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After reading your article about the 1983 Woman's Day ads, I found the cock lobster at a thrift store. I can't imagine why anyone would get rid of such a possession. Of COURSE I bought it. You can't not buy something that glorious. I use it as a catch-all bowl, but I'm determined to incorporate it into my wall decor someday.

I didn’t realize how common Cock Lobster was when I published that article. Even The Goldbergs has it on the wall. Looking back at older sitcoms, the thing’s right there in the Golden Girls kitchen!

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(Figured I'd reblog this for the 1 person who didn't get the memo over 2 years ago.)

You lost souls.

Semiannual reminder: This account is dead and has been dead for a long time. I’ve moved onto a new site, Dinosaur Dracula. And my new Tumblr is Mummy Shark, so follow me there instead of here!

(PS, if you catch me liking your posts or following you or sending you questions, pretend it came from Mummy Shark. Tumblr still doesn’t allow us to switch our main accounts, so…)

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You lost souls.

Semiannual reminder: This account is dead and has been dead for a long time. I've moved onto a new site, Dinosaur Dracula. And my new Tumblr is Mummy Shark, so follow me there instead of here!

(PS, if you catch me liking your posts or following you or sending you questions, pretend it came from Mummy Shark. Tumblr still doesn't allow us to switch our main accounts, so...)

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WAIT WAIT STOP STOP. STOP. WAIT.

If I followed you or liked any of your posts, IMPORTANT NOTE!

I'm only active on my Mummy Shark account.

I can't like/follow from that account, since it's technically a secondary even if I use it as a primary. Because that's one area where Tumblr really needs to shape the fuck up.

Yeah, so, basically, any likes/follows you see coming from here are really coming from there.

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I've actually read the book by the guy who invented the Vykron concept way back when. (And, at least in his opinion, He-Man too.)  It's called Mastering the Universe.  People are split on whether the author's claims are legit, half-legit or not legit at all, but it's still an interesting look into what went into creating toy lines and how many obstacles there are.

I believe part of the reason for the "changing clothes" was because Mattel was looking for a new concept and had noted several potential styles -- one based on G.I. Joe's "military" motif, another with a Star Wars "space" accent, and so on.  By having the alternative clothes, this guy could work in any of those situations.  It was the (alleged) creator's method of covering all the bases.

The best thing I saw at Comic Con?  MAYBE

This was a poster at the Mattel booth (?).  He-Man is new and improved!  Scott dubbed him “Trash Bag He-Man,” like regular He-Man, but wearing things he found in the trash.

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Dino Drac is live.

For those following me on obsolete accounts: Dino Drac is live!

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Psst.

You shouldn't be following me on this account anymore. Dinosaur Dracula opens June 1st!

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Come with me.

I'm moving. Come with me.

New site, which will be under wraps until the big launch a while later: http://dinosaurdracula.com

New Tumblr, which you should follow, because I'm eventually going to leave this one to die: http://dinosaurdracula.tumblr.com

See you there, I hope!

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Designers/Coders?

This is a little random, but I'm looking for a designer/coder to help me build "something."

It's a big project. The person should be familiar with Wordpress especially.

Unfortunately. at this time I'm really looking for someone who can both design AND code. (And by code, I mean take what they build and transform it into a functioning, Wordpress-powered blog.)

Obviously, this is a paying job. I can't afford to spend a fortune but I can be fair. I have ideas and mockups of what I'm after, but need someone who is more of a pro to take it to the next level and actualize it all.

If interested, shoot me an e-mail. Matt at x-entertainment dot com. Thx!

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The sad thing is that Gray Cat has no way of knowing that her weeks-long attempt to climb the floor-to-ceiling pile in the corner of my office has ended with the successful conquering of Grayskull. That's too cool.

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The Godzilla Koosh Ball.

It took me over a decade, but I finally saw Godzilla. The Matthew Broderick 1998 version, I mean.

Wow. Terrible.

I try to enjoy what everyone else trashes, because it’s the easiest way to be a bitchin' nonconformist. But I could not do it with this movie. I’ve seen a thousand “giant monster” films, and even the worst of them had some charm. Here? No.

Everything about it was bad. By the time my mental bullet list grew to 37 lines – and I believe #37 was “Could they have chosen worse music even if limited to tracks from Ace of Base’s seminal album, Happy Nation?” – I gave up and agreed with the critics.

Still, I’m not sorry that they made it. Without 1998’s Godzilla, we wouldn’t have gotten 1998’s Godzilla Koosh ball.

