Monday, July 14, 2008

"Just ford the river!"

I'm sure anyone born between 1970-1980 played Oregon Trail at some point during grade school. I was supposed to be educational (and it was), but it has 3 things that made it great.

1) Naming your own characters. Who wouldn't want Batman or Mr.T leading your wagon train?
2) Hunting for Food. Gun down as many animals as possible, even though you can only carry 100 lbs of meat.
3)FORD THE RIVER!!! No matter how shallow or deep, you always ford! The main purpose was to see how many in your party you could kill off and how much supplies you could loose. That's when shit got interesting. It became a survival game.


We open in Independence, Mo...




Create the ultimate Oregon Trail Wagon Train Crew



First you have to buy supplies for the trip





It's you or them. Shoot as many critters as possible.



Rivers, givers and takers of life. Ford that sucker!



30 feet deep? Screw you river! I can beat you!


Maybe not...

The carnage
!







McFarty! Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!



http://actionnooz.com/news/?p=268
If you're dying to play the game again, here's a link to a "how to install" step by step that has links to the Apple emulator and the original "Oregon Trail" game.

-DR.G

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Screen Cap-o-rama: "Bachelor in Paradise"

Where every house has a walk-in bar in the closet

I love the mid 50s to mid 60s. The look, the designs, the colors, the stores and resturants. All the great spaceage, mid-century modern aesthetics of the postwar boom. One of the easiest ways to see the era is by watching movies (Turner Classic is great for this). It's a lost world in Technicolor.

Here's some grabs of "Hughes Market" and "Bennys Drive In" from "Bachelor in Paradise" (1961) starring Bob Hope, and Lana Turner.

Bennys Drive In (couldn't find any info online about the place)






Hughes Market in LA (Supermarket chain)














It's a fun, light comedy. It's not on DVD, but Turner Classic usually airs it every couple of months or so.

-DR.G

Sunday, July 6, 2008

The Job of Tomorrow...Today! Vintage ShopKo

Picked up an old ShopKo employment book from the early 70s (I think). Most of it's pretty dry, but there are a couple of pages of cool old photos. ShopKo has been a fixture here in Omaha since 1984 and they are still alive and kicking with 4 stores in the area and a 5th opening later this year.

A little ShopKo info from the Wiki:
Shopko is a chain of retail stores based in Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin, outside of Green Bay, behind Bay Park Square, a shopping mall featuring Shopko as one of its anchor tenants. The company employs approximately 16,000 people and has a presence in 13 states.

Shopko was founded in 1962 in Green Bay by James Ruben. From 1991 until 2005, the company was publicly held with stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SKO. In December 2005, the company was acquired by an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners and reverted to private ownership. The company generates annual sales of approximately $2.2 billion. The first Shopko store is located on 216 S. Military Avenue, in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In 1999 Shopko purchased Pamida, a regional discount chain that operated mainly in smaller communities of three to eight thousand people. Shopko operated Pamida as a separate division until 2007, when Pamida was separated from Shopko and reestablished as a separate company.

The company operates 135 stores located in 13 states. These stores are placed in small to mid-sized communities. Such stores are multi-department operations.













Flea Market finds: Carnival Prize catalog

Found this cool Acme Premium Supply Corp catalog of Carnival prizes this morning and decided to scan some of the cooler pages. The catalog looks to be from the late 60s or early 70s (There's some Peace and Mod style merchandise but no dates)















-Dr.G