2007 Stanley Cup Fianls

It's finally happened! My two favorite NHL teams, the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators have made it to the Stanley Cup Finals this year. It almost happened a few seasons ago when the Ducks made it in, but the sens lost game 7 of the semi finals to the Devils to miss the big dance. So this year, the Sens made it in, and I was waiting for the Ducks to make it in. I figured that this year it would be the Ducks who would make it to the 7th game of the semi finals before losing to the Red Wings to once again deprive me of my dream Stanley Cup Final! In tonights match up (game 6), the Ducks would move on to the the Final with a win. At one point in the game they were up 4 to 1. Then Detroit scored two goals to get me worried... was it going to happen again this year? The Ducks even spotted the Red Wings a power play, with just a couple of minutes left to go in the 3rd, with only a one goal deficit. The Ducks managed to hang on and defeat the Red Wings 4 to 3 to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals. At that point I was doing somersaults around the living room. The 2007 NHL Stanley Cup Finals this season will be the Anaheim Ducks vs the Ottawa Senators. Now, if only I had gone to Vegas and put some cash on these two teams meeting in the Finals at the beginning of the season.

Save Net Radio

I don't know about you, but one of the things I like about the internet the most is internet radio! During the hockey season, I listen to at least 1 hockey game a night via internet radio. I have been listening to internet radio stations like Kingdom of Swing and Hard Rockin' 80's for years. I for one hope that internet Radio is here to stay! If you agree, click the link above to find out what is happening with internet radio.

Little Golden Book Monday #9

Today's Little Golden Book is a new addition to my collection. I picked this one up for 49¢ at my local thrift store. Its called "Doctor Dan, The Bandage Man" and on the cover it states; "Inside you will wind two real Band-Aid adhesive bandages". Inside it says "Reissued on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Little Golden Books" and is dated 1977. Inside there is also A Note from the Publishers:
"For a long, long time, the publishers have been ardent admirers of BAND-AID Adhesive Bandages – not only for themselves (publishers seem to cut themselves more than other people) but because of their effect on children. We've noted that BAND-AID Adhesive Bandages not only cheer and comfort small boys and girls who ban themselves up, but they make wonderful playthings as well. No one quite knows how many millions of dolls and stuffed toys and live pets have been patched up in this manner.
Consequently, when the idea for this book came to us, we promptly went to Johnson & Johnson and asked them if they would be willing to help us. They were very nice abut it and asked that we point out that BAND-AID is Johnson & Johnson's trade-mark for its band of adhesive bandages and for several other products in its line."
The story goes on to show Doctor Dan patching up his finger, a little girls leg, a dolly, a pooch, and even old pop!
The text on the final page of the story reads "Some day, perhaps, you or one of your toys may get bumped or cut or scratched. When that happens, you can really use one of the BAND-AID Adhesive Bandages in the front of this book."
Unfortunately for me, some kid, probably 30 years ago, already patched up somebody or something, as those two "free" BAND-AIDs are missing from my book.

Idaho Steelheads Crunch

Ok, I love hockey, I love cereal, and I love advertising. So when I received this from a friend in Idaho, I was thrilled with this great new addition to my collection. Its perhaps the coolest looking season ticket holder brochure ever produced! The team is the Idaho Steelheads of the ECHL. They have gone with a cereal theme here with a box of Idaho Steeleads Crunch cereal on the front of the brochure. It looks to me like the cereal is Rice Crispies type cereal with little chocolate cookie "pucks" tossed in. I love all the marketing slogans used throughout the brochure: "New and improved ticket plans!", "Tasty offers inside!", "2 scoops of fun per bite!", "23 essential vitamins & benefits!", "Wait... there's more!" and "Part of a complete & balanced entertainment diet!". I absolutely love the "fake" Steelheads Crunch cereal box on the front of this brochure. I once made my own "fake" KISS (the rock band) cereal box... but that's a story for another day.