You all remember the Koosh fad, I’m sure. Millions of rubber strings working together as a weird ball, ready to stretch and smoosh all of life’s little stresses away.

Well, at some point, King Koosh decided that his empire would grow to new heights by sticking heads, arms and feet into the things. I’m not sure how many “Koosh characters” came to fruition, but as the photo proves, there was a Godzilla version at the very least.

He’s awesome. They even used specially colored filaments to match Godzilla’s grey-green skin. He can’t stand without using his tail for balance, and sure, he looks a bit like Godzilla-as-a-Fry-Guy, but the fact remains that Koosh balls are infinitely more interesting with dragon limbs.

Also: Note the bunch of looped Koosh strings just behind Godzilla’s head. That means I can hang him from my rearview. I won’t, but it does mean I could.

There’s the header card. Not very interesting, but I didn’t want anyone to hatch the theory that I simply disassembled a Godzilla figure and glued the parts into a Koosh ball, all to perpetuate the idea that these really existed. I’m not a bad guy.

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Boring.

So I never finished Candymania. Shocking, we can all agree. I just couldn’t come up with anything poignant about that Zagnut bar, other than the obvious Beetlejuice reference. I’ve already made Zagnut/Beetlejuice references so many times.

Then, in a fit of trying to find motivation through clean sheets, I started messing around with my Tumblr theme. Ended up buying one of the premium versions, thinking it was customizable and easy on the eyes. It was neither. When I tried to switch back to the original, I came to the fun realization that I’d neglected to save it anywhere. So, for the moment, I’ve cobbled it back together as best I could. Just need to relocate that image of me looking sad, in clown makeup.

My work schedule has relaxed, finally, and most of what’s on the immediate horizon is “homework.” So I’m trying to get my head back in the game. This Tumblr is a side toy; the main site is the bigger issue. I’ve been purposely neglecting it because it badly needs a revised design. My main issues:

1) That whole top header area is obsolete. Like, way obsolete. I’ve had it since 2005 and while it still looks okay, it just feels old. Plus, nothing in the navbar links to anything useful. Mostly dead pages. I don’t need a “links” page. I’m a hermit. I don’t need a “downloads” page for a bunch of ‘80s commercials in WMV format when they’re all on YouTube now, anyway.

2) The UGO button. I’m no longer part of the UGO network. (If one still exists? I see the site is still up, but know they merged with IGN. Don’t know if they’re continuing as separate entities permanently or what.) I don’t necessarily care that I’m sending the site’s former ad supplier four hits every six months, but it still shouldn’t be there.

3) The main content table width. It’s wide enough to work, but not as wide as I want it to be. The annoying thing is that I’d be fine with a content table even an inch or so wider, but with the way the design was built, that’s impossible to do without a complete and total gutting.

4) …and to that end, the way the whole thing is coded is unbelievably, uh, antique. My pal Brian did an amazing job with the core design (especially for those who remember the site’s main page), but it certainly wasn’t intended for what I want out of X-E now. Even so, the core code was built like seven years ago. It’s a miracle that I can still do anything with it at all, but it’s unforgivingly uncustomizable.

That and so much more. I’ve gotta hire someone to help me with this. In theory, I could choose a theme that better suits what I want and slug it in temporarily, but the fact that anyone could grab the same theme and make the same hacks would drive me batty. I’d rather have the ugly thing if it’s unique. It’s why I always picked the nastiest hamsters with the bluest fur.

I’ll probably throw in the towel and just work with the current design for a while longer. What I want to do won’t happen overnight, anyway.

There really wasn’t much need to post this. Here’s a pink monster with issues:

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Candymania: Part III!

More candy. I’m already tired of this, but a deal’s a deal.

Candy Pipe: And there she is. The one and only.

For a while, a cherry candy pipe was my favorite candy on the planet. Don’t write it off as mere “red licorice,” because the flavor was so much richer, spicier and awesomenier. Best of all, you had to eat it slow, because no kid could get a candy pipe and not spend an hour pretending it was real.

Not to be gross, but the phony smoking only improved the flavor. With the tip between your lips, the pipe grew mushier, and by the time you finally started biting, it was like a radiator-heated slice of cherry pie. So, so good. (If you’ve ever turned a Twizzler into a soda straw, you know how good those Twizzlers were when you eventually ate them. This was sort of the same deal.)

The candy pipes also come in black, but black licorice is an affront to us all.

Two things, one photo. It’s time management, see.

