JCD666

The big 5-0 is known as a golden birthday, when gifts of gold are traditionally given. Of course, the price of gold these days coupled with having cheap friends has made that more of an urban legend than anything. Nonetheless, odds are by the time you are 50, you are indeed pretty shifty, so this '70s era 50 & Shifty design is a great fit for you or someone you know who is turning 50 that you're too cheap to buy something gold for.

Innerspace is a 1987 sci-fi comedy about a top-secret test of a sub-miniaturization experiment that goes wildly awry. When industrial spies steal the technology, the daring pilot of the world's first molecular-sized craft is accidentally injected into the bloodstream of a hypochondriac grocery store clerk. Now with only a 24-hour supply of oxygen, the atom-sized test pilot must convince the guy whose body he is in to be a hero. He directs him from within to recover the stolen technology, convince his girlfriend that he loves her, and save both of them from a certain death.

Just south of the Kentucky/Ohio border, in the North River Region of Kentucky, is a Big Bone Lick State Park. The inappropriate sounding name comes from a natural 'lick,' which is a place with salt in the ground where animals converge to literally lick the salt needed for their diets. The area has been being frequented by animals since at least the Pleistocene era, so mastodons and other prehistoric beasts came here to get salt and, instead, met their end. The soil of the lick is not just salty, but swampy, much like the La Brea Tar Pits of Southern California, except with mud instead of tar. European explorers stumbling upon the area in the mid 1700s were stunned by the massive bones they found protruding from the ground.

Marquee Moon is the debut album by American rock band Television that was released on February 8, 1977. In the years leading up to the album, Television had become a prominent act on the NYC music scene, generating interest from a number of labels, eventually signing with a New York based major label, and recording the album at A & R Recording in September 1976. Marquee Moon was met with widespread acclaim and was hailed by critics as an original musical development in rock music. The critical recognition helped the album achieve unexpected commercial success in the United Kingdom, despite poor sales in the United States. Routinely placed among the most acclaimed music releases in history in professionally curated best album lists.

Gruyère is a hard Swiss cheese that originated in the cantons of Fribourg, Vaud, Neuchâtel, Jura, and Berne in Switzerland. It is named after the town of Gruyères in Fribourg. In 2001, Gruyère gained the appellation d'origine contrôlée, which became the appellation d'origine protégée as of 2013. Graf French Gruyère was a brand of the popular cheese that was made in France throughout the '30s and '40s.

Released on June 23, 1987, the food truck themed Vanessa's Lunchbox ('squeals on wheels,' get it?) was an instant favorite among hobby grade RC aficionados. This 2WD monster van was competitively priced, and fun to drive, but sometimes quite challenging. Its top-heavy hard body van shell created a center of gravity, and the rigid rear axle also added to the problem. Coupled with its enormous tires and simple swing arm front suspension, handling was difficult, but it holds a place in the hearts of '80s kids everywhere.

Founded in October 1966 in Oakland, California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP) became the most famous black power organization of the late 1960s. Newton and Seale met in 1965 at Merritt College, where they were exposed to a burgeoning wave of Black Nationalism, inspired in part by the Afro-American Association, established by Don Warden in 1962. While the organization tends to be thought of as being heavily male, 66% of the membership was female, something that this Sister of The Revolution design stands as a reminder of.

Founded in 1945 by A.M. Bell, Bell Lines Inc. hit the ground running, moving more than 20k shipments over 1.5 million miles in their first year of business. By 1965, Bell Lines went as far north as Detroit, Michigan, south to Charleston, South Carolina, and as far west as Nashville, Tennessee, and east to Raleigh, North Carolina. From their centrally located headquarters in Charleston, West Virginia, and with a network of 25 terminals, Bell Lines never tried to be the biggest, only the best in their carefully defined service areas, something hat may have been their undoing as they were taken over by Smith Transfer of Staunton, Virginia in 1970.

Funki is the fictional Seattle-based toy company at the center of the creepy kid slasher flick, M3gan. Known as 'the fun company,' Purrpetual Petz are Funki's primary product, a line of wisecracking animatronic critters resembling demonic Furbys. The toys are hugely popular with kids, and are marketed as good replacements for dead dogs and cats.