Little Golden Book Monday #8

Today's Little Golden book is Walt Disney's Once Upon a Wintertime. The story is adapted by Tom Oreb from the Walt Disney motion picture "Melody Time", and is copyright 1948 and 1950. It tells the story of a young couple who take a sleigh ride and go ice skating on thin ice before being saved by some helpful woodland creatures. It is told in verse and adorned with wonderful artwork by the Walt Disney Studio. The inscription on the inside front page reads "This book belongs to Carol-Ann Cob, 1950, From unknown". I am not sure why they would bother to write From unknown... maybe it was their old aunt Mable Unknown from Oshkosh.

The New Pet Sensation... Crazy Crabs

Everyone loves a great comic book cover, but what about the back cover? You can find the most interesting things in the world back there!
Today we have a look at "The new live pet sensation that's sweeping America" Apparently the Transcience Corporation of New York, NY was hoping to cash in on the popularity of Sea Monkeys with this twist on the much loved Sea Monkeys--Crazy Crabs!
This ad comes from the back cover of a 1978 Yosemite Sam comic book.
Here is some of the sales pitch from the ad: "A Crab of AMAZING INTELLIGENCE! A truly INTELLIGENT pet, give it a name such as L'il Caesar, Leapin' Linda, Happy Henry, Sandy Claws, Tippytoes, Sexy Snooky, Merry Mimi, Tiny Tim, etc., and see how well it responds when you call it! It loves to be touched and petted, and enjoys running from hand to hand, swinging from your fingers or just cuddling on your shoulder like an adorable tame parrot. But that's just the STAR of the FUN that awaits you! You get instructions for paying FOUR "Crazy Crab" Races and Games including a BAFFLING new magic trick called "The Haunted Coffee Cup", that uses a "Crazy Crab" as your "Assistant"!"
I also like the text that reads "Actual "Crazy Crab" photos which is placed beside the obvious drawings!
Then there is the promise of a "Free carrying crate". Yes that's right, they give you a free cardboard box with each Crazy Crab you order!
Lastly, the ad says: "And to create some REAL EXCITEMENT, you can even "customize" it! Because it is a hermit crab, its shell is not its own and can be painted, covered with dazzling rhinestone jewels or decorated any other way without harm! It looks SO SPECTACULAR, you can proudly "shot it off", give as a "personalized" gift or, it you wish, even SELL for profit!"
That's right, you can Bedazzle your Crazy Crabs and sell them for profit! What a great idea for a home based business!
And don't forget, they come with a Money Back Guarantee!

Free Comic Book Day 2007

It's almost here... The 6th Annual Free Comic Book Day Saturday, May 5th, 2007. Don't miss your chance to get FREE comic books, simply by stopping by your local comic store! What is Free Comic Book Day? As the name implies, Free Comic Book Day is a single day when participating comic book shops across North America and around the world are giving away comic books absolutely free to anyone who comes into their stores. That's right, just walk into your local comic shop and you can walk away with a pile of cool comics books. That's right, you can walk out of the store with free comics... you won't have to leave the store running!

Little Golden Book Monday #7

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Gerald McBoing-Boing is a 1950 animated short film produced by UPA and given wide release by Colombia Pictures on January 25, 1951. The winner of the 1950 Academy Award for Best Animated Short, Gerald McBoing-Boing is the story of a little boy who speaks through sound effects instead of spoken words. It was adapted by Phil Eastman and Bill Scott from a story by Dr. Seuss, and directed by Robert Cannon. The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In 1994, it was voted #9 of The 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.
Today I present the 2004 "Gerald McBoing Boing" Little Golden Book. I remember seeing the cartoon for this title many times as a young kid and as soon as I saw the cover of this one, I immediately remembered the story and wanted to add this to my collection. I absolutely love the retro style of artwork throughout the book!

Some Cool Comic Book Finds

The other day at the local comic shop, I picked up some great comics from the junk bins. A lot of times I pick up comics just because I like the cover artwork. I have a comic book spinner/rack that they used to have at local convince stores etc to sell comics. These new additions will look great displayed on my comic book spinner. three of the comics pictured are: Fox and the Crow, DC Comics, 1964. Dennis the Menace, CBS Consumer Publishing / Fawcett, 1979. Night Rider, Marvel Comics, 1975.