Rock Candy: Spotting rock candy again reminds me of the one local ice cream parlor we had during my youth. I still remember the first time I saw it there. Being totally unfamiliar with the concept of rock candy, I just assumed that the parlor’s owners invented the stuff themselves.

So began my brief but passionate affair with rock candy. I thought it was so freakin’ cool. The most common rock candy is “clear” colored, looking much like mutant quartz. That’s the best kind, but this sparkling blue version is also capable of making the world a brighter place.

As for the flavor, it’s sugar on a stick. Nobody buys rock candy just for the taste, though. You buy it because petrophysics is much more fun when you can eat your specimens.

I’ve wanted to use the word “petrophysics” for like, eight months now.

Wax Lips: As a child, I did not understand wax lips. Actually, I’m not sure if I understand wax lips today, either. I know that the wax is pleasantly flavored and nontoxic, but I’ve never been clear on if we’re really supposed to eat it.

Can someone explain wax lips to me? What I usually do is wear them for a second, chew them for twenty minutes, and then spit the gloppy wax into a secret crevice where nobody will ever find it. Is this the proper stratagem? I’d be crushed to learn that I’ve spent decades incorrectly wax lipping.

There’s still MORE CANDY to come. I would’ve given up sooner, but someone from a foreign land PM’d me to say thanks, because he doesn’t get such cool candy where he lives. So now I feel all humbled and responsible. I must continue candying.

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Candymania: Part II!

I believe we must continue candy-ing.

Giant Gobstopper: Yeah, disregard the pack of Beemans gum. It’s only there for scale purposes. I do NOT wish to write about Beemans gum. Not now, not ever.

You’ve likely had a giant Gobstopper/Jawbreaker before. They’re the candies nobody finishes. It’s impossible. Either you get full, or you just throw in the towel from plain mouth fatigue.

Then you sit the half-eaten candy on the table beside you, and stare. It no longer rolls, but it isn’t exactly still. It’s almost as if there’s a small creature inside, haplessly attempting to claw its way out. You’ll never know for sure, because nobody finishes a giant Gobstopper.

PS: They charged me three bucks for this stupid thing. I have to say, for candy that was produced during the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, their prices were a little insane. But where else can you find giant Gobstoppers and the Body of Christ at the same time?

Big League Chew: People like to pretend that Big League Chew is some rare artifact, but it really isn’t. It’s still sold pretty much everywhere.

We pretend it’s rare so we have an excuse to celebrate every time we see it.

Because let’s face it, we do.

We point and stare and marvel. We tell everyone to gather around, like it’s the score of the century. Then we do the same thing the following week, in a different store, surrounded by different people.

It’s time to drop the charade. It’s okay to be excited about Big League Chew. We don’t have to pretend that it’s some near-mythological treasure to cover ourselves. Everyone loves and appreciates grapey gum, shredded to mimic chewing tabackee.  We don’t need the fake extra reason. Stop it.

ICEE Spray Candy: The store had an unusually high number of ICEE-themed candies, but this was the only true keeper.

Binaca that tastes like a cherry Slurpee is the kind of invention that surely made someone a billionaire. Every blast is an invigorating sting of artificial fruit and sorbium petroliate maximus.

I also imagine that you could use it like mace on featherweight assailants who don't warrant a stronger defense.

More candy to come.

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Candymania: Part II!

Let’s start eating candy. First finds:

UFOs: Okay, these have several names, and you probably know them as something else. In fact, I’m not even sure that anyone outside me calls them “UFOs.”

Basically, they’re bland saucers with tiny handfuls of candy sprinkles inside. As a once-practicing Catholic, what always struck most me about UFOs is how similar in taste and texture they are to the Body of Christ.

(You know, those circular bready things people eat in church. I think that's what they're called.)

Every time I eat a UFO, I feel closer to God. Sometimes I feel like an enormous space monster devouring alien spacecraft, too.

El Bubble Gum Cigars: Wow, I can’t remember the last time I saw the El Bubble trio. I don’t know why cigar-themed gum was so exciting, but it was. After that last sentence, it’s hard to believe that I write for a living.

I always picked the “Pink Owl” type, even if “Gold Dragon” had the better name and label.

See, Pink Owl was fruit-flavored. I can get down with “fruit” gum. It’s neutral. It works. Gold Dragon, on the other hand, was an all-out banana offense. The only thing worse than banana gum is being attacked by bears with katanas.

Freshen-Up Gum: To me, Freshen-Up will always be known as “Mom gum.” Growing up, it’s the only brand my mother ever chewed, and while she never seemed to have a full pack in her purse, there were always stray pieces, half-wrapped, hiding amid the coins and tobacco. It still feels weird to chew it without the tinge of tinny pennies and broken cigarettes.