“Put a tiger in your tank” was a slogan created in 1959 by Emery Smith, a young Chicago copywriter who had been given the task to produce a newspaper ad to boost sales of Esso Extra gasoline. The tiger wasn’t Smith’s invention, as he first appeared as a mascot for Esso in Norway at the turn of the century. The end of WWII and the resumption of petrol advertising is when the tiger made his US debut. The message was that Esso fuel was so powerful that it was the equivalent of having a roaring beast powering engines. From glass globe pump heads and gas cap tiger tails, to stuffed animals and bumper stickers, the campaign was a hit, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Dixson Incorporated (aka Dixco) was launched in 1958 by Bruce Dixson with a sole focus on making tachometers, an important instrument that was frequently omitted by manufacturers of domestic vehicles in America and one that hot rodders, drag racers, and muscle car tuners wanted. Dixson made a variety of styles of tachs for both interior dash applications and exterior hood mounts, the 'Can Tac' being one of the more popular of the latter. Dixson ended up taking over the operations of General Meters in 1963, a financially failing company that supplied Dixco with the internal movements for their tachometers. In 1987, Dixco sold out to a multinational OEM supplier to a multitude of industries that continued to offer many of the Dixco designs.

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known as acid, is a hallucinogenic drug. Effects typically include altered thoughts, feelings, and awareness of one’s surroundings. Many users see or hear things that do not exist, while others just see the world around them with extreme intensity – vibrant colors, remarkable detail, etc. While LSD has been utilized for scientific and medical purposes, its widest usage is without a doubt recreational, most notably in the 1960s when it became the drug of choice among the artists, poets, and musicians of the burgeoning counterculture movement. During the early days of recreational LSD use, it was disseminated through drops of LSD added to sugar cubes, which would then be ingested.

Furby is an American electronic robotic toy that was originally released in 1998 by Tiger Electronics. It resembles a hamster or owllike creature and went through a period of being a "must-have" toy following its holiday season launch, with continual sales until 2000. Over 40 million Furbies were sold during the three years of its original production, with 1.8 million sold in 1998, and 14 million in 1999. A newly purchased Furby starts out speaking entirely "Furbish", the unique language that all Furbies use, but is programmed to start using English words and phrases in place of Furbish over time., a process intended to resemble learning a language. A simple electric motor and a system of cams and gears close the Furby's eyes and mouth.

Brothers Bernie and Lawrence Nicholson founded Nicholson Bros. Motorcycles in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada in 1933. If you think opening a motorcycle shop during the great depression in a town with few people and fewer motorcycles would end in certain failure, you would be wrong. The brothers imported bikes and support parts for numerous makes to sell from their shop, but also tried their hand at creating a mail order catalog. Given their central location, they were not only able to ship quickly throughout Canada, but also the U.S., and their business took off. While servicing and repairing bikes in their shop, Bernie's knack for explaining, the way motors worked led to him writing the bible of classic motorcycle repair.

Alcyon was a French bicycle, automobile, and motorcycle manufacturer between 1903 and 1954 in Neuilly, Seine. In 1902, this was complemented by motorcycle production and in 1906, the first cars were shown at the fair "Mondial de l'Automobile" in Paris, France. Also in 1906 it founded the professional Alcyon cycling team which was active until 1955, including winning multiple races during their existence. This design celebrates their victory in the Bordeaux-Paris race of 1938.

When a series of unexplained murders occur in the normally quiet town of Tarker's Mill, the residents decide to hunt down the killer. However, many of these vigilantes end up dead, and those who don't are no closer to finding the assailant. When a young paraplegic named Marty encounters a werewolf one night, the pieces begin to come together. Along with his sister and Uncle Red, Marty begins a mission to capture the werewolf once and for all. This is the synopsis of the 1985 film Silver Bullet, which is a rather charming entry into the werewolf genre that seamlessly combines the gory horror of R rated flicks with the fable-esque, childlike sensibility.

Unlike most van shops of the day that focused on selling and installing custom parts and accessories, The Van Doctor was a comprehensive auto body and mechanical repair shop. Sure, they also sold the goodies to make your ride stand out, but that was secondary to this Van Nuys garage.

Ken McGowen opened up his first Mac's Milk convenience store on Richmond Hill, just north of Toronto. Ken came up with the name as it sounded like a friendly neighborhood guy, and included milk, as that's a core staple they would be stocking. As a nod to McGowen's Scottish roots, the mascot for Mac's was a cat named MacTavish, wearing a Tam o' shanter and a kilt, holding a jug of milk. McGowen opened seven more stores in 1962, but soon realized he needed capital to continue to grow, so Silverwood Dairies acquired 40% of Mac's Milk in 1963, allowing expansion to continue, and gave Mac's an edge on Silverwood's dairy products. Silverwood increased its holding to 80% in 1968, and 100% in 1972.

