Holy cow, I love this commercial. What child of the 70s didn’t want a Mr. Microphone after seeing all the fun these characters were having with it? The funny thing is, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who ever owned one. Maybe I have actually met someone who owned one back in the day, but they just never told me that they did. I think that’s a shame. If I had one as a kid, I would probably still tell everyone to this day. Here’s how the conversation would go. Imagine me at a corporate staff meeting with lots of my peers from across the region…

Senior Vice President Larry: Hi Matt, I’m Larry. I’m glad you made the trip.
Me: Thanks Larry. Good to meet you. I once had a Mr. Microphone.
Larry: No way! I loved those commercials! Did it work as well as they said?
Me: Hell yeah it did.
Larry: Did you ever say, “Hey good looking, I’ll be back to pick you up later…”?
Me: That’s how I met my wife.
Larry: Outstanding. Why don’t you come down to corporate after the meeting. I want to give you a promotion.
Me: Sure thing Larry. Thanks.

There you have it. The kids who had a Mr. Microphone are probably still reaping all the benefits. Damn, I wish my parents loved me enough to have given me one for Christmas.

I’ve never been what folks in the industry call a gamer. I’m dating myself a bit, but the only two gaming systems I’ve ever owned were the Atari 2600 (in middle school) and a Sega Genesis (right after college). I’ve certainly been tempted to pick up one of the new systems whenever the newest, latest and greatest comes out. But alas, I’m too busy living my real life to get sucked into a virtual existence and spend too much time in front of the TV. Don’t get me wrong– I’m certainly not averse to gamers and gaming, but I just have too much else going on to devote any energy to something that in the greater scheme of things seems so trivial.

The industry however, from a business perspective at least, fascinates me. I did a little research today while searching for potential niche markets to get involved in and came across the Sony PlayStation 2 community. Arguably, this is the most popular gaming system ever introduced. A search for PS2 Games on eBay (where niche markets are prevalent) returned over 12,000 items for sale. Google returned 12 million pages, and I discovered that search term gets searched for over 100,000 times a month. This was kind of amazing to me. Consider this is more searches than either the PS3 or the Nintendo wii which is supposedly the latest and greatest. And this is for a system that is, what, six years old now? That’s ancient in the world of technology. Anyway, I finished my research and put together a quick affiliate site for PlayStation 2 Games. Maybe I’ll post some stats here about how it does. It looks like the answer to my initial question, is the video gaming industry dying, is going to be a solid “no.” At least for now anyway.

Hot buttered popcorn! Here’s a 19 second commercial from a 1960 Drive-In movie. Look at the well-behaved girl sitting in the back of the convertible. I just want to smack her. Of course she’s old enough to be my mother. I’ll bet in 1960 when she was filming this commercial, she never dreamed that people would be watching it 50 years later on flat-screen space-age monitors with video signals coming through thin wires into little black boxes sitting on our desks. But we are. And a special thanks to Al Gore for inventing this madness.

Cold, refreshing drinks, oh yeah. This 19 second clip from a 1961 drive-in movie is a real blast from the past. I think the lady munching on the delicious coconut candy bar is my grandmother.

I still love these old commercials. This 13 second clip is from a 1960 drive-in movie commercial. It makes me want to run out and get a crisp, flavorful fish sandwich right now. Or go to a drive-in movie. Check out the “almost” grin on the kid in the last second of the clip. Yeah, he looks happy to be there. This was pulled from the Prelinger files on archive.org.

I was recently shopping online for a Mother’s Day gift and was pretty much overwhelmed by the choices and all the sites out there offering the “perfect” gift for the mother in your life. If you didn’t shop online for Mother’s Day this year, try a simple search for “mother’s day gift” on any search engine. Google returned about four million pages, and the top 10 were actually pretty poor results. I gave up on that search and decided to work a little harder to come up with something that my mother might like. I came up with the standard gift ideas on my own - flowers, fruit baskets, perfume, etc. (Yes, I’m pretty smart that way). Then I remembered a popcorn store we have here in Virginia Beach. I did a quick search for popcorn gifts and came across a great little site called Dale and Thomas Popcorn.

If you’ve never been to their site, you should check it out. They have a huge selection of gourmet popcorn and the store is so professionally designed and a pleasure to browse that I spent a lot more time visiting than I would a standard ecommerce site. I picked up one of their sampler packs (with several different types of popcorn) packaged in some very attractive boxes and tins. Remember the big round popcorn tins with a cheesy Christmas painting that you can pick up for about four dollars at Wal-mart or Costco every holiday season? These are nothing like that. The gifts at Dale and Thomas are much more upscale and professional. Of course, they were a bit more expensive than the Wal-mart tins, but in my opinion, are well worth it.

24 second clip. 1960 Drive-In Movie ad. This guy is dressed like Frosty the Snowman in the classic stop-action animation, ‘Santa Clause is Coming to Town.’

This is one seriously advanced experimental science kit. If you’re thinking about introducing your child to a study of some of our more renewable energy sources, you can’t go wrong with this kit. In this, one of the coolest science kits available anywhere, you get to put a basic model car together- then add a solar cell and hydrogen fuel cell to provide the power. It uses the solar cell to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. The fuel cell then uses these gases to produce electricity to actually drive the car.

The experiments in the Thames and Kosmos Fuel Cell Car range from fairly basic to very advanced, but the manual that comes with it is truly first rate. Thames and Kosmos makes some great physics and chemistry sets and this is one of their best. I wholeheartedly recommend this for the environmentally conscious parent who wants their child to learn about some of the science that we may come to rely on in their generation.

I think the lesson in this one is clear. Join the Navy, learn how to fix a radio, and you’ll get the hot chicks. Or you’ll get a handsome second class petty officer putting the moves on you. About six minutes in, check out Martin starting to put the moves on Bob. Poor Bob. He wonders if he can hack it in the tough field of Navy electronic technicians, as he gazes lovingly into Martin’s eyes. Watch all 17 minutes if you can handle it. In the end, Bob gets the letter from his beach bunny gal and all is well. He is indeed, a “very special man.”
Worth noting, the same radar repeaters Bob and Martin are working on in this 1950s-60s era video are the same ones we still use on many of our ships. And sailors still wear these strikingly handsome uniforms. Some things will never change.

Interesting 1950s propaganda film about the dangers of alcohol. There are some great cars in the video though! Check out the Studebaker cop car. And Jim’s gal, Judy about six minutes in. She’s never had a drink before but she is sure throwing them back now. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t have a happy ending.