Freshen-Up was one of the first brands to make use of the “goo in the middle” gimmick. In this case, the gum’s hollowed out center is filled with a minty slime that is in no way as blue as the package illustrates.

More obscure candy, coming later.

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Candymania!

So, as at least one of you guessed, that random hot sauce store was in Peddler’s Village, in Pennsylvania.

I don’t know how to describe Peddler’s Village, exactly. It’s like an outdoor mall, but with enough rustic charm to make you feel like a not-asshole for spending the night there.

But you know, for a while, I did feel like an asshole. After eighteen stores full of homemade soap and Moroccan wind chimes, our “Plan B” of Atlantic City was starting to seem like a better “Plan A.”

Turns out, I just wasn’t looking hard enough. Aside from the weird hot sauce, I found a gourmet candy shop with an enchanted back room, stuffed to the brim with sweets that were ancient, rare or both:

This place was AMAZING. It wasn’t so much the volume of candy, but the brands.

They had all of the hard-to-find stuff most people assume went out of production twenty years ago.

...and maybe it did, because everything I purchased was rock hard and dusty. I didn’t care. When you see a red licorice candy pipe, you buy it, no matter how old it is.

I spent $30 in that stupid store, and I did it for you. I walked around Peddler’s Village with a giant, see-through bag of candy, looking like a complete moron, for you.

Throughout the day, I’ll be posting the highlights of my sickly sweet shopping spree. Stay tuned for various adventures in gum and marshmallows.

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Hot Sauce.

This past weekend, I visited a quaint little shop that – at least for storytelling purposes – sold nothing but hot sauce. Lots and lots of hot sauce.

I like hot sauce. Really do. Tabasco is my table salt. But until I stepped foot in this dusty shop, I never truly understood how utterly capable hot sauce is of changing a person’s life.

That’s the stupid way of saying, “I think I’m going to get into collecting hot sauce.”

It has absolutely nothing to do with the eating part, mind you. I already have my trusted brands, and there’s little need to experiment. I smoke; it’s not like I can tell the difference between a ghost vanilla pepper and a Scotch Fuck jalapeno, anyway.

No, my new hot sauce fascination is due to the absolutely wicked bottles they come in. Wicked enough to make me type like Ron Weasley. Who I hate.

See, this weird store’s supply seemed to grossly undervalue any expiration dates normally associated with hot sauce. As I shuffled from shelf to shelf, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d stumbled upon a reserve from 1976.

Incidentally, that's the year the Seattle Seahawks played their first game. I'm just unclear on which sport.

I chose the three above, and it had nothing to do with their flavors or Scoville ratings. I chose them simply because the bottle art was so reminiscent of old & obscure horror movie videocassette boxes.

So, I’ll amend things for a third time.

“I think I’m going to get into collecting really old hot sauce packaged in bottles that remind me of old horror movies.”

Behold, the breakdown bof by burgeoning bollection:

The Thing Hot Sauce: The one that started it all. As soon as I saw The Thing, I knew I’d be spending way too many waking moments focused on old hot sauce. In this case, “The Thing” refers to the sauce’s mascot, shown on the label. He’s sort of a cross between Satan and a lumpy wolf, and he sprays fiery word balloons. I adore this creature.

Maniac Hot Sauce: The store only had one bottle of Maniac, and even with its terribly faded label, I couldn’t turn it down. Here, a shadowy, red-eyed demon is simultaneously christened “the fiend of fire” and “your worst nightmare.” Maniac has more handles than World Wrestling Entertainment’s Undertaker.

I wish Maniac was a movie. I’m dying to know what he looks like when he isn’t being lit so mysteriously. Given the head shape, I’m going with the bad guy from Flash Gordon, or a narrower Ben Kingsley. Either way, shit is solid.

18 Wheels of Heat: Granted, this one isn’t as cool, and it requires a bit more imagination. It’s positioned as the official hot sauce for truckers, because if there’s anything that can stir a trucker’s groin, it’s recognition in the form of condiments.

Whatever. My attraction to 18 Wheels of Heat stems from that eerie truck on the label. It reminds me of the bad guy (Bad car?) from Duel. I want to find a desolate highway and have that thing chase and honk at me. “Psycho Killer” would be on the radio, and there’d be roadkill everywhere.

In closing, I can’t wait to add to my collection of really old hot sauce packaged in bottles that remind me of old horror movies.

Everyone needs a hobby. Some of us need 150 of 'em.