A bodacious, dimpled, well-endowed knockout, Loni Anderson rose to television sex symbol status during the late '70s and early '80s. As sexy but smart Jennifer Marlowe on the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, the ravishing star later became a soap-styled fixture in TV movies. Born with jet black hair, she eventually went blonde, getting the pin-up attention she deserved to help bring back the glossy platinum allure of stars from days gone by.

Based in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, Oshawa Cylinder Head was a machine shop that focused on the manufacturing and machining of cylinder heads. In addition to walk in projects, they maintained contracts with several manufacturers to provide them with custom spec cylinder heads, supplying them to their Ontario engine plants for final assembly.

The venue that would become known as Natacha's originally opened their doors as Perl's Ballroom back in 1934. From a large wooded lot off of Arsenal Way in Bremerton, Washington, Perl's hosted blues and rock n roll acts from across the country nightly for decades. In 1971, Perl sold her business to Bill Sesko, who renamed the establishment for his wife, Natacha. The venue continued to host rock acts throughout the '70s, but in the '80s Natacha's became a popular spot for punk, hardcore, and metal bands. This was turned up to 11 in the mid '80s when Seattle implemented the TDO (Teen Dance Ordinance) which all but made it illegal to host all ages shows in the city, so many shows were now a ferry ride away in Bremerton at Natacha's.

It doesn't get any more American than this red, white, and blue display featuring a wrestler waving an American flag in front of exploding fireworks. 'MERICA!

If you grew up in the Bothell area of Washington State, you're probably familiar with Bill's Dairy, a 30-acre farm that sat along Interstate 405, at Northeast 160th Street for nearly 60-years. Norwegian immigrant Knut Knutsen started out in 1904 by taking his cow around Seattle's Capitol Hill and milking it door to door, eventually making enough money to buy land for the land in Bothell in 1936. Soon the Knutsens were raising their own cows and goats, bottling their own milk and selling it around the Eastside. Bill's Dairy was among the first dairies in the area to pasteurize milk, eventually serving more than 1,000 customers, including local schools and grocery stores, plus Bill's sold direct to residential customers right from the farm.

1990: The Bronx Warriors (Italian: 1990: I guerrieri del Bronx) is a 1982 Italian action-science fiction film. According to the film's advertising, "In the year 1990 the Bronx is officially declared No Man's Land. The authorities give up all attempts to restore law and order. From then on, the area is ruled by the Riders." The plot centers around Ann, a 17-year-old heiress to an arms manufacturing giant, The Manhattan Corporation. Unable to handle inheriting a morally questionable company when she turns 18, Ann runs away into the lawless wasteland of the Bronx. Attacked by a roller skating gang called The Zombies, Ann is saved by members of The Riders, and taken under the protection of The Riders' leader, Trash.

Pictor Energy is the fictional UK oil and gas company that owns and operates the Kinloch Bravo offshore oil rig in the North Sea in the 2022 series, The Rig. The show centers around a group of workers on a remote Scottish oil rig who are due to return to the mainland when a mysterious fog enshrouds them and supernatural forces take hold. Pictor Energy's top executives seem to know exactly what is going on, and even very much possible are aware that their actions triggered the events in motion.

Unholy Passion is the first EP and second overall release by American deathrock band Samhain. The album was a departure from the first release, and much more underground, and tribal sounding. The original 12" vinyl EP was pressed twice, once on black vinyl and the classic tan cover, and then again in 1986, on both red and black vinyl with a maroon sleeve and white vinyl with tan cover.

Virgil D. White fabricated his first Model T winter car conversion in 1913 at his car dealership in Ossipee, New Hampshire. Four years later, he had refined the design to a point that he had it patented, but ever the perfectionist, he continued to perfect his invention, eventually coining the name 'snowmobile' and taking it to market in 1922. Initially offered as a kit, the snowmobile package included a heavy-duty truck rear axle, a 7-to-1 truck worm gear drive line attached to the frame by a pair of cantilevered semi-elliptical springs, heavy-duty wheels, a set of metal tracks, and up front, a set of skis. With skis removed, and front wheels installed; the Snowmobile became a Sandmobile, useful for transport through deep mud and sand.

