolor in this ad. He seems to have to have dialed back his personal style for this french Line ad. These other examples of his stuff seem to have more personality. Check it out:

I like Brissaud so much, I have half a mind to put this book on the old Amazon wish list for later purchase. Oh hell. That's the Kindle version. I want paper, baby! Oh well.

Lastly, here's Jonathan and Darlene Edwards molesting Paris in the Spring from their fantastic masterwork Jonathan and Darlene Edwards' greatest Hits:

Click for big.

Dobbs Hats - Absolutely vital.

Hardly any men wear hats any more, apart from beardy hipster geeks in the city, and half the time you see them wearing cutoff jean shorts, riding a flourescent yellow stupid fixed-gear bike at the same time. Wearing a hat in a weird way just to be ironic or "edge" doesn't count. Behold this Dobbs ad from 1961, when hats were "absolutely vital for business".

Here's Serious Business Guy sitting in the seamless orange void that the Moroccan guy uses for an office. It looks like the SBG is trying to land a deal selling fabric to the Moroccan guy. Weird. I'd think it would be more likely for the honky guy to buy fabric from Morocco. Clearly, SBG is waiting for Turban Guy's decision - a perfect opportunity to pose for the camera and look seriously businessy in your Dobbs hat... with a backup hat ready to go just in case of Sudden Hat Failure (SHF).

Just in case.

See? Hats are so absolutely vital that you need a spare, to avoid the trauma of being without a hat even for an instant. Know what? If SBG was really thinking, he'd just wear both of them, in case one blows off.

This was 1961, which I'm going to call "Mad Men" era, because that's the only way anyone understands The Sixties now. In Mad Men Era, hats were standard. I have to admit, this Serious Business Guy looks pretty cool, despite his rather surprising combination of a brown hat with a grey suit. I think he needs to reach for the grey backup to his left. When did hats fall of the "must have" list? I'm not sure. Probably somewhere in The Late Sixties or Early Seventies, when nobody wanted to look like their dad any more.

This is a little disappointing. I think it would be nice if the old hat thing came back as standard, but I'm not sure how it would need to happen, to actually stick. The annoying hipsters will tell you that hats are back, but their judgement is flawed. They also think that flip flops are okay in winter. Well, I guess you've got your neck beard to keep you warm. Lame-ass hipsters wearing hats doesn't mean they're "back". Quite the opposite. Annoying douchebags like this guy only prove that hats are definitely NOT back, and can't come back until retards like him knock it off. Would someone please punch this guy?

I'm no hat guy, so I'm going to cautiously call the hat in the Dobbs ad a fedora. Indiana Jones wore one, but his had a wider brim. I think it's still a fedora, though. According to Wikipedia, the fedora style hat comes from a play in 1882, in which Princess Fedora wore a hat similar to what we now identify as a fedora. Weird. Here are some other non-fedora hats, just for trivia's sake.

Homburg: Sterotypical British
business guy hat.

Trilby: The straw version is
favored by Chicago Hipsters.

Pork Pie: Required for
playing the blues.

Derby: Other stereotypical British
business guy hat. Also required if you
are a very strong mouse.

Click for big.

The Dial Room.

Joke #1 - Two engineers at their posts inside the GL-4601-N, Casio's largest and most durable G-Shock wristwatch to date.

Joke #2 - In 1951, The Jet Propulsion Laboratory was sued by a group of employees who felt that the placement of several CRT displays unfairly discriminated against researchers less than thirteen feet tall.

Joke #3 - "Oh, the cookies are nearly done. Start up the forklift. Mom's going to have the best birthday ever!"

Joke #4 - "...and this dial tracks how often I have impure thoughts. Then Janet Reno became Attorney General and, well, I had to install a few more dials. Meow-wow! Am I right, Ken? I said 'am I right???'"

Joke #5 - "Hmm. Looks like there's a blip approaching from the west. Ken, go open hatch number four and look up a lot. Were you expecting any blips?"

Joke #6 - "The needle just moved. Yep, we're shrinking."

Joke #7 - "...and this gauge will register the ground state, which we will hopefully see couple to the.... Ken, get your hand off my thigh."

Joke #8 - "You see? Radiation levels are going berserk. Everyone in L.A. IS dead. You owe me a Twix, stupid."

[Commenter jokes will be added to the post.   -Mgmt.]

Click for big.