Disneyland Gate Flyers

A coworker recently went to Disneyland. Knowing that I am a huge Disneyland fan, he asked if there was anything I would like him to bring back for me. Although there is probably thousands of dollars worth of park items I would love him to drag home for me, I really can't afford that (and I'm sure his luggage would not fit all my wants)! So instead, I asked for what I always ask for which is the park gate flyers that you receive as you enter the park. They have a map of the park inside and a listing of all the attractions, dinning, shows etc. Its a nice way to see how things change in the park over the years. In the past they used to have a new gate flyer each week and they were dated at the top. As the parks try to keep things 'cheap', they have gone to a more generic gate flyer which can last for months at a time. Here I present the the Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure gate flyers for the month of February 2007. The covers feature the promotional artwork for the new Rockin' Space Mountain and Rockin' California Screaming, which takes the two rides and adds music from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to them while you ride. You will notice that the Disneyland flyer is mint, but the California Adventure flyer has been bent and creased. I found that kind of funny, as DCA is always considered to be a substandard version of a Disney park. Disneyland is always considered to be kept so clean and pristine, while DCA is thought of as not being kept up to the standards of Disneyland... now it seems the gate flyers are following the trend ;-)

Little Golden Book Monday #6

I found this one at the local Salvation Army the other day among a large selection of Little Golden Books that I had seen a million times before. This one caught my eye, as I had not seen it before, and it had Fozzie Bear on the cover. Fozzie Bear and Bean Bunny are my two favorite Muppet characters, so fining a book with Fozzie on the cover it was a "great find"! Although I was not a big fan of the Muppet Babies which this book features, its still a great addition to my collection. This one is from 1995.

The Montgomery Biscuits

I love logos and I am always checking out new teams and leagues to see what new teams/logos are out there. The other night I was visiting the Logo Quality Control blog and came across one of the silliest logos ever. Its a minor league AA baseball team from Montgomery, Alabama. The name of the team is the Montgomery Biscuits and their logo is a wacky breakfast biscuit! If they were a hockey team, that would make one heck of a cool jersey!

Death Proof

The new double feature Grindhouse was released the theaters last week. I have not yet had a chance to see it, but will make it out to my local googleplex some time soon for sure. I am not a fan of Tarantino or Rodriquez, but, but I love the look of this double feature with all the effort they have put into making them look like old grindhouse films. The movie posters, movie trailers etc all look amazing! Being a big fan of movies such as "the Car", I am especially interested in seeing Death Proof. And I would love to own the movie poster for Death Proof. Hopefully when it comes to my local theater, I can talk the owner into giving me the poster for this one!

Little Golden Book Monday #5

As well as collecting Little Golden Books, I am also a big fan of Walt Disney's 1959 masterpiece, Sleeping Beauty. So, anytime I find something to add to my Sleeping Beauty collection, I snap it up, and this item falls into two of my collections. I have a few different Sleeping Beauty Little Golden Books, including this on which was published in 1997 and 2004.

A Trio of Interesting Ads

This first one is a great ad for Benjamin Moore Paint. Its a giant colour swatch that uses the blue sky as its colour pallet.











The second ad is for Mr Clean. I love this one. Its really simple, but very effective.


Third is an ad for Bic Razors. This one is great becasue it dosen't just use the billboard, but also the field in front of it as part of its design. The funny part is that someone has to mow the strip of grass in front of the sign each day!

Little Golden Book Monday #4

Today's Little Golden Book is "Tom and Jerry's Photo Finish" from 1974. Although most of my collection of Little Golden Books has been acquired as over the past few years as a collector, this one comes from my childhood. I remember how excited I was to own this book, as I could see Tom & Jerry any time I wanted, even when they were not on TV. Back then there were no cartoon networks, no cartoon DVD collections etc, so if you were a fan of a particular cartoon, you actualy had to get up early Saturday mornign to see them, or you had to have something like this great book. I must have read this story and looked at the photos a millions times over. Great cover and great drawings throughout.

Mr. Yuk Says... Happy St. Patrick's Day

Ok, I am a few days late with this one, but I wanted to share this anyway.
My last day at work before St. Patrick's Day, my coworkers were all going crazy with the St. Patrick's Day nonsense. They were all wearing their green, and hassling all those who were not dressed in green. This may make me a party pooper, but I have never been big on St. Patrick's Day. I don't like the colour green and I don't want to drink some goofy green beer... and I am NOT Irish!
As the morning wore on I was getting tired to all the taunting I was receiving for not wearing green. I quickly headed for my computer and after a few minutes on Google and then in Freehand, I had created my own St. Patrick's button to proudly wear for the day. Although a few of my coworkers were a little put off by my Mr. Yuk sticker, most though it was pretty funny, and a few even asked for their very own.