Bloody Birthday is a 1981 slasher film directed by Ed Hunt and starring Susan Strasberg, José Ferrer, and Lori Lethin. The film begins In 1970 when three children are born at the height of a total eclipse. Due to the sun and moon blocking Saturn, which controls emotions, they become heartless killers ten years later, and are able to escape detection because of their youthful and innocent facades. A boy and his teenage sister become endangered when they stumble onto the bloody truth. Despite the film's primarily negative reception, Bloody Birthday has since accrued a cult following.

Founded in Redmond, Washington in 1986, McCaw Cellular Communications was a cellular telephone pioneer that had been laying the groundwork for a cellular empire since 1981 while operating as a cable TV provider. Savvy licensing of cellular spectrum in the early '80s put McCaw Cellular in an extremely strong position, quickly outpacing the growth of the "Baby Bells" in the emerging market. Key acquisitions of mobile businesses gave them widespread access in all of the major US markets. In 1990, McCaw owned the first truly national cellular system. A national telecommunications company purchased 33% of the company in 1992, and arranged a merger in 1994 that absorbed McCaw Cellular Communications.

Guitar Shop is the sixth studio album by virtuoso guitarist Jeff Beck, released in October 1989 after a four-year break from making music. This was Beck's first album to showcase his fingerstyle play, leaving his more familiar plectrum playing style. Guitar Shop reached No. 49 on the U.S. charts and won Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1990, this being Beck's second album to win that award. In a further move from his previous jazz fusion stylings, Beck adopts a more straightforward instrumental rock approach on this album, save for two tracks ("Guitar Shop" and "Day in the House") on which quirky spoken vocals are included.

ANSA (American National Space Administration) was responsible for the spacecraft Liberty 1 which launched from Cape Kennedy on January 14, 1972, and first flew onto the silver screen in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes. The crew's mission was to journey to another star, but as they slept in stasis over 11 months, their vessel was propelled two-thousand years into the future, crash landing in a lake on an alien planet. Although the planet appears desolate at first, the surviving crew members stumble upon a society in which apes have evolved into creatures with human-like intelligence and speech. The apes have assumed the role of the dominant species, and humans are mute creatures wearing animal skins.

Cro-Sal Racing, named for mechanic Gene Crowe and original owner/driver Ralph Salyer, was a partnership that came together in Hammond, Indiana in the early '60s. Their first racing endeavor was a highly tuned Cheetah dubbed the Cro-Sal Special, race prepared by Crowe and driven by Salyer. The car's first outing was the 1964 June Sprints event in Wisconsin, the only major race ever won by a Cheetah. The Cheetah was designed to be a GT car, to run against GTOs, especially, Cobras, and left very little showing in the result columns, so this was indeed a remarkable win. The Cro-Sal Racing partnership would continue to build and campaign cars throughout the '60s, but will always be remembered for that first Cro-Sal Special Cheetah.

Nukie is a South African direct to video science-fiction film that was released in 1987. Largely considered an E.T. knockoff, the plot follows an alien named Nukie, who crash lands on Earth and seeks help from two children to reunite with his brother, Miko, who has been captured by the U.S. government. Nukie is considered one of the worst movies ever made, and had pretty limited distribution, resulting in somewhat of a cult following. An online auction for a graded copy of Nukie sold for $80,600, making it the most expensive VHS tape in history.

San Francisco was a hub of activity in the late '60s, and it wasn't all sex, drugs, and rock n roll. The city by the bay was also home to an increasing number of British motorcycles, so a couple of industrious friends decided to open up a shop to cater to motorbikes from across the pond. With a rented two bay auto shop in the city's gritty Tenderloin Neighborhood, British Moto opened their doors in 1968, and it didn't take long for word to get around. The motorcycle repair shop was booked solid by the end of the first month, and maintained a steady business for the next three decades before the two friends decided to hang it up and retire.

The King of Rock and Roll died in 1977, and in 1978, writer Gail Brewer-Giorgio published a novel, Orion, about a popular singer who faked his death. Singer Jimmy Ellis began appearing as "Orion," wearing a mask with dyed hair and in similar clothing to that worn by The King. His debut album, Reborn, was released on gold vinyl in 1979, and featured an illustration of the singer emerging from a coffin. Many believed that "Orion" was, in fact, The King, and between the artist and his label, they didn't exactly try to clear up any misconception. Orion ended up with several hits on the country charts, and built up a substantial live following, and continued to perform well into the '90s.

"We Are the World" is a charity single originally recorded by the supergroup USA for Africa in 1985 to benefit African famine relief. With sales in excess of 20 million copies, it is the eighth-bestselling physical single of all time.