The Roq Of The 80's

KROQ 106.7 FM
Top 106 Of 1983 Countdown
On December 31, 1983, a dude named Brian used four Memorex dBS 120 cassettes to record the K-ROQ year end countdown.  He edited out all of the commercials and a lot of the DJ talk, but there's enough of Jed The Fish and the other hosts to give you a taste of the iconic radio station out of Pasadena that played a huge role in the alternative rock and new wave scene.

Crap From The Past uploaded the entire countdown to archive.org, and it has quickly become my favorite playlist.  It has introduced me to a lot of great songs that I may not have found if not for this recording.  Click the play button under the KROQ logo, close your eyes, and travel 35 years in the past and listen to some incredible music.

Don't Get Eaten By A Grue

Zork
Infocom (1980)
The first Zork text adventure was released 38 years ago this month.  Its origin is too long long and complicated to summarize here, but Retronauts recorded an excellent podcast about it a few years ago that I highly recommend.  After you've listened to it, head over to ZorkOnline.net where you can play the original Zork trilogy, in addition to many other games of the genre.

It Was This or a Bag of Doritos

Dear Sauder's Quality Eggs,

For lunch, I bought two hard boiled eggs that were dipped in hot sauce from a vending machine.  I assure you, there's no need to make "cage free" the largest words on the wrapper.  I'm not that demanding.

The Great Pumpkin Sale

I think they may have ordered a few too many boxes of Pumpkin Spice cereal.

The Far Side of the Moon

This photo was taken by the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera mounted on the NASA DSCOVR spacecraft.

Horny Crap

I'm thinking the conversation behind this product went something like this:

Randolph: My great-granddaughter loves unicorns.  They're everywhere these days.
Mortimer: You're right.  You know what else I keep seeing is the poop emoji.  The kiddies love it.
Randolph: I've got a brilliant idea.

My apologies if you found this turd under your tree on Christmas morning.

Ghost of Christmas Past

Until recently, West Hazleton put the town Christmas Tree up by the World War I memorial outside of Miner's Bank (now Citizens Bank).  This photo of the borough putting the star and the lights on the tree was taken in 1960.  If you look closely in the background (above the hood of the truck), you can see Justofin's Pharmacy with the Breyer's Ice Cream sign across Broad Street from the bank.

Merry Christmas From Apollo 8

Apollo 8
Photo by Bruce Dale - National Geographic
On the morning of December 21st, 1968, the first human spaceflight to reach and orbit the moon launched from the Kennedy Space Center.  It reached lunar orbit fifty years ago today on Christmas Eve, and astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, and Bill Anders spoke to a live television broadcast that aired in 64 countries and was watched by an estimated 1 billion viewers.

This incredible photograph by Bruce Dale perfectly captures this moment with three young boys gathered around the television.  In this moment in time, the presents under the tree are an afterthought.

Magical Creatures and Where They Live 2

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
Cinema & Drafthouse - West Hazleton, PA
When the first movie of this series came out, I couldn't remember what it was called.  I knew it was wrong when I said it, but I blurted out "Magical Creatures and Where They Live" hoping that I would get my point across.  Now, I can't call it anything else.

We saw the first movie in the same theater when it came out.  If there's one thing I've learned from coming here, it's the fact that seeing a movie in the theater is even better with a Philly Cheesesteak pizza and a heaping bowl of chili.

A Very Joe Bob Christmas

A Very Joe Bob Christmas
Hosted by Joe Bob Briggs
What better way to spend the weekend before Christmas than watching a Phantasm marathon with a bowl of mac and cheese, a plate of cookies, and the greatest host in movie history.

A Dutch Apple Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol - The Musical
Dutch Apple Dinner Theater - Lancaster, PA
We've been going to the Dutch Apple for ten years now.  It's a pretty fantastic place.  The food is always very good, the staff is extremely friendly and courteous, and the shows are very entertaining.  Tonight was no exception.  This may have been the best portrayal of Jacob Marley I've ever seen.