Little Golden Book Monday #3

Today's Little Golden Book is "Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse and the Missing Mouseketeers" from 1956 (my printing is from 1975). I was immediately drawn to the wonderful artwork on the cover of Mickey Mouse with his detective cap and magnifying glass.
The story takes place at Disneyland and has many wonderful drawings of Mickey and the gang at all the familiar spots in the park. I especially liked the opening paragraph "Disneyland was all agog. Main Street was hung with banners." Agog is a great word for a children's book don't you think?
And for any of you who are worried... Mickey dose find Minnie Mouse and the Mousketeers in the end!

Victoria Vanguard Jerseys

Today on the way home from work I was listening to the local sports radio station and they were talking about the Vancouver Canucks and their jerseys. Of course as soon as I heard them talking about jerseys and new possible logos, I became very interested. They mentioned a Canucks fan website where there was a discussion going on regarding next season's Canuck's jerseys, along with fan made designs. As soon as I got home, I hit the web and ended up wasting a couple of hours at the computer. First I checked out the Canucks Canucks.com message board where the thread topic was "Modified Canucks Jersey - New Designs". There were some terrific looking jersey designs posted by the Canucks fans. This got me thinking about a logo I made a few years ago for the Victoria Salmon Kings of the ECHL.
When I first heard that there was a new pro hockey team coming to Victoria a couple of seasons ago, I was very interested to see what their name and logo would be. I was greatly disappointed when they unveiled their name (Salmon Kings) and logo (a sappy looking fish with a crown). Not the cool name and logo I had been hoping for. I decided I wanted to come up with something cooler. I remembered seeing some proposed (but unused) logos for the new team in Adirondack (check out my previous blog on this. I took my favorite unused Adirondack's logo and then mucked with it in Photoshop, changing the Adirondack Attack into the Victoria Vanguard. After spending some time playing around with, I made a nice desktop out of it, which pops up every now and then in my desktop screensaver mode.
Today I decided it was time to create some jerseys for my fictional hockey team. So, here I present the home and away jerseys of the Victoria Vanguard.

Little Golden Book Monday #2

It's Monday, so here is another of the Little Golden Books from my collection. Today its Walt Disney Productions' Black Hole. Not wanting to get left out of the movie space race following the success of Star Wars, everyone wanted to get into the scifi business. Disney put together this live action movie which didn't set any box office records, but as a kid, I remember thinking this was such a cool movie! Maximillian was the coolest robot villian even... much cooler than those silly Stormtroopers from that other space movie.
After renting the DVD a few years back, I realized that this movie didn't really hold up all that well. I guess you had to be a 12 year old boy to really appreciate this movie. For those of you who can't get enough of this movie, you can purchase the soundtrack on the iTunes store.
Something else that I did not realize until I scanned the cover and had a look at it recently, it turns out this book was actually made for robots to enjoy, as the cover states "A spaceship Adventure for Robots". Who knew!?

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

I am so excited... Foster's Home for Imaginary Frinds, season 1 just came out on DVD. I had a bit of a hard time finding it, as none of usual places I buy DVDs had it in stock (they didn't even have any on order). I thoguht I would have have to order it online until I stumbled across a copy at WalMart.
If you have never heard of this cartoon, and you enjoy Saturday morning fare, then you have to check this one out! Although little kids will enjoy it, it has lots of humour for us older kids too! And the theme song is addictive!
Here is a description of the show from the back of the DVD "So what's a kid to do when they outgrow their imaginary friend? They find them a home at Foster's home for Imaginary Friends. Madame Foster's is the perfect place to abandon wayward imaginary friendds of all shapes and sizes. Liek Blooregard Q. Kazoo, the obnoxious wise-cracking uh... blue blob. Eudardo, the big, giant monster who's afraid of his own shadow. Wilt, the tallest imaginary friend you could ever imagine. And Coco. We're not really sure what Coco's deal is, but she is apperantly a bird of some sort. They've all taken up residence at Madame Foster's, and they place will never be the same again."
For less than $20 you can pick up this 2 disc set with all 13 first season episodes, plus commentary on a few episodes, a behind the scenes look, promos, end of episode gags, and more!

