Happy 4th Birthday Big Pile of Stuff!

Today marks the 4rd birthday of Ronn's Big Pile of Stuff! The blog was started as a joke when I started to see how many blogs there were out there. I figured at some point there would be more blogs than people, so why not jump in and start my own. My first idea was to do it for one year, and post something every single day during that year. My experiment lasted 75 days, before I forgot to post something one day. I abandoned the idea of posting every day, but continued to post anytime I had something I wanted to share which turns out to be a couple of posts a week. It is great knowing that when I get something new that I am really excited about, I have somewhere I can share it with others who 'may' actually be as excited about it as me!
I have received a few emails over the 4 years from readers telling me how much they enjoy my posts, but I would love to hear from more of you. Use the comment link at the bottom of any post and share your thoughts.
Thanks again for visiting my little corner of the internet. If you enjoy this blog, why not visit a few of my other sites. Find the links to the right under "My Other Stuff". And be sure to check out all of my "Favorite Blogs" also listed to the right. There is am amazing amount of cool stuff out there to be oogled!
- Ronn Roxx Aka the Unfocused Collector

Coca Cola's Vending Machine of Friendship

This large Size Coca Cola vending machine is an advertisement created by Ogilvy Argentina Agency to celebrate Argentinian friendship day. I translated the text from the ad using the Google translator and this is what it said: The Machine of Friendship. On the day of the friend we invite friends to celebrate with a 2x1 Coca Cola. To do this we placed a Coca Cola vending machine with a higher than common coin slot, so that the only way to reach the button is with the help of a friend.
Turns out, that if you and your friend(s) can figure out how to get up high enough to place your coins into the machine, you will be rewarded with an extra bottle for free... for your friend of course!

Little Golden Book Monday #123

Today's Little Golden Book is Rabbit and his Friends with story and pictures by Richard Scarry. Originally printed in 1953, this copy is the Third Printing from 1974. I picked this one up because I liked the cute animal artwork on the cover. It wasn't until I got home and had a look though it that I realized I recognized the artwork. A quick flip to the front inside cover revealed that it was none other than Richard Scarry who had done the artwork, along with writing the story.
The story is about Rabbit who finds an egg who he believes belongs to Mrs. Hen, but when the egg hatched, there stood the strangest animal that ever was!
"He doesn't look like any animal I have ever seen before", said Rabbit. "He has a big beak and little webbed feet just like Duck."
"He has a tail and a fur coat just like Beaver," said Mrs. Hen. "And he is very shy, like Squirrel." "What are you, my dear?" asked Mrs. Hen.
But the roly-poly animal said, "I don't know." Then splash, kersplash! that roly-poly animal jumped into the river and swam right down to the bottom.
The strange little animal turns out to be a platypus, the rarest and most interesting animal in the whole world.

CAPTAIN CANUCK 35th ANNIVERSARY Art Contest

Check out the cool Captain Canuck 35th Anniversary Art Contest going on over at deviantART.com. As well as info on the contest, be sure to read the complete blog entry when you get there, as there is some cool info about a possible new, kid-friendly "Captain Canuck Jr." project.
And be sure to click on the 'current entires' link to see all the great submissions of Captain Canuck artwork.
Along with the post, I have added a few of my favorite submissions from those posted so far.

The Sheldon Comic Strip Makes Fun of Me!

I was going though some stuff I had dropped into a folder on my iMac and came across this cartoon I snagged from the Sheldon Comic Strip Daily Webcomic by Dave Kellett. This simple cartoon made me chuckle at myself as I realized how many times I have sat and watched something on TV (with commercials) that I own on DVD, but was too lazy to get of the shelf and load into my DVD player! And, I don't know if I am the only one who thinks this, but I find some sort of satisfaction in watching something that I know others are watching at the same time... even if they aren't watching it on the same TV as me!

Pancho The Parrot 45 rpm Record

While checking out a local thrift shop the other day I found this Pancho the Parrot picture sleeve 45 record. I remember seeing this parrot back in 1979 when I visited the San Diego Zoo with my mother on my second trip to California. I also remember seeing him on TV on a few occasions on shows such as That's Incredible.
If you would like to check out an mp3 version of Pancho singing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" you can over at abMP3.com.