Look at that poster! At least FOUR riot-control bulldozers — with cow-catchers! — in this crazy future world. Didn’t they think we’d invent pepper spray?

Man, the far-future world of Soylent Green in just over a decade away. That’ll be an interesting viewing experience come 2022.

Poster, by the way, from the very excellent Film on Paper site. You should definitely check that out.

 

There’s a six-part show coming in February, but for now, feast your eyes on this trailer, and the start of a web promotional series.

Go to danger5.tv for more

 

I can’t beat the synopsis on MeFi:

When they were making The Karate Kid, they decided to shoot each scene’s rehearsal with budget cameras so the actors could watch themselves back afterwards. Now it’s been edited together so that it forms a version of the movie that looks like it was shot and made by eighth graders in their basement, including loads of unseen scenes.

(That green clears up after a couple of minutes.)

Part 2 is here, and it’s pretty easy to find the rest of the parts from there.

 

Dang, I have to choose between vodka and trade unions? What happened to #OccupyTheBottle?

The posters above and below are just two of the excellent vintage posters collected by Poemas del rio Wang, showcasing Soviet efforts at stopping (or at least slowing down) that country’s culture of drunkeness. The same author, on a different blog, looks at how the vintage posters were later repurposed for a cola advertising campaign.

Nov 152011
 

Fantastic work, and I love it. Borrows a little from this previous video, 100 Years of Title Design, but the borrows are essential.

(From Art of the Title, via Gizmodo)

 

(via Hannah J Waters)

 

Spock for your Christmas tree is some $40 at ThinkGeek and lights up when you plug it into a strand of lights.

Now awaiting the “Dammit Jim, I’m a doctor, not an ornament!” light-up McCoy.

 

The LA Times magazine is running a poll — but they’ve put some work into this one.

They’ve collected 50 (actually, it looks like 52) opening credit sequences from classic television shows between 1950-69. You can watch them all here. And then vote for your favourite.

But that’s not all — they did it again, another 50 (actually 52) for the years 1970-89. Watch all of those ones here! And again, vote for your favourite.

They cover the gamut — I found shows that I had long forgotten — from A to Z.

Well, from The A-Team to Zorro.


If you cannot play the video (I hand-coded the embed in HTML5), download it here.


If you cannot play the video, download it here.

 

Ha! Love the ingenious stringing together of technology to enable this communications. As tuaw points out, it’s a little reminiscent of that scene in Star Trek IV when Scotty picks up the mouse and tries to talk to the ’80s computer.

Best Star Trek movie ever.

Stereo stack

 Posted by Grant Hamilton on 7 November 2011  Vintage/Retro
Nov 072011
 

It’s a whole bunch of “in stereo” banners, from vintage LPs, all scanned to the same size, and stacked up into a big long pile.

Ha! I love it.

And, over at a website called, of course, Stereo Stack, a single click will randomly reshuffle the order of the stack, so uniqueness will rule the day.

The banners are via Jive Time Records and Project Thirty-Three.

(via BB and Retronaut)

 

I was absolutely delighted to find a few recipes for Gin Fizzes over at Gilt Taste. I’ve been developing a bit of a taste for revived vintage cocktails lately, but I haven’t yet gotten around to a Fizz.

From Gilt Taste:

What is a Fizz exactly? Once cited by legendary bartender Trader Vic as “an early-morning drink with a definite purpose – a panacea for hang-overs,” the Fizz includes the following ingredients: liquor, lemon or lime juice, and sugar, which are shaken with ice, strained into a cocktail or Collins glass, and topped off with fizzing seltzer or Champagne. Eggs are often added, cutting the sharp taste of the gin and citrus, and endowing the Fizz with a unique velvety-yet-light texture. A “Silver Fizz” uses only egg whites; a “Golden Fizz” includes an egg yolk; and a “Royal Fizz” greedily incorporates a whole egg.

I’m saddened by our culture’s insistence that alcohol must be served in the afternoon or, preferably, evening. It’s intoxicating, sure, but it’s also an ingredient that can be used or abused. And, when used properly, a nice beverage that includes alcohol can be a wonderful way to start the day. I’m looking at you, mimosas.

I believe that Bloody Marys were originally devised as morning drinks as well.

A Gin Fizz sounds like a delightful way to expand my morning drink repertoire. I think I like their Lavender-Lemon Silver Fizz. Here’s the recipe:

The Lavender-Lemon Silver Fizz

A wonderful front-porch drink, this grown-up lemonade is best adorned with a deep wicker chair and hand-held fan. It would also make a lovely tea-time libation, served with macaroons.

2 ounces gin
1 teaspoon simple syrup (they suggest Royal Rose Lavender-Lemon syrup)
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 egg white
1 tablespoon seltzer

1. Shake with plenty of crushed ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass or Champagne coupe, and top with a tablespoon of seltzer. Grate a bit of lemon zest over the top. If too sweet, temper with more lemon juice.

They have four more! Try ‘em: Five Recipes For A Gin Fizz.

Glass-blown steam engine

 Posted by Grant Hamilton on 4 November 2011  Vintage/Retro
Nov 042011
 

This cool video has been open in a browser tab for long enough that I can’t trace where the link came from. But it’s a really cool example not just of the mechanics of a steam engine, but also of glass blowing.

I knew a girl who was a glass blower once. It always sounded like a cool, unique hobby to have — like falconry.

 

I was riveted by the story I just read. It’s a behind-the-scenes tale of the men who built the first atomic bomb, and the green chile cheeseburgers that they ate.

I have no idea how true it is, it has the ring of tall-tale to it, but a tall tale that was grown out of essential truth. Who knows. It kind of sounds like an anecdote out of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff. The writer says he tells it in bars, and that it gets him drinks. Here’s a sample:

Actually, it seems more likely that Frank was asked to start making cheeseburgers. The story goes a few different ways: That it was Frank’s idea alone, that it was a request from one of the MP’s who’d begun to filter into town—a man late of California where both the cheeseburger and the green chile were already close friends—or that it was an order, coming down direct from someone at Los Alamos, where the Manhattan Project was headquartered. It’s the third version that carries weight with me. The notion of Uncle Sam, Harry Truman and Robert Oppenheimer demanding cheeseburgers to fuel the midnight genius of these odd and sunburned nerds just moves me. And it makes sense, too. It had to occur to someone, somewhere, that having the best brains in America getting all liquored up and tear-assing across the desert in the middle of the night looking for tacos was just a phenomenally bad idea. Eventually, one of these guys was doubtless going to wrap himself around a cactus at 60 miles an hour. And it’d be a shame, too, because there just weren’t any tacos to be had anyway.

Now go read the whole thing. And then make me a green chile cheeseburger! Yum!

 

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The grown-up, ethical part of me wants to protest at the inhumane treatment that lions must endure to be “tamed” — but the rest of me is sitting, mouth agog, at this wonderful pre-Internet newsreel footage.

‘Tis the human condition.

(British Pathe, via Boing Boing)