Congratulations New Westminster Whalers

On Sunday, March 5th, 2007, the New Westminster Whalers won the WHA Championship, beating the Lumby Fighting Saints All Stars 3 - 2 at home in front of a small but jubilant crowd inside the Queens Park Arena.

This was my son Kaden's second Championship winning game, as we watched the Coquitlam Express win the BCHL Championship last season. Pretty good for an (almost) 2 year old. Two years old, and two Cup winning games! I wonder who he will see win the Cup next season?

Little Golden Book Monday #1

After seeing a recent blog on the Secret Fun Spot about the back pages of Little Golden Books, I thought it might be fun to post the fronts of some of my Little Golden Books. After flipping though my stacks of LGBs, I realized how much I loved the covers (and inside artwork) of so many of them that I thought that it might be fun to start a Little Golden Book of the week post on my site.
So, starting today, I am posting the first (actually two) covers to some of my favorite LGBs. Today I present two books based on the Disney/Pixar movie Cars. The first is the Cars story book which came out just before the movie hit theaters. The second is a more recent release of "Mater and the Ghost Light". This one seems a little more scarce, as I have only seen one other copy, other than the one I purchased. This one is a retelling of the animated short on the Cars DVD release. Both were released in 2006.
I am not sure of the dates, but I know that around 2001 when Disney's Atlantis The Lost Empire was released, Little Golden Books for some reason stopped releasing Disney titles, which was disappointing for me, as I am a big fan of the Atlantis movie and was looking forward to adding an Atlantis title to my Little Golden Books collection. A few years later, LGBs and Disney seemed to renew their partnership, but unfortunately due to the lack of success of Atlantis, they never bothered to release an Atlantis book after the fact. Darn!

Corn Gone Wrong

Just a quick post today. This is an ad I scanned from a comic book back in 2000. The ad is for Corn Nuts, something I was never a big fan of, but this ad is great! I love the menacing looking ears of corn behind bars. I especially like the graffiti on the cell wall that says "Farmer Brown Shucks!" Nice tag line too... "Surprisingly hardcore corn snacks in seven mean flavors". Seeing as they seem to make animated cartoons out of just about everything these days, I would love to suggest a Saturday morning cartoon series based on these Corn Snacks from the wrong side of the tracks! Sounds like a winner to me.

Phantasmagoria Remembered

If you enjoy a good (or is that bad) haunted house/shack (and who doesn't?), than you are gonna want to check out this great new blog entry over at the Secret Fun Blog. Here you will be regaled with the story of the now departed Phantasmagoria of Bell's Amusement park, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This is a seriously fun read! Click on over to the Secret Fun Blog and check out Kirk D's February 8th post!

