Tea Time

You've probably heard the term "Tea Party" being used in the news these days. Just so you know that I'm up on things and "hip," I love tea. And everything it stands for. You can see my tea of choice above - iced tea.

Don't Tread On Me

I just wanted to post this so you could get a good look at it. If you remember your high school history lessons, you'll know it is the Gadsden Flag, made famous in our Revolutionary War. The one where we fought for that little thing called "freedom." You may remember it well!

You're probably going to be seeing a lot more of this particular symbol in the coming days and weeks because the federal government of the United States has now decided that it stands for domestic terrorism! Exactly why are we paying these guys and gals!? To try and get us to fall for propaganda such as this?

You haven't heard the last of this story.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I just had to comment on this amusing little exchange.

A user over on the Joepedia wiki made this little comment on his user page:

"I get around - mostly minor edits, so the only reason I have a username is that nobody respects a string of numbers."

I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I made a reply to this statement. When you realize the user name he chose for himself is "ButtButt," you'll see why I had no choice but to say:

"Good point about people not respecting strings of numbers. Now, a name like ButtButt is something they certainly will respect!"

Do people actually use that thing between their ears anymore?

Meet George Jetson

Baby Boomers like myself probably remember The Jetsons better than anybody else. It was a cartoon set way into the future and depicted a society where humanity didn't have to work much anymore and when they did, they simply had to push buttons and computers did all the work. The only problem with that vision is that the reality is much different. Now we have computers that can "push the button," so to speak, without the need for human involvement. A good point to illustrate this is this:

I was "promoted" to being an administrator over on the great Wikipedia project, in one of the little side-wikis known as the Hot Wheels Wiki. The first task I was told to always be sure and do was to greet new users when they first appeared. It was imperative that this be done, so as to make sure users would stick around to do more work, editing the wiki and uploading new pictures. Well, I agreed to take on this charge and loved the responsibility of doing this important task. It was nice to be able to greet each new user personally, and with helpful suggestions that would get them up and running on something that can be complicated. If I had only had some of the hints that I'm aware of now when I joined, there could have been a lot less trouble.

But now, the great staff of Wikipedia has been upgrading everything and adding new features. One of them is, you guessed it, automatic software that greets every new user within 1 minute - 60 seconds - of when they first join. Now, this might be a good thing, but I enjoyed doing that task myself and making each greeting a personal thing, from a real person and not a "'bot." What is a person to do when progress keeps making people obsolete? I'm practically not needed anymore over on the wiki, thanks to all the new features.

What was the purpose of humanity again? Are you now or have you ever been?

Diecast Copies

Did you know that there are diecast companies that copy other companies' designs? Sad, but true. Rather than go to the expense of creating their own original designs, they'll just copy somebody else's that has already been released. Personally, I can't conceive how a person or company in a creative field such as this could ever even think about copying somebody else's work. Where's the joy of creation? Anyway, it does happen more often than you'd think, so it will probably continue to happen for just as long as diecast cars and trucks are made. Here are a few notable examples.

Above you will see a fine Porsche 911 Turbo cast in 1:64 scale, made by Tomica. Below, you will a pretty good copy of the same exotic car, only this one was made by Welly.


Here's an ambulance model made by Hot Wheels, called an "American Ambulance." Below you will see an almost identical copy, even down to the tampo design, made by Maisto. You tell me, was this intentional or not?

This is the Deora, made by Mattel in 1968. Below you can see a copy of it from Argentina. It was made by a company called Muky, and as far as I can tell, they named it "Furgon."

Pretty similar, eh? If you like copies, some of them are quite well made and sport features sometimes not found on the original versions. So, keep your eyes open as they "send in the clones."

You Say It's Your Birthday - Well, It's My Birthday, Too, Yeah!

As promised, here are some pictures from the night of my birthday. The place where I deejay is what used to be called a roadhouse. The name of the bar is Lonzo's Place and you can play the jukebox, get in a game or two of pool, sit at the bar and drink, order pizza or shake your booty until it hurts. I love that place!

The night started out slow, with the pool players keeping it mellow over in the corner. But it built until everybody got really loose. I'll mostly leave the pictures to talk for themselves, as they are self-evident in their nature!

Here you can see the girls are starting to shake their booty. Alcohol will do that.



Table tops were just made for dancing.

Please remember to tip your bartenders!

This was the spinning disco light. I love this shot - it was a hand-held, timed exposure.

Yours truly, with Miss Budweiser or something. Anyway, she was flat chested.

Don't ask.

Strike a pose! Vogue.

At the end of the night, these two guys became brothers. It's the alcohol, I tell you!

All in all, it was a fun night and turning 48 didn't seem that much of a big deal. Just wait until 50, though.

Diecast Mystery Trucks

I was going through my old diecast vehicles and came across two different trucks of indeterminate age that I had forgotten all about. I can't remember where or when I got them and they have no company name stamped on the bases. The first one was just the semi cab of a tractor-trailer rig and it was in pretty rough shape. It was so bad, I decided to restore it and bring it back to life. I would, however, like to know what company made these two trucks, or even what real-life models they are based on. If anybody can help me, please leave a comment. I will post a few different views of each truck for help in identification purposes.

Here is the first one, just the cab of a semi rig. It was originally painted bright red, but most of the paint has been worn off. The axles are rusty and the chrome on the face of the wheels is rubbed off.

This top view shows more of what the original paint looked like. There was still some left, but not much.

Here is a view of the plastic base. Just to the left of the tiny hole toward the top left, there were the tiny words "Hong Kong," so I'm assuming it was made there. The tiny hole was the secret to getting it to come apart so I could strip the old paint off and give it a general cleaning, inside and out. By putting a tiny screwdriver in the hole, I could disengage the grille unit, which pushed out the front of the truck.

Here is what my unknown truck looks like with 3 coats of paint. I have one more final coat to go, some detail painting, and then a coat of gloss finishing paint. It's already starting to look much better! I think the new wheels really set it off, what do you think? Again, if anybody recognizes this model and can tell me who made it or what it's based on, please let me know. It looks like it's based on an American-made truck of some kind to me.

The second truck was in much better condition. It's a box truck with opening doors in the back. Everything about this vehicle was shiny, non-rusted or clean, so I'm not going to be doing anything to it. The "ice cream" decal on the driver's side was slightly askew, but that's the way it came.

On the other truck, there was no emblem on the front of it. But, this one has a flying wings symbol just above the grille. I'm not sure whether it represents the company that made the original truck this one was patterned after, or a logo for the toy company that cast it. Either way, maybe somebody can recognize it. The truck itself resembles an Isuzu or a Hino, to me.

On the plastic base of the ice cream truck were the words "Made In Hong Kong." They are a little hard to see, but they are stamped in the area right between the two rear axles.

The passenger's side decal was straight and looked much better. If anybody recognizes what this truck is supposed to be or who made it from this profile, please let me know. I hope these views are good enough for someone to be able to identify these models. Perhaps the style of wheels will give a clue as to who produced them and when. If nothing else, please just enjoy looking at these two heavy duty workhorses in 1:64 scale!

March 8th, 2009 Update: Having cast out various threads onto the internet, I think I can now safely say I know what these two vehicles are. The first one, the red one I'm restoring, was made by Universal in the early 1980's, and represents an International Transtar. The second one, the yellow ice cream truck, was made by Welly, and is supposed to be a Japanese Hino. Thanks to everybody who helped out on this!