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Nerd Lunch Episode 110: Lost in Time #TBT

Posted in nostalgia, podcast, pop culture, time travel with tags Nerd Lunch Podcast, nostalgia, pop culture, time travel on September 25, 2014 by Paxton

Hurtled 10 months into the future, our long lost 110th episode has finally been retrieved out of the time stream. CT and I welcome back to the show Tim Lybarger in this very special Throwback Thursday episode.

This week the nerds are thrown back to three different points in their history where they must survive ten months with nothing but the clothes on their back. How do they survive? What friends do they make in the past? What do they change? All these questions are answered and more! Plus, Nerd To-Dos feature Doctor Who, Thor 2 and Christmas.

Download this episode from iTunes, Stitcher or listen to it on Feedburner.

Or listen to it online right here.

Cavalcade Comics #4 – Ghost Rider vs Ghost Rider Halloween showdown!

Posted in comic books, pop culture with tags Cavalcade Comics, comic books, comic covers, Ghost Rider, Marvel Comics, Vintage Comic Throwdowns on September 24, 2014 by Paxton

Welcome to issue #4 of my Vintage Comic Throwdown series where I pit character vs character in a vintage comic book cover showdown.

This time, since we are only DAYS away from the start of AWESOME-tober-fest 2014, I thought I would do a somewhat Halloween-type throwdown featuring two “supernatural” characters. And I chose two incarnations of the Ghost Rider character. Check out my cover for Cavalcade Comics #4 – Ghost Rider vs Ghost Rider.

Many people may not realize that Ghost Rider actually started out as a Golden Age gunfighter character that debuted in 1949’s Tim Holt Western Comics #11. The character was originally owned by Magazine Enterprises but was bought out by Marvel and revamped in the 70s into a motorcycle riding demon. And now I have them battling each other on the city streets.

For those that like to know, this cover is primarily based on Marvel’s Ghost Rider #31 from 1978 (left) and I took the original Ghost Rider from Ghost Rider #2 from 1950 (right).

Ghost Rider 31 Ghost Rider 02

Because this is a special Halloween issue, I decided to make an alternate cover. This second cover is based instead on an old Golden Age Ghost Rider cover instead of the newer Marvel cover.

Imagine that this is the direct cover and the previous one is the newsstand cover.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2014 is coming!

Posted in Halloween, magazine, nostalgia, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2014, Fangoria, Halloween, holiday, magazine, magazines, nostalgia on September 4, 2014 by Paxton

It’s the first week in September! Which means we are now officially 1 month from October 1st, which is the beginning of my annual AWESOME-tober-fest Halloween celebration. Needless to say I am hip deep in preparations for this year’s festivities.

Technically, this is my EIGHTH year doing a Halloween celebration as I started in 2007 with a few posts during the month of October. However, the daily AWESOME-tober-fest as you’ve come to know it wasn’t really born until 2009 when I did Frankenstein. Which means this is my sixth year of doing the full blown AWESOME-tober-fest celebration.

Since Frankenstein in 2009 I’ve covered; wolf men, vampires, movie maniacs and then zombies. My original plan was to do ghosts as my theme this year, but you know what, I thought it was high time I paid special attention to one thing that really had an effect on me in my high school days. And it crosses all these boundaries. This year I want to focus on Fangoria magazine.

I’ve used scans from old Fangoria magazines throughout each year of AWESOME-tober-fest, but this year I’m going to be doing an entire month of only Fangoria goodness featuring covers, articles, ads, pictures, Scream Greats movie posters, the Video Eye of Dr Cyclops and the Nightmare Library.

Video Eye of Dr Cyclops
Nightmare Library

I’ve got a stack of magazines and I’m going to comb through them all and bring you some of my favorite content from all of my favorite issues of horror’s greatest magazine.

And, as a bonus, every Friday in October is going to be Fangoria Movie Friday. So it’s not just all scanned magazine content I’m going to review old B-horror movies that were featured in 5 of my favorite issues of Fangoria. These won’t be the A-listers like a Nightmare on Elm Street or a Friday the 13th. I’m talking something more along the lines of The Reanimator (which I reviewed last year). I’m looking forward to those reviews because I’ve picked 5 movies (one for each Friday in October) that I’ve never seen before but have always wanted to watch. And the movie will definitely have been featured in some way in an issue of Fangoria. It should be a lot of fun.