Lake Erie Monsters coming ashore

While visiting the AHL (American Hockey League) web site tonight, I found a great new team called the Lake Erie Monsters who will join the AHL for next season.
The new American Hockey League team that will begin play for the 2007-08 season in Cleveland at Quicken Loans Arena. The Monsters will operate as the primary affiliate of one of the NHL's most successful franchises, the Colorado Avalanche.
The team name was selected after an extensive amount of research was conducted with focus groups made up of casual fans, high level hockey fans, former Cleveland pro hockey season ticket holders, and others. In addition, considerable research explored names that would have a fun connection to the region. The Lake Erie Monsters was the top preference from the focus groups.
The "legend of the Lake Erie Monster" or "LEM," brings a fun geographical folklore connection to the region. The logo art reflects the menacing, powerful nature of the creature and features the hot yellow glare of the Monster's eye. Primary team colors will be wine, blue, yellow and black.
The home jersey will be white with wine shoulders and black trim segments on the arm sleeves and will feature the secondary logo on the front. The road jersey will be wine with black and white trim segments on the arm sleeves. Both home and road jerseys will have the Monster from the primary logo on each shoulder. Player numbers will appear on each shoulder sleeve and on the back of each jersey.
Leading the design and name development process with the organization's senior management team was Tracy Marek, Cavaliers/Quicken Loans Arena senior vice president of marketing. The team worked with Cenergy Communications on all elements of the name and design development process.
"Cenergy Communications brought a great deal of specialized expertise and insight to the table for this project. They really helped us develop an identity package that we'?re confident will engage our fans-to-be with a fun, but aggressive, team image they can be proud of and connect with. Monster Hockey is going to attack The Q like no other hockey team ever has!" said Marek.
I love the name and logo, but would make one small change. I would add the word 'Lock' to their name, making them the Lake Erie Lock Monsters. I think they probably avoided this name though, as there was another team in the AHL that used to go by the name Lowell Lock Monsters. They have since changed their name to the Lowell Devils (they went from a great name and logo, to a pretty lame name and logo in my opinion).
As well as the Lowell Lock Monsters, there was also a UHL team about 10 years ago called the Madison Monsters. I really liked thier logo, but their jersyes looked pretty funny as they were white with black pinstripes, which made them look like baseball jerseys instead of hockey jerseys.
While looking for the Madison logo, I also found this logo for the Vermont Lake Monsters baseball team.
It would seem that the name Monsters, is not as unique as I first thought. Uniqueness aside, I can't wait to add some Erie Lake Monsters merchandise to my collection next season!

10th Anniversary Logo Survey

Tonight while surfing the net, I visited the Bakersfield Condors web site and noticed they were going to be celebrating their 10th anniversary next season. To celebrate, they had a contest to vote for the logo they would use during their 10th Anniversary season. There were 4 logos to choose from. I always love seeing the logo choices, and then seeing which one ends up being used.

Of the four choices, I would choose logo #3. I love the claws grabbing the large ten "X". I would like to see them make the claws look a little more 'rough' as they look in their actual logo. A few claw marks on the "X" would look good too! Second choice would be logo #2. This one looks good, but the "X" in this one gets a little lost. It would look better if they had used the same "X" from logo #3 for this one. I do not like logos #1 or #4. Both are a little too busy and I don't think they would look very good on a jersey, when you see it for a distance.
As far as which one will win, I am putting my money on #3.
While we are discussing the Condor's logo, here is their original logo, back when they were known as the Bakersfield Fog. This is one of my all time favorite logos. I even have a Fog jersey in my collection. When I emailed them to ask why they had changed their name/logo, they told me that they changed their name due to the bad connotations that were linked with the name Fog, due to the fact that Bakersfield is known for its dense fog, and that many people have been killed due to the fog. Too bad, because this is such a cool logo and name!
And lastly, something else I found on the Condor's site. A piece of merchandise that I have not seen a hockey team sell before... toilet paper! The product details on the web site state: "This is a roll of toilet paper that has the Fresno Falcon's logo on it and says 'Wipe out the Falcons.'" I wonder if the Falcons have Condor's toilet paper for sale on their site?

The Original "Battle of Alberta"

Before the NHL set up shop in both Calgary Alberta and Edmonton Alberta in the 80's, there was the Calgary Stampeders and Edmonton Eskimos of the CFL. This was the original "Battle of Alberta"

While perusing a used shop a couple of years ago, I spied this great cover in a glass case and had to have it! What 'it' was, a CFL (Canadian Football League Edmonton Eskimos game program from August 23, 1965. The game was between the Edmonton Eskimos and the Calgary Stampeders. I loved the cover illustration depicting an Eskimo at the top of an oil rig, about to pour a what looks like a bucket of crude oil down onto a quickly approaching cowboy. A great illustration, which somehow seems inappropriate by today's 'way to politically correct' standards.

As well as the cover, there are also some great ads etc inside. The first is a picture of the 1965 Edmonton Eskimo coaching staff. I noticed two things. First off, the combined age of these three looks to be well over 200! And second, I did not realize that just 4 years before landing on the moon, Neil Armstrong was coaching a Canadian Football League team in Edmonton.