A 2600 Christmas

This photo was submitted to AtariAge by Robert Anne.  I love everything about this photo, from the ceramic lighted tree on the console television, to the Christmas lights strung on the stereo, to the Adventure open box and the cartridge sitting on the Atari, next to be played after Asteroids.

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Happy Birthday Tony Taylor

Photo shared by Podolux (Flickr)

Tony Taylor (late 1960's)
Second Base - Philadelphia Phillies
Connie Mack Stadium - Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia icon Tony Taylor turned 83 years old today.  The 2002 Wall of Fame inductee broke into the game with the Cubs 60 years ago and was traded to the Phillies in May 1960.  He would go on to be the Phillies starting second baseman through the entire decade and into the 70's until he was traded to the Tigers in the summer of 1971.  He returned to Philadelphia in the winter of 1973 where he was a utility player.  He ended his career after the 1976 season in which he was a member of a National League East Champion Phillies team.

An interesting fact was shared earlier today by Andrew Linker of Philadelphia Baseball History.  When the batting helmet rule was instituted in 1970, it allowed a grandfather clause for veteran players which allowed them to choose to not wear a helmet.  Tony Taylor was the last player in the National League to bat without a helmet.

An incredible article about the life and career of Tony Taylor can be found on SABR.org.

Photo shared by Andrew Linker (HarrisburgBaseball.com)

Chicken Roasting On An Open Fire

Colonel Sanders 11 Herbs & Spices Firelog
Kentucky Fried Chicken / Enviro-Log
For $18.99, you can purchase a fireplace log that will make your house smell like fried chicken for up to three hours.  Since they took out the trans fats, the smell is the best part of KFC, so it's worth a look.

You Can Tune A Piano, But You Can't Tuna Fish

Soy & Sesame Tuna Steak
Adagio Seafood - Bethlehem, PA
Dad and Trish took us out to dinner before Penn & Teller on Friday night.  The tuna steak was delicious.  The baked potato had Old Bay seasoned butter which was very good too.

Christmas Comes To Pac-Land

Christmas Comes To Pac-Land
Hanna Barbera (1982)
Thirty six years ago, the Pac-Man cartoon series aired its Christmas special for the first time.  It follows the adventures of Santa Claus, who takes a wrong turn due to some faulty sleigh equipment and gets stuck in Pac Land.  It's a bizarre holiday special that could only have come out of the 80's.

Super Mario Night Before Christmas

Berwick Christmas Boulevard
Berwick, PA
This has been an annual tradition for us dating back to 2004.  The Berwick Christmas Lights always have awesome displays, and they often have one section dedicated to video games.  This year, we got to see the Super Mario Night Before Christmas display put together by Defebo Graphics.

A Magical Evening

Penn & Teller
Sands Casino - Bethlehem, PA
Dad, Trish, Angie and I went to see Penn & Teller perform at the Sands Bethlehem Event Center earlier today.  I've been a fan of Penn & Teller since I first watched their series on Showtime and I've always wanted to see them.  The show was a hell of a lot of fun.  Teller did an incredible magic trick with a fish tank and change that he turned into fish that was especially fun.

At we were walking into the show, we saw stations set up that invited you to take four playing cards and a cup.  Penn Jillette ended the show by doing an interactive trick with everyone in the audience, where he had us mix up the cards a bunch of times, rip them in half, put one half of one card on our chest near our heart, mix them up some more, exchange cards with each other, and then toss cards one at a time into the cup until we have only one left. Sure enough, the half card I had left was the other half of the one that was on my chest.  I have no idea how in the world that worked, but it was a lot of fun!

After the show, Penn and Teller hung out in the lobby taking photos and signing autographs with pretty much everyone in attendance.  Dad accidentally photobombed our pic with Mr. Teller (he's in the top right corner), which makes the photo that much more awesome.  He and Penn Jillette also autographed the Jack of Diamonds, which was the card that I had that matched in their final trick of the night.

New Yoo-Hoo

Yoo-Hoo drink boxes
Chocolate Peanut Butter and Chocolate Strawberry
I'm a sucker for any new or limited edition products, but I don't think I'd get these again.  They're not bad, but they're not as good as the original Yoo-Hoo.