So gird your loins, ladies and gents, and head back here on Oct 1 and, you know what, that’s a Wednesday, I’m making an executive decision, AWESOME-tober-fest 2014 will start two days earlier on Monday Sep 29. Holy crap, I’m starting AWESOME-tober-fest in September! I hope I don’t get cited by the Halloween police. The staff here at the blog just looked at me with murder in their eyes. Oh well, hopefully I’ll see you back here at the end of the month!

And, as always, I’ll be a part of the giant Countdown to Halloween celebration as well.

Check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more information on how you, too, can join in on the fun.

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Nerd Lunch Podcast Episode 146 plus an appearance on Classic Film Jerks!

Posted in movies, podcast, pop culture with tags Classic Film Jerks, Kool Aid, movies, Nerd Lunch Podcast, podcast, pop culture, Supermarket on August 27, 2014 by Paxton

This week the nerds are joined by Nick from On Second Scoop to talk about pop culture food stuffs. The group assign each other pop culture properties and specific food lines and we have to come up with a bunch of fictional food items based on movies and TV shows.

(Via X-Entertainment)

Expect lots of talk about TMNT, Kool-Aid, Lizzie Mcguire, Laff-A-Lympics, Twizzlers and Yoplait Go-gurt. It’s a fun discussion that I think you are going to like.

Download this episode from iTunes, Stitcher or listen to it on Feedburner. Or listen to it online RIGHT HERE.

Also, this week, I was a guest (for the third time!) on the super awesome Classic Film Jerks podcast. I was there with Digio and Bloom discussing the 1948 Bogart gold digging classic, Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Riding along with us was Carrie from ClassicFilmFan.com. We all have a blast discussing how extremely unattractive Humphrey Bogart is, how awkward 1940s CPR is as well as how this movie ain’t no Hidalgo. Download the podcast from iTunes or head on over to ClassicFilmJerks.com to give the episode a listen.

Thumbing through a SkyMall catalog from 1996

Posted in magazine, nostalgia, pop culture with tags magazines, pop culture, SkyMall, technology, vintage on August 25, 2014 by Paxton

Right after college I joined an IT consulting firm. Our business was based on clients. So I traveled 100% to client sites all over the country implementing a corporate financials software suite called PeopleSoft. So, during my eight years as an IT consultant I became very familiar with airplanes and flying across the country. Because I was flying nearly every week I picked up one of the first commercially available portable DVD players on the market back in 1999, the Panasonic DVD L-50. I still have it and it still works. I literally just let my nearly 4 year old son use it a few weeks ago when the family flew to Colorado.

Because I was on planes 50 weeks out of the year I also became intimately familiar with the in flight magazines. Namely, the SkyMall Catalog. It offered interesting products the likes of which you wouldn’t see unless you walked into a Brookstone in the mall. It was fascinating every month to check out what oddball items were being offered that you could order directly off the Airfone.

During my recent family trip to Colorado I thumbed through the current magazine and thought back longingly to the old catalogs from back in the day. What would they look like now? Well, I got an old copy of the catalog so let’s take a look at the treasures contained within.

The SkyMall copy I have is from mid 1996 and is stamped Southwest Airlines.

Each airline had their own version of SkyMall, the main difference being that there were a few pages in the back that sold clothing and items emblazoned with the airlines’ logo. But they all had the same awesome merch and (now) vintage technology.

So let’s get started.

This ad for a concierge company looks like the cover of a 90s video game simulator called something like Rich & Famous where you play as a wealthy CEO. I imagine it’s a game like Aerobiz.

There are several things that are guaranteed and written into the laws of nature. Death, of course. Taxes. And companies will never stop trying to develop the “perfect” exercise machine. And they’ll all make you look equally ridiculous when you use them (I’m looking at you, Health Rider).

Another guaranteed truth. Companies will always try to design new “gimmick” sunglasses that vaguely perform some “new, cool” function but they look like rejected props from a DEVO video. Or any 60s movie that features people from the future.

This pop up hot dog cooker/bun warmer is STILL sold in SkyMall magazine today. With nearly the exact same picture. Either it’s a best seller or they sold out 20 years ago and just forgot that it was still in the catalog.