Aug 30, 2009

16 mil

A working 16 mm film projector with sound speaker. It didn't come with a film, but luckily enough we have been stashing a student film product called "Water / Ducks" for a few months for a situation just like this.


The bulb was working and the motor sounded decent so I threaded it up. Finally, the skills I gained in my five years as a film major at a private art college are coming in handy. 



We sat around and watched 10 minutes of ducks, ponds, fountains, flowers and other plant life in of the bay area projected onto a white marker board. Once I got the gate-loop set, the film ran smooth. There was no optical sound track, so we didn't get to test that, but it didn't even skip at the tape splices. I consider this a victory for the junk store and my film education. However, there was one problem...


The projector was no donated with a take-up reel, so we basically just let the whole film pile onto the floor as it ran out the back of the projector. For the rewind we just threw that sucker into reverse at the end and watched it backwards. 

Aug 25, 2009

Sonny Bono's Autograph!

Riding hot on the heels of Neil Diamond's autograph, like an out of control downhill skier, comes another awesome donation from a completely different source:



Now, us Junk Pirates of the sorting room are never above a fake-autograph prank or two (just asked the kid who bought the "Babe Rooth" autographed baseball), and this autographed LP came in less than 5 days after the last one that it seemed a bit suspicious. Let us try to get some random internet confirmation on this one:


Wow, looks like the Bono autograph that I embedded from another host got removed as well. Cher is spinning in her grave.
Good enough for me. 
Out of respect for those who are no longer with us, we decided to actually nail this one on the wall instead of letting it get buried. RIP Sonny. Best Wishes.

Aug 24, 2009

Neil Diamonds Autograph!


Could it really be an authentic autographed LP from Neil Diamond. Let's take a closer look:



Ok, now let's compare it to another Neil Diamond autograph I randomly grabbed from the 'net:


Yup! Looks good!
Update: Looks like somebody didn't appreciate me linking through to their Neil Diamond autograph. Trust me, it looked really similar to the one on our donated record.

Now what to do with such a rare and valuable item?
Put it on Ebay?   No.
Frame it and put it on the wall?    No.
Sell it with the rest of the records and stoke out some Neil Diamond fan?    No.
Smash the record and then lost the autographed cover under fabric mountain?    Bingo!
Sorry, Lynne, but you should hold onto your valuables. 

Aug 22, 2009

The Fabulous Fever of Spiromania

A couple more Spirographs for the pile:



This one is a "Pocket Spirograph". Then we got this one:


While the exact same design as the Pocket, the orange and yellow color makes it the "Travel Spirograph". Here they are side by side.

I can't image there are that many more possible Spirograph variations available, but I'm sure more will come in soon enough. In the meanwhile:

Aug 20, 2009

More Cold Beer

Not literal cold beer (I wish), but another one of those Plug-Ins. Just to prove that I'm not just taking a new picture of this one, here they both are together.

Aug 18, 2009

Freedom Costs a Buck-Oh-Nine.

In case you started to think that these colors might start to fade (or run or whatever), we got another one of these in:

And in case you need to be reminded of what Freedom cost in previous posts (hint: it wasn't free), here is a patriotic recap.

Aug 16, 2009

"Well turn it up, Man!"

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of the Woodstock Music Festival, I present the Woodstock of my generation. No, I'm not talking about Woodstock 94, and I'm especially not talking about Woodstock 99. I'm talking about those awesome commercials for Freedom Rock!


From the opening chords of "Layla" to the dude's little guffaw when he tells you that the original hits are "by the original artists!" to the bright blue screen that tells you how to order, the commercial for Freedom Rock has been etched into my brain. All the song snippets have locked themselves into this order so that The Byrds "Turn Turn Turn" is inextricably mashed with Skynyrd's "Freebird". Heck, some of these song are only known to me still as 5-second snippets.
The gods of rock must have made sweet hippie love to the gods of donations because half of my dreams came true when disc 2 of Freedom Rock (albeit a bit scratched-up) arrived at the Junk Store.



In truth, Freedom Rock does not "have it all, man". In fact, this compilation is pretty awful and certainly not worth $24.95 (from 1987, which, with inflation, would cost $47.15 today). There are a lot of bullshit, not rocking, unfree filler like James Taylor swamping up the true rock classics. I'm still glad it came in though, if only for giving me a reason to post the Freedom Rock commercial on this blog.

Aug 13, 2009

A long time ago...



A collection of  Star Wars Pez dispensers. These are all "Jar Jars" (Star Wars merchandise released as part of the Episode I frenzy) but still worth a photo when they show up in these quantities. The candy was not included. 

Aug 8, 2009

Junk Pirate Archives: the Classics part 4


The Jammer got me all psyched up on collected plastic Jack-O-Lantern buckets. The fun thing to do notice is all the different tooth patterns that exist. Sometimes you have 2top-3bottom, sometimes 1top-2bottom. Sometimes they are triangular fangs. 
This is a classic photo, but lately we have taken to stringing them up on a bungee cord. We even got a neon pink one in. 

Aug 5, 2009

More Nintendo

Over the past few months a few more Nintendo Entertainment Systems have come in. All working, all with zappers.