Philadelphia Catches Cutch

Wow.  This is huge!

Andrew McCutchen has been one of the very best in the game for many years.  He is a former NL MVP, a five time All-Star, and above all else, he is Johnny Hustle.  I've never watched this man play and ever think that he wasn't giving his absolute best.  He will very welcome in the City of Brotherly Love.  I hope he spends the rest of his career in red pinstripes.

For all of the hype over the potential signings of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, I think that the Phillies have already done enough this winter to turn the corner and to reach the post-season.  The defensive upgrade of McCutchen in the OF and Hoskins at 1B, and the offensive upgrade of McCutchen and Segura are massive.  They made some savvy moves to bolster the bullpen, and the rotation will be much improved with a full year of Eickhoff and a more experienced and tested Pivetta and Eflin who will come into 2019 better prepared to pitch deep into a season.

Don't get me wrong, I hope that the Phillies can continue to add talent to the lineup, but if they stopped making moves right here, I'd still say that it's been a successful winter to prepare for a playoff run in 2019.

Nintendo At The End Of The 80's

Nintendo sales flyer (1989)
KayBee Toys
When I was a little kid, I almost never went to Toys R Us, but my dad and my grandparents frequently brought me to KayBee.  The one I remember best was in the Schuylkill Mall in Frackville, but I know I've been to several others.

I don't care what new games come out or how good they are, nothing has ever compared to the feeling I had playing the NES back in the 80's.  The NES Max controller in the bottom left was my favorite when I was a kid.  As an adult, I'm not sure why.  Maybe my hands are just too big for it these days.  I know that I also had Dragon Warrior and Castlevania 2.  At some point in my life, I also had Faxanadu, Blaster Master and Ninja Gaiden, but I didn't have those when they were new.  I think I may have found them at a flea market sometime in the 90's.

Rudolph The Red Nosed Boss Man

The Big Bossman and Mr. Perfect
December, 1990
WWE should use this photo to make a Christmas card.

Michael Jack Flash

Mike Schmidt
Houston, TX (1976)
This photo was shared by Chris Drake of Philadelphia Baseball History.  The kid in the foreground is his brother getting Mike Schmidt's autograph, with "The Secretary of Defense" Gary Maddox at the desk in the background.  Schmidt is pure 70's suave in a shiny golden shirt with an expression on his face that is rarely seen on a baseball card.

Winter of 1955

Broad Street (1955)
Hazleton, PA
This photo was published in the Standard Speaker after a snowstorm.  The Rosen's store is where the Salvation Army Thrift Store is today.

Phillies New Logo

I was twelve years old the last time the Phillies changed their logo.  Earlier today, the Majestic Clubhouse Store at Citizen's Bank Park revealed on Twitter that the team logo is changing prior to the start of the 2019 season.

Before Boscov's

Fowler, Dick and Walker Store (1956)
South Franklin Street - Wilkes-Barre, PA
This is the rear entrance to what is now Boscov's Department Store.  Back then, it was Fowler Dick and Walker's "The Boston Store".

A Snowy Day In The 70's

Times Square
New York, NY (1978)
This photo was taken after a snowstorm in 1978.  Howard Johnson's restaurant is on the far left hand side.  It was an iconic location at 46th and Broadway that originally opened in the 1940's before becoming Howard Johnson's in 1959.  I had dinner at this Howard Johnson's once in the early 2000's and it was truly a living time capsule.  It remained in business nearly unchanged for decades until it finally closed in 2005.

To the right of the restaurant, you can see a billboard for The Smother's Brothers in I Love My Wife on Broadway.  Also, The Wiz is showing at the Forum Theater on the other side of Burger King.  Assuming that this is the film and not the musical, that would mean that this photo was likely taken after October 24th, 1978.