There is an ad for CBXT Channel 5's coverage of all things Eskimos and CFL. Being the sports play-by-play junkie that I am, I loved the ad

Next up, is an ad proudly presenting the Canada Dry half-time shows, featuring; Canada Dry Sparklers - beautiful and talented dancers, precision Marchers - a colorful group performing precision drills for pre and half-time entertainment, Canada Dry Champange Girls - 50 marching and dancing girls, "Swinging Brass" Band - top flight entertainment featuring 14 trumpets and trombones, "Eilen Dodds" Majorets - colorful precision baton, flag and fire twirling, Ginger-Gymnastics by a remarkable acrobat, and many other acts. Wow... what fun. Don't bother heading off to the snack bar lineup or the bathrooms!

There is a full page ad for A&W's Chubby Chicken. This has nothing to do with football, but I'm a huge fan of the old A&W Drive-Inn restaurants and I love the name "Chubby Chicken", and the great logo that goes along with it. If you read the ad, it would seem that the little chicken mascot's name is actually "Chubby Chicken". Again, I doubt that this would have been created as a promotional character today with all our politically correctness.

Lastly, is an ad for the Hudson's Bay Company, and their "famous Canadian tradition... authentic Hudson's Bay Coats". I guess this sort of relates to CFL football, as the stadium in Edmonton is outdoors and you would free your backside off in November watching the Eskimos, so a "blanket coat" would be a must!
As a fan of logos and slogans, I always liked the promotional campaign of the late 90's which stated "The CFL - Radically Canadian!"

Sears Wishbook

What is my biggest memory of Christmas as a young child? The Sears Christmas Wishbook of course. When the Wishbook showed up on your doorstep some time in early October, it was time to get excited about Christmas! I can remember spending countless hours sitting with the Wishbok and a stack of various coloured pens to mark the toys I wanted, really wanted, and had to have! By the time Christmas day rolled around, at least half the toys in the toy section had some sort of mark beside them, with many having multiple marks, cross outs, new marks, and special notes to whoever might be looking at this before the big day!

I haven't seen a Sears Wishbook for a few years now and had almost forgotten about it until a Sears Wishbook CD showed up at our house this year. It got me to thinking about all the fun I used to have as a child sitting with the catalog for hours ogling all the toys! unfortuently with this new format, kids today won't be able to sit in their rooms, pens in hand, making marks on all the stuff that catches their eye.
I still have all of our old Wishbooks, and still get a kick out of flipping though them and seeing all the marks I made in them, not to mention seeing all the great old toys that I still have fun ogling today!
For those of you who would like to relive the magic of flipping though an old Wishbook, you can check out this great Sears Wishbook 1979 - photoset on Flickr. Have fun, and Merry Christmas!

A Very Retro Merry Christmas

Hello and Merry Christmas... Yes you heard me, Merry Christmas! I don't know about you but the whole politically correct/non offensive Christmas thing has spun out of control. If you want a good laugh, check out the song "Kung Pao Buckaroo Holiday (Featuring The Kung Pao Buckaroos)" by Brad Paisley (I got my copy at the iTunes Music store online) in which they bleep the word Christmas and any other word that could be considered offensive - of course by the end of the song, its just one long beeeep!

Anyway, while checking out all of my favorite blogs, including the Secret Fun Spot Blog, which has a great "The Twelve Years of Christmas" photo run, I have seen lots of old Christmas morning photos, which got me curious to dig up some of my own.
Here are 3 Christmas day photos I found. The first one is Christmas day '67. The other two did not have dates on them, so I had to make an educated guess as to the years. I am going to say that the second photo is Christmas morning 1972 and the third photo is 1978.

Not much I can say about this photo except, wow, what a neat looking race set!
Here are a few great things about this photo: 1) the orange and blue fuzzy slippers I am wearing, 2) the great tractor and wagon I received, 3) the even greater wind up plane I received, 4) the fake present on the tree was my 'costume' in the school Christmas play, 5) the really cool old black and white TV with the jumbo knobs, at the right edge of the photo.
A few things about this photo: 1) The same Christmas tree as the last photo (the same tree we had until we stopped putting up a tree, 2) The brand new color TV with space age remote control, 3) you won't see it in the photo, but the carpet I am sitting on is green 2 inch shag carpeting, 4) the magazine rack on the left hand side of the photo is stocked full of old Sears Christmas catalogs!

O yeah... and one last thing... Merry Christmas!