Update (1/09/2022): Yesterday, I came across a movie blog called Apollo Twin which had a cover photo that was taken of Broadway from 46th Street in New York City.  It looked very familiar to me, so I looked back and found that I had posted a picture of this exact section of Times Square.  There's no snow in this photo, but many of the billboards are the same, which led me to believe that it was taken in the Spring or Summer of 1978.

New York Daily News - May 15, 1978

The movie marquees are visible in these photos, so I did a little research and found that both Jennifer and F.I.S.T. premiered in April, 1978.  That helped me to narrow down my search until I found a date when Jennifer was being screened at Forum on 47th & Broadway, and F.I.S.T. was being shown at the RKO Cinerama at the same location.  That date was May 15th, 1978.  It's possible that this photo might have been taken at some other point during that week on a day when both movies were still being shown by these theaters, but it's as close of a date that we're likely to get without something more concrete from the photographer.

Yo Joe!

GI Joe toy aisle (1987)
I'm not sure what store this photo was taken in, but you can tell it's from 1987 because the Cobra Mamba helicopter is on the shelf.

Goodbye to Carl and Carlos

Earlier today, the Phillies finalized a trade that sent J.P. Crawford and Carlos Santana to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for All-Star shortstop Jean Segura and relief pitchers Juan Nicasio and James Pazos.

I always liked Crawford, but his success above AA has been very limited.  He's still a lottery ticket, and a questionable one.  Frankly, even if everything goes perfect for Crawford from this point forward, he might hopefully become what Jean Segura already is.  The fact that Segura is signed through the end of the 2022 season makes this a win even if he was the only thing we got back.

Santana is another player I really liked, and after seeing the Phillies move him to 3B at the end of the 2018 season, I had high hopes of seeing him stick there with Hoskins moved back to 1B where he belongs.  Hoskins was the worst defensive player in all of baseball in LF because he simply doesn't belong there.  He's a first baseman.  He was displaced by Tommy Joseph when he first came up, and he was displaced by the free agent signing of Santana in 2018.  It's a damn shame that there's no DH in the National League.  It's crippled the Phillies before.  Imagine a Phillies team from 2005 - 2007 with Thome as the DH.  A lineup of Rollins, Utley, Howard, Thome and Burrell might have turned the 2007 NL East crown to a World Championship.

The addition of two quality relief pitchers make trade even better.  Juan Nicasio returns to the Phillies after spending five days with the Phillies in 2017.  James Pazos is a much needed quality lefty out of the bullpen  So, in one trade, the Phillies added two key bullpen pieces, installed a massive upgrade at shortstop over the next four seasons, eliminated a huge defensive hole in LF with Hoskins returning to 1B (regardless of who plays the position), and making this a better team in both the short and long term.

Nice job, Mr. Klentak.

Masters Of The Toy Aisle

Masters Of The Universe Toys
Mattel (1985)
I'm not sure where this photo was taken, but after seeing the English and French on the front of the Castle Grayskull box, I'm guessing that it's either Canada or a European country.  The castle was one of my favorite toys when I was a kid.  I had a heck of a lot of these action figures too.  It's a little blurry, but the ones in this photo that I'm sure I had are He-Man, Skeletor, Kobra Khan, Leech, Roboto, Buzz Off, Stratos, Hordak, Grizzlor, Moss Man, Man-At-Arms and Mantenna.

The Strangest Breakfast Cereal Of The 80's

Dinersaurs
Ralston Purina (1988)
I don't know what hallucinogens the product development team at Ralston was on when they came up with the concept for Dinersaurs, but it must have been pretty good stuff.  This breakfast cereal was themed around a diner that's by T-Rex, Stego Stan, Buddy Brontosaurus, Terry Pterodactyl and Sara Triceratops.  They're sometimes joined by their friend, Denver The Last Dinosaur, whose presence with five other members of his species really calls into question his status as the last of his kind.

Dinersaurs Stickers - Scanned and shared by Jason Liebig

If a group of dinosaurs running a diner isn't a strange enough theme for a breakfast cereal, the restaurant itself appears to be operating inside the body of another dinosaur who seems all too happy to have had a door and windows installed in his side.  Happy breakfast, kids!